This week I'm on holiday, but the march of 40K never stops, and there's plenty going on in the competitive scene. With that in mind, my cunning compromise between me getting a proper break and not letting this column slide completely is that I'm going to cover all the undefeated lists in full from the seven GT+ events of the weekend, then blast through the remaining players in Best of the Rest format. Normal service will return next week, and apologies to anyone who misses out on a full writeup this time.

Let's hit it.

Wargaming Guild Summer Slaughter (Major)

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. You can find out more about the Wargaming Guild on their Facebook page, and there's lots of photos from the event on their Instagram.

Mani Cheema - Orks - 1st Place

Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy. Credit: Rockfish

The List

The Standout Features

• Mani speed runs us towards the logical conclusion of the Ramshackle lists with this terrifying build.
• Blood Axe trait and a KFF combine to maximise durability against turn one shooting.
• Army-wide fall back and shoot makes the list extremely tough to tie down.
• Options on an extremely minimal deployment in matches where that matters.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Trust Mani to go all-in on the new hotness. Following on from his eye-watering Lucius build from Gibraltar that maxed out on bodies and pretty much nothing else, this list asks the question "if the buggies are good, what happens if we pretty much just take those?".

Turns out the answer is that you win a major, so I think we can call the plan a success. This list isn't super complicated, but it's incredibly deadly and very hard to interact with outside killing buggies as fast as possible - which it also has plans to prevent. Squigbuggies and Scrapjets are the obvious winners out of the various warbuggy options, combining the best damage output (especially the Squigbuggy, which is frankly a bit silly) with an actual melee profile, meaning that they're active in multiple phases. That's very important when you're going this all-in on hulls, as it combines with the Blood Axe Tactic (allowing you to Fall Back and shoot) to let the army push up the table very aggressively when needed, something most all-vehicle lists (outside of Chaos monster mash stuff) struggle with. The Megatrakks can skirmish mid-board pretty much all the time, while the Squigbuggies can flex between hiding behind walls or getting stuck in too depending on the threats the army finds itself up against.

Speaking of threats, pretty much the only good way of interacting with this list is to kill lots of it fast. That's no mean feat just at baseline thanks to Ramshackle, but some options are included to make it even harder. Cloud of Smoke can go up for wide-ranging -1 to hit (especially good in the mirror), while a Force Field Boosta can be used on the Big Mek turn 1 to create a huge 5++ bubble (which is pretty easy to toe lots of units into) against opponents with lots of high AP weaponry, while if they're coming after the buggies with a more mixed weapon setup just having the Blood Axe tactic giving Light Cover outside of 18" makes things difficult to deal with. Finally, if up against an army that still legitimately threatens to take half the hulls off with the first turn, this list has the null deploy option in its back pocket - spend its remaining 5CP on putting half the buggies into Strategic Reserves, then pull the other three units with I've Got a Plan Lads. That leaves incredibly minimal units on the board for the opponent to interact with, and tabling isn't a thing in 9th so you can just wait till turn 2 and kick things off. Risky from a Primary point of view if the opponent has fast units to screen off lots of the board edges, but the option is there if you need it.

This list and the Freebooterz army we looked at last week are definite early contenders for the nastiest things to come out of the Ork Codex, and when builing lists going forward you need to make sure that you've got a solid plan to chew through this many buggies, and ideally survive the horrific onslaught of the Squigbuggies. For the first time in a while, -1 to hit effects are looking pretty strong as they're genuinely excellent against Orks, and focusing on tools that either give you high volume D1 attacks (halberd Sacresants, lightning claws) or stuff that blasts straight through Ramshackle should help. It does feel like there's a bit more chance that The Meta Can Adapt this time around, but we'll have to see. In the meantime, congratulations to Mani for another event win.

Rafael Harbinson - White Scars - 2nd ✪ Place

White Scars Assault Intercessor Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

The Standout Features

• Bladeguard and VanVets maximise the mid-table skirmishing capabilities of White Scars
• Plenty of objective coverage from Company Veterans and the Land Speeder Storm.
• Culexus Assassin helps to shut off the lists relative weakness to psychic-heavy builds.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

While there are still some big nasties at the top of the metagame, lots of Space Marine classics seem to be having a minor resurgence at the moment, and this White Scars build is a great example of why. It's fast, flexible, and is extremely comfortable brawling in the mid board to try and dominate the primary in most matchups, and with multiple very different top predators in the metagame, an army that can put together at least a workable game plan against any of them goes up in value when skilfully piloted.

