It's a new year and a new season rapidly approaches, but as ever we've still got a final few weeks of the current metagame to play out before Arks of Omen fully arrives, culminating in the Las Vegas Open to close out the ITC season. The biggest event of the year running on Nephilim means we do still need to keep an eye on which factions are on top, but this deep in the season I think it's fair to say there aren't that many surprises left in store.

Given that this is also co-inciding with a few upgrades being made to the Competitive Innovations process in the backend, and January at the business factory landing pretty hot, that means I'm going to keep most of the writeups for Nephilim events reasonably short, unless there's some specific insights for what the future might hold arising from them. As events start switching to Arks, those ones will be the focus, and I'm expecting we'll see the first hyper-keen UK events change over this weekend, and bigger ones (starting with Uprising Adelaide) kicking off from the weekend after. Are Space Marines as much of a nightmare as I think they are? We'll start getting some data on that pretty soon.

In the meantime, we've got five events to look at, which are as follows:

• Glass City GT (major)
• Exterminatus VI: Return of the Noodle
• A Grimdark New Year
• Twisted Warp 2
• Hammer in the New Year

In this time of upheaval, I have suspended normal democratic processes and just picked out the showdown I'm most interested in, which is Craftworlds vs. Creations of Bile at Hammer in the New Year. New Year, same shameful Aeldari bias.

Let's go.

Glass City GT

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

Thomas Ogden - Tau Sept - 1st Place

Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

Final Round Matchup

87-64 vs. Brandon Valee - Tau

Archetype

Heavy-duty Tau Sept

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Thomas has blasted his way to the top tables at quite a few events with this list and variations on it, and taking down a major is a fitting way to celebrate the oncoming retirement of the Sun Shark (unless someone wins LVO with them, which seems very plausible). This list hits like a freight train with plenty of reach, and can keep lots of its threats safe from retaliation, whether by flying Sun Sharks off the table, Strike and Fading with one of the big Crisis blobs, or using the Riptide's booster to move behind Obscuring terrain in the charge phase. An army that hits so hard and is tough to take down in return is going to win a lot of damage races, and that's what makes builds like this and Farsight armies using similar tools serious contenders as the season finale comes into view. Arks is going to require some amount of re-shuffling to handle the loss of the planes and increased Crisis Suit costs, but honestly just swapping out the two planes for a second Riptide and some spare points results in something that looks pretty nasty still, so don't write the Tau off entirely going forward.

Justin Curtis - Iron Warriors - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Final Round Matchup

80-36 vs. Ben Isenhoff - Black Legion

Archetype

Iron Warriors...board control I guess?

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Sadly, our second list this week is a double whammy of being very interesting, and also very dead going into Arks. Iron Warriors Terminators with the Black Rune were super hard to shift with Armour of Contempt and no re-rolling allowed, but as that reverts to the rules as printed they're suddenly a bit too vulnerable again, especially against something like Riptide-heavy Tau. My read on this build is that the plan is for the Terminators to be at the head of an inexorable, grinding march across the board, with the Noctilith Crown making it hard for the opponent to shoot out the army's backfield, and providing a steady diet of Command Points via the Rubricae (maybe?) performing the Action, ensuring that the Terminators always have defensive stratagems online. Heldrakes provide some roaming threats that can hunt down enemy stragglers or duel other planes, forcing the enemy to break themselves upon the anvil of the Terminators rather than keeping their distance. It's a very cool combination, and I guess it's at least nice that Justin has taken the build out on a high. It does also highlight that Heldrakes (and a few other Aircraft, notably Night Scythes and Corvus Blackstars) get done particularly dirty by the Aircraft changes, and could probably use an exemption.

