The Balance Dataslate is now fully operational, bringing us a novelty for 10th Edition – not a single Aeldari list winning a tournament. Big tick right out the gate there. The nefarious elves are far from harmless even in their partially de-fanged state, but it certainly seems like other factions (particularly Space Marines) are now much better able to take a shot at them. That’s great news for the game, and means we can all get properly hyped up for the big events that are hurtling towards us in the near future. We’ve also got plenty to cover this week, so Lowest of Men is going to be taking the helm on Friday to look at half of them, while I cover the first crop today.

Speaking of which, I’ll be looking at:

• Ratcon (major)
• Fields of Damnation
• Iberian Open Replay La Marca d’Egara
• 40k War for the Forge GT 2023

On Friday, we’ll cover:

• Torneo Nacional Warhammer 40k Mexico
• Lakes of Blood 2023
• Banished Cup
• No Surrender 2023

We’re back to normal democratic service this week, so the patrons have voted and our showdowns are:

• Space Wolves vs Tau at the Iberian Open
• Votann vs Chaos Knights at the Banished Cup

Ratcon 2023

89-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Ballarat East, Victoria, AU on September 15 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Note: This event used some absolutely wild special mission rules on top of the Leviathan pack.

Rhys Cunningham – Drukhari – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Darklight and Talos

Final Round Matchup

84 – 83 Victory against Matt Morosoli – Chaos Knights.

Thoughts

I’m sure some people are already screaming in horror at elves still sneakily stealing the top spot at the biggest event of the weekend, but hey they’re different elves. Spikier. Meaner.

Heavily armed too – although the cost hike on Ravagers balances it out a bit, Drukhari can get a tonne of great guns onto the table, all attached to speedy hulls, which makes this build extremely effective into many of the Marine lists that have immediately popped up. You also get some defensive heft from the Talos (whose shooting is no joke itself, twin-linked on Haywire is very, very good) and some great objective tools in Mandrakes. You still suffer from a pretty mediocre stratagem sheet in the Index detachment, but conversely you make great use of the Core Stratagems, and this build can now play a very classic Drukhari game and expect to thrive. Well done to Rhys on taking down the event!

Boyd Morrall – Grey Knights – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

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Archetype

Dreadknights and…Terminators. Had me worried for a sec there.

Thoughts

Grey Knights had one of the odder landings for the 10th Indexes, because their rules are great but the points costs were too high, and they struggled with handling tanks. The latter point is still something of a concern, especially as Marine tanks look excellent now, but with particulaly large drops coming for Nemesis Dreadknights you’re much better able to get OK anti-heavy tools down, and back them up with a whole bunch of Mortal Wounds emanating from the Librarians hidden in Terminator squads.

You also get enough stuff on the table to act as an anchor for the big Paladin brick, which better enables you to leverage what a complete nightmare they are. Between the Sigil of Exigence and Stratagem sheet they’re extremely difficult to pin down, they unleash great shooting at range, and with a Chaplain leading them they have enough melee punch to win most fights. They’re also big winners from Custodes dropping off heavily, because that means there are fewer armies out there with strong Mortal defences and who can trump the Terminators in melee.

While I suspect that Grey Knights would have done particularly well from custom missions, I’m pretty confident they’re genuinely legit now, so expect to see more of them out and about, and well done to Boyd for leading the charge.

Christian Pearse – Thousand Sons – 3rd Place

The List

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Archetype

Herohammer Tsons

Thoughts

Thousand Sons took one of the harder hits in the dataslate, and it’s definitely had an immediate impact on their performance but they still seem to be able to compete – which is good! Prior to the balance dataslate you could kind of cram both Herohammer and a solid force of Rubrics/Scarabs/Mutaliths, but now you definitely have to choose. Christian has gone for the Herohammer option, maintaining a massive number of Cabal points, Mortals and horrible tricks at the expense of not having a solid core past Magnus, so risking getting bowled over by opponents who can adapt to the trickery.

That is, obviously, far easier said than done, and it’s notable that this is another build where the drop-off in Custodes (plus them being very vulnerable to Magnus popping full re-rolls now) really helps – they’d previously have been the prime candidate to just slam into this like a bow wave and take it off the table, but now not so much. I also like (and expect to see more of) the double Lone Op Daemons for objective babysitting, which alongside the Cultists and Rhino help give the list just that bit more board presence at a bargain price. Clearly Tzeentch isn’t done with the metagame just yet, and well done to loyal acolyte Christian.

