Another week in Nephilim, and another very diverse set of top performing armies to talk about. Plenty of the Nephilim superstars and some old favourites are on show, but a glance at the results also shows the first big week of Aeldari success stories we've seen with the new mission pack, suggesting players are now better adjusted to how to build for their secondaries. Meanwhile, while doing decently, Necrons didn't dominate nearly as much as last week, perhaps suggesting that players have started adjusting to their game plan, plus a surge in some of the armies that can defeat them despite their exceptional Secondaries.

Speaking of Secondaries, if you haven't already make sure you take a look at Rob's rundown of how the stats are looking for them in Warzone Nephilim from Monday. Sisters and Necrons appear to be just as strong as they looked, while some of the other factions are definitely lagging behind a bit, and are probably going to need a bit of tuning come the next Balance Dataslate. We will, of course, continue looking at stats and player performances as the season progresses.

There's no shortage of events to draw them from - people seem to be hungrier than ever for competitive 40K, and a massive eleven tournaments took place over the weekend. That means it's another two parter this week.

Today we're looking at:

• Palm Springs Open 40K GT by Dicehammer (major)
• The Beast in the East Midlands
• DZTV GT at FactoruM July
• Ropecon 2022
• 40K GT TJ Cafe & Games

On Friday (which is going to be the new default for two-parter weeks, as they don't seem to be letting up and it gives me more time to make sure everyone gets the attention they deserve) part 2 will cover:

• North And South GT 2022
• W4 GT 2022
• Sunken City Slugfest
• High Noon Showdown
• The Grand Battery
• Armed Forces Day GT

Let's go.

Palm Springs Open 40K GT by Dicehammer

94-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Palm Springs, CA, US on July 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Abandoned Sanctuaries

Chase Chappell - Ynnari: An Ynnari build that attempts to present a very flat target profile via planes, Falcons and Characters, then absolutely dunks opponents with Mortal Wounds. Also techs in Baharroth via an Auxiliary detachment, which can help with some secondaries.

vs.

Dylan Melillo - Blood Angel Successors: Face-smashing Blood Angels, except run as Red Scorpion Inheritors of the Primarch to get access to their Named Characters. Also has a plus-sized Death Company contingent.

Thoughts

The arc of the metagame is long and bends inevitably towards Aeldari planes. I'm sure everyone is thrilled about that. This isn't the first time this Ynnari build has popped up, but this week versions of it are really hitting the big time, making it into two top table games, including this one at the biggest event of the week. The key sell of the list is that it uses Ynnari's army construction options and unique Psychic discipline to pack in an unusually large number of ways to dump area-of-effect Mortals on the enemy (plus plenty of targeted Mortals as well). The Voidraven can drop its bomb, while the Hemlock can unleash Storm of Whispers into a whole bunch of units from its gigantic base, and both can do this turn one without the opponent being able to do much to stop it. In addition, dropping a 4+ invulnerable save on the Hemlock via Shield of Ynnead leaves it extremely durable, while the Voidraven can fly off the board and drop its mine on the way, so the retaliation suffered isn't always going to be massive. An unlucky opponent relying on key buff characters might just find themselves entirely missing them straight out the gate, which is far from ideal, and the Hemlock's big -2Ld bubble might add some further attrition to any unit that loses models.

Beyond that big alpha strike, opponents have a bunch more mortal effects to contend with, whether it be when they move via Wireweave Grenades (with the Shroud Runners also available to plink off any enemy Characters who limp through the initial onslaught on one wound using a Strands dice), a whole bunch of smite equivalents from the various casters, or Cronescream from the Banshees. While the opponent is dealing with all that nonsense, the list's plan looks to be to move onto an objective that's been nominated for The Hidden Path and threaten horrific punishment for anything that tries to come take it - if the opponent shoots something off it too late in the phase then the Yncarne can just appear and continue the hold, and while a charge might successfully steal it temporarily, the culprits are almost certainly going on a one-way trip to oblivion via a mix of mortals, croneswords and D-cannon shots. Baharroth, cunningly teched in via an Auxiliary Support, can also hide behind the Yncarne to lock in a hold via ObSec at key moments.

