What can I say – we’re north of ten events again, despite there being a supermajor in both the UK and US, so the biggest sustained run of mega-weeks we’ve ever had continues. Lowest of Men will be taking point on Friday’s on part two once more, and I’ll be kicking off festivities today.

Meta-wise? Ehhhhhh it’s not a thrilling week, though I’d certainly say that it’s very good that this one went into the books prior to the Balance Dataslate. Were I Games Workshop I’d be taking a hard look at how dominant shooting armies were at the big events. We’ll be kicking off with the already notorious Manchester top four, where Desolators flexed their muscles on the UKTC terrain set (which is very favourable to infantry with indirect fire), while at events where the terrain trended more towards the light or moderate, Guard put in a dominant performance, often with Votann or Iron Hands nipping at their heels. A few brave souls were able to muster strong places with more interactive builds, and both Space Wolves and Dark Angels have a few options other than just outright shooting, but it certainly feels like we could do with a few changes to the best Marine builds and a reining in of just how many different angles of attack guard can field at once, and maybe a review of any planned changes to GSC with the most recent results in mind. Hopefully we’ll see soon enough, and it would be great to see the Edition wind up on a positive note.

Anyway, the events. Today, I’ll be covering:

The Manchester 40k Super-Major (supermajor)
All is Dust GT (major)
Grand Onslaught 5
Imperialis Capilla GT
Absolute Supremacy 40k Spring GT
Deck Box Masters 40K

On Friday, Lowest of Men will be fielding:

Adepticon (supermajor)
Fantasia Fanatic (major)
Iron Cage: Bedford Beatdown
Courage And Honour
Münsterland GT

The esteemed patrons have once more conducted democracy in an ordered and respectful fashion, and this week’s showdowns will be:

Guard vs Votann at Adepticon
World Eaters vs Harlequins at All is Dust
Votann vs Craftworlds at Grand Onslaught 5
Tau vs Iron Hands at Münsterland

Finally, before we kick off, a special shout out – last week Eulis Sanders achieved the spectacular feat of putting in a 4-1 finish with a Convergence of Dominion in his list, and this week he’s gone one better by actually outright winning a five-round event using one, albeit at 26-players, so just short of the cut for inclusion in the column. Incredible stuff, and having had the thinking behind the usage explained, I have a worrying sense that he might be onto something. Strange times.

The Manchester 40k Super-Major

251-player, 7-round Supermajor in England United Kingdom on March 25 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Mani Cheema – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Dark Angel Desolation

Final Round Matchup

90 – 75 Victory against Alex Harrison – Space Wolves.

Thoughts

Welp. Desolation Marines were the big news at Manchester, and even among a top four filled with them, Mani had the most. Two bricks of Deathwing provide enough durability and board control to hold the opponent up for a few turns, and in that time the Desolators and Talonmasters can paste pretty much anything they’re up against. Dark Angels have so many rules going on that it’s easy to forget that they do actually have a Chapter Tactic, and it’s one that happens to be particularly great with Desolators, as if they’re stationary it effectively cancels out the indirect fire penalty, and the Sergeants can use their +1BS buff to roll themselves back to hitting on 2s and ignoring the first -1 to hit the opponent can apply because they’ll have +1 to hit from the Optics as well.

This is, put mildly, quite upsetting (I am looking at the Starweaver I’ve been getting ready for my event this weekend with increasing levels of nervousness), and despite valiant efforts from Alex and Innes in the top four, the Unforgiven claimed yet another event win in Mani’s hands.

