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Competitive Innovations in 9th: The Search for Scores

By James "One_Wing" Grover

The end of Nephilim and the ITC season roll ever closer, and this week some of the top contenders for the champion’s crown (or medal, or novelty weapon-based trophy, or whatever) went hunting for a final infusion of points at the Nottingham Supermajor, while the scene elsewhere got back into the swing of things with a trio of GT-sized events. How did they all play out? Let’s take a look.

Today we’ll be covering:

  • UKTC Nottingham Supermajor
  • New Year’s Knockout 2023
  • Dutch Masters DTC40K Finale
  • Amiable Bright – Final Heresy

This week’s batch of potential showdowns…well they’re very Nephilim, so I mostly don’t have anything to say – Sisters vs. Harlequins at the UKTC, and two horrendous shooting galleries at New Year’s Knockout and the Dutch Masters. We will take a quick look at the top table of Amiable Bright though, as one side there had something pretty spicy. Let’s go!

UKTC Nottingham Supermajor

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Mike Porter – Harlequins – 1st Place

Credit: Docsucram

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Final Round Matchup

93-62 vs. Peter Dunlea – Adepta Sororitas

Archetype

Light Saedath Boats/Troupes/Characters

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

There has been no point in the last 18 months where Mike winning a large event with Harlequins is in any way surprising. It’s a super-strong list, and he has the practice and experience to play it to maximum effect, particularly the higher-than-normal Character count, giving him a real toolbox. Will he be able to overcome the nerfs and keep it up in Arks? We’ll see soon enough – if anyone is going to be first to the podium with them, it’s probably Mike!

Peter Dunlea – Adepta Sororitas – 2nd Place

Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

No mucking about from Peter in second place here – this build just goes hard on the best Sisters units, able to leverage their combination of excellent trade pressure and great Secondaries to keep most opponents thoroughly on the back foot. Like one of the builds we saw last week, Peter has packed a second Rhino, giving him flexibility of where to use Carry Forth The Faithful (or at least to threaten it) early on, and pays for it by cutting Celestine down to Stern, retaining a strong herohammer threat, just at lower durability. As mentioned in the intro, we are late in the season now, and this army needs no further explanation – well done to Peter for taking a Supermajor second place with it!

James Marsden – Necrons – 3rd Place

Necron Doom Scythe
Necron Doom Scythe. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Shooty Eternal Expansionists

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Broken clock here, but this is yet another army needing no real introduction, both because armies like it have been strong throughout Nephilim, and also because James won an event with it last week, so loyal readers should be very familiar with it. The Doom Scythes and Lokhusts help ensure it can keep up with armies that can throw out lots of damage at range, giving it the fire support needed to lock in Necrons strong secondaries, and take victory (and in fact all of James’s games in the swiss were 100-0). At this point in the Nephilim metagame Necrons no longer look like the absolute favourite to win something like LVO, but they’ve got to still be in with a dark horse shot, and in the metagame that’s evolved I really like James’s more shooty version, as I think it gives some good outs in harder matchups without sacrificing too much in the ones where you don’t really need help.

David Gaylard – Thousand Sons & Daemons – 4th Place

Thousand Sons Rubric Marine
Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Duplicity & Flamers

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

This top four really is peak Nephilim huh (and 5th/6th place lean into that as well, as we’ll see). David and the rest of his team (Dice Down) have been tearing up the ITC all year, and this list probably is one of the favourites to take down LVO, and if it’s in the hands of either David or his teammate Vik, the ITC trophy should come alongside it given their current standings! Well done to David for another fantastic performance.

The Rest of the Best

There were 6 more players who made it through the swiss rounds on 5-0 records. They were:

  • 5th – Feliks Bartkiewicz – Tau: Farsight Enclaves with big alpha strike potential from a pair each of Riptides and Sun Sharks, plus lots of Commanders and a big Crisis unit.
  • 6th – Thomas Welsh – Tyranids: Lurk ObSec Jormundgandr, with lots of Raveners to go out hunting and a Maleceptor plus Tyrannofex duo to anchor objectives.
  • 7th – Samuel Smith – Black Legion: Daemon Engines, a Volcon and a big Terminator block with Abaddon and buff Character backup. This week’s winner of the coveted “undefeated with names for all the characters” trophy.
  • 8th – Ben Jones – Ynnari: Melee Ynnari backed by the interesting volume firepower choice of two full units of scatter laser War Walkers. Lots of dakka and relatively durable, so certainly interesting in a world where Hawks aren’t as cheap going forward.
  • 9th – Innes Wilson – Tyranids: Double Harpy, double Tyrant Kraken, squeezing in a last batch of spore mine war crimes. Spore crimes.
  • 10th – Stephen Platten – Emperor’s Children: Lots of Noise Marines, a hefty Terminator blob, and a pair of Decimators, providing good, flexible killing power that takes advantage of ignoring hit penalties.

New Years knockout 2023

52-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Shawnee, Kansas US on January 14 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Dan Sammons – Astra Militarum – 1st Place

Cadian Command Squad. Credit: Rockfish
Cadian Command Squad. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

98 – 72 Victory against Brent Simon – Chaos Daemons.