The list's main weakness is that it doesn't have that much in the way of units and a lot of it is pretty brittle, so if the opponent can weather the initial mortal storm with enough stuff to try and body the army off the table, then it could be in some trouble. Blood Angels are definitely among the armies where that's a potential concern - they don't love having lots of Mortals thrown their way, and have some buff characters that it would be fairly terminal to lose, but they're also an army packed with fast flying units that will punch whatever they touch to death. This Blood Angels list is especially hefty on that front, with a bumper crop of Death Company threatening to do extremely unpleasant things to units in the mid board. The addition of Sevrin Loth also means that hilariously bad things are going to happen to the Hemlock ASAP, as it is unlikely to survive getting hit by pretty much anything here with full wound re-rolls up.

What the Blood Angels want to do here is spread out to minimise the Mortal impact and safe spaces for the planes, and then try and force the Ynnari to fight on multiple fronts at once. In this regard, the mission pulls against them quite a bit. Objectives along the centre line aren't great for Ynnari trying to score Hidden Path, but not being able to use Forlorn Fury on the big Death Company unit or deploy any of the Phobos units out the front feels like a bigger issue - it gives the sneaky elves a bit more time to shape the game to their design and degrade the opposing force before the Blood Angels can start trying to pressure them on the Primary, which is exactly what they want. Being able to score points by removing Blood Angel units from the board centre is also good.

That's not to say this is a sure thing for the Aeldari, however, because they are still going to be short on units that can stand and fight, and one false move is going to result in them losing a lot of valuable units. The Blood Angels can use deep strike to ensure some of their army is spared the initial Mortal onslaught, and fairly quickly run the Aeldari out of anything to screen with if they want, after which they can make the mid-board an extremely dangerous place to be. While it doesn't get to play fun games with Forlorn Fury, the big Death Company unit is good here too - it's got extra bodies to suck up some Mortal wounds while remaining a real threat, and increases the chance of the Blood Angels managing to swing a wrecking ball through the Aeldari lines.

Ultimately, it's clear from the score that the Ynnari had to play this one very carefully, and the Blood Angels were able to stop them from running away with the scoreline by denying points - but in the end the sheer amount of continous attrition ripping away at the Marine list appears to have won out, giving the Reborn a win.

Result

Ynnari Victory - 60 - 44

Chase Chappell - Ynnari - 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Mortal Wound Ynnari

Thoughts

All covered in the showdown. I don't know whether to be excited that there's a real list where I could put my Yncarne and Hemlock on the table, or absolutely petrified at what GW are going to do to Eldar planes this time if they manage to dodge another metagame. Either way, fantastic work from Chase, picking up a major win with a very unique build.

Joel Wilson - Necrons - 2nd Place

Skorpekh Destroyers. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Nihilakh Silent King

Thoughts

A spin on the conventional Necron ObSec builds, using Nihilakh to access army-wide ObSec instead of Eternal Conquerors, and going in on heftier units plus Szeras to buff them up instead of smaller stuff. The reason to do that is mostly for access to Reclaim a Lost Empire, which allows Action/Shoot - this makes it extremely easy for the big Lokhust unit to flit around the table obliterating stuff and racking up points on Ancient Machineries, while the Skorpekh provide a constant threat of counter-charge and objective flipping. The sheer number of Destroyers here (plus the big unit of Lychguard) also means that against opposing Necron lists the army can aim to just out-murder them - if the enemy plan is to skirmish forward with small ObSec stuff they're just going to lose the first wave violently then find they cannot reclaim the mid board. Having the option to remain in doubled-up Eternal Guardian game-long is also genuinely interesting - it makes charging into this list even scarier, as you're dealing with either Skorpekh set to defend or 5+ Overwatch Lokhusts, neither a pleasant prospect. Stacking Light Cover in the open with ignoring AP-1 while at home also minimises early chip damage.

Honestly, it feels like there's a real argument for using this version if you want to run a large Destroyer unit, and the Nihilakh flavour is very cool. Nice stuff from Joel.

Kyle Parry - Harlequins - 3rd Place

Harlequins Troupe and Starweaver. Credit: Corrode

The List

Archetype

Light Saedath

Thoughts

Mostly business as usual here - go fast and murder things. Two small units of shooty Skyweavers are a handy addition as something that can help lock in Deadly Performance in a number of ways or (in the case of the smaller unit) be sacrificed for a big turn of Take Your Places as required. Harlequins - still pretty great. Well done to Kyle.

