This week sees the post-lockdown return of the NOVA open, traditionally one of the biggest events in the 40K calendar and very much back in style this year. Supermajor numbers, GW terrain, and a hotly contested top bracket producing one triumphant winner after nine rounds. There's also a healthy scattering of events elsewhere, so there's plenty to look at this week. The events we'll be covering are:

• NOVA Open (Supermajor)
• Games Of Westeros XII (Major)
• Ratcon 2022 (Major)
• Da Summer Waaagh
• Battlefield Birmingham 19
• Iron Cage Hurst Headlock
• Midtcon GT
• Hertfordshire GT

As mentioned last week, the continued proliferation of events means that we need to dial back the size and time commitment of this column slightly, but we also want to make sure that as many people as possible still get their shout out when they succeed. To that end, where we're going to cut things down a bit is in the number of Showdowns featured - rather than writing one for every event, we're instead going to feature between two to four each week.

How are we going to decide which ones, you ask? Democracy...assuming you count the incredibly messed up classical version where only the privileged elite get a vote (which to be clear, you absolutely should not for anything more important than Warhammer). Each Monday I'm going to be throwing a vote into the Goonhammer Patron Discord with the listing of the week's matchups, and whichever ones get the most votes will be at the front of the queue for coverage, along with any particularly large or important events. The results of this process this week means that today's showdowns will be:

• Necrons vs. Craftworlds at the NOVA Open.
• Emperor's Children vs. Creations of Bile at Iron Cage Hurst Headlock.
• Space Wolf Successors vs. Ravenwing at the Hertfordshire GT.

We're also going to have a guest double showdown at NOVA, with Mike Pestilens talking about his game in the finals of the second bracket.

If you would like to vote on future editions, go check out the Goonhammer Patreon, or alternatively just rely on the fact that our existing patrons are individuals of excellent taste who will choose some good games.

Let's get into the events!

NOVA Open 2022 Warhammer 40k GT

271-player, 9-round Supermajor in Arlington, VA, US on September 02 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Secure Missing Artefacts

Jack Harpster - Necrons: Destroyer-heavy Eternal Expansionists with Skorpekh and a full Lokhust block, plus lots of Scarabs.

vs.

Matt Schuchman - Ulthwe: Ulthwe goodstuff with lots of small Aspect units, triple Falcons, a bunch of casters and the Avatar.

Thoughts

Craftworlds are having a tough old time of it right now, driven by a mix of slightly heavy handed nerfs and weak (or at least niche) secondaries, but they're very much a faction where very experienced players can put together a conconction that still has game, which Matt has very much here. After eight victories, the final challenge for the forces of Ulthwe were the Aeldari's ancient enemies the Necrons, in the hands of one of Art of War's finest. Who would take the supermajor crown?

Lets start by taking a look at the assets each side has. For the Necrons, it's kind of business as usual - lots of ObSec that feeds into extremely powerful Secondaries (all four Faction ones have clear game here), allowing them to forge ahead on scoring early, and demand that the Aeldari take big risks to stay in the game. Against the Falcons that Matt's bringing, the ability to spread out pretty far on the board is also good, as it pushes back against any attempts to take objectives. Finally, the Aeldari list is quite short on options for dealing with a full Chronometroned Scarab unit, as sheer wound count is something they don't have any one single tool for.

Things aren't entirely doom and gloom for the Aeldari though, as they do have a few assets here. First up, their Secondaries should be OK - they may not be able to one-shot the Scarabs, but they'll still go through them and the other things enough that No Prisoners is a lock, and Psychic Interrogation should be fine (though there are some Deny options scattered in the Aeldari list). The relatively concentrated Necron shooting also means that Craftworlds may find they don't lose their units as quickly or as reliably as normal after they commit. Finally, a fully buffed up ObSec Avatar is honestly something this Necron list isn't fantastic at dealing with - lots of the damage it throws out is D2, which the Avatar can mostly shrug off, and when it's on an objective it threatens to heroic and pick up any Necron units that come to try and steal it.

I figure that has to inform the Craftworld plan here. The hope is to win the objective movement roll, and move the nearby no-man's land objective so it's a hair more than 6" from their deployment zone, make it a Hidden Path objective and park the Avatar on it, screaming at the sky and demanding satisfaction. Then, focus the rest of the army on making sure the Necrons never pull off a 12pt turn by holding the centre through to their turn, and using Baharroth and Hawks to try and disrupt Necron scoring as much as possible. Banshees ideally want to be staged in a Falcon somewhere so that they can threaten a counter-charge into the Destroyers if they get over-confident. It's not an ideal plan, and the Necrons are still going to score plenty of points, but it feels like it gives the best chance of pulling off a win. I realise I'm mostly focusing on what the Craftworlds need to do here, and that's because the Necron plan is a lot less complicated - they just need to measure out their resources to pressure objectives continuously, while picking up Noble kills if Code of Combat is the pick. They can also mess with an Avatar occupying an objective alone if they're willing to throw multiple units at it, as if they charge with one and swing another to toe onto the far side of the objective, the Avatar can't get both.