John DeFrank - Votann - 3rd Place

Ûthar the Destined. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

GTL Goodstuff

Why it's Interesting in 9th

While Land Fortresses get a lot of the attention, this build provides an important reminder that Bikes and Beserks in Votann are also wildly powerful datasheets, and are more than capable of dominating the board with the right support. The Greater Thurian League rewards packing lots of small units to use with the re-rolls, and also ensures that the bikes can flip an objective away from something like an Armiger even if they drop a model. With several Sagitaurs around as well, the army has a fair few more speedy units than Votann tend to have on the table, allowing it to keep playing for objectives longer if the opponent gets the upper hand, and also providing the mobility to get the Beserks into the battle they so desperately crave. Because this build is on 3x5 Beserks, it does get hit a fair bit harder than most by the point increases, but it can potentially swap out a unit of Hearthkyn for some Thunderkyn to save a few points in the backfield, and maybe cut a single bike from one unit, and it's then mostly there, so expect to see similar lists continue to be tried in the new world - especially as all those autocannons are about to be in a target rich environment.

Lyle Dixon - Tau - 4th Place

Tau Commander. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Farsight Suits

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Here we see our second powerful Tau option - most of the same stuff as the Tau Sept builds, but painted red. The main difference is packing a third Commander instead of Longstrike (which sadly they can't do any more in Arks, being limited to just the two, though they do like the saved CP) and taking two smaller Crisis units in place of the second big one, presumably angling to use Drop Zone Clear with at least one of them. Beyond that, the overall plan is the same - annihilate the opponent quickly and cleanly so you can rack up points in the mid and late game, with this build skewing even more towards devastating turn one and two punches at the expense of having a third very durable unit. Well done to Lyle on taking fourth place.

The Rest of the Best

• 5th - Folger Pyles  - Ynnari: Plane-based Alpha Strike Mortal Wound bomb Ynnari with Baharroth, making a pitch to overtake Justin's as deadest list we're going to look at today. Which I guess the Ynnari might be into.
• 6th - Scott Ketcham - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff.
• 7th - Eric Gibbs - Chaos Daemons: Be'lakor, Big Bird and a whole bunch of speedy friends, including Flamers, Fiends and a Fateskimmer.
• 8th - Randy Brigham - Orks: Goff Pressure with Ghaz, Squighogs and Kill Rigs.
• 9th - Brandon Valee - Tau: Tau Sept with a big Crisis block, two smaller ones, and lots of Hammerheads.
• 10th - Aaron Towler - Grey Knights: Prescient Brethen with Kyria Draxus tagging along, built around a big Paladin brick with Rhino-mounted specialists ready to lash out at anything that it can't catch.
• 11th - Brenton Weiss - Tau: Heavy-duty Tau Sept with two Riptides.
• 12th - Ben Isenhoff - Black Legion & Daemons: Abaddon, Terminators and Decimators, with loads of Flamers backing them up. I guess Abaddon's re-roll 1s aura suddenly becomes pretty useful with Flamers going forwards huh.

Exterminatus VI: Return of the Noodle

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

Josh McMillan - Adepta Sororitas - 1st Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

Final Round Matchup

91-74 vs. Jeremy Brodie - Dogwalker

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Why it's Interesting in 9th

A list that needs absolutely no introduction, so I'm frankly not inclined to give it one. The Bloody Rose trade like champions, and are pretty good at killing Space Marines, so probably have a part to play in the new metagame even after a few mild nerfs. I do like Josh's choice to run two Rhinos here, as it gives him the flexibility to either threaten Carry Forth the Faithful with Repentia in two places, or have the choice between Retributors and Repentia to push forward. That's particularly notable because the Bloody Rose supplement is one of the few that's scheduled to remain legal going forward, so it's definitely in play in the new season where others have to hope GW turns a kind eye upon them. Worth keeping in mind as a plan, especially if Sisters need protecting from lots of Marine guns, and well done to Josh on the win.

