The Balance Dataslate continues to have big impacts, with substantial shakeups to the list designs of the top factions and renewed challenges from other armies all on show at big events in the UK and US. The weekend also saw the finals of the GW roadshow take place in Dallas, which our team already took a look at in the preview on Friday and in Rob's live coverage over the course of the weekend (including Brad's last minute list change). The emerging picture is that Drukhari are once again the army to beat, albeit with substantial re-configurations to the lists, but there's a much broader set of challengers nipping at their heels and able to make a play for the top spots, and a poor matchup into Talos appears to be acting as a check on the extreme dominance of Grey Knights seen over the past few weeks. Still, the times are definitely a-changing, and we now also have more details of how the game is going to be shaken up when the new mission pack and secondaries arrive. It's an exciting time to be playing 40K and covering it, so let's dive right in.

As ever, lists that made it to the final round undefeated are marked with a ✪, except where the format makes that irrelevant.

Lists of the Week

This section highlights two lists from Best of the Rest sections that are particularly unusual or innovative. For this week, I've dipped down into the 4-1 bracket at the Leicester UKTC supermajor as well, for reasons that will become apparent.

Liam Hogwood - Adepta Sororitas - Hobart GT - 2nd Place

Credit: Evan "Felime" Siefring

The List

The Standout Features

• High durability Sisters put up another strong result.
• Combining Warsuits, Immolators (with Argent Shroud re-rolls) and Penitent Engines creates something that's more than the sum of its parts thanks to the opponent having nowhere good to shoot.
• Extra tough Sacresants and Vahl can lock down an objective.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Sisters continue to have a lot of viable directions to go with their army, and while mixing the Bloody Rose with either the Ebon Chalice or Argent Shroud for a mix of ranged and melee trade pieces is the default, it isn't your only option as this list shows. By taking various units that are slightly underwhelming in isolation (notably Immolators and Warsuits) and stacking them up into a build where almost everything is a pain to kill you can suddenly saturate the opponent with durable targets while sporting enough melta weaponry of your own that you can quickly strip away enemy big guns. That leaves you in a position to roll them over with Penitent Engines and Warsuits, which is going to be pretty rough to deal with if the opposing list no longer has the right answers.

Add in an AP-reducing Sacresant unit who can park themselves somewhere with Bodyguarded Vahl in tow for board control and a pesty melee Canoness to spring on opponents at the worst moment and you have something that plays very differently to the Sisters standard, and shows off some of their cooler toys to boot - so if you're picking up the Christmas box and want to know how to make use of your fancy new Immolator, this certainly gives you a place to start. Excitingly different from Liam here.

Kyle Grundy - Tau Empire - UKTC Leicester GT - 17th Place

Joe Tau Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

The Standout Features

• A precision combo of damage dealing and board control that made a real play for a top spot at Leicester.
• Remoras, Stealth Suits and plenty of single drones put Engage on lockdown.
• Missile Commander, Crisis Bomb and Ion Riptide provide the best durability/threat balance available.
• Challenging To the Last setup for many opponents.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

It's a Tau list, and it got all the way to round five undefeated, only losing to the eventual champion (whose list we'll see in a moment). In the harsh, harsh world that Tau have been living in with 9th Edition, that's interesting all by itself, as save for one impressive finish from Richard Siegler, the faction has been squarely on the back foot all the way through.

The UK's own Tau expert Kyle has been doing his best to buck that trend, and this finish at Leicester is one of his strongest performances yet, using a build pretty similar to what Siegler took to Atlantic city, but with a twist in the board control units used. This list aims to squeeze the most value possible out of what the faction has to offer in order to mitigate their key weakness, which is that they're poor when operating up-close. The aggressive Farsight Enclaves are the obvious choice to mitigate that, combinging bonuses when fighting in a close engagement with access to two uses of Mont'ka to pull key shooting units out of melee without penalty. They also grant access to some crucial stratagems, with Veteran Cadre and Defence in Numbers maximising the efficiency of the Crisis Bodyguard unit, and Focused Fury turning the missile Commander into a full-blown killer in his own right. Add in the ability to take a Battalion with the two Commanders you want and not having to bother with any other characters, and it's a very obvious choice.