The core of the army here is obviously the five brawler melee units and their supporting Characters. With the wound bonus from Kor'sarro (and access to boosted damage if you switch on Adaptive Strategy), these all hit the sweet spot you want in the current metagame - they're tough enough to need real attention and dangerous enough to flatten any unit that isn't a dedicated tarpit, but they're also small enough that there aren't too many eggs in any one basket, and trading one off isn't the end of the world. As White Scars (and with the Plume of the Plainsrunner and Canticle of Hate) around they're also absurdly mobile - the Bladeguard need a turn to get to the mid-board, but after that they can rapidly redeploy to wherever they're needed, and the VanVets sometimes aren't even going to need that. As long as there's some mid-table terrain to make use of, this list is going to be a real challenge for some armies to prise out.

It's also got solutions for matchups where the plan A of just brawling to victory isn't adequate. A full Eradicator block (which can be put in Outflank on the cheap with Encirclement) stands ready to pop in and neutralise something crunchy that's threatening to snipe out the mid-table units, and looks particularly good into the buggy lists, as if you fire from RR1 bubbles you should pick up at least two, quickly racking up some value. That accounts for one threat to this kind of lists, which is being shot off the table, but it's also got an answer for the other, which is an opponent rocking up with a large, deadly melee unit like Deathwing Knights. This is the one place where packing lots of smaller melee units can be an issue, because one unit isn't enough but a multi-charge can be thwarted with an interupt, but here the presence of a Whirlwind fixes that - you drop Suppression Fire on them to make them Fight Last, and then a multi-charge gank is back on the menu (and even the nastiest stuff out there is not tanking three or four of this list's threats rocking in at once).

To round things off we've got a few units dedicated to objectives (Veterans and Storm, plus Assault Intercessors can be cheap Action guys if needed) and the more unique choice of a Culexus Assassin. This I like - this list is leaning heavily on storm shields for its defences, and there are two new threats in the metagame that don't care about that in the slightest in the form of Grey Knights and Thousand Sons. Having some defences to push back against that (and potentially blank an entire phase of Smites by standing out front in an emergency) would help out massively in those games, and I think it's a good choice for the default Assassin here.

On the day, Rafael sliced his way through multiple Drukhari players, Adepta Sororitas, Dark Angels and a nasty Knights/Custodes combo, really a laundry list of many of the top threats in the game. That speaks to how flexible this army is, and I really like what's been put together here - so huge congratulations.

The Rest of the Best

11 players finished the event on 4-1 records. This event was using Path to Victory for standings.

