How about those Arks of Omen, eh? People sure do seem to love them.

This past weekend is, I think, the biggest for tournament play we've ever had other than LGT or LVO weekends, and terrifyingly that's not counting the 300-player Team Tournament that the UKTC put on. We've also got the competitive debut of the World Eaters Codex, and it's clearly making a bit of a splash!

That means we have got a lot to cover this week, and to handle that we've assembled a powerful roster of columnists to pitch in - I'm joined by Tom Lowman (returning from his heroic save last week), Jeremy "Curie" Atkinson and Peter "The Falcon" Colosimo, each of whom will be picking up some of the events. I'll note which author is covering each event at the start of the writeup.

Today our team will be covering:

• The Cherokee Open (Supermajor)
• Scheunenkloppen Open - War Zone Erkelenz (Major)
• Scorched Earth Open (Major)
• Dice Crusher
• The Lightly Salted Winter GT
• MTC Winter GT

On Friday we'll round out with:

• Milwaukee GT (Major)
• Dice Arcade (Major)
• Broadsword Wargaming
• HWP Salty Classic
• Capital Clash
• Brewhammer 3
• Winter Ruin Grand tournament

Our showdowns for the week, as voted for by the Goonhammer Patrons, are (drum roll please):

• Tau vs Chaos Knights at the Scorched Earth Open
• Orks vs Craftworlds at the MTC Winter GT
• Disciples of the Red Angel (!) vs Iron Hands at the Capital City Clash
• Craftworlds vs Daemons at Dice Crusher

Hit it!

Frontline Gaming Cherokee Open 40K Champs

257-player, 9-round Supermajor in Las Vegas, NV US on February 24 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Wings is taking the helm on this one.

Steven Crawley - Deathwing - 1st Place

Credit: Greg Chiasson

The List

Archetype

Deathwing

Final Round Matchup

88 - 76 Victory against Brad Chester - Space Wolves.

Thoughts

Dark Angels secure their grip on the metagame with some big wins this week, with full Deathwing lists making particularly good showings (though there are plenty of strong performances for more mixed builds as well), taking down both the Cherokee Open and another Major. Having lots of Deathwing can oversaturate guard's ability to chew through them, and gives you a fallback plan if your opponent is packing one of the few things that can spike a squad (e.g. heavily buffed Whirlwind Wulfen). It also streamlines your target profile considerably, and means that the best your opponent's big guns are going to achieve, after punching through both Transhuman and a 4+ invulnerable save, is to kill a single Terminator, where the Ravenwing lists generally do offer easier targets for opponents trying to degrade their capabilities. You do sacrifice the ability to just body your opponent clean off the table (as Ravenwing have a habit of doing), but the results don't lie - the Inner Circle mean business, and big congratulations to Steven for taking the trophy with them.

Brad Chester - Space Wolves - 2nd Place

Flying Wolf Guard. Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

Archetype

Space Wolf Infantry Spam

Thoughts

Hey speaking of heavily buffed Whirlwind Wulfen - Brad has a squad of them, ready to spike out opponents that pack a single key tarpit, and lists like this are definitely the kind of thing you want some redundancy against. Taking full advantage of all the ways to cram free wargear, mostly meltaguns, into aSpace Wolves list, this army is just absurdly deadly on all fronts, with almost every unit being able to deal serious damage in multiple phases. Plenty of the threats are mobile too, and if you're up against this the slightest moment of weakness is likely to get you obliterated in short order. Only the might of the Deathwing were finally able to put a stop to Brad's rampage, and not by much.

John Lennon - Iron Hands - 3rd Place

Credit: Colin Ward

The List

Archetype

Iron Hands Gladiators

Thoughts

...and now speaking of absurd damage, John's Iron Hands list is a little more restricted to the shooting phase (outside the VanVets), but makes up for it with almost unparalleled killing power, and broad killing power at that. Gladiator Reapers are no joke in Hands at their new price point, and combine with the more traditional tools like drop devs and the super Contemptor to provide a suite of firepower that can grind almost anything clean out of the game, with only Steven's Deathwing, once again, being able to hold on for an extremely narrow win against John in the semi-finals. While I'd tap Dark Angels for best army right now, there are definitely voices out there who are on team Iron Hands, and as John's superb performance here demonstrates, the gap between the two is pretty minimal!

Gabriel Rocheleau - Astra Militarum - 4th Place

Rogal Dorn. Credit: Rockfish

The List

Archetype

Dorn Heroes

(Original Archetype Name, do not steal).