Dean Sinnbeck – World Eaters – 4th Place

The List

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Archetype

Double Lord of Skulls

Thoughts

Amazing. I guess speaking of “hitting like a bow wave” you’ve got this violent concoction. Advance and Charge Lords of SKulls that can at least somewhat try to stage mid-board without getting shot (depending on the terrain, not on all tables due to the sheer size) are a scary prospect, particularly with loads of Eightbound and Angron in tow, and this (plus some of the other things you can do with World Eaters now) looks like an absolutely vicious DPS check that fewer lists can trivially pass post-Dataslate. I’m afraid I don’t really have anything particularly complicated to say beyond that, but it’s cool to see the World Eaters get a look in even with a skewed list. Great stuff from Dean.

The Best of the Rest

There were 12 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

Fields of Damnation

54-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Saskatoon, SK, Canada on September 16 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Morgan Smerek – Ultramarines – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Large Armoured Sons

Final Round Matchup

72 – 60 Victory against Colin Rotariu – Necrons.

Thoughts

The big news from the Balance Dataslate for Marines was the massive improvement that their tanks and Gravis units got, with Aggressors in particular being massive winners. Running these around with either a Bolter Discipline Biologis or Calgar creates an exceptionally lethal unit, and hey this army can choose either! I suspect, given what else is here, that Calgar is riding around in the Land Raider with his Bladeguard Boys and the Aggressors are arriving from Deep Strike thanks to Ventris using Master of the Fleet, removing the risk of the opponent finding some way to punk them before they get to do their thing, and striking fear into the hearts of Necrons in particular.

Honestly, the options don’t even stop there, and I really like how flexible this build is. If you want an alternate melee sucker punch to load up in the Raider (trusting Calgar’s Advance/Charge to get the Bladeguard where they need) then you’ve got the Assault Intercessors, who have fantastic synergy with the Primaris Chaplain, thanks to the combination of +1 to Wound and full Wound re-rolls meaning you’re basically never converting less than 55% of your hits.

That combines with the Bladeguard and Aggressors to ensure that there are three units here that are extremely nasty lawnmowers in melee, and the shooting of the Aggressors is backed up by the Land Raider and Redemptor (who is just here, cause why not). Add plenty of utility from all the Phobos stuff and I think this is a really great example of how you can succeed with Marines now – leverage the ability to bring lots of units that are good at their jobs, make sure you’ve got enough big pressure pieces to capitalise on any weakness, and maximise your ability to adapt with tools like Calgar and Ventris (Shrike is also great if Ultramarines aren’t your thing). Good work from Morgan.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd (4.5-0.5) – Adam Green – Adeptus Astartes: Guns and guys for days – small Desolation Squads (which are very much sharing real estate with Fire Prisms on “how much can we nerf something and it still be good?”), big bricks of Terminators and Aggressors, and some Dreads for backup.
• 3rd – Orion Croteau – Space Wolves: Spicy Character Dreadnoughts and two tooled up Thundercav units with Characters. Also, a Land Raider full of Blood Claws. Also – actually running as Champions of Russ, not GTF.
• 4th – Ozzie Meloche – Aeldari: A new spin on Aeldari, going for lots of speedy go-wide biker MSUs, plus two units of Fire Dragons in Falcons.
• 5th – Darren Jac – Genestealer Cult: A much reduced horde/Aberrants build.
• 6th – Thomas Cruickshank – Orks: Trukk Spam, filling them with a mix of Boyz, Flash Gitz and Beast Snaggas.
• 7th – Cory Tical – Black Templars: Another Marine player dedicated to their chapter, going for the Righteous Crusaders, taking the spicy Epic Heroes and loading up on a mixed loadout of Infantry and some Gladiators.
• 8th – Colin Rotariu – Necrons: Warriors, Doomsdays and one Lychguard unit. Had the misfortune to hit the Calgar Aggressor brick in the final, which uh, yeah that doesn’t go so well for Necrons.
• 9th – Kale Greenfield – Black Templars: Dreadnoughts and Crusaders for days.
• 10th – Byron Livingstone – Tyranids: Monster mash.

Iberian Open Replay La Marca d’Egara

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Terrassa, CT, ES on September 16 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Search and Destroy – Supply Drop – Chilling Rain

Nymerio Stark – Space Wolves: Aggressors and friends, with a big pack of Wolves and a big pack of Wulfen backing them.
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vs.

Roger Boira – T’au Empire: An enhanced version of the all-rounder Tau lists that were doing OK pre-dataslate.
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Thoughts

Units galore on both sides here, with the Tau also enjoying their big point drops and using them to sneak in a Riptide alongside lots of the normal goodies. Even small Crisis units are no joke in terms of damage output, and the big one with Kauyon (accessible early thanks to the Coldstar Enhancement) is one of the very nastiest things in the whole game. Similar to Grey Knights, they now have enough stuff to control the table to allow them to get maximum value from a lethal and speedy shooting threat.

