The end is near and so we face the final curtain - all signs are that players are absolutely chomping at the bit to get started with playing Nephilim (indeed quite a few RTTs this weekend played with them on release day), so I expect this to be the last week with a lot of Nachmund events, and the last before the triple whammy of the Points Update, Balance Dataslate and mission changes flips everything we know about the metagame on its head. Let's have a standing ovation (or possibly a chorus of theatrical boos) as some of the Nachmund greats play their final encore.

This week we're looking at:

• The Battle Ready Southern Showdown (major)
• The Boise Cup (major)
• Iron Cage OKC Summer Slam
• RAGE 40K GT
• Bristol Vanguard Vanquish
• DZTV June GT at FactoruM
• Kent Wargames GT
• Mythicos GT

As previously, if someone who wasn’t in first place was undefeated, i’ll note it by there name. You can safely assume the event winner was undefeated unless i say otherwise!

Battle Ready Southern Showdown 40k Major

68-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Valdosta, Georgia, US on June 25 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tide of Conviction

Tarzan - Orks: Goff Pressure with Squigosaur bosses, lots of Squighogs, mechanised infantry and Deffkoptas to provide dakka.

vs.

Steven Crawley - Hive Fleet Leviathan: Leviathan Goodstuff, two Harpies

Thoughts

We've had this matchup quite a few times in the last few weeks, and at this point we've got a pretty good handle on how it goes down by default - the Orks generally can't slam through the Tyranid Warriors fast enough to play the objective game effectively, and that's a huge problem for an army that wants to roll over the opposition and exploit pressure. They can also struggle a bit to interact with some of the mechanics of the Tyranid army, as they're not great into Spore Mines, often struggle to shoot down a Harpy and hate losing Ghaz to the Reaper of Obliterax.

Some of the choices in this list look like a pretty good attempt to adapt to that, and I think this is one of those games where it would be more interesting on a different mission. Having the full on murder Squigboss build as well as lots of Squighogs lets the army deploy big damage at speed in quite a few places, maybe working around Reinforced Hive Node, and eight Deffkoptas provides shooting output that's pretty real into plenty of what Tyranids have if they're outside the range of Venomthropes.

Unfortunately, Deffkoptas match up exceptionally poorly into Harpies specifically - both the bombs and heavy venom absolutely tear through the Koptas, and there's nothing they can do to hide on the table from it. Sure they can come in from deep strike, but then that just lets the Tyranids press the attack early, and doesn't help that much. The mission is also a rough one - there's no route to scoring or denying points that doesn't involve dislodging Tyranid Warriors from objectives that they can easily reach, and it's very easy for them to be kept protected. Moving up the board also brings all the horrendous counterattack tools of the Tyranids into play, and though the Orks have some violence available, it's just not quite on the same scale. As we've seen a few times in this matchup, the Orks end up in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation - if they try to push for objectives it's pretty likely that it doesn't work and they lose a bunch of stuff, but if they go slow the Harpies just rip them to pieces. Hopefully from next week all the dedicated players who've been getting their Ork reps in are going to reap the rewards of the practice.

Result

Tyranid Victory - 98-38

Steven Crawley - Hive Fleet Leviathan - 1st Place

Maleceptor. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Thoughts

Leviathan Goodstuff, two Harpies, countless Competitive Innovations appearences. Well done to Steven for sending the build off on a high note.

Jonathan Sweet - Black Templars - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Black Templars High Marshal Helbrecht. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

Archetype

Black Templars

Thoughts

A very timely reminder here that the Black Templars have a whole bunch of extremely cool options available to them, and that promises to serve them well in Nephilim. Jonathan is ahead of the game, rocking out the Templars with a build that honestly looks pretty much exactly like what we were expecting in the immediate wake of the supplement coming out. Both the extremely potent named Characters, a Tannhauser Chaplain, a few terrifying melee units and Redemptor Dreadnoughts to fill. Judicious use of Relic Bearers upgrades allows the Terminators and Bladeguard to be extra effective, and in the wake of Armour of Contempt, the list can be a bit more flexible about what vow it plans to take - if the opponent has nothing with AP better than -3, Uphold the Honour of the Emperor isn't doing much, so you can pick one of the other three for some extra killing power. Both Suffer Not the Unclean to Live and Abhor the Witch, Destroy the Witch are very relevant in the Nachmund metagame, and there will almost certainly be at least some use for them in Nephilim.

Just in general, several of Templars strenghts should play well in Nephilim too. In a CP-starved environment, strong Named Characters and good points upgrades are much more valuable, and Templars have some of the best choices in both categories, plus good builds based around unique Troops options for easy Battalion building. Sure this list has to lose a few traits or relics to have an appreciable amount of CP, but I expect to see Templars thrive as we proceed, so keep an eye out for more strong performances from Jonathan.

Seth Piper - Black Templars - 3rd Place (Undefeated with a Draw)

Primaris Crusaders. Credit: SRM

The List

Archetype

Black Templars

Thoughts

Plenty of the same comments apply for our second Black Templars list, though this one also shows off a Primaris Crusader squad, one of the most efficient ways to get Marine bodies onto the table and great for fighting for objectives with weight of numbers or shrugging off Psychic onslaughts with Litany of Divine Protection. This list really wants to ruin the opponents day in the Psychic Phase, with a Culexus Assassin as well, but with some of the best Psychic armies taking big nerfs, maybe expect to see a Callidus in that slot in the future, as her ability to tax additional CP can now be devastation. Well done to Seth on taking third.