That's the Sept choice - let's talk about the threats, of which there are essentially three key ones (plus Farsight for some desperate extra melee). The Commander has already been mentioned, but will be an enormous thorn in the opponent's side as the clip of damage they provide is very reliable, and it'll be a long time into the game before they're shootable in most games. The Amplified Ion Riptide is next up, chosen both because the gun is pretty spectacular and because it fits the list's plan of having threats be both durable and deadly - because the special Ion doesn't need to be Nova Charged, the Riptide can sit on a 3+ invulnerable save all game (and there was plenty of terrain to hide one till this went online at the LCGT), enough to give even the most lethal builds pause. The big shots from the Ion also provide a source of very high damage hits to help punch through damage reduction, which is pretty crucial right now.

Finally, we have the Crisis Team, with every possible ablative defence stacked on them, missile pods with ATS for broad offence, and honestly not too shabby in melee - they can switch on full hit and wound re-rolls with Sworn Protectors and their ATS work in melee as well, so while they obviously don't want to be fighting the opponent's best stuff, they're more than capable of putting a bit of hurt on some mid-tier targets. Ranged warfare is obviously their preference though, where they can combine max markerlights from Coordinated Engagement with Command and Control Node from Farsight (who isn't doing much else in shooting) to blow a chosen target to bits, and being able to do that without having loads of markerlights in the list is obviously very useful. That's a general feature here - there are a small number of marker drones seeded around, but the list is never relying on landing one, even able to lean on the Farsight detachment bonus and Aerial Targeting to fire the Remoras missiles without using a hit from elsewhere. Tau just don't have the space to pack markerlights and things they want to use with them right now, so avoiding this is very potent. The other thing to call out about this trio of threats is that they're also the army's To the Last targets, and having that on stuff that's this much of a pain to take off the table is obviously strong.

Secondary-wise, that's augmented by the list being extremely capable on several other fronts. Lots of single Drone units plus stealth suits mean that Engage should be an almost automatic 15, and the presence of Stealth Suits and plenty of Breachers means that ROD is often going to be feasible as well. The Stealth Suits are one of the major ways in which Kyle's build differs from the Siegler iteration of Enclaves, and definitely help with this - being able to pull off a non-home ROD turn one generally smooths things over considerably, and the current UKTC terrain maps are pretty favourable to scout deployment. They're also ready to leap on any other Action objective required, or to just chill out in a far corner being a pain to remove - all sorts of cool stuff.

Tau are, finally, getting a reprieve fairly soon so that's probably enough of a deep dive into what this list does, but its success in Kyle's hands should hopefully provide an inspiration for anyone still trying to spread the good word of the Greater Good over the next few months till that happens - it's got reliable scoring, reasonably broad damage capabilities and isn't afraid to get a bit more close and personal than the Tau average - a potent combination.

UKTC Leicester City GT (supermajor)

All the lists for this event are in Best Coast Pairings. I've extended the top four to a top six here, because two players who placed in the top four after the swiss couldn't stay for rounds 6 and 7, so dropped down a few place to create the top four.

Brian Seipp - Orks - 1st Place

Ork Beastboss on Squigosaur. Credit: Magos Sockbert

The List

Archetype

Freebooterz

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Freebooter - they're still good folks. The impact of the army construction restrictions on them is definitely real, and this list looks far more fun to play against than the old four plane, many Squigbuggy builds, but as Brian has demonstrated at Leicester they've still got the chops to take down a big event.

His version of the list starts off with what's been the pretty standard pivot for Freebooterz, which is to go for two Blastajets and a trio each of Scrapjets and Rukkatrukks - not too surprising, as these are the best in class options for planes and buggies respectively. From there, however, there's a bit more variety in what armies are using, and Brian's choices look especially effective. To help face down lists that can dominate the mid-board, Kustom Boosta Blastas and a Squigboss tuned for monster hunting provide some great close support, with the Boosta Blastas also providing a tool to punish the opponent for pushing forward chaff - they can evaporate it with their flamers and turn on the Freebooter bonus for the rest of the list. The rivet cannon is also perfectly statted for going after Dreadknights at S7 AP-2.

