Competitive Innovations in Kill Team: The London Grand Tournament

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to another look at the Kill Team meta. We won't be doing these every single week or anything, but we had a few large events over the last weekend that are worth taking a look at, since they gave us some additional 4-round results to look at. The LGT wasn't just a massive 40k supermajor event - it also had two days of Kill Team tournaments, giving us two additional 4-round events with 38 and 35 players at each, respectively. Let's look at the results.

LGT Saturday 9/25

The slightly larger of the two events, Talons of the Emperor took the Saturday event with a 4-0 showing matched only by a Veteran Guardsmen player who also managed 4-0, albeit with lower scoring on a per-mission basis. There isn't as much to say about Kill Team rosters at this point as you'd have for say, 40k lists, if only because kill team rosters don't vary that much between players - it's really a question of what they'll be bringing to individual games, which is information we don't really have at the moment. Still, I'll be sharing the top 3 lists from each day here with some general thoughts on them.

Ryan Slater - Talons of the Emperor - First Place

Ryan's list is indicative of what you can expect from a Talons list - 8 Custodians giving you every possible option, and filling out the rest with Sisters of Silence of almost every flavor.

Thundercloud: It's a fairly standard list. Custodes available in max numbers and both flavours, and 12 Sisters (5 bolters, 5 greatswords, 2 flamers) to allow a full sisters kill team or a reasonable variety to be taken with two Custodes. For Custodes playing competitively, you'll end up with a Roster looking like this.

 

Andrew Foot - Veteran Guardsmen - 2nd Place

Credit: Rockfish



Thundercloud: A reasonable roster (Veteran Guard will never need a full roster, just one of every specialist and four troopers to take as an ancillary choice instead of bombardments). I note Bruiser and Hardened veterans were skipped entirely, and that's pretty standard in the current meta, as trying to melee Custodes with Guardsmen is never going to be the greatest plan. This roster has the potential to run 14 models and exert a lot of board control, while having enough firepower to focus down big and tough targets and force some caution on said big and tough targets. It discourages the slingshot of a Custodes into the deployment zone, because while you might lose a couple of Guard, there's enough guns there to kill a Custodes.

 

Warren Beavis - Talons of the Emperor - 3rd Place

Jack Edwards - Talons of the Emperor - 4th Place

It's not really worth diving into these two rosters in detail, since they're going to look almost identical to the winning roster. Instead, we'll look at the first Gensetealer Cults list to put a good showing, with the 5th place list from the event. Congratulations are due to both of these players for their finishes, but let's move on.

 

Joseph Lynskey - Genestealer Cults - 5th Place

Credit: BuffaloChicken



Thundercloud: A nice GSC list, able to run a 14 man Neophyte swarm or 7 Neophytes and 5 Acolytes. You've got two leader options, one for fighting Custodes and one for fighting everyone else (that has a web pistol and power maul to stun everyone, and bolt pistol and power pick for Custodes). I would have included a Neophyte Icon Bearer just for the fact it counts as one APL more for holding objectives.

I think GSC have had a raw deal overall, and a 14 model Neophyte team with two heavy gunners and three gunners, an icon, a leader and a mix of shotguns and autoguns, and just playing an objective game has some strengths, particularly when played well.

TheChirurgeon: This is notable for being the first GSC list we've seen in competitive play, and it's cool to know that not only are they seeing some play, they're able to put together something semi-competitive when they do.

 

LGT Sunday 9/26

The Sunday event is notable for having a Harlequin Troupe winning the event as the only undefeated list, though it's worth noting that this happened because the two Talons (Custodes) lists that finished 2nd and 3rd tied in their game in the final round. One winning would have likely pushed the Harlequins list into second place. Though it's still good to see a Harlequins list achieve this level of success.

Andrew Foot - Harlequins - 1st Place

Harlequin Troupe. Credit: Flavivirus



Thundercloud: Harlequins. The bane of my life in KT18, Harlequins continue to be top tier in KT21. This list reflects anti elite (fusion) and anti horde (nerve disruptor) builds, and a choice between Embraces and Harlequin's Kisses. Kisses are there for murdering hordes (7 damage on a critical instantly kills a lot of guard equivalents seen in hordes) and Embraces are there for elites (Brutal 4/5 to dice up marines and prevent parries on anything but a critical).

There are 13 models in the roster, and it could be made more flexible with three more models with Harlequin's Kisses, but it's still a flexible and brutal close range roster.

TheChirurgeon: Although this list probably owes its success to not facing Custodes in the final round, it's still a mean list to play, able to throw out absolutely brutal amounts of damage on the move.

 

Jack Edwards - Talons of the Emperor - 2nd Place

Warren Beavis - Talons of the Emperor - 3rd Place

Jack and Warren again placed in the top four, tying in the final round to end up in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. Their rosters are both very good, but not particularly interesting to look at.

 

Chris Lobodzinski - Traitor Marines - 4th Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones



After finishing 5th on Saturday, Chris broke through to finish in the top 4 on Sunday with a Traitor Marines list, losing only in the final round to Andrew's Harlequins. Chris drops any pretense of taking a Cultist champion as leader, instead opting for a plasma pistol and power fist marine champion, outfitted here to maximize his damage output.

Thundercloud: Built to allow either a sinister six Chaos Marine list or a trio of CSMs plus 8 Cultists, he's maximising close range punch and allowing himself to choose between plasma and melta, heavy bolter and missile launcher, and then either all Chaos Marines with either bolters or bolt pistol and chainsword. It's a nice flexible list you can tailor to chopping up hordes or boltering everything to pieces.

 

Next Time: A Second Look

That wraps up our look at the winning rosters - Custodes still clearly control the meta right now but we'll be back in a month or so to look at more events and take a deeper dive into competitive Kill Team as some of the White Dwarf rosters become more widespread and we see the release of new teams. Until then, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.

 

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