Andy Patton - Ulthwe - 4th Place

Eldrad Ulthran by Corrode

The List

Archetype

Ulthwe Goodstuff

Thoughts

Some Ulthwe lists look like some of the best options for Craftworlds going forwards. This one...not so much. The Avatar and Eldrad are super cool and will absolutely still have a place, but the heavy lifting in this build is being done by a maxed-out number of scatter laser Windriders, which had a gigantic target on their head in the changes. Prior to the Balance Dataslate, two units of these at once could operate with relative impunity, one using Fire and Fade and the other using Matchless Agility, allowing for a truly horrendous number of shots to be thrown at the opposition without much counterplay, enough to even chew through Tyranid hordes. If the opponent does come and try and pin them down, the Avatar, D-Cannons and Psychic might represent a pretty brutal counterattack, which also makes it tough to deal with To The Last in the list. With Rangers as an inexpensive way to pick up some early Primary points while the scatter lasers do their work, the army ended up hyper effective at scoring in a manner that was quite tough to stop without overwhelming force. Well done to Andy for going full Aeldari nonsense, and I look forward to seeing future lists from him.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 5th - Tarzan - Orks: See showdown.
• 6th - Mark Parker - Tyranids: Shooty Leviathan Goodstuff with lots of Carnifexes and two Exocrines.
• 7th - John Davis - Craftworlds: Hail of Doom with a bunch of Guardians in Wave Serpents, backed up by Wraithseers and War Walkers. Interesting in that it doesn't actually have to change too much for the points changes, but might struggle more with Secondaries.
• 8th - Marcus Johnson - Adepta Sororitas: All-rounder Bloody Rose build anchored on a Paragon unit.
• 9th - Chase Jones - Imperium: Valorous Heart (though it barely matters) spamming Penitent Engines and Mortifiers, backed up by a Guard detachment with Manticores. Unlikely to hold up in Nephilim thanks to not getting Secondaries, but a cool last outing for this style of build.
• 10th - Justin Crain - Imperial Knights: Freeblade Lance with lots of Armigers around two tooled up Questoris Knights for handing out buffs.
• 11th - John McLeod - Craftworlds: Ulthwe Goodstuff with Eldrad, an Avatar and lots of Aspect Warriors. Feels much more like the sort of thing that will hold up on scoring Secondaries for Craftworlds.

Boise Cup 40k 2022

63-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Boise, ID, US on June 25 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tide of Conviction

McKay Griffin - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff, two Harpies, but also the Spore Mine nonsense with a sporocyst and some Biovores.

vs.

Lee Harris - Chaos Knights: House Herpetrax War Dog Spam, with a Desecrator leading them up for shooting.

Thoughts

Another challenger steps up to the plate of trying to knock Tyranids out on Tide of Conviction, and War Dogs are certainly among the better tools to have a go at this - this army has a lot of D3 stuff, both up close and at range, hopefully sufficient to overwhelm Tyranid defences, and being able to have two War Dogs team up and count as ten ObSec models can actually seize control of objectives from the swarm, with extra durability from Herpetrax definitely helping with that.

Unfortunately, in true wrestling heel fashion, the Tyranids have booby trapped the arena (or at least will be doing so in an ongoing fashion). The Sporocyst appears to be the real deal, able to make it extremely difficult for opponent's to push into parts of the board they need to conquer, especially with Harpies and Biovores getting in on the action as well. Here, it specifically interferes with the Knights ability to reliably and safely push stuff off the Tyranid's nearby objectives, and speeds up the rate of attrition they face while doing so. Add in the Harpies being extremely good at killing War Dogs (and honestly one of the better choices for pushing through Blessing of the Dark Master as well) and things are tough from the Knights. Tide of Conviction seems to be a very popular mission for final rounds, and I do think there's some degree to which it really highlights any balance issues, as there's vastly less scope to play around your opponent's army than on many missions - to score, you have to push onto their positions in force, hold multiple positions within strike range of the enemy, and ideally still be on the board at the end of the game. None of those things are easy in a game where the forces are evenly matched, and against something like full powered Tyranids it becomes a nightmare, and from the scoreline here it appears the Knights felt the full brunt of that.

Expect Chaos Knights to get a real bump in Nephilim ready for any rematch mind - they're another faction with extremely good points upgrades, and their Faction Secondaries are pretty decent too!

Result

Tyranids Victory - 90-28

McKay Griffin - Tyranids - 1st Place

Credit: BuffaloChicken

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff (with Spore Mines!)

Thoughts

Leviathan Goodstuff, two Harpies, but also enough Spore Mines to make opponent's lives a living hell. Credit to Games Workshop, they've been on the ball enough to spot that the Sporocyst's recent surge and bump its price up (all hail and praise to digital points), but given that Biovores didn't change and being a Fortification is probably better army construction-wise in Nephilim, it wouldn't shock me to see Spore Mines being a big part of successful Tyranid strategies in an ongoing fashion. We'll have to see if McKay's victory here is the equivalent of the monster's hand bursting up from the grave in the post-credits stinger.

