Good grief. The scene tends to start winding down a bit after the first weekend of December, but boy oh boy has the community decided to close the year with a bang - fourteen events, five of them majors, and one of the highest player counts we've seen outside of an LVO/LGT weekend. The list of winners tells a big part of the story why - the top of the metagame continues to be pretty open, with plenty of contenders nipping at the heels of Aeldari and Chaos Space Marines, who do still stand out from the pack, but not by that much.

That is, honestly, more than enough preamble - we've got a tonne to cover and we're going to get right into it.

Today we'll start with Wings looking at:

• The Leicester UKTC  Super-Major (Supermajor)
• Feliz Exterminatus (Major)
• Merry Slaaneshmass 2023 (Major)
• Obsec presents the 9th annual Perth GT, 40k Masters 2023
• Waisted Potential Presents: YYC LVO PREP Ogres Den December GT
• Évzáró Gálatorna 2023
• Eye of Terror Fall '23 GT

Friday will see Lowest of Men investigating:

• Warzone: Atlanta 2023 Warhammer 40k Major Tournament (Major)
• Warhound GT in December at Game Grid (Major)
• Iron Cage GT: Winter Whammy
• HEROCON
• Team arKCanite Presents: Winter Slaughter
• Sword and Board Warhammer 40K Tournament
• Winter War Zone 2023

This week's Showdowns are going to be:

• Dark Angels vs. Emperor's Children at the Iron Cage GT
• Thousand Sons vs. Chaos Knights at the Team arKCanite Winter Slaughter

The Leicester Super-Major

194-player, 7-round Supermajor in England, GB on December 02 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

As ever, this was great fun - the Leicester venue is my favourite of the ones the UKTC uses. I also got to indulge in a minor reign of terror, unleashing my Aeldari for the first time this edition. Night Spinners man. They sure are a thing.

Will Whitaker - Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) - 1st Place

Credit: Dan "Swiftblade" Richardson

The List

Archetype

Commune Brawlers

Thoughts

Sitting atop a throne of skulls after the dust cleared from seven rounds of Warhammer, we have Will's version of the Chaos Space Marine brawler builds. Going hard on Communes lets you completely body some armies through weight of pressure, and is also going to reliably lock in high scores to help lock in a top cut spot with a 5-0. This variant also looks particularly well suited to World Eaters, who are a definite rising force in the UK, and that came in clutch in the final. Communes are big and wound-dense enough that they can sometimes bounce some of the World Eater units, Forgefiends are the better shooting threat when you're hunting Eightbound, and Syll'Esske getting back up is super annoying to a one-phase army. Extremely well aimed at the metagame, therefore, and thus a deserved victory from Will!

Nassim Fouchane - World Eaters (Berzerker Warband) - 2nd Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

The Vanella 1975

Thoughts

Hot on Will's heels we have Nassim, running the precise World Eaters 1975pts that's been perfected by their elite players, and slicing through a host of powerful foes before finally getting ground out by the Cultist horde. Adding Kharn and the MoE in Berserker units gives this list such a saturation of units that can evaporate anything they touch that it's really hard to stop. Our own Corrode played against Nas in an earlier round, deployed defensively and killed a third of the World Eaters army turn one - and still got bodied off the table in short order. Not quite sure how I feel about an army being "solved" down to an exact list, but it's worth saying that Nassim pulled off this performance despite borrowing the list and it being his first event with it, so big congratulations on taking the runner up spot.

Daniel Whitaker - Aeldari (Battle Host) - 3rd Place

Dark Reapers. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Indirect Aeldari

Thoughts

One brother in the top four with Aeldari, the other with (some) Slaanesh. Definitely something mythic going on here. Anyway, Dan's Aeldari build has some genuinely unusual choices that I really like - it goes much harder on Indirect Fire than the standard, and hedges its bets against Ironstorm Spearhead with an extra unit of Fire Dragons. He also makes the choice to only bring five Wraithguard, which I honestly think is pretty defensible - in the mirror, it means you've got less stuff tied up if the opponent Spinners them, five will still handily waste any tank without an invulnerable save, and splitting threats across more activations is also handy in a metagame that's very heavy on Transports. Sharp tweaks to the formula, and once again some precision metagame targeting pays off - great work from Dan.

