At this point I have to accept that I fully exist in a hell of my own creation. I'm writing this sitting at the judges desk at the Goonhammer Open, with round 1 in full swing, and Lowest of Men up on stage playing in the stream game (check out the stream all weekend with Hellstorm Wargaming). "There is too much 40K", I cry like Sisyphus, as I make 40K happen all around me.

Anyway, our final crop of events from last weekend is as follows:

• Games of Westeros XVII
• Broadsword Wargaming 40K ITC Winter Major III
• Norcal Open GT 2024
• Game Knight Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament
• HWP Salty Classic GT February 2024

If you're looking for any of the following, you want part 1 from Wednesday:

• Frontline Gaming Cherokee Open 2024 Warhammer 40K Champs
• The Art of Warp 8ème Ed.- OPEN
• Milwaukee Warhammer 40k GT
• BrewHammer GT5
• Heroes Of The Mid Tables Winter GT 2024
• TOK-spelen

...or if these are what you're after, you want part 2 with Lowest of Men from Friday:

• Games of Westeros XVII
• Broadsword Wargaming 40K ITC Winter Major III
• Norcal Open GT 2024
• Game Knight Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament
• HWP Salty Classic GT February 2024

Let's go!

Games of Westeros XVII

85-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Västmanlands län, SE on February 24 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Jesper Unander-Scharin - Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion) - 1st Place

Transcendent C'tan Shard of Nyadra'zatha, the Burning One by Craig "MasterSlowPoke" Sniffen

The List

Archetype

Shooty Hypercrypt

Thoughts

Here we see another example of players iterating and innovating on the Hypercrypt formula, mitigating the lack of ranged output with the addition of Doomsday Arks and Lokhust Heavies, and skewing the rest of the build towards tools that can set up a roadblock wherever they're needed. Two Transcendants and the Wraiths can all zap around, bogging the opponent down and giving the big guns time to unleash a terrible toll on the foe. The damage output from this list is up towards the highest you can get with Necrons, and it feels particularly well tuned for trumping the Custodes matchup, and I think it would also have a better shot into the rising Dreadknight threat to boot. Very potent, and unstoppable at the event, well done Jesper!

Kalle Abrahamsson - Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion) - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Doomsday Ark. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Shooty Hypercrypt

Thoughts

I mean partially rinse and repeat on the previous, though here the skew of the main body of the list towards durability isn't present, instead keeping the tricksy pieces that Hypercrypt is known for, particularly the big Immortal unit with a Chronomancer for the unparalleled objective theft capabilities. Given that this also went undefeated, it's clearly a very valid choice too, though I think I would lean towards the Doomsday build if the rise of Dreadknights continues unabated. I could be wrong, however - Grey Knights can struggle to protect their home field, so keeping the incredible Secondary potential of this version could end up superior. We'll see where the metagame takes us, for now congratulations to Kalle for making it a Necron double at the top.

JP Sakkie Basson - Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) - 3rd Place

Grey Knight Paladins. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Archetype

Dreadknights and Terminators

Thoughts

Speaking of both Dreadknights and tarpit/dakka builds, we move onto this one that's frankly terrifying. Sometimes you look at a novel list go "oh, oh that all fits huh" and this is definitely one of those moments. Grey Knight Terminator blocks have always been very challenging to shift, but previously you could sometimes focus on clearing the rest of the list and dance around them. When "the rest of the list" is four Dreadknights that's a tougher prospect, and here you also have to be planning around the possibility of a Draigo Teleport Assault round 1 if you go first. Big fan of the choice to stick Sigil on the Grand Master rather than the GMDK too - the Dreadknights aren't here to dance around, they're causing havoc, whereas stopping the Paladins getting owned at an inopportune moment can be gabe-breaking. That's especially true given how vital they are for the Necron matchup - Paladins with ignore modifiers destroy C'tan (in the Index days I watch my 4++ Transcendant melt to them), and that helps further reduce the likely challengers.

Really strong build, and while their win rate hasn't escalated yet, I think the best Grey Knight players (as we see from JP here) are showing that their faction means serious business in the post-Dataslate world.

