All the hot Space Marine and Necron details are now out in the wild, FAQs are flying thick and fast and across the world the creative juices are flowing as players try to work out how best to achieve victory as the curtain raises for act 2 on the competitive stage. However, the world doesn't politely pause just because some new books have arrived, and in good news for any players trying to work out just what their new list needs to be able to deal with, several large events took place in Europe over the past weekend, giving us a crop of top lists to take a look at. The 38th iteration of the Fantasia Fanatic in Sweden brings us a 50 player GT, while over in Germany the Hanseatic Alliance Open gives us another Major, with over 100 players showing up to throw down. That puts both of these among the heftier events we've looked at, perfect for finding out what might be looking like the lists to beat as we go forward.

Just before we move onto the lists, I'd like to once again thank everyone who's pointed us at events to look at so far, and would like to ask again to let us know about any multi-day events going on near you at contact@goonhammer.com.

Done with the preliminaries, on with the first of our two events, the Fantasia Fanatic.

Fantasia Fanatic XXXVIII

Just before we dig into the lists here, a quick note about scoring. Many European events in the past have used a 20-0 scoring system, where each player receives battle points from the rounds based on the margin of difference in their VP scores. In 8th, you generally started at 10BP each for a draw, and moved to the winner getting 20 and the loser 0 once there was a 20VP+ margin. Fantasia Fanatic ran with a revised version of this for 9th, which is explained in the event pack. The tldr is that it works the same as the old version, but the margins have been updated to account for 9th Edition's much higher scoring cap, with a player now needing to win via a margin of 50VP+ for maximum points for a round. Placing is based on the battle point total, so you can end up in a situation where a very high-scoring 4-1 player pips a 5-0 player in position. There have been a few shuffles like that within the top four here, but no one that would have made the cut on more traditional scoring has been knocked out by the effect, meaning these are the big hitters from the event however you square it.

The lists from this event are in BCP.

Daniel Hesselberg's Imperium - 1st Place

Blood Angels Eradicators. Credit: Corrode

The List

The Standout Features

• Serberys Raiders - is there any shell they don't make better?
• Death Company and Aggressors suggest a more measured advance than normal for Blood Angels is planned.
• Good quality Marine Infantry shooting pulls up the rear.

Why it Works in 9th

Diving into our first winning list, none of the individual tools we see here are especially unusual, but the combination is new. Serberys Raiders continue to show that they're outrageously good, really hammering that home in this list where they're the tip of the spear even when they're alongside goddam Blood Angels. Rather than use Upon Wings of Fire Sanguinary Guard or VanVets to lead the charge, pushing some early pressure up the board is delegated to the dog brigade, and the Blood Angels detachment is filled out with somewhat slower elements (with the Death Company acting as a reactive threat). While that makes for a slightly less aggressive Marine contingent, the tools chosen can lay down a withering hail of firepower tuned to most kinds of target, and adding Aggressors to the normal ration of Bladeguard means they'll hit like a freight train once they arrive. They'll also be a total pain to shift before that, with the Standard of Sacrifice filling the role often played by the Obsidian Aquila in Salamanders and handing a feel no pain to all those beefy boys.

The end result is a list that does basically everything you want in 9th - puts hard-to-shift pressure on opponents out of the gate, lays down decent mid-range fire without opening up secondaries, and is totally happy to throw down in a big old melee ruck. The combination may be new, but the principles aren't, and I can totally see why this list did so well. Congratulations to Daniel.

Like any Marine list this week, of course, change is a-coming for this one. Despite being heavy on tools that picked up Core, this list has a surprisingly tough time of it. Aggressors obviously took a sizeable hit, but the big problem is that the Standard of Sacrifice is gone, unpicking one of the key defences the list currently packs. In its place, adding a Librarian to use Psychic Fortress brings back some of the same energy (though clearly isn't as good). The Smashcap also loses quite a bit of power, with the loss of Upon Wings of Fire and getting his own re-rolls being a blow. On the flip side, with UWoF gone, this model of Blood Angels list, delegating some of the initial push to other armies, might not be a bad shout. They're definitely a faction I'm keen to see evolve now their full rules are down.

Henrik Lampén's Salamanders - 2nd Place

Salamander Blade Guard Veterans. Credit: Rockfish

The List

The Standout Features

• It's Salamanders. You know this stuff.
• Adrax making a showing is a mild standout.