Tom Cohen - Imperial Knights - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Imperial Knight Armiger Helverin. Credit: Pendulin

The List

Archetype

House Raven

Thoughts

Exciting times for Imperial Knights as Tom here locks in an undefeated run at a major with a spicy new build. This army aims to deploy a powerful mix of speed and reliability via the tools House Raven supplies. Order of Companions provides a game-long source of re-rolls for both the big Knights, on top of the ones that Lay Low the Tyrants already supplies while the Banner Inviolate and The Virtue of Courage make the Armigers around the Errants extra nasty, while The Helm of Dogs boosts up the power of the sniping Helverins. From a speed point of view, two Errants with Exalted Court upgrades means that all four of the Warglaives can be in Advance/Charge at all times, and the Errants themselves can get up the table quick thanks to the Raven trait. I like the number of models here too - nine Knights of various sizes means you can soak up a few losses a bit more easily than the 3-big/4-small lists, and helps with Secondaries.

The main risk for this build going forward into Nephilim is that Raven's assets rely on pre-game CP spend, and the army needs to drop at least one trait or relic to be viable. I think, with the extra CP gain from Defend the Realm, that you could plausibly run out a starting CP of 0, but what you might want to do is switch Lay Low the Tyrants out for Refuse No Challenge so that you can safely drop Revered Knight, and worry a bit less about locking in an early kill. Taranis builds probably do have an easier time adapting, so this could turn out to be a flash in the pan, but I hope not because it's a very clever setup!

Matt Johansen - Harlequins - 3rd Place

Harlequins Troupe. Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Dark Saedath with a Webway Gate

Thoughts

This build represents, or at least certainly did represent, a very powerful skew towards objective play for Harlequins. Dark Saedath's extra AP, especially on the big Skyweaver squad, allows them to really hammer opponents off objectives when they need to, and if there's something on there they just can't crack the Ghoulmask gives them an alternative option to flip a position. Meanwhile, with a Webway Gate and lots of big Troupes waiting inside, the army can make a fairly large part of the table extremely unsafe for the opponent - try and take any objectives nearby and you're catching an absolutely vicious unit straight to the face, and The Silken Knife means that even units with powerful Overwatch like Pyrovores can't stay just outside the deploy range and be relatively safe. Whatever goes in to prise the Troupes off their objectives takes massive damage in return, softening them up for the next wave, and over time Harlequin victory gets firmly locked in.

Whether the Dark Saedath change just completely kills this plan is something we'll have to wait and see on - I think this list probably suffers more from it than a build with more boats and maybe more split up units of bikes just because it's specifically invested in a delivery mechanism for big units, and in the attrition taking those out will incur. Pivoting to Twilight is an option, but with Sisters plausibly looking like the faction to beat in Nephilim, having extra AP to carve through Armour of Contempt is more important than ever. With minimal points changes, it feels very likely that Harlequins will still be making their presence known in the future, so I'm sure we'll find out - and well done Matt for making especially good use of Dark's last hurrah in its original form.

Tanner Lauerman - Tyranids - 4th Place

Tyranid Warriors. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Thoughts

Leviathan Goodstuff with a mere one Harpy, a Tyrannofex providing some alternative shooting power. Not much else to say here - congratulations to Tanner on taking 4th.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 5th - Ben Cromwell - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists, with the Silent King leading up pretty much all the Destroyers in the world. Gets even more exciting in Nephilim.
• 6th - Lee Harris - Chaos Knights: See showdown.
• 7th - Jeremy Jenks - Thousand Sons: Cult of Duplicity with two big Scarab squads and a Leviathan Dreadnought.
• 8th - Thad Benedict - Tau: Tau Sept Goodstuff with three big Crisis units and a Riptide, plus Shadowsun and Longstrike leading them up.
• 9th - Trenton Bates - Death Guard: All-rounder build with a bunch of the best datasheets and a big unit of Blightlords.
• 10th - Jordan Gledhill - Adepta Sororitas: Valorous Heart bringing the big guns, with Paragons, a big Sacresant brick and two units of Retributors.
• 11th - Thomas Hegstrom Oakey - Craftworlds: Herohammer-heay Ulthwe, with Eldrad, the Avatar, two Phoenix Lords and Aspect Warriors to taste.
• 12th - Christopher Van Note - Tyranids: Triple Maleceptors as Leviathan. Unfortunate timing.

Iron Cage OKC Summer Slam!

46-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Oklahoma City, OK, US on June 25 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Note: This game was table 1 in the last round, the only game with two undefeated players, but the winner actually ended up in second by the narrowest of margins, as there were three undefeated players going into the round.

Matchup & Mission - Tide of Conviction

Robert Moreland - Custodes & Armigers: The Emissaries Imperatus Sagittarum/Fulminaris Aggressor combo alongside a trio of Freeblade Armigers as roving threats.

++ Battalion Detachment 0CP (Imperium - Adeptus Custodes) [78 PL, 1,535pts, 9CP] ++

+ Configuration [12CP] +

Detachment Type / Shield Host: Adeptus Custodes, Emissaries Imperatus

Gametype: 3. Chapter Approved: War Zone Nachmund

+ Stratagems [-1CP] +

Stratagem: Open the Vaults [-1CP]: Additional Relics [-1CP]

+ Agents of the Imperium [2 PL, 40pts] +

Voidsmen-At-Arms [2 PL, 40pts] . Voidmaster [8pts]: Artificer Shotgun, Laspistol . 4x Voidsman [32pts]: 4x Lasgun, 4x Laspistol

+ HQ [17 PL, 320pts, ] +

Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike [9 PL, 160pts, -1CP]: 3. Superior Creation, Castellan's Mark, Hurricane Bolter, Interceptor Lance, Misericordia, Stratagem: The Emperor's Heroes [-1CP]