At the other end of the spectrum, the list packs an especially large unit of Deffkoptas, which helps shore up the mirror match, and to push damage against targets with damage reduction. Against high reach and threat armies like other Orks or Iron Hands, being able to hold back this much dakka (especially at S8) is exceptionally valuable, and Koptas are becoming an ever more common sight thanks to this.

Backing up the dakka you've got the usual Freebooterz supporting cast - a Big Mek to provide a forcefield, Kommandos and Stormboyz to use Get Da Loot and play for objectives, and a Badskull Banner Wartrike to shut down opposing Primary scoring. The use of Killa Reputation on the Trike is unusual, but can certainly have an impact as well - it can be particular nerve wracking for opponents using Courts of the Archon to deal with, as that unit's unusually poor leadership can become a real achilles heel in the face of this, while also increasing the chance of pulling off the odd bit of chip attrition elsewhere.

So there we have it - Freebooterz take down the second post-Balance dataslate supermajor. Congratulations to Brian (who is also a great guy, having had a chance to meet him over the weekend) on the huge win!

Boris Michev - Drukhari - 2nd Place

Credit: Wings

The List

Archetype

Drukhari goodstuff, but not quite as we know it.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

With the majority of Drukhari players switching over to Talos, I think few would have predicted a goodstuff build would emerge from Leicester as the top-ranked list from the faction, but given it's former former LVO top-eight contender Boris at the helm of this powerful army, perhaps that isn't surprising.

In addition to having an excellent general in command, this build does also substantially shake up the formula for goodstuff lists. The most obviously eye-catching aspect of that is in the Troops choices, with Artists of the Flesh Wracks being chosen as the favoured option- and in fact being valued so highly that the army forgoes access to Cult of Strife stratagems in favour of getting more of them. The reason for doing that is that these 65pt units are absurdly flexible, and unlike other Drukhari Troops don't need a mandatory Raider to be able to contribute to the game.. Liquifier guns, it turns out, are still kind of fine at putting damage onto a broad variety of targets, with enough AP to ensure they're never really dead, and will be a consistent source of gradual attrition as long as they're not dealt with (especially in a metagame where there's lots of damage reduction about). In melee, the Acothyst's electrocorrosive whip allows some serious damage to be done to opposing infantry and monsters, and that threat combines with potential overwatch from the liquifiers to make these great in mirror matches, as it just isn't safe for flimsy trade pieces to engage them. Finally, damage reduction turns out to be surprisingly relevant in a metagame full of D2 weaponry, as it means that the 5+ ignore wounds the Wracks sport is relevant far more of the time, keeping their ObSec bodies on the table for longer. Drukhari goodstuff lists do, generally, have fewer units to work with now, so getting more value out of the models they do have is extremely useful.

The Wracks are pretty good at most things, but what they aren't good at is dealing with enemy tanks, and that's where the other big new feature of this army comes in - a pair of Ravegers. These were very nearly good enough at 140pts, seeing occasional use as a one-of, but coming down to 130 while Raiders have gone up and there are fewer lists that will just instantly waste them 100% of the time makes them even more appealing. Being able to play with ranges a lot more than Trueborn boats can is just the cherry on top, and these look real good now.

Beyond that, its a lot of the old favourites, albeit in smaller numbers - you've got Incubi, you've got Hellions, Mandrakes handle early screening and a trio of nasty Characters and a tough Court (with a Lhamean to deal with the aforementioned morale issues) rounds things out - you know what this stuff does. Putting all those classics on top of an Infantry core that lets you shave points by cutting transports helps to really bring the Goodstuff archectype into the new era, so congratulations to Boris for leading the way on that.

