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The 2021 Warhammer 40k End of Year Tier List

By James "One_Wing" Grover
Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

It’s back! As the year draws to a close, it’s time to update the Goonhammer Competitive 40K Tier List, taking a look at where the factions sit at the end of 2021, and as we go into the final stretch for the current set of missions. We’re also about a month and a half on from the publication of the first Balance Dataslate, and that’s definitely been enough time for its impact to sink in. Six weeks out from a balance update seems like a reasonable point to aim future updates of this list for – not having a clear schedule is one of the reasons I’ve not managed to publish new versions as often as I’d like, so putting a line in the sand will definitely help.

So, with 2021 the year coming to an end, but the big season finale of the 2021 season still coming up, how are 40K’s factions looking? Let’s dig in.

This piece is a companion to the end of 2021 Meta Analysis posted earlier today, so you probably want to go have a look at that if you haven’t already!

What Has Changed Since the Last Tier List?

A number of factors can influence faction rankings, mostly coming under three headings:

  • New Rules: Games Workshop releasing new books or rules changes can increase or decrease a faction’s power.
  • Innovation: Players come up with a new angle on a faction that substantially changes its fortunes.
  • Metagame Shifts: Even if a faction’s rules stay the same, shifts in popularity of other armies can impact on its performance if it has strong or weak matchups against them.

It’s been eight months since the last Tier List update, so what has relased in that time? Quite a bit, unsurprisingly.

  • Codexes
    • (Drukhari – out but unrated last time as they were so new)
    • Adeptus Mechanicus
    • Adepta Sororitas
    • Orks
    • Grey Knights
    • Thousand Sons
    • Black Templars
  • Campaign Books
    • War Zone Charadon I
      • Cult of Strife
      • House Raven
      • Metalica
      • Freeblade Lance
      • Terminus Est Assault Force
    • War Zone Charadon II
      • Be’lakor and his disciples.
      • The Order of Our Martyred Lady
      • Skitarii Veteran Cohort
    • War Zone Octarius I
      • Hive Fleet Leviathan
      • Synaptic Links
      • Kill Team Strike Force
      • Cadians
    • War Zone Octarius II
      • Blood Axes
      • Ork Speed Mob
      • Astra Cartographica
  • Other Rules
    • GT2021
    • Munitorum Field Manual 2021 Mk2
    • Balance Dataslate
    • A small number of White Dwarf rules

How the Tier List Works

How Factions are Rated

The Goonhammer Tier list is primarily rating each faction’s ability to win events. The top rated armies are those that are powerful enough to win games, and consistent enough at doing so that they can navigate through six rounds of play at a major and emerge triumphant. The primary data used to sort factions is the information I gather by reviewing event results every week for Competitive Innovations. As part of producing the column, I look at every single army list that racks up an X-1 or better record at the majority of events that take place around the world, generally giving a good indication of:

  • Which factions are winning events.
  • Which factions are putting up plenty of X-1 records, but struggling to convert that to trophies.
  • Which factions aren’t showing up at all or rarely.

This is generally enough to take an initial stab at sorting factions into tiers, but isn’t the end of the process.

First up, we have statistics. Rob and the stats team do a fantastic job of collating and presenting stats on faction performance in the regular Meta Analyses, drawing both from tournaments and data from the ITC battles app. This helps refine the initial tiering, injecting a less vibes-based source of placings. Notably, a faction performing strongly or weakly in the stats can help us decide on which tier borderline cases fall into, while if a faction’s statistical performance diverges wildly from where it’s been placed it can prompt us to take a closer look at tournament results – maybe a specific bad matchup is pushing numbers down, or there’s a hot new build we haven’t encountered yet.

The full stats update is over in today’s Meta Analysis, but a chart that’s particularly useful for providing a quick snapshot of how factions have been doing recently is the one below showing recent changes in Glicko scores:

Finally, the proposed list is shared among our competitive team, plus various guest contributors, for them to a.) rip into b.) add particular insights from the factions and matchups they’ve played a lot and c.) help sort factions within the tiers. I then take the final results and compile this article.

The Tiers

The criteria for going into each tier breaks down as follows:

S-Tier – Dominant Faction(s)

I have, finally, given in – as of this tier list, if one or more factions is unusually dominant then they get to live in their own special tier. The main reason for adding this is to preserve the granularity of the Tier 2/Tier 3 divide – if one faction occupied Tier 1 all by itself, then all the factions that naturally belong there get pushed to tier 2, and we’re left with either the bottom half of Tier 2 being radically different from the top part in performance, or an extremely stuffed Tier 3. I strongly suspect readers can guess which faction has led me to add this.

Tier 1 – Premium Factions

The cream of the crop – the factions that take tournament trophies week in and week out, and where the best builds provide a substantial boost to a player’s chance of winning an event and can generally take on all comers.

Tier 2 – Contenders

Strong factions with powerful builds available that can comfortably take a player to the top, but with the odd weakness such as a bad matchup that keeps them from being among the very best.