Trajann Valoris [8 PL, 160pts, 1CP]: 1. Master of Martial Strategy, 2. Champion of the Imperium, Misericordia, Warlord, Watcher's Axe

+ Troops [35 PL, 750pts] +

Sagittarum Custodians [7 PL, 150pts] . 3x Sagittarum w/ Misericordia [150pts]: 3x Adrastus Bolt Caliver, 3x Misericordia

Sagittarum Custodians [7 PL, 150pts] . 3x Sagittarum w/ Misericordia [150pts]: 3x Adrastus Bolt Caliver, 3x Misericordia

Sagittarum Custodians [7 PL, 150pts] . 3x Sagittarum w/ Misericordia [150pts]: 3x Adrastus Bolt Caliver, 3x Misericordia

Sagittarum Custodians [7 PL, 150pts] . 3x Sagittarum w/ Misericordia [150pts]: 3x Adrastus Bolt Caliver, 3x Misericordia

Sagittarum Custodians [7 PL, 150pts] . 3x Sagittarum w/ Misericordia [150pts]: 3x Adrastus Bolt Caliver, 3x Misericordia

+ Elites [24 PL, 425pts, -2CP] +

Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought [9 PL, 160pts]: Achillus Dreadspear, 2x Lastrum Storm Bolter

Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought [9 PL, 160pts]: Achillus Dreadspear, 2x Lastrum Storm Bolter

Vexilus Praetor [6 PL, 105pts, -2CP]: (Emissaries Imperatus): Voice of the Emperor, 4. Impregnable Mind, Fulminaris Aggressor, Guardian Spear, Misericordia, Stratagem: The Emperor's Heroes [-1CP], Stratagem: Victor of the Blood Games [-1CP], Vexilla Magnifica

++ Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment -3CP (Imperium - Imperial Knights) [24 PL, 465pts, -3CP] ++

• Configuration [-3CP] +

Chivalric Oath: Mixed Army

Detachment Command Cost [-3CP]

Questor Allegiance: Custom, Questor Imperialis

+ Lord of War [24 PL, 465pts] +

Armiger Helverins [24 PL, 465pts]: Freeblade, Martial Tradition: Front-line Fighters, Questor Imperialis . Armiger Helverin [8 PL, 155pts]: 2x Armiger Autocannon, Questor Ironhail Heavy Stubber . Armiger Helverin [8 PL, 155pts]: 2x Armiger Autocannon, Questor Ironhail Heavy Stubber . Armiger Helverin [8 PL, 155pts]: 2x Armiger Autocannon, Questor Ironhail Heavy Stubber

++ Total: [102 PL, 6CP, 2,000pts] ++

[/expand]

vs.

Zane Green - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff, Screamer Killers and an Exocrine instead of a second Harpy.

Thoughts

Another tournament, another challenger stepping up to the plate of facing Leviathan on Tide of Conviction. Will they fare any better?

They've certainly got some stuff going for them. The combo of Trajann, the Fulminaris Aggressor and lots of Emissaries Imperatus Sagittarum has been a quietly successful fringe build for a while, as it provides incredibly reliable shooting output attached to units that can comfortably repel anything up to mid-tier enemy units that try to dislodge them. This list really doubles down on that with the addition of the Armigers, who provide additional dakka and makes taking home objectives off this army super tricky. In this matchup specifically, Front Line Fighters also really comes into its own in helping deal with whatever tools the bugs commit - going from S7 to S8 is an incredibly important break point against Tyranids, and means that the Harpy and Flyrant have to be far more careful about where they operate. Lots more D3 shooting, especially parcelled out in ways that can easily split fire, also really helps clear Warriors, and the Achillus Dreads are great counter-charge units.

All that adds up to mean that, of our three top table challengers, this is the only one with the potential to out-grind the Tyranids, and it really shows in the scoreline. The bugs did, eventually, make it three for three on top table tide games, but here by the narrowest of margins, with Robert scoring 60 points to Zane's 62. I really like the Custodes/Knight combo here, and I'm hoping against hope that a way is found to build it for Nephilim despite the CP cost.

Result

Tyranids Victory - 62-60

Bam Bam Hunter - Hive Fleet Leviathan - 1st Place

Hormagaunts. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Thoughts

Speaking of narrow margins, Bam managed to outscore Zane by a single victory point overall, taking first place. The list is mostly pretty standard Leviathan fare, but maybe expect a couple of units of Hormagaunts (as seen here) to show up in more Tyranid builds, as they're now a bit cheaper than the minimum Warrior unit, and can cover a lot of ground to steal an objective, and are a bit more capable of taking out some chaff than Gargoyles. Congratulations to Bam on the win.

Zane Greene - Tyranids - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Screamer Killers. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Leviathan Goodstuff

Thoughts

We can't stop here, this is bug country. Well done to Zane on taking second and continuing the Tyranid streak.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Nathaniel Bjorge - Tyranids: Kraken with a lot of Warriors and a bumper crop of Zoanthropes.
• 4th - Jony velazquez - Chaos Knights: Herpetrax War Dog Spam, just YOLOing a lot of Huntsmen and Karnivores straight at the enemy.
• 5th - Clifton Russell - Tyranids: More unusual fare here, with a very monster-heavy Jormundgandr build, sporting two Tyrannocytes and a variety of other fun toys. Probably planning to go for Monster ObSec via Adaptive Biology and make the opponent's scoring super challenging.
• 6th - Robert Moreland - Adeptus Custodes: See showdown.
• 7th - Brett Urbanowski - Astra Militarum: Tank Commanders and Manticores, with a minimum Brigade of everything else backing them up.

