Welcome to Competitive Innovations, our weekly feature for a number of game lines across the tabletop wargame space. Each week our army list and tactics experts canvass the top tournaments for their game of specialty, looking at the week’s top match-ups and how they played out on the tabletop to let you know what’s hot, what’s not, and what might be coming next as the competitive meta evolves year-round.

Change comes for us again, at a surprisingly rapid pace. Normally there's some gap for new rules adoption, but it seems like quite a few events just shrugged and went for it when the Warhammer 40K App updated with all the new Necron and Ultramarines rules on Wednesday, to which I say "good". That means that while we salute Victrix on their last weekend of having 4W in some places, we're seeing the first Necron lists with new C'tan operating elsewhere (spoilers - they're good).

Today we'll be covering:

• The NOTTINGHAM 40K SUPER-MAJOR
• Grand Onslaught 11
• Winter Assault
• Dragonsreach Warhammer 40k GT
• Fight for the Fallen

Part 2 on Friday:

• New Years Knockout 2026: Hosted By Mindgames and Magic
• Exterminatus XI - 2 Exterm 2 Furious Warhammer 40,000 Tournament
• 40k Brawl -Beachhead Warm Up
• Games Lab 40k - Convergence
• War on the Shore 2026 - TABLEWAR Charities Hawaii GT

The NOTTINGHAM 40K SUPER-MAJOR

337-player, 7-round Supermajor in England, United Kingdom on January 10 2026. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Innes Wilson - Ultramarines (Blade of Ultramar) - 1st Place

Repulsor Executioner by Craig "MasterSlowPoke" Sniffen

The List

Archetype

Hulltramarines

(I can't believe I missed this layup last week, blame the post-Christmas haze).

Thoughts

Innes takes the crown at the first supermajor of the year, unleashing a shooty hull-heavy Ultramarines build with one unit of Victrix Guard as a brawler/troubleshooter. This list unleashes appalling levels of violence while being very hard to pin down, and honestly with the change to Victrix I think this looks even more like the best way to use them. The list will also benefit from the addition of the new Wardens datasheet, which provides both some flexibility from the redeploys (good for lining up RepExes or Infiltrate-blocking with the combi Lt.) and a cheap but durable bait unit to force the foe to come out and play where all the guns are. Congratulations Innes on a big win!

Sam Nash - Adeptus Custodes (Talons of the Emperor) - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Adeptus Custodes – Custodian Guard
Credit: Pendulin

The List

Archetype

Land Raider and Custodian Spam

Thoughts

Custodes expert Sam takes the second undefeated slot here, sporting a list that's been getting a fair bit of hype in online circles after the updates. Custodes have conventionally had the drawback of not always having that much stuff on the table, but what if they did have stuff, and it could be pushed into your lines with alarming speed thanks to Land Raiders? Gradual ratcheting down of the price on Custodians and Land Raiders has brought us to a point where if you just go all-in on them, there's loads of stuff on the board, it applies pressure exceptionally well, and it has layered defensive protection as it surges forwards. Running as Talons leans in on all of that - with lots of units, you need broad protection from Mortals rather than relying on Stratagems, and the Stratagems they do have help stay on the front foot and avoid reprisals. In particular, Taloned Pincer (reactive move) is always a strong Stratagem, but goes even more up in value when you're very likely to have Land Raiders kicking around near your units. Well done to Sam on showing off some new tech and taking the runner-up spot.

Christopher Langton - Chaos Daemons (Daemonic Incursion) - 3rd Place

Be'lakor, The Dark Master. Credit: Skails

The List

Archetype

Monster Mash

Thoughts

Our next build shows off the enhanced post-Dataslate power of Daemonic Incursion, using Kairos and an Everstave Bird as firepower to draw the foe to where you want the battle to happen. Scintillating Legion got plenty of hype post-Dataslate, and it's definitely a real build, but the current trend seems to be that players are mostly swapping back to Incursion with more Birds. I don't think that's too surprising; the Incursion Stratagem suite is extremely good, giving you both more utility and more gut punches to play, plus the Everstave Bird is even spicier than the norm. Expected even more builds like this now Victrix aren't around to thwart the power of D3 shooting, and great work from Christopher in 3rd.