Tier 3 – Capable Factions

Factions that can put together a perfectly serviceable list that can win events, but where there are generally better versions of the same strategy available in tiers one and two.

Tier 4 – Hard Mode Zone

Factions where a mix of outdated rules, skewed rosters or being poorly adapted to the 9th missions start to really hurt your chances. Building winning lists here requires very careful use of the Codex, and you’ll often still be at the mercy of a run of misfortune against stronger factions.

Trash Tier

The bad place where win rates go to die. Factions with the same problems as the tier 4 ones that are, for whatever reason, getting kicked by them even harder and just aren’t winning anything at all.

The EOY 2021 Tier List

Key

⇑ – Rank increased from the previous list. One rank per arrow.
⇓ – Rank decreased from the previous list. One rank per arrow.
= – Rank unchanged from the previous list.

Rankings

  • S-Tier
    • Drukhari (new)
  • Tier 1
    • Iron Hands ⇑
    • Orks ⇑
    • Tyranids/Hive Mind ⇑
    • Black Templars ⇑
    • Grey Knights ⇑⇑
  • Tier 2
    • Dark Angels ⇓
    • Space Wolves =
    • Adepta Sororitas ⇓
    • Deathwatch ⇑⇑
    • Thousand Sons ⇑⇑⇑
    • Aeldari soup =
    • Adeptus Custodes =
    • Adeptus Mechanicus = (though uh, if we’d done this at any point since their book this would be ⇓⇓)
  • Tier 3
    • Imperial Knights =
    • Chaos Knights =
    • Chaos Soup ⇓⇓
    • Harlequins ⇓⇓
    • Death Guard ⇓⇓
    • White Scars ⇓
    • Blood Angels ⇓
    • Daemons ⇓
    • Salamanders =
  • Tier 4
    • Necrons ⇓
    • Chaos Space Marines =
    • Ultramarines =
    • Raven Guard ⇓⇓
    • Astra Militarum =
    • Craftworlds =
  • Trash
    • Tau =
    • Genestealer Cults ⇓
    • Imperial Fists ⇓

Implications

The Good

  1. While not directly captured on the list, the gaps between tiers feel quite a bit smaller than they have at previous points in this Edition. There is an uncontested top army, but anything in Tier 1 and Tier 2 can produce lists that are a reliable threat to it, armies in Tier 3 are pretty regular features in top fours, and the stuff in Tier 4 is at least on the radar as a potential source of event winners.
  2. Every book released in 2021 (except Death Guard, which arguably doesn’t count as it was delayed from 2020) is in Tier 2 or higher. Part of this is because some of the books were extremely pushed, but even the books that are on the lower end of the modern power scale end up as capable contenders. Given that it’s much easier to take an overpowered book down a notch than it is to bring one that’s too weak up, and we now have the promise of quarterly balance updates, this is a very encouraging trend.
  3. The trash is about to be taken out – both the most persistent denizens of this tier are about to get new books, and Imperial Fists – well at least at most hardcore competitive events you can just run them as another chapter.

The Bad

  1. We have a top army that needs a tier for itself for the first time, and that’s after multiple attempts to bring it to heel. To be fair, the gap is now quite a bit smaller than it would have been if we’d written this a couple of months ago, but still noticeable and enough to warp the value of a few other lists.
  2. The 2020 9th Edition books (in which I’m including Death Guard) are flagging. Marines partially get around this thanks to the breadth of Supplements available to them, but that creates its own set of problems in how to balance the faction to uplift the weaker Chapters without making the already strong ones overpowered. A particular pain point there (and affecting Chaos too) is the Volkite Contemptor – a unit that is wildly too good at its best, but also a crutch keeping some builds operational. This, at least, is where the advent of the Balance Dataslate is particularly good news – while the improvements to Necrons, Chaos and Guard haven’t yet pulled them out of Tier 4, they leave the factions in a better place for points changes to help.

Faction Breakdown

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

S-Tier

Drukhari

How else could we end the year but with Drukhari on top? The book has dominated competitive play since its release, and while the current builds are a considerable step down from what was originally possible, they still come out ahead of every other faction, both in terms of tournament wins and pure win rate, with only negative matchups in the field against some pretty rare factions.

The Drukhari book was the first where it felt like serious work had gone into making every unit excel at its job, and also equipped players with enormous amounts of choice when building lists, and one of the most powerful army-wide rules in the game in the form of Power from Pain. 9th Edition is heavily objective focused, and a faction with exceptional melee trade pieces, cheap and effective transports and army-wide Advance/Charge from turn two is ideally suited to attacking the missions. They also have one of the best secondary objectives in the game in Herd the Prey, which does what it says on the tin – forces the opponent to commit to places where the Drukhari can launch lethal strikes.