• 3rd ✪ - Andrew Bourbon - Imperium: This is, in fact, the Knight/Custodes combo mentioned above, combining three Krast Magaeras with a couple of Custodian Squads and a Dawneagle Captain. Backing up Knights with some units for objective play is a classic tactic, and going for Custodes in that role is quite potent, as it doesn't introduce any easy targets into the list, instead giving stuff that can reliably sit on a home objective pretty much forever while the Knights roam. The captain, meanwhile, gives some powerful ObSec reach, and having him skulking near one of the Knights enables some power plays with Stooping Dive. Strong stuff overall.
• 4th ✪ - Boris Michev - Drukhari: Mostly your standard Drukhari goodstuff build, but with a unique Haemoculus Covens contingent. This runs with the Enhanced Sensory Organs (ignore Light/Heavy cover) and Master Torturers (which makes the reroll wound strat cheaper) obsessions, amping up the units chosen. These are returning boogeymen liquifier Wracks (who obviously enjoy ignoring cover) and a small unit of melee Grotesques, who will hit like trucks with re-rolls and can really help when heavy lifting is requires. It's a cool addition that mixes things up nicely.
• 5th - Matt Reid - Deathwatch: The current spike in Deathwatch popularity continues here, going down the popular route of mixing Kill Teams that can split out a mobile biker/VanVet combat squad and Dreadnoughts buffed by various Deathwatch toys.
• 6th - David Gaylard - Adeptus Mechanicus: The Lucius/Mars combo goes out to play here, combining lots of Skitarii and the standard buff toys in the Lucius half with Ironstriders, Stratoraptors and a unit of Serberys for Wrath of Mars bullying in the shooty contingent.
• 7th - Nassim Fouchane - Iron Hands Successors: Nassim's go-wide list puts up another strong result, though he's cut the Assault Marines which can only be described as the coward's path. Shameful. Those points go into making the Company Veteran units substantially crunchier, and also buying a second Land Speeder storm.
• 8th - Richard Gwatkin - Death Guard: Mortarion and a full Blightlord block are the standout choices here, backed up by a pretty standard collection of all the best non-FW choices from the book and running as the Inexorable.
• 9th - Robby Sweeney - Death Guard: Another Mortarion list here, this time with honestly a pretty similar set of toys but splitting the Blightlord block in two and running as Mortarion's Anvil to maximise the board control from Relaptic Assault.
• 10th - Tom Lewis - Aeldari: Harlequins and Aspect Warrior MSUs team up for a mixture of firepower and board control.
• 11th - Alun Perkins - Adeptus Custodes: A pretty down-the-line Shadowkeepers build with all the hits you'd expect, and a squad of Vertus Praetors backing up the standard Venatari bomb.
• 12th - Will Mitchell - Chaos Space Marines: Emperor's Children Terminators and Dreadclaw-riding Noise Marines continue to put up the best showings for CSM outside of Lord of Skull skew builds.
• 13th - Edward Sandilands - Genestealer Cult: An assembly of the best tools GSC have going for them, which is mostly Acolytes in Trucks plus Ridgerunners, plus an interesting tech choice of a 10-model metamorph unit with flamers and whips, which is a huge pain for enemy melee hordes to deal with.

The Gateway Open

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

Matt Root - Drukhari - 1st Place

The List

The Standout Features

• Yet another major win for Matt with his Drukhari build.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

A very easy writeup here - Matt has been taking down events with this Drukhari build left, right and centre, and adds another to the tally here. You can see Boon's detailed writeup of the list in a previous CI edition here.

Scott Sasser - Death Guard - 2nd ✪ Place

Chaos Cultists. Credit: That Gobbo

The List

The Standout Features

• Extra tools for objective play line up alongside the standard Inexorable toys.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

The core of this list doesn't really need any introduction at this point - the Inexorable are probably the most consistently high performing Plague Company, and provide great support for the shooting core of VolCons (buffed by a Tollkeeper Tallyman) and Plagueburst Crawlers, with a slightly reduced (compared to normal) force of Deathshrouds and a tanky Daemon Prince ready to defend them.

Skimping on a third unit of Deathshrounds frees up the points for what makes this list somewhat unique - a much heavier focus on objective play than usual. Including two units of cultists means that the army can actually go for Action based Secondaries in a pinch, while three solo Spawn make good delivery vectors for both Engage on All Fronts and Flash Outbreak. As I tend to hammer on about, having a plan to consistenly win games in a wide variety of matchups is what lets players pull off undefeated runs, and so it proved here, with the build earning Scott a 5-0 finish, well deserved for finding a way to broaden the capabilities of the "standard" Death Guard list a bit.

The Rest of the Best

Eight players achieved 4-1 records at this event.