Theo Hayat - Ultramarines (Gladius Task Force) - 4th Place

Victrix Guard Chapter Ancient Credit: Keewa

The List

Archetype

Victrix Gladius

Thoughts

The other side of the Ultramarines coin to close out our first top four, unleashing large numbers of Victrix to bully foes off the board, using Gladius rather than Blade so they can Fight on Death. Plenty of people seem to be on the 6/6/3 plan at events which were using the pre-nerf rules, and these are the lists where it will be interesting to see if they persist. The unit is still very good, but is it spammable good, or do you drop down to a single unit, or maybe 6/3? We shall find out over the next few weeks, for now well done to Theo.

The Best of the Rest

There was 9 more players who made it into the top cut and/or were undefeated after the Swiss. They were:

Grand Onslaught 11

69-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Hudson, FL, United States on January 10 2026. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was using the updated rules.

David Ozawa - Grey Knights (Warpbane Task Force) - 1st Place

Grey Knights Razorbacks. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Archetype

Hull-heavy Grey Knights

Thoughts

Our next champion suggests that another of the Imperium's elite forces has been sent the memo about Land Raiders being good now, along with a real blast from the past of triple Razorback. This setup (plus putting the Librarians in Deep Strike) allows the list to do an all-hull deployment (other than home objective Strikes, which don't count) when required, and like with the Talons list from Nottingham provides some defence in depth against whatever the enemy is planning to do about your stuff. That's definitely high value when you're expecting a surge in big Monsters, as lists with fewer more punchy activations tend to do worse at cracking then clearing transports.

The list also hits hard on go turns, and has the damage to punch through popular targets. In particular, since this event had them live, Grand Master Dreadknights are one of the few standout places where the new C'tan defensive profile is wildly worse - the full re-rolls on damage as well as hit/wound really boosts the chances of a big swing if they flub a few saves, and most other places with that rule were already good into them for other reasons (mostly melta). This looks like a really strong spin on Warpbane that's ready to fight the metagame, congratulations to David!

Sam Hellman - Chaos Daemons (Plague Legion) - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Tarpit Plague Legion

Thoughts

The second undefeated slot here goes to a fairly pure tarpit/morale version of Plague Legion, eschewing any Drones to set up re-roll punch in favour of maximum hard-to-shift bodies to keep the foe contained while they fail Battle-shock and panic. Following a trend with Plague Legion builds, there is one extra bit of tech from the other gods, which is that Blue Horrors Infiltrate and have a -1Ld Aura that will stack happily with all the other nonsense this army has going on, accumulating to mean that until they're dealt with foes will often be taking Battle-shock tests at -3, which I'm sure they'll simply love. That puts a really heavy impetus on the opponent being able to smash through the list quickly, and that's much easier said than done with Great Unclean Ones, making this a properly daunting prospect for any foe to face down. Congratulations to Sam on a horrifying and effective recipe.

Steven Rota - Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal) - 3rd Place

Szarekh, The Silent King. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Starshatter with a C'tan

Thoughts

The first sight of the augmented C'tan datasheets here, with the Void Dragon joining a Silent King/Doomsday list in place of a second squad of Wraiths. This is something you'll see plenty of with the Void Dragon and Nightbringer in particular; they're generically powerful without really making demands of the rest of your army, and you can kind of just drop them into any shell and have them do well (though in Starshatter their ability to reanimate at the enfd of your turn and gamble on a d6" move after being shot can both matter). Oiutside the C'tan it's business as usual - big damage from Doomsdays and the King, sticky protection from the Wraiths and Szeras, plenty of utility on top. Well done to Steven.

Tyler Logan - Astra Militarum (Grizzled Company) - 4th Place

Death Korps of Krieg infantry squad. Credit: SRM

The List

Archetype

Krieg Grizzled

Thoughts

Guard are still having a solid moment thanks to Grizzled, which continues to just be generically better than their other options as long as you're starting on some Dorns and Kasrkin. Here the play is big Krieg units and a full drop Scion bomb in support of that, the former providing bodies and threatening a big punish if the foe does a half-hearted job of clearing them, the latter giving you a haymaker to throw when it's most needed. Standard solid Guard fundamentals of playing the board well and having surgical shooting threats from the Kasrkin outside of that. Great job Tyler.