Kriton Tsintaris - Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs) - 4th Place

Credit: Evan "Felime" Siefring

The List

Archetype

Arco-flagellants and Indirect

Thoughts

The rise of the Sororitas continues, here leveraging the powerful combination of Arco-flagellants to flood the table at a bargain price and Exorcists to obliterate foes that are stuck dealing with them. The Triumph lets the miracle dice flow at speed, making all of this super reliable, and Battle Sisters with some Leaders provide a good all-round mid rank. Eventually fell to Nas, as World Eaters going first do, unfortunately, go through this like a hot knife, but outside that matchup this army has tools for most games, and it really hammers home how much the Sisters' star has risen. Kriton is definitely out here doing the Emperor's work.

The Best of the Rest

There were 2 more players on 5-0 records after the swiss. They were:

Merry Slaaneshmass 2023

94-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Ocean Shores, WA, US on December 02 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Timothy Grant - Death Guard (Plague Company) - 1st Place

Credit: PierreTheMime

The List

Archetype

Plague Marine Spam

Thoughts

Yeah so speaking of a Transport-heavy metagame, here's five Rhinos. What a time to be alive. This list's plan isn't super complicated, but it is extremely effective - it can absolutely bury the opponent in a mixture of bodies and Mortal Wounds from Grenades, and is super tricky for other melee-heavy armies to engage with because of how much of its stuff is shielded in Transports, and being able to hand out -1WS up close. The combination of the speed to pressure shooting armies and sticky ceremite Rhino walls to bounce melee lists makes this a very strong spin on the faction, but also one that goes harder on the plan than any other recent variant, something that's always fun to see rewarded - awesome work from Timothy.

Hank Adams - Ultramarines (Vanguard Spearhead) - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Apothecary Biologis. Credit: Craig "MasterSlowPoke" Sniffen

The List

Archetype

Infiltrating Vanguard Deathbrick

Thoughts

This is a spin on John Lennon's WCW build, cutting out a few all-rounder pieces like the Company Heroes in lieu of even more Deep Strike death. The plan is pretty simple - Calgar's murder brick of Aggressors can Infiltrate, thanks to the Biologis, while the Centurions and Inceptors can all be poised to come in from Deep Strike (the Cents thanks to Ventris) and annihilate things. Because the Centurions have Deep Strike, they can use that for deployment any time they arrive, meaning that their normal lack of mobility can be mitigated by popping them back into reserves with Guerrilla Tactics. The army's generally durable infantry bodies also just work well in general with the Detachment Ability, massively stacking the deck in favour of this list in the shooting race. Finally, the good volume of Infiltrate, coupled with Calculated Feint to dodge early charges, helps the list prevent the opponent from screening its big drops out, shutting down a potential way to attack it.

Can't say I'm thrilled to look forward to being tabled out of Deep Strike like it's 8th Edition all over again, but the power here is undeniable, and it definitely requires careful planning of deployment and target priority to play well, so congratulations to Hank on taking it to an undefeated second.

Steve Trimble - Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) - 3rd Place

Credit: Swiftblade

The List

Archetype

Commune Brawlers

Thoughts

Another showing for the triple Commune plan here, with Steve's version going even harder on bodying the enemy via the addition of some Legionaries to fill out each Rhinos. This is another choice that seems good in a metagame that's seeing more and more Transport Brawler vs. Transport Brawler games at the top, as it gives you something less precious than the Chosen with a lot of reach that you can use to force the opponent's hand. Beyond that, all business as usual, just an avalanche of powerful melee and mutated flesh to smash into foes, and another great showing for it in Steve's hands!