Why it Works in 9th

Realistically - you guys know that Salamanders are really good by this point. This army goes down the "real" Salamanders route, going big on Gravis with absolute large units of both Bolter Aggressors and Plasmaceptors, layering the ignore AP-1 with the Obsidian Aquila for maximum durability while they cut down the enemy. Early pressure is applied via an Invictor and some Infiltrators/Incursors, and a few bikes and a Land Speeder Storm complete the setup. Salamanders have had a good run, and lists like this are what a lot of player are going to remember.

Just like the previous one, this list will need to shuffle quite a bit post-codex, with the most urgent need being to find a replacement for the bolter Aggressors in the anti-horde role. The plausible good news for Salamanders is that at a natural range of 12", flamestorms quite likely still have some game, no longer requiring you to break off down the successor route to unlock their potential. A few other tools here change too, with Adrax getting a bit less good and the chapter tactic being de-powered, but plenty of the new stuff will slot into the kind of games Salamanders want to play very effectively, and the renewed power of Dreadnoughts across the board is also likely to be relevant to them.

Bilbo Göransson's Genestealer Cults - 3rd Place

Acolyte Hybrids
Credit: Pendulin

The List

The Standout Features

• Pure Genestealers make their 9th edition top four debut.
• The lure of the mixed-cult detachment proves too much to pass up on even in the new edition, with elements of the Hivecult, Rusted Claw and 4AE all showing up.
• Mostly built out of best conventional tools - but two Rockgrinders as early pressure pieces is a big surprise.

Why it Works in 9th

Another army succeeds in launching a surprise sortie out of the lower runs of the 9th edition meta and making it onto the podium. Genestealer Cults are generally thought (including by me) to be in a pretty rough spot, but they do still have a small handful of excellent tools and this list puts them to work. Now, Genestealer Cults are one of the most complicated factions in the game, and often hard to do justice to in this format, but the good news for GSC players who want all the top tips for how to make this army sing is that we have an interview with Bilbo lined up for tomorrow to really dig into this list and how it fared on the table.

For those who just can't wait, the overall structure echoes some of what we see in the other winning lists. There are tools that can create some pressure in the mid-board early (the Rockgrinders and the Bikers), some mobile ranged toys (the Ridgerunners, currently better than ever since they can move and shoot without penalty) and a unit that can do some proper damage in melee (the Acolytes). The challenge for GSC is that their melee units hit hard but are also extremely glass-jawed, risking them losing any sort of protracted engagement, and to mitigate that this list runs a whole bunch of nasty tricks to try and keep the opponent on the back foot. Everyone kind of just forgot the Kelermorph, but they're still absurdly dangerous to a lot of characters, especially when buffed up by the Oppressor's Bane, and one of the things GSC do have going for them at the moment is that people are generally less well set up to fully screen them out. By the same token, the Acolyte flamer bomb is also pretty good currently, and will only get better once they start being able to do their thing without needing to blow Lying in Wait (though jumping to two points for the guns did hurt). Finally, Drive-by Demolitions continues to prove just how absurdly tuned it was out of the gate, still proving powerful enough to see use after several rounds of massive point hikes.

I do think the Rockgrinders are worth particular note, because they highlight how much the landscape has changed in 9th for units that "just die to shooting" - as long as they're costed decently and can generate some distraction/mid-board pressure on their way out it fully doesn't matter if they don't consistently make their points back. With shorter, more aggressive games, having something that can take the initiative is more critical than pure killing power, and I think that's a big part of why so many old favourites are breaking out of retirement.

That's probably enough from me on this list - congratulations to Bilbo, and tune back in tomorrow for the full lowdown.

Jimmy Pettersson - 4th Place

The List

The Standout Features

• Nurgle Daemons and Death Guard continue to flex their board control muscles to great success.
• Yet another Plague Company joins the winners list, this time allowing the summoning of an emergency unit of Nurglings on the move.
• Alpha Legion Plasma Terminators provide a surprisingly horrific flex unit.

Why it Works in 9th

Yeah, yeah we've heard it all before, Beasts of Nurgle, check, Chaos Spawn, check, Nurglings, ch- wait who are those blue dudes?

