The Balance Dataslate has hit the metagame, and Chaos reigns - literally. Between Flamers of Tzeentch and the best two Chaos Space Marine legions, the ruinous powers are very much running amok, but they're far from the only faction that's doing well, with Blood Angels also making a big splash on the weekend.

This week we'll be covering:

• Our very own Goonhammer Open UK (major).
• US Open Kansas (supermajor)
• Dragon's Lair GT
• 7th Confrontation

For showdowns, I'll be looking at:

• Emperor's Children vs Thousand Sons & Daemons at the Goonhammer Open.
• Blood Angels vs Thousand Sons & Daemons at the US Open.

Next week I'll be away again, as I'm at a conference, so another Mystery Guest will be taking the wheel. Would making Condit do it a third time be funny? Yes. Will he agree to? Almost certainly not.

Anyway, on to What I Did On My Weekend.

Goonhammer Open UK Halloween Havoc

65-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on October 29 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This is one of those instances where I'm creating the news that I then write about, because I was the TO for this event. With that in mind, I would like to say another massive thank you to all the sponsors and volunteers who made it possible, providing the support to allow us to run two narrative events (Horus Heresy and Adeptus Titanicus) alongside a 40K major.

In particular, thanks to:

• FactoruM for helping out with terrain and providing prize support.
• Element Games for providing prize support.
• Mohawk Miniatures for sponsoring the best single miniature competition.
• Hellstorm Wargaming for streaming the event (all videos can be found from the link).
• Anvil Industries, A-Case and BattleBling for additional prize support.

More details can be found on a full thank-you and winners post going up later today!

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - The Scouring

Josh Roberts - Chaos Space Marines: The Emperor's Children hotness, with lots of Noise Marines backed up by Possessed, Terminators and Abaddon.

vs.

Brett Smith - Thousand Sons & Daemons: A particulaly streamlined version of the Duplicity/Flamers build that manages to squeeze in two full units of Terminators alongside a Tzeentch Flamers detachment, at a cost of significantly dialing back the number of Characters in play.

Thoughts

It's a good time to worship the dark gods right now, as both the Daemons and Chaos Space Marine codexes have unleashed some very powerful new tools, many of which are on show here. Emperor's Children broke out in a big way at the LGT, and results since have proven that they're not just a flash in the pan - their Stratagems are exceptionally strong, giving you potent tools for a lot of situations, Noise Marines as Troops are fantastic all-rounders, and the Legion trait is great for Terminators, as it means you can take a lot of powerfists without worrying about the hit penalty. Josh's version of the list here is very streamlined, packing in both a decked-out Terminator blob, the key Characters (including Abaddon) and two units of Possessed, and filling out with Noise Marines and Cultists from there. Every unit except the Cultists here can get stuff done, and the Cultists are great cheap sacrifices, creating a very honed build overall.

The same is honestly true on the other side of the table - Thousand Sons were already a relatively powerful faction prior to Daemons showing up, and adding in Flamers for a big sucker punch out of Deep Strike (plus optionally setting up some fun Cabalistic Rituals combos with Infernal Gateway, which this build passes on) has juiced them even higher. Most lists on the Flamer plan have tended to free up points for them by cutting the second big Scarab unit, but Brett has instead chosen to keep that and streamline everything else - there are fewer Characters and Rubricae than normal here, but the payoff is that the opponent is going to be bogged down with two very durable, very tough units for long enough that it will be diffcult to avoid the Flamer menace.

Two hot Chaos builds, so how do they stack up to one another? Mixed. The upside that the Emperor's Children have is that they've got a fair few more units on the board (at least at game start) than the Thousand Sons, and more stuff that they're willing to sacrifice. Their big melee threats are also not the kind of thing that the Scarab Occults want to tango with - the big Terminator unit with Abaddon's buff will make a mess of them, and Possessed can boost up their AP to take a swing if needed. Abaddon himself is, of course, also very scary into any of the precious Thousand Sons units. Don't forget that the Terminators also have massive threat range if the Dark Apostle drops Blissful Devotion on them - if you're willing to then pump 2CP into them for a couple uses of Honour the Prince, they have a guaranteed minimum threat range of 18", terrifying on the tightly packed map here.