All that does leave the Aeldari as the underdogs, and while Matt put up a pretty strong score, he was not able to overcome the might of the dynasties this time.

Result

Necrons Victory - 96 - 79

Jack Harpster - Necrons - 1st Place

The Silent King. Credit: Pendulin

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Eternal Expansionists

Thoughts

Very much the apotheosis of the Eternal Expansionists plan here - huge blobs of ObSec Scarabs (with an invulnerable save from the Chronomancer) pushed onto objectives to deny you Primary if you don't commit hard to killing them, then lots of deadly Destroyer units to punish you with a counter-charge if you go hard. The addition of the Reanimator is an interesting piece of tech, allowing the Lokhusts to operate a bit more safely in some matchups, and because the Reanimator is CORE and CANOPTEK, it can pull double duty as an objective piece (or block shooting at a Catacomb Command Barge) when needed. A very powerful list played to eye-watering perfection by Jack, who dropped a mere ten victory points all event.

Matt Schuchman - Ulthwe - 2nd Place

Avatar of Khaine. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Ulthwe Goodstuff

Thoughts

As mentioned in the showdown, Craftworlds are in a pretty rough spot right now, and you have to build pretty skewed lists to succeed. This list does that in spades - it uses either cheap sacrifices or a heavily buffed Avatar to demand the opponent's attention, then uses a broad toolbox of Aspect Warriors deploying from Falcons to trade up against the enemy and score Secondaries. The margins for error look pretty slim (though to be fair Falcons are surprisingly durable as Ulthwe with Fate Reader thanks to Strands of Fate) and I imagine this was absolutely terrifying to play for nine consecutive rounds, so congratulations to Matt on an extremely strong run.

Steven Crawley - Necrons - 3rd Place

Doom Scythe. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Eternal Expansionists

Thoughts

More Expansionists here, this time focused on skewing towards durable, tough targets, and using Doom Scythes for ranged reach. Two Chronomancers means you can buff up either both Scythes or both Skorpekh units at the same time if you need to react to multiple threats, and given that the Lychguard are also pretty tough, this gives the build an unusually high ability to pick a turn and move into the mid-board with both durable and dangerous stuff, rather than needing to trade. Got overpowered by Jack's Necrons in the semi-finals, where I suspect the fact that its shooting isn't fantastic into Scarabs played against it, potentially allowing Jack to control the pace of engagement. Still, great to see two Necron lists in the top four, and nice that there's some variety in how the army has been build - well done to Steven.

Andrew Gonyo - T'au Empire - 4th Place

XV104 Riptide Battlesuit. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Tau Sept Triptide

Thoughts

Oh Lord.

Many successful Tau builds recently have gone "big", packing hefty and durable units and plenty of reach to try and alpha strike opponents, and three Riptides (plus Hammerheads and Sun Sharks) sure is that. I suspect there's a major component to which this is a tech choice for the GW terrain - the already good Sun Shark is even better, and the Nova Boost on Riptides is fantastic. Anything that lets you make a post-shooting move lets you reliably toe onto and off the perspex squares, letting you unleash your firepower with impunity, and Riptides are even better at that than most options because they're likely tall enough to see over the walls on the area terrain while on it. That means that this army basically just flat out wins any straight shootout, and it has the damage numbers to very quickly disperse the kind of tools Necrons use too, making it a very effective choice for the event and metagame. Eventually lost to Matt's Ulthwe by an absolute hair, and that feels plausible, as they have the right kind of movement jank to just about beat this army at its own game.

Bonus Showdown

As mentioned at the start, we have a special gues showdown from Mike Pestilens, talking about his final round game against Larry Oliver.

Matchup & Mission - Secure Missing Artefacts

Mike Pestilens - Black Legion: Abaddon and associates, including Terminators and a big block of Warpflamer Rubricae.



vs.

Larry Oliver - Tyranids: A very monster-heavy Kraken build, with shooty bugs, melee bugs, and then a big ole' Tervigon with a swarm of Termagants to control the board.

Thoughts

Mike: Larry is a really experienced Nids player, and I knew I was in for a real battle.

Most Nid lists are Leviathan, and I was teched to beat those lists. Black Legion are very happy to play a game of “you stack your buffs, I’ll stack mine, and we will see who is left standing”. Aircraft like Harpies on paper seem like an issue for my list, but in practice I just shred them. The only Aircraft you see competitively are T7 and don’t have Armour Of Contempt, meaning 40 combi-bolters with a 46” threat range, +1 AP, and full hit and wound rerolls rip them from the sky.

Larry (correctly in my opinion) went with Kraken over Leviathan, which made this matchup much tougher. I had a pretty deep bag of mobility tricks (Advance and Shoot, Advance/Fall Back and Charge once per game via Confluence of Traitors, teleport once per game, resurrecting models to add 3-4” of movement, Warptime to help get angles or move onto objectives even if I can’t charge). Unfortunately, Kraken Nids just have so much mobility that I knew I was at a movement disadvantage regardless.