Daniel Reddehase - Death Guard - 4th Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Plague Marine Spam

Thoughts

This list rules - Plague Marines are pretty great value now, so just overwhelm the opponent with them (and a few crunchier things like the Deathshroud units). These squads all hit like a truck in melee, are tough to shift, and have ObSec, which can severely mess with the Primary plans of many armies - even spammed Armigers might find themselves overwhelmed here, especially thanks to the addition of meltaguns to all the squads for some extra punch. This is also another list that should roll through the conventional Eternal Expansionist Necron builds, and is resilient even against the heavier hitting ones as a lot of Necron offence is D2.

Use of the Ferrymen is interesting here as well - it sacrifices the ability to do emergency Heroics from Mortarion's Anvil (probably the most "obvious" choice), but the army has a big toolbox of buff characters that it can use On Droning Wings to extend the buff auras of, which can be valuable for ensuring that the right unit can pull off a key trick at a clutch moment. Alternatively, if the list establishes a hold on the mid-board, an extended aura from the Foul Blightspawn's Revolting Stench Vats can shut out opposing melee units entirely. Death Guard did well out of the Secondary changes in Nephilim (and this army plays their good ones very effectively), and it's cool to see that this has enabled awesome Plague Marine centric lists like Daniel's

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 5-1 records. They were:

• 5th - Daniel Olivas - Harlequins: Twilight Saedath with troupes in boats, three individual Voidweavers, then one big foot Troupe and a Webway Gate.
• 6th - Matthew Green - Tyranids: Leviathan Warrior spam with Harpies and Venomthropes backing it up.
• 7th - Mike McTyre - Blood Angels: Slightly more trade-focused Blood Angels than normal with three small units of Death Company (maybe even playing for their Secondary), then two big blocks of Sanguinary guard, plus Coteaz for extra psychic support.
• 8th - Dylan Melillo - Blood Angels Successors: See showdown.
• 9th - Tyler Heppler - Tyranids: Leviathan monster mash, with three Exocrines and two Maleceptors as the centrepieces.
• 10th - TJ Spaeth - Black Templars: All the cool characters, two big units of Primaris Crusaders, and a couple of squads of Assault Centurions. In the fairly psyker-heavy metagame, the extra move turn one from Abhor the Witch, Destroy the Witch can be really good on these.

The Beast in the East Midlands

57-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on July 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Recover the Relics

Chris Kinnair - Necrons: Chris's double C'tan Eternal Expansionists build from last week returns for another go.

vs.

Stephen Platten - Death Guard: Plague Marine spam as Mortarion's Anvil, with three units mounted in Rhinos ready to rush up the table.

Thoughts

The Plague of Plague Marines has spread to England as well, rolling out onto the top tables in the UK as well. This time there's an even stronger focus on board control - Mortarion's Anvil and the presence of Bloat-drones lets multiple units perform Heroic Interventions, and putting three of the Marine units in Rhinos gets them up the board far faster.

This matchup really showcases the value of those decisions. This mission is one of the ones that Eternal Expansionists really thrive in - they can quickly lock in their own Primary score while denying the same to their opponent, Purge the Vermin is on easy mode, and C'tan and/or the Silent King can threaten counterattacks across a wide area. A slower Death Guard list would honestly be DOA here - by the time they were even thinking about interfering with the Necron scoring plans it would be far too late, for all that their own plans aren't that shabby. With this build they have far more play - they can stage Rhinos packed with Marines into the mid board turn one, and then threaten to roll onto the Necron's two close objectives in sufficient numbers to press them back. The Bloat Drones are also exceptional guards for their own objectives, as the ability to heroic 6" and trivially pick up a unit of Tomb Blades (and at least threaten an Annihilation Barge) is solid gold in this game. It's not ideal that the Void Dragon has a chance of just pointing at one and doming it with 6 Mortal Wounds, but that doesn't stop them being a real asset. Access to the Plague Skull also forces the C'tan to be somewhat cautious till it has been deployed, as it provides a route to one-turn them.