John King - Dark Angels - 3rd Place

Dark Angels. Credit: Greg Chiasson

The List

Archetype

Deathwing

Why it's Interesting in 9th

The story of Dark Angels in 9th is one of being cruelly denied - their book landed and looked incredible, and was then immediately followed by Drukhari and AdMech. Tough break there, but with the top lists taken down a peg it would appear that there may be a window for the Unforgiven to finally spread their wings.

This list is delightfully uncomplicated, but no less powerful for it - just forty grim slabs of muscle clad in bone armour and a supporting cast of strong buff characters to keep them fully operational. This army wants to occupy the mid-board, then sit their grinding the opponent out of the game, and has brought the tools to help do so. On top of the already considerable durability of perma-Transhuman Terminators, the Pennant of Remembrance protects whatever unit is at the tip of the spear from incoming damage, and the army can also slam into combat that much more quickly thanks to the Decisive Tactician trait. Once battle is joined, in any sort of extended fight the presence of the Honour Vehemat plus Ezekiel's aura will ensure that the Deathwing have the upper hand, and a Ravenwing Apothecary can shore up the lines wherever models start falling. Woe betide Grey Knights or vehicle-heavy Orks trying to face down all the chainfists too!

In short, it's everything you'd expect from the Deathwing, but while they've always been able to put this list on the table, the changes in the metagame definitely help them. Orks being forced to keep their best buggies in units is great news for this list, as it helps prevent it getting outmaneuvred and increases the damage dealt each time one of the squads managed to connect. Ruststalker bombs being a far smaller part of the metagame is great news, as it reduces the number of things that will fully smoke a squad. Finally, I'm sure I don't need to paint a picture as to why Deathwing might be happy that a grindier version of Drukhari that wants to try and win fights in the mid-board is now increasingly popular. John has been playing this list for a while, and it's great to see him punch through to a big finish with it - fantastic stuff!

Tom Lowman - Drukhari - 4th Place

Credit: Silks

The List

Archetype

Mixed Talos/Goodstuff Drukhari

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Our next Drukhari list is something of a hybrid build, going in on a bit of the Talos/Grotesque goodness but choosing to shore it up with some shooty Goodstuff tools as well. That's another big upside of the cheaper Ravager for the faction - if you just want to add some big ranged threat, a couple of Ravagers and a unit of Trueborn is an extremely potent detachment for doing so, and that's just what this army uses. That trade can help it inflict some initial damage early on, and the army still has plenty of mid-table crunch to go with it, ending up very flexible. As ever when making that kind of swap it does run the slight risk of getting bowled over by a list that can target one half of what it's doing particularly effectively, but given that the units it's packing are some of the most efficient in their roles in the game, that won't happen too often - though it did eventually lost to Brian's Orks in the semi-finals, and I suspect that blunting the Talos as a threat was pretty achievable for that army.

Nonetheless, if you want a Drukhari build that can do a bit of everything this is a phenomenally strong example, and well worth a look. Congratulations to Tom on fourth place.

Joe Maylam - Drukhari - 5th Place

Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Talos Drukhari

Why it's Interesting in 9th

If you just want to go all-in on Talos, however, this list serves as a reminder that you absolutely can. They're strong all-round units that will dominate the mid-board, and this list backs them up with two juicy Raiders, one packed with the same style of Wracks Boris was using and one with five Grotesques. This list puts appalling pressure on any opponent, and has the durability to soak up the nastiest alpha strikes, all while retaining very strong objective capabilities thanks to the Mandrakes and BSF Ur-Ghuls. Joe winning with Drukhari is never particularly surprising to see, and this is another excellent finish.

Simon Edwards - Thousand Sons - 6th Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Cult of Duplicity Pressure

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Two key things to note here. First up, this continues the trend that putting the opponent under massive pressure is the way to win with Thousand Sons - no Cult of Time here, but the two Duplicity Terminator blocks can get straight into the opponent's face with Sorcerous Facade and the Umbralefic Crystal, and that's more than enough to cause real problems, especially with a wave of Spawn (one unit of which can be augmented with Weaver of Fates so they have actual defences) sweeping into the mid-board too. By the time the opponent is trying to deal with the inexorable third wave of Rubricae, it's probably far too late.