My gameplan was simple: Kill his mobility early, and then go hunt down his objectives late game. I took Long War, Psychic Interrogation, and Banners. Long War is a pretty standard pick, and Interrogation is decent into non-Kronos Nids since they lack deny bonuses. Venomcrawlers also give a +1 to cast aura which cancels out their -1 to cast aura. The third Secondary was the tough choice, and I ultimately went with Banners. On paper, quarters deployment vs a fast army is absolutely not the time to take Banners. I completely agree. Unfortunately, the Secondary situation for Black Legion is a complete dumpster fire. The great part about Banners is that if you’re tabling the opponent, you can raise a bunch of Banners later once you’ve driven them back. My win condition was just killing everything, and Black Legion plays that part of the game extremely well. I might as well take a Secondary that benefits from that without forcing me to kill any specific units, like Assasssinate. It’s unintuitive, but Banners was basically my kill Secondary in this matchup.

I deployed mostly conservatively, as did Larry. One Cultist unit went on the line as a hedge to get onto my left objective if I went first. Nids went first. Larry smartly used the 8” advance stratagem and +2” movement Imperative and 2” engagement range to charge some Cultists with his 30 Termagant unit, flooding one side of the board. He trailed plenty of models back to the Tervigon, meaning I either had to wipe the unit in one go or avoid it entirely to prevent giving him Command Phase movement. He put Catalyst on the 30 'Gant squad. When he lost way more Gants than expected to random Cultist/Rubric punches in his turn, it gave me a window of opportunity. I pumped up the Terminators with every buff I could and made them Red Corsairs so they could reach the Gants. I also spent a CP on Relentless Devastation so they could shoot dead the 10 Gants his Tervigon had spawned. The Terminators enjoyed the delicious Gant buffet in melee. Larry ended turn 1 with much more objective coverage, but I had killed all the models on my side of the board and could now turn towards brawling in the midfield.

It was just an absolute slugfest from there. Larry used the 8” advance strat on some Venomthropes to hunt down my Dark Apostle. I teleported Rubric Marines to kill a Tyrannofex and flip an objective. He sent the Flyrant to kill Abaddon, who was too far into my lines for him to Overrun back to safety. I killed the Flyrant with Venomcrawlers and Terminators. My Legionaries used Heralds Of Doom to flip the mid-field objective. His Tervigon with full hit and wound rerolls just punted my Heralds Of Doom down the hall.

I was able to score 12 points on the bottom of turn 5 to nearly max Primary, so the game came down to Secondaries. Unfortunately, Cranial Feasting was a slam dunk against my list. If I had one more decent Secondary, I could have just castled on my side to deny him No Prisoners and Cranial Feasting. As it was, we had to make some plays after Larry gained a VP boost going first, and we just gave up too many VP while making those plays.

My one big regret is not having any fast Infantry that could raise a banner on my left objective turn 1 without requiring me to put a Cultist unit on the line. Going forward, I would probably drop the Rapier Carrier and a unit of Cultists for a unit of Nurgle Raptors to give me a bit more objective play. They also work very nicely with the Cloak Of Conquest to snipe objectives on their side in the late game.

Larry played really well for all five turns. He deserves props for winning the bracket, and I’m sure I’ll play him again sometime. I’m happy to have played a great Kraken list and player to a near tie while going second on this mission, and feel confident in my Black Legion’s ability to battle anyone with a few tweaks going forwards.

Larry: 45/45 on Primary, 9/15 on No Prisoners, 15/15 on Cranial Feasting, 4/15 on Spore Mines

Mike: 44/45 on Primary, 9/15 on The Long War, 7/15 on Banners, 9/15 on Psychic Interrogation

 

Result

Tyranid Victory - 83-79

The Best of the Rest

These bracketed events are always a nightmare to work out where to cut, so I'm just going to go for everyone who got at least two wins in the top bracket, which is five more players (ordered as they are in BCP by OGW, don't @ me if they announced a different order at the event).

• 5th - Brian Jones - Imperial Knights: Brian brings out his signature Freeblade Lance, revamped for the 9th Edition Codex, and featuring a Forge Master Castellan and some Moiraxes (plus one Helverin) at the back with guns, and a Herald Gallant leading some Warglaives into battle.
• 6th - Tony Phillips - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with a broad mix of the standard tools.
• 7th - Brad Townsend - Thousand Sons: Double Scarab Duplicity, with a tech choice of equipping lots of the small Rubric units with warpflamers so they're a constant teleport threat to enemies (particularly good on the GW-style terrain).
• 8th - Christopher Gosselin - Tyranids: Leviathan, but another build with some unusual choices - two Tervigons and a whole carpet of Termagants, allowing the army to still dominate the mid-board in games where there's sometimes a bigger gap to cross than on many tournament tables. Also Harpies - very good here!
• 9th - Brenton Weiss - Tau: Heavy-duty Tau Sept with two big Crisis Teams, two Sun Sharks, two Hammerheads (one being Longstrike) and some Commanders (Shadowsun and a Precision melee one). All the good stuff.

