Imagine I put the gif of Adam Driver screaming "more. MORE" here.

There is more.

Today we'll cover:

• Roll For Damage GT (major)
• Trashtics GT
• Power 9 Games Friendly Local GT
• THERE IS ONLY WAR - Gamers Guild Grand Tournament
• 2022 Wars on the Shore GT
• Jade Tiger Games GT

If you're looking for any of the following events, plus followups on some Tier List feedback, go check out Wednesday's column.

• Battle in the Bush (Major)
• Huxley's Open 2022 (Major)
• Rise of Kings
• Brewhammer
• KC Summer Slaughter
• Bembel Clash #4

Let's get going.

Roll For Damage GT

70-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Fulham, SA, AU on August 26 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tear Down Their Icons

Michael Wood - Necrons: Body-heavy Eternal Expansionists with Necron Warriors and loads of Scarabs.

vs.

Adam Napier - Chaos Space Marines: Go-wide Creations of Bile with lots of Legionnaires and Possessed, and plenty of Rhinos.

Thoughts

I have to assume that someone in GW HQ is looking at this Creations of Bile list and high-fiving, because it both rules and it achieves its goal by just jamming a bunch of troops into Rhinos and rolling over the enemy. Guaranteeing that you get to strike back if the opponent jumps you makes running relatively elite infantry much more practical, and the Creations trait combines that with pushing almost everything to at least the key S5 break point, making sure they're ready for brawlin'.

That's very good for them in this matchup, though not to the extent that it makes it a free win or anything. This version of Eternal Expansionists is skewed towards packing in lots of wounds and holding positions, but sacrifices damage potential to do it. It's not harmless, but the absence of Skorpekh is very notable - instead, the plan is for the Lokhusts and Silent King to obliterate targets at range while the Warriors and Scarabs take objectives/soften stuff up, and gradually degrade the opponent's ability to fight back.

Here that runs into a number of issues. The Chaos army is pretty great at hiding, and having most of the Infantry in Rhinos also means that the Lokhusts are pretty capped in how much damage they can do (unless the king punks the tank). They do have the upside that the Bile list lacks shooting reach of its own, so the Destroyers are relatively safe unless they get caught out by the Bikers Advancing/Charging (though their reach is considerable), so they'll at least get to do stuff for a while, but paradoxically the Necrons would probably rather there was a single large unit of buffed up Terminators of something to really unleash the Destroyers on, where here there's lots of small stuff. All that small stuff is also extremely happy to rock into combat, and will do pretty horrific damage when they hit - the big Warrior squad will need special attention, but anything else melts to the Possessed, and the Chaos Characters are well tuned for Wraith killing. If the Rhinos are ignored, they're also very good for playing bumper cars here, as the number of times the Necrons can pull something out of combat is pretty limited. Finally, Chaos actually have more random straggler units to do the mission Action than the Necrons do, further helping them.

The Necrons main counter-advantage, other than being able to be very muscular with the Silent King (definitely good) is that their secondary game is as good as ever here - Treasures of the Aeons is pretty hard to stop on corner maps, Code of Combat is great as the Silent King should be able to sweep up lots of units over the game, and you can very likely lock in 12pts on Machineries as a third. The Chaos ones aren't bad in response (No Prisoners is incredibly free here, Specimens is decent thanks to the two small random monsters, and For the Dark Gods is pretty decent), but do ask a bit more of them, so the Necron plan has got to be to max secondaries, and try and stop the Chaos side from flipping Primary into their favour. The best bet for that is probably to send a relatively light first wave out, and then push onto the centre with the Warriors and Silent King as the second wave, trying to lock that middle position down. Definitely plausible as a way to win, but it looks like Chaos's ability to just steamroller units on lots of fronts won out!

Result

Chaos Space Marines Victory - 98 - 73

Adam Napier - Chaos Space Marines - 1st Place

Possessed. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Go-wide Creations of Bile

Thoughts

Awesome army, just loads of incredibly messed up guys rampaging around the galaxy tearing stuff limb-from-limb. Flexible Secondary game (especially as the Bile one is one of the best available), lots of ObSec, and a level of sheer violence that opponents probably aren't going to figure out till it hits them. Love it, great stuff from Adam.