The second is that the shooting of Scarab Occults, especially with Egleighen's Orrery to allow the hellfyre wracks to punch through damage reduction, is fully wild in the current metagame. If you haven't yet had the dubious pleasure of a fully buffed Scarab unit shooting at your stuff, I guarantee you it's much nastier than you're expecting, and because it's overwhelmingly high-quality D1 fire outside of the missiles, it bypasses a lot of the defences Orks and Talos are relying on. Being able to smoke a couple of key mid-board units in those matchups really constricts the opponent's options, and with them also likely having to split up to deal with the two Scarab units, it can leave their careful plans in tatters.

I'm thrilled to see a couple of Thousand Sons players among the undefeated lists at Leicester, because the book is extremely cool but has clearly been suffering from the double whammy of the top armies just having too much stuff, and Grey Knights being strong into it. With Talos appearing to somewhat sucker punch the GKs, and Thousand Sons having strong game into many other top builds, it could be time for the army to really shine, as Simon has shown here.

The Rest of the Best

Three more players finished 5-0 in the swiss portion of the event. They were:

• 7th - Dom Maidlow - Drukhari: A Talos Drukhari core with some board control toys backing them up - a single Black Heart Raider packed with Incubi and a small Court, plus some Hellions running with Test of Skill/Precision Killers to help them punch up into Dreadknights without massive CP investment.
• 8th - Henry Bearne - Thousand Sons: Time/Duplicity double Scarab Occults, with extreme psychic firepower in the character slot on top of it.
• 9th -  Dawid Szmyt - Chaos Knights: Armiger spam to round out the top slots, with Infernal Lightning Lock Moiraxes to rack up damage at range (increased via Dark Forging) and lots of Warglaive War Dogs with Pride Fuelled Fury and Abominable Constitution to really maximise the board domination that Knights can achieve.

Of definite note - no Grey Knights here, and Thousand Sons doing way better. I suspect that's a warping factor of the Talos matchup, which was all over the place in Leicester - Grey Knights are reasonably weak into the massed -1D they present, whereas fully buffed Scarab Occults are almost the perfect tool to grind them off the table.

Merry Slaaneshmass

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

Jonathan Starks - Drukhari - 1st Place

Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Talos Drukhari

Why it's Interesting in 9th

The other route for going all-in on Covens is fully on show here, which is combining Artists of the Flesh Talos and Grotesques with the classic Dark Technomancers Cronos to really ruin the day of any opponents relying on 2W units, and to provide troubleshooters that can react a bit faster than the Talos can (as they don't need to hit melee to deal damage). Nothing too much to say about that - we know it's great stuff. The only unusual thing here is the loadout of the Haemoculus, with the Animus Vitae to potentially provide a nasty counterpunch turn if the opponent overextends out of the gate, and Twisted Animator to punish anyone who undercommits to killing the Wracks. Both seem interesting enough choices, but they don't change the fundamental character of the list - this is about saturating the board with horrible flesh monstrosities and crushing the opponent under their terrifying bulk. Congratulations to Jonathan for pulling that off.

Hank Adams - Grey Knights - 2nd Place

Grey Knights Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Archetype

Dreadknights and Interceptors

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Nothing super surprising here - Dreadknights and Interceptors, Swordbearers and Prescient Brethren rack up a strong finish. Does add one piece of relatively tech in the form of a Purgation Squad in the Prescient detachment, who can put out some pretty healthy volume fire in a pinch, and packs some extra Troops over more Interceptors to help it better control home positions, but is ultimately still trading on the extreme power of Dreadknights. Still, good to see a few new tricks tried out among the familiar, so well done to Hank on taking second.