Games Of Westeros XII 40k

91-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Västmanlands län, SE on September 03 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Also, all of the top four except the winner were undefeated with a draw, so I'm saying that here so I don't have to type it each time.

Pedro Chavez - Harlequins - 1st Place

Credit: Ben Hampshire

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

12-8 Victory against Benjamin Hyvönen - Imperial Knights

Thoughts

Light Saedath, lots of boats, Troupes kitted up to the gills. You know the stuff. Has so many boats that it can afford to pretty constantly engage with them, as its going to take a long time to put them all down, and really only worried about something like full Leviathan Warrior bricks forming an immovable object. Pretty overwhelming into almost anything else - will obliterate Necrons trying to use melee threats to trade, as they simply won't get to make back good value (and/or get wrecked by Capricious Reflections), and against Sisters having so many transports (plus good mortal output from all the pistols) is very strong. Great all round, well done to Pedro on the win.

David Klang - Necrons - 2nd Place

Chronomancer. Credit: Wings

The List

Archetype

Eternal Expansionists

Thoughts

Expansionists, but with a C'tan! I do love a C'tan, and there are certainly some games (Tau) where they cause serious problems for the enemy. Otherwise, business as usual - bait opponent forward, trade into their stuff, lock down game with ObSec. Congratulations to David on taking the runner up spot.

Mikael Klangeby - Deathwatch - 3rd Place

Deathwatch veteran Marcus Varro. Credit: Charlie Brassley

The List

Archetype

Kill Team Strike Force

Thoughts

The best Kill Team Strike Force build makes a fantastic showing here, winning four games then holding Harlequins to a draw in game five. Most of what's going on here is pretty standard - Indomitor teams with buffs provide chunky position holders and can grind anything into dust with Specialism Extremis because they're Aquila, the Proteus Teams go fast and break things, and the Spectrus team provides some genuinely pretty hefty firepower that's a nightmare to shift out of cover. The only notable deviation from what I've seen before is packing multiple heavy thunder hammers into the Proteus teams, presumably to help clear out 4W Tyranid beasties (or Warriors with Reinforced Hive Node). Doesn't look like that use case came up, but hey, damage is damage! Congratulations to Mikael on a strong finish with one of the rarer lists out there.

Robert Gustafsson - Adepta Sororitas - 4th Place

Sister Dialogus. Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Thoughts

Another build that, at this point, basically needs no introduction. Loads of units that are very good at their job and cheap enough that you get to field lots of them. This list does go even wider than some rather than packing in larger units, really denying good trade opportunities to opponents, in exchange for maybe struggling to crack armies that have more than one big tarpit (or play well against Repentia like Damage Reduction stuff). That means there's some finesse needed to really squeeze all the value out, so well done Robert on taking fourth with it.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 5th - Benjamin Hyvönen - Imperial Knights: House Raven with a tooled-up Knight Errant leading lots of Armigers into battle.
• 6th - Robin Kinnunen - Tau: Tau Sept Goodstuff with one large Crisis Team and lots of small Bodyguard units, plus the standard mix of Hammerheads and Commanders.
• 7th - Daniel Hesselberg - Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with an ultra-tooled High Monarch Knight Paladin and a load of Armigers to take maximum advantage of the wide buff.
• 8th - Jonathan Sleigh-Johnson - Harlequins: Light Saedath with all Troupes, Characters and Boats.
• 9th - Sebastian Larsson - Chaos Daemons: A last hurrah for the old Daemons book, with Be'lakor, Keepers, Nurglings and Big Bird.
• 10th - Johan Persson - Emperor's Children: Emperor's Chosen with lots of Daemon Engines, notably including Decimators, who can Advance and Shoot their soulburners without penalty thanks to the Legion Trait. Other than that, Terminators and Possessed, you know the stuff.
• 11th - Linus Bengtsson - Blood Angels: Go-wide Blood Angels with lots of Death Company, including a unit of Death Company Intercessors, making the list very strong at Fury of the Lost. Also features a unit of Devastators mostly armed with Grav, as with the rise of Creations of Bile Blood Angels need some sort of anti-Elite Infantry shooting to compete (thanks to Stephen Box for that tip when we chatted at the weekend).

Ratcon 2022

74-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Ballarat East, Victoria, AU on September 02 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Jeremy Martino - Adepta Sororitas - 1st Place

Sister Superior Amalia Credit: Alfredo Ramirez

The List

Archetype

Martyred Lady Board Control

Final Round Matchup

89 - 78 victory against Boyd Morall - Iron Warriors

Thoughts

This list has, bluntly, been weirdly absent from the metagame. Martyred Lady may not be as outright, in your face powerful as Bloody Rose, but it gives a pretty strong toolbox for playing a board control game, most notably access to ObSec on demand from Death Before Disgrace and the threat of shooting back if an opponent swings and misses against a big Repentia squad. All this is even better in an Armour of Contempt world, as is the other signature trick of Martyred Lady, which is building the ultimate Mortal Wound murder-Canoness, great for smoking clowns, bugs and Necrons alike. I also like the clever choice of bringing Arco-Flagellants here instead of Repentia, as they're a bit more durable, and don't lose anything by coming to battle alongside this Order (whereas Repentia really want the BR buff). Rhinos help these stage in the mid-board, then swarms of ObSec Zephyrim take control of the table - feels like a good plan, and it's always fantastic to see someone win an event with a more unusual build from a top faction - big congratulations to Jeremy.