Michael Wood - Necrons - 2nd Place

Necron Warriors. Credit: Wings

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Durable Eternal Expansionists

Thoughts

Like, a lot of the time this plan works - chewing through a full Warrior unit is a serious lift for many armies, and doing that while also trying to pick up this many Scarabs will overwhelm a lot of forces. As long as you don't encounter exactly an army with tonnes of ObSec and where every unit can rock into melee (so basically Dogwalker, Blood Angels or Creations) you're good, and the numbers this list puts on the table means it can roll with a bad turn better than the versions built around more fragile, deadly units. A great army overall, just unfortunate to hit a natural predator in the final - well done to Michael on second place.

Jacob Warn - Hive Fleet Kraken - 3rd Place

Devourer Termagants. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Kraken Pressure

Thoughts

Speaking of heavy board control - a return of one of the non-Leviathan Tyranid brands. Kraken can go very fast, and exploit this by slamming efficient bodies like Raveners into the opponent's face. This list is particularly all-in on rolling the board, with a swarm of Termagants around a Tervigon adding weight of ObSec (as an alternative to bringing the Swarmlord as some builds do), and is another army that's really, really tricky to push back. A cool third place finish here.

Mathew Cross - Adepta Sororitas - 4th Place

Credit: Evan "Felime" Siefring

The List

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Thoughts

No huge surprise to see the Adepta Sororitas rounding out our top four here, with Adam sporting a build that's a bit more herohammer and shooty heavy than normal, at the cost of not going as wide. Gives it some real crunch and counterpunch potential, but may have counted against it in the only loss it picked up, which was against Adam's Creations. Still, a 5-1 finish only losing to the event winner is always an extremely impressive performance, so great stuff from Mathew.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

• 5th - Joshua Engelke - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists heavy on speedy Wraiths and Tomb Blades.
• 6th - Aidan McCune - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with lots of Heavy Destroyers and the Nightbringer.
• 7th - James Mann - Imperial Knights: House Taranis with the full Paladin/Crusader combo and a Knight Gallant for extra pressure.

Trashtics GT @ Game Kastle - Santa Clara!

50-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Santa Clara, CA, US on August 27 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Conversion

Will Trovato - Hive Fleet Leviathan: Leviathan Warriors and Harpies.

vs.

Greg Nunes - Chaos: Mixed Chaos with Slaanesh Daemons and Be'lakor and Plagueburst Crawlers.

Thoughts

This Chaos list is a brave choice in Nephilim, as it's sufficiently souped to lose access to any faction objectives, leaving it drawing on the core set only. It's certainly OK at those, as it goes - it has lots of stuff that's eligible for Engage, is strong at Psychic Interrogation (though that's hard against Tyranids) and can play a decent Banners or RND game, particularly on this mission. It would ideally like access to at least one kill Secondary that's strong which it doesn't really find here (though Prisoners honestly might be the pick just because it demands no special attention for a safe 7-8), and that means it's almost certainly going into this game expecting to cap scoring in the 80s if things go well, so it has to stop the Tyranids pulling ahead on Primary - which they are of course designed to do.

Helpfully for the Daemons, however, Be'lakor and the Keepers are an extremely good thing to throw into Warriors and do massive damage. The Keepers represent a tonne of D3 attacks, while both Be'lakor and Shalxi are extremely hard for the Warriors to kill in retaliation. Be'lakor also has huge reach thanks to the Locus, and there aren't that many units in the Tyranid army (especially once the Gargoyles have been murdered), so making a thrust through to take out a key character seems pretty feasible. Be'lakor's reach also means the Harpies have to be pretty careful about where they land, and they're also far from immune to some high-rolled entropy cannon shots.

Honestly, this Daemon list is pretty ideal for trying to push through the Tyranids here, and the question is whether they can do so fast enough to deal with their low score cap. The answer appears to be no - just. The Tyranids took this by three points, representing a seriously good attempt by the Daemons considering!

