The last few weeks were very much the calm before the storm - this weekend was one of the biggest yet in 9th, with well over a thousand players participating in GT+ events, the first Goonhammer Open in Canada, and the UKTC London GT providing the biggest supermajor of the season so far. That's probably enough of a preamble because we have a lot to talk about (I think possibly the most majors we've ever had on a single weekend), so let's get into it.

This week the column is going to be split into two parts, and will be covering:

Today

• Goonhammer Open Canada (major)
• London GT (supermajor)
• Michigan GT (major)
• Crucible 10 Championship (major)
• South Africa Nationals

Friday

• Hanseatic Allience Open (major)
• Fantasia Fanatic (major)
• Milan GT Final (major)
• Mother of all Battles GT

For showdowns, we're covering two I've picked and two that have been voted for by the Goonhammer patrons, and will be looking at:

Today

• Bloody Rose vs. Goffs at the Goonhammer Open Canada
• Emperor's Children vs. Farsight Tau at the London Grand Tournament

Friday

• Kill Team Strike Force vs. Freeblade Lance at Fantasia Fanatic
• Tzeentch vs House Krast at the MOAB GT

Goonhammer Open Canada

68-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Winnipeg, MB, CA on October 01 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tear Down Their Icons

Darren Jac - Orks: Go-wide Goffs with loads of small units of Beast Snaggas, Meganobz, Kommandos, Stormboyz and Squighogs, just greenskins everywhere. And Ghaz. Can't forget Ghaz.

vs.

Riley Tremblay - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with big Retributor units.

Thoughts

It can often be very tough for other melee armies to play into Bloody Rose, simply because of how efficiently their melee threats trade. They're very often cheaper than what they're up against, but can reliably flatten units in a higher weight class either on the interrupt or when Repentia die. They also have great secondaries, so if their efficient trading causes you to struggle to gain a foothold against them, that can end up very bad for you.

Certainly that adds up to mean that when I'm opening up an Orks vs. Sisters game I'm expecting it to be heavily in the latter's favour, but this one is very much an exception. This Ork list looks very well tuned to challenge the Sisters at their own game - it's got lots of small units that (thanks to being Goffs and potentially under Waaagh) hit hard enough that they can't be ignored, but aren't so expensive that it's a game ending tragedy to lose them. Where that might be a mild liability is in games where you need to clear out a big durable tarpit unit like buffed up Chaos Terminators, but here it's exactly what you want - even with Armour of Contempt, the sheer weight of 3+ saves that Sisters are going to be taking whenever one of the Beast Snagga units connects will inflict some real damage, and the small Stormboyz squads can slam into Repentia from a safe distance and go out in a blaze of glory for minimum cost. The Orks also have a pretty strong Secondary of their own to play with in Get Da Good Bitz, and sufficient small units that it isn't a massive liability on a mission with an Action-based alt-Primary, though on the flip side Stomp 'em Good is way less powerful than usual, potentially making their other picks a bit dicey (though Behind Enemy Lines might actually be pretty OK here). They do also have the option of going for Da Biggest and Da Best on Ghaz, which could be OK as long as he can be hidden, but they need to be mindful that the Retributors haven't really got much else to shoot.

From the Sisters side of the table, the biggest upsides they have is access to a Fight Last effect in a melee mirror, giving them a bit of discretion to turn the tide when it matters, easier Secondaries to play for, and Vahl. Vahl seems excellent here, better than Ghaz even though the Sororitas can't one-turn him. She's almost certainly getting into a fight unscathed, and is the only unit in the list where the lack of a single big hammer from the Ork side really hurts - only Ghaz is a serious threat to her, and she'll wipe the floor with most other stuff. Using her aggressively seems like a way to clear out large swathes of the board at speed unless the Orks get very lucky, and she's also doing non-trivial damage at range if she just takes her own re-rolls and blasts away with frag missiles.