That doesn't make this a freebie for the Death Guard though, as this fundamentally is still a favoured mission of one of the stronger lists in the game, and while lots of aspects of the Death Guard list help it, some are also a hinderance. The main one is that they have very little reach to deal with the Silent King - no entropy cannons or similar means that he's not really obliged to hide, and there's no single melee bomb that's going to smoke him, so he can actually come out to play on one of the Necron home positions. That makes stealing it a far more terrifying prospect, and vastly increases the chances of the Death Guard being pushed back. If the Silent King can protect one objective then it's pretty likely that the Lokhusts can chip through the forces sent to the other - this is one of the games where their guns being d3 damage rather than flat 2 like most newer weapons is ideal, as it substantially increases their effectiveness at clearing Plague Marines. I think without that unit in the list the Death Guard would have a real shot at boxing the Necrons down to only two objectives, and taking over. Instead, they appear to have put in a very strong attempt, and clearly were able to protect their own objectives, but weren't able to dislodge the forces of the dynasties in turn.

Result

Necrons Victory - 97 - 85

Chris Kinnair - Necrons - 1st Place

C'tan Shard of the Void Dragon. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Double C'tan Eternal Expansionists.

Thoughts

Chris joins the elite back-to-back win club here - which means we've fully covered his list already. Great stuff though!

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Mark Crombleholme - Asuryani: An unusual Craftworlds list using Webway Warriors and Hunters of Ancient Relics plus a whole bunch of Aspect Warriors and Falcons to create something that really excels at Action secondaries (including Scout the Enemy), and presents such nightmarish counterattack potential that The Hidden Path feels strong too. Very different, and also very scary for any lists relying on tanking damage because that is, uh, not going to work here. Edit: Unfortunately, Mark has since contacted us to let us know that the list here was illegal, and has duly returned the second place prize from the event. Make sure to check costs when putting something similar together.
• 3rd - Greg Chamberlain - Genestealer Cult: While Aeldari were the week's big news, the cults have quietly put up a few strong finishes, and this is one of them. Greg was running Industrial Affinity/War Convoy/Agile Guerrillas and packing loads of Acolyte MSUs with fancy toys in Trucks, a big Neophyte unit with Lying in Wait, then some big bike units and a Ridgerunner brick. Also, enough characters with nasty tricks to give anyone a headache. Very good at playing the Cult's powerful Secondaries, and completely out of left field for most opponents.
• 4th - Paul Bridge - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff with Warriors and Carnifexes, plus the Swarmlord.
• 5th - Brett Smith - Thousand Sons: Cult of Duplicity with Magnus at the helm, two big Scarab blocks and a Warpflamer unit.
• 6th - Joe Waddock - Deathwatch: Kill Team Strike Force with two big Indomitor blocks, two murderous Proteus teams and a fully loaded Spectrus team with Lord of Deceit vi Honoured Veteran of the Watch to maximise their flexibility.

DZTV GT at FactoruM July 2022

46-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Sutton Veny, England, GB on July 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tide of Conviction

Liam Callebout - Knights Renegades: Abaddon walking loads of Herpetrax dogs with a bunch of Favoured upgrades.

vs.

Nassim Fouchane - Iron Hands Successors: The Nassim special: Dreadnoughts, VanVets and Devastators loaded up with a powerful superdoctrine, a force multiplying Chapter Tactic and great Stratagems.

Thoughts

I had the pleasure of attending this event (and indeed playing against Liam's list) and Abaddon was everywhere, and is clearly no joke. He certainly kicks ass in this build, providing a powerful mixture of force multiplication for the War Dogs and extreme counter-charge capability. Getting ranged shots onto him with so many Knights protecting him is really challenging, maximising the value of his per-phase wound limit, and that's especially good against an army with zero psykers like Nassim's. Outside Abaddon, War Dogs are very efficient units in general, and pressure the Primary extremely well, especially as you can use the Dread table to strip away opposing ObSec. Finally, all the Chaos Knights upgrades are exceptional value on War Dogs, and I can say from experience that the ability to seed ones with different flavours of extra defences throughout the army makes counter attacking very challenging.