The Rest of the Best

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

• 2nd - Christopher Wright - Astra Militarum: A mix of the expected from the new book (Armoured Superiority Tank Commanders, Sentinels and plasma Russes, Kasrkin with the Barbicant's Key) with a heavy Scion contingent, bringing a Tempestus Command Squad with the Finial and a bunch of plasma/hot-shot squads. The new FAQ about effects like the Finial ignoring damage reduction as well as feel-no-pain type abilities makes this potentially even more interesting in Arks, as does being able to bring the Tempestus units along as Troops.
• 3rd - Jeremy Brodie - Dogwalker: Abaddon takes his beloved Herpetrax Knights out for one of their final walks before this entire archetype gets sent to an Ark upstate.
• 4th - Rowan Kennett - Tyranids: Grindy Naturalised Camouflage Behemoth with lots of Raveners and Zoanthropes.
• 5th - Joshua Brodie - Thousand Sons & Daemons: Rubricae, big Scarab block, Characters, Flamers. You know the drill.
• 6th - Cody Howden - Votann: Ymyr with double Land Fortress and a large Hearthguard brick.
• 7th - Chris Oneill - Genestealer Cult: Industrial Cult Neophyte and Bike Spam, using an Iconward to endlessly replenish the board control.
• 8th - Nicholas Sutherland - Tyranids: Jormungandr ObSec Monster Mash.
• 9th - Darren Brodin - Thousand Sons: A more unusual Thousand Sons list sporting a Forgefiend and Magnus as heavy hitters, alongside the normal Duplicity core.

A Grimdark New Year

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

Seth Piper - Black Templars - 1st Place

Black Templars Redemptor Dreadnought. Credit: SRM

The List

Final Round Matchup

91-46 vs. Jon Sweet - Black Templars

Archetype

Black Templars Goodstuff

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Ah, now this is a list to watch. Black Templars have a great supplement, something that got rather obscured by it being one of the last to launch before Tau and Custodes kicked the gears of the edition up considerably, and the advent of Armour of Contempt tanked the value of one of their best rules. It provides great named Characters, unique and reliable buffs both on the offence and defence, some flexible army-wide rules and great upgrade choices, allowing you to really squeeze the best out of a lot of the datasheets in the Marine Codex. Well, great news - Seth won this event with Templars under the old rules, and when Arks arrives this list gets a solid amount of extra points to play with, can straight swap the Bladeguard to hammer Terminators for no extra cost, and gets a lot of value out of Uphold the Honour of the Emperor's army-wide 5+ invulnerable save again. Unlike some of the melee-focused Chapters, Templars are also a bit better placed to benefit from the major improvement to Codex Warfare - their Vows aren't tied to the Assault Doctrine like the Blood Angels or Wolves bonus is, so they're comfortably able to sit in Devastator for a second turn while the Dreads pick up some kills if needed. As we see here, Templars can already field a lot of stuff and have it operate at peak efficiency, and that's only going to get more true in a few weeks, so keep an eye out for Seth featuring in future top fours.

"Mork Purry" - Orks - 2nd Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

Final Round Matchup

78-66 vs. Carter Leach - Chaos Daemons

Archetype

Blood Axe Board Control

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Unsure who this mysterious follower of Mork (or possibly Gork) could possibly be, but they seem to be a particularly kunnin' warboss. Kommandos and the threat of a big hit from the Meganobz keeps the opponent under pressure while three Big Meks, all with Shokk Attack Gunz, compete to see who can do the sickest long-ranged drive-bys out the side of a Battlewagon. With the Blood Axe trait providing Cover for the Battlewagons in the open it can be quite tricky for opposing big guns to blow them up before the Shokk Gunz take out their big toys in turn (subject, of course, to the will of the dice), and if the Kommandos are lurking in terrain the threat of Surprize! can make it pretty tricky for melee threats to bypass them. Sadly, that does mean that this list is another big casualty of the January legality turnover, as access to that Stratagem in particular is a big reason why you'd want to play Blood Axes, but perhaps the Deathskulls might be able to step up to the plate of delivering dakka when Arks arrives.