• 3rd ✪ - Jeremy Stan - Adeptus Custodes: Triple Telemon Shadowkeepers, with a full Venatari block and a bike Captain providing some mobile support.
• 4th - Sam Henly - Death Guard: The same Death Guard build as Scott (perhaps not surprising as the two of them are from the same team).
• 5th - Dick Johnson - Ultramarines Successors: A Master Artisans/Whirlwind build pretty similar to what John Lennon took down an event with a while back, featuring Redemptors, Invictors (great with Rapid Redeployment) and VolCons as the core, and backing them up with Suppressors and characters.
• 6th - Toby Thebeau - Harlequins: A fringe Harlequin tactic we haven't seen for a while here - Dreaming Shadow Skyweaver spam, ready to make the opponent pay for every model killed thanks to packing the Warden of the Dead trait.
• 7th - Jake Harris - Tyranids: Extreme dakka tyranids here, with two full blocks of Kronos Hive Guard at the back and the Swarmlord leading Kraken Genestealers at the front, all finished off with a full blob of Devourer Gaunts to deal with hordes.
• 8th - Joseph Garcia - Drukhari: Drukhari goodstuff with the unique addition of a Coven of Twelve Master Haemoculus to act as an extremely sticky harrassment tool, presumably dunking on enemy characters with A Most Inventive Demise.
• 9th - Cory Schulz - Necrons: A new spin on Eternal Expansionists here - Lychguard spam, with three full units backed up by Illuminor Szeras to up their stats, and some Doomsday Arks at the back to pick off key targets.
• 10th ✪ - Brandon White - Aeldari: All three flavours of elf on show in a single list here - Craftworlds for artillery, Drukhari Scourges for objective play and anti-horde (plus a murder Succubus), and boats full of fusion pistols for mid-board play. Interesting take on the mixed Aeldari setup, and clearly effective since it only went down in the final round.

GT Granada War Lotus

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

Antonio Man - Iron Hands - 1st Place

Imperial Fist Gladiator Reapers. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

The Standout Features

• Guns and hulls kids, guns and hulls.
• Gladiators and Storm Speeders get some airtime in a list that mitigates their weaknesses.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

So first up you have to hand it to this list for being incredibly on-brand for Iron Hands, it's just a few Techmarines living their best lives and leading a breathtaking column of heavy weaponry to war, clearly to significant success. This list sports some truly outrageous damage output, with every unit being a stone cold killing machine, and with the benefits of the Iron Hands superdoctrine the alpha strike it can unleash is frankly hilarious - the opponent better hope they have some serious Obscuring terrain to hide behind. Even then, the Storm Speeders provide some good reach to zoom out and pop priority targets from wide angles, and the extremely uniform target profile this list puts up means that it can roll with the punch an opponent throws when they do emerge, then get to murdering them in the wake of that.

Target uniformity helps the Gladiators and Storm Speeders in particular, as both of these units suffer from the Repulsor curse of having Too Dang Many guns for their weight class. This might not sound like a bad thing, but it makes them very difficult to price properly - if you base their points on their defensive stats then lists spamming them become far too deadly, but if you price them on their killing power (which is generally what's been done) they end up too fragile. Running them in an all-hull list with the Ironstone neatly sidesteps that, because it changes the incentives on opponents substantially. With the Ironstone buff up (and their T8 hulls) whichver Gladiator is best suited to the matchup can become just another damage reduction hull in a massive wall of them, and the opponent is going to be strongly drawn towards popping the Storm Speeders or the other Gladiator because they need to take something off the table. It's also catastrophic for an opponent to swing and miss at any of the targets here, as Techmarines will often be able to repair even a badly mauled vehicle so that it's operating on top bracket thanks to Iron Hands counting their wounds double.

This list definitely can be taken down in some games, but to do so opponents are under huge pressure to make their first swings count, because if this list is anywhere close to fully operational then anything it can see is getting evaporated post-haste. Creating fail states for your opponent is a great way to win games, and I like how this list brings together some unusual tools to do just that. Great work from Antonio.

The Rest of the Best

Four players finished on 4-1 records at this event, and one player was paired up against Antonio in round 5 and finished 3-2, meaning they had a chance at the event win and so is included. These players were:

• 2nd - Sallan R.S - Ultramarine Successors: A strong Master Artisans build here, featuring the standard Invictor/Redemptor spam but also a bunch of individual Land Speeders and Attack bikes for max re-rollable melta shots.
• 3rd - Kameni Rodriguez - Salamanders: Salamanders goodstuff, featuring lots of flamer Aggressors, Attack Bikes and VanVets.
• 4th - Paco Meloro - Drukhari: The full spectrum of Drukhari toys on show here, Hellions, Trueborn, Cronos, the works. You know it, you love it. Or hate it, if you don't like Aeldari, but what kind of monster could hate elves?
• 5th - Manu Perea - Orks: Beast Snaggas on full show here in a mixed Blood Axe/Snakebite list, including lots of the Boyz, Squighog riders, Squigosaurs and even a (presumably converted) Kill Rig.
• 6th - Antonio Rivera - Iron Hands: Even more Iron Hands armour on show, with lots of Redemptors and Invictors alongside two Gladiator Reapers. Presumably even more horrendous against hordes than the winning list, but head to head I'm guessing the greater density of anti-tank from the champion won out.