On the flip side, however, the Noise Marines are quite a bit less good here than normal - All is Dust heavily reduces their melee power, and if the Blastmasters try and focus down a Scarab unit, Unwavering Phalanx can kick in and largely no-sell it. They also die pretty hard to soulreaper cannons and flamers, and overall they're much more relegated to temporary positional play here than normal, with other units having to do the heavy lifting. Neither side feels like they have a massive advantage on Secondaries either - both would probably go for a Psychic option normally, but it's risky either way in this game (particularly with the Tsons having far fewer Character casters than normal), and several other favoured options look less appealing than normal too. The mission does feel like it favours the Emperor's Children a bit though - they've got more units they're willing to throw out as sacrifices, and can potentially play keep-away pretty well. Having more units is also great for Strategic Scan, which the Tsons might have trouble sparing units for, especially if they want to take another Action secondary. The objective placement does also mean that it's going to be tough for the Thousand Sons to stay away from a fight they don't want to have forever.

Both players seem to have correctly assessed all of these points - Secondary picks were very conservative on both sides, with each player taking No Prisoners, Psychic Interrogation (presumably aiming to just squeeze as many points out as possible) and a Shadow Operations pick. Brett made a pretty powerful play to try and overcome the mission disadvantage, smashing one flank hard with shooting then sweeping units up to occupy it, pivoting the line of battle a bit, and giving him more flexibility to try and shut down Josh's Banners and to score his own Nephilim Data. That feels like the aboslute right play, and definitely made it a game - but Josh was able to stage Abaddon and the Terminators on the central objective with enough buffs on the unit that they weren't an efficient target, and from there was able to push outwards and deal sufficient damage to the Sons in melee that they ran out of stuff. The relatively low drop count for the servants of Tzeentch does seem to have swung it substantially - even with Brett choosing a good strategy to try and mitigate it, it was impossible to avoid the Scarabs being somewhere that put them in harm's way forever if he wanted to try and contest the game.

Result

Emperor's Children Victory - 85 - 61

Josh Roberts - Chaos Space Marines - 1st Place

Emperor's Children Noise Marines. Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Emperor's Children

Thoughts

Not much more that needs to be said we haven't covered already - great support for the best Chaos Space Marine toys combined with uniquely fantastic Troops is a recipe for victory, and earned Josh the coveted champion's belt.

Jonathan Clarke - Adepta Sororitas - 2nd Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Thoughts

Another build that needs no introduction at this point - the only thing to flag is that a few more lists (including this one) have added a second Transport on top of the standard single Rhino, which helps give you some options to stage stuff without being sitting ducks for any Flamers of Tzeentch that want to pop out and do some damage. Ephrael Stern also looks better than ever in a Chaos-heavy metagame, so there's definitely some smart choices on show from Jonathan here, with second place being a fitting reward.

Matt Robertson - Harlequins - 3rd Place

Harlequins Troupe Master. Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Twilight Saedath

Thoughts

Yet more anti-Chaos tech on show here, with Mirror Architect on a big Troupe being an extremely effective counter to Flamers, as they can take up a decent amount of space, and shut down the Daemons ability to shoot them in any sort of mixed list (pure Daemons might get away with it if they can push the Leadership low enough). You've also got a Lord of Crystal Bones to switch off Overwatch in a pinch, plenty of small units that can spike out a Noise Marine squad, and big Troupes that can provide a buff-stacked hammer blow in a pinch, something Twilight does appreciably better than Light. Add all the standard speed and shenanigans that Harlequins can muster and the result is extremely effective, and was put to very good use by Matt to earn third.

Chris Paterson - Blood Angels - 4th Place

Blood Angels Death Company. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Go-wide Blood Angels

Thoughts

Our final top four build from the Goonhammer Open is yet another that shows how influential Flamers are on the metagame, with Chris choosing to supplement the go-wide version of Blood Angels with a few specific tech choices, notably upgrading the standard squad of Incursors to Infiltrators for an anti-deep strike bubble, filling out the army with Eliminators to screen off space, and bringing a unit of Suppressors to switch off Overwatch when needed. Given that Blood Angels are perfectly happy to make use of small, expendable squads to push points on Relentless Assault if they're not needed for specific purposes, this feels like a good way of tuning the army for the metagame without risking ending up with pointless units, and this build looks very well positioned. I do also like the inferno pistol Death Company squad - I can't be the only one who just mentally inserted "with a melee attack" into the wording on Fury of the Lost, but nope, shooting counts, and that makes it quite common for this unit to be able to earn 5VP all by itself via shooting up a light vehicle, murdering something, then dying gloriously. Great tech picks by Chris here.