Matt Morosoli - Drukhari - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Drazhar, the Master of Blades. Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Drukhari Goodstuff

Thoughts

Honestly this has to be the most enduring build with the chops to go 5-0 at a major at this point. Turns out the combination of being able to go very fast, trade effectively, and put out enough durable position holders to at least hold the opponent off is pretty good for winning games of 9th Edition. I'd say "who knew?" but then I'd have to ask searching questions about whether I am successfully educating my audience. Well done to Matt on taking second.

Boyd Morrall - Iron Warriors - 3rd Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Iron Warriors

Thoughts

Iron Warriors appear to have had a sudden surge of popularity, allowing players to go even harder on durability for big tarpit units like Terminators than in most builds. The combination of preventing Wound re-rolls (the Iron Warriors trait) with -1 to wound from the Black Rune is extremely good, making the unit a proper nightmare to shift, and then you can add Dour Duty on top, and opponents may as well not bother till you run out of CP. Add in good support for Obliterators and cheap Daemon Engines like Venomcrawlers and you have a list that's very hard to take off the table, and has enough killing power that it's tough to just play around as well. Good stuff from Boyd.

Adam Camilleri - Dark Angels - 4th Place

Credit: Greg Chiasson

The List

Archetype

Ravenwing

Thoughts

Apparently the Fallen hunters of the Ravenwing have been biding their time, because they're back with a vengeance this week. The first of two Ravenwing lists we're looking at mixes in the classic Dark Talons and powerful Characters with a full block of Black Knights and some Storm Speeders Thunderstrike. Thunderstrikes are phenomenal in Ravenwing at their current price, packing deadly firepower at BS2+ on a speedy frame that's almost impossible to hide from, and supplementing the relative fragility of the chassis with an invulnerable save. Having them and Dark Talons around makes the army extremely good at scoring Death on the Wind, and lets them get a jump on the enemy pretty much no matter the terrain. Black Knights, meanwhile, are proper multi-phase killers with Chapter Master on them (which Samael gives you easy access to), and potentially being able to trap an opponent in a fight with them via Stasis Bomb is an extreme power play. Add in some basic ObSec bikers (also great here) and the result is potent - it is still vulnerable to running out of stuff given the relatively low model count, but it alpha strikes with the best of them, and has the mobility to adapt to a lot of situations.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 5th - Terence Drew - Space Wolves Successors: Artisans/Whirlwind Wolves with lots of Redemptors and lots of Wulfen.
• 6th - David Umana - Ynnari: Ynnari with a mix of the Mortal Wound bomber plan, the Yncarne, then two big Harlequin Troups as counter-charge threats.
• 7th - Dylan Cowan - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with lots of small units, a Harpy and a Sporocyst.
• 8th - Christian Pearse - Iron Hands: Iron Hands Successors with the classic Dreadnought/VanVet/Devastator mix.
• 9th - Stu Trainer - Tyranids: Leviathan Warrior Spam.
• 10th - Matthew Jackson - Iron Warriors: Appropriately mech-heavy Iron Warriors, with lots of Dreadnoughts and Daemon Engines.
• 11th - Jason Chevalier - Harlequins: Shootier Light Saedath with two units of Voidweavers and a second Death Jester, plus a big foot Troupe for counter-charge.
• 12th - Mark Fidge - Astra Militarum: Lots of tanks. Lots of Tanks. Tank Commanders, Basilisks, a Medusa, and I guess some Infantry Squads too.

Da Summer Waaagh 3

57-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Horwich, England, GB on September 03 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Mike Porter - Harlequins - 1st Place

Shadowseer. Credit: Kenji

The List

Final Round Matchup

82 - 55 victory against Aidan Smalley - Death Guard.

Archetype

Light Saedath

Thoughts

Seems like we've swung back hard towards just going "whoops all boats" after a period where Skyweavers have been popular, as Harlequin veteran Mike racks up a second Harlequin event win for the week. Nothing really for me to say here - clowns good.

David Irving - Black Legion - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Black Legion Goodstuff