Last Of The Summer Winehammer

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

Matt Robertson - Adepta Sororitas - 1st Place

Credit: Evan "Felime" Siefring

The List

The Standout Features

• Another event win for Matt with his deadly Sisters mix.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Repeat winners are very much something we endorse here at Competitive Innovations, especially when I'm on holiday. You can read my thoughts on Matt's list here and here.

Mark Crombleholme - Drukhari - 2nd ✪ Place

Drukhari Raider. Credit: Corrode

The List

The Standout Features

• All-in Raider/phantasm/blaster spam.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Good grief that's a lot of Kabalites. Mark is a long-time Drukhari mastermind, so it's no surprise that he's been finding some unique angles of attack with the new book, and this build is the latest result. No less than twelve units of Kabalite Warriors ride to war neatly arranged in Raiders, requiring the list to run Battalions rather than Patrols just to squeeze all the Troops choices in, and with every unit sporting a blaster, phantasm grenade launcher and Black Heart re-roll there's some truly exceptional damage potential against almost any type of target available. The Raiders themselves get in on the action as well, all upgraded with a PGL, chain snares (for melee threat, which is very real in Black Heart) and grisly trophies to maximise the list's mortal output. Drazhar and a couple of Succubi (one tuned for murder, one presumably just as a No Escape threat) round out the list's offensive capabilities, while three units of Mandrakes and some scourges tie down objective play, and also provide sufficient scout deployed bodies to prevent some flavours of early alpha strike that might put this list in a rough spot.

That's important, because as ever when leaving the beaten path of list building there are tradeoffs. This list gains extreme resilience against armies that have skimped on anti-tank, and benefits from high damage output that's arranged in very atomic bundles, letting it use it extremely efficiently, but it's missing the ability to do a wide-ranging melee counterattack in the way that builds with Incubi, Wyches and Hellions can. Drazhar and the murder Succubus can flatten something, but there aren't the assets for a concerted melee push. As long as it can keep the initiative and start racking up damage that's fine, but my impression is that a solid early punch taking down multiple Raiders is a bit more of an issue for it than some builds. Preventing redeploy tricks or scout deploy pushes with the Mandrakes goes a long way towards preventing that happening, which helps the list minimise these weak spots, vital for consistency.

Overall, the results speak for themselves, with Mark pulling off an undefeated finish with this build and taking some spicy armies down on the way. Great work.

The Rest of the Best

Six players finished with 4-1 records. They were:

• 3rd ✪ - Mike Porter - Aeldari: Another returning top finisher, you can check out my thoughts on Mike's mixed Aeldari list in last week's column.
• 4th - Adam Lane - Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarii spam, but not as we know it - Adam's build runs as Agripinaa for bonus AP and powerful anti-vehicle capabilities from the Eye of Xi-Lexum.
• 5th - Lewis Morville - Adepta Sororitas: A Bloody Rose/Ebon Chalice build in line with some of the others we've seen recently, sporting lots of units ready to get big value out of Cleansing Flames and a big Sacresant unit to reap the benefits of multiple Sacred Rites.
• 6th - Kenneth Knott - Drukhari: Some very cool and unusual toys on show here, with Talos making their first showing for a while. They're in a Realspace Raid lead up by the full triumverate of Lords of Commorrogh and with maxed out units of each flavour of upgraded troop. The main Kabal force here is Poisoned tongue, letting the army redeploy its raiders as needed, and it also packs a bunch of Venoms to squeeze value from the Obsession, finally squeezing Drazhar into the list in a small Black Heart patrol. It's very out there and very cool.
• 7th ✪ - Alex Walker - Red Scorpions (Space Wolf Successors): Two of the Red Scorpions characters add some extra spice to a Born Heroes/Whirlwind of Rage SW Successor list, featuring the expected array of Wolf Guard, Redemptors and Volcons, and squeezing objective value out of Cyberwolves. Severion Loth is a particular value add thanks to how good the Space Wolves psychic discipline is.
• 8th - Marcus Robinson - Goffs (Old Codex): Ghaz plus triple Kill Tank get in some warmup reps ahead of the acquisition of new Ramshackle.