So, Alpha Legion Terminators huh. What can those do? Uh...according to my notes kind of everything? That seems pretty good huh.

I'm really barely exaggerating here. I've had a huge soft spot for Chaos Terminators stretching way back to the release of Vigilus Ablaze, and this might finally be the shell that pushes them over the top to being genuinely great, since they work astonishingly well with what this list is doing thanks to the toolbox of tricks the Alpha Legion provides. The biggest and most obvious one up-front is Conceal, allowing the Terminators to shield themselves from enemy firepower as long as they aren't the closest target, which in this list means that any opponent planning to blast them from afar has to go through all the Beasts and Spawn first, which even the spiciest armies will struggle with. Trying to sneak up behind the Terminators isn't going to go great either - they can zone out deep strikers using Scrambled Coordinates, intercept them with Ambush and if they need to bip across the board in a hurry use Renascent Infiltration to pull it off with impunity. Attached to a unit that can comfortably maul opponents in both shooting and fight phases and that feels like a real winner, really making the most of what the datasheet can do (and taking advantage of the bargain price they now come at).

Beyond that, the remaining unusual things in the list are the melee Plague Marine unit (which has seen some occasional prior success) and the Cultists, the latter of which presumably mostly stick around behind a wall waiting till they're needed for objective purposes. The only rough thing about the list is that it's a bit short of CP, reducing the rate at which the Terminators can do cool things, but I suspect in plenty of games just being able to provide a hard-to-deal with second line is going to be enough.

I always love to see novel uses of units on the table, and this is a cool list to round out the first of our two top fours - great work to Jimmy.

The Rest of the Best

Four further lists at the Fantasia Fanatic finished 4-1. This is going to be pretty quick for reasons that will rapidly become apparent.

In 5th place we see Pierre Amico's Harlequins. For want of a better descriptor, this is pretty much the default Soaring Spite build of boats and bikes. Not surprising, but extremely effective.

6th place gives us a second Harlequins list, this time from Jon Borg. He's mixed up the formula a little bit, trading out a few bikes for some Voidweavers (which can help provide some additional safe places for characters), but is very much still on the flying circus plan.

In 7th we have a Salamanders list piloted by Tim Eerens. Tim has actually mixed things up quite a bit, going heavy on incendium-cannon toting Invictors alongside some of the more traditional tools, with Adrax making another showing, this time paired with Vulkan. We'll have to see if this concept survives Invictors being banished from Core, but given the flame ones don't need the hit re-rolls at range anyway it feels like it has some chance of pulling that off.

Finally, in 8th place we have Andreas Bergsten running...Harlequins again, with another bike and boat heavy Soaring Spite build.

Don't want to alarm you, but I'm starting to get the feeling Harlquins might be quite good...

Hanseatic Alliance Open

The Hanseatic Alliance Open also had some slight deviations from normal scoring, here awarding a fixed number of points for meeting painting and list submission standards. Once again, taking this out would have shuffled one of the placings within the top four, but not changed the makeup of it.

The Hanseatic Alliance manage their own pairings and list submission, and you can find them all here.

Michael Gemmeke's Harlequins - 1st Place

Harlequins Troupe Master. Credit: Corrode

The List

The Standout Features

• BIKES
• AND
• BOATS

Why it Works in 9th

...really, very good. Harlequins take down a major in style, with a list that goes if anything even harder on the boat club lifestyle than most, cutting out even some of the common character inclusions in favour of tooled up Troupes that can zip to wherever they're needed on the table and do some damage. Whether to mix melee weapons and fusions within squads is a controversial topic within the Harlequin community, but this list definitely makes it work, and being completely unmoored from a reliance on buff auras to get anything done gives it an angle that some other clown builds don't manage. With two astoundingly tooled up Troupe Masters ready to attend to any problems the rest of the army can't handle, this list has the flexibility to react to any situation thrown at it, and that clearly paid off during Michael's ride to the top of the pack. Not a tonne more to say about this, but well done to him, and that's enough clowns for one week.

Right?

Matthias Bellmann's Harlequins - 2nd Place

Credit: Wings

The List

The Standout Features

• Oh no.
• At least this one has the Yncarne, so we can talk about that.
• Single melee weapons in a few of the squads add a little bit of bite.