Thoughts

Abaddon and a big block of Terminators is the pretty consistent winning formula for Chaos Space Marines so far, and this build spices that up with some Decimators. These have a few nifty synergies with Black Legion - being able to dump one into Wanton Massacre out the gate with Merciless Overseer gives a power boost in the first turn, and being able to either shoot against something that tags them in melee on a 2+ thanks to their Legion Trait or use Unrelenting Onslaught to get out of there is neat. It also helps insure the army against running into a mid-board brick that the Terminators somehow can't crack - most such things are vulnerable to Mortal Spam. On the subject of solutions to problems, I do also enjoy the ultimate character-killing Daemon Prince, Death Hexing the target then using G'holl'ax to carve through any other defences. Not a nice thing to have to play around, and good stuff from David overall.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Michael Duff - Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with a tooled up Herald Paladin and lots of Armigers.
• 4th - Markus Hinson - Imperial Knights: Shooty House Raven with two Crusaders, three Helverins and three Warglaives to push up the board.
• 5th - Christopher Chedotal - Thousand Sons: Double Scarab Duplicity with a squad of Chaos Spawn backing them up.
• 6th - Mark Crombleholme - Necrons: Canoptastic Eternal Expansionists, seeing the return of units of three Tomb Spyders. Remember those from the start of 9th? More innocent times. Anyway, they're here backed by Chronomancers, Technomancers and maxed out Wraiths and Scarabs, a whole bunch of wounds to clear and lots of potential Rites of Reanimation power.
• 7th - Jon Shaw - Iron Warriors: Two Vindicators, a big unit of Chosen in a drop pod and a big unit of Terminators with Abaddon wandering around with them.
• 8th - Aiden Smalley - Death Guard: Inexorable with lots of Plague Marines (plus one unit of Deathshrouds for extra crunch), lots of support characters/casters then a pair of PBCs and a VolCon for shooting support.
• 9th - Kevin Davies - Chaos Knights: Herpetrax with a tooled-up Desecrator and a bunch of Dogs.

Battlefield Birmingham 19

54-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on September 03 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Vik Vijay - Chaos Space Marines - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Final Round Matchup

97 - 61 victory against Christopher Radford - Harlequins.

Thoughts

Abaddon, Terminators, and this time the Emperor's Children's version of filling the army out, which is lots of Noise Marines and a different flavour of dangerous Daemon Prince. The Noise Marines are interesting, because they're actually just kitted out as effectively Legionaires with access to a better heavy weapon, and I'm guessing the motivation is that a.) that heavy weapon is very tasty and b.) having one in each unit unlocks Excruciating Frequencies, allowing Overwatch to be shut down on demand. That's great for a powerful melee army like this one, and combining that with access to Heroic Interventions everywhere with Incessant Disdain and Fight First on almost everything makes it an absolute nightmare to brawl against mid-board. The Daemon Prince is also nifty for that, essentially pre-paying half price for a once-per-game Fight Last via the Mantle of Traitors, retaining access to the emergency Soporific Gaze even if the army's CP needs to be blown elsewhere. Finally, the list features the last hurrah for the old Summoning rules, giving it access to a cheap caster for Psychic Interrogation (which Chaos Space Marines tend to want, as their Secondaries are somewhat underwhelming). A strong alternative spin on Chaos Space Marines, and definitely especially good into Harlequins (between ignoring hit modifiers and all the brawling capabilities), which paid off for Vik in the final.

The Best of the Rest

There were 9 more players on X-1 or better records. They were:

• 2nd (undefeated with a draw) - Adam Lynch - Tyranids: Leviathan goodstuff with lots of Carnifexes and the Ambush Predators trait to allow them to Heroic.
• 3rd - George Getaroth - Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with a powered-up Herald Paladin and a bunch of Armigers.
• 4th - Ritchie Balan - Orks: A refreshingly nostalgic spin on Orks - just loads of Boyz (plus one big Beast Snagga squad) with Squighogs and Characters backing them up. Scream Waaaagh and go for it.
• 5th - Nicholas Willingale - Necrons: C'tan and Destroyer Eternal Expansionists.
• 6th - Christopher Radford - Harlequins: Light Saedath with lots of boats, a Solitaire, and one unit of Skyweavers for Secondaries.
• 7th - Dan Bates - Craftworlds: Lots of Aspect Warrior MSUs as Masterful Shots/Vengeful, with multiple Phoenix Lords at the head.
• 8th - Matt McVeigh - Thousand Sons: Duplicity with three small Scarab squads, and two big units of Spawn and a full Warpflamer Rubric squad for early pressure.
• 9th - Luke Richards - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with lots of big monsters, including a buffed Trygon Prime with The Passenger.
• 10th - Dan Hill - Tyranids: Leviathan Warrior spam.

Iron Cage Hurst Headlock

47-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Hurst, TX, US on September 03 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal

Brian Ellis - Emperor's Children: The rare Abaddon-free Chaos Space Marine list here, featuring lots of shooty Noise Marines, powerful characters (including Lucius himself) and various Daemon Engines/melee units to fill.

vs.

Jony Velazquez - Creations of Bile:...and another Abaddon-free Chaos Space Marine list. He must be tired from conquering so many battlefields in the UK. Instead, we have Fabius Bile getting in on the action, ready to buff up lots of small units of Terminators to send out like missiles with Auto-Stimulants.

Thoughts

Two powerful legions clash here, presumably over the spoils of some sort of raid. In the pink corner, we have an Emperor's Children list that's mostly melee focused, but uses sonic-equipped Noise Marines to pack in lots of shooting that can deploy a moderate punch when needed (with Excruciating Frequencies here being good for the Mortals). Maulerfiends provide some early durable frames to hold the enemy at bay, and once a brawl is joined, the powerful Characters provide great ways to neutralise threats, and the mid-sized Possessed unit can take on heftier stuff.