Throughout the year, “Goodstuff” builds that just combine all of Drukhari’s best mobile and deadly units in various combinations have been a metagame staple, and later on people also re-discovered the power of Talos, where the heat lance/gauntlet/injector combo as Artists of the Flesh creates a super flexible, super durable centrepiece unit. Adding some point cuts to those in the balance dataslate has unleashed a powerful, Covens-focused alternative to the Goodstuff builds, commonly known as Thicc City. Both builds are capable of dominating tournaments, and taken together they ensure Drukhari end 2021 as the faction to beat.

Sample List (Covens) – Richard Siegler – 1st Place US Open Austin

Army List - Click to Expand

Sample List (Goodstuff) – Boris Michev – 2nd Place UKTC Leicester Supermajor

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Tier 1

Iron Hands

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Did you know the Iron Hands Supplement is really, really good? While the forces of Medusa lay dormant in early 9th, the arrival of 9-wound Volkite Contemptor Dreadnought sent the power level of March of the Ancients through the roof, as a Bodyguardable nightmare shooting unit is a spectacular asset to any army. In addition, players also figured out that the Iron Hands Superdoctrine and Stratagem sheet hand you such effective options for alpha striking with shooting that you can afford to “spend” your Chapter Tactic on tools to augment melee units (often Whirlwind of Rage and Born Heroes), creating a list that’s powerful in multiple phases.

This saw success in builds that just dumped Devastators, Vanguard Veterans and Redemptors on the table alongside the Character VolCon, but a later innovation that’s really pushed this setup to the limit is the use of the Minotaurs Forge World Chapter, letting you bring a second Character Contemptor in Hekaton Aiakos. These builds tend to cut the rest of the armour (or only bring hide-able artillery like the Whirlwind Scorpius or Sicarian Arcus) to deny opponents targets for their anti-tank, making them tremendously difficult to deal with. Some spins on this add some extra melta and swap in Master Artisans for Born Heroes, helping deal with how heavy the metagame is currently.

Seeing this at the top of Tier 1 might come as a surprise to some American readers, as this army’s popularity is unusually skewed to the UK and European metagame, but the stats bear out its position, and those of use who’ve seen it in action are confident it’s the real deal. Our own JONK ran into this in a practice game, assumed it was a meme list then got roundly flattened – this army is far, far more dangerous than it looks. Euro-lists always make the leap across the Atlantic eventually (often at big events) so if you’re aiming at the crown at LVO you should make sure you at least understand what this army is capable of.

Sample List – Innes Wilson -1st Place Clash of Alba Winter Assault

Army List - Click to Expand

Orks

The Ork codex contains some extremely pushed units and datasheets, but was suppressed out of the gate by the fact that Stratoraptor spam lists were close to a hard counter against them. With AdMech taking a major hit in the Balance Dataslate it’s now the Greenskins’ time to shine, with three viable builds all punching at tier 1 levels.

Two of these are shooty Vehicle-based lists, being Freebooterz and the Speed Mob. The former was so powerful prior to the Balance Dataslate, utterly annihilating almost anything except AdMech, that it also came in for some particular attention, limiting the number of powerful planes it could bring, and forcing it to collate its buggies into units. This merely leaves it as an extremely good build that’s won a supermajor post-update. It has fast, durable and dangerous shooting platforms, and can support this with very cost effective utility infantry in the form of Stormboyz and Kommandos, especially good with the Get Da Loot stratagem, plus the Badskull Banner on a Character to strip enemy ObSec. The Speed Mob uses some overlapping tools with Freebooterz, as the planes work much the same, but also takes advantage of the power of ObSec Warbikers.

The other popular route for Orks is to play Goffs, using the massive range of tools the army has for getting threats into the opponent’s face fast, and then crushing them under the power of the Goff Clan Kultur. In particular, Kill Rigs Advancing/Charging thanks to being CHARACTERs for Waaagh lets armies using them throw overwhelming pressure at the opponent, and they hit like a freight train once they’re there. It’s a good time to be green, though it wouldn’t surprise us to see a small point cut to some Infantry options to broaden the base of available strategies a bit.

Sample List (Goffs) – Mark Perry – 2nd Place New Orleans Open

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Sample List (Freebooterz) – Brian Seipp – 1st Place LCGT Supermajor

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Tyranids/Hive Mind

The Leviathan Codex Supplement might just be the most powerful that has been published in 9th Edition, working alongside Synaptic Links to allow a faction that’s still using an 8th Edition book go toe-to-toe with the best of 9th Edition. We’ve made this a joint ranking with Hive Mind at the moment as almost all top Tyranid lists are using a small Four Armed Emperor Genestealer detachment right now, as there are vanishingly few reasons not to (though that may change with the new book).

The reason everyone wants to bring some Genestealers is that the power unit in Tyranids is Hive Guard, and blips (including extra from Sensor Decoys) are fantastic for protecting them from early counterplay. Adding full hit re-rolls from Swarm Leader and the option of Relentless Flurry plus various Synaptic Links pushes an already great unit even higher, and almost every Nid list is running at least a unit of six. You can also push this further, with successful builds sporting 12 or even more also being seen.