Steve Trimble - Adeptus Custodes - 3rd Place

Adeptus Custodes Venatari Custodians. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Shadowkeepers

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Nothing too complicated here - Telemons are incredibly tough (especially as Shadowkeepers), grind opponents down very effectively when sitting in Trajann's aura, and are extremely well supported by Venatari, who can come down and punish anyone who overextends to try and kill one. The choice to bulk the Venatari up to six models is also surprisingly impactful here, as it means that one of the Telemons isn't a To the Last target in a list that's often using that. That allows one of the punchbots to start playing an aggressive game much earlier than would normally be safe, helpful if you need some extra heft to roll into a unit of Talos or similar. I do still worry slightly that Custodes are just short of the damage they need to deal with the Artists of Flesh builds, but the sheer quality of their models has allowed them to stay at least somewhat relevant pretty much all editon, and I fully expect that to carry through to their Codex finally arriving early next year. Well done to Steve.

Jeremiah Bergdale - Drukhari - 4th ✪ Place

Haemonculus and Wracks of the Coven of Twelve | Credit: Garrett "John Condit" Severson

The List

Archetype

Talos Drukhari

Why it's Interesting in 9th

We've mostly seen this build before - it's very, very similar to Richard Siegler's list from the Austin Open, and with much the same capabilities - it can push forward some vicious pressure in the form of Talos and Grotesques, and use the two durable infantry blocks (the Wracks and Court) to solidify gains made. Seed in lots of Cronos as mid-field troubleshooters and a Succubus to go for a big trade at an opportune moment, and you have an extremely strong build. Congratulations to Jeremiah on fourth place, only losing in the final to Jonathan's even more all-in pressure Talos build.

The Rest of the Best

Three more players finished 5-1. They were:

• 5th - Noah Bedddome - Grey Knights: A triple-brotherhood special, mixing up the Wardmakers, Rapiers and Swordbearers and packing the full trio of GMDKs. Nothing too surprising beyond that, but the inclusion of the True Name Shard on one GMDK is kind of cute - I wonder if Noah had a bad Be'lakor experience recently and was gunning for revenge (plus at 10pts it's hardly a massive commitment if you never use it).
• 6th - Zachery Nelson - Thousand Sons: A showing for the slightly more fringe Mutation/Time combo here, replacing Duplicity's proactive mobility with the option to lock key opposing units down, and using a wall of Rubricae to herd them into place (plus re-claiming some speed with the use of Rhinos).
• 7th - Timothy Grant - Death Guard:  A Poxmongers list going all-in on the power provided by the Ironclot Furnace with a big Blight Hauler unit. Stacking Belching Fumes and a 4+ invulnerable save on top of Disgustingly Resilient makes these incredibly tough to deal with, especially as multi-meltas (the perfect weapon to halve the shots of) are one of the most popular anti-tank guns in the metagame. Lots of Poxwalkers and Deathshrouds come along for the ride to gum up the board.

Paragon City Games Lightly Salted GT

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

Colin Kay - Orks - 1st Place

Ork Kill Rig. Credit: Magos Sockbert

The List

Archetype

Goff Pressure

Why it's Interesting in 9th

If shooting the opponent with buggies feels un-orky to you, how about trampling them with squig chariots while the Prophet of the Waaagh himself punches things to death with Gork's Claw? If the latter wounds appealing, this list might be for you!

While Freebooterz have sucked up a lot of the attention, Goffs are genuinely extremely strong in the Ork codex thanks to a phenomenal faction trait and the presence of Ghaz. With every unit hitting at higher strength and with exploding sixes, even the objective-grabbing MSUs that are a staple of Ork builds are serious threats, and the bigger stuff is a nightmare. Ghaz's Great Waaagh also gives you considerable flexibility in what units you can include in your army, as giving your supporting vehicle units a boost in the same turn you go for a big Advance and Charge alpha strike can smash your opponents army into smithereens.

That's not the real draw of Waaagh in this list though - the interaction it's really trading off is that the Advance and Charge it provides applies to all CHARACTERS - which means the Kill Rigs and all those speedy HQ choices. If the opponent makes even the slightest play for the mid board they're going to get counter-attacked with such stupendous force that even Talos lists aren't going to be able to suck it all up. The sheer size of some of the models involved can be a little bit of a challenge to navigate, but having made the mistake of underestimating what a Goff Waaagh would do myself over the weekend, I honestly think the answer to that is just to engage on a wider front - everything hits so incredibly hard with Ghaz's full re-rolls (again, applying to CHARACTERS as well as CORE) that they'll just fully flatten stuff, or at the very least leave the opponent short of tools to push back with.