The Best of the Rest

There were 9 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 5th - Dirk Braak - Necrons (Awakened Dynasty): New Necron action with the updated Nightbringer and the Nekrosor supporting Warrior and Wraith tarpits and a Skorpekh hammer unit.
• 6th - Mike Muzeni - Thousand Sons (Rubricae Phalanx): 20 Scarabs and 25 Rubricae in a big grindy wall.
• 7th - Brandon “Big Mek” VDE - Orks (Taktikal Brigade): Tankbustas, Kommandos and a big Gitz unit from Taktikal's suite, plus a Ghaz/Boyz brick and Zodgrod to play the board.
• 8th - Jake Nagy - Ultramarines (Blade of Ultramar): 15 Victrix and a Land Raider Redeemer.
• 9th - Alec Huffman - Astra Militarum (Grizzled Company): Double Dorn, lots of Catachans, a Bullgryn brick, and a more surprising regular Ogryn block, who I guess do shoot surprisingly well here.
• 10th - Garrett Wilhelm - Drukhari (Spectacle of Spite): Melee and MSU-focused spectacle, with a single Ravager providing concession to the concept of "shooting".
• 11th - Matthew Douthat - Space Wolves (Saga of the Great Wolf): A bit of everything - melee hammers from Wolf Guard and ThunderCav, Eradicators and Predators Annihilator to shoot.
• 12th - John Wreford - Blood Angels (Rage-cursed Onslaught): Big Bladeguard and Death Company units, Sanguinary MSUs, and Baals.
• 13th - Trevor Reddell - Astra Militarum (Grizzled Company): Double Bullgryn, double Dorn, lots of Kasrkin.

Winter Assault

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in St. Albert, AB, Canada on January 10 2026. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Take and Hold - Search and Destroy

Michael Tobin - World Eaters (Berzerker Warband)

vs.

Ryan Mcleod - Emperor's Children (Court of the Phoenician)

Thoughts

Slaanesh's slitheriest son makes an appearance on the battlefield here, leading an Emperor's Children force against the World Eaters in what promises to be a complete bloodbath. It's a melee-on-melee showdown, and that often gives the advantage to the side that can control the terms of engagement better, but here both armies have some advantages there. For the Emperor's Children, broader access to Advance/Charge and the higher flexibility of their shooting gives them the edge in picking fights, but they don't have any Fight on Death, which the World Eaters should be able to keep active most of the time. Khorne's forces also brought more cheap sacrificial pieces along, which are great bait and can punish an attempt to interact at range thanks to sticky objectives. Finally, the Overwatch from Forgefiends is very real here, and keeping one in reserves is also a solid way to force restraint from the EC.

That may not be enough to overcome their other big problem of course, which is Fulgrim himself. The big snake is likely to stick in Fights First most of the time, which makes him prohibitively difficult to handle as there's not a massive amount of stuff in the World Eaters list that still has the oomph to kill him after taking a swing, especially if he keeps back 2CP so that he can activate both Precision and full Wound Re-rolls. No Advance/Charge for the Eightbound also makes it somewhat practical for Fulgrim to play around them as long as he doesn't try to dominate the centre. I think the play for the Emperor's Children is to use Fulgrim to fight for the top objective on Search, while using the Maulerfiends elsewhere to force the Exalted to commit to somewhere they can be handled. For the World Eaters, the focus is on trying to push the attrition in their favour - if they don't push out with high quality things, Fight on Death makes it hard for the EC to make reliably profitable trades into them, and if they can whittle down what they're up against on objectives where Fulgrim isn't, he might have to come where the big threats can reach him. Alternatively, you can just YOLO a Slaughterbound unit into Fulgrim and hope the Fight on Death triggers. High risk, potentially high reward, depends on how happy Khorne is with you (and may be worth a try if attrition clearly isn't going your way). In the event, either this wasn't tried or Khorne was not happy, and Fulgrim's forces triumphed.

