Competitive Innovations in 9th: Equinox 40K

It's New Zealand's turn to shine once more, as the past weekend featured the 36-player Equinox 40K GT. Last time we headed over to a NZ GT Death Guard were absolutely dominant, taking three out of four of the top slots, and we know from our statistics that they're currently sporting a very tidy win rate, so has their rampage continued?

In a word, yes - so let's take a look at what went down.

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

Courtney Thomson - Death Guard - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

The Standout Features

• The Ferrymen's incredible synergy with the Revolting Stench-vats relic proves the most powerful formula out of the Death Guard lists at the event.
• Mortarion and a large Blightlord block provide an incredibly hard to crack mid-table powerhouse.
• Poxwalker hordes fan out to cover space and Plaguebursts hold the home field.
• Lots of powerful relics and traits on display, especially the horde-sweeping Lord of Contagion.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Courtney came in second at the last NZ GT we looked at, but this time his revamped list ferried him all the way to the top. Out of the gate many (including us) were extremely excited about the power of The Droning, the Ferrymen's contagion trait, but as people have been using them on the table On Droning Wings has proven to be as powerful, if not even more so. Specifically, the combo between doubling the size of auras and the Revolting Stench Vats relic is incredibly potent and makes dealing with the Death Guard's toughest units via melee very tricky. Within a massive 12" bubble, enemy chargers don't automatically fight first, and can't claim the benefit of a whole host of powerful effects, with the most obvious being Shock Assault, making every Marine that much lesss good at punching out your already absurdly tough Terminators. Taking out a block of Blightlords (or honestly even three Deathshrouds) takes some doing at the best of times, but trying to pull it off after soaking up a swing from their attacks is something else, and the less said about trying to engage Mortarion on those terms the better. This list doesn't even take The Droning as an actual trait on a model, instead holding it in reserve as an option for Mortarion in matchups where it matters. Given the extreme dedication to being able to take a punch I'd expect to see him pick the Gloaming Bloat most of the time, but he's by far the best delivery mechanism in the list for either, and having the option on movement suppression is good.

While On Droning Wings is the biggest get the Ferrymen give this list it isn't actually the only one - the Ferryman's Scythe comes into play on the Lord of Contagion, turning him into a truly vicious killing machine when sent into enemy hordes, especially if you pop Befouled Incubators. Being able to legit just slice up an entire ten model unit of chaff pretty reliably is very welcome for the list, as while a frontal assault against the army is suicide for many opponents, lapping around the edges with quantity units on several fronts might sometimes manage to overwhelm it, so having another single model that will gradually grind through a horde by itself is very nice. Elsewhere in fancy toys, the Plague Skull of Glothila looked surprisingly potent for a Mortal Wound trick out of the book, and so it has proven - the fact that it hits hard enough to just straight one-shot a four or five wound character an appreciable proportion of the time means plenty of people are taking it as a value piece. Because of how important the Blightspawn is to the plan, Courtney has also chosen to give him the Hulking Physique trait, making him much more likely to survive if the enemy gets some hits in on him.

This list comes together as an incredibly nasty Attrition build. The Poxwalkers give it plenty of bodies to fan out with while it builds a terrifying anvil mid-board, and from there it can just roll around the board grinding opponents out, especially as it has plenty of ways to punish opponents that don't want to engage. With all the poxes and several small units of Terminators the list has angles on both Despoiled Ground and Spread the Sickness out of the Death Guard book, while opponents that don't come and try and crack open the battle pile are likely giving up 15pts on Psychic Ritual (as the powers from the Plaguecaster are strictly nice to have) and at least 10pts on While We Stand. The list needs quite specific tools to deal with and has a whole bunch of different plans to ensure it comes away from every game with a strong score, putting many opponents on the back foot out of the gate, and even when the enemy force does have the right weaponry to engage (ideally lots of mid-quality volume ranged fire) they've on a very tight clock to shift this list off objectives and get some Primary points.

So there's are up-front answer - it sure looks like Death Guard are continuing strong, and as we'll see there are multiple viable builds (both with and without Mortarion) so make sure you have a plan for them when you turn up to events. Congratulations to Courtney for leading the (slow, purposeful, ominous) charge.

Charlie Kang - Dark Angels - 2nd Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

The Standout Features

• Our contract with Greg requires me to start by saying "hell yeah".
• The mobile forces of the Ravenwing pip the much hyped Deathwing to take a top spot.
• Attack bikes with an invulnerable save provide a truly disgusting mobile firebase.
• Black Knights and bikers ensure the army can brawl and hold positions while the shooting of the attack bikes does its work.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

It's fair to say that Dark Angels haven't immediately shaken up the scene quite as hard as I expected, but between this finish and some results elsewhere it looks like players might have started to hit on the builds that really sing. Surprisingly, and perhaps explaining why there's been a bit of a lag, it turns out that Ravenwing might have even more going for it than the blunt instrument of the Deathwing (where there have been a lot of lists hovering just outside top finishes in a classic gatekeeper position). It may be that Deathwing are similar enough in what they're trying to Death Guard that they're getting frozen out by the new meta hotness.

