Warhammer continues to intensify, and while I'm not going to pretend that there aren't more Tau and Custodes lists to point at, today's events do at least feature a few more varied matchups on the top tables - so lets get cracking.

You should know the drill by now - a ✪ next to a placing means that the player either entered the final round undefeated, or was an undefeated runner up.

Warhammer World Matched Play Event

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

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission

Ben Allen - Harlequins - Whoops all fusion boats.



vs.

Simon Edwards - Necrons - Novokh Silent King with Flayed Ones and Wraiths



Death and Zeal

Thoughts

Kicking it old school here with ancient foes the Harlequins and Necrons throwing down for the trophy. On the Harlequin side, a truly eye-watering number of fusion boats zooms into battle, immediately handing them them mobility advantage for the game (although to be honest they'd have that against anyone), and representing quite a hefty diet  of spike damage too. However, all is not immediately lost for the Necrons, as the two big bricks of infantry here are pretty strong against the clowns, especially as Novokh. Fusion isn't a super efficient way of putting these down, and unless heavily softened up both squads can probably bounce a swing from one of the Troupes in melee as well, then interrupt and clean out whatever else has touched them before they take any further damange (using Blood Rites on the Warriors to crank the attack count high enough).

The many, many Shuriken cannons that the boats are toting will definitely get the job done over time, but early on the Necrons can look to dominate the board centre and the objectives closer to their short board edge, and try to build up a lead that the Harlequins can't overcome. They can also keep the Silent King back for a few turns then use him to try and stabilise if the big units start wobbling. Picking up Grind and Stranglehold while this does on is probably feasible, and with a plan to secure one of the no-man's land objectives, Ancient Machineries is maybe doable as a third choice.

The advantage the Harlequins have in trying to surmount this is that they can pretty reliably grind the Necrons off the table, over time. The durability of the big blocks and the difficulty of taking out the Silent King in melee means that they can't just go immediately all-out, but if they pace themselves then gradual advantage should build up, and it should be pretty easy to secure a couple of objectives then sacrifice one Troupe a turn to flip a third for the alternative Primary and to stop the Necrons getting too far ahead. Honestly both sides see pretty likely to get 14-15 on the alt condition here, as they're going to be very focused on pushing back and forth onto contested objectives.

What this game is going to come down to is whether the Harlequins identify a pivot point in the game correctly - the time that they've done enough damage that they can afford to be more aggressive to recoup what will probably be an initial lead for the Necrons (as they can quite likely lock down three objectives on the first turn). Go too early and there's the risk of a catastrophic bounce, too late and the score might not be recoverable, just right and victory shoudl result. By the narrowest of margins it looks like Ben managed to nail it - closing the game out 83-82. Sounds like a fittingly epic final either way!

Result

Harlequin Victory - 83-82

Ben Allen - Harlequins - 1st Place

Harlequins Troupe and Starweaver. Credit: Corrode

The List

See Showdown.

Archetype

Soaring Spite

Why it's Interesting in 9th

A last ride for old Harlequins, going all in on the thing that's largely defined them in 9th so far - Soaring Spite boats. This list has so many fast units and so much melta that it's got game into most things - overcommitting or hitting a bad turn can definitely result in it getting swept from the board, but with proper use of resources it's very hard to pin down and highly lethal. Well done to Ben on the win.

Cameron Giles - Adeptus Custodes - 2nd ✪ Place

Custodes Vertus Praetors. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Cameron can legitimately claim to have been a bit ahead of the curve on Custodes, notching up an event win a few weeks back, but at this point there's nothing too surprising about the list - lots of Bikes, a couple of Achillus Dreads as lethal counter-charge threats, and great infantry and characters to round it out. Still, two undefeated runs in three weeks is a great achievement, so strong work!