As a result, I feel like this one can 100% go either way, and if you had to pin me down I'd say the Orks were more likely to take it. I think the play for the Sororitas is to minimise the extent to which the Orks can engage with them without having to tangle with Vahl, so presumably making an initial cautious advance to the near objective, designating it as the Sanctuary, then grind into the middle in reasonable force, kicking the Orks off and maximising Vahl's impact. Given the relatively target-poor environment for the Retributors, albeit one where the Orks don't have much to engage them with from afar, at least some of them are probably on home objective duty aiming to shoot down Orks pushing towards the Sisters half of the board. That's all workable to a win, but with that plan I think the Orks end up able to mitigate their Secondary issues a bit, and also get lots of chances to score the mission Primary. In the event, however, it looks like the Sororitas successfully stood firm - perhaps they were able to clear out sufficient numbers of Ork bodies fast enough that they ran out of units to score their Secondaries with.

Result

Adepta Sororitas Victory - 88 - 78

Riley Tremblay - Adepta Sororitas - 1st Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Thoughts

You all know the tune here - Sisters good, Bloody Rose good, this army good. Powerful trade pieces perfect for punching up into most armies, highly reliable shooting for heavier stuff, and some neat tricks around the use of Carry Forth The Faithful to kick a game off when needed. Riley has been on a tear with the Sororitas, and becomes a well-deserved member of the exclusive club of Goonhammer Open Belt Holders.

Darren Jac - Orks - 2nd Place

Sky Kaptin Snodgrin, Goff stormboy nob (plus wingboyz & Tattlegit Bommsnik). Credit: Charlie Brassley

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Goffs

Thoughts

Mostly discussed in the Showdown - a more go-wide version of Goffs that feels like it's a meta call to improve games against Sisters, Harlequins and ObSec Necrons at the expense of not having great tools to slam through some of what Chaos and Tyranids put down. Looking at the top cut, that seems to have been a pretty excellent choice, taking Darren to the final and a very close defeat to Riley.

Frasier Parry - Harlequins - 3rd Place

Harlequins Troupe. Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Dark Saedath Big Troupes

Thoughts

This build is ready to take maximum advantage of the FactoruM/VT terrain kits we use for the GHOs, which as a rule of thumb provide better cover for infantry than some tournament setups but slightly worse protection for bigger vehicles. If this many Dark Saedath Harlequins gets amongst you, you're going to have a pretty bad time, and with a terrifying six big infantry stacks, they can throw out a surprising number of waves of pain, evaporating plenty of the opponent's stuff with each one. It's also going to be very hard for armies relying on keeping specific units alive for Secondaries to deal with, as it has plenty of ways to throw out a big spike of pain, and it's very effective at scoring points itself while doing so. Definitely not a build you'd want to try playing on every table, but extremely potent when you can rely on good cover.

Cory Burns - Blood Angels - 4th Place

Blood Angels Assault Intercessor. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Blood Angel Jump Pack Spam

Thoughts

Honestly? A lot of what I just said about Dark Saedath applies here too, plus some of the go-wide nature of Darren's Goff build. This list has a huge number of separate units to play with by the standards of Marines, and thanks to the power of the Blood Angels Chapter Tactic, they can all dish out at least respectable amounts of pain. I like the cheeky meltaguns in some of the Assault Squads too, providing some emergency damage spikes if you're up against something like massed-Armiger Knights. This ends up as another build that's just incredibly hard to play against unless you're capable of punching it back on its own terms across a wide front - and few are, with only the Dark Saedath beating it in a nail-bitingly close game.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 5th - Casey Stengler - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff that's heavy on heftier stuff, including a Maleceptor and Tervigon.
• 6th - Cyle Thompson - Harlequins: Light Saedath with some Voidweavers and one big foot Troupe backing up the standard suite of boats and Characters.
• 7th - Yvan Fortier - Tau: Farsight Enclaves Triptide with Sun Sharks, Commanders and a Hammerhead backing it up, a brick wall of lethal firepower with huge alpha strike reach.