RAGE 40k Grand Tournament

43-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Sparks, Nevada, US on June 25 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal

Daniel Olivas - Harlequins: Twilight Saedath with a Webway Gate and one big Troupe to use with it, plus a unit of three Voidweavers.

vs.

Chris Wallace - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff that's heavy on ground monsters, including The Swarmlord.

Thoughts

Two interesting things - we get to see straight away what a Webway Gate does for Twilight, and we get a top table Tyranid game that isn't on Tide of Conviction, instead featuring Death and Zeal. That's good news for the Harlequins on a number of fronts. A corner deployment is ideal for this list, as it can use the Webway Gate's presence to dominate one no-man's land quarter, send boats to contest the other, and recycle Troupes across to the gate with Virtuosos of the Webway as needed. The Objective lock-in of Death and Zeal also makes it much harder for the Tyranids to ignore whichever objective is near the gate and dare something to emerge from it too - if the objective is locked to the Harlequins, they have to send something over to deal. Malicious Frenzy is also a huge asset here, as it means anything that gets hit by the big Troupe is detonating, no questions asked.

All that said, the sheer amount of nasty that the Tyranids have on the table here means that the Harlequins' margin for error is essentially non-existent - one turn of losing more units than they should is potentially going to be terminal, and from the Tyranid side of the board here you're very much looking for any opportunities to really press your advantage and overwhelm the Harlequins. They've got some nasty stuff, but are capped in how many things they're going to be able to counterattack into at any one time, as the Troupes are pretty lightly equipped. The ability to put ObSec on the Raveners with the Swarmlord is also a huge asset, as it lets them head off and flip something that's been undercommitted to with relative ease.

Despite more things pulling in the Harlequin's direction than in some of the other games, I'd probably still have called this for the Tyranids if you'd asked me, but Daniel was able to make use of all the Harlequin tricks to take the win!

Result

Harlequins Victory - 91-77

Daniel Olivas - Harlequins - 1st Place

Credit: Quinn Radich

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Twilight Saedath

Thoughts

So that would be a yes on "can you make Twilight work with a Webway gate?" then. This list is clearly potent, and sees very little change on the way into Nephilim. One big Webway Gate Troupe is also perfect, as it neatly costs you 0CP. The Voidweavers certainly aren't as good with only one use of Fire and Fade per game, but you still get a couple of turns of shooting at your opponent's best guns before they can fire back, and that could still be enough. Malicious Frenzy also means that although the Troupes here don't look that threatening, they can still make a dent in glass cannon targets like Aspect Warriors, as throwing out a lot of auto-wounds will cover for their lack of strength. A lot feels like it's riding on how much of the top metagame is sporting Armour of Contempt. For now, congratulations to Daniel on the win.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Chris Wallace - Tyranids: See showdown.
• 3rd - Aurelio Correa - Knights Renegades: A tanked-up Abominant and a nasty Desecrator lead a bunch of War Dogs into baddle as Herpetrax.
• 4th - Jason McKenzie - Cult Mechanicus: Mars Veteran Cohort with lots of Ruststalkers.
• 5th - Paul McKelvey - Tau: Tau Sept Goodstuff with two big Crisis units, two Hammerheads and a trio of Broadsides backing up Longstrike.
• 6th - Scott LaFountain - Chaos Knights: More Herpetrax, again with the big Abominant but this time featuring a Rampager leading the Dogs to war.
• 7th - Jason Kavetsky - Adeptus Custodes: Custodes Bike Spam but more, featuring two units of Agmatus as well as the traditional Praetors.
• 8th - Jake Jacobson - Harlequins: Dark Saedath with lots of boats full of Troupers and a Voidweaver unit.

Bristol Vanguard Presents Vanquish

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on June 24 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Note: Historically the pack for Vanquish has been comp heavy, but this time they were playing the GT pack pretty much straight, with the only twist being some bonus objectives that only factored into tournament score (which appears to be excluded on BCP anyway), so I've included it.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tide of Conviction

Andy Taylor - Tyranids: Jormungandr shooty monster mash, with six Carnifexes and three Tyrannofex.

vs.

Mark Earney - Adeptus Custodes: Emissaris Imperatus with Dreads, Sagittarum and Shieldguard, plus a big unit of bikes to send out with Into the Darkness.

Thoughts

We hope you enjoyed your brief diversion to Death and Zeal, now back to our regularly scheduled Tide of Conviction programming. Here we've got another Custodes list leaning on the strengths of the Emissaries Imperatus, but this time taking a big Bike unit rather than Armigers. They're obviously great with Into the Darkness, as a lot of opponents are going to have an absolute nightmare prising them out of their lines.

This Tyranid army is not one of them, and is pretty well equipped for playing on Tide. It's definitely going to switch out its Adaptive trait for Territorial Instincts, at which point taking control of its home positions is going to be nigh impossible here - too much of the Custodes damage output is leaning on D2 and D3 stuff to clear those Carnifexes in anything resembling good time, and sending anything close to them is asking for scything talons to sweep things asunder. The Custodes are also just generally a bit short on pure damage dealing - the salvo launchers are reasonably threatening, and entirely ignoring the Jormungandr defensive trait is nice, but there's so much to chew through on the Tyranid side.

