Y'all love Warzone Nephilim huh?

Thanks to the bumper crop of 11 events that took place last weekend, this is part 2 of this week's Competitive Innovations. Today we're looking at:

Today we're looking at:

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

If you're looking for any of the following events, go back and check out part 1:

• 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

Given just how massive this column is routinely getting to be, meaning I get less time to look at each list, I'd like to highlight that I am always delighted for people to send me comments about their armies, as it helps me write the Showdowns, and ensures cool choices people have made get highlighted. If you played in a top table final game in a 28-player or larger event, it's a safe bet I'm planning on covering it, so if there's a key detail you don't want me to miss, send an email to contact@goonhammer.com or reach out to us via the Facebook page. Anything I receive by 6PM UK time on Tuesday I'll do my best to incorporate (but the earlier the better).

Now, time for more of aforesaid showdowns, starting down under with the North and South GT.

North And South GT 2022

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Hobart, TAS, Australia on July 29 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal

Lance Glover - Hive Fleet Leviathan: Leviathan Goodstuff with two Flyrants and a couple of Harpies.

vs.

Matt Morosoli - Drukhari: A refreshingly classic Drukhari list - Artists of Flesh Grotesques to hold the opponent up, then a bunch of Incubi, Hellions and nasty Characters to trade into whatever hits them. Raiders and Wracks round out board control.

Thoughts

Very much an old vs. new vibe here, as a previous metagame terror takes on one of the more recent ones. Matt's list very much leans into a strength Drukhari still have - they can put a lot of different units on the table, and plenty of them are very speedy and threaten to trade up by quite a lot if the opponent takes their eyes off them for a second. Corner deployments are great for an army like this, as they can make maximum use of their mobility to pick their battles, and this would be terrifying into quite a lot of lists.

Some of what it's up against is pretty hardcore though. Lance's list here adapts to the points changes by cutting some go-wide elements to keep the majority of the heavy hitters, and it's nasty. Two Harpies are an extremely effective shooting threat (plus present a big problem for any infantry on the table via their bombs), Warriors are crunchy (and can bounce the Tryptych Whip pretty well, though at least Precision Blows gives some high-roll potential), and Flyrants can play the mobile nightmare game as well or better than most Drukhari threats. The fact that the Tyranids ObSec is very durable is scary too, and their psychic output is something the Drukhari aren't very well equipped to endure. Finally, the Biovores are just going to be a massive pain, heavily taxing the process of taking objectives.

You might be inferring from this that I favour the Tyranids here and you'd be right, but this is one of the games where I'm confounded by the results - Matt was able to eke out a narrow victory. He is, obviously, a very strong player, but this is a hard game, so what's his route to that?

My guess is that he must have heavily prioritised clearing out the Harpies and Warriors, then using the fact that he had much more of a board footprint and some expendable ObSec stuff to win from there. I don't think he can really fight for the central objective, but one of the advantages Aeldari lists tend to have on this map is that they're quite comfortable playing for their home objective and the two in the no-man's land quarters and leaving the centre till the opponent has been softened up. While the Tyranid ObSec is much crunchier, the Drukhari can definitely get stuff to these objectives in force much more quickly, and can potentially take advantage of that to deal with Warriors as they appear. Test of Skill is also very good on the Wych Cult stuff here, especially the Hellions, and means that if the Harpies do decide to come over and try and do some damage they cannot afford to low roll, or they're going to get rolled up on the counterattack. It's also true that while Grotesques don't out ObSec Tyranid Warriors, they are pretty handy in a fight against them, as the -1D is huge when the units duel. There are certainly angles for Matt to play with, and he clearly found a way to convert that into a victory - good stuff.