Also excellent with Flurry are Devourer Termagants, burying the opponent under what can easily become 100+ hits at S4 and flaying apart anything that isn’t either T8 or on a 2+ (and even those aren’t always safe). This setup also coming with a tonne of ObSec bodies only sweetens the deal, as some popular lists can struggle to shift a horde. Finally, the pressure combo of the Swarmlord and Genestealers is still a real challenge for some armies to deal with. Finally, if you want to forgo some of the toys and play a more skewed game, the Harridan is legitimately viable thanks to all the buffs that can be layered on it.

Tyranids are firmly part of the upper echelons of the game at the moment, but also the most imminently due for a shakeup. If the GSC book neuters the utility of the add-on detachment (which given the general anti-soup trends of 9th, is certainly possible) then the best builds get a bit weaker – but on the flip side, the new Crusher Stampede Army of Renown is ominously approaching the metagame. The Hive Mind lives in interesting times – but also definitely good ones.

Sample List – John Lennon – 1st Place New Orleans Open

Army List - Click to Expand

Black Templars

Black Templars have really hit the ground running in the wake of their new Supplement, taking down multiple majors and seeing a corresponding surge in both play and win rates – all indicative of an excellent book.

The main things Templars have going for them are the power of Uphold the Honour of the Emperor, which makes Redemptors (and to a lesser extend Gravis shooting units) tremendously strong, one of the best Chapter Masters in the business in Helbrecht (a lock for almost all lists) and exceptional customisation options from the powerful Relic Bearers upgrade system. In addition, they have one of the best angles on a horde Marine build thanks to the cost efficiency of Primaris Crusaders, which can help to anchor whatever shooting or alpha melee units are being used.

Lists skewed towards maximising the value of the invulnerable save and going harder on hordes have both seen success already, and the sheer amount of different tricks you can pull off with the upgrades, especially the defensive ones, ensure that Templars should be able to adapt and retain a strong position in the metagame whatever comes next.

Sample List – Matt Root – 1st Place Renegade Open

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Grey Knights

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Dreadknights and Interceptors – name a more iconic duo. The strength of these two datasheets catapulted Grey Knights to very nearly the top of the metagame, especially once people had refined the Brotherhood and Relic selection to the Prescient Brethren/Swordbearers combo that now dominates. Grey Knights are fast, durable and deadly, have a great secondary in Purifying Ritual, and the biggest surprise to readers is probably that we have them at the bottom of tier 1 rather than the top.

That’s down to one factor and one factor alone – Talos/Grotesque builds are a serious problem for Grey Knights, as they heavily rely on D2 weapory to solve problems, and with Thicc City being one of the most popular armies at the top of the metagame, that does enough to drop these below some armies with better game into the space elf menace. Not, to be clear, enough to take them out of Tier 1 overall – on win rate alone Grey Knights are the second strongest faction in the game, and the low model count also means they’re an excellent entry point to Competitive Play.

Sample List – Adam Lane – 2nd Place Da Winter Waaagh 2

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Tier 2

Dark Angels

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Dark Angels are no longer the cream of the Marine crop, but have been reliably putting up moderately good results all year, and still have plenty going for them. Terminators with built in Transhuman and ObSec are still, it turns out, extremely strong units, and builds running lots of Deathwing are generally the ones that do the best. Some go all-in on Terminators, relying on a wall of durable Primary power to grind out games (a strategy which took John King to third place at the recent LCGT Supermajor), while others use a Deathwing core to anchor the line, then splash in a mixture of other options to provide a bit of reach and flexibility.

When on the latter plan, Azrael’s 4+ invulnerable aura for INFANTRY is a huge help, augmenting Plasmaceptors, Hellblasters and Eradicators, and with Damage Reduction very prevalent at the moment, Ravenwing Attack Bikes probably have a window to be good again. Dark Angels don’t quite have the flexibility of the best Iron Hands and Black Templars lists, but they’re a strong third Marine-wise, and can present a very unique challenge to opponents.

Sample List – Maxine Blythin – 4th Place FactoruM November GT

Army List - Click to Expand

Space Wolves

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

As is only appropriate for the Space Wolves, they’re not taking the fact that Dark Angels are ahead of them quietly, and have been putting in quite a bit of work in metagames worldwide. The Space Wolves supplement has a tonne of depth, combining good unique units, a great Psychic Discipline, an excellent stratagem sheet and powerful Traits and Relics. A few months ago the omens looked somewhat poor for them, as builds that were popular in the summer were leaning on Psykers a lot (a weaker choice in a Grey Knight/Thousand Sons world), but they’ve comfortably pivoted to builds without them and continued strong. They excel at dealing damage at all distances, and have one of the most reliable secondary plans in the game thanks to Cyberwolves (though they’ll become less useful for Engage in the new year).

Both “proper” Space Wolves and Successors have seen success, with the latter often using the standard melee super combo of Born Heroes/Whirlwind to take the Chapter’s already considerable prowess up close even higher. More recently, a build from Jamie Paris that uses the ability to seed melta weaponry into various Wolf units alongside Master Artisans added a new angle on this to considerable success. This really highlights how many different things the army can do, and while the Secondary change might prove a knock for them, it seems very likely that they’ll find a way to adapt.