The Rest of the Best

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

• 3rd - Carter Leavh - Chaos Daemons: Monster Mash (Be'lakor, Bloodthirster, Shalaxi) with lots of Hellflayers as cheap board control, which is definitely something I think has been underutilised out of the book.
• 4th - Jon Sweet - Black Templars: A very crunchy Templars build with three Redemptors, a whole block of Assault Terminators and some Bladeguard. Also a dangerously heretical Inquisitor sneaking in for Warpcraft. Absolutely shameful.
• 5th - Zach Rochner - Creations of Bile: The Abaddon/Terminator/Possessed flavour of Bile, with a large unit of Warp Talons the main standout beyond that.
• 6th - Kyle Jackling - Votann: Greater Thurian League Goodstuff with a bit of everything, including a Land Fortress and a big Hearthguard squad.
• 7th - Joe Becker - Tau: A super-hefty Farsight build, packing a big Crisis Unit, a medium one, three Commanders (including Shadowsun in a Supreme Command) and the Nephilim-mandated Sun Sharks.
• 8th - Z Martin - Harlequins: Light Saedath backing the boats and Troupes with small shooting units (2x2 shooty Skyweavers, two solo Voidweavers).
• 9th - Robin Roberts - Genestealer Cult: Angry Twisted Helix with max Purestrains, lots of Transports to stage them in, and one big unit of lots of other toys (bikes, drill Acolytes, Ridgerunners, Metamorphs).
• 10th - Gabriel Rocheleau - Astra Militarum: A straightforward Born Soldiers build with Kasrkin, plasma Russes and a tooled-up Tank Commander, plus a pair of Ordnance Field Batteries to drop some indirect nastiness on enemies (a choice which gets quite a bit spicier as Armour of Contempt leaves).

Twisted Warp 2

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

James Marsden - Necrons - 1st Place

Hexmark Destroyer. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Final Round Matchup

100-51 vs. Aidan Brocklehurst - Adepta Sororitas.

Archetype

Shooty Eternal Expansionists

Why it's Interesting in 9th

You know them, you love them - the Eternal Expansionists have been a fixture of Nephilim, and James has been tearing up UK events with his particularly shooty spin on the archetype. Tomb Blades provide fantastic early objective play, the combination of Doom Scythes and Lokhusts means that most targets have to watch out, and the Skorpekh/Ophydian units can do some serious melee heavy lifting. It's very difficult to out-score this army if it starts the game strong, and packing in so much firepower and mobility ensures that it'll usually manage to do that - in this case resulting in an eye-watering 500/500 total victory points for James over the weekend. Obviously, the Faction trait and Secondaries here both take a nerf in Arks, but I strongly suspect that James will be at the forefront of deploying whatever the Dynasties field next.

The Rest of the Best

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

• 2nd - Dom Maidlow - Harlequins: Light Saedath with all the toys - a big foot Troupe, one big Bike Squad, a Solitaire and a bunch of boats to fill.
• 3rd - Aidan Brocklehurst - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose with two big Sister units to maximise Vahl's buff capabilities.
• 4th - Tom Lowman - Genestealer Cult: Industrial Cult with two big Bike units, lots of Neophytes, the standard Proficient Planning troubleshooting tools (Ridgerunners and Purestrains) and a bit of extra Psychic spice in the character block.
• 5th - Alex Chancellor - Orks: A lot of the standard Goff Pressure tools, only as Deathskullz to add ObSec pressure when the Kommandos and Stormboyz check in.
• 6th - Ben Piddington - Tau: Tau Sept with a lot of Hammerhead hulls and a big Crisis brick alongside Sun Sharks.
• 7th - Ken Chambers - Tau: Bor'kan Sept with a pair each of Riptides and Sun Sharks and a big Crisis bomb.

Hammer In The New Year

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

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tide of Conviction

Philip Marquis - Creations of Bile: No Abaddon in sight, just a bumper crop of threats, including three units of Possessed, a big brick of Chosen and some nasty Characters.



vs.