Why it Works in 9th

Europe is apparently the clown continent now - with one further list at this event making 4-1, Harlequins took more than 25% of the 5-0/4-1 slots over these two events, which is a frankly absurd level of dominance for an army that's vastly rarer across the field than Marines. This list neatly shows off another cool thing you can do with them - bring the Yncarne along and make your opponent's already extremely difficult life even harder by making every attempt to kill one of your units a huge risk if done at the wrong time. They're certainly expensive, but this is the second time we've seen them put in a top table performance alongside the clown posse, and in skilled hands I think it's one of the nastiest available loadouts and gives you an exceptional tool to mitigate any situations where the game starts to turn against you. The difference between armies that are good and great in 9th Edition is access to tools that can put you back into the game when you stumble, and the Yncarne combines with the general flexibility of the clown show to make this list excel at that. Great job to Matthias for making it through the ranks undefeated.

Rickard Nilsson's AdMech - 3rd Place

Adeptus Mechanicus - Ironstrider Ballistarii
Credit: Pendulin

The List

The Standout Features

• The unusual sight of a mixed detachment in AdMech
• The hillbilly cyborg yacht club rides again, with Fulgurite Priests in Duneriders and Drills like it's 2019.
• Ironstriders show up to make use of their fancy new strat.

Why it Works in 9th

AdMech is another faction that's been putting in the work over the last few weeks, but this is definitely the most unique-looking of the top lists I think we've seen. Some of the common tools are here, of course, most notably the still-mandatory Skorpii, but from there the mould gets broken quite a bit. First up, the list runs a mixed detachment, getting  what it needs from strats and the Mars-specific Canticle rather than relying on any forge world Dogmas. The Stygies pre-game move allows the boats and/or drill (which is perfectly happy starting on the table in some games) to either start threatening the opponent right out the gate or to hug some mid-table Obscuring terrain and lie in wait. Meanwhile, Ironstriders make a big splash, which I've honestly kind of been waiting for since Engine War - with S8 from the Mars Canticle and option on +1 to wound from Pattern Iteration Identified they can kill almost anything, and are mobile and reasonably durable to boot. With them being treated relatively lightly by Chapter Approved and well tuned to the current metagame (both perfect for blasting through big sacks of wounds like Beasts and able to defend themselves with Cognis Overwatch). I strongly suspect it's only external factors (the high price of the models) that have kept us from seeing more of these, and expect a gradual uptick over time.

No 9th army can win with shooting alone, of course, and a trio of Fulgurite Priest squads, buffed up by Prime Hermeticon and bursting from aforementioned boats, provide this army with its melee bite. These will do horrific damage on the turn they hit, and can become reasonably durable if they can kill something and pick up their 3++, but like with GSC they are a bit more glass-jawed than the options used by some armies, so it's important to prioritise picking up your opponent's melee units with a devastating charge. Luckily priests hit like an absolute truck and the transports help them get into position - and don't forget that the drill itself provides a durable melee threat of surprising potency.

All this hammers home that Admech are a faction with both depth and power, and great work Rickard on finding a more out-there build that put in the numbers.

Philipp Wolf's AdMech - 4th Place

Adeptus Mechanicus - Kataphron Breachers
Credit: Pendulin

The List

The Standout Features

• More Ironstriders, thus time lurking behind the more familiar Breacher horde.
• Skorpii - skorpii everywhere.
• Two different builds of plane shore up secondaries and provide some utility options.

Why it Works in 9th

Apparently we're all seeing double this week, as we close out the top four with a second AdMech list. This looks a bit more familiar if you've been keeping up with the series - the buffed Breacher Blob does pretty much everything you want from an army in 9th, being just a great all-rounder anvil to which the AdMech's other shooting units provide the hammer. Prime Hermeticon continues to be particularly stupid in combination with their exploding arc claws, and the Manipulus helps smooth them up the board more quickly.

Where this list does break a bit from the norm is in the backup options - the Skorpii are here, as they always are, but they're backed up by Ironstriders (again) and two of the plane builds. All of these reap a bit of benefit from the primary ability of Data-hoard forge worlds (a 6+++), and the Ironstriders can still provide a healthy burst of point-and-click killing power even when there's only four of them. The planes have seen a moderate up-tick recently as lists turn ever-more towards melee, providing substantial help in scoring secondaries by locking in Engage on All Fronts in matchups where it's less safe to rove around the board. In games where they aren't going to be able to do that, being able to deploy Electrofilament Countermeasures to unpick whatever defensive tools your opponents have in place is a powerful alternative use. The Stratoraptor also looks quite a bit better just on rate these days, as Chapter Approved was quite kind to it, and Seismic Bomb from the Fusilave means it always has some utility in its back pocket.