Cognis lascannons were a genuine problem for Kill Rigs, but with those largely out of the way the road is now clear for this exceptional unit to do some serious work. Well done to Colin, who I note managed to get the better of Marshall this time around, swapping places from where they landed at their last event.

The Rest of the Best

Five players finished this event with 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Derek Holder - Adeptus Custodes: gun-heavy Shadowkeepers, forgoing the normal Telemons and Galatus dreads for Achillus dreads, a second unit of Venatari and a Caladius Grav-tank, with all Troops slots filled with Sagittarum to boot. Less durable than the standard builds sure, but stronger at projecting ranged threat against armies like Orks.
• 3rd - Charles Metts - Drukhari: Another Talos Drukhari build, this time in a Realspace Raid (again backed by Black Heart and Test/Precision Hellions). Does also sport some Cronos even though they're not getting to be in a Dark Technomancers detachment, as the support they provide via the Spirit Probe and access to Pain Syphon is still very real.
• 4th - Evan Stump - Grey Knights: Dreadknights and Interceptors, Swordbearers and Prescient Brethren. Line them up, knock them down.
• 5th ✪ - Marshall Peterson - Orks: Marshall's Goff Triple Kill Rig (this list filling them with Beast Snaggas) plus Deathskulls herohammer detachment list returns with a few tweaks from last time, notably salvaging the points to upgrade the Deathskullz Trukk to a full-blown battlewagon.
• 6th - Adam Baker - Chaos Knights: A very aggressive Iconoclast build that sports what's roughly a "default" triple big Knight list - two Magaeras, a Crusader-loaded Iconoclast and a trio of Warglaive War Dogs. Use of the Khornate Target and Vow of Carnage give the list some flexible answers to high-value single targets and hordes respectively.

Hobart GT

Shannen Butters - Grey Knights - 1st Place

Grey Knight Nemesis Dreadknights. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Archetype

Dreadknights and Interceptors

Why it's Interesting in 9th

No messing about here - Prescient/Swordbearers with five Dreadknights total continues to be the most consistently successful build of the army, and it's no huge surprise to see it taking down another GT. I'm also not wildly convinced that'll change much with the rise of Talos, as being able to stack up Empyric Amplification then mag dump Heavy Psycannons into a squad with the Swordbearers buffs at range is still one of the better answers the army has. Still, after a month or so where they were extremely dominant, Grey Knights have had a bit of a wobble this week, so congratulations to Shannen for taking down an event with them.

The Rest of the Best

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

• 2nd - Liam Hogwood - Adepta Sororitas: See Lists of the Week.
• 3rd - Lance Glover - Dark Angels: A very unusual and extremely shooty Dark Angels list that leans on Azrael's aura for help with durability. Lascannon Devastators, las-fusil Eliminators (potentially powerful going first if they can line up shots while stationary) and a full-sized brick of assault Hellblasters team up with a small contingent of Deathwing Bladeguard to annihilate anything that shows up on the other side of the table.
• 4th ✪ - Nathan Rolfe - Necrons: A very cool return for the Mephrit Warrior/Silent King build that was seeing a small amount of play prior to the rise of Drukhari, now amplified by the ability to buff up some Lokhust Heavies to ruin the day of opposing armour and a unit of Skorpekh being truly monstrous when operating in the King's wound re-roll aura. Would have made Lists of the Week were we not about to cover something similar in the next event.
• 5th - Blake Jones - Orks: The Speed Mob gets another outing, this time leaning fully into Deffkopta spam, with a mighty fifteen of the things across two detachments. Evil Sunz and Freebooterz is still the play Clan wise, bringing the powerful Redder Paint and stratagem from the former and great support for a duo of planes in the latter.

Dicehead Holiday Event

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. This event cut to a top four after three rounds.