At least for some armies - unfortunately Nassim's list here is the natural predator of any Knight strategy, able to deploy truly wild amounts of damage out the gate from more sources than the Knights can conceivably dodge, as there's simply too many of them to fully hide. The Iron Hands list is much more capable of protecting its key targets out the gate, and only the Huntsmen seriously threaten it at range, so it can make them its priority. It's very likely to get the first crack at shooting (especially on a Dawn of War deployment), and is overwhelmingly likely to do enough damage that the Knights' ability to duel it in the shooting phase is removed. From there, Tactical Squads and Land Speeders can be sacrificed to move block and slow down the rest of the Knights enough that a second significant round of shooting can be pulled off, after which it seems unlikely that the Knights have much left beyond Abaddon, who can't win Tide of Conviction by himself.

There are worlds where the Iron Hands first volley doesn't do quite enough to lock that trajectory in, at which point the priority for the Knights is denying them Primary points and scoring their Secondaries as quickly as possible, but from the scoreline here it is clear that the War Dogs were fairly rapidly obliterated.

Result

Adeptus Astartes Victory - 98 - 38

Nassim Fouchane - Adeptus Astartes - 1st Place

Credit: Head58

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Iron Hands Successors

Thoughts

You know it, you probably only love it if you've never been on the receiving end. Spectacular ranged damage potential, excellent counter-charge from the dreads, and enough mobile units to troubleshoot if the opponent tries something clever. It's one of the best Marine lists out there and Nassim knows exactly how to utilise it to full effect - great work on the win.

Dan Richards - Black Legion - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Black Legion

Thoughts

I did say there were lots of Abaddons. Here, the Despoiler leads up his own Legion, packing some of the most exciting toys from the new book. Like a lot of the successful CSM lists we've seen so far, a buffed up unit of Terminators is the centrepiece, here with even more support than normal. As well as the standard Black Rune and Delightful Agonies, they've also got the Cloak of Conquest on the buff Master to give them ObSec, and a once-per-game redeploy from the Veilbreaker Plate. The latter can also be used on the Chosen (preferably souped up with Abaddon's buff first) if strong units need to be unleashed on multiple parts of the table.

Having the Cloak in a list with both Abaddon and an Elixir Discolord also means this list can throw up very hard to shift ObSec when needed - screen the Characters from shooting with some Cultists and the wound-per-phase limit on an ObSec character should mean that only opposing ObSec units have any chance of pulling off a flip (and are likely going to have to go through a round of combat with Abaddon or the Disco to do so). That helps the list work with the relatively small number of units it has - even if depleted over time, the powerful herohammer might be able to carry it the rest of the way if it starts strong.

Cool Chaos Marines doing cool Chaos things overall, and congratulations to Dan for going undefeated with the new book.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Sam Nash - Imperial Knights: House Krast with lots of Warglaives and one tooled-up Errant, using First Knight to keep it in Virtuous for Lay Low the Tyrants all the time, ensuring there's always an auto-six available if something needs to die of Calculated Targeting. Master of Vox also keeps the CP flowing and allows Advance/Charge to be dropped wherever it's needed.
• 4th - Giulio Cesare Ghermandi - Drukhari: Giulio won the last of these with his MSU-heavy trick-packed Drukhari list, and put up another strong finish with it this time around. Lots of units to gum up the board, plenty of tricks, and enough damage spikes to keep opponents cautious.
• 5th - Liam Callebout - Chaos Knights: See showdown.
• 6th - Matt Arvida - Word Bearers: Daemonkin-heavy Word bearers, with 20 Warp Talons, a big Obliterator unit and some naty characters to finish.
• 7th - Jake Harding - Genestealer Cults: Rusted Claw with three Acolyte-filled Rockgrinders looking scary, one bigger unit of Acolytes with They Came from Below to be scary, big unit each of Neophytes and Aberrants to deliver power plays, then characters and harrassment units to finish. Very mobile thanks to Rusted Claw, and has a lot of different buttons it can press to get things done.
• 8th - Jay Seebarun - Dark Angels: Mostly Ravenwing planes, Storm Speeders and Black Knights, with just a Redemptor and some incursors waving the flag for the other wings. Hyper mobile, able to get loads of guns onto the enemy fasteven on heavy terrain and great at picking up Death on the Wind.

Ropecon 2022 Warhammer 40k

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Helsinki, FI on July 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal

Jami Pulkkinen - Chaos Knights: High pressure Herpetrax with a tanky Abominant, nasty Desecrator and a bunch of dogs.

vs.

Sami Keinänen - Aeldari: Hail of Doom with maxed-out Dire Avengers and Swooping Hawks, plus lots of catapult Windriders.