The unique strength of the Dark Angels book, compared to any other chapter, is that they pile new abilities onto a wide range of datasheets at effectively no cost, in the Ravenwing's case providing the (minimum) 5++ of Jink as long as you keep moving, and ObSec to vanilla bike units as long as they're in an Outrider (which also becomes free, natch). At 30pts each, Space Marine bikers are hovering on the fringe of playability anyway now they have 3W, and slamming a 5++ and ObSec on them trivially pushes them over that line into something genuinely powerful, especially in an army with access to the Fury of the Lion warlord trait to boost their chainsword swings to S5 and a high-speed Apothecary to follow them around and kick Attack Bikes back into the units after they're done soaking up damage three shots the first time around. The volume of T5 wounds they represent is a lot once you factor in the invulnerables and Apothecary aura, and with ObSec they're mean position holding machines that are more than capable of racking up some damage on the kind of enemy horde units that might be fighting for objectives. Attack Bikes, meanwhile, are already a highly prized elimination unit across many Marine lists, and the invulnerable save plus the extra speed to line up shots turn one from Speed of the Raven just makes them even sillier. 3x3 melta attack bikes are a very common sight in both pure Ravenwing and mixed Ravenwing/Deathwing builds - they're just great.

Moving towards more Dark Angels specific tricks, the army here is anchored by a big unit of Black Knights. I've warmed up on these a lot through the course of writing the unit roles series, because while I do think they're still a little underwhelming compared to the game's very best melee units, they're the only brawler unit you have access to in a pure Ravenwing build and that naturally pushes them significantly up in value. Especially given the powerful spur-of-the-moment mobility that Swift Strike gives them, these are good enough at their job that if you want to build a brawler plan you can get good value out of them. With the captain likely sticking to them (providing ObSec through Rites of War and re-rolls for plasma), you've got a strong ObSec Brawler unit that can push up the middle (or smash a  flank) and then some durable position holders with natural ObSec in the Bikers that can move to take other objectives. This will ensure your opponents hands are full, and force them to commit their high value units to be blown apart by the Attack Bikes. This is a very strong bread and butter 9th Edition gameplan, but being able to do it with the speed and target uniformity of the Ravenwing is something new. You also have a few powerful emergency buttons to slam, with the Captain able to drain the effectiveness of enemy invulns via the Reliquery of the Repentent and the Black Knights always having the option of going full Weapons from the Dark Ages on the opponent's favourite toy.

There's one remaining crucial freebie that this list gets that isn't written on the army list, and that's Death on the Wind. I'm in the camp that Stubborn Defiance is a little overrated, but in a list like this Death on the Wind is very nearly a free 15pts in anything even resembling a close game. Given the army is also extremely good at Engage on All Fronts is a big deal - two reliably high-scoring secondaries puts you in a strong place out the gate. There were two pure Ravenwing lists in the 4-1 or better bracket, and according to the scorecards they picked Death on the Wind 9 times out of a possible 10 - and maxed it every time. This includes, for the 5th place list, maxing it in a game they lost to Death Guard, suggesting that you need some really, really inclement conditions before this starts to fall off in effectiveness. That's not wildly surprising - Ravenwing are a high speed, high threat army, and picking off 8 units in a game just isn't that big of an ask for them. If they do bear out as the superior Dark Angels option I think that'll be part of why - you don't have to do anything to build around it or plan for it on the table, just stick to your guns and rake in the points.

Apart from everything else, but also important - this list looks like an absolute blast to play, and I hope Ravenwing fans everywhere are taking note. Congratulations to Charlie on the second place finish.

Finn Decker - Death Guard - 3rd Place

Foetid Bloat-drone. Credit: Rockfish

The List

The Standout Features

• A Daemon Engine-heavy Inexorable list gives us our second Death Guard finisher.
• Three Bloat-drones provide a scarily mobile melee powerhouse that can lash out from the Deathshroud anchor.
• Three Plaguebursts and new hotness the Volkite Contemptor provide a withering hail of firepower while the engines and Terminators do their work.
• Character backup provides powerful counter-punch capabilities.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

The thing I'm always looking for when a new book starts strong is variety in the lists that are performing. A single dominant build might be easy to counter (or in some cases vulnerable to nerfs), but if we're seeing a healthy amount of variety at the top it's a very good sign for the army's longevity.

For the Death Guard the omens are looking good - while some units overlap (2x3 Deathshrouds seems to be near universal across successful lists) this build is very different to the first place army, eschewing Mortarion and going hard for hulls. With their new base BS/WS 3+, Plaguebursts and Bloat-drones are just generally effective at what they want to do for their price, and need minimal support to operate. That's been driving the presence of one or two PBCs in many lists to hold the home field, but in some ways the bloat drones do something more unique - they give the army multiple mobile melee brusiers, where most lists only have Mortarion doing the job.