IWTS Open

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

Anthony Richardson - Drukhari - 1st Place

Scourges with shardcarbines. Credit: Corrode

The List

The Standout Features

• Hellion spam hits the big time.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

It says a lot about just how nasty the Drukhari codex is that we don't see more Hellion spam lists, because that datasheet is wild, as this list ably demonstrates. Fast, very lethal, able to have both S5 (factoring in the weapon) and T5 when run as Cursed Blade, and with the option to just straight-up smoke enemy characters or infantry units with Eviscerating Fly-by, these would be a standout unit in most books and are merely one of many powerful options Drukhari has.

With the Ork codex reducing the power of D2 weaponry (the only thing that Hellions hate), this list could prove to be a harbinger of things to come, and it is fully a nightmare to play against. In some ways it's skewed in the opposite direction to Mark C's Raider/PGL list above, as this army is all about the wide-ranging melee counterattack, and wants to ride that through to victory. Drukhari transports are ideal for making an initial, relatively sticky push to the mid-board that demands a response from the opponent. When they make one? Well, it's turn 2, so Advance and Charge from Power from Pain has switched on, so the Hellions can sweep up the table decapitating anyone in their way. Since our own JONK was at the event (more on that in a moment) I've also seen pictures of the tables, and the terrain is very good for hiding Hellions in deployment zones on many maps, which really helps this plan.

The sheer violence of the melee push this list has through the mid-game is only matched by something like White Scars, and only the most resilient lists are going to have any chance of stiffling it. It's also unusually good (for a melee army) at dealing with transport-heavy opposing builds, as a flock of 20 Hellions is extremely capable of fully wrapping a transport, and with two of them you can do so in multiple places at once, overwhelming Emergency Disembark. Finally, they're fantastic in matchups where opponents are relying on volume D1 melee, as the revenge mortals from the Cult of the Cursed Blade obsession will do tremendous work.

Honestly, it may be that the only reason these lists haven't already torn up the metagame is how hard they are to get the models together for, because I'm looking at the scorelines Anthony racked up and it's a bloodbath, with only the Death Guard list he faced in the finals coming anywhere close to threatening an upset. This list looks superb, and I genuinely do think the metagame may only grow more favourable to it, so congratulations to Anthony and look out for more people trying big Hellion units.

Jon "JONK" Kilcullen - 2nd ✪ Place

Credit: Kevin Stillman (and Salsa the Dog)

The List

The Standout Features

• Our boy JONK lands a 5-0 finish with his board control Space Wolf build.
• Impulsors full of Bladeguard provide durable ways to push for the mid-table.
• Cyberwolves and a whole bunch of infantry maximise positional secondaries.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Hell yeah JONK! Taking a break from roasting your favourite toys whenever I unleash him on this column, Jon has been out winning games on the table with his highly tuned Space Wolf list. You can read his own thoughts about the army in the recently updated Start Competing: Space Wolves, but at its core this army is built towards that goal I keep talking about - consistency. Jon's plan is to, as much as possible, take secondaries that he can rack up by sticking units into the mid-board while fighting for the primary, forcing opponents to reach out and engage to try and push him off. At that point, Bladeguard and the Wolf Guard units spring out from either behind terrain or the Impulsors they've been riding in and smash back with brutal force, with the Wolf Lord riding shotgun. That switches on Hunter, at which point the army becomes hyper mobile while brawling mid-table, bouncing between targets and smashing them to pieces. With Rites of War applying ObSec to lots of the units, and Impulsors able to run interference and move block stuff once their cargo is disgorged the opponent is going to struggle to clear things out fast enough to deal with the extremely consistent lead this army will build up.