Result

Drukhari Victory - 75 - 67

Matt Morosoli - Drukhari - 1st Place

Drukhari Archon. Credit: Corrode

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Drukhari Goodstuff

Thoughts

Yeah, it really is just that - very classic stuff. Certainly some nods to the current metagame - Precision Blows on the Succubus and Test of Skill in general make sense in a metagame where Tyranids are still a big factor, and bringing Bloodbrides back makes sense in an Armour of Contempt world, but mostly this army just plays the hits in a well-balanced and effective way.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Adam Camilleri - Grey Knights: Rapiers with a big Paladin squad and lots of Interceptors.
• 3rd - Shannen Butters - Harlequins: Light Saedath boat/Troupe spam.
• 4th - Lance Glover - Hive Fleet Leviathan: See Showdown.
• 5th - Terence Drew - Space Wolves Successors: Space Wolf Dreadnought spam as Minotaurs with Master Artisans and Warded. Interesting bit of skew, and count to throw some lists for a loop with how well it can control the table.
• 6th - Mariusz Rybak - Salamanders: Salamanders spamming Assault Centurions with flamers, Aggressors and Eradicators. Hell yeah. Centurions are an absolute nightmare to stop with all the defences now accumulated on them, and this is great for pushing back against an army like Eternal Expansionist Necrons by rolling straight through them.
• 7th - Adam Doyle - Orks: MSU-heavy Deathskulls, looking to maximise the value of Green Tide and their ObSec trait.

W4 GT 2022

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US on July 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Secure Missing Artefacts

Tyler Johnson - Ynnari: Another instance of the double plane Mortal Wound Ynnari list, this time not bringing Baharroth and packing a few more melee aspects in the main detachment instead.

vs.

Eric Forsman - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff.

Thoughts

The Ynnari have had a busy week, but few other than the Grey Knights enjoy stamping out weird elf death magic nonsense more than the Adepta Sororitas, so here they've got a pretty stern challenge in front of them. That's not to say this is all going to go one way - this is one of those games where both sides have some stuff that works super well into the other.

As an example, Sisters are super strong at messing with Psychic powers (which the Aeldari are heavily invested into here), but the Mortal Wounds that do make it through hurt them badly. The Craftworld Melee Aspects aren't at their best here, as even if they're wiping a unit they're barely trading up, but the Swooping Hawks are great, obliterating units just by sheer weight of dice (particularly as there aren't any Sacresants or Warsuits to bounce them), and getting great value from the bombs too. Flip things around though and you notice that the Sisters very much have units to spare, whereas the Aeldari kind of don't - they're heavily invested in Psychic Characters, fragile trade units that may not make bank here and planes. They're very much in the driving seat in terms of "doing damage", but will they be able to capitalise afterwards?

This is absolutely anyone's game, but in the end the Sororitas narrowly took it. My guess is that this will have been down to a mix of the mission Primary, and the Sisters having a slightly easier time of it on Secondaries. The fact that the Aeldari just do not have that many units that can consistently hold the ground counts against them on Secure Missing Artefacts, and also gives the Sisters an easier time racking up points on Sacred Grounds. This game was close, so I'm sure both sides gave it their all, but this time the Aeldari witches did, in fact, get stiches.

Result

Adepta Sororitas Victory - 88 - 82

Eric Forsman - Adepta Sororitas - 1st Place

Credit: Kevin Stillman

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Bloody Rose Goodstuff

Thoughts

Extremely business as usual here - Bloody Rose rule, Zephyrim's mobility makes them a lynchpin right now, and this list goes hard on that. Well played by Eric.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Dakota Kramer - Harlequins: Light Saedath with boats, small shooty Skyweaver units and individual Voidweavers.
• 3rd - Jason Krug - Dark Angels: A cunning spin on whoops all Deathwing that uses the fact that Black Knights have Inner Circle to add a far more mobile melee threat without sacrificing CP.
• 4th - Tyler Johnson - Ynnari: See showdown.
• 5th - Oliver Smith - Tau: Farsight Enclaves with lots of hulls (including a couple of Sunsharks) and small units of suits.
• 6th - Jeremiah Petit - Adeptus Custodes: Definite left-field pick here, Dread Host with three big units of Venetari to take advantage of the charge boosts out of reserve. Very good on heavier terrain tables, as it clears out ruins better than almost anything else out there.
• 7th - Matt Monsour - Black Legion: Heavy-duty Black Legion with two units of Obliterators, a full squad each of Possessed, Terminators and Khorne Legionaries, plus Abaddon at the helm.

Sunken City Slugfest

33-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in West Branch, MI, US on July 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Unknown

Brenton Weiss - T'au Empire: Heavy Tau Sept Goodstuff with Hammerheads, Sun Sharks and big Crisis Teams.

vs.