The Rest of the Best

Eight players finished up on 4-1 records. They were:

• 3rd ✪ - Simon Edwards - Necrons: See Showdown.
• 4th - Stuart Manks - Chaos Daemons: Be'lakor monster mash, with two Keepers, Big Bird and a Contorted Epitome joining him.
• 5th - Mark Underhill - Adeptus Custodes: Emperor's Chosen goodstuff with both flavours of Shield Captain alongside Trajann, plus a Vexila Magnifica.
• 6th - Stuart Harris - Adeptus Custodes: Emperor's Chosen goodstuff with an Achillus and Galatus.
• 7th - Liam Hartles - Imperial Knights: a hilarious Freeblade lance of Warglavies and Helverins lead up by a turbo-charged Knight Valiant carrying both Sanctuary and Sainted Ion for maximum durability. Charge, I guess.
• 8th ✪ - Wayne Jimmison - Adeptus Custodes: Shadowkeepers going very wide with troops and a pair of Galatus Dreads, also sporting a Blade Champion with the Lockwarden/Stasis Oubliette combo as a brutal counter-charge unit in the mirror.
• 9th - Luke Garside - Tau: Bor'kan with some big suits, a single Crisis bomb and a couple of Hammerheads.
• 10th - Mark Pinter - Adeptus Custodes: Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff with Galatus dreads.

Void Hammer GT

All the lists for this event are in Best Coast Pairings. This event was using 20-0 scoring.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission

Dave Murray - Adeptus Custodes - Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff



vs.

Innes Wilson - Genestealer Cult - Twisted Helix melee nightmares



Recover the Relics

Thoughts

Another very experienced Genestealer player navigates them to the finals of a GT, with Innes packing a list reasonably similar to what he wrote about in the Faction Focus for the army, mildly tweaked to get the No Prisoners count down below 100 and thus significantly reduce the exposure to that Secondary. It also adds a Nexos for extra reliable access to Fight Last via Coordinated Assault, and to provide plenty of CP to power tricks. The army's going to need those, because playing Genestealers into Custodes is a total nightmare - they have the exact right suite of tools to shut off your chances of an alpha turn, and can scythe through you at speed in response. Recover the Relics also hands the Custodes a very strong scoring option from the alternative Primary, as there's tonnes of small units to roll up on the Genestealer side, while the absolute most that the Cult can achieve is thirteen, and that seems unlikely to happen.

So what's a Genestealer to do here? The upside for them is that they do still have some genuine threats to the Custodes if they come and play in their side of the board - Mutagenic Deviation on either the big hybrids or the Purestrains represents an actual severe threat to the Bikers, and the army has a few options to rack up some reliable scoring if the Custodes stay at bay. To The Last on the two big units and keeping them in reserve is one route, but has the risk that it makes a counterattack more dicey, but Banners is very strong with three near objectives, the Custodes don't have much they can do about Psychic Interrogation once they move up, and having chatted to Innes, Broodswarm was the third option, which can be very easily pushed to at least ten here at almost no risk. Given the Custodes pretty much have to take some killy ones (the actual selections were Assassination and Grind) that forces the Custodes to come and fight on the Genestealers terms, allowing for a massive counterattack and potentially allowing units like the Kelermorph to start some mischief in the backfield (there's honestly not that much non-bikers can do about him, and he will gradually take out units thanks to the Wyrmtooth Rounds).

There is a big risk here that the counterattack just doesn't land - Emperor's Chosen can shrug off anything, even a drill high roll, but in the event I'm told that it went just about well enough that it put the Genestealers in position to narrowly win from there. The other key tool to secure that once the Custodes had lost a few units was the Nexos dropping Covering Fire to prevent heroic interventions - this allows small Genestealer units to reliably sacrifice themselves to take down Banners and temporarily flip objectives, and really helped get them over the line.

Result

Genestealer Cult Victory - 81-73

Innes Wilson - Genestealer Cult - 1st Place

Genestealer Cults Patriarch. That Gobbo

The List

See Showdown.