Sample List – Mathieu Boutin-Bastien – 1st Place MTL 40K

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Sample List (Melee Successors) – Logan Antonation – 1st Place Return to IWTS

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Adepta Sororitas

For my money, the Adepta Sororitas Codex is one of the best designed in 9th, having plenty of strong options and fantastic internal balance, and that results in them sitting in the upper half of tier two with a whole host of different builds that work. Bloody Rose can run solo or partner with nearly anything (especially Ebon Chalice or Argent Shroud to add ranged threat), Martyred Lady lists are increasingly popular, and even out-there skew builds that go heavy on hulls and Penitent Engines as Valorous Heart have made it to high placings at majors.

Sisters do a few things particularly well, notably unleash volleys of melta fire from Retributors, trading up with Repentia, throwing out Mortals from Blessed Bolts and running disruption with Zephyrim that have been handed ObSec by a Dogmata. In addition, Morvenn Vahl and Celestine are standout named characters that feature in most non-Martyred Lady lists, with Vahl being a tremendous all-rounder and force multiplier and Celestine a powerful piece for objective play thanks to cheeky Bodyguard usage. Sisters do have weaknesses, notably a lack of reach with their shooting, and have a few units badly in need of a discount, but the army’s strengths are considerable as well, and they should be a lock for this sort of placing essentially in perpetuity.

Sample List – John Lennon – 2nd Place Orlando Open August 2021

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Deathwatch

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

As a Poster, it is of course vital for me to maintain a permanent list of slights and blood feuds, and I distinctly recall a comment on the last tier list along the lines of “glad Goonhammer have finally admitted Deathwatch are bad”. Well SURPRISE – turns out there was good stuff in the book all along.

Particularly with the rise of Drukhari, some of the strengths of the Deathwatch Codex have finally been discovered – notably, that using the Dominus Aegis and Vhorkan-Pattern Auspicator creates one of the best Redemptor Dreadnought firebases available, with access to some very flexible additional tricks and datasheets in support. Both ultra-shooty builds like the one below and lists using Proteus Kill Teams that split off Biker/VenVet combat squads have seen considerable success through the year, though more recently the best Black Templar and Iron Hands lists have kind of eclipsed them. However, also appearing recently has been the Kill Team Strike Force, a strong Army of Renown that provides a very different angle on the army, which is high-speed melee pressure.

Deathwatch have finally settled into the position we kind of always expected them to land in – there’s enough wild stuff you can do with them that there are always going to be builds that can succeed, even if they don’t quite have the linear strength of the best Chapters.

Sample List (Shooty) – Alex Harrison – 2nd Place London GT Super Major September 2021

Army List - Click to Expand

Sample List (Kill Team Strike Force) – Michael Costello – 14th Place LCGT Supermajor

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Thousand Sons

Thousand Sons join Sisters as a very well pitched codex, with some clear things they do extremely well proving enough to earn them a place in the metagame, but also some clear weaknesses that stop them being dominant. In their favour, a Thousand Sons psychic phase is an absolute trip (as it should be), Rubricae are a really good core Troop unit now,  Spawn are surprisingly strong, and Scarab Occult bricks provide a mixture of lumbering inevitabliity and highly potent grinding firepower. The Characters also rule, some of the Cults provide some standout power (most notably Duplicity and Time) and the various supporting weirdo units are all seeing at least fringe play.

The army’s weaknesses are twofold – their firepower reach is constrained (though this can be patched a bit with an Orrery-buffed VolCon) and they struggle against Grey Knights and Sisters, both of whom are very effective at shutting down their psychic nonsense. That hasn’t stopped them putting up some good results, and they will dumpster the unprepared (as I personally experienced to my cost in my first game against them).

Sample List – Mike Porter – 3rd Place UKTC Coventry Major

Army List - Click to Expand

Aeldari Soup

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Realistically this placing is for exactly one Aeldari Soup build – Harlequins and Craftworlds. The Harlequins’ classic Bikes and Boats strategy was one of the lists to beat in early 9th, and while it has dropped off a bit in power over time, the core threat it presents is still very real, combining hyper-mobile melta weapons, powerful melee and some deadly herohammer. However, the metagame in general has gotten stronger since then, and to stay fully competitive the best Harlequin builds have mixed in the best Craftworld units – namely the artillery. Adding Tempest Launchers and/or Night Spinners helps the clowns control the pace of the game a bit more, and lets them pick off straggling objective holders without having to commit a full unit.

More recently, Shining Spears proved particularly good in a Grey Knight heavy metagame, as they can reliably trade up into an Interceptor unit, but have fallen out of favour a bit as Talos and Orks have risen. Still, this is definitely the best way to play either Harlequins or Craftworlds right now, and is notable as one of the very, very few builds that has maintained a positive win rate against Drukhari over time. Craftworld artillery can also be combined with Drukhari to reasonable effect, but that’s more of a tier 3 build and there isn’t any clear reason (except stubborness, speaking for myself) to run it over pure Drukhari.