UKTC London Grand Tournament

685-player, 10-round Supermajor in London. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. This event cut to a knockout bracket after five rounds.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Abandoned Sanctuaries

Nassim Fouchane - Tau: High-speed Farsight Enclaves with one big Crisis Bomb to unleash Drop Zone Clear, lots of Commanders, Sun Sharks, then small Crisis Teams, Kroot and a Breacherfish to fight for position.



vs.

Alexandre Sacco - Emperor's Children: Loads of Noise Marines, a big Terminator blob and Abaddon, plus a Discolord and unit of Possessed for additional damage dealing.

Thoughts

After nine previous rounds of battle, this is a pretty exciting final to see. Chaos Space Marines had an absolute whale of a time at the higher end of the LGT, with lots of players choosing to run with them, and four lists in the top eight. As well as the expected Creations of Bile builds, Emperor's Children was the other big news, and we see that right here. Noise Marines with a blastmaster and powerfist are all-round excellent Troops, being tricky to broadly engage in melee thanks to all Fighting First, and also all contributing decent firepower from distributed sources, which makes it harder to swiftly shut down. The Terminator blob can also afford to go much harder on weapons that are normally -1 to hit in melee, making them appreciably deadlier than they are elsewhere, while still being just as hard to kill. You also get some nifty pocket tricks like Soporific Gaze and being able to use Excess of Cruelty to throw off opposing plans, creating a list that has both power and some serious finesse options available to it.

Tau, of course, don't care that much about a reasonable portion of this, because they're not interested in melee as a damage dealing exercise (outside of a few links like the Be'gel/Precision Commander). Nassim's list here has horrendous amounts of firepower to work with, such a sheer volume of shots that it can comfortably flatten pretty much anything that isn't sporting a 2+ save or unusual defences. Even there, use of bombs from the Sun Sharks can inflict some serious pain if they're not swiftly dealt with, and a few plasma rifles are scattered around the army to provide further help. Staying on the table against this list unless you can absolutely body check it is a nightmare, and it has plenty of tricks in the pocket to try and avoid getting hit too hard.

For my money, the pivotal unit in this game is the Terminators, because with all the relevant buffs stacked onto them they actually do start looking like something that the Tau might not be able to outright kill, and on this mission that's very powerful - if they can move to the centre and hold it, while other Emperor's Children toys skirmish for the flanks, the rate at which the Tau can take out the Marines can be kept just-about manageable, especially as blastmasters are very good for killing the non-drone Crisis Teams and Sun Sharks if they end up in the wrong place, so it won't be entirely one way. The Terminators should also be able to escort Abaddon and the Discolord to the mid-board in relative safety, from where they can lash out to inflict pain as needed (and although the Tau do have wound cap ignoring tools, they're not fantastically statted for shooting into Abaddon unless the Coldstar spikes lots of 6s to wound).

Even with all that, however, the damage potential of the Tau army is so big that they may well manage to just push through it, and the critical goal for the Emperor's Children is to use the minimum possible amount of resources to shut down the Tau scoring early on, and to try and keep as close pace as possible in terms of damage dealing. The Tau are going to run out of expendable stuff fast, and once that goes they suffer a lot more from each individual dead model than the Chaos side does. The places that a meaningful difference can be made is killing off the Sun Sharks and small Crisis Teams quickly, as they're genuinely vulnerable to what Chaos are putting out, and from there the hope becomes that the Tau need to expose what they have left enough to allow some Character charges to go off. Holding the centre also opens up some reliable points from Warp Ritual if Chaos can spare the casts (which is admittedly questionable), and Long War should be pretty decent here, though the third is more of a question - maybe For the Dark Gods? Tau can score No Prisoners handily if they cleave through the Chaos army, and Aerospace Relays is probably OK, but they're also a bit dubious on a third - they could go for Decisive Action with Kauyon, but that creates a few failure cases.