Archetype

Twisted Helix Melee

Why it's Interesting in 9th

I'm informed that the Reddit comments on Innes' article said his list looked like he had no idea how to play Cults, so I can only assume this is some weird fluke that requires no further comment. More seriously, Twisted Helix is the play if you really enjoy the melee jank angle of Genestealers - the extra strength on Purestrains and Metamorphs in particular gets them over some key breakpoints, Bio-Alchemist really amps up how spooky the Patriarch is, and access to Mutagenic Deviation is your catch all for when something really needs to die. This list gives up Assassinate very easily, so building to ensure No Prisoners caps at 9 rather than 12 on a tabling does make a lot of sense, and overall you get something very tricky and potent that Innes was able to lead to victory. Innes 1 - Reddit Comment Section 0.

Brian Seipp - Tau - 2nd ✪ Place

Tau Broadside Battlesuit with Railgun. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Outer Enclaves

Why it's Interesting in 9th

The patented Gunum masterplan of taking an Ethereal in a Farsight Successor Sept has broken containment this week, seeing use by both Coventry supermajor winner Brian and a player at one of the events further down the page. The combination means that you get both the incredibly powerful Sept Trait and stratagem of Farsight and Sense of Stone to amp up one Crisis unit and a constant supply of Command Points via Wisdom of the Guides, really helping the army operate smoothly. The setup here looks pretty straightforward once that's accounted for - you have a lot of Breachers to go aggressive with via Combat Debarkation, and two big Crisis Teams to play vicious games. The plasma one presumably snipes away early using Strike and Fade, then the flamer/airburst unit drops in either via a Homing Beacon on one or Manta Strike on two, pops Drop Zone Clear and puts half the opposing army in the bin. Once that's out the way, the Commanders and Broadsides can kind of troubleshoot whatever is left, and ride it to victory. Innes was able to pip Brian to the top spot by a singular battle point, but this list still looks very strong, so congratulations to Brian on the successful execution.

The Rest of the Best

20-0 makes cutting this off a nightmare as ever, but there's a big score dropoff from 4th to 5th here, so I'm going with the rest of the top four.

• 3rd - Gavin Heritage - Adeptus Mechanicus: Mechanicus Defence Cohort Breacher and Kastelan Robot spam, making the obvious choice to go with Lucius for access to powerful mobility tricks.
• 4th ✪ - Dave Murray - Adeptus Custodes: See Showdown.

Victoria Masters

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. This event was using 20-0 scoring.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission

Boyd Morrall - Chaos Space Marines - Iron Warriors Daemon Engines



vs.

Stuart Trainer - Grey Knights - Prescient Brethren Dreadknights and Interceptors



Mission Unknown (missed that I didn't have this one noted till too late, and it's not in the pack).

Thoughts

Another week and another brave Chaos Space Marine player successfuly navigating them to the finals of the event. This time we've got Iron Warriors Daemon Engines (certainly a pretty nasty build, with Daemonsmith putting in work in combination with Decimators) facing down a newly streamlined Grey Knights build. Like Drukhari, Grey Knights have toppled somewhat from their previous heights, but armies like this are still pretty frightening, especially to opponents that don't really have access to damage reduction to help weather the strorm of psycannon shots coming off the Dreadknights, though Dour Duty will certainly help out a bit. Defences work both ways here though, as Grey Knights is one of two matchups (Emperor's Chosen being the other) where the soulburner petards of the Decimators are going to underwhelm thanks to the army-wide 5+ against Mortals.

The biggest asset the Warriors have to push damage through despite this is the Obliterators, mostly because if they drop in and pop off a full stratagem combo, they have a real chance of evaporating pretty much the entire of whatever Infantry presence the Grey Knights have deployed to the mid-board, allowing the Daemons to then focus on asserting objective control, and forcing casts that might otherwise be doing useful things or Smites from Characters and Dreadknights to be re-directed to Purifying Ritual. Worse for the Grey Knights, if the Oblits come in behind the Cultists then those will probably eat the shooting of two Dreadknights before expiring with Cannon Fodder, maybe not leaving enough firepower to clear the fleshmetal monstrosities out before they do their thing again. Obliterators are a real high point out of the current Chaos roster at their price, because they are uniquely threatening in how much violence they bring to bear straight out of Deep Strike, and games like this can really warp around them.

