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Competitive Innovations in 9th: Windy City Warfare
- The US Open Chicago (supermajor)
- Battle for Salvation (major)
- Cheseaux Buccaneers Open
- NurgleMania
- From Hell Project
- Capilla Competitive Tournament (a great showing for the Argentinian scene)
- Emperor's Children vs. Twilight Saedath at the US Open. (automatic slot as a supermajor)
- Daemonic Dogwalker vs. Thousand Sons & Daemons at the apparently appropriately named From Hell Project. (voted by our patrons)
US Open Chicago: Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament
208-player, 8-round Supermajor in Games Workshop, Chicago, IL, United States on October 07 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.This event used the US Open 16-player bracketing system. Note that the top four for this event "locked" at the start of day three, so the players who were in the semi-finals would take 1st-4th even though one would end up leapfrogged by someone else who went 3-1 in the top bracket.
The Showdown
Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal
Ben Cherwien - Emperor's Children: Lots of Noise Marines with a murderous Daemon Prince in charge, a full unit of Possessed, and a nasty Master of Executions with the Mantle of Traitors for 6" heroic into Soporific Gaze action.vs.
Jack Harpster - Harlequins: Twilight Saedath with a mix of big foot Troupes and shooty boat Troupes.
Thoughts
A week on from their big breakout at LGT (though to be fair to Ben, he had been playing and doing pretty well with them before it was cool), the Emperor's Children face Slaanesh's ultimate nemesis in the form of Harlequins. Not the usual Harlequin build either - rather than Light Saedath, we've got a very nasty Twilight build, sporting both shooty units in boats and three big foot Troupes, two of which are loaded for massive melee damage. This is probably a specific list call for the GW open terrain, which is very favourable to fast, melee infantry - it's easy to stage them in the big ruins, and they pick up massive strike range from there. Light Saedath will still be fine on the terrain, but their plan of doing most of their initial damage with shooty drive-bys definitely isn't as good as normal against some lists, so I can definitely see the appeal of having access to the absolute hammer-blows that Twilight unlocks.The high-quality Infantry in the Emperor's Children build definitely don't mind that either, mind. Lots of chainsword attacks with wide-ranging Fight First and the ability to lurk the Master of Executions around a key strong-point is a very effective setup against Harlequins, and I suspect played extremely well for Ben in a lot of matchups. The big Possessed unit with the rune is pretty scary as well, as all the Harlequin melee is only going to be wounding it on 6s, and muscular use of this can certainly create some challenges. Despite that, however, I think the Harlequins end up with a couple of key advantages here.
First up, they're going to have much better Secondary picks - their normal suite is all pretty potent here, while the Emperor's Children are going to have to go for the book ones, and even there the Warpcraft options are riskier than normal - Interrogation can be no-sold early on, and Ritual is going to involve moving a key character to the centre where they're thoroughly within clown range. That's going to end up giving the Harlequins more agency to choose their battles, as they're under less scoring pressure by default, especially as they have the speed and threat to easily flip back objectives that get, for example, Bannered. The Harlequin transports are also going to be a challenge on this front - blastmasters honestly aren't the worst for chipping through them, especially ignoring hit penalties, but with Luck re-rolls able to be poured in it'll still be pretty slow work.
The Harlequins getting to control the engagement feeds into the second issue - The Great Enemy exists, and is absolutely horrendous for the servants of Slaanesh to play against, especially on Twilight where there are extra attacks in play and the option of comboing with Malicious Frenzy for ultra-damage, trivially wiping anything in the Slaanesh army except the big squad of angry Daemonkin. I did go away and run the maths on pushing one of the big Troupes with Frenzy and Great Enemy into the Possessed and choosing to fully fish for 6s on the hits, and to be fair it "only" kills 6-ish models on expected value (fewer if Agonies is up to be fair) but that's very much the difference between "Harlequins cannot interact with this unit in melee at all", which would be the case for an all-MSU Light build, and "Harlequins can make a dent", which is what we have here. It's also enough of a dent that it gets them over a hump where the Possessed don't then wipe them Harlequins on strikeback as long as a Shadowseer is nearby (especially the Agent of Pandemonium one), so this allows flipping an objective via ObSec. Hanging back and trying to choose their battles is going to be risky for the Possessed too, not only because the Harlequins usually have a longer threat range, but also because if the Harlequins save up to 4CP, it gets even worse - Murderous Spectacle effectively doubles their damage here, meaning they can straight up wipe the Possessed with the full combo if Agonies isn't up.