While this list isn't as durable in the mid-field as the previous one, Deathshrouds with Stench Vat backup and the counter-charge threat from the Daemon Prince still make a reasonable anvil, and the trade-off this list gets from including the mobile melee threats and more shooting is that it has a plausibly better answer to opponents that want to respond to Death Guard by avoiding the main body of the force while they soften it up with shooting. Three Plaguebursts and the volkite dread will rack up a bunch of attrition damage, and a couple of drones will cheerfully murder any enemy stragglers that make a play for objectives with insufficient force. The Dreadnought is worth a quick mention of its own - the main drawback of volkite is the lack of AP, but the Ferric Blight neatly solves that for the Inexorable, and these have started popping up in successful builds using this Plague Company all over.

The other advantage that distributing the threats gives this list is a much stronger game plan against any army that has the kind of killing power to make a real play at deleting Mortarion or a Blightlord blob in a single turn. Death Guard threats are some of the very toughest in the entire game, but some armies can still just kill them, and running into one of those matchups is an ever-present risk for armies reliant on being able to tank. Both the full tank builds and this flavour have their strenghts, and right now it's tough to say for sure which is better, but as mentioned at the start, having some variety like this ensure that whichever flavour the metagame tries to adapt to, the Death Guard can respond. Congratulations to Finn for showing off the full breadth of what the book is capable of.

Dylan Smith - Adeptus Mechanicus - 4th Place

Kataphron Destroyers. Credit: Rockfish

The List

The Standout Features

• Terminator blobs got you down? Consider blowing them into tiny pieces!
• Massive Kataphron Destroyer blob with Mars backup focuses an astouding amount of damage onto a slow target, while being tough to shift at range thanks to Warding Incantation.
• Breachers, Raiders and transport-riding priests provide a sliding scale of board control and shock troop.
• Skorpii and an Onager further augment the ranged capabilities.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Hey speaking of armies that can take a solid swing at blowing Mortarion or Blightlords straight off the board, do you know what happens when a brick of Kataphron Destroyers with all of Daedy, Cawl and Mars' tricks enabled points their guns at a blob of 7 Deathshrouds? Yeah they straight up die according to my maths, with S6 from the canticle and the veritable pile of Mortal Wounds that Wrath of Mars tacks on getting them happily over the line. Even the mighty Mortarion himself needs to worry - as long as they stay outside any sort of Gloaming Bloat re-roll shutdown, he's looking at losing about 11-12W, a serious chunk of his overall health and, given that other elements of this list are hardly slouches, pushing him into a range where getting chipped down by them is a very real threat. In a metagame where super durable tarpits play an increasingly important part, having a unit like this that counters them so effectively is a big asset (especially when so much of the damage output is from mortals).

Naturally there's some downside to running units like this too - packing such an enormous and expensive block of battle servitors opens up a vulnerability to similar, but more mobile, tools from other lists. Having Warding Incantation around helps, as it significantly mitigates the problem of the base 4+ save the Destroyers have, but getting tagged in melee is still a serious threat. To counter that, this list packs several small units of Serberys Raiders that can fan out to screen, and also do some very wonky things if an enemy includes them in a charge thanks to Tactica Obliqua. As well as that, a unit of Fulgurite Priests provide some decent counter-charge shock troops that threaten to trade up if your opponent has committed with something spicy, and also provide a way to get the last few wounds off something that's been softened up by the Kataphrons (thanks to their mortal output).

Finish things up with a selection of the generically high quality things that AdMech have access to (Breachers to provide some secondary position holders, Skorpii to blast things, Ruststalkers for Actions) and you have a list with a strong default plan (fan out and tangle the enemy up long enough to obliterate them) and a specific solution to some of what the metagame is up to. If Death Guard continue to put up good finishes, I expect to continue seeing lists like this ready to prey on them, so well done to Dylan for potentially blazing a trail.

The Rest of the Best

Two more lists finished up with 4-1 records:

• 5th Place - David Hodgetts - Dark Angels: Another pure Ravenwing list, but completely different to the one above. In a move that would make our own Gunum proud, this build goes super-wide on Land Speeders of every stripe. You've got Typhoons, Tornados, Talonmasters, Tempests, vanilla speeders and even a Storm Speeder Thunderstrike, with a Reliquary of the Repentant Ravenwing Champion finishing things up. Nothing that can really sustain a melee throwdown, but so much damage and so many hulls to choke up the board that it appears not to have mattered!
• 6th Place - Jamie Beaton - Death Guard: A final Death Guard build to finish things up, with Mortarion in command once more. This time, he's leading up a detachment each of the Inexorable (both flavours of Terminators and a couple of volkite Contemptors) and the Ferrymen (characters and some Deathshrouds). Quite a bit of switching up from the last list we saw from Jamie, and it's clear that there's a good amount of depth to explore in the Death Guard book.

Wrap Up

Another week in the books, and the Death Guard continue to shine. It's looking like things are pretty quiet in the wider world next weekend, but we'll find something to fill the Wednesday competitive slot, so we'll see you then. Questions, comments or suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com as always.

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