Alex Harrison – Space Wolves Successors – 2nd Place

Desolation Squad in the scheme of the Rainbow Warriors — Desolation Squad by Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Space Wolf Melta n’Wulfen Nonsense

Thoughts

Another build that isn’t massively shocking at this point, levelled up with Desolators. Thanks to Wolf Guard pack leaders and the Wolf Guard datasheets, Space Wolves can exploit free equipment better than pretty much any other Marine flavour, and can supplement it with Wulfen. With Whirlwind/Heroes and the superdoctrine these can detonate pretty much anything they hit, up to and including Deathwing bricks, and adding Desolators for good indirect fire to that mix helps force the enemy into a confrontation with them where previously they might have had more options to play cagey. Wolves also have some specifically good options both with and against Desolators – Keen Senses lets them straight up ignore the hit part of the Indirect Fire penalty on the offence (adding value to the big unit Alex has here), while defensively being able to put a storm shield Terminator into Devastator units provides strong protection in the other direction, as that model will still get a 2+ against enemy Desolators in Dev Doctrine.

I guess the only flipside there is that Wulfen aren’t as great at taking fire from Desolators (though can at least get to a 3+ in cover), and against a critical mass of them like Mani had, that could end up as a major problem. Still, a timely reminder that Wolves have some seriously terrifying options right now, and a great run from Alex.

Innes Wilson – Iron Hands Successors – 3rd Place

The List

(yes I stole the joke for the column title from Innes, no I’m not sorry, or at least I’m not until we pair Rd1 at WHF and he blasts me off the table)

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Iron Hands with Desolators

Thoughts

It’s 2020, the Edition is coming to a close, everyone is being shot to death by Iron Hands.

It’s 2023, the Edition is coming to a close, everyone is being shot to death by Iron Hands.

Another riff on the theme of “already good Marine list with Desolators now”, Innes ends his brief dalliance with Dark Angels by going in on a truly horrific-looking Iron Hands build, with the kind of firepower that will obliterate anything that can’t deplete its arsenal at a breakneck pace, and enough depth to win games even when that happens. The super Contemptor and Vanguard Veterans add some alternative sources of damage even if the Devs and Desolators start dying, Infiltrators provide great options for making space for Drop Pods, and the Speeders provide plenty of inexpensive (and still relatively dangerous) options for chucking at objectives. All of that still couldn’t quite push through the Dark Angel nightmare it faced in the semis, but a fantastic (if upsetting) finish for Innes nonetheless.

Brian Seipp – Iron Hands Successors – 4th Place

Rainbow Warriors Relic Contemptor with Volkite Culverins by Craig “MasterSlowPoke” Sniffen

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Iron Hands with Desolators

Thoughts

Team Scotland very much making my life easier here by putting two very similar builds into the top four, with the only real change that Brian is packing being more scouts in exchange for one fewer Tornado and some equipment on the VanVets. That provides a slightly wider spread of precision tools and seems like a very valid option, but doesn’t change the overall picture – this list wants to blow you into tiny pieces at alarming speeds, and only other Marines with Desolators seem to be able to stop it – between them, Brian and Innes scored a truly jaw-dropping 992/1000 possible VP over their five games prior to the top four.

The Best of the Rest

There were 4 more players on 5-0 records. They were:

5th – Ben Pritchard – Dark Angels: No Desolators here, just the classic recipe of 30-odd Deathwing Terminators and potent character backup, here including Lazarus for Mortal Wound protection.
6th – Vik Vijay – Craftworlds and Harlequins: An anti-Desolator tech build here, sporting lots of individual D-cannons and a Night Spinner to provide a counterfire option, Shroud Runners to get into position at speed, and using the old-school Expert Crafters/Masterful Shots option to maximise the chance of clearing out Marines in cover with the abvoe tools. It really is 2020 again.
7th – Feliks Bartkiewicz – Tau: Farsight Enclaves Triptide, backed by two small Crisis teams that are pretty clearly intended to be able to pivot to one-and-done Drop Zone Clear alpha strikes when required.
8th – Greg Chamberlain – Votann: All-rounder Ymyr, with the most notable inclusion being two units of Thunderkyn, one likely for Strategic Reserves, the other riding a Land Fort. Also protects its Beserks in Sagitaurs, making it about as resilient against indirect as you can get.

All is Dust GT 40k

59-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Petawawa, ON CA on March 25 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Put on by the fine folks of Stat Check, part of the Goonhammer Media Network.