Erik Wrisemo - Chaos Knights (Traitoris Lance) - 4th Place

War Dog - Stalker. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Whoops all Dogs (Nurglings have been designated as honorary dogs for these purposes)

Thoughts

There's not much to say about this build I haven't covered a million times already - War Dogs are just hyper-efficient Datasheets, and Chaos Knights ability to roll out with a bunch of them and some utility Daemons to cover weaknesses is going to keep pushing them to top finishes despite a fairly underwhelming set of army rules. That's definitely gotten harder to pull off with the Nightbringer and Void Dragon everywhere though, so well done to Erik!

The Best of the Rest

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

Broadsword Wargaming 40K ITC Winter Major III

59-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Castlebar, County Mayo, IE on February 24 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Mark Morrow - Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion) - 1st Place

Monolith with Death Rays. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Lokhust Hypercrypt

Thoughts

The silver tide rolls onwards over in Ireland, with another Hypercypt double header at the top. This build leans on Lokhusts for its big shooting, and sticks to a Monolith for extreme flexibility on the use of the Immortals and Wraiths (remembering that the Technomancer's INFANTRY keyword makes them eligible for the zap). Necrons - they're good, and Hypercrypt is the build you need a plan to beat. That said, it's encouraging that all four of the undefeated Hypercrypt builds we're looking at today have for some meaningfully different choices, so it's not like the metagame is being rolled over by a "solved" list (and let's hope that stays true). Well done to Mark on unleashing the Monolith to great effect!

Joseph Musgrave - Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion) - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Szarekh, The Silent King. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Szeras Monolith Castle

Thoughts

Tale as old as time here - much like with Dreadknights, this build was pretty lit in the previous edition, so now that the stars have aligned to make it good again, people have got it on deck and ready to go. Monoliths are tough to kill, and synergise well with all three of the Silent King's buff modes, creating a build with a nice mix of versatile killing power, durability, and the option of going all-out offence with the re-roll charges and a mass redeploy. With so many points invested into fairly bulky models, I like the choice to season in some Tomb Blades for utility support - their built in Fire and Fade means that they can use the Cosmic Precision stratagem to put themselves pretty much anywhere they need to be, which is no joke with OC6 total in the squad. Always like to see support choices covering weaknesses, and smart list building rewarded, so well done Joseph!

Colin Power - Aeldari (Battle Host) - 3rd Place

Avatar of Khaine. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Avatar & Wraithblades

Thoughts

In third place, you simply cannot keep a good elf down (please don't take that as a challenge GW, my people, they are dying). Like a lot of post-Dataslate builds, the plan here is to use Wraithblades as an ultra-durable anvil to sit on objectives and give options on taking Fixed Cleanse or Deploy (don't forget that the Spiritseer's Assault shuriken pistol means they can Advance/Action), with the Avatar as a backup roadblock/counter-charge piece. While the opponent deals with that, D-cannons and Shadow Spectres turn them into mulch, and Spiders/Hawks ensure the list can pull off whatever movement tricks or (if selected) Tactical objectives the army needs. All very Aeldari, and extremely effective, well done to Colin on defying the Dataslate and taking third.

Conor Crowley - T'au Empire (Kauyon) - 4th Place

Tau Riptide. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Go-Wide Gundams

Thoughts

Keeping up the theme of blasts from the past, Riptides are both extremely cheap for how tough they are and find themselves in a fairly target-rich environment into Custodes and Grey Knights, so they're back. Back again.

Using those plus the already good Ghostkeels lets Tau play a bit more  of a go-wide board control game, which reduces their vulnerability to the opponent finding a way to punk their big Crisis block, and helps screen against Hypercrypt, Grey Knights and other movement nasties. Also helping with that are the Kroot Farstalkers, one unit of which is becoming a lock in most Tau builds. Tau need Infiltrators to screen early, and and are pretty much guaranteed to lose them if you go second, and in that context the Farstalkers bring three things to the table over another unit of Stealths - they cover more space, they provide a better bully charge piece, and if you deploy them 9" away from the opponent's deployment zone, the 12" move on the Kroot Hound model lets you tag the opponent's deployment Zone for a turn 1 Teleport Homers. All very handy, and a great way to round out this list's ability to dominate the board, a great showcase of classic mobile Tau firepower from Conor.