Joel Rodgers - Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force) - 4th Place

Logan Grimnar as Santa Claus. Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

Archetype

Stormlance Spectacular

Thoughts

I have to hand it to Space Wolves players - they've collectively taken one look at a detachment that makes ThunderCav good, and near universally decided that this and only this is what they're doing now. Logan and his boys are incredibly hard tough to handle with Ride Fast, Ride Hard available, and adding Portents of Wisdom to one unit lets the army launch a reliable multi-front charge early (since the other can just pop Full Throttle for a guaranteed Advance). Even Vindicators can get in on the speedy action, Advancing and shooting with Blitzing Fusillade, and then ramming into combat to tie stuff up in a way that would neuter most tanks, but isn't an issue for them thanks to the Siege Shield. A Land Raider Redeemer finishes stuff off, and this is basically just a great unit in general in Marines, but has some nifty synergy here with using Wind Swift Evasion to either body-block stuff with it or move it into a better Overwatch position when the enemy thought they were safe. Super cool to see this build play out as effectively as it has, strong show of Warrior Pride from Joel.

The Best of the Rest

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

Feliz Exterminatus

59-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Saint Robert, Missouri, US on December 02 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Ryan Verbeck - Tyranids (Invasion Fleet) - 1st Place

Neurolictor. Credit: Wings

The List

Archetype

Board Presence Bugs

Thoughts

Tyranids definitely feel like they need a little bit of help on the killing power front, but as Ryan shows here they can make up for that with absolute premium levels of board control The mixture of speedy infantry, cheap Lone Operatives, cost-effective durable bugs as anchors and good all-rounder units like the One Eye/Dakkafex block make it incredibly challenging to stymie this build's scoring, and while it's threats aren't up to clearing hull-heavy shooting builds, they are pretty good into elite infantry brawler lists, which would probably be the best placed to try and counter the scoring plans. That helps ensure that the army has a plan for either flavour of matchup, and it's clearly worked out here with an impressive victory for Ryan!

Kyle McCord - Black Templars (Gladius Task Force) - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Black Templars High Marshal Helbrecht. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

One Punch Crusade

Thoughts

This list is hilarious, feeling like it's tuned to ensure that it can pick a point in the battle then hit the enemy as hard has (trans)humanely possible. Sword Brethren, the Aggressor brick and two Redeemers is a truly astonishing hammer turn, and having plenty of the tools safely encased in Land Raiders till it's time to strike maximises the chance of the Templars getting to dictate the terms of battle (as does access to Assault Doctrine for a go-fast turn). The Land Raiders also mean you don't have to go for a knockout turn, and the army is more than capable of metering out its threats while gradually toasting stuff, all the while threatening to go absolutely ham if the time is right. That seems to be a capability that's provided a leg up on the competition, as Kyle took it all the way to a spectacular undefeated second place.

Peyton Preece - Ynnari (Battle Host) - 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

Go-wide Ynnari

Thoughts

The shootiest, most go-widey Aeldari list you can get, with the uncomplicated but effective plan of tangling the foe up in Spinner nets while volleys of lance and haywire fire sweep stuff up, and Mandrakes/speedy Aspects score points. The Yncarne and Fate's Messenger) Death Jester provide some extra potent troubleshooters to assail anything that's threatening the seamless execution of the plan, and this list looks like a complete nightmare to take down unless you've got the speed to just roll it over, or the sheer levels of board control required to beat it at its own game (which is presumably how Ryan took it down in the finals). Definitely strong work from Peyton here.