Enough advantages layer onto the Harlequins, and get worse as the game goes on, that I think the Emperor's Children have to just accept that this is tough, and go for a full send. Pick Warp Ritual, The Long War and probably Exalt, then shove the Possessed with the Characters onto the centre and try and hold it. As long as a Character can Heroic and trigger Soporific Gaze the Harlequins can't charge the Possessed, making their lives a bit harder. The Harlequins can, of course play a flanking game very well too, and I think there's a good chance the Children just run out of stuff here and die, but that's going to happen anyway if they try and play this cagily, and at least doing this gives them some time to potentially score Warp Ritual and Long War while disrupting Take Your places. There are absolutely some big failure cases - get a key character sniped out by Mirror of Minds or charged and dropped with Deadly Embrace prior to the Fight Phase and it's potentially bye-bye Possessed, but this definitely feels like the high risk plan with some potential for reward in a very tricky game. Ultimately, however, the Harlequins did take the game handily, suggesting they were able to leverage their advantages to too great an effect.
Result
Harlequins Victory - 91 - 44Jack Harpster - Harlequins - 1st Place
Credit: Docsucram
The List
See ShowdownArchetype
Twilight SaedathThoughts
Back-to-back GW open titles for Jack is a pretty spectacular achievement, smashing him back to the top of the ITC, even after some of the top UK players drank deep of the points bounty on offer at the LGT. As mentioned in the Showdown, I think the Twilight build is a good fit for the GW terrain, as it makes both good aggressive use of the terrain to stage its units, and is better able to prise opponents out of ruins in turn. An excellent choice, and well rewarded with a big fancy trophy.Ben Cherwien - Emperor's Children - 2nd Place
Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones
The List
See ShowdownArchetype
Emperor's ChildrenThoughts
Once again, Emperor's Children have a tonne of power, and the skirmishing Infantry gameplan they want to deploy works super well on the boards that were in use, making them a great choice. I suspect that's also the thinking behind going the Possessed route rather than Terminators, as they have a better threat range when kool-aid manning out from walls, and are extremely scary when they get to Set to Defend. Well done to Ben on an excellent run here!Thomas Ogden - T'au Sept - 3rd Place
Credit: Kevin Stillman
The List
Archetype
Heavy-duty Tau SeptThoughts
Unlike the previous two lists, very much a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" here, as Thomas has been crushing opponents left and right with this army over the last few months, and all that practice clearly paid off here on the big stage. It helps that the list is pretty great on GW terrain just on baseline, with the Sun Sharks being particularly nice, and only Jack's Harlequins were able to take the army down in a relatively close semi-final. This build doesn't pack that many units, but every unit it has is extremely deadly and pretty durable, leaving opponents with few easy attack surfaces to start reducing its terrifying damage output, and that's a very strong plan indeed.John Lennon - Hive Fleet Kraken - 4th Place
Credit: BuffaloChicken
The List
Archetype
Kraken PressureThoughts
John continues in his role as one of the few players still banging the drum for Kraken over Leviathan, following up last week's win at the Crucible 10 Major with fourth place here. This list puts the opponent under very heavy pressure with the Ravener rush, and thanks to Kraken's extra AP they're broadly effective even into Armour of Contempt. Once the opponent is done dealing with that they're going to find they're missing a large number of units thanks to Spore Mine accidents, and from there pushing into the wall of Psychic damage and Hive Tyrants is a pretty daunting prospect. It worked last week, it seems to have worked pretty well this week too, and from the sample size of one (1) I am forced to conclude that Kraken is, in fact, better than Leviathan. That's Science!The Best of the Rest
The other players with at least two wins in the top bracket were:- 5th - Marc Parker - Tyranids: Leviathan Carnifex spam, with an Exocrine stacked on top for even more firepower.
