• 5th - Eric Tadt - Genestealer Cult: Horde plus Aberrants.
• 6th - Brent Simon - Aeldari: A Wraithknight with all the go-wide trimmings.
• 7th - Vyasar Ganesan - Tyranids: A Tervigon and Swarmy backed by a Gaunt horde and various small utility units.
• 8th - Nick "Doots" Toomey - Necrons: Double Lychguard brick, one unit running with warscythes and Orikan, backed by the super C'tan and Doomsdays.
• 9th - Robert Moreland - Astra Militarum: Big tank energy - a Dorn and a Stormsword, with Hellhounds running ahead of them.
• 10th - Noah Pope - Aeldari: Wraithknight with go-wide backup.
• 11th - Michael Dehoyos - Aeldari: Wraithknight with go-wide backup.

Iowaaagh! Open 2023

60-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Cedar Rapids, IA United States on August 12 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Ben Cherwien - Aeldari - 1st Place

Credit: BuffaloChicken

The List

Archetype

Wraithknight + Go-Wide

Final Round Matchup

100 - 75 Victory against Charlie Andre - Genestealer Cult.

Thoughts

Welp, back to normal service it is, with Ben taking a perfect 600VP with this nightmarish build. Ultimate killing power from the Wraithknight and Fire Prisms, best in breed objective scoring from Shadow Spectres and Warp Spiders, and the Yncarne to crush any hopes the opponent has of getting out from under it. No further questions, well done Ben.

Kyle McCord - Astra Militarum - 2nd Place

Death Korps of Krieg. Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Guard Gunline

Thoughts

Now that's much more exciting. Astra Militarum have been struggling, but Kyle has found a recipe here that pushed to second place in a tough field. Mostly, it achieves that in a very guardy fashion, by pounding targets into oblivion with big guns, but it makes clever use of the tools in the index to minimise what it has to spend on effective board control, saving the bulk of the spend for guns. Gaunts Ghosts rock, that's not really news, and respawning Scout Sentinels is great, but the trick here that's not yet made waves is the big Krieg unit.

Sticking a Primaris Psyker with these for a 4+ invulnerable save gives you a surprisingly dense central tarpit against a lot of stuff for a relatively low price, and works with the other tools here to slow the opponent down and buy time for all those carriages and Manticores to do their dirty work. I also like the use of Dorns as something that can surge forward as a second blocking line if really needed, as they stay pretty lethal even if they get tagged, and it's fun to see them on the table (even though they need a big point cut).

Astra Militarum haven't been having much luck this edition, and we love seeing someone buck a trend here at Competitive Innovations, well done to Kyle.

Britton Rexroat - Genestealer Cult - 3rd Place

Cult of Sirens Aberrants. Credit: Lupe

The List

Archetype

Horde and Aberrants

Thoughts

Once more we return to regular service. I'm reaching, but I'm afraid I genuinely do not have anything new to say about this one. Well done Britton.

Albert Lim - Imperial Knights - 4th Place

Cerastus Knight-Castigator. Credit: That Gobbo

The List

Archetype

Dakka Knights

Thoughts

An interesting spin on the normal double Crusader dakka knights build here. One of the potential weaknesses of that is that if it finds itself up against stuff with 2+ saves, it can struggle to push damage through if they have cover. The Castigator's Bondsman ability pushes up both its own AP and that of one of the Helverins, giving them a much better chance of punching some wounds through when that arises, particularly if you combine the Castigator's Twin-Linked with Trophy Claim to punch reliable damage into big targets no matter the size. Having the Castigator also gives you far more counter-charge potential than a second Crusader, and can play a more mobile game (as the Banner nods to) since it doesn't need to stay still for Sustained Hits. It loses out a little on raw killing power, so it's definitely "different" rather than definitely "better", but it's a cool twist on a formula. Well done Albert.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 5th - David Clark - Necrons: Double Lychguard brick with Doomsdays.
• 6th - James "Boon" Kelling - Aeldari: Maximum go-wide shooty Ynnari, adding Ravagers to the Aeldari standard, plus using a squad of Reapers in a Falcon to both protect them from enemy indirect early and give them the option of a spike turn.
• 7th - Charlie Andre - Genestealer Cult: Full horde with a couple of Cyclops as ultra-cheap strat reserve objective tools.

Hammer of Wrath GT

46-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Arcadia, CA United States on August 12 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Sites of Power - Chilling Rain - Hammer & Anvil

Daniel Olivas - Aeldari: Pure go-wide Aeldari with some extra Lone Operative action.

vs.