The one asset the Custodes do have is that it feels like their route to To The Last is much safer - this game is quite likely to turn into a Banners slugfest, and sending the bikes out early isn't going to be safe, so picking TTL and holding it hanging over the Tyranid's heads might force their hand in awkward ways. The salvo bike squad in Trajann's aura absolutely can spike the Flyrant if it shows itself and drops a few saves, so if both sides pick TTL then that constrains what it can safely do. The Tyranids do get access to Psychic Secondaries as a tradeoff, mind.

With all that in mind, what both sides want to do here, on the assumption that both are going to grind up a reasonable number of points, is try and soften up the enemy enough that a late game push can flip some objectives, deny some primary and score the Tide endgame points. That does ultimately end up favouring the Tyranids, purely because the tools they have for making this final swing are going to be ObSec, while the Custodes stuff probably isn't. THe bikes can be held in reserve for the endgame, but all that has to happen for them to fail is for the unit to take a swing and a miss into a Carnifex that's on an objective. Meanwhile, if you're the Tyranids, you can focus on minimising the number of ObSec models the Custodes have left, then just roll everything you have remaining up the table at the end game and take some objectives. It seems pretty unlikely they can hit back hard enough to stop you. This game definitely can go either way, and going second is a huge help to whichever side gets it, as you really want the last touch, but the odds are in the Tyranids' favour, and they did manage to take it.

Result

Tyranids Victory - 88-78

Andy Taylor - Tyranids - 1st Place

Tyrannofex. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Jormungandr shooty monsters.

Thoughts

This list is a very cool and very different take on Tyranids, focusing hard on shooty stuff and the sheer difficulty of handling so many ObSec Carnifexes. It also doesn't go up as much as many of the Tyranid builds out there, as only the acid spray build of the Tyrannofex caught a point hike, though the lack of Troops and stuffed Heavy Support slot is maybe a problem.  Tyrannofexes have got to be worth looking at in the new world though, and well done to Andy for putting them to work ahead of the curve.

Dan Richards - Emperor's Children - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Emperor's Children Noise Marines. Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Emperor's Children

Thoughts

Look, this list is about as irrelevant to the future as it's possible to be, so I'm not going to dive into how it works, instead I'm just going to congratulate Dan on the exquisite tactical precision needed to take the old Chaos Space Marine book all the way through a GT undefeated.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Mark Earney - Adeptus Custodes: See Showdown.
• 4th - Chris Ryder - T'au Empire: Bork'an with lots of suits and light vehicles plus a Stormsurge.
• 5th - Jay Allen - Craftworlds: All-rounder Ulthwe build with a bunch of Farseers, Aspects and Vehicles.
• 6th - Ray Mordy - Thousand Sons: Cult of Time with one big Scarab unit, a smaller one, then loads of Rubricae.
• 7th - Chris Stout - Tyranids: Monster-heavy Kronos with Exocrines, Tyrants and a Harpy.

DZTV Warhammer 40,000 GT June 2022

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Sutton Veny, England, GB on June 25 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Conversion

Jay Seebarun - Grey Knights: Prescient Brethren with a big Paladin Squad supported by Strikes in Razorbacks, Interceptors and powerful Characters.



vs.

Liam "Corrode" Royle - Drukhari: Drukhari Goodstuff with Ravagers, Raiders full of Incubi, and Grotesques.

Thoughts

Wings: You're up. Sucker.

Liam: The inevitable result of playing in a top table game as a Goonhammer contributor is that you end up having to write it up for CI. Whether that's a benefit or a burden is left as an exercise for the reader.

I won GTs in both October and January and in each one I played Jay and his Grey Knights on the way. The difference this time was that it was happening in round 5, not round 2, so we'd both come to the end undefeated. Jay has been on a good run recently with his Grey Knights, managing an undefeated weekend at the Birmingham GT and climbing up the ITC rankings, while I've barely gotten to play at all. However, GK is a match-up where I feel very confident. Even after their nerfs, Drukhari trade very well into Space Marines, and GK at their heart are just expensive Space Marines - it doesn't matter how many tools you have in your toolbox if all the guys delivering them have died from getting a klaive to the face. This is always my plan into GK - run Incubi into the power armour guys who are trying to spread out and score primary/Stranglehold/Purifying Ritual, and compromise them to a permanent end so that they can't do those things any more.

Jay's list has changed a bit since last time we played, bringing in three Razorbacks to add some long-ranged anti-tank and to protect his Interceptors, and a medium-sized brick of Paladins, benefiting from Armour of Contempt to make them a massive pain to shift. Jay started in Tide of Shadows, so that even against my AP-4 dark lances they'd be sitting on a 3+ save when their psychic power is up. On Conversion, my expectation was that they and Draigo would run right into the middle of the table, giving Jay a secure grip on the middle objective for primary and Stranglehold and letting him load a flank up with power armour guys to fight me over another.

However, what Jay tried to do instead was teleport them right into my deployment zone, intending to put pressure on me there by threatening my home objective (extra important in this mission since you lose points for not holding it). Unfortunately for him I'd screened him out a bit further than he was anticipating, and while the Paladins did some reasonably effective shooting into a Raider I managed to take them out of charge range of everything except some Wracks at the back - if he'd managed to get the charge off it would have caused me problems, since he'd have been right on my home objective, but on the hard 9 they failed and ended up pretty stranded. With the movement advantage in my favour, I simply left. The homefield Wracks could stay out of charge range of the Paladins while still toeing on to the objective, and everything else just went to my right, towards the centre of the board. The only time they made it into melee was to kill five Kabalite Warriors who'd already retrieved data and were now just hanging out to keep a hold on my top-left objective.