- 6th - Oliver Smith - Tau: Tau Sept with a big Crisis team and two Riptides to take advantage of the GW terrain.
- 7th - Anthony Vanella - Emperor's Children: Abaddon and Lucius lead a big Terminator squad and three units each of Possessed and Noise Marines to war.
- 8th - Marshall Peterson - Necrons: Crunchy Eternal Expansionists with lots of Skorpekh and Lychguard, then a big unit of Ophydians for glass cannon funtimes.
- 9th - Steven Crawley - Necrons: More crunchy Eternal Expansionists with lots of Skorpekh and Ophydians, plus a full Lokhust unit.
- 10th - Andrew Gonyo - Tau: Farsight Enclaves Triptide with Sun Sharks flying over head, and a trio of tooled-up Commanders. Terrifying alpha-strike capabilities, and very hard to stop on the terrain.
- 11th - Daniel Sansone - Tyranids: Leviathan Warriors and Harpies.
Battle For Salvation GT 2022
81-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in West Nyack, NY, US on October 08 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.Daniel Wohlmuth - Ynnari - 1st Place
Credit: Keewa
The List
Archetype
Melee YnnariFinal Round Matchup
92 - 71 Victory against Alexander Fennell - Necrons.Thoughts
Great to see that the trend of people making Ynnari work continues! This build takes various ingredients that have worked well across Ynnari builds and turns them up. Bringing a Webway Gate and Baharroth (in an Auxiliary) makes scoring Hidden Path extremely feasible, especially with the Yncarne sometimes being able to pop in at an emergency moment, and combining that with lots of nasty melee aspects and some Swooping Hawks to lock down Wrath of Khaine and some great spike damage from the Yncarne, big Troupe and Bow Farseer means that this build is very scary to try and play against - and no one pulled it off. Congratulations to Daniel on taking down a major in style.Evan Tomchin - T'au Empire - 2nd Place
Tau Hammerhead Gunship. Credit: Jack Hunter
The List
Archetype
Heavy-duty Tau SeptThoughts
We've already seen a similar build once this week, and Evan's strong performance here just nails down that this is one of the best ways to play Tau right now. He's tuned in slightly more sacrificial units for early objective play than Thomas's build, giving it a bit more angles if it doesn't have GW-terrain to rely on, but otherwise it's the same deal - good early reach, and big units that utterly murder stuff while being really hard to make die.Alexander Fennell - Necrons - 3rd Place
Skorpekh Destroyers. Credit: Rockfish
The List
Archetype
Destroyer/Body-heavy Eternal ExpansionistsThoughts
For my money, this is the best variant of one of the best builds at the moment, and it's not surprising to see someone of Alex's calibre putting in a podium finish with it. Full Scarab units with a Chronometron and the Nanoscarab Beam applied are so obnoxiously difficult to play early Primary against that it's very likely they force opponents into over-committing and getting blown out by the many, many Destroyers here, and just chewing through all the Skorpekh bodies even after dealing with the first wave is really daunting. It can be done, as Daniel was able to demonstrate in the final (and where opponents can kill it it does bleed No Prisoners real bad), but this list goes into every game with a plan that's seriously hard to deal with, and enough options in its back pocket to adapt on the fly, making it very potent.Sam O’Brien - T'au Empire - 4th Place
XV8 Crisis Battlesuit Team. Credit: Rockfish
The List
Archetype
Farsight Enclaves Commanders and SuitsThoughts
Sam puts in an excellent finish here with her spin on the other popular Sept, Farsight. You've still got the one big Crisis bomb and Sun Sharks here, but rather than backing that with more big units, the list packs small Crisis Teams that can get souped-up with Exemplar of the Mont'ka then zoom out and trade favourbly into a lot of stuff. It's also got a bit more melee threat thanks to having both Farsight and a melee-ish Enforcer, which all combines to give it a better game plan if it needs to fight a wide-ranging brawl, and also more spare units to pick up points on Secondaries like Aerospace Relays. Congratulations to Sam on rounding out the top four.The Best of the Rest
There were 4 more players on 5-1 records. They were:- 5th - Luke McCarthy - Emperor's Children: Abaddon, a big Terminator block and three units each of Noise Marines and Possessed.