In the event, I went and looked at the video of this, and my guess on the Tau Secondaries was spot on, but the Chaos plan was far more aggressive - it appears that the calculus was that any sort of passive plan against the Tau was going to result in running out of stuff, and the servants of Slaanesh had to just try and body them, taking No Prisoners, Assassinate and Banners (which forces the Tau to keep sending stuff mid-board). Low scoring cap compared to some other options, but because of the Secondaries the Tau have, if Chaos can just murder them off the table, the points will be enough. In the event - they pulled it off. They got first turn, which certainly helped on the "not running out of stuff" front, and were able to inflict enough damage on the Tau force over the course of the game to narrowly close it out.

Result

Emperor's Children Victory - 74-65

Alexandre Sacco - Emperor's Children - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Emperor's Children

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Living it loud in London here. Chaos get fantastic herohammer in general, the Terminators rule, and the addition of a bunch of potent all-rounder ObSec units that sit in your Troops slot make Emperor's Children a powerful choice. In Alexandre's hands, they were able to smash through pretty much every top metagame army over the course of the event - I scanned through the list of victories, and it includes Harlequins, Tau, ObSec Necrons , Bloody Rose and multiple Leviathan builds - none could match the perfection of Slaanesh. Huge congratulations to Alexandre.

Nassim Fouchane - Tau - 2nd Place

Tau Commander. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Farsight Alpha Strike

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Pure uncut ranged killing power in army list form here, sufficient to finally lure Nassim away from Iron Hands. Looks like that was a good choice here - like Alexandre, Nassim took out a host of powerful lists and big names to make it to the final. I do particularly like the build Nassim is on here - having one Devilfish with Breachers provides quitea  bit of flexibility, and the Commander setup is particularly good. All three having serious killing power (two directly, one partially by proxy in dropping Exemplar of the Mont'ka on the Crisis Teams), meaning the whole army is always pulling its weight, and I think the Be'gel Plate Enforcer is a consistently under-used unit. A fantastic performance from Nassim, hammering home that Tau are absolutely still a top faction in skilled hands.

Vik Vijay - Emperor's Children - 3rd Place

Daemon Prince. Credit: That Gobbo

The List

Archetype

Emperor's Children

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Vik reclaims the ITC number 1 spot here while also making it two top four finishes for the Emperor's Children at the event. There's plenty of overlap with his list and Alexandre, but a few differences too. Vik trades out a small amount of raw killing power in favour of a bit more flexibility, with the key change being that Discolord becomes a Daemon Prince. The outright lethality is lower, but having a spare caster opens up more angles on Psychic Secondaries, and the aura transmission part of the Mantle of Traitors actually does something here, helping Noise Marine units perform at key moments. The Possessed get dropped down to a second Venomcrawler, and the points from that (plus a few fewer weapons on the Terminators) upgrades a Cultist squad to another Noise Marine Squad, providing more brawl-capable ObSec and a bit more shooting. Not a huge change to the overall character of the list, but adds contingency plans, which is always nice. Alas, brute power did win out in the end, as Vik's eventual defeat was in the mirror against Alexandre, but he put in a hell of a run up till that point.

Loukas Benard - Tyranids - 4th Place

Hive Tyrant. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Why it's Interesting in 9th

A much less surprising, but no less effective, final member of the top four - Leviathan probably is still the best single army in the game ahead of the Balance Dataslate and the arrival of Votann, and this build packs in both a very flexible toolkit and a particularly nasty Psychic Phase, allowing it to evolve and adapt to almost any situation. Congratulations to Loukas on taking the last semi-final slot.

The Best of the Rest

For this, I'm just going to cover all the players who made it into the knockout bracket by going 5-0 in the main rounds, since that's a pretty hefty achievement! This covers another 17 players.