Seth Piper - Necrons - 1st Place

The Silent King. Credit: Pendulin

The List

The Standout Features

• The Silent King returns in command of the forces of the Mephrit.
• Flayer warrior unit can do some mid-ranged work thanks to the Mephrit buff.
• Wraiths provide a very flexible mixture of pressure or damage dealing thanks to Szarekh's re-roll wounds aura.
• The option to Veil of Darkness Lokhust Heavies to line up early shots helps get the drop on some big threats.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

More Necrons! This week, we see the forces of the Mephrit stepping up to the plate, with the Silent King finally back in command of some glorious legions. Szarekh is, of course, another big winner from the world no longer being filled with Stratoraptors - you generally want to hold him behind Obscuring terrain for at least a few turns handing out buff until it's time for him to intervene personally, and with fewer planes to worry about that's far more practical. Now that you can hand out My Will Be Done more broadly, the extra use he brings is far more relevant - this list can have both Warrior squads and whichever of the Wraiths, Lychguard or Lokhust Heavies (definitely fun when hitting on 2s with RR1s) are most important buffed up at any given time, helping all these units operate at maximum efficiency.

That's not the only way Szarekh amps them up, too. Reaper Warriors have mostly pushed flayers out in Necron builds, but as Mephrit with the King there's a real case for them, especially in the current metagame where S4 and S5 aren't that different into many targets. Get them inside rapid fire range and you can combine Relentless Onslaught with full hit re-rolls to rack up a massive number of hits at AP-2, excellent for chipping through tougher targets and fully messing up anything squishier (with the option of adding Disintegration Capacitors and/or Talent for Annihilation if something really needs to die). Unlike Reaper Warriors, this unit can also do something at longer range - they're still getting enough hits to fully trigger Talent when firing one shot each when re-rolls are up. It's a nice bit of extra flexibility that helps the army keep the pressure on the opponent.

Over in melee land, Wraiths love full wound re-rolls in melee now that they're CORE, oh yes they do. My experience with these is that with just My Will Be Done up they're still not quite there as damage dealers, but add wound re-rolls and this unit is extremely nasty, making them a flexible addition to the army. Wound re-rolls obviously also help the Lychguard, and having an in-Dynasty Overlord as well as Szarekh lets them pop Eternal Protectors when big numbers are required.

All this means that this list has a tonne of ways to take opponents down with chip damage, and a good number of units it doesn't mind pushing into the mid board to kick off the battle. With Chronomancer protection and the threat of a Resurrection Orb, the opponent will need to commit in earnest to push the Warriors out, at which point Szarekh or the Wraiths can strike as needed. The full wound re-rolls for nastier things like Wraiths and Skorpekh (which the other Necron build above used) definitely adds a spicy new dimension to Silent King lists, really allowing them to hammer the opponent when the crunch comes, which is obviously extremely helpful.

Mostly this list is encouraging me to finally work out what I'm doing about getting my own Silent King painted - it looks like a blast, and shows how much more he brings to the table in the new Necron world. Great stuff from Seth.

The Rest of the Best

The rest of the top four was as follows:

• 2nd - Andy Patton - Space Wolf Successors: A wolf list fully ready to attack a Grey Knight metagame, with a mighty eight Dreadnoughts (three Redemptors, three Wulfen and two VolCons) and some Wolf Guard/Cyberwolves in support. As well as stacking up a bunch of damage reduction, the list takes Warded rather than Born Heroes as its second Successor tactic, ensuring that any list relying on mortals and flat multi-damage is going to have a very hard time taking them down.
• 3rd - Steven Crawley - Drukhari: Wych-heavy Drukhari goodstuff, with lots of melee killers packed into Black Heart Raiders and backed up with a Ravager and some Incubi.
• 4th - Joseph Gillespie - Thousand Sons: Another outing for Joseph's Time/Duplicity list with a Sicarian.

Wrap Up

The year has got one more big weekend of 40K left in it, with next weekend bringing us the FLG New Orleans open. We'll be back next week covering that, plus a healthy crop of GTs, so make sure to tune back in then. Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

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