- 6th - Frank Dalykas - Thousand Sons: Cult of Duplicity with a few tweaks from the norm - shriking one Terminator squad to pack a grav-flux Leviathan (presumably to help answer Knights) and a few units of Tzaangors as cheap fodder..
- 7th - Robert Roda - Thousand Sons: A more conventional double-Scarab Duplicity build.
- 8th - James Watkins - Chaos Knights: Herpetrax with a tanked up Abominant and Desecrator, then lots of Dogs.
Cheseaux Buccaneers Open 2022
All the lists for this event can be found in Tourneykeeper. This event used 20-0 scoring to decide matches and for tiebreaks.William Fuhrimann - Imperial Knights -1st Place
Armiger Warglaive. Credit: Jack Hunter
The List
Archetype
Freeblade LanceFinal Round Matchup
20-0 Victory against Christoph Kammer - Tau.Why it's Interesting in 9th
Freeblade Lance with one big Knight and this Armiger setup continues to be very effective, with this particular spin going for the slightly grindier, more efficiency-based Paladin option over the go-fast Errant some other builds have used. Both have seen success, and although I honestly might have leaned towards the Errant build for 20-0 (just for the blowout potential of overrunning an opponent), the Paladin performed for William here, earning glorious victory - even in the face of what is frankly a terrifying matchup in the final round.Raphael Tripod - Imperial Knights - 2nd Place (Undefeated with a Draw)
Armiger Warglaives. Credit: Kevin Genson
The List
Archetype
Imperialis Noble CombatantsWhy it's Interesting in 9th
Another Knight build here, this one a little off the beaten path, but still with some similarities to the Freeblade setups. It is once again the Imperialis custom traits powering things here, with Noble Combatants being scary enough that it's actually worth taking on all your melee Knights, and a trio of Hunters of Beasts Freeblades providing an extremely flexible shooting base while the main force is out stomping. Combatants is particularly nasty with siege-claw Moiraxes too, as it helps mitigate the -1 to hit, and their 6" heroic when they're near to the Errant also makes them extra effective at board control. It's a neat twist and a cunning use of the available tools, very well deserved second place here (only a single VP behind William, as both were 4.5-0.5 at the end).The Rest of the Best
Four more players finished with 4-1 records (treating three wins and a draw as 4-1 in one case):- 3rd - Colin Schmid - Black Legion: Abaddon leading a big Terminator block, plus a tooled-up Plague Marine unit as a melee missile and a full squad of Rubricae with warpflamers to clear hordes (and really anything else if Abaddon puts re-roll wounds on them). Veilbreaker Plate also lets this be thrown at the opponent at any moment, a terrifying prospect.
- 4th - Frédéric In-Albon - Tau: Heavy-duty Tau Sept with two big Crisis units and a trio of Hammerheads (including Longstrike), then Kroot to sacrifice onto objectives.
- 5th - Paul Neuburger - Salamanders: A great run from Salamanders here, using lots of VanVets and two full blocks of Flamestorm Aggressors to provide durable and lethal blocks to gum up the mid-board and run up the points on their Secondary.
- 6th - Makash - Death Guard: Extra-inexorable Inexorable, with a mighty 21 Terminators of various flavours (including a full Blightlord unit) and Plague Marines/Bloat Drones in support.
NurgleMania
All the lists for this event can be found in T3. Many players in here go by screen names rather than real ones. This event used 20-0 scoring to decide games and as a tiebreak. Unfortunately, T3 doesn't have pairing info for this one that I can see.Angrym - Tyranids - 1st Place
Tyranid Warriors. Credit: Rockfish
The List
Archetype
Leviathan Warriors & HarpiesWhy it's Interesting in 9th
I guess somehow managing to squeeze a foot Tyrant in alongside all the rest of the horror here is an impressive feat of list tuning, and brings the unit count low enough that quite a few kill-focused Secondaries start to look dicey, but otherwise you all know full well what this monstrous machine can do. Well done to Angrym on the win.The Rest of the Best
Six more players finished on 4-1 records. They were:- 2nd - Spawny - Harlequins: Light Saedath Boats/Troupes/Characters.