Thoughts

After all those two high damage lists, we round out the top four with a far more subtle an...yeah no, it's another army with astounding killing power, this time coming from the one-two punch of Kasrkin and Dorn Battle Tanks, also guest starring 3x3 Mortars, which are basically a lock for any Guard list with the slots right now. With so much of the anti-tank in the metagame being S8 multi-meltas, T9 on the Dorns represents a major step up in durability against shooting, and if opponents try to close with them they're in prime position for the Kasrkin to massively trade up on the counter-punch. The list doesn't have that much in the way of screening, but three Scout Sentinels goes a long way to pushing back opposing pre-game moves, and this list needs very little time to do its wicked work. Only a list with the sheer all-spectrum brutality of Brad's Wolves were able to silence the guns of the Militarum, presumably by actually being able to race them on damage,(and honourable mention to Shawn Dougherty's Orks for holding the Guard to a draw), but this brutally clean and efficient build still accumulated tremendous amounts of glory for the Guard and for Gabriel.

The Best of the Rest

There were loads more players on 4.5-1.5 or better records (I'm including the 4.5s because several of them ran undefeated till round four and picked up draws there, and at this point the more the merrier). They were:

Scorched Earth Open

60-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Gilbert, AZ US on February 25 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Tom is writing up this event.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Tide of Conviction

Ally Huang – Chaos Knights: All War Dog Vextrix.



vs.

Jason McKenzie – T’au Empire: Bor'kan with a mix of suits and supporting auxilliaries.

Thoughts

Knights versus Tau eh? That old chestnut. On the Chaos Knights side we have go wide armigers with a solid spread of ranged and melee options. There are Karnivores for speed and punch, and tooled up Brigands and Executioners with some additional supporting tech to amp up the shooting. Indeed, prepping for a shooting war seems to be the guiding logic here, as the House Vextrix trait and stratagem (as well as the Warp Sight Helm) are selected to provide rerolls, and multiple ways to ignore modifiers to hit and to ballistic skill. As such the Chaos guns will have their say and hopefully get around opposing defensive tricks. There’s also a lovely one-two melee combo on the forward pressure Karnivores, where the Bloodshield invuln denial synergises neatly with the Vextrix-specific relic the Heretek Power Core to produce a War Dog from hell that moves outrageously fast, and hits extremely hard in close combat.

Unfortunately for the spiky dogs of war, there’s not a relic in this game that can stop an opponent from standing an irritating distance away from you and jump-shoot-jumping (save that for 10th eh GW!). Punchy as the Armiger wall is, the Tau come packing some serious heat of their own. They too have teched into a niche but deadly shooting sub faction in the form of Bork’an Sept. The -1 strength on lower powered ranged weapons isn’t drastically important here (though it certainly makes the big slab of Broadsides more durable and whittles down the effectiveness of avenger chaincannons!), but the additional range is clutch, giving the Tau the ability to plug away at a safer distance in the early exchanges and steer clear of rampant engines of war. Kroot Hounds can go forwards to die on the line in waves, buying the big guns time at remarkable value for their cost.

Experimental Weaponry is a devastating option to have in the locker, as between that  and the Hammerhead the Tau can have multiple heavy guns making contact and ignoring invulns for at least a turn. Knights players will know that losing multiple Armigers in the opening exchanges can be a recipe for disaster, stripping away scoring potential and creating a holding pattern that the consistent but relatively low output of the baby knights often struggles to correct.

Tide of Conviction also does the Tau a few favours by offering an enormous end game swing on the primary. They can very readily yield the mid board and even their own objectives for a turn or two as they defang the knights, safe in the knowledge they can make it up later. Bring It Down also hands the Tau at least one answer to the question ‘where are my secondary points coming from’. Its not impossible that the Chaos forces rush forwards, take a hit and then tie up enough of the enemy to carry the day, but the sum total here is a match up that looks like an uphill battle for the Infernal Households.

Result

T’au Empire Victory – 97 – 52

Jason McKenzie – T’au Empire – 1st Place

Tau Broadside Battlesuit with Railgun. Credit: Jack Hunter

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Bork’an mixed arms

Final Round Matchup

97 – 52 Victory against Ally Huang – Chaos Knights.

Thoughts

Bork’an was a popular choice in the early months of Tau dominance, with its emphasis on throwing off the maths on enemy shooting and adding reach to the often short range guns of certain options on the Crisis Suits in particular. We can see that at work in this excellent, rounded example from James Mackenzie, as the sept trait amps up the burst cannons on the Crisis team to 22 inch range, improving their ability to interact with the enemy at a safer distance with the usual fire and fading shenanigans. -1 strength at range is a very nice deterrent to up and coming meta threats like Astra Militarum mortars or lasguns, ensuring any artillery build that isn’t packing Ursula Creed will struggle to get wounds through the damage dealers in this list.

