It's a new year and after a brief Sanguinalia truce war has kicked back off on tournament tables across the globe, so we've got our first crop of results to talk about. While we're still a few weeks out from the exciting new Custodes and Genestealer Cults books going live, there's a new army on the scene in the form of the Crusher Stampede, and plenty of players refining existing builds ahead of LVO, so plenty to talk about.

Amidst all of this, I'm afraid there's no Lists of the Week section today - we're coming in hot in terms of number of events for the first weekend of the year and I'm still recovering from having two codex reviews to finalise last week! It will return next time.

A Quick Note: Clearly many players around the world are still recovering from seasonal overindulgence this week, because when going through armies for the Best of the Rest sections this week I have run into an unusually large number of list errors across quite a few events

The purpose of this column is to be positive community spotlight, so I'm not here to start doing callouts, and the main reason I'm adding this note is so that fifty people in the comments don't feel the need to highlight these mistakes - yes, I spotted them, let's be nice and give everyone a start-of-year mulligan. That said, with the season's biggest event coming up soon, this is your reminder to check and check again that your diabolical master plans are actually legal, and if you think you've found a clever way around a limitation, maybe double check GW didn't think of it. To part the curtain a bit, when I spot a mistake in a list that's getting a full writeup I always try to follow up with TOs to check if it was fixed on the day, as mistakes often are, but the last thing I want is to end up being the bearer of bad news for someone who won an event with a list that later turns out not to work! Edit: to be clear as this has caused some confusion - for lists included in full in the article body if we can’t get a correction or response from a TO or player we will add a note if there’s an unresolved mistake as a last resort, as we don’t want people copying an illegal list. This statement was mostly added because of an unusual number of errors in Best of the Rest lists this week where it isn’t proportionate to chase them all down.

With that out the way, let's get into it, and if you need to refresh your memory on how some of the game's top builds function, make sure to check out the Archetypes page, fully updated over the Christmas break.

Glass City GT (Major)

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

Justin Curtis - Thousand Sons - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Time/Duplicity

Why it's Interesting in 9th

An auspicious start to the year for the forces of Tzeentch, which I guess makes sense for a god that controls fate, omens and other things of that nature. Justin smashes the first major of the year with a build that really leans into the gut punch capabilities the Codex gives you, and includes a new piece of tech to solidify early gains.

In terms of the gut punch, you've got the works here - a big squad of Scarab Occults that can be sent forward with the Umbralefic Crystal, pop a bunch of strats to hose stuff with gunfire, then tank pretty much any response, and they can be joined by a big warpflamer Rubric squad, able to either Risen Rubricae post-roll-off with Master Misinformator , just teleport across the table with Sorcerous Facade or ride the drill in a cagier game.

That puts the opponent under the gun straight away, and they're followed up by two big units of Spawn, which has been a pretty popular choice in this kind of list. They die easy unless you buff them, but they're extremely deadly in combat and very cheap for the volume of wounds they provide, making them an excellent second wave. What's new here is the big block of Thousand Sons cultists, which has popped up in a few lists this weekend. The secret here is that these are viable targets for Weaver of Fates, and once you drop a 4+ invulnerable save on that many bodies they're a huge pain to deal with, helping gum up the board durably while your forward units are doing mischief.

Add in a drill, and a few more units to control space, and you've got a super powerful combination - it hits hard and fast, but has the mobility, assets and durability to mix up its plans and play a long game as work. Excellent stuff from Justin to start the year.

Brenton Weiss - Adeptus Mechanicus - 2nd ✪ Place

Pteraxii Sterylizor. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Archetype

Mars Veteran Cohort

Why it's Interesting in 9th

After licking their wounds since the Balance Dataslate, AdMech have staged at least a modest comeback this weekend, with two undefeated runs (Brenton's here, and a GT win later on). Our first contender in that regard has stuck with the Mars Veteran Cohort option, combining the deadly, hyper reliable shooting of Canticle/Mars-buffed Ironstriders with two big bricks of Rangers that can both flense many targets with a volley of radium shots and take a pretty hefty punch in return.

Those provide the core of the army, and surrounding them are a whole host of units designed to control the board and counter opposing attemtps to pull ahead via objective play. Now that most lists are down several hundred points, AdMech can't just bring lots of alpha melee units as well as the core shooting stuff, but the buffs available via the Veteran Cohort mean that all these small squads are hyper mobile and can be amped up to punch above their weight on demand. Given that many opponents are still going to lose a shooting match to the solid core here, having all these tools to lock in Secondaries and funnel the opponent into a central confrontation is still enormously powerful, and the sheer number of units this army can start up the table means it can opt for a large number of disruptive charges if the matchup calls for it as well.