- 3rd - DonPedro - Chaos Daemons: Be'lakor and the Indomitable Bloodthirster, plys lots of troops of various flavoures, a Fateskimmer and loads of Flamers.
- 4th - Kneisl - Harlequins: Dark Saedath going a bit wider than Light tends to, sporting three individual Voidweavers and three small Skyweaver units in addition to Troops and rides.
- 5th - Kanonenfutter - Genestealer Cults: A melee horde build utilising lots of heavily melee-armed Acolytes with Impasioned/Industrial Affinity as the Cult Creed, with lots of the normal fancy toys like Rockgrinders, Purestrains and Ridgerunners in support.
- 6th - Gier - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with an Exorcist snuck in for big ranged damage.
- 7th - Kobold93 - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with an alternative plan for ranged damage - a pair of Hunters of Beasts Helverins.
From Hell Project
All the lists for this event can be found in MiniHeadQuarters. That means we're once again on screen names for participants. It also used 20-0 scoring to decide games and as a tiebreak.The Showdown
Matchup & Mission - Death and Zeal
vs.
Vidar - Daemonic Dogwalker: Abaddon, Herpetrax Dogs, and a Daemon detachment to provide a cheap source of Psychic Actions (backed up by the Pyrothrone Dog), Flamers, and an angle on Banners if needed.
Thoughts
Clearly Tzeentch got a bit overconfident after last week's successful European scheme, as we've got some (mind-warping) blue on (inscrutable) blue action here in a Chaos Clash. In the more robotic corner you've got Daemonic Dogwalker - extremely good objective pressure, challenging to take down, and lots of flexibility on scoring. Over in the dusty corner there are lots of Rubricae, one big squad of Scarabs, Spawn to back-fill for a big pile of wounds, then a detachment of Flamers for extra position play.Ironically, in this instance I can believe that both sides kind of wish they'd left their Daemons at home. The Thousand Sons contingent is OK, but you'd probably prefer the points to just go on more Scarabs here, as only the big flamer units really threaten Knights, and ideally want Infernal Flames applied for even that. The Knights arguably come off even worse though - I think they do like having an option on Banners here, as it lets them play a bit more cagily rather than charging onto the jaws of endless Mortal Wounds, but having Psykers in the list is an active downside as it turns off Abhor the Witch and turns on Wrath of Magnus, while scoring Psychic Actions is unlikely to be a good plan here. Their Flamers are at least a bit more useful - the big squads have a shot at outright wiping a Rubricae unit with a mild high roll, because even though they'll be saving at 3+, enough successful wounds will get things done eventually, and the spawn will vanish in a puff of smoke if looked at funny. You'd still vastly rather have, say a trio of Dreadblade Executioners instead though.
Death and Zeal gives both sides quite a bit of flexibility in how they maneuvre, but a glance at the Secondaries looks very favourable to the Sons. They can take Wrath of Magnus, Bring it Down or Sorcerous Prowess (depending on how they want to play things) and a Psychic Secondary and be pretty confidant of scoring well on them. The Knights get a good ride on Ruthless Tyranny (but then when don't they), but with Psychic options closed off, they're probably on something like Banners/No Prisoners beyond that. I don't think that's horrible from the point of view of their game plan - their big advantage is that they have a much easier time flipping an objective on demand, particularly late game once they turn off ObSec. I think their plan has to be to feed a War Dog onto the centre each turn while otherwise playing pretty defensively and keeping two banners up, then go for flipping the Primary heavily their way on turns four and five, especially as they do have tools for picking off straggling Rubricae squads. I think there's a distinct risk of running out of stuff, especially against an army that can one-round Abaddon in a pinch (though that does at least become very hard if the Scarabs die), but it doesn't feel like a total wash.