There is cutting edge here in the Crisis, Broadsides, and Hammerhead, but James has also packed in the mission play and screening tools with plenty of Kroot Hounds and supporting Vespid (excellent at punking poorly defended backfield objectives later in the game, and far more dangerous with their ap 2 guns now that AoC has shuffled off the mortal coil). With an Ethereal providing defensive buffs for the valuable Crisis Team via Sense of Stone, and a sneaky counter attacking Commander with Onager Gauntlet ready to surprise anybody that makes it to the Tau lines, this list is really demonstrative of the width and depth of unit and tech options available in one of 9ths most enduring codices. Great to see Bork’an on the table, and an event triumph for a list that looks like it requires some real patience and timing to properly utilise. Great work James!

Terek Haehl – World Eaters – 2nd Place

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

Archetype

Angron World Eaters

Thoughts

One of the key questions for World Eaters players as they enter a glorious new era is whether or not to bring their wonderful new primarch model along for the ride. There are definitely some costs to doing so, in particular losing out on pre-game move shenanigans via the Lord Invocatus warlord trait. However, for only 360 points the big red dog definitely offers a lot, and that is what this build from Terek sets out to leverage.

The core of the list trades on the violent efficiency of Eightbound and Exalted Eightbound, packing several large packs of the former and a supporting trio of the latter to cover the board in moderately durable but extremely killy daemon vessels. There are plenty of Jackhals and Chaos Spawn to get blood tithe points flowing, and the entire army starts the game on foot, without a rhino to be seen.

How does it get its claws into the opposition? Well, I think that’s where Angron comes in. A flying killing machine that can come back from the dead constantly via Reborn in Blood, the real strength of Angron is the enemy pressure he absorbs. You can throw him forwards into the melee from the outset, safe in the knowledge that if he meets a sticky end you can revive him, and the enemy ends up caught in two minds as a result. Ignore or cripple him and focus on the swarm of daemon infantry (which leaves him free to wreak havoc), or sink resources into destroying him only to have to deal with him again in subsequent turns.

The no fall back aura of Righteous Slaughter can cause absolute havoc in a gunline meta, allowing Angron and his supporting cast of maniacs to roam the board pinning things, destroying them in the opponents turn, and moving on to the next target. It makes for a very punchy, intimidating list that builds on the 9th edition Chaos tradition of throwing a 300+ point mini game for the opponent to solve as forward pressure ramps up. Great to see Angron out, and well done to Terek.

Chase Chappell – Ynnari – 3rd Place

The List

Archetype

D Cannon Ynnari

Thoughts

This spicy Ynnari build from Chase highlights a few running trends within the Aldeari competitive community at the moment. D Cannons continue to offer crucial anti-armour from the safety of cover, supported by a range of msu infantry and biker options to provide trigger moments for the Yncarne’s teleportation. A Shadowseer, Farseer, and the aforementioned absolutely not-a-daemon give multiple outlets for slapping on mortal wounds and achieving psychic secondaries. Drukhari Reavers continue their excellent start to the season as a turn one Behind Enemy Lines throwaway piece, with the added spice of a potential Yncarne arrival when they meet their doom.

This build also opts to run its Harlequins in a separate patrol rather than as Ynnari proper. This allows the Harvester of Torment Death Jester to come along for the ride, and enables Chase to fully tool up a murder Troupe Master. Dark opens up access to a no overwatch stratagem but I think its the amped up characters that really make this worthwhile. It is extremely hard to look past a small detachment of quins at the moment, and this list puts them to work in a very compelling elf hero-hammer list that is absolutely brimming with trade pieces and incision threats.

Justin Aguilar – Orks – 4th Place

Stormboyz. Credit: Rockfish

Archetype

Goff Pressure

Thoughts

A glorious Ork pressure list, this build from Justin opts to leave the Kill Rigs at home in favour of cheap ‘ard Case Battlewagons. at toughness 8 with 16 wounds and ramschackle these are no joke to bring down, and the recent strategy of reserving one or more of the transports to stagger their delivery via Ramming Speed works just as well on these in match ups where they aren’t all safe starting on the board. You lose some psychic and ranged flexibility, but you gain a whole bunch more points to sink into EVEN MORE ork bodies.

Big packs of Stormboyz, Kommandos and Nobs (presumably occupying the Battlewagons) can apply unbearable forward pressure and pump out an enormous volume of attacks, and in true Arks of Omen style this absolutely isn’t a list you want to go second against. Zagstruk makes an appearance, utilising his rocket pack to fly forwards with the Stormboyz and make a mess. Great work Justin!