The Best of the Rest

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

Norcal Open GT 2024

41-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Red Bluff, California, US on February 24 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Unknown Mission

Marc Robson - Imperial Knights (Noble Lance)

vs.

Forrest Phanton - Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force)

Thoughts

Full bravery mode from both sides here as Stormlance with new Wulfen friends face off against revitalised Imperial Knights. I said when we reviewed the Balance Dataslate that I expected to see 30 Wulfen in a Showdown before long, and I'm going to be greedy and give myself the W for 25 - they're a terrifying addition to the Stormlance list, as it already pressures opponents very effectively, and now has an easily hideable second wave of Infantry to stage and mop up anything that's hiding behind terrain or whatever. You end up with a Marine list that's about as aggressive as you can possibly get in the faction, and well suited to the metagame to boot - this will just kill Necrons given more than a turn of breathing room, and is another reason that I think we'll see more and more teleporting Doomsday Arks as people adapt to what's out there.

I love the Knights list here as well - it really doubles down on what they do better than similar builds. Pressuring with Canis, doubled-up Damage Reduction on two of the Warglaives and Advance and Charge on the third also threatens to bowl a lot of builds over, and is again great at exploiting one of Necrons few weaknesses, which is that even with Doomsdays they don't have 100% reliable point and click deletion on a target like some factions do. This list causes problems for most opponents on purpose, and I'm thrilled to see the Balance Dataslate changes having an impact for this faction.

I do have to qualify "most opponents" there, because unfortunately for all its assets I think this is a real mismatch for the Knights, mostly because the Space Wolves response to being pressured is "good". The killer for the Knights here is the combination of Wolf Guard Battle Leaders in the units with Logan's once-per-game "Space Wolves Waaagh" (as an opponent described it to me). That gives the Wolves a turn where (in combination with Shock Assault on the non WGBL unit), all three ThunderCav squads plausibly threaten to deck a big Knight, and they'll cheerfully rip apart an Armiger at pretty much any point. The Knight shooting certainly isn't bad into ThunderCav in response, but having the Wulfen as well gives the forces of Fenris far more scope than the Knights have to control the timing of the key engagements, and in that context I think it's very, very likely that the Knights find themselves devoid of units early enough in the game that they can no longer challenge the Wolves.

Were I on that side of the table, I'd hope against hope that I could find an opportunity to ram Canis into Logan's unit and Epic Challenge him out, but as mentioned the Wulfen mean there's basically no need for the Wolves to make that a possibility, and on a top table I'd probably expect that hope to be an forlorn one. Sure enough here, the Space Wolves romped to a convincing victory.

Result

Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force) Victory - 100 - 55

Forrest Phanton - Space Wolves (Stormlance Task Force) - 1st Place

Logan Grimnar as Santa Claus. Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Wolves and Wulfen

Thoughts

ALl covered in the Showdown - all the great ultra aggro taste that Stormlance had before, now with the extra flexibility in how it projects threat from the Wulfen. Congratulations to Forrest on the win, and I think this is genuinely one of the best Marine lists out there at the moment.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Marc Robson - Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): See showdown.
• 3rd - Adam Dye - Chaos Space Marines (Slaves to Darkness): Abaddon with lots of Obliterators.
• 4th - Taylor Davis - Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion): More Rendmaster meme fun, albeit with an Endless Gift GUO added as an anvil to pivot around.
• 5th - Jacob Quinn - Necrons: Quad C'tan and Monolith.
• 6th - Jofonz Bow - T'au Empire: Go-wide hulls with Riptides, Hammerheads and Breacherfish.
• 7th - Aaron Adams - Deathwatch (Gladius Task Force): A rare showing for the 41st Millenium's very own men in black, using hefty firepower from assault cannon Terminator squads with Librarians and a big Proteus Kill Team.
• 8th - Travis Kroells - Adeptus Custodes: Kind of four block Custodes, it's just one of them has been upgraded to be Allarus with some of the flex points. Also features Coteaz with some Prosecutors.