Kyle Lamperez - Dark Angels (Ironstorm Spearhead) - 4th Place

Azrael. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Ironstorm Dark Angels

Thoughts

Fundamentally this is the standard Ironstorm plan of "tanks that shoot good" with the added CP battery of Azrael to power their juicy Stratagems, and the nice addition of a Redeemer full of Assault Intercessors to discourage opponents who might be considering attemting to roll the firebase with a horde. Not massive tweaks to the normal formula, but when a list archetype is a known good one small optimisations like this are what you expect to see, so good work Kyle for identifying and deploying them.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

Obsec presents the 9th annual Perth GT, 40k Masters 2023

50-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Kelmscott, WA, AU on December 02 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Lachlan Rigg - Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness) - 1st Place

Syll'Esske. Credit: Brin

The List

Archetype

Brawler Goodstuff

Thoughts

Slightly less Commune-heavy than some of the other builds doing well this week, but very much a known quantity here - all this stuff is just real good, it's ultra-adaptable to whatever it needs to fight, and it's got the speed to bowl Aeldari over, something that's a major contributor to them now sharing the metagame top spot. Congratulations to Lachlan for putting these tools to work and taking a trophy.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Alex Fritzsch - Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): A Knight Lancer leads a bunch of Karnivores and Brigands to war, with Daemons adding some objective play.
• 3rd - Mathew Crosbie - Night Lords (Slaves to Darkness): Double Commune Brawler CSM.
• 4th - Matthew Dean - Adepta Sororitas (Hallowed Martyrs): All-rounder Sisters with lots of tooled-up Battle Sister squads, lots of Arco-flagellants and some Castigators, with Vahl at the head leading some Warsuits.
• 5th - Harrison Darge - Black Templars (Righteous Crusaders): High pressure Templars, sporting a full Primaris Crusader brick and lots of Sword Brethren in a Land Raider and Impulsors.
• 6th - Thomas Wulff - Astra Militarum: Double Death Korps tarpit to hold ground, double Dorn to start blasting.

Waisted Potential Presents: YYC LVO PREP Ogres Den December GT

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Calgary, Alberta, CA on December 02 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Ozzie Meloche - Aeldari (Battle Host) - 1st Place

Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

Archetype

No Tank Go-wide Aeldari

Thoughts

Yet another way of putting together Aeldari tools and having a tournament-winning list fall out here. Eschewing any heavy targets except the Wraithguard anchor provides good resilience against opponents teching for Ironstorm or hull-heavy Aeldari, and having plenty of Infantry also gives opponents even more possible Phantasm moves to worry about than normal. This build also crosses yet another datasheet off my list of Aeldari units that have made it into a winning list thanks to the presence of some Banshees, and that's something I always enjoy doing. Well done to Ozzie for putting his own spin on the faction in style.

Alex Li - Aeldari (Battle Host) - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

Archetype

Go-wide Aeldari

Thoughts

...and now I'm forced to conclude that Howling Banshees hit different in Canada or something. Anyway, this is another go-wide Aeldari build, albeit packing a slightly more (though not entirely, see above re: Banshees) conventional suite of units. These units are, and I'm going to shock you here, extremely good. Well done to Alex for helping Aeldari invoke the spectre of a few months ago with a full podium sweep.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Zach Hansen - Aeldari (Battle Host): Double Avatar and extra Herohammer, filling out with Spinners and speedy Aspects.
• 4th - Anthony Dalla Lana - Alpha Legion (Slaves to Darkness): Triple Commune Brawlers.
• 5th - Darren Jac - Genestealer Cult: ...Horde and Aberrants. Haven't written that one for a while.
• 6th - Byron Livingstone - Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Shooty Monster Mash with a Norn Emissary to exert pressure on a key point.
• 7th - Matthew Secter - T'au Empire: Loads of suits, packing four Broadsides alongside a big and small Crisis team, plus Breacherfish.

Team arKCanite Presents: Winter Slaughter

34-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Kansas City, MO, United States on December 02 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Sites of Power - Chilling Rain - Hammer and Anvil

Tom Deane - Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): Rubric-heavy Thousand Sons.

vs.