Thoughts

Dan strikes again, taking down another event with his super strong Born Soldiers build. If you do not have a plan for beating this in Arks, start making one.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Geoff Hussar – Astra Militarum: More Born Soldiers, but going much wider, packing in a whole bunch of Cadian Shock Troops, some Scions, and 3×3 Mortars with Ursula Creed to buff up their Strength.
  • 3rd – Tedd Williamson – Necrons: Wound-heavy Eternal Expansionists with a pair of Transcendant C’tan lurking behind the hordes of Scarabs.
  • 4th – Brent Simon – Chaos Daemons: Brent’s signature Vehicle-heavy Daemon build gets another successful run, only falling to the terrifying shooting of Dan’s list in the final.
  • 5th – Matthew Doughman – Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with a Herald Errant leading a selection of all three Armiger types to war.
  • 6th – Stewart Reed – Drukhari: A very strong run from an all-rounder Drukhari goodstuff build here, making it to the final round undefeated but not quite having the volume killing power to shift Tedd’s Necrons in that.
  • 7th – John Indellicate – Tyranids: An anti-Flamer spin on Leviathan with Wreathed in Shadow to prevent Overwatch, and a big Tervigon/Termagant block to seize the mid-board.
  • 8th – Peyton Preece – Craftworlds: A return of the very rude semi-untouchable Hail of Doom build here, with Hawks, Dire Avengers, a full block of cannon Windriders and some Phoenix Lords. Cannon bikes are probably going to make a big comeback in Arks now they have uncapped Fire and Fade again, so this could be an indicator of things to come.
  • 9th – Dru Newman – Chaos Daemons: Monster mash with Skarbrand, Be’lakor and Big Bird (and of course a tonne of Flamers).

Dutch Masters DTC40K Finale

44-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Amersfoort, UT NL on January 14 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Christian Domburg – Leagues of Votann – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Greater Thurian League Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

79 – 59 Victory against Ron Eliyahoo – Tyranids.

Thoughts

Skew Votann builds seem to be having some late Nephilim success, and it seems pretty likely that we’ll encounter more of them as we head into Arks. This build isn’t particularly complicated, but it is a tough one to face – at any given time, you can expect to be being blasted by a big Bike unit with full re-rolls and a pair of Land Fortresses that can no-sell the first really threatening shot that’s coming at them – and if you try and roll it over, the Beserks get you. The list does need to find some points (if I had to guess, downgrade one Beserk unit to a Forgemaster) and might struggle with the changes to Psychic Interrogation, but three big Bike units feels like a very good bet for the future, and the sheer violence Christian is throwing out here is impressive.

The Best of the Rest

There were 4 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

  • 2nd – Justin Jansen – Votann: More GTL Goodstuff, almost identical to the winning list other than a bit of shuffling in the Beserk squads.
  • 3rd – Rob Goossens – Necrons: Scarab, Wraith and Skorpekh-tastic Eternal Expansionists.
  • 4th – Dick van der Harst – Necrons: Eternal Expansionists cutting the Silent King to go truly wild on the volume of bodies – big squads of almost all the multi-wound mid-tier stuff.
  • 5th – Thomas Beckers – Daemonic Dogwalker: Pour one out for Abaddon and the squad here. Lots of Flamers, lots of Stalkers/Karnivores as Herpetrax, and the big man himself in charge.

Amiable Bright – Final Heresy

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lake Country, BC CA on January 14 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – The Scouring

Alex Macdougall – Tyranids: Kraken Pressure with lots of Raveners and a Sporocyst.
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Kyle Wright – Iron Hands: A wild Iron Hands Successor build aiming to shoot opponents to death while completely tanking their firepower. Feels like it’s somehow time travelled two weeks from the future.
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

OK look – I’m going to level that I do not think this game is that deep discussion-wise. I picked this out before I knew the mission, and yeah the Scouring does not do any favours to the Iron Hands here. With good early pressure from the Raveners, plenty of Spore Mines and Zoanthropes, and enough Tyrant Guard to ensure that the Tyrants get across the board in one piece, it seems unlikely that the Hands can make enough inroads on the board control front to make something happen here, and the scoreline reflects that. The reason I still think it’s interesting is as a timely illustration of just how potent the Iron Hands rules are – I think it’s fair to call the selection of units on their end (Centurion Devastators?!?!) eclectic, but the smoothing power of the superdoctrine and stratagem sheet means they can still push to a top table. A few weeks from now, you’re looking at gamelong superdoctrine, and a whole lot more guns. It is, admittedly, slightly funny that one of the core gimmicks here (Centurions sitting pretty on a 0+ save at a distance thanks to Stealthy and Armour of Contempt) gets a little less good, but I think the fact that you get quite a lot more on the table more than makes up for it, and I like the use of a Character Ironclad as an easily protectable counter-charge threat too. Be prepared for more of that, and less Kraken.

Result

Tyranids Victory – 93-39

Alex Macdougall – Tyranids – 1st Place

Hive Tyrant. Credit: Rockfish
Hive Tyrant. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See Showdown.

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

93 – 39 Victory against Kyle Wright – Iron Hands.

Thoughts

Rounding out this week’s theme of “peak Nephilim”, we have a Kraken pressure build, in the hands of super-experienced Hive Mind afficionado Alex. Will he be able to repeat his LVO top eight performance from last year? We’ll find out in a few weeks.

The Best of the Rest

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

  • 2nd – Ryan Zecchel – Chaos Daemons: Monster mash with Beasts of Nurgle and Skull Cannons in support. Given both of those got cheaper in the MFM, seriously worth a look.
  • 3rd – Marshall Reeves – Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with a unit of Paragons.
  • 4th – Scott de Wynter-Wilkie – World Eaters: Another confusing visitor from the future, this one featuring lots of Khorne Berserkers, a full brick of Red Butchers and some tanks/Obliterators in support.
  • 5th – Kyle Wright – Iron Hands: See Showdown.
  • 6th – Brody Mader – Dark Angels: A mix of Inner Circle stuff backed by a lot of Hellblasters.
  • 7th – Charles Yates – Craftworlds: All-rounder Ulthwe with the Avatar. Yes King.

Wrap Up

Arks now pls. Which we will, in fact, be getting next weekend as the Adelaide Uprising brings is a pretty big showcase for the new metagame. I’m hyped for that, and I hope you are too – see you then.

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