It can, of course, also do some damage. Stacking a bunch of buffs plus sometimes having both Hunters Unleashed and Whirlwind of Rage up makes the hammer-wielding Wolf Guard one of the absolute nastiest five-model melee units you can construct - unless you totally whiff on rolling sixes they'll flatten almost anything they charge into without really breaking a sweat, up to and including entire buggy units from the new orkish hotness. Over in shooting land, the drop-pod devastators provide the reach to take out a key target turn 1, vital for a list like this because it needs to remove the opponent's biggest damage dealers so it can stick in the mid board for long enough.

The other unit to call out specifically is the Cyberwolves - being able to take single-model fast units this cheap is a huge asset for any flavour of space wolf list, as they're great for Secondaries, being able to tick off quarters for Engage by themselves, or more hilariously pull off the board centre requirement for Oaths of Moment, which is one of this list's strongest options. They're a fantastic bonus for picking this supplement, and a great investment to boost consistency.

All that paid off here with the big 5-0 for Jon. Congratulations!

The Rest of the Best

Five players finished up 4-1 at this event, which was using path to victory standings and pairings. They were:

• 3rd ✪ - Brenden Chrustie - Death Guard: Inexorable with a full Blightlord bomb and a somewhat heavier Poxwalker screen than normal. I can see why this build was able to put up a fight against the Hellion menace - it's got VolCons and PBCs to take them out at range, and a full unit of Death Guard Terminators will actually bounce their melee (though Fly-by hurts).
• 4th - Jason Wells - Imperium: A rare sighting of the one-time hotness of Lambdan Lion Scions, with large, heavily equipped units proteted by the Refractor Field, all backed up by some Armiger Warglaives for a bit of heavy hitting.
• 5th - Justin Singer-Delorme - Death Guard: Typhus gets a look-in here, heading up a large number of Poxwalkers and Daemon Engines in a Harbingers build.
• 6th - Kylee Plouffe - Adepta Sororitas: Pure Bloody Rose go on the rampage here, sporting lots of Repentia, some Paragon Warsuits and a full squad of 20 Sisters anchoring the centre. Morvenn Vahl and a Dogmata can crank that core squad's damage output super high, and this build presents a real board control threat thanks to it.
• 7th - Micheal Hamilton - Blood Angels: Powerful characters, plenty of Sanguinary Guard and the less common choice of a big Biker unit and some Land Speeders as mobile threats.

The Iowaaagh! Open

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Particular shoutout to the TO Josh Thomas here for his work in building up the Iowa competitive scene and getting his first GT going here - it's always great to see people putting in the work to establish a community in a new area.

Charlie Andre - Drukhari - 1st Place

Drukhari Succubus. Credit: Corrode

The List

The Standout Features

• Drukhari goodstuff takes the win.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Charlie Andre's outrageous breakout season continues, with a GT win that fires him into the top five of the ITC, utilising the same Drukhari goodstuff build he's been sporting for the last few weeks. There's nothing super unusual about it (though I'm a fan of the one Venom, as I've found the ease of hiding them mid-board very valuable), but it has speed, flexibility and power, and that's all  a top player needs to line up win after win, as Charlie has been showcasing!

The Rest of the Best

Seven players finished up this event on 4-1 records:

• 2nd - James "Boon" Kelling - Drukhari: A busy week for Goonhammer's authors sees Boon also rack up a podium finish using his Cronos build that we talked about when we covered the Show Me Showdown.
• 3rd ✪ - Britton Rexroat - Dark Angels: A spicy Deathwing-heavy build here, featuring a bunch of Bladeguard and small Terminator units in the main detachment for board control, then packing in a Talonmaster and VolCons from a second detachment, also including the near-mandatory Deathwing Command Squads for objective play and Talonmaster protection.
• 4th - Jasper Axelson - Ultramarines Successors: Another top four finish for Invictor/Redemtor/Suppressor Master Artisans build.
• 5th - Kyle McCord - Imperium: Partying like it's 8th Edition here with a three-way Imperium Soup - Two Tank Commanders (both Master Mechanics), Dark Angels Bladeguard/Redemptors and a bunch of Lucius Skitarii for board control and anti-hoard. Using Tank Aces to ensure that the Russes and Redemptors are all sporting damage reduction is a neat trick, and Lucius Skitarii are still fine without Doctrinas, so it's a cute combo overall.
• 6th ✪ - Steven Larson - Adepta Sororitas: Pure Argent Shroud, with a bunch of shooty MSUs, backed up by a whole host of Named Characters, with the standard Celestine/Vahl joined by Ephrael Stern as well.
• 7th - John Ondich-Batson - Adepta Sororitas: The great internal balance of the Sisters book continues to be shown off as completely different builds sit next to each other in the standings. This flavour uses pure Valorous Heart for durability, and includes two units of Paragon Warsuits backiing up Vahl, plus a full Sisters squad for the mid board.
• 8th - Jacob Cummings - Death Guard: Another Harbingers build here, going big on Poxwalkers and also including a couple of units of Possessed as shock troops.