Result

Tyranids Victory - 77 - 74

Will Trovato - Tyranids - 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Thoughts

I, for one, welcome our star god overlords. I write such nice things about them every week. Well done to Will on the win.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 4-1 or better records. They were:

• 2nd (undefeated with a draw) - Artem Trytiak - Thousand Sons: Cult of Duplicity double Scarabs.
• 3rd - Eulis Sanders - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists running a tonne of Flayed Ones with Anrakyr.
• 4th - Greg Nunes - Chaos: See Showdown.
• 5th - Chris Mason - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with lots of Wraiths and Doom Scythes.
• 6th - Wei Li - Tyranids: Leviathan Warrior Spam with two Harpies.
• 7th - Trent Wheeler - Word Bearers: Word Bearers centred around a bit unit of Terminators and a full Possessed unit with the Black Rune.
• 8th - Ricardo Leyva - Adeptus Custodes: Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff.
• 9th - Israel Sanchez - Tau: Tau Sept...triptide. Oh no. Oh no no no.

Power 9 Games Friendly Local GT

33-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in North Las Vegas, NV, US on August 27 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Unknown

Daniel Olivas - Harlequins: Twilight Saedath with boats and a Webway gate (with one big Foot Troupe to go in it)

vs.

Junior Aflleje - Blood Angels: Jump pack stuff, plus a unit of Inceptors and a Whirlwind.

Thoughts

Heavy transport armies are often pretty hard work for the Blood Angels, and this is definitely a game where that holds up. So much of their damage is concentrated in the Fight Phase that if the opponent is mostly mounted up it's very difficult for them to get enough value when they commit their units, unless they can survive the swingback. This list techs for this issue with some Inceptors to crack transports, but they're vastly less good at this against Harlequins, because not being able to re-roll hits means that going on overcharge is going to lose at least half the unit most of the time. Is there any hope for the Angels here?

Yes, because as Harlequin lists go, the counterattack potential of this one into the Blood Angels is actually only OK. There aren't many Harlequin weapons or fusions scattered around the squads, and Harlequins blades aren't going to cut it against Sanguinary guard (though the Characters are definitely nastier). There is, of course, the big unit in the gate but three units of Infiltrators can do a decent job of preventing that from becoming an issue, at least in the short term - and because this Harlequin build has less power armour killers than some, if they draw firepower and charges away from the good stuff that's fine to. Against a lot of armies the extra boost from Twilight would be enough for the blades to get things done, but 2+ save AoC Marines are absolutely not one of those.

For my money, that means there's a real argument for the Blood Angels to just go full aggro here - swoop forward as quickly as possible, get Infiltrators onto the gate so that the opponent has to either clear them or bring the foot Troupe in elsewhere, and brutalise the clowns as they try and play for the mid-board. Harlequin Secondaries are very strong, but they can be challenging to score if they're kept on the backfoot (except Weave, which is sadly free points here), and I do think the Angels could hit hard enough and tank enough of the response to roll through to the win. That'll depend a bit on mission, which sadly I don't have for this one, but trying to play cagey in this game honestly feels like it's just giving the clowns a chance to chip stuff away and pick off units one at a time. Get in their face, demand they answer (for their crimes). Doesn't look like that worked if it was the plan, but it's definitely what I'd try.

Result

Harlequins Victory - 95 - 67

Daniel Olivas - Harlequins - 1st Place

Harlequins Troupe and Starweaver. Credit: Corrode

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Twilight Saedath with a Webway Gate.

Thoughts

Nice to see Aeldari master Daniel giving the Twilight Saedath a workout here, and the Webway Gate threat is a real headache to work around. I do think (as alluded to in the showdown) that there's just a little extent to which this army is relying on the opponent overestimating what the average unit can do in melee, especially if they have Armour of Contempt, but they've still got all the mobility and character punch that any Harlequin list brings to the table, and they play the Secondaries very well too. Well done Daniel.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Adam Baker - Chaos Knights: Herpetrax with a souped up Desecrator and Abominant, then War Dogs.
• 3rd - Junior Aflleje - Blood Angels: See Showdown.
• 4th - Clay Stubblefield - Adeptus Custodes: Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff with some Caladius Tanks.
• 5th - Ben Jurek - Orks: Ghazless Goff Pressure with lots of Kommandos, then plenty of small units to cover the board and Kill Rigs for crunch.

THERE IS ONLY WAR - Gamers Guild Grand Tournament

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Tempe, AZ, US on August 27 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal

Justin Aguilar - Goffs: Goff pressure with Ghaz, Kill Rigs and bonus Stormboyz.

vs.

Tyler Heppler - Tyranids: Kraken with a mixture of pressure units and ranged damage, with the latter provided by Exocrines and Zoanthropes.

