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.

Everyone out there enjoying their false sense of security that maybe Knights aren’t so bad? Surprise – the part splitting algorithm put all four events that Knights won into part 3. Please be upstanding for your new robot overlords.

Today we’ve got:

• Salzburg Major 40K Singles 2025 – Alpine Cup
• The Battle For Middle Wisko GT
• Luxembourg Open – Golden ticket event
• The PNW Warlord’s TACOMA OPEN PREP GT
• The GOLDEN CREW – Golden Ticket Atlanta 2025
• 3rd Annual Pop Con GT

Part 1 from Wednesday covered:

• Glasshammer Major – Nottingham
• Battle for the Capital GT 2025
• 2.Sinsheimer Gt Canes Belli
• Skövde Battle Forge IV
• Safety’s Off “Slap ‘Em On The Sunburn” GT
• Prestige Wargaming GRAND Tournament

Part 2 from Lowest of Men on Friday featured:

• Tolaris Grand Tournament
• Sydney GT Winter – NSWTC
• BrewHammer GT 7
• Torneo GT Blackstone
• Kirtonian Total Carnage VII
• DA GITHAMMER SUMMER WAAAGH!!!! GT
• Auspicious Northern Showdown

Salzburg Major 40K Singles 2025 – Alpine Cup

69-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Salzburg, Salzburg, AT on June 28 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Luis Stiemerling – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance) – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Big Atrapii

Thoughts

It will not come as a great shock that, given their rules haven’t meaningfully changed,  dropping the price on various big Knights has made the two that were already the best (Canis and the Atrapos) even better, and they lead the charge for the faction here. Three Atrapii also means that you can crank those Helverins to the max if you hit another Knight build, and lots of D4 also means you’re extremely well positioned to take on the Death Guard menace. The Atrapos is such a good all-rounder that there’s no real need to run any other big Knights other than Canis, and although plenty of other big Knights are good and playable too, the correct number of Atrapii for Imperial Knight players is “as many as possible” (edit added later in writing: unless you think someone is going to double C’tan you, maybe). If you are not a Knight player, and want to stress test lists for facing them, this is the build to use. Great job Luis for bringing the noise.

Daniel Klammer – Necrons (Awakened Dynasty) – 2nd Place (4.5-0.5)

The List

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Archetype

Wraith and Doomsday Awakened

Thoughts

Necrons take second here, sporting what is pretty much their optimal core of Szarekh, double Wraiths, double Doomsday. As this build shows off, you cheerfully do that as either Awakened or Starshatter and get decent value in both cases. Running as Awakened here gives your Wraiths a much better chance of punching through some Deathshroud when required, as Protocol of the Hungry Void bumping them to S7 AP-2 elevates their damage to the point where they actually will kill a couple in a fight, where in all other Necron builds the lack of AP is a killer. You also get the stacked Reanimation power of Undying Legions and an Orb from the Command Barge, which can keep them on a point even against the nastiest opposition. Definitely seems reasonable to be looking at Awakened once you’re at double Wraiths, and it also lets you run Imotekh as a solo backfield holder and lean on the revival if they try and Indirect him off or something.

Also of more general note to Necrons is the Canoptek Spyder, who is useful to have around when Thousand Sons are a metagame presence, as an aura of 5+ Feel No Pain against a lot of their stuff. Big fan of this overall – I think Necrons have some great tools to hold onto their position in the metagame, and look forward to seeing more builds like this doing well. Great job Daniel.

