Welcome back to part 2 of Competitive Innovations, where I (Wings) am once more in control, having mostly recovered from Nurgle giving me a bit of a once over earlier in the week. Big thanks to Tom for holding the fort on Wednesday, covering some results that showcased how strong Daemons continue to look in the new metagame. Forces loyal to the Emperor have not been idle however, and today as we turn our eyes to Texas and more, the big guns of the Astra Militarum are front and centre.

Today we're looking at:

• Heroic Scale Gamers Houston Open
• The Pecking Order: Peeps of War GT
• Charicon II 2023 40k

If you're looking for any of the following events, take a look at Wednesday's part 1:

• Melee at Shiloh (major)
• Renegades Open: Echoes Of War 5
• Wheat City Open 2023
• Team Battle Brothers 40k GT

We were originally going to have one showdown today, Chaos Knights vs. Astra Militarum at The Pecking Order, but disaster has struck - I was informed that this was actually not the top table in the event, that honour belonging to the game featuring the other undefeated player. However, the Goonhammer Patrons had already voted, and we have a strict policy here about not trying to overthrow democracies, so the only remedy available is for me to cover both showdowns from this event. I'm sure you're distraught. Onwards!

Heroic Scale Gamers Houston Open

50-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Houston, TX US on February 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Nathaniel Bjorge - Astra Militarum - 1st Place

Scout Sentinel. Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

91 - 76 Victory against Brad Townsend - Grey Knights.

Thoughts

Yeah, so the big news this week is that all Guard players not named Dan Sammons have finally caught up with the fact that you can just put lots of cost efficient guns down as Born Soldiers and fully body people off the board - with quite a few different options for just what those guns might be. Nathaniel's list chooses to forgo Kasrkin or Troops in favour of presenting an all-hull target profile (most of the time) and packing in some extra indirect fire from full Heavy Quad Launcher and Earthshaker batteries. Once more proving that normalising Forge World in competitive play was a mistake, these provide masses more Orderable indirect killing power in a single unit than anything in the actual Codex, and the Quad Launchers are a particularly good places to drop Ursula Creed's strength buff. This makes the list even better at sweeping opponents off the table than the usual Guard fare, and also well prepared for facing down other guard lists relying on hiding Kasrkin then launching them out for massive damage. To tackle this you need fast melee tagging capability, and it would appear that no one was able to muster enough of it to take the guard down.

Also notable are the multiple triple Sentinel Units, which as we flagged in our review are a very good place to stack buffs thanks to having all the Keywords, and being able to use Maverick Maneuvres to operate a squad with relative impunity gives this list even more ways to rack up damage without taking anything in return. There definitely are ways you can tech against this, but it's an incredibly effective use of the tools available in the book, and building with an eye on the mirror when you're playing a top codex is always a smart thing to do. Well done to Nathaniel.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Carmine Battista - Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers Goodstuff on the standard Russ/Mortar/Karkin/Character plan.
• 3rd - Connor Myers - Astra Militarum: Born Soldiers with a wider variety of toys - adds a big Sentinel unit for Fire and Fade fun, and a unit of Bullgryn as a countercharge threat (certainly a lot more appealing now Armour of Contempt is gone).
• 4th - Russell Tassin - Black Legion: The one heroic non-guard player in the 5+ wins bracket, Black Legion mastermind Russell made full use of the power of the Abaddon/Rubricae combo to incinerate the opposition, backing them with Bikers, Decimators and Legionnaires.

The Pecking Order: Peeps of War GT

50-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Olympia, Washington US on February 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

As mentioned, we're in full on multiball madness here, covering both the top tables from the final round.

The First Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Secure Missing Artefacts

Jason Byrd - Chaos Knights: A tanked-up Desecrator and lots of dogs, all as Herpetrax.

vs.

Hank Adams - Astra Militarum: Quality hulls over quanitity here - a pair of Rogal Dorns and a Tank Commander, plus supporting Infantry, Barbicant Kasrkin, and two squads of Bullgryn for counter-charge.

Thoughts

So like, obviously the conventional concern for any sort of Knight list playing into guard is that you just get shot straight off the table. That's certainly a possibility here, but it very much could be worst. The guard have some fantastic guns, but they are at least on only a few platforms, which tends to increase the chance of some mild dice swings causing shots to be wasted or narrowly miss a kill. It also makes any failed leadership test against Gheist Storm really bad news, as sure a War Dog might die, but plenty of bullets are getting wasted Lots of Dogs is also what you want for the game, because at least you can hide them.

If the guard list was fully tilted towards guns, I think that might inform a workable strategy here - dump the big Knight into strat reserves, along with two dogs (plus the Warp Borne Stalker), do your level best to hide everything else out the gate, do almost nothing on turn one other than maybe score the mission primary and 4VP for a home objective, then switch on Geist Storm and rock in full force turn 2, trying to overwhelm the guard.