This event used 20-0 scoring.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Anthony Vanella – World Eaters: Invocatus Eightbound Spam.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Tim Deetlefs – Harlequins: Light Saedath shooty boat spam.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

The newest hotness of the World Eaters face off against a faction whose time in the limelight is somewhat behind them, but who still have a few tricks up their sleeve. Right now Harlequins kind of have to go one of two ways – either build for big damage with Twilight and try to body opponents before they can exploit the weaker defences, or skew as transport-shooty as possible and lean on the layered defences that provides. The good news for them here is that they don’t need to worry about the World Eaters shooting them off the board. The bad news is that, especially on this mission, it’s going to be very tough for them to avoid fights with the World Eaters that they don’t want to have, and nigh-on impossible to stop the servents of Khorne scoring 45VP on their Secondaries, which…does not leave a lot of options.

That locked-in scoring on Secondaries poses a gigantic problem, because while the Harlequins can do an alright job of shooting the World Eaters, from a pure balance of violence point-of-view they desperately need to be able take a mulligan on vying for objectives on turn one, soften up the enemy as much as possible, then try to go absolutely gangbusters turn two, where they might be able to push through, and overwhelm some of the enemy stratagems. That just flatly doesn’t work with the scoring challenges in place – Harlequin Secondary play is good, but it’s nowhere near as easy for them to score 45 here, and if they let the World Eaters take a single 12VP turn they may genuinely just not be able to catch them unless they straight up clear the table on turn two. That forces them to try and play a more direct dual from the start, and there are just so many things that can go wrong there, especially if the World Eaters go first. Anything that they touch basically just dies, and the same isn’t true in the other direction, so if the World Eaters just stage two Rhinos full of Beserkers mid-board turn one, it’s tough to see the Harlequins managing to shape the game to their needs. They also have to worry about Blood Surge moves if they try and bring their pistols to bear, and a single one of those going badly wrong could be fatal.

Realistically, the best shot the Harlequins have is finding a way to take every Berserker (i.e. ObSec model) off the table by the end of turn two with enough boats still alive that parking them on objectives and bailing ObSec out when sliced up locks in enough primary to squeak a win. It’s a high-risk strategy, but this is very much the kind of game where you have to be open to making the big, swingy plays to try and steal a win from what should be a loss. High-risk can mean high reward, but it can also result in the game going in the predictable direction hard, and the World Eaters rampage fully ensued.

Result

World Eaters Victory – 20 – 0

Anthony Vanella – World Eaters – 1st Place

The Best of the Rest

It’s 20-0, so picking where to cut this is as chaotic as ever, so I’m going for the next four players, as everyone below that went no better than 3.5-2.5.

5th – Cody Bourgeois – Dark Angels: Oops all Terminators. It says so right there in the army list. I do not feel a need to elaborate further.
6th – Corey Sanfelice – World Eaters: Invocatus and lots of Eightbound – but also Angron himself ready to rip the enemy apart.
7th – Jack Morris – Genestealer Cult: Industrial Cult Neophyte/Jackal spam.
8th – Phil Ivanusic – World Eaters: Invocatus Eightbound spam.

Grand Onslaught 5

47-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Kissimmee, Florida US on March 25 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Vital Intelligence

Matthew Dye – Ymyr Conglomerate: Extra durability-skewed Ymyr, with two Forts and also a full brick of Troops to try and dominate a section of the board.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Quinton Johnson – Asuryani: Hail of Doom shurikens galore, with the Avatar ready to YOLO up the table and distract the enemy.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Both sides are going to be walking on eggshells here – each has tools that are spectacular into some of what the enemy is packing. Votann bikes are a total pain for a lot of the Craftworld units here, as they can easily pick up Aspect Warriors or carve through Shroud Runners (who hate ignore cover), but then those die hard to cannon Windriders, but then those are very vulnerable to the Graviton guys getting an angle on them, the Avatar rules against everything except the Warpestryk unit with re-rolls, and honestly the list goes on from there. Where my thinking broadly coalesces is that the Craftworlds might legitimately struggle to down the fortresses, and get chipped away pretty badly by them, but also have a good shot at swiftly removing most Votann ObSec from the table (the big brick and bikes won’t stand up to Guided Avengers/Windriders for long), allowing cunning use of Baharroth to deny scoring and maybe edge the game out, especially as they can probably force through good scores on Warp Ritual and BEL, while Votann’s Secondaries aren’t as good (though .