Thoughts

Goff Pressure vs. Kraken not-quite-Pressure. Kraken's game plan here is to lock the opponent down with enough early pressure that their truly monstrous Psychic fusillade (plus Exocrines) leaves a smoking hole where the competition used to be. The Orks, on the other hand, are still fully on the plan to roll right over the opponent, with lots of Kill Rigs and Stormboyz ready to take maximum advantage of Waaaagh, and the ominous spectre of Ghaz following up and getting stuck in.

The dynamic here ends up pretty interesting, because the Goffs can carve through the Kraken first wave much faster than most armies, but reliable Mortal Wounds are also a very good tool for bringing that rampage to an end, and the damage from a pair of Exocrines is going to add up, particularly into the Squighog Boyz. My suspicion is that this means the correct play for the Goffs is, unusually for them, not to push hard for the centre, and instead go after the two flank objectives. If the Tyranids split their forces, then they lose the concentration of Mortal Wounds, and if they go hard for one flank, then the Orks can then pivot from that to contesting the centre, aiming to deny some points on the way. Pushing for flank objectives will help with Green Tide and Get Da Good Bitz too, and maybe leave the Tyranids a bit stretched if they lose some units, which in this game they're going to. It feels like you can keep enough stuff held back as a second wave to content with most of what the bugs could push into the centre (even a buffed Stormboyz unit is a serious threat to Raveners or Warriors) that this plan might sufficiently flummox the Hive Mind to allow the Orks to take a victory here. However, you are still contending with the extremely high quality of the Tyranid book, and you do have the issue, as the Orks, that if you're put on the first turn then the Tyranids have a much easier time of it - they can take enough of a chunk out of whatever the Orks commit early to largely mitigate the risk of falling behind on assets later on.

I do still think this ends up as anyones to play for, but in line with the current general narrative, Tyranids proved to be a bit too much for the Boyz.

Result

Tyranids Victory - 90 - 73

Tyler Heppler - Tyranids - 1st Place

Credit: PierreTheMime

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Big Brain Kraken

Thoughts

I like this spin on the Kraken plan a lot, using early pressure to tangle the opponent up followed by an exceptionally reliable clip of attrition from the 'thropes. It's a bit different, it shows off yet another thing this cursed codex can do post nerf, and it definitely means that Tyler takes the win in style here.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Justin Aguilar - Goffs: See Showdown.
• 3rd - Donovan Sailo - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with max Zephyrim.
• 4th - Jacob Wagner - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with Doom Scythes and the Deceiver.
• 5th - Robert Lawler - Tyranids: Hilarious Lurk ObSec monster mash Behemoth.
• 6th - Matthew Dean - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with a Warrior block, lots of MSUs and a Doomsday Ark.

2022 Wars on the Shore GT

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Erie, PA, US on August 27 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Abandoned Sanctuaries

TJ Lanigan - Thousand Sons: Double Scarab Duplicity with extra Cultists.

vs.

Brian Horton - Hive Fleet Leviathan: Leviathan with lots of Warriors and Psychic firepower backing them up.

Thoughts

We're right back where we started this week - Thousand Sons vs. Tyranids on a very grindy, mid-board heavy mission. This time around, things look much more even, and perhaps even (whisper it) favourable to the Thousand Sons at a list level. As discussed in the other Showdown of this matchup, the mixture of mortal wounds and reliable Terminator shooting that the Sons put out is very good at chewing through Warriors, and this 'nid build is leaning heavily on those to hold the board. In addition, both sides here want to be using Psychic Interrogation to fill out their Secondaries, but the Thousand Sons are much better at forcing theirs through (between Rituals and Seeker after Shadows) and Denying the Tyranid attempts. Just in general, the Tyranids have invested heavily in psychic damage dealing, and while every Mortal that goes through against the Sons is very good, pushing casts through might be challenging.