Game Knight Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Jasper, Indiana, US on February 24 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Anthony Lineberry - Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

(yes I know they're the wrong legion, don't cancel me chaos players)

The List

Archetype

Forgefiend Tsons

Thoughts

I mean look, if you're Thousand Sons you've basically got two options when Custodes get their resilience to Devastating Wounds back - you can start screaming, crying and throwing up, or you can start screaming, crying and throwing up plasma death on the hated golden host. Forgefiends will do that for you extremely well, and are pretty handy at carving through some Necron favourites and Dreadknights to boot, giving them a huge boost in the emerging metagame. They're also perfectly good chunky body-blocking pieces when that's what you need, holding positions so your precious squishy wizards don't have to, letting them unleash terrifying psychic death on their own schedule. Much like Aeldari, Thousand Sons have been gradually hammered in points changes, but Tzeentch still has some twists and turns up their sleeve - as you'd expect. Well done to Anthony for deploying those to such good effect.

Jacob Klueh - Death Guard (Plague Company) - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Lord of Virulence. That Gobbo

The List

Archetype

Crunchy Death Guard

Thoughts

In many ways he never left. This build combines a lot of the features of the crunchier sorts of Death Guard list, and I really like how sleek and tuned the result is. I realise those aren't words you normally apply to Death Guard, but this really does feel like you've managed to fit everything you want in the build - Mortarion and the Drones to pressure, Rhinos for a staged second wave, steady damage from Plaguebursts and big damage on the turn you throw out the Lord of Virulence's unit for spotting. The result is something that does exactly what you want from Death Guard - swamps the opponent in contagion auras and then gradually drags them into the abyss. Classic Nurgle, so a fitting part of a Chaos undefeated double-header!

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Luke Rolph - Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Extreme infantry spam with loads of Krieg, Catachan and Cadian footsloggers, backed by some Kasrkin and Rough Riders.
• 4th - Aaron Osborne - Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Double C'tan, Triple Immortal and Monolith, buying Imotekh a full squad of Lychguard instead of taking Szeras.
• 5th - Beau Lawrence - Necrons (Hypercrypt Legion): Triple C'tan, Monolith and a Tesseract Vault.
• 6th - Jared Van Winkle - Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force): An Aggressor brick, Bladeguard in a Redeemer, (with the option to stick Calgar with them or the Aggressors as the match dictates) and a pair of RepExes.
• 7th - Alex Witty - Astra Militarum: Tank-tastic with triple Basilisk, double DRn and a Tank Commander, plus two scouting Catachan Chimeras.

HWP Salty Classic GT February 2024

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Plantation, Florida, US on February 24 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Gavin Conn - Necrons (Awakened Dynasty) - 1st Place

Necron Technomancer. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Archetype

All-rounder Awakened

Thoughts

Our final featured list for the week, and another flavour of Necrons makes the cut. Awakened Dynasty may not be as flashy as some of the other options out there, but it does have very strong synergy with Wraiths via the Protocol of the Hungry Void stratagem. S7 AP-2 (with the option to ignore damage modifiers from Szarekh) is an entire world of difference from S6 AP-1, pushing them up to a legitimate melee threat rather than just a speedbump. From my own testing, I basically wouldn't run Awakened without Szarekh, but it has enough great all-rounder features that with him as a central power piece I think it's got some serious legs, as Gavin showed off here!

The Best of the Rest

There were 2 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Kody Drake - Death Guard (Plague Company): A whole new level of chunky Chaos Soup, taking Mortarion, three Daemon Princes, Brigands for shooting and finishing up with a GUO and a Soul Grinder.
• 3rd - Curtis Hotaling - Astra Militarum (Combined Regiment): Double Tank Commander and lots of Russ Demolishers, plus a trio of Catachan Chimeras to really push at the foe.

Wrap Up

That's it, it's done. For now. See you on Wednesday.

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