I do think the Votann are much better placed to absorb a bit of bad luck or a few mistakes though – in this kind of game Craftworlds are pretty reliant on killing whatever they swing for so they don’t run out of stuff, meaning that Quinton has to make pinpoint targeting decisions every turn, and carefully ration out resources. I think the Votann can play into that by being aggressive with the Fortresses – killing both in a turn is not going to happen even if everything goes right for the Aeldari, and applying that kind of pressure could easily force a mistake or allow a spike in Primary.

I think that’s particularly true on this mission – while I could easily see the Primary breaking for Craftworlds in the mid game if they sweep up all the ObSec, early on (and potentially late if the Forts live) Votann are far better equipped to push onto three objectives and stay there for at least a couple of turns, which could result in a decent lead. That’s exacerbated by this being played on GW Open Map 3, so all the objectives were pretty open, making it extremely challenging for Craftworlds to score Primary in anything resembling safety early on, even from the mission Primary. Appropriately for a top table game, this definitely feels like it comes down to which player manages to get a better handle on how to line up the threats and avoids big mistakes – or it would, except that it looks like they either made no mistakes or the same number, as the game ended in a draw, which Quinton tells me came right down to the wire, with some hero Corsairs snatching a final point on the mission Primary before getting blasted off the table (along with the rest of Quinton’s army) to keep the score level.

Result

Draw! – 74 – 74

Matthew Dye – Ymyr Conglomerate – 1st Place

Leagues of Votann Hearthkyn Warriors and Characters. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Ymyr 2Fort

Thoughts

Covered in the showdown – all the normal Ymyr fun with a big brick of Hearthkyn as a curveball for opponents with no good answers. A full Ymyr brick of these is hard to shift for most opponents (Hail Avengers plus Shroud Runners is a big outlier in that regard), and provides an extra angle for punishing opponents who are short on ObSec. Otherwise, business as usual – extremely grindy killing power. Matthew had a marginal BP lead after the final, so took first place – congratulations.

Quinton Johnson – Craftworlds – 2nd Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Hail with the Avatar

Thoughts

All the fun of Hail, but with the Avatar of Khaine and buff support to provide a roadblock/counterpunch as needed. Love the Avatar, love Hail, love this list, simple as. Great stuff from Quinton.

The Best of the Rest

There were 7 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

3rd – Bryan Lakor – Chaos Daemons: Monster Mash (Skarbrand/Bloodthirster/Kairos) with Flesh Hounds.
4th – Nick Herting – Dark Angels: Whoops all Terminators.
5th – Jon Borg – Tau: Hefty Bork’an with a big Crisis Team, a Riptide and a Stormsurge!
6th – Regino Sanchez – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers goodstuff with 2×3 Armoured Sentinels.
7th – Dan Monsalve – Iron Hands: Ultra-shooty Iron Hands with two Reapers and two Thunderstrikes.
8th – Tyler Sweeting – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff.
9th – Brandon Baldauf – Tau: More Bork’an, this time going more down the mech route with a pair of Devilfish.

Imperialis Capilla GT 2 Aniversario

37-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Capilla de Guadalupe, Jal. MX on March 25 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Sebastián Flores Diaz – Astra Militarum – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

91 – 67 Victory against Xavier Barrera – Iron Hands.

Thoughts

Can Born Soldiers out-shoot Iron Hands? Absolutely yes, it would appear. Bullgryn feel like they’re going to be the go-to to provide counter-charge threat with Desolators out there thanks to being able to combo Slab Shields with Light Cover, so expect to see more of those, but otherwise this is pretty much down-the-line Born Soldiers Goodstuff. Well done to Sebastián on taking victory for the Emperor!