Sample List – Mike Porter – 1st Place Goonhammer Open UK

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Adeptus Custodes

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Custodes have nearly completed the march through 9th to their book and are ending it pretty much as they started – comfortably above fine. Hyper-durable Telemons and hard-to-shift ObSec infantry with a whole host of defensive Stratagems have kept this army occupying objectives for 18 months, never unreasonably dominant thanks to their low model count, but always a threat.

Sample List – Alun Perkins – 1st Place London Open August 2021

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Adeptus Mechanicus

How the mighty have fallen. Up until the Balance Dataslate the Adeptus Mechanicus would have been sitting pretty with Drukhari in the S-tier, probably ahead of them, but they took a far more palpable hit from the update, to the point where keeping them at the bottom of Tier 2 rather than the top of Tier 3 may even prove over-optimistic. My impression is that the best Mars/Lucius builds are still capable of competing at this level – the lists still have some extreme anti-heavy firepower from the number of Cognis Lascannons they can field, and plenty of durable Lucius infantry, which means they can still pivot between a lethal alpha strike and strong durability using Canticles/Doctrinas. These armies get far, far less supporting stuff than they once did though, meaning that a determined opponent can potentially push back hard and triumph rather than getting overwhelmed. We’ll see in the new year how this plays out.

Sample List – Jakub Falkowski – 2nd Place Polhammer 40K

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Tier 3

Imperial Knights

Imperial Knights are really trying to knock on the doors of Tier 2, but their giant hands keep glancing off the doorframe. This is a metaphor for being bad at Secondaries I guess. That’s their key problem – the army can usually handle Engage/Stranglehold and Grind, but is at the mercy of the opponent’s list or the mission to provide a third (and the latter option goes away with the new Nachmund pack).

Outside of that, Knights look increasingly awesome. The Freeblade Lance has proven to be the real deal, now allowing for an all-ObSec Knight army after the Balance Dataslate, while going down-the-line with Krast or Raven is also viable. All these builds can apply big pressure and big damage, but the risk of being down a Secondary in a key game sandbags their ability to reliably win events enough to keep them in Tier 3, but a far more optimistic Tier 3 than previously.

Sample List – Brian Jones – 9th Place GW US Open Austin

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Chaos Knights

Much of what is true about Imperial Knights is true about their evil cousins as well. As of the Balance Dataslate, Knights are closer than ever to being a real threat, but the lack of a good third secondary really hurts them. In terms of specific builds that are good, Chaos Knights are slightly more drawn to either War Dog spam or one big Knight and lots of War Dogs, as they don’t have the ability to easily hand ObSec out to a trio of big Knights, and the relic/trait selection for outfitting Titanic units is weaker. In trade for this, however, their War Dogs tend to outperform armigers, as splitting Warglaives and Moiraxes into Iconoclast and Infernal households respectively provides a wellspring of power that outclasses any benefits the Imperium can apply. A notable outcome of this is that Chaos Knights have that rarest of things – a good matchup against Drukhari. Going wide with lots of Armigers can overwhelm the ranged anti-tank the Dark Kin possess, and the mix of lots of melta and lots of lightning locks can chew through Talos and Raiders fast.

Sample List – Adam Baker – 6th Place Lightly Salted Holiday GT

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Sample List (War Dog Spam) – Dawid Szmyt – 9th Place LCGT Supermajor

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Chaos Soup

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

There aren’t really any slam dunk Chaos Soup builds at the moment, but there are plenty of ways that you can slam lots of big monsters together and do just fine. Mortarion, Be’lakor, and more recently Chaos Knights that count as multiple models on objectives all provide a heady mix of ingredients for a monster mash, with Daemon detachments being popular inclusions thanks to bringing cheap infantry along with them. Elsewhere, both Death Guard and Thousand Sons have seen some soup usage, as combining Plagueburst Crawlers with Epidemius can be a powerful move, while Scarab Occults don’t lose too much in mixed lists. In short, Chaos Soup is a pretty heady vein of potential builds that show up in top fours now and again, but until one emerges that shows clear, repeated success in the hands of multiple players, it sits just outside Tier 2.

Sample List – Luke Greco – 5th Place NSW 40K Masters

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Harlequins

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The Harlequins Bikes and Boats list is a little outdated, but can still win games. However, unless you’re aiming for Best Harlequins, there is flatly zero reason to play the pure version over the Aeldari Soup build, and recent results reflect that pretty starkly.

Sample List – Matthew Ehlinger – 4th Place Western Wisconsin Wargaming Weekend

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Death Guard

Death Guard are very much in an early codex slump at this point – they’re still OK, and have some units that have stood the test of time (notably Deathshrouds and Plagueburst Crawlers) but their roster is pretty limited and Plague Marines are surprisingly underwhelming on the table given how good their datasheet looks. Their best builds are also very reliant on the VolCon, which they have excellent synergy with in Tollkeeper.