Really all this just hammers home what we said above - AdMech is a deep, deep faction, and Philipp has shown off another way to build them for success.

The Rest of the Best

With only five rounds for a 100+ player event there are a lot of these so we're going to blast through them a bit more quickly than normal. Do go and check any that catch your eye on the website.

• 5th - Martin Nguyen’s Imperial Fist Successors (Stealthy/Master Artisans). Spams dreadnoughts (RelCons and Venerable), Thunderfires and Scouts in Land Speeder Storms. This gets nuked from orbit harder than pretty much any other Marine list on the docket today - but Dreadnought spam is probably a pretty good angle to explore.
• 6th - Jannek Lindemann’s Sororitas. A Bloody Rose list with a bit more of a combined arms feel than we’re used to - Exorcists being the notable addition. The big damage dealers are still the maxed out Repentia units though, and here the Triumph and Zephyrim are in tow to fully exploit the auto-charge capability of Acts of Faith.
• 7th - Manuel Wieczorek’s White Scars. Slightly teched from normal, sporting two RelCons to push into opponents and an Assassin (Callidus as the default) to keep people under pressure, but a lot of the things we’re used to seeing. Will need a re-think in the immediate term - the RelCon doesn't have CORE and it loses the big crutch of the double grav Rhino.
• 8th - Sebastian Maack’s Salamander Successors. It’s the Salamander Gravis Club. You know this one.
• 9th - David Szymanski’s Sororitas. A mixed Valorous Heart and Bloody Rose list, with the eye-catching thing being the choice to max out on melta Dominions and Exorcists. Worth keeping an eye on as the new rules bed in, as Dominions get a boost.
• 10th - Wilm Hofmann’s Space Wolves. Mostly just a mixed goodstuff list, sporting a bit of everything though surprisingly cutting out Ragnar. Likely to need a complete revision with the advent of the new codex and index.
• 11th - Thomas Brutscher’s Orks. Mixed Ork list, featuring Ghaz and a single big squad of Boyz rolling around up front while a mix of Grot Mob Smashas and Deathskull buggies blast away from behind. Orks have been a bit quieter for the last few weeks, so it's good to be reminded that they're another extremely powerful faction.
• 12th - Ruud Steenbakkers’s Harlequins. A final Harlequin entrant, and here running a more unusual list - some bikes and boats still here, but 3x10 tooled up Midnight Sorrow foot squads are a big break from convention.
• 13th - Ralf Wagner’s Death Guard. Poxmongers list with 2x3 Blight Haulers to give a bit more push, and just a lone Plagueburst to hold the back. Mixes things up with a couple of Contaminated Monstrosity Hellforged Contemptors, and finishes up with a blight grenade Drill.
• 14th - Stefan Härle’s Raven Guard Successors. Centurion spam. No really, apparently you could still just do that. Tweaks things up a bit with meltas on some of the squads, and the choice of either an Aggressor Squad or a massive Vanguard Veteran bomb for Master of Ambush. Sadly, the Marine Book aims yet more nerfs at people who haven't got the memo about putting the Centurions down yet.
• 15th - Kayu Orellana’s Tyranids. Squeaking in to the final slot in this bracket, we have a Tyranid list built out of the best tools they can muster, sporting Exocrines, Hive Guard and Zoanthropes, all topped off with a Sporocyst and a single Flyrant dreaming of the distant days of 2018 when they ruled the skies.

Wrap Up

Another monster weekend out of the way, and I think it's clear, with Marines getting such a shakeup, which faction has the biggest target on their be-masked, grinning faces. We've likely got one more week with the current set of books before the new codexes start to come live in events. Then it's right back into full innovation mode as players sink their teeth into the new books. Will we see Necrons finally arise from garbage tier doldrums? Will anyone stop the clown menace? Will Salamanders still be good? We've got a lot to look forward to, and in the meantime if you have any comments, questions, suggestions or event tips, give us a shout at contact@goonhammer.com.

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