Result

Emperor's Children (Court of the Phoenician) Victory - 79 - 52

Ryan Mcleod - Emperor's Children (Court of the Phoenician) - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Fulgrim Court

Thoughts

Fulgrim gets an outing here, supported by lots of Infantry and Maulerfiends. Adding the Maulerfiends seems very strong here - they get access to the wallhack stratagem too, giving you very hasty heavy threat projection across the table, and they also help overwhelm any foes who haven't brought enough big guns. The rest is the efficient and mobile melee trade suite you know and love, ready to pick off any foes that mess up their commitments against the big stuff. Really cool to see Fulgrim getting some play at last, props to Ryan.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Jean-Luc La Rue - Genestealer Cult (Biosanctic Broodsurge): Double Metamorphs and lots of Aberrant/Purestrain MSUs.
• 3rd - Jonah Sinclair - Astra Militarum (Grizzled Company): Leman Russes galore.
• 4th - Joshawa Richter - Adepta Sororitas (Champions of Faith): Sacresant shieldwall with shooty Infantry support.
• 5th - Michael Tobin - World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Warband with one Berzerker unit swapped out for another Slaughterbound squad.
• 6th - Jorgan Goulet - Dark Angels (Gladius Task Force): Lion Deathwing Gladius.
• 7th - Mat Kohlruss - Dark Angels (Wrath of the Rock): Deathwing Knights and the unusual mid-field piece of Inner Circle MSUs with a Judiciar each, plus a big Sternguard unit for Azrael.
• 8th - Keegan Marshall - Adeptus Mechanicus (Haloscreed Battle Clade): Kataphron Haloscreed with a big squad of each flavour.

Dragonsreach Warhammer 40k GT

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom on January 10 2026. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Mark Morrow - Death Guard (Virulent Vectorium) - 1st Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Heavy Vectorium

Thoughts

Big Blightlord units seem to be another choice that's suddenly having a moment, providing an extra resilient anchor for your standard Death Guard activities, and also providing a pretty brutal spike of ranged volume damage when they pop Creeping Blight, which helps as we enter an environment with a very broad range of targets you need to be able to handle. Packing Mortarion and the Daemon Prince as well as them also puts a lot of pressure on the opponent to not misjudge their big swings, as there will be an avalanche of pain coming back at them if they leave whatever they target alive. This definitely feels considerably harder to attack than many Vectorium builds, but there is a dangling question of whether a surge in D3 weaponry post- the Victrix change could make the Blightlord's reign brief. They do at least have accesss to -1D to mitigate that, so definitely expect the Daemon Prince to be a lock with them if they kick around. Congratulations Mark for giving them such a successful outing!

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Johnathon Townsend - Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal): Double Wraith, double Doomsday Starshatter.
• 3rd - Aidan "GULLMAN" Lee - T'au Empire (Mont'ka): Ultra-heavy Mont'ka with triple Riptides and a Stormsurge.
• 4th - Adam Gray - Space Wolves (Gladius Task Force): Herohammer/melee toolbox Gladius.

Fight for the Fallen

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Fredericksburg, VA, United States on January 10 2026. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Joshua Campbell - Necrons (Awakened Dynasty) - 1st Place

The Nightbringer. Credit: Wings

The List

Archetype

Triple C'tan Awakened

Thoughts

Our second showcase of what the new C'tan datasheets are capable of, here supporting the classic One Big Warrior Unit plan. The problem with that plan for me has always been whether you can roll with a full send, and whether the stuff you use to pick up what you bait out is trading profitably. You emphatically do not have that problem when you are using C'tan to fill out the build, and this list ends up with the best of both worlds - it's extremely hard to profitably reach out and attack when it's being cagey, but can also very much go on a proactive monster mash offensive if the opponent can't handle the pressure it can apply. Hail Phaeron Joshua, harbinger of robot winter.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Daniel Bradcovich - Adepta Sororitas (Bringers of Flame): Castigators, Immolators and Retributors.
• 3rd - Stephen Henry - Astra Militarum (Grizzled Company): Double Bullgryn, double Dorn, double Kasrkin.
• 4th - Mark Callan - Thousand Sons (Rubricae Phalanx): A fairly all-rounder Phalanx build with a big squad each of Rubricae and Scarabs, then various shooting/scoring/being a Mutalith support.
• 5th - Michael Armstrong - World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Heavy-duty Warband, cutting out the Berzerkers for Land Raiders that the Eightbound can ride round in.
• 6th - Ryan Lappin - Black Templars (Gladius Task Force): Templar RepEx Gladius.

Wrap Up

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.