Isaac Rosebrugh - Cadian Shock Troops:

Thoughts

Please do not adjust your sets - those are, in fact, Leman Russ Vanquishers (noted heroes of the Blunderdome) on the top table of a GT in TYOL 2022 which is quite something. I'm going to level out the gate here - this list would definitely be better if all the Vanquisher cannons became demo cannons, but I think it's also easy to underestimate just how durable an army where every exposed unit is now sporting a 2+ save with Armour of Contempt on top. I played against Guard on the weekend (with access Psychic Barrier on top) and it's certainly a bit bracing to find that your opponent is still taking 4+ saves against AP-3, and here that's the case for all of it (assuming the Basilisks are hidden), with T8 on top. A Spearhead is a great way to do it as well - people rarely remember, because Tank Commander Battalions has been the norm for so long, but in a Guard Spearhead all Leman Russes get natural ObSec. Add in the ability to count them as five models in an emergency with Never Give Up! Never Surrender! and this list has got a bit more to it than you might expect on a first glance.

It definitely does not want to be facing down this Tau army though, as Railguns will utterly obliterate the precious Leman Russes with maximum prejudice. Having Basilisks on the Guard side means it isn't a totally forgone conclusion, as with the first turn they do have the chance of putting Longstrike into the bin, and maybe chipping away at a second Hammerhead to boot. The Tau also don't have very much ObSec, and what they do have can be quickly removed. However, Exemplar of the Kauyon is an absolute superstar here - whatever else is going on, the fact remains that the Astra Militarum only have eight mobile models on the board. The Tau can just put both Crisis Teams into deep strike, pull the three Hammerheads into Strategic reserves with Exemplar if they either lose the rolloff or the Guard can fully hide, then be extremely confident that on turn two they'll smoke at least three of the Russes (probably four), and they're not going to suffer enough damage in response to stop them rolling through to a tabling. From the scoreline it wouldn't shock me if that's how things played out - the Guard put up a respectable score, probably from pushing on the Primary early, but the Tau ended up running away with things

Result

T'au Empire Victory - 97 - 63

Brenton Weiss - T'au Empire - 1st Place

Shadowsun. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Tau Sept Goodstuff

Thoughts

Keeping with current trends, Brenton's list here is pretty heavy duty, going in on lots of hulls and minimal filler, plus featuring the currently popular Sun Sharks. Those are great into Necrons and pretty decent into Adepta Sororitas (as their main predators are Zephyrim, who they can just focus on for bombing), so are definitely a potent addition to the Tau's Nephilim arsenal. Congratulations on the victory (and also on managing to play five games of 40K in one day starting at 6:45AM, the schedule for this event was wild).

Jeffrey Keister - Dark Angels - 2nd Place

Dark Angels. Credit: Greg Chiasson

The List

Archetype

...Dark Angels Goodstuff?

Thoughts

So like, Dark Angels lists tend to skew hard towards Ravenwing and Deathwing, but it's easy to forget that they have a pretty strong all-rounder Stratagem suite, excellent Characters, and one of the best Psychic Disciplines across Marines, and Armour of Contempt sure does exist now. Here you've got a variety of those strengths on show, plus the use of Assault Centurions, a unit rapidly making their way into more Marine lists once more. AoC on a unit with a natural 2+ is always great, and Dark Angels have a couple of especially good tricks for them. Neither Righteous Repugnance or Line Unbreakable have a CORE rider, so anything the Centurions touch is getting punted directly into the sun, and opponents trying to take them down in melee may find that their units bounce off at a critical moment, then suffer the full life consequences of their poor decisions. Always great to see Dark Angels succeeding, and cool that some lesser known capabilities are being shown off.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 3rd - Boden Cabble - Cult Mechanicus: an unusual go-wide Stygies list with one big chunky unit of breachers to hold the centre. Otherwise, has some head shooting and a fairly good sliding scale of powerful trade pieces to deploy.
• 4th - Josh Howard - Iron Hands: List missing.
• 5th - Isaac Rosebrugh - Astra Militarum: See showdown.
• 6th - Keegan Cherwinski - Imperial Knights: House Raven with a heavily upgraded Crusader and Styrix.

High Noon Showdown

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Oklahoma City, OK, United States on July 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Recover The Relics

Jonathan Hofmann - Harlequins: Light Saedath spamming haywire/zephyrglaive Skyweavers.

vs.

Thierry Arcand - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with big Retributor Squads.

Thoughts

These are both very strong lists, but this is a game where the mission they've ended up facing each other on utterly dominates strategic considerations. Recover the Relics is perfect for the Harlequins here, overwhelmingly playing to their strengths. They've got (generally) much faster units than the Sororitas, which means they get to dictate the terms of engagement unless the other side can use Primary pressure to force them to make suboptimal plays. That just isn't going to happen here - Recover the Relics starts both sides on very even Primary footing, and for the Sisters to start trying to push the Harlequins off their home objectives is either going to take multiple turns of footslogging across the table en-masse, or involve sending out the Zephyrim unsupported, which is a great way to lose some Zephyrim (especially with the Harlequins having access to Capricious Reflections).