The Sons have a slightly tricky choice to make in the face of that - on the one hand they could send the Scarabs in to clear out the objective the first time a War Dog appears, demanding a serious answer, but if the Knights manage to take out the Scarabs in response, they can then start to bully the rest of the army more freely. I think you probably do want to go for it, but I'll admit that I'm not certain, and the outcome could go either way.
Or it could be a draw - which is what we ended up with here. I think I'd have marginally favoured the Tsons to be able to muster enough damage to bleed the Knights out, but clearly Tzeentch was just putting on an exhibition match after all. Just as planned.
Result
10-10 DrawVidar was on a higher match score going into this though, so took the event win.
Vidar - Daemonic Dogwalker - 1st Place
Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones
The List
See ShowdownArchetype
Daemonic DogwalkerWhy it's Interesting in 9th
All very much covered in the showdown - bringing Daemons into Dogwalker sacrifices a little bit of staying power from the standard build, but massively broadens Secondary options, and can force many opponents to play extra cautiously to avoid getting owned by Flamers, mitigating the reduced depth. Having more mid-boardy shooty War Dogs also helps with that, as while they're pretty weak in combat, they can at least go stand on an objective in a pinch. As discussed above, making this choice does specifically tank your chances against Thousand Sons, but because of the strong performance leading up to that, and holding the Sons to a draw, Vidar won the day.The Rest of the Best
Three players finished on 4-1 records. They were:- 2nd - ManX - Necrons: Eternal Expansionists showing off the power of Ghost Arks in the build, backed by lots of Skorpekh and a full Lokhust block.
- 3rd - Shev - Drukhari: All-rounder Drukhari goodstuff with a few unusual subfaction picks - Cursed Blade on Wyches to improve their ability to act as speedbumps, and Coven of Twelve on some Wracks and Grotesques to help push past Armour of Contempt.
- 4th - Guillou - Thousand Sons & Daemons: Cult of Duplicity with lots of Rubricae and one big Scarab block, then lots of Flamers in a Daemon detachment.
Torneo Competitivo Capilla
38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Capilla del Monte, Córdoba, AR on October 08 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.Juan Pablo Sanchez - Necrons - 1st Place
Necron Warriors. Credit: Pendulin
The List
Archetype
Eternal Expansionists with WarriorsFinal Round Matchup
86-80 Victory against Santiago Brassiolo - Tyranids.Thoughts
Another build trading on the power of Eternal Expansionists, but with an interesting tweak from normal - bringing some Warriors along. While there are some matchups where they won't pay for themselves, access to double-counting ObSec models definitely opens up the option to flip objectives against durable enemy Troops, and given the final round was a very close-fought victory against Leviathan Warriors, that may genuinely have made a big difference! Congratulations to Juan on taking the trophy.The Best of the Rest
There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:- 2nd - Antonio Gardella - Harlequins: Light Saedath Boats/Troupes/Characters with a pair of Voidweavers backing them up.
- 3rd - Juan Arteaga - Necrons: A more ranged-oriented Eternal Expansionists build with a pair each of Transcendant C'tan and Doom Scythes, then lots of pesty chaff units to play for objectives while the zapping happens.
- 4th - Santiago Brassiolo - Hive Fleet Leviathan: Leviathan Warriors and Harpies.
- 5th - Nicholas Ciccarelli - Adepta Sororitas: A very unusual Sororitas setup here, using Raging Fervour (extra melta range) and Holy Wrath (extra melee AP) to create an all-rounder trait, then bringing loads of MSUs to fight for the board and the Triumph of St. Katherine to provide extra reliability.
- 6th - Javier Corigliano - Drukhari: Realspace Raid Drukhari Goodstuff with Prophets Grotesques and Haemoxcytes to gum the board and Black Heart Voidravens and a Raveger to provide some serious shooting.
- 7th - Joaquín Farah - Adepta Sororitas: Bloody Rose Goodstuff with Paragons for crunch and a unit of Dominions to provide early flexibilty via a Rhino without the CP cost of Carry Forth the Faithful.