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on X-1 records. They were:

2nd – Carlos Moreno – Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with a big Herald Errant.
3rd – Juvenal Jimenez – Adeptus Custodes: All-rounder Emperor’s Chosen Goodstuff.
4th – Gustavo Martinez – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with a Dorn.
5th – Xavier Barrera – Iron Hands Successors: Shooty Successors with a pair of Reapers.
6th – Jose Isaias Valenzuela – Iron Hands: Shooty Successors with a Reaper and lots of Eliminators/Scouts in Storms for extra board control.
7th – Jesus Bojórquez – Craftworlds: An actual Iyanden theme list with a Hemlock, Wraithknight and plenty of smaller Wraiths, which is honestly a spectacular flex on every other Craftworld player out there.

Absolute Supremacy 40k Spring GT

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Dublin, County Dublin IE on March 25 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Dan Ahern – Iron Hands – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Iron Hands Hulls

Final Round Matchup

80 – 45 Victory against Peter Dunlea – Adepta Sororitas.

Thoughts

I mean yeah, sure – in an absurdly shooty metagame, an Iron Hands Stormraven can provide a hell of a beta-strike. That does assume that anything is still alive after the brutal volley of melta shots this list can unleash turn one, but better safe than sorry right? I do like seeing a rarer unit in winning build, so well done to Dan for breaking up the monotony of Marines choices just a little.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

2nd – Peter Dunlea – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose melee Goodstuff with backing Helverins.
3rd – Colin Power – Genestealer Cult: Industrial Neophyte/Jackal spam.
4th – Dara Meehan – World Eaters: Angron and two of his chunkiest sons, to whit a pair of Leviathan Dreadnoughts (plus lots of Berserkers.

The Deck Box Masters 40K

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Halifax, NS CA on March 25 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Justin White – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Mixed Dark Angels

Final Round Matchup

86 – 57 Victory against Keenan Elliot – Adeptus Custodes.

Thoughts

Yes, Ravenwing/Deathwing mix is still an extremely powerful way to play Dark Angels. I like the extra cheap speeders if you need something throwaway, but this is otherwise a known quantity. Well done to Justin on the win.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

2nd – Nathan Chow – Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff with a Scion Patrol.
3rd – Glenn Duncan – World Eaters: Invocatus with lots of regular Eightbound and Berserkers, but dialing back two units of Exalted in favour of a pair of War Dog Brigands for early shooting kills.
4th – Brian Strongman – Slaanesh Daemons: Triple Keeper of Secrets, forcing me to once again double check that I am not suffering some kind of flashback to late 8th Edition.

Wrap Up

Make sure to check back in part two as we shoot across to the other big supermajor of the week at Adepticon, and if you’re hitting events this weekend, make sure you have a plan for when the Desolation Marines come for you.

Competitive Innovations in 9th: The Desolation of Manchester pt.1

The Manchester 40k Super-Major

Mani Cheema – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

Alex Harrison – Space Wolves Successors – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Innes Wilson – Iron Hands Successors – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Brian Seipp – Iron Hands Successors – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

All is Dust GT 40k

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Thoughts

Result

Anthony Vanella – World Eaters – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Zach Comeau – Astra Militarum – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Tim Deetlefs – Harlequins – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Sam Procopio – Blood Angels & Helverins – 4th Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Grand Onslaught 5

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Vital Intelligence

Thoughts

Result

Matthew Dye – Ymyr Conglomerate – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

Quinton Johnson – Craftworlds – 2nd Place

The List

Archetype

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Imperialis Capilla GT 2 Aniversario

Sebastián Flores Diaz – Astra Militarum – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Absolute Supremacy 40k Spring GT

Dan Ahern – Iron Hands – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

The Deck Box Masters 40K

Justin White – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

Wrap Up

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