Dominik Tavernaro – Chaos Knights (Infernal Lance) – 3rd Place

The List

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Archetype

Big Infernal

Thoughts

Chaos Knights haven’t been idle, and have also unleashed the renewed power of big Knights that has been granted to them. Because so much of the book’s power is now in big Knights, we’ve unsurprisingly seen people gravitate to the big Knight themed detachment (Lords of Dread), but Dominik has put in a great performance here with Infernal Lance, which is my favourite of the bunch. The Unholy Hunger ability lets this build charge its enemies at top speed, and once they arrive the Enhancements and Stratagems give them a top tier tanky Knight (the Lancer) and a wrecking ball (the Abominant), backed by some really good all-rounder shooting from the double gatling Despoiler. Access to Lethal Hits is really transformative for that build, as it puts out so many shots that it’s going to substantially chip even the largest targets with Lethals up, and brutalise any 2W Infantry with Sustained. Karnivores at 17″ move are also extremely high value pressure pieces, and let this build go a bit wider on the table than some other big-focused builds while still thriving. Glad to see this standing out amidst all the Lords of Dread builds, good work Dominik.

Patrick Stevenson – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance) – 4th Place

The List

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Archetype

Triple Bigs

Thoughts

Even more Knights to finish this top four, building on the theme of being able to go a bit wider on the table by cutting down to three bigs, and filling out with a mixture of Armigers and utility pieces. It retains readiness to deal with enemy big threats via two Knights with Thermal Cannons, and it’s also worth highlighting that this helps handle the putative counter for an all Atrapos setup that is Nightbringer/Void Dragon Necrons – halving damage is great against D4, not so much against Melta 6. There we go – a reason not to just use all Atrapii all the time, even though they’re the best, and probably more relevant when you’re running lower numbers like this, as it helps ensure you’re never unable to deal with a target. Good work Patrick.

The Best of the Rest

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

The Battle For Middle Wisko GT

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Wausau, WI, US on June 28 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Wesley St. Hines – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance) – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Volume Firepower Knights

Thoughts

Another angle on Knights next up, here using the access to Ignore Cover from Immolators to maximise the threat of Armiger autocannons and a dakka Crusader, while a Lancer and Canis Rex handle the pressure side of things.You get a healthy number of activations to play with here, which is certainly nice, and the damage output is pretty much universally effective – even half damage does a lot less against this than the Atrapos builds because so much of it is flat 3. Well done to Wesley for claiming another trophy for the noble houses.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd – Jordan Nach – Blood Angels (Liberator Assault Group): An unusual spin on all-rounder Liberator with a big Terminator Assault squad and lots of Devastators to fire out of a Razorback and a Rhino.
• 3rd – Kevin Leonard – Chaos Daemons (Shadow Legion): Heavy hitting Shadow Legion with the standard Be’lakor and Fadethirster monster contingent, but far more hammer units than standard, two Accursed Communes and a triple Slaanesh Chariot unit with Leaping Shadows to go fast.
• 4th – Dakota Kramer – Aeldari (Warhost): As predicted on Wednesday (and I swear I didn’t look ahead at this), double 10-model Fire Dragons is the play for Aeldari in a Knight world.
• 5th – Ryan Wienke – Death Guard (Mortarion’s Hammer): Maximum Daemon Engines.
• 6th – Kade Smrecek – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): Many of the pieces of the standard Warband core, but with the Daemon Prince and a few other bits carved out in favour of Angron.
• 7th – Jordan C Rakow – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): Canis and a Lancer with lots of Armigers.
• 8th – Stephen Crawford – Chaos Daemons (Shadow Legion): Hard-hitting Shadow Legion is the mood, apparently, this one has three Accursed Communes.
• 9th – Oliver Smith – T’au Empire (Mont’ka): Tiger Shark, plus lots of other hulls.

Luxembourg Open – Golden ticket event

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Mersch, Mersch, LU on June 28 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Supply Drop – Hammer and Anvil

Tom Kayser – Emperor’s Children (Coterie of the Conceited)
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vs.

Thomas “LandsKnecht” Beckers – Chaos Knights (Lords of Dread)
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Thoughts

Big boy season is in full effect here, with the terrifying might of five large Knights unleashed on the board, and space found for Rotigus as well. Facing off against them is the two Prince, two Maulerfiend spin on Coterie, which is definitely the best Emperor’s Children build to try and win this, but it’s still going to be super uphill here.