The Creations of Bile are, as usual, far more melee-oriented, with just a single cheap squad of Havocs providing a bit of dakka. Creations are, of course, exceptionally nasty in melee, and this list trades on that in a few ways. The big Possessed unit is, obviously, a pretty terrifying tool for making a big push, and while the opponent is dealing with them and the Venomcrawlers, Bile and his Acolyte can be busily buffing up one squad of Terminators at a time, then sending them out on big charges using Auto-Stimulants (also great on Raptors). The army also has powerful herohammer going for it, including a respawning Daemon Prince with a bazillion attacks, and a fully operational murder Master of Executions, piling Mortals onto whatever it touches. So, which legion is mightier?

Honestly, both sides have some good assets. In the Children's favour, their shooting capability is vastly better, allowing them to more easily clear off sacrificial stuff from the Creations side without fully committing. In addition to that, the Creations list honestly isn't fantastic at taking out Maulerfiends once you factor in Infernal Engine. They'll get it done but they might have to plow more than they'd like into the fight, potentially giving the servents of Slaanesh a good counterattack opportunity. Over on the Creations side, they benefit from a better Secondary from this game, and seriously outclassing the Children once a brawl gets going. Their units getting to fight on death massively mitigates the advantage of the Children's wide access to Fight First, and being +1S inherantly means that all of their stuff has a favourable matchup into their counterparts on the other side, particularly notable with the Possessed, where the big Bile squad will viciously bully the Children one.

Definitely not a shoe in for either side, so we need to take a look at the mission as well. Death and Zeal feels like it marginally favours the Creations here. A shooting advantage can be good on corner deployments, as it's often difficult to avoid opening up firing lines. However, that's most pronounced when the shooty units are very fast, which Noise Marines aren't really. The Bile side is fully ready to take advantage of the other thing these deployments reward, which is being able to stage stuff in a position where it can swing for multiple objectives. Firing out lots of Terminator units is pretty much exactly what you want to be doing here, and I think it also mitigates the impact of the Maulerfiends - they can either split up, in which case the Bile forces can work around them or pick one off, or they can push for the centre, in which case committing the big Possessed unit while preparing other forces as a second wave seems like a reasonable response. Fundamentally too, the Children list does still plan to do quite a lot in the Fight Phase, and that's very tough here.

I think the best shot for the Children is to take advantage of their ability to remove sacrificial stuff without engaging, and potentially save the Maulerfiends for a hammerblow response to the first big play that the Creations make. The longer they can keep the game as an arm's-length skirmish rather than an all-out brawl the better for them, so aim for that.

The game looks to have been extremely tightly fought, with much lower scores than you often see on this mission, suggesting serious back and forth on objectives. In the end, the Creations of Bile did take the win, presumably because the pressure of trying to fight them proved just a bit too much for the other side.

Result

Creations of Bile Victory - 77 - 65

Jony Velazquez - Chaos Space Marines - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Creations of Bile

Thoughts

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Nathaniel Bjorge - Necrons: Double C'tan Eternal Expansionists with lots of Skorpekh and Ophydians to finish.
• 3rd - Brett Urbanowski - Astra Militarum: Tanks for days again, with lots of Commanders and Manticores and a massive number of Infantry units for objective play.
• 4th - Brian Ellis - Emperor's Children: See showdown.

MidtconGT

46-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Viborg, DK on September 03 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Rasmus Olesen - T'au Sept - 1st Place

Tau Hammerhead Gunship. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Heavy Tau Sept Goodstuff

Final Round Matchup

72 - 70 victory against Anders Hjarlvig - Tyranids.

Thoughts

Rasmus puts in a strong showing here with one of the strongest current spins on Tau, which is the heavy duty Tau Sept build. Lots of dangerous hulls, two big Crisis Teams, and an absolute minimal scattering of sacrificial Kroot to get the ball rolling. Very vulnerable if the enemy gets the jump on it, but if played well it's got the damage to punch through even the hardest targets - as it proved by taking down Tyranids in the final.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Martin Bræmer Nielsen - Adeptus Custodes: Shooty Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff with Caladius tanks and a trio of Strike and Shield Freeblades to help push up the board.
• 3rd - Simon Darre - T'au: Farsight Enclaves with Crisis Teams, Breachers in Devilfish, Sun Sharks, and a whole bunch of Commanders (including Shadowsun).
• 4th - Anders Hjarlvig - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with Carnifexes, a big Warrior block and a pair of Tyrannofexes for heavier lifting at range.
• 5th - Søren Lohmann - Craftworlds: Ulthwe Goodstuff with Wraithseers and Fire Prisms, a unit of Wraithblades to hold positions, plus lots of Aspect units to lock in Wrath of Khaine.
• 6th - Frederik Larsen - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with lots of Zephyrim.
• 7th - Killi Paaske - Tyranids: Heavy-duty Leviathan Goodstuff with two Tyrants, two Harpies and a Maleceptor.
• 8th - Morten Hørby - Creations of Bile: Abaddon leading various small Terminator and Possessed units, plus a single larger unit of the latter with the Black Rune.