The Best of the Rest

There were 2 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

• 5th - Scott Morris - Necrons: An especially top-heavy Eternal Expansionist build, packing two C'tan, a big unit of Lychguard, two units of Heavy Destroyers and a full Lokhust stack, with minimal small objective grabbers to fill.
• 6th - Brett Smith - Thousand Sons & Daemons: See showdown.
• 7th - George Leathley - Adeptus Custodes: A very down-the-line Emperor's Chosen build with bikes and Achillus dreads. Pretty decent into a lot of the popular Chaos builds that are on the rise, which may be what's giving it a second wind.

US Open Kansas City: Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament

182-player, 8-round Supermajor in Kansas City, MO, United States on October 28 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal

Mani Cheema - Thousand Sons & Daemons: A more go-wide Duplicity detachment with some Enlightened for screening, plus a Fateskimmer with Infernal Gateway in the Daemon detachment for nasty Mortal Wound spikes.



vs.

Zaak Kerstetter - Blood Angels: Go-wide Death Company with

Thoughts

A second showing for the Thousand Sons/Flamers combo here, though Mani's list is built very differently from Brett's, going much wider and packing more Flamers and more Psychic firepower, but at the cost of only having one big melee brick in the form of the Scarab squad. That does make the army quite adaptable in how it plays the game, and the Tzaangor Enlightened are probably worth a particular highlight as a unit that looks improved in the current meta. They're cheap and fast, giving you expendable stuff that can screen out enemy Deep Strikers in the mirror, and because Engage keys off starting Strength in Nephilim, they can be good for scoring that while performing their sacrificial role (especially as a teleporting Fateskimmer is also eligible). Zaak's list, on the other hand, builds to pretty similar themes to Chris's that we just looked at, albeit with different tools - a Whirlwind provides access to Overwatch suppression, and adding Lemartes helps lock down Fury of the Lost, as he's eligible for it.

This is one of those matchups where both sides have to play extremely carefully, as both sides are very effective at rolling up the other if they get to bring their tools to bear effectively. Sanguinary Guard do not want to be eating Smites, but none of the Thousand Sons units want to be on the receiving end of pretty much any of the Blood Angels melee, and in particular the two Thunder Hammer Death Company units, which will make a mess of anything up to and including the Scarab Occults with enough buffs thrown on them.

That means that Banners looks pretty attractive for both sides, as it should provide a fairly reliable tick of points that the opponent would have to make significant sacrifices to stop, but past that a "passive" Secondary game favours the Sons, as Psychic Interrogation is great here. There's no great third Secondary option for the Sons, and Blood Angels do get some good kill options (including Abhor), but to score those they're going to have to reach out and start murdering the Tzeentch forces, opening them up to counter attacks with either psychic powers or Flamers. They do at least have the advantage that they're much happier fighting for the board centre game-long, which could help on the primary, but on Death and Zeal the Thousand Sons can get to 40 just by sitting on two objectives and murdering one errant jump pack squad a turn, so there's no big advantage to be built up there. With the Secondaries as picked (Banners/Abhor/Prisoners for the Angels, Banners/Engage/Interrogation for the Sons), the Blood Angels are required to take the fight to the Rubricae to win the game, which potentially lets Mani control the flow of battle enough to win.

Zaak, however, was able to find a route to take the game by a wafer thin margin. First up, while Mani can afford to play a bit more defensively, the Blood Angels are a bit better placed to deal catastrophic damage in a single turn than the Sons are, especially as Sanguinary Guard are quite resilient to Flamers on GW boards, as they still get a 2+ if they sit in one of the big bits of cover. That means that once the Angels start to stage mid-board, which again the terrain supports, the Sons have to start giving them a very wide berth or risk losing a lot of models, which can in turn make it harder for them to bring their toys to bear. Zaak was able to stop Mani scoring Engage pretty early, stage plenty of units mid-table, then go on enough of a red rampage to secure a one point victory.

Result

Blood Angels Victory - 75 - 74

Zaak Kerstetter - Blood Angels - 1st Place

Blood Angels Chaplain Lemartes. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Go-wide Blood Angels

Thoughts

Blood Angels combination of mobility, punch, decent Secondaries and a Armour of Contempt-compatible 2+ save on one of their key fast units is helping them make a serious impact right now, and Zaak's build here is also particularly effective on the US Open terrain, taking great advantage of both the strong staging positions and large pieces of Light Cover. Great to see Marines making a splash, well done to Zaak on the big win!