The mission is the killer – this is a tough game for the Emperor’s Children just on sheer killing power, but on a quarters deployment with balanced game-long scoring they might at least be able to use their greater numbers to rack up points, or try and focus down one flank of the chaos forces. On Hammer and Supply Drop, that’s a wash – you can’t really avoid taking on multiple Knights at once, its very easy for them to adapt to your plans, and the area of effect tools (the large Mirror aura and three Abominants) are going to be even more potent than normal. I do think it’s the Abominants that are the particular killer here – the Knights can lead with the Mirror Atrapos with boosted auras, then when the Emperor’s Children engage it send up the three Abominants to start melting faces, and turn on Morale Checks for anything below Starting as their turn three ability. At that point, it feels super hard for the EC to get a foothold back in the game, especially because of the synergy between Rotigus and the chip damage from Abominants; as soon as one of the five-model EC squads loses a model, they can no longer reclaim an objective that’s been Claimed for the Dark Gods and is within Rotigus’ aura.

On Supply drop thats just the final nail in the coffin. Obviously the EC can and should try and focus whole Knights down, but as long as the Knights keep Rotigus protected to the endgame, preventing them from taking the big Primary bounties at the close of play will be nearly impossible. The scoreline here looks like the EC had a valiant go at things, but the end outcome was as expected.

Result

Chaos Knights (Lords of Dread) Victory – 12 – 8

Thomas “LandsKnecht” Beckers – Chaos Knights (Lords of Dread) – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Big Boy Season

Thoughts

This list was inevitable the moment that Abominants landed at 325pts. They’re a weird unit to cost, because the same things that make them somewhat underwhelming solo swap around to becoming virtues once you have three of them, as you start hitting enough volume of Devastating Wounds from their guns and putting meaningful hurt on enemy units with the AoE ability. Getting that as a mere half of your list is extremely good value, and lets you stack up more power pieces to really brutalise the foe. The synergy that Rotigus has with this detachment (as explored in the Showdown) is very strong too, and I think overall this is the second most terrifying list (after the Mortarion’s Hammer/Tyrant build from Wednesday) we’ve looked at this week, impressive work from Thomas.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd – Tom Kayser – Emperor’s Children (Coterie of the Conceited): Double Prince double Maulerfiend Coterie.
• 3rd – Sylvere Jandel – Blood Angels (Liberator Assault Group): Big Sanguinary Guard units with various smaller melee threats,, utility pieces and a couple of tanks backing them up.
• 4th – Paul “Redsloth” Neuburger – Blood Angels (Angelic Inheritors): Lots of Sanguinary Guard, the Librarian/Devastator squad, and a couple of Vindicators.
• 5th – Guillaume “Razorix” Buchkremer – Tyranids (Invasion Fleet): Shooty Invasion Fleet, adding Zoanthropes to the gunline mix and including one big squad of Hormagaunts and some Hyperadapted Raveners as pressure pieces.

The PNW Warlord’s TACOMA OPEN PREP GT

40-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Ellensburg, WA, United States on June 28 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Timothy Grant – Death Guard (Champions of Contagion) – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Plague Marine Champions