Battlegrounds Brawl

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

Sam Dayton - Space Wolves - 1st Place

Beanith's Space Wolf Dreadnoughts - Unknown Painter

The List

The Standout Features

• Space Wolves provide a neat mix of melee crunch and shooting threat.
• Callidus Assassin provides strong all-rounder backup.
• Hounds of Morkai ready to take out any Grey Knights or Thousand Sons popping up.

Why it's Interesting in 9th

As well as providing great board control tools Space Wolves are notable for supporting Redemptor Dreadnoughts extremely well, and that's a good place to be for a Marine book right now, as they're one of the best datasheets. In particular, being able to heroic (up to 6" if you use Counter Charge) makes these extremely strong for board control, and hit boosts (and extra hits late game) make them much more predictable. They're also great when defended with Storm Caller/Cloaked by the Storm, which this list has access to, and this all adds up to "Redemptors, but better", which is a great anchor for the Space Marine battle line. Jump pack Wolf Guard and some Bladeguard join them as powerful melee threats to lash out with, ensuring this list can definitely lock down the centre of the table when needed. If the Redemptors stay grouped up to benefit from the Librarian buffs, they also get big value from Bjorn being able to act as a combination Captain/Lieutenant via Wisdom of the Ancients (which is, to be fair, extremely on brand), making the shooting output highly reliable.

Backing that up when a bit more is needed are a couple of Suppressors squads and a single unit of Eradicators, the latter presumably going into Outflank via Cunning of the Wolf for a precision strike on a key target, and the Suppressors enjoying the increased accuracy that Keen Senses can bestow on one unit on the move. Various Infantry units for board presence and objective play fill out most of the rest of the army, but there are a couple of cool surprises, namely a Callidus Assassin and some Hounds of Morkai. I've no idea if the Hounds end up consistenly worth it even if Grey Knights/Thousand Sons end up top tier, but they are a nasty spoiler unit in those matchups, and can play fine just as another Outflank unit when you don't need their specific skills. A Callidus Assassin works well for an army that exerts plenty of pressure on the opponent quickly, as when they're also having to worry about the potential for large Redemptor interventions they're more likely to leave a gap for the Callidus to slip in. Taxing CP is also valuable for builds like this, who tend to want to build up an early lead and keep it, as it creates the double whammy of discouraging the opponent from going too big early, and leaving them with fewer CP to pull back into the game later on. Good stuff.

Overall - another powerful wolf build, showing off more of the things that are keeping them in the upper sections of the Marine hierarchy right now. Great work from Sam.

The Rest of the Best

Three players finished this event with 4-1 records, and one 3-2 player was paired up against Sam in the final. They were:

• 2nd - Gilberto Rivera - Space Wolves: Leaning even harder into Dreadnoughts here - three Redemptors, three VolCons and Bjorn leading things up.
• 3rd - Dallas Bolyard - Adeptus Mechanicus: Pretty standard Mars/Lucius combo build.
• 4th - Nathan McKenney - Adeptus Custodes: This list is missing on BCP. Shame. Shaaaaaame.
• 5th ✪ - Joshua Minnich - Chaos Daemons: The current hotness of Be'lakor and a bunch of Daemons gets another good showing, and it's definitely worth highlighting that while this list ended up 3-2, the losing scoreline against Sam in the finals was an outrageously high-rolling 98-92, so this build wasn't miles from winning the whole thing!

Wrap Up

That's it for this week, hopefully next week we'll see some people start to rustle up some Grey Knight and Thousand Sons builds for your delectation, and we'll catch up with whatever else is going on throughout the scene. See you then! Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com as always.

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