The key for the Knights, therefore, is to be very careful about how much they allow the Oblits to pick up on the turn they arrive. There's a couple of options for this - they can keep lots of Interceptors back initially while a few tougher things like Dreadknights march forward, or they can try and fan out in a big way, pressing back where it's actually possible to drop the Obliterators and trying to exploit their relatively short range. If at all possible, clearing out the Cultists early on is valuable as well, as it reduces the challenge of dealing with them the turn the Oblits come down, but as ever extreme care would need to be taken not to allow a Tide of Traitors to ruin everything. The Terminators are also a threat out of deep strike, but vastly less concerning than the Oblits, and very quick to pick up with a wide variety of the tools in this army. Realistically, Grey Knights are just generally operating with a higher quality of unit here, and in that situation the key is always to identify what your opponent has that could badly flip the maths if you let it, then cautiously execute a grinding victory around it. It does also definitely help that as soon as the Decimators start trying to operate in petard range they're starting to open themselves up to a counter-charge from Interceptors, which can both deal some damage and shut them down for a turn. Score-wise, the Chaos side put in a credible attempt here, racking up a decent 66pts, but the Grey Knights ended the game and event with a solid victory.

Result

Grey Knight Victory - 85-66

Stuart Trainer - Grey Knights - 1st Place

Grey Knight Nemesis Dreadknights. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

See Showdown.

Archetype

Prescient Brethren Dreadknights

Why it's Interesting in 9th

I mean yeah - that sure does look like a post-Nachmund version of the lists that were running rampant late last year. Prescient Brethren were already one of the Brotherhoods you saw mono-faction, as the combination of their re-roll stratagem and Divination is just such a broadly good combination that there's not much else that compares, with only Swordbearers for Dreadknight alpha strikes really coming close. Right now the versatility feels better, and if the metagame wasn't so abjectly hostile I suspect we'd be seeing builds similar to this quite a bit. As it is, pushing through to victory with Grey Knights suddenly looks very impressive, so congratulations to Stuart.

The Rest of the Best

Covering the top four again here:

• 2nd - Leigh Abbey - Chaos: A hybrid CSM/Death Guard build running the expected Emperor's Children toys (Dreadclaws full of Noise Marines, Terminators, the Remnant) with Plagueburst Crawlers and a Tallyman to hold the table and farm CP.
• 3rd - Augustus Hebblewhite - Adeptus Custodes: Aquilan Shield, running an ultra-tanked Bike Captain with Superior Creation and Revered Companion, plus a Callidus Assassin.
• 4th - Michael Hamilton - Iron Hands: Redemptors, a Leviathan and a Pod double-stacked with Devastators adds up to a punishing shooting list.

Salty Classic GT

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

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission

William Lozada - Adeptus Custodes - Solar Watch Infantry Spam



vs.

Daniel Smith - Adeptus Custodes - Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff with lots of bikes.



Tide of Conviction

Thoughts

How else were we going to round this week out, really? Custodian faces Custodian but at least it's a bit more interesting than just two Emperor's Chosen lists slamming into one another and trying to roll better. Instead, a build that made some waves at LVO but didn't quite break through gets an outing - Solar Watch infantry spam. Sally Forth definitely looked like one of the things in the Custodes book potentially powerful enough to pass up on Emperor's Chosen for, and it turns out that a nightmare deathball of ten Praesidium Shield Custodians rampaging around the field at speed is quite tricky for a lot of armies to deal with.