Weird though it feels to say it, I'm very glad to see this list doing well - AdMech got hit hard, but it's clear that in skilled hands and with the right builds the army still has what it takes to really perform, just with builds that are rather more interesting to play against than the old ones. A great showcase of what the faction can still do from Brenton.

Manik Gudimani - Tyranids - 3rd Place

Dimachaeron. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Crusher Stampede

Why it's Interesting in 9th

The Crusher Stampede does, in fact, turn out to be a real contender, with a huge number of strong performances over the weekend, and Manik's list showcases a lot of the tools that go into the best builds.

First up, on the boring side of things, 3x3 Tyranid Warriors for cheap ObSec and Bioweapon Bond appears to be a lock - you need something that can just chill out on objectives and perform Actions, and they're often joined by Lictors and/or Raveners to help out. A Malanthrope to shield everything early on often rounds out what we shall be referring to as the boring bits (sporting the Neural Lobe because this army wants all the CP it can get), and then it's on to the good stuff.

Monster-wise, this list goes in on three Dimachaerons, not massively surprising as they're one of the most eye-watering users of Thunderous Impact, and they're joined by a Flyrant that's pretty much as nasty thanks to Murderous Sized Scything Talons combined with Rampaging Beast, and also provides another hard-to-dodge deployment mechanishm for Breaking Through, one of the rudest Mortal Wound stratagems in the game. This monster likely wants to let the Dimas make the first charge, as it's also carting around Swarm Leader to turn the Hive Guard into hyper-reliable ranged threats when they double shoot, providing a way to dig out any enemies that flee the initial onslaught and spike tanks lying in wait to try ang kill the monsters.

Last up on the monster front we have the Swarmlord, an obvious choice as he can hurry the big threats into combat, and a Stone Crusher Carnifex. This last guy is a popular choice across these lists - because he doubles extra attacks he's an ideal target for Aggressive Surge, letting him sweep through mid-quality infantry (and he's also small enough to pop Unbreakable Chitin). The synergies here are really good, making the Carnifex a neat way to get an extra threat into these builds at a bargain price.

So how does it play? Brutally - the monsters here are all incredibly hard to shift thanks to damage reduction and the strats they have access to, and with Swarmlord and Onslaught support you can get some of them up the field and into battle extremely quickly, and Hive Guard can inflict terrible damage while the opponent is on the back foot. The list also has access to the powerful Leviathan stratagems, allowing it to send the Hive Guard even further to the moon with Relentless Flurry, and providing emergency ObSec with Hive Mind Imperative. The list is maybe a little weaker on the Secondary front, but even there the Lictors provide pretty good support right now - just be aware that the current suite of objective tools become quite a bit less good with the switch to Retrieve Nachmund Data in the new secondaries, and it will be interesting to see exactly how well the army manages to hold up when the new pack arrives.

Right now, however, is prime monster time, so congratulations to Manik for one of the strongest performances with the list.

Tom Ogden - Black Templars - 4th ✪ Place

Primaris Crusaders. Credit: SRM

The List

Archetype

Black Templars

Why it's Interesting in 9th

With the Crusher Stampede bursting onto the scene it very much continues to be Big Boy Season, and the metagame is rich with targets for high quality melta death. Enter from stage left the Black Templars. This list isn't massively complicated, but it's extremely good at what it does - fill the mid-table with buffed up, extra durable bodies thanks to Grimaldus and the Aurelian Shroud, then grind up anything numerous with chainsword attacks and spike bigger targets with melta weaponry. Bringing a mostly free 5+ invulnerable save and one of the best Chapter Masters around to the table makes Templars a fantastic place to utilise Attack Bikes and Eradicators, and the fact that they're incentivised to include an Apothecary for Combat Revival makes that even more appealing. That stratagem is especially brutal when it's used to review a model carrying a Relic Bearers upgrade like the Crux Obsidian plus Champion of the Feast. With care, the Eradicators can also sometimes use Devout Push to conceal themselves after shooting, another reason they're great in Templars.