The Space Wolves aren’t short of toys either, mind. As always, being able to bring cheap objective wolves is great (particularly against Tau, where you need some sacrifices), and you get some nice Character options like Bjorn and the Iron Priest, to which the normal Marine goodies get added. Without access to Deep Strike, the Aggressors need a Land Raider Crusader to ride around in, which they have, and are still ultra-potent (threatening even the Crisis Team thanks to their AP boosts) and a great centrepiece. The Wulfen are also cute (in a snarling and feral way), now cheap enough that you can run them as a nippy skirmishing unit with lots of attacks and not thing too hard about it. Don’t forget that if you slam them into Assault Doctrine with Adaptive Strategy then pop Honour the Chapter they’ll hit at S5 with Lance and AP-2, enough to carve a big chunk out of many foes. I think I probably still prefer the Assault Intercessor/Chaplain combo, as it’s less CP intensive, and seeing them here is making me wonder if there might be play in a five-model unit as an inexpensive harrassment piece.

That said, I think the wolves have one notable problem here – they’re reliant on getting into position with the Aggressors to hit the Tau hard at range, and don’t have quite enough redundancy in terms of big threats to weather the pain that’s going to be coming their way. Tau are great at picking off small units piecemeal, and I think that’s exactly what they’re going to be able to do here, especially with lots of crunchy wounds from the Tetras and Riptide that can be devoted to gumming up the board for a bit. Now that Tau are actually good, people are shortly going to discover exactly how stupid the Tetra datasheet is for the price, and they really help put the screws on the Wolves here. You might argue that Eradicators are a decent counter to them, and they are, but they also cost more points than the Tetras, so if they immediately get punked after emerging to do their thing, then what has really been achieved?

They’re still OK for giving the wolves something of a fighting chance, because just the act of putting three units of them in Strat Reserves is going to force the Tau to be much more cautious with some of their toys than they might want, potentially buying the Marines time to get a foothold and try and build a Primary lead. They have enough cheap units for Secondaries that they’ve probably got a decent “tail” of scoring available, so I’d definitely be shooting for early points in their position and seeing what I could make happen. Unfortunately, the mission doesn’t really help with that, as Supply Drop doesn’t provide big opportunities for front-loaded scoring, and does let an army that tables their opponent make up some points at the end.

Given that, the Tau did manage to put the dogs down, but the Wolves made a spirited showing in what I think is a fairly challenging matchup, so well done to both sides!

Result

T’au Empire Victory – 68 – 63

Roger Boira – T’au Empire – 1st Place

The List

See showdown.

Archetype

Suits and Tetras

Final Round Matchup

68 – 63 Victory against Nymerio Stark – Space Wolves.

Thoughts

The big dial in Tau HQ has been ceremonially moved from “it’s so over” to “we’re so back”, because Tau can now put terrifying numbers of good units on the table, giving them the staying power to make it to Kauyon with lots of threats up, and to tangle up the foe to mitigate their lack of melee. They still have to plan carefully around the tendancy of their best unit to melt themselves with Hazardous, but that’s another place where redundancy helps a tonne. There are also plenty of ways you can take them now – I’ve already seen this enhanced version of their “balanced” lists, a Breacherfish heavy build and a down-the-line Crisis spam setup do well, so it’s open season on yelling “For the Greater Good” and blowing up some Space Marines. Well done Roger for doing just that.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd (4.5-0.5) – OuX ™ – Imperial Knights: Canis and a Crusader with Armiger backup, definitely showing off one of the routes you can go to maintain brutality.
• 3rd – Nymerio Stark – Space Wolves: See showdown.
• 4th – Manel Tulla – Chaos Space Marines: Abaddon gunline with a double Chosen/Lord Rhino party bus for counter-charge.
• 5th – Pepe Andreu – Grey Knights: Three full Terminator bricks (two regular, one Paladin).
• 6th – Gispano MdE – Death Guard: Mortarion, Typhus with a massive Poxwalker brick, and some go-wide hulls from Bloat-Drones and Brigands.
• 7th – Lluis ThYr0N – Chaos Knights: Dogs for days.

40k War for the Forge GT 2023

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Larry Paladin – Dark Angels – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Crunchy Dark Angels

Final Round Matchup

62-56 Victory vs Ryan Snyder – Space Marines

Thoughts

It was a skew-tastic Marine showdown on the top tables here, neatly leaning in to the other new nasty thing they can do, which is bring loads of hulls to the table and demand the enemy deal with them. This is a true wall of ceremite for opponents to try and deal with, and I really like the choice to embed some emergency melee centrepieces from the two Terminator squads. That gives this list much more adaptability against opponents who might be able to fight it by going for bully charges and move blocking, helping avoid one of the downsides of skew, and it also leverages the Dark Angels key strength of “Terminators but better”. All good stuff, and some real classics out on the table, good job Larry.

The Best of the Rest

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

Wrap Up

Make sure to check back in on Friday when Lowest of Men has four more events for your delectation, and I hope everyone playing in events this weekend enjoys the exciting new world we find outselves in!