Hertfordshire GT

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on September 03 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal

Clement Tournade - Space Wolves Successors: Lots of Wulfen, lots of Wolf Guard and two units of Long Fangs in a pod, all with the Born Heroes/Whirlwind combo for max melee threat.

vs.

Jack Downing - Dark Angels: Ravenwing with lots of Black Knights and a tonne of shooty speeders, taking Land Speeders Vengeance rather than Dark Talons to free up points for extra Knights.

Thoughts

You wait ages for a Ravenwing list to perform, then two turn up at once, here taking on the sworn rivals of the Unforgiven. The Goonhammer patrons have been helpful for me with their choices here, because I attended the event and played against Jack's list, so know what it can do! With Speed of the Raven it's almost impossible to hide everything from the baleful gaze of the Speeders here, meaning that they'll very reliably pick units up for Death on the Wind, and having two big units of Black Knights really broadens the army's options on the table. Combat squadding one or both of them (usually one so you can Chapter Master max the other) gives you lots of pieces to play with, and in particular makes Martial Interdiction far more attractive in this list than most - there's lots of stuff that can hunt down and murder a Character, and a lot of it has a strong chance of making a clean getaway for a maximum score. Finally, taking more stuff that can actually hold objectives rather than Dark Talons does sacrifice a bit of reach, but means the army is less vulnerable to being taken out of Primary contention than some builds.

Over on the Wolf side, the plan is pretty definitively to punch things. Wulfen with Whirlwind are exceptionally deadly killers, and Ravenwing are pretty much an ideal target for them, all those juicy 3W bodies just ripe for hammering. The map for this mission had a good staging position for charges at the middle objective, so it's pretty much never going to be safe for the Dark Angels to put a valuable unit there until the Space Wolves have been heavily depleted, and there's going to be quite a bit of cat and mouse going on there. The Wolf Guard and Long Fangs feel a bit less good than normal in this game though - the Wolf Guard don't love the fact that there's nothing with less than T5 (though they can use Savage Strike to mitigate that), and army-wide 5+ invulnerable saves against shooting (plus acccess to High-Speed Focus to boost it on a key target) is similarly awkward for the Fangs.

There's also the issue that the Ravenwing can "cruise" a bit more on Secondaries, and holding objectives in the mid board isn't very safe for either army. For the Ravenwing, Death on the Wind is essentially a locked 15 here, and a wide variety of Supremacy options is going to get them to at least 10-12 over the course of the game. A third pick is a little awkward, but the option of taking Martial Interdiction seems fine, as even if it doesn't end up worth a lot of points, it potentially forces one of the Wolf characters to be way more cautious than they'd like. The Wolves do have good options - but they're all going to involve proactively going after the Dark Angels, whether it be to kill their Vehicles for Glory Kills or charge them with Warrior Pride. When they go for this, the Ravenwing are going to have a clear shot to blast back (especially as the mid-board objectives here didn't have much protection around them), and they're extremely good at killing 2W Marines. As a final nail in the coffin, Swift Strike opens up the prospect of some serious power plays from the Dark Angels here, potentially taking out a unit with complete impunity.

The Wolves can play for a decent score by being cautious with their assets, but this definitely ends up as a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" game - play cautious and the Ravenwing build up a lead via attrition and on Secondaries, go aggro and they can just straight up smoke the army in a few turns. The first option clearly gives a higher chance of making something happen, and from the score I'm guessing that's what was chosen, but the brutal truth here is that as the Wolf player, you're basically hoping for Jack to make a mistake and let Wulfen get amongst a full Black Knight unit, and from my game against him I can attest he's suitably careful about maintaining distance from threats that can do that!

Result

Dark Angels Victory - 89 - 70

Jack Downing - Dark Angels - 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Ravenwing

Thoughts

Go fast, shoot things, make Greg say "Hell Yeah" on our planning channels when I post that Dark Angels won an event. It's all good, and well done Jack!

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Ben Jones - Ynnari: Murderous Ynnari with the Yncarne, two big Troupe units, Banshees and Scorpions to trade, and two units of D-cannons to force the opponent to engage, at which point they can be murdered.
• 3rd - Clement Tournade - Space Wolves: See showdown.
• 4th - Stuart McIntyre - Death Guard: Terminus Est Assault Force with two full Plague Marine units, just under 80 Poxwalkers, and a full squad each of Blightlords and Deathshrouds. Looks incredibly daunting to try and take off the table, and will dominate scoring till you do.
• 5th - Lee Jones - Creations of Bile: Creations with a big Chosen unit, full squad of Possessed with the Rune, and some seriously hefty herohammer from a Prince and two Discolords.
• 6th - Edward Morgan - Tyranids: Leviathan Warrior Spam with two Harpies.

Wrap Up

All done for this week, make sure to come back next week for more exciting lists and more showdowns, and remember that if you want to vote on which Showdowns get featured, come join our Patreon and Discord (plus you can @ me about my dubious takes in real time, surely a priceless feature). Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

 

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