Thoughts

Death Guard next to break up the Knightmare, here going for a Champions build that doubles up on Plague Marines as a flexible core, and layers Enhancements with the Detachment rule to maximise the chance of landing the right plagues at the right time, though some of them like Visions of Virulence being Infantry-locked is mildly annoying in a Knight-heavy metagame. Still, adapatability is good when your potential opponents can be skewed hard in multiple different directions, so I can certainly see the appeal. The full Deathshroud unit is also fun here, as you get a lot of bang for your buck when using Stratagems on them, and with a Lord of Contagion and the 5+ Critical option they can just kill a big Knight outright, which is a valuable asset right now. Seems like a fun spin on things if you want a bit more of an infantry focus, great work Timothy.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd – Logan Clark – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): Canis and a Cerastus trio.
• 3rd – James Lee – Emperor’s Children (Coterie of the Conceited): Double Prince double Maulerfiend Coterie.
• 4th – Jacob Shaffner – Imperial Knights (Noble Lance): Quad bigs with Canis, an Atrapos, an Errant and a Warden, plus a few Armigers to buff up.
• 5th – Steven Ross – Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal): Nightbringer, Szarekh, Wraiths and Doomsdays.
• 6th – Josiah Jackson – World Eaters (Berzerker Warband): The stock Berzerker build with a tweak to include one unit of Terminators instead of an Eightbound unit, and no Daemon Prince to let the build go a bit wider.
• 7th – Glen Ray – Chaos Knights (Lords of Dread): Five big fiesta, going for some extra heft by including a Tyrant as one of the picks.
• 8th – Joel Rodgers – Death Guard (Death Lord’s Chosen): Cheap Daemon Engines, Deathshrouds and Mortarion, just with a different suite of Stratagems and Enhancements. I think that makes it every Death Guard detachment hitting at least a 4-1, so good job there.

The GOLDEN CREW – Golden Ticket Atlanta 2025

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italia on June 28 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

This event was not using the new Knight rules.

Riccardo Ghio – Grey Knights (Teleport Strike Force) – 1st Place

The List

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Archetype

Untouchable Terminators

Thoughts

If you buff it, they will come, apparently. This build revives the Teleport Strike Force detachment and the classic strategy from that of building a big Terminator unit to be exceptionally hard to pin down and handle via Sigil of Exigence and Mists of Deimos. Sticking a Grand Master in it as the relic bearer also makes them ultra flexible in what they can kill in melee, as they have the old-school full power version of Ignore Modifiers on their side, so fear no damage reduction. I’ve historically slightly prefer using Paladins in this role so that you get shooting power as well, especially as Knights don’t appear to have been live for this event. They are a bit cheaper mind, and this list thrives on having plenty of supporting units to control the board and score, and it still manages to find space for a couple of Dreadknights on top. ALways had a soft spot for this plan so it’s nice to see it get a bit of airtime over all Warpbane, all the time, good stuff from Riccardo.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd – Luigi Vassallo – Drukhari (Skysplinter Assault): Scourges and utility units in Transports.
• 3rd – Giorgio castelli – Necrons (Starshatter Arsenal): Szarekh, triple Doomsdays and a Wraith block.
• 4th – Andrea Guareschi – Adeptus Mechanicus (Skitarii Hunter Cohort): A Cawl tank gunline supported by lots of small elite Skitarii units and a few Battleline squads in Transports.
• 5th – Jacopo Cigarini – T’au Empire (Mont’ka): Big gun maxing – six Broadsides, three Hammerheads and three Sky Rays, using the mobility of Mont’ka to go hunting.
• 6th – Enea Di Placido – Thousand Sons (Grand Coven): Magnus Grand Coven goodstuff, including two big Enlightened units and a couple of Forgefiends.

3rd Annual Pop Con GT

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Indianapolis, IN, United States on June 28 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Stephen Kennedy – Death Guard (Mortarion’s Hammer) – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Plagueburst Hammer

Thoughts

Not much to say here that hasn’t already been covered elsewhere – I think if you’re running Hammer you are correct to either bring the Plaguebursts (as here) or ally in a Tyrant so you have a good game against Knights, and once you’ve done one of those you can go off to the races. Well done Stephen.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd – Grant Bullard – Chaos Daemons (Shadow Legion): All-rounder Shadow Legion with the standard big Daemons, one Accursed Commune hammer, and some Havocs and utility Daemons supporting them.
• 3rd – John Ontto – Orks (War Horde): Lots of mechanised threats, mixing up shooting and power melee like Breaka Boyz, and a few (cheaper) Speed Freekz units providing backup.
• 4th – Jay Kinney – Drukhari (Reaper’s Wager): Toolboxy all-Drukhari wager with a bit of everything, and one Talos unit as a bit of an anvil.

Wrap Up

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