Thoughts

House Herpetrax take on Hail of Doom here - the (relatively) new hotness going into a build that pretty stubbornly sticks to the formula that was succeeding prior to any so-called Balance Dataslate. Clearly with some success too - Sami came into this match off a string of 20-0 games in rounds one through four, with opponents not being able to muster a counter to the army's plans. Swooping Hawks and Baharroth allow for damage to be racked up with minimal exposure or risk (especially with Guide added), while Windriders, Dire Avengers and the Kuornos' Bow Farseer provide phenomenal counterattack damage. Heavy tables are the norm in Europe, and on a board where this army can hide (and especially where it's able to put Baharroth on an objective while hidden), it's a tall order to deal with without lots of fast melee infantry to reach out and slam it. All those Windriders and Dire Avengers mean it also has an incredibly reliable RND plan, able to put up a 12 almost all of the time, helping ensure it's always got Secondary plans. Here, if there's an objective Infantry can hide on, then the plan is presumably to pick Bring it Down, RND and Hidden Path and essentially force the Knights to come try and take it off its chosen perch, obliterating anything that comes after them.

That's probably going to work just because of the sheer damage the army does, with the only complicating factor being the Dark Master Abominant, who is great in this game. It can sweep through any infantry it touches, the mortals on the gun make it flexible, and just by existing it makes Psychic Secondaries a less good plan, and unlike the rest of the list it doesn't have to worry about the compounding nightmare that is Guide, Doom and Bladestorm on Hail of Doom Dire Avengers. Unfortunately, this will reliably turn a War Dog into a pile of shredded scrap, and take a huge chunk out of the Desecrator, vastly limiting the number of the Chaos units that can operate safely on the table, and quickly depleting them. Because the Eldar army has plenty of cheap, fast units it can afford to send away from the main battle, as soon as it removes Chaos's ability to fight on multiple fronts on a numbers basis it can take over the Primary scoring.

From the Chaos side here, the best play I can come up with is using Hunting Hounds to pull a couple of Brigands off into Strategic Reserves turn one, prioritise taking out the expendable vehicles to reduce screening, drive the Abominant at the enemy to bait out a counterattack, hope it tanks it (it honestly might, even against this list), then hope that the damage the Brigands can do as they come in is enough to take a major chunk out of the Dire Avengers and Hawks, and that Geist Storm from the Abominant draws enough damage onto it that there's still a Knight list left to continue the fight afterwards. You have to watch out for Forewarned, and it's certainly not the most reliable plan, but in harsh matchups you do sometimes have to just swing for the fences with a bold plan. Here...whatever plan was deployed did not stand up to the endless shuriken death, and Sami made it a perfect 100-0 for the event.

Result

Aeldari Victory - 20 - 0

Sami Keinänen - Aeldari - 1st Place

Windriders. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Hail of Doom

Thoughts

Yup, this army sure is still a total nightmare as long as you're confident of playing on heavy terrain. There are now lists out there that give it some trouble - ObSec Necrons or Blood Angels can turn great terrain against it and give it a round time - but against a lot of other lists it's impossible to pin down, and as the scores show, no one at Ropecon even came close.

The Best of the Rest

This was 20-0, and the event winner smashing every other emerging frontrunner 20-0 has made the standings even weirder than this scoring system normally does, so here's the rest of the top four.

• 2nd - Indran Yogaswaran - Adeptus Custodes: Shadowkeepers with lots of bikes and two units of anchoring Shieldguard, plus Coteaz for Secondaries and to mess with alpha strikes by potentially forbidding the use of many Stratagems early on. Looks to play Might of Terra better than most, as it has nothing like Dreads that can be easily focus-fired to deny a turn of it.
• 3rd - Aleksi Lehtiö - Tyranids: Leviathan Warrior spam, with one unit of Hormagaunts as a tech harrassment/objective-flipping piece.
• 4th - Heinrich von Keler - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose goodstuff with all of the usual.

40K GT TJ Cafe & Games

35-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Milford, MA, US on July 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tear Down their Icons

Ramses Alcaide - Craftworlds: Hail of Doom with lots of casters and lots of shurikens, plus two Falcons loaded to deliver Howling Banshees.

vs.