Aaron Hermstedt - Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): Rampager and Dogs

Thoughts

That is a big oof on the mission right there. I usually spin up these articles while Showdown voting is ongoing, so I'll often see the scoreline before I've gone and found out what the mission is (side note - TOs like this one who put the mission list in the BCP event info are true community heroes) and here I was a little baffled by what I was seeing, because on lists along I think this should be a really close run thing. The Thousand Sons certainly have the ability to pick off War Dogs (or even the Rampager if it goes out too far on a limb), but they don't have that many units on the board, are vulnerable to massed Chaincannons, and have to be pretty careful how they're using Magnus and the Beast to avoid getting punked by massed melta. The Knights are more than happy to lose a few Brigands in order to smash a couple Karnivores into Tsons units, and while I'd say the Tsons probably have a slight edge just from their assembly of tricks, there's not normally much in it.

On Sites of Power there is, because it's going to be incredibly hard for the Chaos Knights to score highly on the Primary. If the Rampager comes to the mid-board it is going to die, and Doombolt also provides one of the most reliable ways to remove The Changeling from the equation. This means that the Tsons can fairly quickly and brutally hard cap the Knights Primary if they bring the Rampager out, while they themselves can play extremely cautiously on one flank and still expect to hit 9VP a turn on Primary (very Tzeentchian). If the Knights try to counter that they're going to spread thin and get picked off one by one, without concentrating enough killing power to out-damage the Thousand Sons.

I think if you're the Knights player here, all-out aggro has to be the plan, albeit with the Rampager in the second wave. If the Tsons have a rough turn of invulns I think it's possible that the robots can inflict enough damage early on that they can take a low-scoring win. I don't think it's likely but it's a "play-to-your-outs" situation. As it happened, the Tsons didn't end on a blowout score, suggesting that some serious damage was done to them, but they were able to tank the Chaos Knight score low enough that this didn't matter.

Result

Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) Victory - 74 - 40

Tom Deane - Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Rubric-heavy Tsons

Thoughts

Plenty of familiar toys here, even bringing back the Mutalith Vortex Beast, who is pretty tasty for sowing havoc amongst enemy pressure pushes that might otherwise barrel through the precious Rubricae. Business as usual beyond that - great quality Battleline Infantry and a gigantic pile of shooting and Mortal tricks from all those Sorcerors. Good work from Tom!

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Aaron Hermstedt - Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance): A Rampager leading a lot of Dogs, plus Nurglings and the Changeling.
• 3rd - John Indellicate - Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Ultra-hefty Monster Mash with a Barbed Hierodule and double Norns.
• 4th - Justin Comstock - Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): An unusual spin on the brawler recipe, adding Fabius Bile and some bikers, plus a squad of Seekers of Slaanesh for early board control.

Eye of Terror Fall '23 GT

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Ottawa, ON, CA on December 02 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Thomas Cowan - Iron Warriors (Slaves to Darkness) - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Brawler Goodstuff with Possessed

Thoughts

Plenty of the normal toys plus a few unusual ones - you've got the full Possessed brick, ready to provide an absolutely devastating counter-charge against any opponent that over commits, and a Vindicator. I'm going to level that I'm not super convinced that the tank is bringing anything to the table that a Forgefiend would not, but they are an iconic part of the Iron Warriors, and when you're playing with one of the top factions there's always something to be said for aiming for some style points, which Thomas has pulled off here.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd (4.5-0.5) - François Lalonde - World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Matty Healy gonna sue somebody.
• 3rd - Jeremy Atkinson - Leagues of Votann (Oathband): Sagitaur spam.
• 4th - Nick Blackburn - Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic): Lots of Rubricae, plus a big Cultist brick and some Enlightened for board presence.

Wrap Up

That's so much Warhammer. There's still so much Warhammer. How does this keep happening? Anyway, check back on on Friday when Lowest of Men will also be contemplating the concept of Too Much Warhammer.

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