The other spicy inclusion here is the Judiciar, who's been enjoying a mild renaissance recently after being on break for a while. He's still a very cheap and cheerful character, and carrying the threat of Fight Last around is handy if a whole horde of Marines need to gank something. Here he's also a good model to sacrifice in an emergency with For the Emperor's Honour, and enjoys the free invuln from Uphold if he gets caught by shooting.

That's about the size of it, and this list's excellent performance really hammers home that the Templars mean business, with excellent tools to support a wide range of units. Well done to Tom for showing that it's not just Redemptor Dreadnoughts that make this Chapter great.

The Rest of the Best

Eight more players finished on 4-1 records. They were:

• 5th - Brad Chester - Aeldari: After valiant pre-Christmas efforts with pure Craftworlds, Brad appears to have pivoted to the more reliable Craftworld/Harlequin combo, bringing some Soaring Spite boats along for board control, but keeps some unique spice like Swooping Hawks, a minimal Skyrunner Conclave for landing long-bomb Jinx, and a Solitaire.
• 6th - Nathan Mckenney - Adeptus Custodes: A last pre-codex ride for the Shadowkeepers, featuring two large mobile threats from Venatari and a big Bike unit then a Telemon to anchor the backfield.
• 7th - Randy Brigham - Orks: The standard Evil Sunz/Freebooterz Speed Mob setup.
• 8th ✪ - Brandon Vallee - Space Wolves: Wolf Guard and Long Fangs galore in this Successors list, bringing not only a Drop Pod filled with the latter but also starting a unit with a tooled up Wolf Guard Pack Leader on the board. Mobile characters and some Troops round things out for a very mobile, very threatening, infantry-heavy build.
• 9th - Eric Gibbs - Disciples of Be'lakor: Be'lakor leads a whole host of Bloodletters to war, relying on Locus of Shadows to massively boost their stickiness as they carve through the opposition.
• 10th - Matthew Tarantine - Adepta Sororitas: A spicy list here, mixing up Bloody Rose and Valorous Heart. Eschews Repentia to max out on Sacresants (two units in BR, one to tank as Valorous Heart) and brings tonnes of Retributors in transports for shooting support, along with the competitive debut of Novitiates adding a nice number of ObSec bodies who can pack a bit of a punch thanks to Bloody Rose support.
• 11th - Scott Ferguson - Dark Angels: Melta attack bikes for days, ready to attack all the hefty targets in the metagame, with a small wall of Deathwing Terminators standing in front. Support characters and bodyguards round the whole thing out.
• 12th - Anthony Hilla - Adeptus Custodes: Triple Telemon Shadowkeepers.

Da Bolton Waaagh

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

Henry Bearne - Drukhari - 1st Place

Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Talos Drukhari

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Drukhari continue to be the faction to beat, and this week Henry has picked up the baton and earned the first event win for the army of the year. To achieve that, he's gone for maximum heft, sporting a mighty eight Talos in the standard issue heat lance/gauntlet/injector configuration, a whole host of Grotesques and Wracks to round stuff out. That creates a build that can carpet the table in wounds, with even the Wracks benefitting heavily from damage reduction in a world with lots of D2 shots thanks to their 5+ ignore wounds, adding durable ObSec on top of all the other nastiness.

That doesn't leave a massive amount of space for anything else, but the list does still squeeze in some more nastiness, notably a murder Succubus to clear out elite infantry and enemy monsters, and a Venom to allow for quick delivery of the Animus Vitae when required. The army that results isn't especially complicated, but it's incredibly durable and capable of throwing a tonne of nasty punches, and is the number one build you need a real plan for in the current metagame. Congratulations to Henry on the win.

The Rest of the Best

Seven players finished on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Michael Armer - Adeptus Custodes: Triple Telemon Shadowkeepers.
• 3rd ✪ - Keith Wilkinson - Grey Knights: Prescient Brethren Dreadknights and Interceptors.
• 4th - Ben Taylor - Ultramarine Successors: A mashup of Minotaurs and the Iron Hands Dreadnought builds, but run as Ultramarine Successors instead for access to Rapid Redeployment and the Seal of Oath.
• 5th - Markus Hinson - Imperium: House Raven and Metalica party down together, bringing dogs armed with Blaring Glory to shut the opponent's best toys down.
• 6th ✪ - Mike Porter - Chaos Knights: An iteration of the current popular Chaos choice of one big knight with the Khornate Target (here a Magaera) surrounded by tonnes of War Dogs built for reliability via traits.
• 7th - Jay Wood - Drukhari: Talos Drukhari, running in a Realspace Raid wth Test of Skill/Stimulant Innovators Hellions.
• 8th - Dan Fearis - Drukhari: Another Realspace Raid, but this one a much shootier Goodstuff build, featuring Ravagers and Trueborn.