With the Paladins isolated, I could focus on the plan I wanted to play - on turn 2 I killed 20 power armour bodies, plus tying up 2 Razorbacks and killing the other. That immediately put a severe limit on his scoring and his ability to deal with my Ravagers, and he wasn't helped by the comedy failure of Draigo to do anything at all; having charged 3 Grotesques of which one was wounded already, he managed to do exactly one more wound to them, before they hit back and slapped him silly, taking him from full to dead in a single Fight phase. Drazhar nearly met a similarly ignominious end, getting shot by storm bolters which carved five wounds off him despite his 2+ save, but he managed to hang on and carve up another Strike Squad before getting smited off the table.

Jay made a valiant effort to get back into the game, and really wasn't helped out by his (and my) dice as his Grand Master Dreadknight imitated Draigo's example by charging a squad of five Wracks and killing just two of them, which took him off both Stranglehold and Grind Them Down for a turn as well as giving me a maximum primary. He played his remaining turns well and pulled back a good haul of points at the end, but it wasn't enough to overturn my early lead.

Wings: There'll be no living with him after this.

Result

Drukhari Victory - 88-72

Liam "Corrode" Royle - Drukhari - 1st Place

Drazhar, the Master of Blades. Credit: Corrode

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Drukhari Goodstuff

Thoughts

I hadn't played this particular list before the tournament, but I enjoyed it a lot. I think it survives the transition to Nephilim fairly well overall; as Drukhari usually do it plays the missions well, and although I'll have to mix up my secondaries a bit it should be able to cope with the change. The most likely tweak is to drop the Animus Vitae on the Archon, as it was a bit of a nice to have rather than an essential component. Armour of Contempt hurts the Grotesques a bit, since they go down to an effective AP-1, but they have the weight of attacks to make up for it - assuming they hit at all, which mine don't reliably do. Also possibly a bit inessential are the Raider upgrades, but they're good fun and being able to Shock Prow things was useful in my Eldar match-up in round 4 in particular - some Rangers holding a mid-field objective were very rapidly removed by a Raider Tokyo drifting into them, which saved me from having to dedicated a real unit to the purpose. Overall, lots of fun to play, and does everything I want Drukhari to do; also a big thank you to everyone at FactoruM and Liam from DZTV for running a great event, and thanks to all of my opponents who were uniformly great fun to play against!

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Tom Bunnell - Tyranids: The list is missing in BCP, but happily Liam played it - it was Leviathan with 25 Warriors, 3 Carnifexes, and some support plus the inevitable flying Hive Tyrant.
• 3rd - Jay Seebarun - Grey Knights: See showdown.
• 4th - Liam Callebout - Craftworlds: Mechanised Hail of Doom, adding Mobile Fighters to make Dire Avengers even more nasty out of Serpents.
• 5th - Simon Edwards - Aeldari: Similar again, but trading out volume of stuff for adding in a big unit of Fire Dragons and the Avatar.
• 6th - James Hobbs - Tau: Farsight Enclaves with a bazillion Crisis Suits.

Kent Wargames June GT

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Hothfield, England, GB on June 25 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Abandoned Sanctuaries

Nassim Fouchane - Iron Hands Successors: Nassim's latest spin on controlling the table with Iron Hands, switching to the Master Artisans option to combo with Redemptors and Eliminators.

vs.

Luke Grant - Craftworlds: Hail of Doom with lots of Windriders.

Thoughts

Hail of Doom needs no introduction for current readers, and longer-term readers can probably cast their minds back to the distant past of "late last year" and recall when Iron Hands Successor builds were sitting pretty near the top of the UK meta. The versions in play then tended to go a bit wider than this and skirmish more with VanVets, and were a bit more focused on using Bodyguarded Character Dreadnoughts, but the former is risky against the current top builds, and the latter doesn't work.

Instead, the Redemptors, also a feature of many top Astartes lists last year, are back and hungry for violence. They're a great unit anyway, and the Chapter Tactic here pushes them even harder (especially combined with the Iron Hands superdoctrine turn one). They're backed up by a smaller number of Vanguard Veterans, built solely for shoving the enemy off an objective at a key moment, plus some inexpensive sacrificial and backline units (and watch out for lists like this swapping to free las fusils on Eliminators, that's going to be pretty vicious).

The Craftworld list here is notable in being a particularly extreme example of the hail plan - it's got nothing that can really take a punch, just a huge number of shurikens to throw out damage, powerful Fire and Fade users and an escalating series of things it's willing to throw out as pure sacrifices.

This does not end up going well for the Aeldari in this game, because Abandoned Sanctuaries means no screening forward deploy from the Rangers, so if the Space Marines get the first turn the elves are in spectacular trouble. Depending on the terrain it might be possible to hide all the Windriders from the pod (with the grav cannons being the rare weapon where the bikes now having a 3+ is a bad thing), or threaten Forewarned to protect them, but with so much of the table to play with and pressure to try and hide all the infantry that's going to be tough. They're certainly going to take plenty of damage somewhere and then on their turn they need to somehow try and get a foothold in the midboard against a wall of ObSec Redemptors, and be wary of VanVets ready to swoop from cover into anything they send out. They essentially need to do game-ending damage back to the Marines immediately or they're going to lose everything they commit with then get ground out. To be fair, pre-nerf Hail is certainly among the lists that can pull that off if the dice are hot, but here it was not to be - Nassim did, in fact, go first, and rapidly removed all trace of the Asuryani from the table.