What the Tyranids do have going for them is that they're generally a bit faster around the table, especially if they get the first turn (as on this map, moving out on a broad front does a lot to shut down Facade and the Crystal). The Dawn of War deployment also means that the Flyrant doing hit and runs on characters with Overrun can quickly become hard to stop, and is a very strong way for the Tyranids to pick up some points. Some of the Secondaries that the Sons might consider also have the potential to become traps, and the Cultist units aren't great here - if the Tsons go first they're valuable cheap sacrifices, but if not they're just free kills, and might feed into No Prisoners if the Hive Mind is feeling conservative on its picks. My gut feel is that this ends up favouring the Thousand Sons a reasonable amount if they go first, as I think with a turn to get into position they should pull ahead, and is to close to call with the Tyranids going first. Close is definitely how this ended - TJ was able to take some vengeance for Tzeentch, but only by an extremely narrow margin.

Result

Thousand Sons Victory - 90 - 87

TJ Lanigan - Thousand Sons - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Cult of Duplicity

Thoughts

We've seen TJ's list a few times now, sacrificing some additional Rubricae or supporting tools for three units of Cultists to provide expendable sacrifices in missions where you need them. Definitely adds some flexibility and means that you've got a backup plan for the early game in very hostile shooty matchups like Tau, and rewarded here with a trophy.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Brian Horton - Hive Fleet Leviathan: See showdown.
• 3rd - William Pagonis - Astra Militarum: Guard Brigade with lots of Tank Commanders and Russes, and MSU Ogryns in the Elites slot for a bit of melee threat.
• 4th - Michael Fox - Death Guard: All-rounder Mortarion's Anvil with a big Plague Marine unit and two five-model Deathshroud squads.
• 5th - Joe Guzowski - Astra Militarum: Lots of Scions in a mix of Tauroxes and Valkyries, then a big Bullgryn block for the mid-board.
• 6th - Mike Norton - Emperor's Children: Abaddon, lots of Noise Marines and a big Terminator unit.
• 7th - Tyler Wilson - Tyranids: General Leviathan Goodstuff with a pair of Harpies.

Jade Tiger Games GT

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Oak Hill, West Virginia, US on August 27 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Data-Scry Salvage

Sean Coots - Word Bearers: Lots of Possessed, three Venomcrawlers and a big Terminator brick, plus an Elixir Discolord.

vs.

Jeremy Landrum - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with Exocrines and Carnifexes backing up Warriors.

Thoughts

Even more Chaos vs. Tyranid action, apparently. Here there's unfortunately a very fundamental problem for the Word Bearers - a huge amount of their heavy lifting is via D2 weaponry, and both Carnifexes and Warriors (via Reinforced Hive Node) can massively mitigate that, while in the other direction there's a lot of juicy targets for Venom Cannons. The mission also demands that the participants engage pretty broadly if they want Primary points, and that's going to further help the Tyranids. Only the Terminators really scare them, and on this mission they're not going to be do enough to dominate the Primary by themselves. Secondaries also feel like they favour the bugs - they have a vastly easier time doing Interrogation, Cranial Feasting or Assassinate are both probably fine, and the setup of the Word Bearers list means that Synaptic Insight is unusually plausible (though honestly, they have few enough big synapse killers that just taking Grind is probably fine). The Word Bearers also have a harder time than normal using their (pretty good) Secondary, as it doesn't combo with fighting for an objective, and exposes units to vicious reprisals.

On some level, this feels like a bit of a cop out, but this is the twelth of these I've written this week, and this game is incredibly uphill for Chaos from the start, and the scoreline suggests there were no major upsets.

Result

Tyranids Victory - 93 - 55

Jeremy Landrum - Tyranids - 1st Place

Hive Tyrant. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Thoughts

I guess it's interesting to observe the enormous upswing in Exocrines in general. They're pretty good, it turns out. Well done to Jeremy for doing the metaphorical end-run for nids here.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Aidan Hing - Imperial Knights: A Taranis Errant leading a bunch of Warglaives up front, then a Forgemaster Paladin palling around with some Helverins at the back.
• 3rd - Joe Cottrell - Thousand Sons: Duplicity with MSUs of Scarabs rather than big blocks, instead investing in larger Rubricae units, spawn and a big cultist squad.
• 4th - Tony Booton - Necrons: Double C'tan Eternal Conquerors, using Isolationists instead of Relentlessly Expansionist for...no reason I can discern, so possibly just a typo.

Wrap Up

I have honestly lost track if that was the most events we've yet had in a single week (might have been a 14 at one point?) but it was a lot. It's great news that so many people are enthusiastic about getting Nephilim games in, and we'll see next week what happens when it's played at the supermajor scale at the NOVA open. Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

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