Imps Gaming January GT

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

Mark Pilkington - Thousand Sons - 1st Place

Thousand Sons Aspiring Sorcerer. Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

Archetype

Time/Duplicity

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Tzeentch's inscrutable goals are furthered by Mark, providing the Thousand Sons with their second win of the week. His build is another Time/Duplicity combo (by far the most reliably strong way to play the army), but goes for the double Scarab option instead of the wider mix of tools Justin had. That gives the army slightly less flexibility, but it's initial gut punch of dropping two Terminator bricks on the enemy is even nastier, and can easily overwhelm some opponents. The list also has plenty of Rubricae to chill out around the mid- and back-fields, ensuring that even if a breakthrough does occur there's some stuff left to hold position while the CHARACTERs deal with it.

Speaking of Characters, one particularly nifty trick on show here is using Aetherstride on a Daemon Prince to get an extra cheap, extra flexible mobile Assassin. The Thousand Sons have quite a few tools for making one of these murderous, durable or tricksy, and being able to use a trait to speed one up without investing the extra points for wings is definitely a list-building flourish to keep in mind. Here the setup on the model isn't super complicated, but just self-buffing with Swelled By the Warp creates a genuinely nasty killer who can mosey around with the Terminators.

I'm delighted to see Thousand Sons starting the year strong as players really get to grips with how to get the most out of the book, as I'm a huge fan of the codex, so big a big well done (or a "just as planned", whatever Tzeentch players like) to Mark.

The Rest of the Best

Four more players finished on 5-1 records (no one entered the final round undefeated, hence no star):

• 2nd - Michael Baird-Parker - Adeptus Custodes: Standard all-rounder Shadowkeepers with a second, smaller unit of Venatari as a flex choice.
• 3rd - Matt Palmer - Tyranids: Another Crusher Stampede, following what looks to be the early template of the Swarmlord, a Hive Tyrant, 3x3 Warriors then a bumper crop of massive bugs in flex slots, usually some Dimachaerons or Hierodules. Here Dimachaerons are the choice, and are joined by some Raveners for objective play, a third Tyrant and my personal fave for Crusher nonsense the Mawloc - still not killy, but having one that can just manifest on an objective and count as 12 models rules.
•  4th - Thomas Hicks - Adeptus Custodes: Dread Host Dreadnought spam, seven of the things with some character backup and just a single unit of Venatari as a concession to infantry.
• 5th - Paul Bridge - Death Guard: Shooty-ish Mortarion's anvil, but cuts some of the normal toys to fit Mortarion himself in, enjoying his window post AdMech dominance and pre Railgun season.

Exterminatus IV: Wagga Wagga 40k Tournament

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. The top two players here were both on 4.5-0.5 and were the only players with that record, so I've included both.

Rowan Kennett - Tyranids - 1st Place

Credit: PierreTheMime

The List

Archetype

Crusher Stampede

Why it's Interesting in 9th

As with any good alien invasion movie, the Crusher Stampede has launched its onslaught all across the world, and has done particularly well in Australia. You would think players down under would know how to deal with gigantic, murderous bugs but apparently not.

Rowan's list is first up from Australia, and there's a reasonable amount of overlap in the tools here with the build we saw earlier, but also some new tricks. Rather than going all-in on a massive Triple Dimachaeron charge, this list can play a bit more of a balanced plan - it's got a Maleceptor to double-dip on defensive auras thanks to Encephalic Diffusion, and sports both a Barbed Hierodule and Tyrannofex to provide some more shooting support. That means that while this army isn't quite as brutal right out the gate, if it finds itself in a situation where it needs to soften up the opponent before launching a charge (maybe they have loads of Fight Last effects or something) it's more than capable of switching to a plan of exchanging firepower, especially as it still has the Hive Guard (here with Focal Essence) backing things up.

With such an intrinsically skewed list as the Crusher Stampede, I'm generally a fan of building that kind of flexibility in - fundamentally, if you come up against an army that just can't deal with the basic premise of the army you're still going to roll them with the tools here, but when you face something that does have a shot at counterplay then the broader tools are going to give you more ways to adapt. Adapting for victory is what Tyranids are all about, so well done to Rowan for extending the reach of the Hive Mind down under.