Mani Cheema - Thousand Sons & Daemons - 2nd Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Duplicity and Daemons

Thoughts

As covered in the showdown, this is a very flexible version of the Duplicity/Daemons plan, packing enough damage in both the shooting and Psychic phases to make a mess of the unprepared, and having a few more options for Secondaries and position play than the average. One of the best builds out there at the moment, and I strongly suspect we'll be seeing a lot of it over the next few months.

Brent Simon - Chaos Daemons - 3rd Place

Be'lakor - Credit: RichyP

The List

Archetype

Daemon...vehicles spam?

Thoughts

Aw yeah, that's the good stuff, just completely out of left field, love it. This list takes advantage of a few things (beyond the obvious one that Flamers are meta-defining levels of good), notably that Bloodletters look quite a bit more favourable than normal on the GW boards (as they love brawling through the big bits of area terrain) and that all the random Daemon chariots and vehicles are very aggressively costed in the new book for how durable and effective they are. A skull cannon may not look like a natural unit for an early push forwards, but it's 100pts for a T7 unit with 9W and effectively a 4+ invulnerable save, so the opponent is going to have to actually commit something real to the task of killing it, at which point a variety of unpleasant things can happen to them. All the Tzeentch chariots can zip around the board at speed ready to drop damage on whatever targets are exposed, and Flamers are pretty monstrously fast too. The list also has access to the Khorne Warp Storm table, and that means if the cannons are ignored they can potentially ram key enemy shooting units and tie them up in combat with Overwhelming Rage (also nasty with the Bloodletters). Overseeing all of this, finally, is Be'lakor, who is just really, really good, and durable enough to really press any advantage this army's tools open up.

This list is super cool, looks very powerful, and has the advantage left-field builds always do, which is that opponents just aren't going to be ready for it. Genuinely thrilling to see something so unique in a major top four, great stuff from Brent.

Dan Sammons - Hive Fleet Kraken - 4th Place

Parasite of Mortrex. Credit: Kevin Genson

The List

Archetype

Kraken Mortals/Pressure

Thoughts

With Leviathan finally taking a much needed hit, many Tyranid players are pivoting to some of the other strengths of the book, which are very much on show here. The sheer number of Mortal Wounds Tyranids can throw down when they go hard on Spore Mines and various flavours of 'thrope is pretty eye-watering, and this build can certainly make life very difficult for elite armies on taht front. Also very strong is ramming a unit of Raveners into your opponent's face at rocket speed by combining Opportunistic Advance and Onslaught, moving a casual 20" then charging, no big deal. When they hit, they also hit hard - I like the mix of rending claws and scything talons in each unit, as it feels like it strikes a good balance between volume and having the AP (-5 on the charge, no less) to clear out enemy elites, especially if Direct Guidance is applied. Beyond that, you've got a few more classic choices like a Reaper Flyrant and a Cunning Parasite, all well known strong Tyranid toys, and the resulting concoction is extremely formidible, especially in the hands of someone as experienced as Dan.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top eight were as follows

• 5th - John Lennon - Tyranids: Even more monsters and Mortals in John's latest spin on Kraken, featuring more Zoanthropes and a second Hive Tyrant, plus two units of Tyrant Guard as crunchy brawlers for the GW boards/Flyrant protection.
• 6th - Sean Rice - Chaos Daemons: Monsters n' Flamers here, with the big trio of Be'lakor, a Lord of Change and the Indomitable Bloodthirster providing heavy hitters, and Flamers sweeping up chaff.
• 7th - Thomas Reidy - Creations of Bile: The logical conclusion of Creations of Bile here, just going absolutely full send with 3x10 Possessed and a 10-model Terminator squad.
• 8th - Sean Nayden - Orks: A go-wide Goff build with lots of small units, Battlewagons to ferry them up the table, and Ghaz.

Dragon’s Lair GT

50-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Beverley, SA, AU on October 28 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Brendon Catalano - Chaos Daemons - 1st Place

Daemonettes of Slaanesh. Credit: Richyp

The List

Archetype

Go-wide Daemons

Final Round Matchup

100 - 41 Victory against Benjamin Reggett - Adeptus Custodes.