Two main issues with that - one, this Guard list has plenty of Infantry to screen, meaning in the very best case you're still likely soaking up a full turn of shooting after you press go, and two the Bullgryn are enough of a speed bump that you probably won't have time to pull back into the game after launching that plan. Their -1D on 3W models is genuinely huge here, as it means that one Stalker is only going to go through two models at best, forcing either a heavy commitment (risking a devastating counterpunch) or slowing down Chaos's attempt to get into the game. The Bullgryn even have some chance of doing a bit of damage in return, but that doesn't massively matter - for Chaos to have a workable plan here (outside of "point S8 melta at the Dorns and high roll") they need to go through the Guard like a wildfire before they run away with scoring, and I'm pretty confident that the presence of the Bullgryn means that's almost impossible. The Chaos Knights did put up a respectable score, suggesting they did land on a plan that kept them operational for much of the game, but (likely for the reasons outlined above) couldn't stop the guard from scoring the big 100.

Result

Astra Militarum Victory - 100 - 78

The Other Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Secure Missing Artefacts

Linton Rowan - Space Wolves Successors: 30 Wulfen, Bobby G and a Big Tank. Elegant. sophisticated. Perfect.

vs.

Colin Sherman - Dark Angels: A full brick each of Deathwing Terminators and Black Knights, plus lots of Attack Bikes and powerful Characters.

Thoughts

Temporally, this may appear to be a battle between two great players on the top table of a tournament, but on the astral plane this is a cataclysmic struggle between the ego and id of Goonhammer - Dark Angels and Big Tank. Divining which is which is an exercise I leave to the reader.

The Dark Angels toys here are known quantities at this point - Deathwing very tough, Ravenwing very fast and shooty, Talonmasters a complete pain, you know the drill. The Wolf list, on the other hand, is hilariously out there, gambling that keeping an Astraeus in cover via a Space Wolves Librarian presents a durable enough shooting threat to force the opponent to commit, then rolling opponents with Wulfen. This rules, to be clear, peak 40k, and as we've discussed already this season, Wulfen are very notable as one of the few units that seriously threaten to just detonate Deathwing if they connect, and that's even more true when they're Whirlwind and there are ten of them per unit, so the Dark Angels do have to tread a little carefully here.

That said, the Wolves don't have this super easy either. There are enough multi-melta shots in the Dark Angels army that the Astraeus just isn't going to tank them forever unless it gets extremely lucky, and while its Void Shields probably buy it a turn of survival, beyond that the Wulfen are going to have to get involved. This mission also poses a serious problem for the Wolves if the Dark Angels get to move the first objective - if they can safely position one just outside their deployment zone for Stubborn Defiance then they've got an excellent passive scoring plan in Defiance/Oaths/Banners that forces the Wolves to take the initiative, which they just don't want to be doing on a corner deployment mission where they've got a very limited number of units. The Dark Angels have plenty of stuff that can gun Wulfen down when they commit, and it's going to be really hard to get enough value from each unit before they die, especially if they're scrambling to disrupt a passive scoring plan.

All that said, I do think the wolves have something of a shot as long as the Astraeus doesn't just instantly die - if it survives and takes out both the larger Attack Bike squads in response (not implausible) then suddenly it's an actual pain to finish off, and then if one of the Wulfen units can tear through the Deathwing as well...maybe. Once again, even going in on a viable plan to keep pace on damage, there's a spoiler unit ready to cause mischief in the Black Knights. Combat Squad these, and each unit of five becomes a very effective Wulfen hunting force, speedy enough to move into position, gun some down with plasma, then do enough damage in combat to remove them as a serious threat, even if they get hammered in response. Normally Black Knights are a bit dear to just trade away like that, but with so few units in the Wolf army, and corner deployment where the Angels have better passive scoring, all they need to do is disrupt the Wolves and the balance of probability is that they take the win. Once again, the underdog in the matchup put in a strong score, but the Dark Angels greater control over the flow of the game seems to have locked this one in (though I do wonder from them being at 90 if they went on the Stubborn Plan and the Wolves launched a powerful enough punch to disrupt at least a turn of it.

Result

Dark Angels Victory - 90-74

Hank Adams - Astra Militarum - 1st Place

Rogal Dorn. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Born Soldiers Goodstuff with Dorns

Thoughts

Waiter we ordered our tanks big, these are clearly medium.