Josh McMillan - Adepta Sororitas - 2nd Place

Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

The Standout Features

• Maximum grindy power from the Valorous Heart and Martyred Lady

Why it's Interesting in 9th

It increasingly looks like you can combine pretty much any combination of Sisters orders and get a workable list, as this new pairing shows. This build is all about the grind - Valorous Heart Sacresants are extremely good at standing in one place and holding the line, especially with a Hospitalier to pick them back up, and anything that charges into them is quickly going to discover that they're far from harmless as well!

While the enemy breaks on that wall, the melta firepower that the Martyred Lady have brought to the table can spike the opponent's best targets, and if they commit their toys to try and spike you with shooting they're risking getting blown out by either Rejoice the Fallen or A Martyr's Duty. The Martyred Lady have also brought a slightly toned down version of the murder Canoness to the table - with Vahl about she can't go full sicko mode with Righteous Rage, but judicious use of miracle dice alongside the Blade of Sacrifice will still allow her to do some horrible stuff.

Really this list is just all-round nasty to try and deal with - everything about it leans towards making the opponent pay for every inch of progress against it, and it has plenty of units and models with which to lock in scoring for itself. Some excellent novelty from Josh.

The Rest of the Best

Three more players finished on 4-1 records. They were:

• 3rd - Hayden Ford - Adeptus Custodes: Shadowkeepers but not as we know it - no dreads, just a wall of Sagittarum units around Trajann and a Vexilla, with Venatari in support. This list honestly looks like it would rule with the new book for what it's worth - it's pretty much all upside for it.
• 4th - Richard Hill - Death Guard: Inexorable Daemon engines with Epidemius in support in a side-patrol.
• 5th - Liam Pendergast - Chaos Space Marines: Pure Word Bearers, which is an impressively bold move, featuring some tuned up herohammer characters, a big shooty Terminator blob, some Forge World dreadnoughts and a unit of Possessed in a drill for maximum Revered Hosts threat. Venomcrawlers and cultists fill things out as cheap ways to anchor the board.

Reaper Cup GT

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

Josh Engelke - Tyranids - 1st Place

Credit: PierreTheMime

The List

Archetype

Crusher Stampede

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Another Crusher Stampede triumph, this version going full bravery mode and passing on Hive Guard for maximum monstrosities. It's another build that's sporting a Barbed Hierodule for a bit of quality shooting, but it's fundamentally dependent on crushing the opponent underfoot at speed. That does not, in any way, seem to have held it back, with Josh handily dispatching all-comers to take a glorious victory for Hive Fleet Leviathan.

The Rest of the Best

Five more players finished 4-1. They were:

• 2nd - Nathan Meech - Death Guard: The big board control energy of the Terminus Est Assault Force, featuring 100 Poxwalkers, a full Blightlord bomb and Deathshrouds to taste.
• 3rd - Adam Napier - Drukhari: Talos Drukhari with some Ravagers in the back.
• 4th ✪ - Shane Condie - Tyranids: More Crusher Stampede, this one with a Harpy for the inescapable mortal wound headbutt of doom.
• 5th - Josh Pope - Tyranids:  Even more Crusher Stampede, this one extra brutal up close with a pair of Scythed Hierodules and sporting Hive Guard at range.
• 6th - Keiryn Magazin - Imperium: Robots galore, with Shadowkeepers dreadnoughts teaming up with a trioe of Dreadknights for just general all-round nastiness.

Tables and Towers January GT

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

Mark Hertel - Adeptus Mechanicus - 1st Place

Adeptus Mechanicus - Kastelan Robots and Cybernetica Datasmith
Credit: Pendulin

The List

Archetype

Mars/Lucius, but with Robots.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

It's a good week for the Adeptus Mechanicus, and here long-time faction expert Mark showcases a very different way of adapting to the Balance Dataslate. While as we've seen you can just run the good tools in smaller numbers and do well, amidst all the AdMech nerfs there was one buff - Kastelan Robots picked up a healthy ten point drop per model. Turns out that's more than enough to make them a genuinely good unit. Robots did see a tiny bit of successful experimentation just after the book launched before getting out-competed by Lucius hordes and various Mars Spam, but the various shakeups since then appear to have gotten them thoroughly over the line here.