The basic plan of building a castle of Terminators with Revolting Stench Vats backup can still work, but as it has weakened players have been trying alternatives, and one that’s seem a few spikes of significant success is the Terminus Est Assault Force. The ability to absolutely carpet the table in extra speedy poxwalkers can really catch out some opponents, and if you’re a Death Guard player with loads of the models kicking around, maybe give it a try.

Sample List – Allan Davidson – 12th Place Clash of Alba Winter Assault

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Sample List (Terminus Est) – David Horn – 3rd Place LGT 2021

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White Scars

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Speedy melee Marines are never going to be bad, but at this point you can do better on a pure power basis. White Scars retain some of the strengths that fired them to success early on – Vanguard Veterans Advancing and Charging is great, feeding Devastators out of a Rhino with Hunter’s Fusilade is powerful, and the late game damage spike from their superdoctrine is powerful. However, they don’t have much (other than VolCons) that lets them take over the game without committing, and Drukhari and Grey Knights both brutally punish their playstyle (their win rates in these games are truly atrocious). It is fair to say that if you run into Scars with other armies they can sometimes feel more like a Tier 2 build, but rough matchups into two of the most powerful and prevalent factions is a huge problem for nailing event wins.

Sample List – Patrick McAneeny – 2nd Place Tables & Towers Flames of Autumn GT

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Blood Angels

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Kind of see above here – Blood Angels trade the pure mobility of Scars for some nifty tricks and sucker punches, but run into the same basic issue that they have to commit to dictate the pace of the game, and will get wrecked when that goes wrong a bit too much of the time to land in Tier 2. Angel’s Sacrifice is still a horrible trick that can blow Drukhari out some of the time, and having access to a Jump Apothecary can provide some staying power in the mid-board, so there are some attractions (and a few dedicated players running them to decent finishes) but it looks a bit uphill these days.

Sample List – Jack Harpster – 4th Place Crucible 9 GT

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Daemons

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Be’lakor has given Daemons a shot in the arm, keeping them in the conversation and ensuring that their lists are at least somewhat threatening. You almost always see Be’lakor running alongside Keepers of Secrets, as either gaining the Slaanesh Locus himself or benefitting from it is enormously powerful, and all the Daemon favourites that performed strongly at Edition start can be powerful ingredients alongside. Most recently, builds bringing Big Bird back look the strongest, as the extra attrition and staying power he provides can be valuable. The resulting lists are pretty scary, and tend to have slightly better Secondary options than Knights, but as with any monster mash-style list they’re very vulnerable to hitting one bad game as they navigate through an event.

Sample List – Scott LaFountain – 8th Place SoCal Open

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Salamanders

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Joining the White Scars in a gradual slide from their early edition placing, Salamanders do still have a powerful, broad set of stratagems and upgrades, but if you want an all-rounder Goodstuff Marine list (which is what they were generally used for) you are definitely better with Black Templars at this point. That having been said the current metagame is arguably the kindest to the Salamanders it has been for ages, and they could be positioned for a bit of a renaissance. Turns out that when your special deal is being the melta chapter, the metagame being taken over by Damage Reduction Talos is pretty good news for you, as the recent success of Tim’s build below showed off in style.

Sample List – Tim Doran – 4th Place Renegade Open

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Tier 4

Necrons

Necrons picked up one of the biggest boosts from the Balance Dataslate, and are now tragically close to escaping the grip of Tier 4, but just not quite there yet. The good news is that from the builds that have been kicking around since the update and some of my own testing, all it’s going to take are some moderately kind points changes in the new year and the spooky skeleton hordes should be able to compete once again. Necrons big strengths are access to army-wide ObSec and relatively efficient speedy units to deliver it with, C’tan throwing a real curveball at some armies, and the Silent King being pretty great (and hideable behind Obscuring terrain, ever more valuable). Their weaknesses are that they flat out don’t have enough stuff in their lists, and that their big guns are medicore outside of a few exceptions. The stuff problem is eminently fixable with points – let’s hope that happens.

Sample List – Seth Piper – 1st Place Dicehead Holiday Event

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Chaos Space Marines

Similar to Necrons, Chaos Space Marines are very nearly there at this point. They’re held back by a weak selection of datasheets, but they have some good ones too (especially Terminators and the Lord of Skulls) and the change to Death to the False Emperor to be universal has given Abaddon a spectacular shot in the arm, making him a great counter-charge and troubleshooting unit. Given he also combos very effectively with the LoS and various Forge World Dreadnoughts, or can be run alongside the Emperor’s Children in a soup list, you’ve definitely got options when building CSM, but you’re definitely still going to have your work cut out if you’re trying to outright win an event.