• 5th - Euan Bedford-Cooper - Creations of Bile: (Anti-)Herohammer to the max here, dialing back the normal Bile spend on Possessed a bit and swapping in Chosen for Terminators, then using the freed up points to take two each of Daemon Princes and Discolords, plus two units of Warp Talons, creating a list that applies incredible pressure if the opponent doesn't unpick it fast.
• 6th - Louis Fitzsimmons - Creations of Bile: Lots of Chosen and Abaddon in this spin on Creations, also including some Bikers for early reach.
• 7th - Dick van der Harst - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists with spectacular numbers of wounds; 21 Scarab bases, 15 Tomb Blades and two full Skorpekh bricks, with the Silent King at the centre.
• 8th - Mike Porter - Harlequins: GHO 2021 champion Mike was packing Boat/Troupe/Character Light Saedath, notably including two upgraded Death Jesters.
• 9th - Gonzalo Raven - Harlequins: Boat/Troupe/Character Light Saedath, no Death Jesters here.
• 10th - Colin McDade - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff that goes extra hard on Reprentia and Zephyrim.
• 11th - Alex Harrison - Necrons: A unique take on Eternal Expansionists that appears to be aiming to drop a full stack of Flayed Ones onto the opponent from a Night Scythe. and/or use it to protect Lokhusts. Skorpekh, Scarabs and the Silent King feature too, as do some Annihilation Barges for cheap-ish durable position pieces.
• 12th - Sid Sidhu - Imperial Knights: An all-Armiger force using a Strike and Shield custom household to be tough to move in melee.
• 13th - Brodie Middleton - Craftworlds: Ulthwe with a buffed-up Avatar and lots of Aspect Warriors, aiming to max access to ways to lock down objectives with ObSec and score Wrath of Khaine.
• 14th - Edward Morgan - Tyranids: Leviathan Warriors and Harpies.
• 15th - Jay Middlecote - Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance sporting a terrifying trio of big Knights, setting up access to the Princeps/Calculated Targeting combo, and also applying enough buffs to make each of the giant robots a terrifying foe.
• 16th - Nathan Whitbred - Tyranids: Leviathan Warriors backed by a Maleceptor and Harpy.
• 17th - Alejandro Mancuso - Blood Angels: Go-wide version of Blood Angels Jump Pack spam, taking three units of Death Company and Lemartes to make Fury of the Lost accessible.
• 18th - Martyn Lakeland - Adeptus Custodes: Dread Host Custodes with a castle of buffed-up Sagittarum around All-Seeing Annihilator and the Fulminaris Aggressor, then a big squad of shieldguard and a Blade Champion to (presumably) smash in out of Deep Strike.
• 19th - Aidan Brocklehurst - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose with two full 20-model units of Battle Sisters.
• 20th - Michael Duff - Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with a tooled-up Herald Paladin and lots of Armigers.
• 21st - Henry Wilson - Tzeentch Daemons: High-finesse board control here. Lots of Flamers, obviously, but also plenty fo Pink Horrors, Screamers, and a pair of Fateskimmers alongside heavier hitters in the HQ slot to conquer the table. Massive numbers of Mortals, very hard to deal with via shooting, and one of the most interesting lists of the top cut.

2022 Michigan GT 40K Championships

123-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lansing, Michigan, US on October 01 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Note: this event ranks players on pure battle points.

Thomas Ogden - T'au Empire - 1st Place

Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

Archetype

Heavy Tau Sept

Final Round Matchup

95 - 84 Victory against Joe Rammuni - Goffs.

Thoughts

Thomas's rampage with his heavy-duty Tau Sept plan continues apace, making it an extremely good week for the Greater Good. It packs a lot of points into just a few units, but almost all of them can hit like monster trucks and shrug off an initial punch back, meaning the opponent's window where they still have their toys is going to be limited. The build also feels like an especially good choice for the Michigan scoring format, as being so concentrated (and having Sun Sharks for early reach) makes it appreciably better at playing for Grind than most builds out there at the moment. Well done to Thomas on another event win.