That's at least partially because, of course, as Lucius you can bequeath CORE on them with a Cybernetica Datasmith and then use the Solar Flare to teleport them across the battlefield, ready to unleash an avalanche of brutal swings from their fists, and a very tough block to shift with the volume of wounds they have (plus Logi and the Solar Blessing). They make an enormously effective wedge to throw at the opponent - so how best to exploit that?

A heap of cheap Mars hulls, it turns out. Onagers and Skorpii both survived the Balance Dataslate unscathed, and both were already perfectly fine units with the Mars trait on them. Filling the table with these rather than lots of infantry means that the opponent can't just go round the robots and find squishy targets - almost nothing in this list dies easy, and the most obvious target for anti-horde fire (the Vanguard) can just go in a Legio Teleportarium until it's time to pop out to unleash Enriched Rounds. While most sensible players are packing plenty of anti-tank right now, this list is still non-trivial to try and shift, and has defensive Canticles/Doctrinas to bring online when needed. It's also got more than enough guns to spike down the enemy's best stuff, leaving the Mechanicus with superiority on the battlefield, allowing them to finish the job at their leisure.

Good stuff, overall. It's got a very different feel to the old dominant builds but plenty of power, and it's good to see that the Robot buff has had a real, meaningful impact (as they're extremely cool). Seeing Mark at the helm of an AdMech fightback isn't super surprising, but big congratulations anyway!

The Rest of the Best

Five players finished on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Troy Strootman - Drukhari: Talos/Cronos Drukhari with Hellions in support.
• 3rd - Ken Knox - Iron Hands: Actual Iron Hands with a whole bunch of Dreadnoughts and an Ironstoned Fire Raptor.
• 4th - Christopher Gosselin - Tyranids: Crusher Stampede with lots of Hive Guard, plus what appears to be at least a moderately popular trick of Stone-Crusher Carnifexes with Murderous Size for really nasty bio-flail swings.
• 5th - Edward Appel - Necrons: The Silent King rides to war at the head of two massive Nihilakh Warrior blocks, each with a Reanimator backing them up, ready to lumber up the board while the King and a Catacomb Command Barge score Code of Combat.
• 6th ✪ - TJ Lanigan - Thousand Sons:  Cult of Mutation and the Cult of Time combine to try and trap the opponent in a grindy net, with the standard Terminator brick joined by a bunch of guns and the new hot Thousand Sons trick of a big Cultist block to drop Weaver of Fates on.

Warhound GT

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

Ben Neal - Grey Knights - 1st Place

Grey Knights Nemesis Dreadknights. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Archetype

Dreadknights and Interceptors

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Another metagame heavyweight picks up a first win for the year, with the extreme power of the Dreadknight and Interceptor datasheets still ensuring Grey Knights are a bit part of the tournament scene. This build does mix a few things up for the new year, most notably bypassing the normal Prescient Brethren in favour of the Wardmakers, allowing the list to soup up the psychic murder Librarian to even greater heights than normal, and switch off auras when needed. In addition to this, the build sees the return of the falchion/Words of Power combo, which honestly might not be a bad call in a world with lots of damage reduction floating around (even more with the Crusher Stampede) - burying the opponent under D1 attacks and Mortals is a potent alternative, especially with Draigo around for full re-rolls.

Beyond that, it's business as usual - Interceptors and Dreadknights can take over the board very quickly and carve through anything that doesn't have damage reduction, and running the DKs as Swordbearers gives access to the best tools for ensuring you can focus fire one big target even when they do have extreme defences. Definitely interesting to see Words of Power back in play in the most successful GK build of the week, so well done to Ben for making a clearly pretty effective tech call.

The Rest of the Best

One player finished 4.5-0.5, and four more players finished on 4-1 records:

• 2nd - Matt Evans - Tyranids: Getting a thing on my earpiece, it's telling me that the Crusher Stampede is quite good. This build forgoes any Hive Guard, adding more shooting bugs in the form of Barbed Hierodules and Venom Cannon Harpies instead.
• 3rd - Davis Sturgeon - Tyranids: The most unique of the Crusher Stampedes on offer, going very polarised - a big unit of buffed up Tyranid Warriors at one end, and the Harridan, my nemesis, at the other. Add some Hive Guard and Hive Tyrants in between and it looks like you've got a list.
• 4th - Nicolas Wenker - Death Guard: Poxmongers with a big Ironclotted Blight Hauler brick and Mortarion providing two huge threats.
• 5th - Charles Metts - Drukhari: Talos Drukhari in a Realspace Raid.
• 6th ✪ - Evan Stump - Grey Knights: Extremely pure implementation of the Prescient/Swordbearers Dreadknight/Interceptor build.