Thoughts

Neat - even more cool things you can do with Daemons (as long as you take 18 Flamers - that bit is mandatory). Rather than packing hefty stuff like monsters or lots of chariots, this build goes in the complete opposite direction and focuses on the cheapest ways to saturate the board with stuff. Because everything in the army is effectively on a minimum 4+ invulnerable save against shooting, and you can pop army-wide -1 to hit with Descending Shadow against long-ranged shots as well, the army becomes surprisingly difficult to shift at range, and up close it throws out a veritable avalance of D1 attacks with decent AP, which provides pretty broad capability to chew through stuff (and also has the option to buff up flamers where a heavier slam is needed). I feel like it might crumble a bit against something like Blood Angels, but it's mean into lots of things, and racked up an impressive series of victories in Brendon's hands to win the event.

James Mann - Imperial Knights - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Imperial Knights - Knight Gallant
Credit: Pendulin

The List

Archetype

Princeps Combo Taranis

Thoughts

The Calculated Targeting combo on top of Taranis' extra durability is a definite known quanitity at this point, but it's interesting to see a Gallant joining the party here, and I wonder if Leviathan Warrior Spam leaving the metagame makes them more attractive - nothing else stonewalls one quite so badly, and some of the current popular Chaos Space Marine Herohammer tools can comfortably pick off an Armiger, but might need to be a bit more circumspect in the face of maxmum gallantry. It's also a great place to get some big value out of Princeps if the Crusader is either destroyed, has no targets, or has already popped the combo - sweeping with the thunderstrike gauntlet with the Paladin buff on is going to be 10 attacks at 2s re-rolling to hit and wound into a lot of targets, and that's pretty tasty if you need to flatten, say, five Possessed. The spectre that is haunting the metagame (Tau) will, of course, ruin your day once in a while as punishment for bringing all the big Knights, but honestly even there providing a third target they can plausibly swing and miss into, with the threat of Our Darkest Hour as a huge blowout, may actually give you more of a shot than just having more Armigers to be picked off one at a time. A great run from James here.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Adam Napier - Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with an Errant and Crusader in charge.
• 4th - Simon Vickers - Necrons: Eternal Expanisonists with lots of Lokhust Destroyers.
• 5th - Michael Wood - Necrons: Eternal Expanisonists with loads of Scarabs and Wraiths, plus the Nightbringer.
• 6th - Stephen MacGregor - Thousand Sons & Daemons: Cult of Duplicity with power levels hacked upwards via 6-model units in order to bring a Lord of Change as well as Flamers.
• 7th - Bradley Bugeja - Thousand Sons & Daemons: A more standard Duplicity/Flamers list (with an especially large number of the latter).
• 8th - Jono Bishop - Tau: Aggressive Farsight Enclaves with a trio of Breacherfish and a pair each of Sun Sharks and Riptides.
• 9th - Andrew White - Adeptus Mechanicus: Veteran Cohort as Agripinaa, using the Verse of Vengeance on a big unit of Rangers to grind the enemy down, and autocannon Ironstriders to take advantage of the extra AP.

7th Confrontation

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on October 29 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

James Marsden - Necrons - 1st Place

Canoptek Wraiths. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Shooty Eternal Expansionists

Final Round Matchup

100 - 71 Victory against Callum Slater - Necrons.

Thoughts

A shootier version of Eternal Expansionists than normal here, combining the big guns of some Doom Scythes with a Lokhust blob to deal massive ranged damage, and favouring Wraiths over a large Scarab contingent for board pressure, perhaps aiming to adapt to the presence of Emperor's Children in the metagame, as they're not bad for carving up small units of Marines. Otherwise, business as usual here - rack up points quickly on Secondaries while denying the enemy Primary, bring the Silent King in as a mid-late game hammer to stop them pulling back into it, win lots of games (something James has been doing a lot of with Necrons this season!).

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Jamie Davies - Chaos Daemons: Monsters n' Flamers with the already traditional Be'lakor/LoC/Bloodthirster setup.
• 3rd - Angus Patterson - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with lots of Repentia and Zephyrim.
• 4th - Dion Skelton - Death Guard: Mortarion's Anvil with two big Plague Marine units and traditional backup like Deathshrouds and PBCS
• 5th - Adam Merrett - Genestealer Cult: Industrial Affinity/Impassioned Cult with lots of melee-specced Acolytes backed by Rockgrinders and Characters.
• 6th - Callum Slater - Necrons: Melee-focused Eternal Expansionists with Flayed Ones and Skorpekh galore.

Wrap Up

That wraps up another week of 40K, and we've got another big supermajor this weekend as the UKTC hits Coventry. We'll see whether Chaos and Blood Angels can continue their rampage, or if some other build will emerge from the shadows to take victory. Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

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