TJ Lanigan - Chaos Daemons - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Mixed Daemons

Thoughts

Chaos afficionado TJ showcases what's quickly becoming the formula for successful use of the Daemons book - two to three big Daemons, some board control tools, and lots of Flamers. TJ's build sticks to just two big guys, handily the ones that are usually hardest to deal with, and spends the points on including lots of Troops and some utility casters, ensuring that the list has plenty of ways to play for Secondaries requiring Actions of any flavour. That, again, feels like a particularly good choice for this format, as a bunch of 80-90pt wins isn't going to get you to the top, and that plan seems to have paid off very effectively for TJ (though I'll be interested to see if he switches across to three big Daemons in standard win/loss formats).

Joe Rammuni - Orks - 3rd Place

Meganobz. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Goff Pressure

Thoughts

Almost the polar opposite of the Goff list from the Goonhammer Open, Joe's build here packs in a much smaller number of heavier duty units, plus some pretty hefty shooting from a pair of Wazboms. As is quickly becoming a pattern, this is presumably another sop to the format - having the shooty planes minimises the chance of running into something that the army just straight up can't handle, and opens up a window to alpha strike the opponent hard enough to ensure the big wins you need. The large ground units also let you hammer through whatever tanky stuff the opponent lines up, with Unbridled Carnage on the Meganobz in Ghaz's bubble being especially nasty. Still all very Orky, of course, and a fun build to see taking the third place slot here.

Manik Gudimani - Tyranids - 4th Place

Tyranid Warriors. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Thoughts

It's Leviathan Goodstuff - a particularly all-round version of it, packing in some extra big guns on the ground in case it needs to try and out-shoot a Knight or wipe Crisis Teams at range, again aiming to mitigate the risk of hitting a situation you can't handle and getting blown out of contention, but I fear I have hit the point where I don't have much else to say about the Tyranid for as long as it continues to be in effect. Well done to Manik on taking 4th.

The Best of the Rest

Pure BP puts where to cut this into full-on chaos mode, I've ended up going for the next five players, as the ninth-placed player was the lowest ranked who went undefeated.

• 5th - Corey Stawicki - Harlequins: Boat/Troupe/Character Light Saedath (except for one lone 2-model Skyweaver unit).
• 6th - Joshua Minnich - Tyranids: A wildly out there Jormundgandr mortal wound spam build, cramming in tonnes of Psychic output (with Synaptic Ganglia as the Adaptive pick) and loads of ways to make Spore Mines.
• 7th - Steve Pampreen - Orks: Go-wide Deathskullz featuring lots of Kommandos and various MSUs for massive board control - likely a meta pick for BP-based ranking as it's very difficult to stop it scoring high.
• 8th - Alex Ing - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with Paragons.
• 9th - Fred Fortman - Ynnari: The Harlequin/Support Weapon flavour of Ynnari, a powerful finesse build that Fred ran to an undefeated finish, but held back from a top position by not being able to land 100s, presumably down to either the Craftworld Secondaries being medicore or the event not allowing Ynnari to take them (either kind of awkward in a pure BP environment).

Crucible 10 Warhammer 40K Championship GT

67-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Orlando, FL, US on September 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

John Lennon - Hive Fleet Kraken - 1st Place

Credit: PierreTheMime

The List

Archetype

Kraken Pressure

Final Round Matchup

91 - 80 Victory against Jack Harpster - Drukhari.

Thoughts

Even as the vast majority of Tyranid players consolidate onto Leviathan, John is still defiantly smashing through events with Kraken, using high-speed Raveners to put exceptional pressure on the opponent very quickly (and having more reasonable damage output into Armour of Contempt thanks to bonus AP), and lots of Spore Mines and Psychic firepower to wither the opponent away while they're trying to handle the initial rush. Pyrovores that are (presumably) coming from Strat Reserves and the Parasite with Alien Cunning add more angles to flummox the opponent, and while not quite as overwhelming in terms of sheer stats as Leviathan, the extra flexibility this build sports gives it more ways to adapt to a situation where it's actually outclassed on damage. Well done to John on the win.