Sample List – Russell Tassin – Rise of the Emperor GT – 6th Place

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Ultramarines

Ultramarines are in a slightly weird spot where on power level alone they’re plausibly Tier 3, but almost no one is playing them, so it’s pretty hard to tell. Similar to Iron Hands, you can get pretty much all the early shooting support you need from Stratagems and the Superdoctrine (plus the Seal of Oath), allowing you to build a melee-focused successor to cover that part of the game, and the result tends to be reasonably effective. That’s especially true because you can use Rapid Redeployment with Invictor Warsuits to adapt to the first turn, letting you go hyper aggressive when the situation calls for it and sometimes bowling opponents out of the game. That’s a reasonable unique draw, but it doesn’t super work into Talos, and beyond that you’re several layers deep into there being all-rounder Marine options that are just better, hence why hardly anyone is taking them out.

Sample List – Samuel Marshall – 2nd Place Adelaide GT

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Raven Guard

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Doing nasty tricks with Master of Ambush is cool, but Mandrakes being a staple in Drukhari lists makes it far less effective than it used to be. Swift and Deadly is also a very powerful Warlord trait, letting Raven Guard get some White Scars action going and helping out VanVets, and their superdoctrine can even be pretty decent if you run into Grey Knights. This army isn’t unsalvageable, but another one where you’re tanking your chances of a win compared to other chapters just by showing up with them.

Sample List – Robin Leane – Courage and Honour – 8th Place

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Astra Militarum

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Guard need a new book, because while they have some OK sources of shooting, quite a bit of it is useless into Damage Reduction, and they just don’t have the board presence to ever capitalise on it. Improving Russes to a 2+ save helps a bit, but ironically that would have helped more against AdMech than some of the other dominant lists out there, and the most successful way to use Guard recently has been to bring in some Armiger Warglaives for mid-table presence. If you’re insisting on pure, your choices are generally either to bring the Lambdan Lions Scion Regiment, whose Refractor Field-buffed Tauroxes can be pretty crunchy, or to try for Bullgryn. Mostly though, go with soup.

Sample List – Matthew Riley – Merry Slaaneshmas – 15th Place

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Craftworlds

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Were it not for the heroic efforts of Brad Chester we’d probably have left Craftworlds in the Trash, but we guess they can come out to the bottom of Tier 4. Craftworlds do have some good units – Dark Reapers, Night Spinners, Shining Spears and a few utility pieces like Warp Spiders – but they don’t have the tools to assemble an efficient army that can reliably compete with the rest of what’s out there. Like Guard, the main gap is that they don’t have anything that provides durability at a good price point to contest the Primary with, alongside plenty of units priced for a world that doesn’t exist any more. The extremely potent Expert Crafters plus Masterful Shots/Ancient Relics custom traits go a little way towards keeping the army operational, but if you want to win with Craftworld units on the table, your best bet is to use them to back up Harlequins.

Sample List – Brad Chester – Sunken City GT – 6th Place

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Trash

Tau

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Tau’s long nightmare is nearly over (and if that railgun preview is anything to go by, everyone else’s might be about to begin). If you want to play Tau in the meantime, run Farsight Enclaves – it’s the only build that gives you even close to the aggression you need to inject into the faction to have a chance at pulling off an upset event in in 9th Edition. Builds like the one below can do some real damage, and can steal some wins simply from people underestimating them at this point, but are also incredibly vulnerable to just getting shut out when things go wrong.

Sample List – Kyle Grundy – UKTC Leicester GT – 17th Place

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Genestealer Cults

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

See above re: the nightmare almost being over. The way Genestealer Cults played in 8th just doesn’t translate to 9th Edition at all, and the best they can do at the moment is to skew towards a mechanised list like the one below and hope for the best – at least most opponents will have forgotten the nonsense tricks by now.

Sample List – Danny Porter – Polhammer 40K – 9th Place

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Imperial Fists

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The Imperial Fists book in 8th did one thing far too well, which was oppress Vehicles out of the metgame, but it’s extremely shallow in every other regard, and got the anti-tank power ripped out of it by consecutive changes to Doctrines. Now it just doesn’t do anything – it gets one turn of its Superdoctrine, during which it often won’t be able to target much (because the general lethality of 9th has made heavier tables the order of the day), none of its tricks work against Talos, and everything in the book that isn’t for killing vehicles is a worse version of something other Chapters get. On a strictly technical level they might be better than GSC or Tau, but we genuinely think you have a better chance of succeeding with one of those simply via the surprise factor – Imperial Fists provide a deeply inferior version of armies that players will be prepared for, and at the close of 2021 I am comfortable saying that them winning a major would be more surprising than any other faction doing so.

Sample List – Charles Eliatamby – LCGT Supermajor – 81st Place

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Wrap Up

That’s it – a whole new year beckons, filled with new Codexes, new seasons and plenty more Warhammer 40,000. Will Drukhari take down LVO to put a cap on their 2021 season, or will a challenger emerge to cast them down? Will new books finally rescue Genestealers and Tau from the dumpster? 2022 is going to be an exciting time – so a happy new year to all our readers, and make sure to check back in to Goonhammer every week for all the latest competitive updates. Comments and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

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