Matt Schuchman - Craftworlds: Ulthwe with the Avatar and a full trio of Falcons, providing the option for a very light deployment when needed, and keeping the opponent guessing.

Thoughts

I am extremely in love with the Avatar at the moment, and matchups like this are a big part of why. As Chaos Space Marine lists go, this is a very challenging one for the normal Eldar plan, because it has lots of units that are slightly too hard for the space elves to reliably pick off in one go, and everything that tries will likely pay for it. It's not that the Eldar can't do some damage, and indeed Chaos don't have much that's going to take the Falcons out here, but under normal circumstances there would be a risk of the Aeldari just getting rushed down before they could do enough. Using the Avatar with Will of Asuryan up and Baharroth (with some backup helping the latter), it becomes much more feasible for the Asuryani to keep a solid hold on the objectives near them while they rack up some ranged kills, and given they have also have a slightly safer passive scoring plan at that point (Banners/Interrogation/No Prisoners), a matchup that might be very uphill otherwise becomes pretty even.

Not, of course, that it's a sure thing. Tides lets the Avatar threaten quite a lot of objectives at once, but he can't be everywhere at all times, and Chaos have great tools here. Basically any time a Bile unit and a Craftworld unit that isn't the Avatar connect with one another that's good news for the Chaos Space Marines, allowing them to play a very muscular game to try and overturn this plan. They've also got a dedicated Baharroth hunter in the form of the Ghollax/Death Hex Daemon Prince, making it a bit harder to secure the non-Avatar objective. I think there's a solid argument that you put caution to the wind here and try to just bull rush the Eldar - the Chaos Secondary game is probably worse here, and the normal reason you don't rush Eldar (horrendous counterattacks) doesn't apply as much with this build - there's no full unit of either Hawks or Avengers to pick up Guide and go absolutely wild, and the Banshees might take something down, but will barely trade up at best. Punch the elves in the face, is what I'm saying.

I'm guessing that was tried, as this ran pretty close, but it looks like the Avatar's ability to really change up a game pulled the Asuryani through here.

Result

Craftworlds Victory - 79-65

Matt Schuchman - Craftworlds - 1st Place

Avatar of Khaine. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Ulthwe Avatar

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Yes, yes, this, I'm making the chef kiss gesture, more of this sort of thing. Love the Avatar, and had in fact been wondering about taking some Falcons out alongside him in some of my early Arks build, so Matt pulling off a win here is music to my ears. Very good at hiding its threats out the gate, as it really only has to conceal the Avatar and a bunch of Characters, great alpha strike potential thanks to the Falcons, and a lot of damage up close. Hoping to see the Avatar on tables a lot more in Arks now that you can build lists like this with access to more CP!

The Rest of the Best

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

• 2nd - Steven Page - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with two Transcendant C'tan backing up the Silent King.
• 3rd - Chris Kieschnik - Blood Angels: Blood Angels with Sanguinary Guard and a big unit of Assault Centurions as a central hammer blow. Assault Centurions coming out of (free) Strategic Reserves feels like a plausible thing Blood Angels could use in Arks, and this list gets plenty of free inferno pistols going forwards as well.
• 4th - Philip Marquis - Creations of Bile: Creations on the plan of not taking Abaddon and packing in loads more stuff instead, including 3x5 Possessed, a big brick of Chosen and some Bikers, plus some nasty tooled-up Characters. I thinkin the theoretical world where Bile stays good in the new metagame it probably looks more like this than the Abaddon builds - we shall see.
• 5th - Scott Horras - Astra Militarum: After two-and-a-half years of patiently waiting, our boy Scott finally gets to unleash the true might of the Astra Militarum, going for Kasrkin, plasma Russes, an ultra-tooled Tank Commander and a full Bullgryn brick to provide a bit of melee crunch.

Wrap Up

Thus ends our first episode of 2023. What will the year hold? Is it Iron Hands again? It probably is huh? We'll know soon enough.

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