The specific unit selections in the Sisters army also match up badly against this specific Harlequin list - mid size Repentia units aren't going to land enough damage into Skyrweavers with Zealot disabled by their Mirage Launchers, while putting extra bodies into the Retributor squads is great against stuff that can inflict chip damage, but not when the threat is five bikes slamming into the side of your unit from half the board away. The Sisters do have the small saving grace that their Secondaries (especially Defend the Shrine) are also particularly good in this mission, but I don't think that's going to do anywhere near enough to overcome the advantages it hands to the Harlequins, and from the scoreline it looks like that advantage was pretty emphatic.

Result

Harlequins Victory - 97 - 30

Jonathan Hofmann - Harlequins - 1st Place

Credit: Docsucram

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Light Saedath Skyweaver Spam

Thoughts

Fundamentally there's only so long that units which are fast, dangerous in multiple phases and durable against at least some kinds of damage can stay out of the metagame, and Skyweavers currently look like a common fixture in the upper echelons of Harlequin lists. The mixture of mobility, anti-vehicle shooting threat and just being able to sweep ObSec stuff straight off objectives is great, and were it not for one small issue I think they'd be doing even better. That one issue is, of course, that they're kind of garbage into Leviathan Tyranids, an enduring metagame presence, but at least even there they're fast, and that tends to put a high floor on how useless a unit can be. That doesn't appear to have come up at this event, and Jonathan swept through the opposition with a very strong set of scores.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Thomas Eddy - Orks: Goff Pressure with Kill Rigs, Squighogs and Ghaz.
• 3rd - Billy Johnson - Adepta Sororitas: Argent Shroud built around a single big Sisters unit then lots of small units with special weapons to maraud around incinerating things.
• 4th - Thierry Arcand - Adepta Sororitas: See showdown.
• 5th - Noah Hendershot - Death Guard: High pressure Mortarion's Anvil with Mortarion himself at the helm. Has Bloat-drones, meaning it's got access to multiple methods of heroicing each turn if needed, great for board control. Also brings a large unit of Blightlords to tarpit stuff.

The Grand Battery

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

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Abandoned Sanctuaries

Boldo Kalabera - Tyranids: Psychic-heavy Kraken with a Maleceptor and lots of Zoanthropes, plus Carnifexes and a Hive Crone for extra killing power.

vs.

Aaron Mosquera - Tyranids: Leviathan Warrior spam with two Harpies soaring overhead.

Thoughts

Bugs vs. Bugs for the crown here in what is, unfortunately, another relatively harsh mismatch. The overwhelming psychic might of the Kraken list is going to be horrendous for a lot of armies to deal with, but the Leviathan force here is very much capable of rolling with the blow - it has a lot of wounds worth of Tyranid Warriors out front, can throw up Psychic Augmentation for a key turn to soften the blow, and is bound to manage to deny some of the incoming powers thanks to its own fairly decent psychic capabiliites. It also has the Harpies, which are exceptional in this game - the S9 D4 shooting is perfect for making a mess of all of the Kraken toys, and because Kraken are relying on Psychic to do the majority of their damage the Harpies aren't going to get taken down in a hurry as long as they stay at bay (which their turn during their move makes trivial).

All this is exacerbated by a mission where the two forces are fighting over the centre line - the two big squads of Warriors are just better for this than anything in the Kraken list, and even if everything goes right for Kraken, it'll take them long enough to punch through them that the damage from the Harpies will be done. There is always the chance that the Hive Crone high rolls and just murders a Harpy straight up, but it would be a pretty big high roll, and outside that the lack of reach the Kraken build has in this matchup is going to be pretty terminal.

Result

Tyranids (Leviathan) Victory - 77 - 39

Aaron Mosquera - Tyranids - 1st Place

Tyranid Warriors. Credit: Rockfish

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Leviathan Warrior Spam

Thoughts

Another Leviathan list that's looked at the choice to sacrifice quality or quantity and gone for the latter. Leviathan Warriors are a total bastard to shift and their monsters very powerful, so fair enough!