Kody Drake - Chaos Daemons - 2nd Place

Be'lakor - Credit: RichyP

The List

Archetype

Daemon Monster Mash

Thoughts

I'm a sucker for a good Monster Mash list, and this build feels somehow nostalgic for the kinds of armies we saw in late 8th. Can you deal with the pressure of six deadly and durable killing machines slamming into your lines as fast as possible? If not, bad news, and especially so because if Skarbrand gets into touch, you may not be able to escape your inevitable melee-based doom. Packing Be'lakor in a Supreme Command also unlocks the full Warp Storm table for this, allowing it to go in on the plan of spamming Wave of Sickness and Burning Terror every turn once the armies are close, causing considerable attrition over time, and helping mitigate the low drop count here against go-wide armies. As with all such builds, you are going to be at risk of running into something that just punks some of the big threats fast and cruises from there, but the big Daemons are pleasingly nails these days, so that's no mean feat. Big props to Kody on taking such a fun build to second.

Jack Harpster - Drukhari - 3rd Place

Credit: Keewa

The List

Archetype

Venom Spam

Thoughts

Another retro build revived here, utilising a whole bunch of Venoms with a neat custom Coven to provide lots of harrasment and board control, plus Incubi and a few Cult of Strife goodies for a hammer blow. The coven pick is definitely pretty smart - ignoring cover on both the Venoms themselves and the liquifier guns means that the floor for their effectiveness is OK even into Armour of Contempt stuff (excepting units with native 2+ saves). Splinterblades is also pretty cool in combination with chain flails on all the Venoms - it means that several of them getting into a fight at once starts to deal meaningful damage to enemy chaff, and being able to brawl a bit then drop ObSec units out helps with board control. For anything tougher - well, Incubi, Drazhar and the Competitive Edge Succubus are still nightmare killers, though do need to watch out for big Leviathan Warrior blocks, which they can struggle with. Anything else...not so much, especially with lots of ways of delivering Fight Last, and all the Venom weapons and liquifiers are pretty decent into Warriors. Excellent to see Jack pick up a very unusual Drukhari build here and put in a great result.

Tucker Rickey - T'au Sept - 4th Place

Shadowsun. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Heavy Duty Tau Sept

Thoughts

Another hefty Tau Sept army, once again sporting Sun Sharks, Crisis Teams and Commanders galore. Shadowsun and Exemplar of the Montka does unlock the nightmare prospect of full hit and wound re-rolls off of one unit, which is incredibly nasty, and as with a lot of builds like this, the fantastic value Kroot provide allows them to get away with minimal investment in filler.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 5th - Damion Spearman - Chaos: Vextrix Dogwalker with a Tzeentch Daemons detachment stapled on for Secondaries and Flamers.
• 6th - Mark Perry - Chaos: Another mix, this time featurng Black Legion Plague Marines and Obliterators, Abaddon and an Indomitable Bloodthirster.

South Africa 40K Nationals 2022

36-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Western Cape, ZA on October 01 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Orion Adams - Hive Fleet Leviathan - 1st Place

Exocrine. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

79 - 55 Victory against Carl Haydam - Drukhari.

Thoughts

An especially monster-tastic spin on Leviathan to finish off round 1, packing enough nasty gribblies that the opponent is going to be facing something horrific pretty much wherever they are on the board, and also ending up with a respectable amount of shooting once you add it all up. Good if it runs into something heavy on hulls, and plausibly overwhelms lists that are just built to kill Warriors, and overall just another example of how wall-to-wall great the Tyranid datasheets are.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Matthew Carslake - Chaos Knights: Herpetrax with a tanky Abominant and a couple of Despoilers, plus War Dogs to fill.
• 3rd - Lehann Smith - Harlequins: Boat/Troupe/Character Light Saedath.

Wrap Up

We've got plenty more to come this week, so make sure to return on friday for more majors, more showdowns and more miniature violence. Also, an exploration of how many more times I can write about Leviathan without getting sarcastic. Please send the Balance Dataslate GW. People are dying.

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