Arguably Emperor's Chosen is one of the ones that can, to be fair - it'll take a bit of softening up with salvo launchers before it's safe to roll into them, but the Custodians can't catch the bikes, and at only S6 are honesly not great at actually killing them either. Meanwhile, though the big squad can have all the defensive stratagems dumped on them, elsewhere the bikes can pick up the infantry at speed, wounding on 2s on the charge as long as Alchemy has been baited elsewhere, and with enough AP that the fancy shields don't matter. On many missions, despite how brutal the central anchor of the Solar Watch list is, I'd give the Emperor's Chosen the nod for this one, but this is another game that Tide of Conviction really upends. Trying to play for objectives in this mission against the big Custodian squad is going to be absolutely horrendous for the Chosen through to the mid game (where it's reasonable to expect they might finally have picked it up), and they have to be very cautious with their own ObSec models to try and maintain enough presence to counteract it. My basic expectation for how this game played out is that the Solar Watch will end the game looking pretty badly maimed, with vastly fewer models left on the table, but will do enough to cap the early scoring of the Chosen that it won't matter.

That's especially true because they have an Inquisitor and the Chosen don't, meaning they should have a fairly reliable route to 9-12 pts depending on the exact psychic plan chosen (unless the Prosecutors manage to disrupt it), while the Chosen are facing a list that they can't trivially Grind or Stranglehold against, an extremely daunting task. Taking a look at the scoreline, I think this is a pretty plausible model for how the game may have played (though far from the only one) - the scores aren't massive on either side, and the margin of victory not massive, but the Solar Watch did emerge victorious.

Result

Solar Watch Victory - 72-55

William Lozada - Adeptus Custodes - 1st Place

Custodian Guard with Storm Shields by Crab-stuffed Mushrooms

The List

See Showdown.

Archetype

Solar Watch infantry spam

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Spiritual successor to things like "whoops all Deathwing", only with even better defensive toys and Advance and Charge, this list is a very different Custodes spin that's still very powerful. I do feel like it has some problems into Crusher Stampede, but a quick look at the results suggests it has real game into Tau, which I guess makes sense given I'm not wholly sure what the hell their plan is for rolling up a ten model squad on 1+ saves and -1 to hit that pops Emperor's Auspice and can heroic off a massive surface area. Get real lucky with plasma rifles maybe? Not sure any of their lists are packing enough! Anyway, when a faction is performing as well as Custodes is it's nice to at least see a bit of variety in the builds, and throwing a very different challenge at some opponents is always valuable, so well done William on the event win (and for taking down the twin meta menaces of "Tau" and "Other Custodes").

The Rest of the Best

Seven players finished on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Jordan Sorchevich - Adeptus Custodes: Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff with one bulked up bike squad and both Shield Captain flavours.
• 3rd ✪ - Daniel Smith - Adeptus Custodes: Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff with an extra bike in each unit and some Sagittarum.
• 4th - Quinton Johnson - Tau: A showing for a custom Sept, combining Calm Under Pressure for extra offensive power up close (especially on a CIB/burst/burst Crisis Team) with Camouflage Experts to make the six Broadsides in the list extra tough to shift in the mirror match.
• 5th - Benjamin Cromer - Tau: Tau Sept Goodstuff with Longstrike and Shadowsun.
• 6th - Travis Hill - Adeptus Custodes: Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff with a Caladius and 2x3 Allarus for Unleash the Lions tricks.
• 7th - Morgan Timpy - Tau: Outer Enclaves with lots of Broadsides, a CIB/burst/burst team and Breachers in Devilfish.
• 8th - David Ozawa - Grey Knights: Something new here, a giant brick of Terminators running as Preservers for access to Aegis Eternal, and running a single Dreadnought for comedy Charge of the Ancients action. Also Dreadknights. Still good, it turns out.

Wrap Up

And with that the week is finally over - though much to my horror it looks like next week could be even bigger. We'll see exactly what happens with that (some amount of culling of showdowns for repeat matchups may be needed, as while fun they take a bit longer to write) and see you back here then. Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

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