The Best of the Rest

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

• 5th – Ally Huang – Chaos Knights: See showdown.
• 6th – Kyle Parry – Genestealer Cults: Twisted Helix combat GSC with lots of Purestrains, Rockgrinders, and msu Acolyte squads.

Dice Crusher

All the lists for this event can be found in Tourneykeeper.

Wings is in charge here.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - The Scouring

JOK3r - Chaos Daemons: The classic Monster Mash trio of Be'lakor, Bloodthirster and Big Bird supported by Flamers for punch and Flesh Hounds/Skull Cannons to control various parts of the board.



vs.

Jakub Vladdi Podruczny - Craftworlds: A high-reach Craftworlds list using Swift Strikes and Masterful Shots to reliably chip down the opposition with minimal exposure, and using lots of melee Aspects (including two squads of Shining Spears) to counter-punch.

Thoughts

Daemons are going from strength to strength in Arks, but Craftworlds are no slouch either and this is a really fascinating matchup, as both sides have some significant strengths in it. From the Craftworlds side of things, they're reasonably well set up to pick apart the smaller Daemons, and having multiple Phoenix Lords and lots of fast melee threats makes it pretty difficult for the Flamers of Tzeentch to operate safely, particularly as they don't have accesss to Shadow Lord re-rolls to make their overwatch properly scary (and the Banshees would ignore it regardless). On the other hand, the Craftworld shooting here quickly runs out of great targets - they'll sweep the Flesh Hounds apace, but they're short of great answers to the big Daemons, none of which are trivial to push Doom through against. They also have to watch out for Flamers making a big Advance and smoking multiple key units, as they need resources to keep the big Daemons in check late game. Despite those risks, however, the Craftworlds feel like they have a pretty good generic plan for this - take Wrath/Scout/BEL, focus on taking out everything except the big Daemons, then dance around them and run away with the scoring.

Now to take a big sip of water and check what mission this ga... - oh noooooo.

Yeah so the Scouring is about the worst possible mission to try and play that game on, and makes this vastly more even, if anything slightly favouring the Daemons. Suddenly, they can play a pretty passive game that forces the Craftworlds to try and engage - Banners/Despoilers/Ritual requires some active intervention to stop, and while the Craftworlds could swap Scout out for Banners themselves, the Daemons having big wrecking balls to clear out objectives makes that somewhat risky. The Daemons can lead with the big threats, and when the Craftworlds commit into them sweep forward with Flamers for a counterattack, dangerous stuff.

Craftworlds do have some ways around that in turn, though. They've got lots of Psykers so can at least throw a deny after Ritual every turn, and having Will of Asuryan available also lets them exploit the lack of ObSec in the Daemon list to try and take Banners down and flip the Primary on key turns. They do also have the numbers to try and ace one of the two non-Be'lakor monsters, and I suspect the goal for them is to try and find a turn where they can pull that off while shooting some banshees forward to tie up at least one Flamer unit, mitigating the return punch. They should still be able to max BEL comfortably, and if they can start chipping away the supporting Daemons they can take a decent crack at picking up some points on the mission Primary too. If one of their near objectives is well concealed, using Kharandras to secure it against incoming Greater Daemons is also an option, helping keep at least a few points flowing. They certainly have options, but I think there's a real risk of them running out of resources and getting bullied off the table if Daemons use their tools carefully. That knife-edge status seems well reflected in the score - Craftworlds were able to take it, but only by the narrowest of margins, so well done to both players on what was clearly a great game.

Result

Craftworlds Victory - 11-9

Jakub Vladdi Podruczny - Craftworlds - 1st Place

Credit: Greg Narro

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Swift Strikes

Why it's Interesting in 9th

Jakub's list takes an alternative tack to an ultra-murderous metagame - just don't get hit (or at least not till you've got the first punch in). All the toys here are fragile, but they inflict attrition on the enemy very quickly, and are a complete pain to pin down, helping play the kind of keep-away gameplan discussed in the Showdown. Lots of small units with Will of Asuryan is also fantastic for keeping the opponent's scoring suppressed, and combined with this list scoring pretty aggressively on Behind Enemy Lines and Wrath of Khaine in most games, it can become difficult to outpace. Well suited to the 20-0 format on top of everything else, and always a fan of seeing Craftworlds on top.

The Rest of the Best

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

Wrap Up

Plenty more to come this week, so make sure you check back in on Friday to see how the rest of the events from the weekend went down.