New Years Knockout GT 2022

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

Tim Royers - Black Templars - 1st Place

Black Templars High Marshal Helbrecht. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

The Standout Features

Black Templars

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Another brutally direct spin on Black Templars, this one focusing on high quality pressure units to roll the enemy. A big block each of Terminators and Bladeguard, with one of the fancy Relic Bearers defences each, makes for a brutal push up the board with Apothecary backup, and the Redemptors in this list are more than happy to lumber up alongside them, blasting as they go. When the list impacts, they're accompanied by the Tannhauser's Bones Bike Chaplain, who can essentially no-sell the opponent's best melee character using For The Emperor's Honour, heavily skewing the fight in your favour. Further helping that is the return of a Black Templars classic - a Whirlwind to bombard the enemy with Suppression Fire, dropping Fight Last wherever it's needed most, and further stacking the odds in favour of the Marines.

There's a small squad of Eradicators for Devout Push sniping shenanigans, but beyond that and some troops that's mostly it - this is the Templars in their most brutal form, taking some of what were already the best Marine datasheets and pushing them up to 11 with upgrades, then running the opponent down. Great work from Tim.

The Rest of the Best

Five players finished on 4-1. They were:

• 2nd - John Indellicate - Tyranids: Crusher Stampede on Hierodules and Hive Guard.
• 3rd - Mark Cimmerian - Drukhari: Hellion spam, running the maximum 60 as Innovators/Test to open up the possibility of some true blowout turns, especially with the Animus Vitae/Never Stationary trick in the list too, and a single Cronos to enable Pain Syphon for grindier games.
• 4th ✪ - Geoffrey Hussar - Deathwatch: Kill Teams and Contemptors makes a comeback, with the standard speedy/cheap splits in the teams, and a trio of tooled up Volcons for murder purposes. Also features some Razorbacks as cheap ways to extend the durability of objective holding kill team halves while adding a few extra shots.
• 5th - Robert Bishop - Adepta Sororitas: Mostly Argent Shroud and sporting two Paragon Warsuit units to menace the enemy, with a smaller Bloody Rose detachment with a full block each of Zephyrim and Sacresants (plus a Dogmata to soup them up) providing objective play/brawling.
• 6th - Aaron Hermstedt - Death Guard: Blightlord bomb Mortarion's Anvil.

A Grimdark New Year GT

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

Seth Piper - Necrons - 1st Place

Szarekh, The Silent King. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Mephrit Silent King

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Seth returns with a slightly tuned version of the list he won an event with late last year, continuing to squeeze lots of value out of Mephrit Warriors in combination with the Silent King, and just generally enjoy CORE upgrades. The big change he's made since last time is to exchange the Lychguard brick for some more Wraiths, and that tracks from my testing - there are far too many things out there that can just evaporate ten Lychguard in a single swing, and when that happens you usually just lose. Wraiths bring you more wounds per point, and the speed to flex between going out hunting and counter attacking. With the Silent King providing lots of uses of My Will be Done plus wound re-rolls, they're also unusually deadly in this build.

All sensible Necron players are, of course, crossing their fingers for some love in Chapter Approved, but as Seth has shown here, there definitely are a few things you can do with the army now the CORE upgrade has been applied. Great stuff.

The Rest of the Best

Four players finished on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Andy Patton - Space Wolves Successors: Dreadnought Spam, going in on Redemptors, VolCons and Wulfen dreads.
• 3rd - Victor Aviles - Grey Knights: An outing for the surprisingly OK fringe option of a Swordbearer Storm Raven, with some Dreadknights, Interceptors and a large-ish Purifier squad backing it up.
• 4th - Jeremy Stan - Adeptus Custodes: Shadowkeepers with a couple of Telemons and a big Bike squad.
• 5th - Jon-michael Gordon - Orks: Goff pressure, with a whole bunch of angry melee units riding in a variety of Wagons, Trucks and a Kill Rig.

Wrap Up

One week down, a whole year ahead of us. We're kind of counting down to LVO now, but we've got back to back UK majors over the next few weeks as well (Twisted Warp and the Nottingham GT), so there will be plenty to watch as we build up to the ITC season finale. See you next week, and comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

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