Anyway Hank's 100pt win in the last round put him on top of the standings, and it's great to see the newest addition to the Astra Militarum arsenal making a splash here. It's also encouraging that Hank found success by branching out into Bullgryn rather than just spamming more Kasrkin or Russes. Worth saying that the Dorn does feel like it has some serious play against some other Guard players too, as if the opponent is mostly packing Plasma Russes then T9 (plus the ability to pop Ablative Plating) gives them some serious durability, while the Oppressor Cannon has no such qualms in response. Swings and roundabouts to this, of course, is that Dorns provide a very juicy target for opposing combo plays, so if your opponent has lots of Kasrkin lined up it can be a challenge, but at least here Hank's planned for that with counter-charge Bullgryn and plenty of Infantry to screen.  The Bullgryn are worth flagging as big winners from Armour of Contempt going away too - while storm shield Terminators are still an issue for them, they're a lot less blank against the plurality of Marine toys, making them far more appealing.

Big fan of this build, very well-rounded and good to see more datasheets in action in the wild. Well done Hank!

Colin Sherman - Dark Angels - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: PierreTheMime

The List

See other showdown.

Archetype

Dark Angels Deathwing & Ravenwing

Thoughts

Very much past the point where we need to explain why this is good. Deathwing super tough, Ravenwing super fast and shooty, Talonmasters plug any gaps in capability. Well done to Colin on an undefeated second-place run.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Torin Holmes - Orks: Goff pressure with lots of Nobz in Battlewagons and Kommandos.
• 4th - Jason Rider - Black Legion: The extreme power move of putting a Greater Brass Scorpion on the table, with two big blocks of bikers providing mobile board presence around it.
• 5th - Linton Rowan - Space Wolves Successors: See other showdown.
• 6th - JT Steiger - Votann: Classic Ymyr 2Fort.
• 7th - Timothy Grant - Genestealer Cults: Industrial Cult Neophyte/Bike spam with Purestrains and a Patriarch providing a dash of early pressure/counter-charge.
• 8th - Donald Plummer - Tau: Tau Sept Triptide with a big airfrag/plasma/CIB Crisis team backing them up, able to make use of Shadowsun and Longstrike's buffs to seriously threaten lurking Kasrkin or Aspect Warrior units.
• 9th - James Lee - Adeptus Custodes: Speedy Solar Watch with a mid-sized Custodian unit to hold the centre, then lots of Venatari and Bikes to swoop into the enemy lines.

Charicon II 2023 40k

All the lists for this event can be found in Down Under Pairings.

David Hodgetts - Iron Hands - 1st Place

Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Archetype

Iron Hands Hull Spam

Final Round Matchup

85-83 Victory vs Sam Whitt - Chaos Daemons

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Truly appalling quantities of dakka, and mounted on a whole bunch of hulls that are a pain to degrade piecemeal. Between Techmarines and the Iron Hands Chapter Tactic, opponents are going to have to overcommit to each target here to ensure they're fully eliminated, as even missing by a couple of wounds is quite likely to result in a fully operational unit shooting back. They're going to be getting blasted the whole time this is happening, and the firepower here is very broad in what it can target, maybe only struggling a little into something like the Rogal Dorn. Anything else? Blasted, and in terms of countering this it's another army where lots of melee tagging is going to be required. That plan still has to contend with Optimal Repulsion Doctrines, so unless the opponent has a way of scoring big passive points while hiding, they're going to have a rough ride pretty much whatever. The Daemon menace came close to stopping this in the final round, but even their Arks power wasn't quite enough to overwhelm the merciless efficiency of David's Hands - congratulations on the win.

The Best of the Rest

There were 4 more players on 4-1 or better, and I've also included the player in 6th as they got paired up from 3.5-0.5 in the final round, and had a very cool list.

• 2nd (undefeated with a draw) - Sean Sullivan - Votann: GTL Goodstuff with a single Land Fort and some Sagitaurs.
• 3rd - Chris Parkin - Blood Angels: Lots of Sanguinary Guard, but also some mid-field crunch via two squads of bolter Aggressors.
• 4th - Harry Bright - Adeptus Custodes: Emissaries with lots of Sagittarum and the full send option of a six-bike unit to stick Into The Darkness on.
• 5th - Aaron Wilson - Adeptus Mechanicus: Crunchy Mars with Cawl leading lots of Kataphrons and some Ironstriders, plus even more shooting from some Helverins.
• 6th - Sam Whitt - Chaos Daemons: A cool disciples of Belakor lis using lots of the mid-weight Daemons like Beasts of Nurgle and Fiends to play for wide board control, then Shadow Lord-buffed Flamers for big hits.

Wrap Up

Guard and Daemons eh? Arks sure has flipped the metagame from most of 9th on its head. Check back in next week to see if their dominance continues, and maybe keep an eye out for the first signs of World Eaters slamming into battle in some places.

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