Arthur Tu - Chaos Space Marines: Ultra-aggro Chaos Space Marines, going heavy on Advance/Charge threats.

Thoughts

More Aeldari (*crowd boos*), but there's no Wraithknight (*crowd cheers*) and they're up against an army that presents a serious threat to them (*crowd goes wild*).

Daniel's Aeldari list shouldn't pack too many surprises for regular readers, packed as it is with all the hottest go-wide tools, and the only thing to really highlight is that it goes hard on that plan, even more than normal. Extra Lone Operatives (including Illic with a full stack) and supporting one of the Farseers with a Conclave so they can rove without dying immediately really helps the army reach every corner of the board, and the latter is also particularly helpful on this mission.

That does not, to be clear, make this a good mission for the Aeldari - in fact it's probably about as horrible as it can get, with the deployment substantially neutralising the value of the Lone Operatives, and demanding sustained engagement from an army that wants to hit and run. That's further compounded by the Chaos list being well designed to take advantage of the setup.

Let's talk about the Chaos list in general, because it rules, I love this. No mucking around with Abaddon here - instead, we've got four big Advance/Charge bricks that will hit like trucks when they connect, some Noise Marines as close support, and one big Obliterator unit to turn on Profane Zeal and nuke anything that looks at them funny. Chosen are just all-round pretty great, so the Dark Commune/Accursed Cultist bricks are the biggest thing to highlight here. These units are attractively priced, very durable for what you pay (5+ invulnerable into 6+ Feel No Pain on a high wounds unit goes a long way), and if you run them as Undivided for access to Zeal in the Fight Phase, get an extremely deadly go turn, because when you switch on their Advance/Charge they also get +1 to Hit and Wound. Quite genuinely (as we'll see more of a bit later), pretty much whatever your CSM plan is one of these units will serve you well. This Chaos army defies the news of melee being dead in 10th Edition and plans to roll over the enemy like a gigantic wave, and honestly go off kings.

That's obviously a great plan here, so do they just win? Eh, I mean they do still have to contend with the fact that the Aeldari are extremely good at killing Marine bodies, and the big Ranger brick provides a definite "out" for the Asuryani. Sniping out the Cult Demagogue from a Accursed Commune block turns off their invuln and their once-per-game Advance/Charge, and if the Aeldari get a line on them with either the Rangers or Death Jester, that's pretty much certain to happen. The Night Spinner also helps a lot, as it lets them stop one target Advancing, staggering the arrival in melee. I figure the best play for the Aeldari here is to lean on the fact they're way better at scoring Secondaries from a standing start, and accept a low early Primary score in service of trying to clear out the Chaos Forces, while ensuring they get 40/40 on Secondaries. As ever, Chaos's incentives are thus rather the opposite - make sure they score primary early at as low cost in units as possible, denying the chance for the Aeldari to get back into the game later. Having Rhinos to stage helps a lot with that, as does the looming threat of the Obliterators, which will force caution from the Aeldari tanks. In the end, this was knife-edge close (and pretty low scoring, so I'd guess cagey plans from the Aeldari were in fact deployed), but the sheer force of the Chaos charge swung the day.

Result

Chaos Space Marines Victory - 68 - 65

Arthur Tu - Word Bearers - 1st Place

Credit: Swiftblade

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Aggro Chaos

Thoughts

I don't think I have much to add beyond what was in the Showdown, but I'm still in love with this list - people have been finding lots of ways to make the Chaos Space Marines codex work, but this is a decent swerve away from most of them, and still took down the event in style. Even now, the writers of our CSM Faction Focus are hurridly taking notes, great work from Arthur.

James Carmona - Chaos Space Marines - 2nd Place (Undefeated with a Draw)

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Double Accursed Commune - Shooty

Final Round Matchup

87 - 54 Victory against Jason McKenzie - T'au Empire.

Thoughts

That's a double header right there. Which I guess could refer to either the victories or the Accursed Cultists. Anyway.

James taking second really shows how flexible a centrepiece the Accursed Communes are, because beyond them this build is very different, skewing much more to the gunline end of things. You've got Abaddon, lots of Obliterators and the super Forgefiend, and the Communes are fantastic for tangling up the enemy while those units do the work. I think you could make a real argument that the CSM index might be the biggest "sleeper" in the pack in terms of results, so it's great to see it awakening in such a pronounced fashion, well done James.

The Best of the Rest

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