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Antonio Rivera Jiménez - Adeptus Custodes: Classic Emperor's Chosen Goodstuff with Bikes and Dreads.
• 3rd - Kayron Caruana - Imperial Knights: House Taranis with a Paladin and Crusader to tee up the maxed-out mortal combo, plus a tooled up Magaera as a brawler.
• 4th - Chema Triguero Morilla - Tyranids: Leviathan Goodstuff going hard on psychic powers and monsters.
• 5th - Boldo Kalabera - Tyranids: See showdown.
• 6th - Salvador Prados - Dark Angels: Ravenwing plus a backup detachment of some Infiltrators and a VolCon.

Armed Forces Day GT

30-ish player (drops seem to have been processed by deleting players entirely), 5-round Grand Tournament in Illnois. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission - Tide of Conviction

Mike Nees - Imperial Knights: Taranis with two Crusaders, set up to throw out the full Calculated Targeting mortal combo.

vs.

Aaron Towler - Grey Knights:  Prescient Brethren with a big unit of Paladins and some Purgation Squads/Dreadknights following behind.

Thoughts

Hot Knight-on-Knight action here, so who's going to come out on top? Happily, this is back to a game where both sides have some real assets, making this an exciting clash. The shooting of the Imperial Knights is excellent into a lot of the Grey Knights stuff, and unusually they even have a pretty decent plan for going after the Paladin blob at range thanks to having the Princeps/Master Tactician combo. It's not going to wholesale wipe it, but enough Mortal Wounds are going to get dropped on them (unless the Knights are extremely unlucky) to seriously deplete the squad, 5+ feel no pain or no. Helverin guns are also pretty spicy - the Paladins don't care about those, but they're ideal for punishing the Dreadknights for daring to be visible. The Grey knights have some options too though - Psychic damage is going to be a pretty serious factor here, whittling down the Warglaives, and with only eight models on a six-objective mission, each lost Armiger is a serious blow to the Knights.

I think there are two big advantages the Grey Knights can exploit here. Firstly, against a low model count army on this map, they can take Purifying Ritual and Raise the Banners High and threaten some very strong (relatively) passive scoring that demands the Imperial Knights come deal with it. Thing is, the Imperial Knights only have two Warglaives, with the rest of their models being built for shooting, so it isn't hard for an initial psychic onslaught/countercharge to remove all of the melee threats. At that point, the Knights are in a bit of a pickle - if the Grey Knights can hide behind terrain they'll be racking up points faster than the robots will, but if they move forward to engage they'll be feeding points on Bring it Down, which seems very likely to be the third Grey Knight Secondary. However, even if the Knight stay cagey, the Grey Knights can disrupt their scoring. Renew the Oaths requires moving Knights into easy strike range, while Interceptors can sweep into the Knights deployment zone and bully charge a Helverin to mess with Yield No Ground. The Rhinos are also pretty good here - with the low model count from the Knights, any time they tank through shooting on a few wounds left represents a situation where their contents fully dodge the shooting of whatever was up next.

I fundamentally think that if you swapped out two Helverins for two more Warglaives this game would tilt tuiw a bit towards the Knights, and they managed to run the silver host pretty close as it was. With Crusaders less able to bully stuff in melee than they were in 8th, I don't think you need four shooty Armigers on top of them, and two more melee threats would give them the ability to exert pressure after initial losses on both sides. The list is clearly strong as-is, but being able to just ram Warglaives at an opponent when the situation calls for it is an important enough part of the Knight plan that I'd want to focus further on it in my list.

Result

Grey Knights Victory - 90 - 78

Aaron Towler - Grey Knights - 1st Place

Grey Knight Paladins. Credit: Colin Ward

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Prescient Brethren

Thoughts

A nice all-rounder Prescient Brethren list to finish with today, with the Paladins (plus Unyielding Anvil backup) probably being far more of a factor in most games than they were in the showdown. Between them and the Rhinos there's a good amount of board control here, and I really like the flexibility the list brings together overall. A well deserved winner!

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Mike Nees - Imperial Knights: See showdown.
• 3rd - Chris Baybar - Necrons: Double C'tan Eternal Expansionists.
• 4th - Tyler White - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose mecha mash, two units of Paragons and six Mortifiers alongside the usual hits.
• 5th - Douglas Miller - Death Guard: Inexorable with Mortarion, Daemon Engines and 3x3 Blightlords.

Wrap Up

That's it for this week. We've got a slightly quieter weekend coming up, but after that it's the full on big summer blowout of the WTC, so we'll see even more top end Nephilim showcases in the near future. Comments, questions and suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com as ever.