Result

Adeptus Astartes Victory - 100-22

Nassim Fouchane - Adeptus Astartes - 1st Place

Credit: Head58

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Iron Hands Successors

Thoughts

Looks absolutely vicious in Nachmund, and only gets (relatively) nastier in Nephilim. Some changes will be needed, of course - only one Land Speeder Storm can stay, and the list probably wants to move to being a Battalion for CP, but that's all within the art of the possible, and I firmly expect to see Nassim back here in the next few weeks with a revised build. The only other possible stumbling block is that the current build was apparently on Stranglehold and Oaths every single game - so the Secondary game might fall off a bit.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Kevin Stone - Imperial Knights: Hyper aggro House Griffith, that's what we're talking about! A tooled up with Magaera with Master of the Joust threatens to bowl over enemies, while a Preceptor and a Gallant hand out buffs to a quartet of Warglaives.
• 3rd - Aidan Brocklehurst - Adepta Sororitas: Horde Bloody Rose, with two full Sisters blocks backed by a big Retributor unit and lots of small melee threats.
• 4th - Dominic Mathews - Adepta Sororitas: Mecha Ebon Chalice, packing two units of Warsuits, lots of Mortifiers and a full Sister brick.
• 5th - Baz Croucher - Adeptus Custodes: Emissaries Imperatus with two Telemons and two units of bikes, one cheaper with bolters that's presumably there to throw out with Into the Darkness.
• 6th - Luke Grant - Craftworlds: See showdown.

Mythicos Studios Mahwah June Grand Tournament

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Mahwah, NJ, US on June 25 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Recover the Relics

TJ Lanigan - Thousand Sons: Cult of Duplicity with two big Scarab blocks.

vs.

Luke McCarthy - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with a Pyropod

Thoughts

Who's ready for one last grindy game into Leviathan? The Thousand Sons, obviously - the Rubric of Ahriman insilled absolute peak sigma grindset into every member of the Legion.

By grinding them. into dust. You see.

Look, I think I was about 80% of the way to a good joke here, and ran out of time.

Anyway, swiftly moving on from my attempts at comedy, the Thousand Sons genuinely are tooled up to have a good go at out-grinding the bugs here, as their tools line up pretty well. As ever, the Harpies present something of a problem, able to cause decent damage to the Rubricae over time, but if they want to come over and use their bombs they're likely to have a Mortal Wound-related accident in exchange. The killing power of the Scarabs is also perfect here, being almost the ideal tool for going after Leviathan Warriors - single damage, wounding on 4s if you apply the +1 from Wrath of the Wronged, and a bazillion shots to work with. The army also punishes the heavy investment into Pyrovores, which are terrible here - the mission map makes the pod less worthwhile, and neither shooting profile is worth a damn into the Terminators thanks to access to Unwavering Phalanx for the D2 option. The Tyranids are going to be in the unfamiliar position of being unable to easily dislodge the Scarabs from their home objective with damage, though their counterattack potential does still mean that the Thousand Sons can't safely push till the late game either.

That leaves both sides very likely staring at each other with Banners up, so what other Secondaries can they take? Here we don't have to speculate, because when I was asking around in various groups to find out what the last mission was, TJ went one better and sent me the Secondaries too - Psychic Interrogation and Wrath of Magnus for the Thousand Sons, Engage and To The Last for the Sons, and we can fairly clearly see that the Sons come off better here by dint of the Tyranids just not really having any good choices. Stranglehold is out because of the map and secure Thousand Sons defences, Grind is a no-go against the big Scarab units, and where the Thousand Sons can use Cabbalistic Focus to push through undeniable Psychic Actions, the Tyranids are very likely to get any attempts they make at the same denied. You can see why the choices ended up having to be made, but they make the Tyranid's work way harder - scoring Engage means moving stuff into the guns of the Scarabs, handing over easy points for the mission Primary and Wrath of Magnus, and taking To The Last means being more cautious with the big Warrior blob than you really want to.

TJ also got the luxury of going second, which is definitely what you want here - it means that Wrath of Magnus isn't dead turn one, and gives him the option to do a last turn sweep up the table using mobility stuff if the situation looks favourable for it. I think the Thousand Sons plausibly have the edge even going first here, but with second turn they were able to get a perfect score, outstripping the (still very good) score that the Tyranids put up.

Result

Thousand Sons Victory - 100-88

TJ Lanigan - Thousand Sons - 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Cult of Duplicity

Thoughts

This army is already excellent, gets some point buffs on the Rubricae's icons, and technically doesn't need to make any changes to stay legal, though I suspect it wants to harvest some CP somewhere. Looking like a good time for Tzeentch (and TJ, congratulations on the win).

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Joseph Dragonetti - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with two Harpies.
• 3rd - Luke McCarthy - Tyranids: See showdown.
• 4th - Nick De Veaux - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff, one Harpy.
• 5th - David Adelman - Dark Angels: Loads of Deathwing of various flavours, with Talonmasters and buff Characters in charge.

Wrap Up

And with one last prayer to Tzeentch, bringer of change, that's it - see you next week for what should be the start of the big upheaval.

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