Paul Woodman - Dark Angels: Deathwing Bonanza with a unit of Infiltrators snuck in on a side patrol to (presumably) unlock Stubborn Defiance in some matches.

Note: It's been pointed out in the comments that this list either needs to drop one of the Warlord traits, as it has Azrael as Warlord for the bonus CP, so can only upgrade other characters using Hero of the Chapter, not the core Warlord Trait stratagem.

Thoughts

Speaking of lists that can make life difficult for the Aeldari...

Ramses spin on Hail of Doom is another very strong one, pivoting away from pure keepaway in favour of shoring up a broader range of Secondaries. A healthy sprinkling of melee Aspects that can spike a unit (optionally deploying from Falcons) makes Wrath of Khaine very strong most of the time, and being able to drop Rangers from Falcons means pivoting to Scout the Enemy can be pretty attractive too (with RND an easy fallback). Add in enough casters to keep Psychic Interrogation firmly on the list, and enough counterattack potential to punish opponents who try to disrupt Hidden Path. The assembled list is pleasingly high-threat, and has one of the best combinations of Secondary plans of a Craftworld list I've seen so far.

Most of the time. Against Deathwing...not so much. Spiking units reliably for Wrath is tough, Auspex Scan off big units of Terminators is a threat to some Action plans. Interrogation remains strong, as the Dark Angels haven't brought Watched and have enough incidental Characters that Ezekiel isn't going to be able to protect them all, but everything else is harder (and Hidden Path is a bold take if you might find yourself trying to prise a unit of Deathwing Knights off your target). In addition, this Dark Angels list is built to play Stubborn Defiance on any map, but on this mission it's at its very best, because if they win the Attacker/Defender roll-off then they can move a no-man's land objective close enough to their zone that a Deathwing unit can be holding it from the start, making it very challenging to reach out and steal. Combine that with Banners and maybe Oaths and the Dark Angels have a pretty powerful passive scoring capability, and might be able to push the Aeldari around enough to turn that into a win.

It's definitely "might" though, because the flip side of all of this is that the Aeldari force is exquisitely good at dunking on big Deathwing Terminator units - they're one of the very best targets Doom/Guide/Bladestorm combo from Dire Avengers, as AP-4 is enough to push them to their invuln through Armour of Contempt/storm shields, and S4 re-rolling everything is the perfect answer to permanent Transhuman. That means that if the Dark Angels do want to play for Stubborn defiance they're going to have to be very careful with the unit covering it, and need to ensure that whenever they send Terminator squads out to play they're slamming into something to build value before their demise. They will annihilate anything they touch though, and the various melee toys the Eldar have are way less good than normal in this game, as the risk of them going into Terminators and bouncing ineffectually is high.

All told, both sides have some real strengths and way to pressure the enemy, and both could easily make a win here. The Eldar narrowly took the win in the end, and I wonder if that might have been because of their advantage on the mission Primary - Baharroth is absurdly good at scoring this, and perhaps maxing that out was enough to compensate if the Dark Angels were able to interfere with routine objective activities?

Result

Craftworlds Victory - 82 - 76

Ramses Alcaide - Craftworlds - 1st Place

Howling Banshees - Credit: RichyP

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Hail of Doom

Thoughts

Really like this list, especially because I'm only like two models away from being able to put it on the table myself if I ever get bored of Necrons. Imagine getting bored of Necrons in 2022 though. Anyway, the balance of Secondary capabilities on show does a really fantastic job of patching one of the Asuryani's Nephilim weaknesses, so this is a very well deserved finish for Ramses.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Paul Woodman - Dark Angels: See showdown.
• 3rd - Cullen Burns - Aeldari: More Hail of Doom, here with two big units of shuriken cannon Windriders and lots of light vehicles/Wraithlords to play for position.
• 4th - Stephen Bourque - Thousand Sons: Duplicity with two big Scarab bricks and lots of Spawn.
• 5th - Jacob Brookhart - Tau: Tau Sept Goodstuff with one big Crisis team, Longstrike and a brawling Commander, then lots of techy units like Pathfinders, Stealth suits and individual Broadsides.
• 6th - Nathan Price - Chaos Daemons: Be'lakor, four Keepers, then Daemonettes and Fiends to fill.

Wrap Up

Five down, six to go - see you on Friday. Questions, comments, suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.

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