This week is one for taking a deep breath. After the excitement of the last few weeks, we’ve got but a single GT to look at today, the Onslaught Grand Tournament in Florida. However – next weekend things go off the charts, with events firing all over the place, so we’ll have an absolute avalanche of results to pore over, including a critical mass of events ready for the increasingly hyped new AdMech to prove themselves in. You won’t want to miss next week’s column – but we’ve still got some juicy new builds to look at today, including the latest brew from serial innovator John Lennon, so let’s dive straight in!

Onslaught Grand Tournament

All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. All recent new rules except Sisters were in effect.

John Lennon – Deathwatch – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Drukhari Destroying Deathwatch Dreadnought Detachment.
• Extreme buff stacking allows the dreads to hose almost anything else off the board as well.
• VanVet/biker kill team halves provide efficient, mobile bundles of wounds to shield off the dread bubble.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Apparently John Lennon’s new bit is taking unloved Space Marine chapters and building the most nightmarish Drukhari-slaying concoctions possible out of them, and frankly all power to him for that.

Today’s build takes one of Deathwatch’s definite strengths, namely buffing Redemptor Dreadnoughts, and turns it right up to eleven. You’ve got your standard Dominus Aegis to give them a 5++, and the expected Tome of the Ectoclades to give them one turn of absolutely evaporating something off the board (along with the VolCons, who also benefit hugely from this relic) but the extra anti-Drukhari spice here is the addition of the Vhorkan-Pattern Auspicator, which is an aura of +1 to hit against units with FLY. This list has very clear thoughts on the subject of Raiders and that opinion is “no”.

The nice thing, of course, is that stacking all these buffs plus the flexibility of some other tools mean that it isn’t just Raiders this setup can eradicate. Nowhere to Hide should be about to shoot up in value, because stripping Light Cover off AdMech targets that have applied it with Firepoint Telemetry Cache is going to be hugely useful. That, plus the ability to fire high-AP Blast shots from the Plasma Incinerator, feels like it gives this list a much better shot at pivoting to clear out the new potential metagame threat (even if it hasn’t shown up in force yet) than John’s previous Ultramarine build, and that’s plausibly a driver behind the switch in chapters (assuming it isn’t just showing off at this point). The Dread firebase is rounded out by the presence of a Master of the Forge Techmarine, ensuring that any chip damage that does creep through the Aegis is swiftly dealt with.

It’s a powerful ranged setup, and has some melee punch for the lategame too, but until then the board needs to be contested, and that’s where Proteus Kill Teams sporting the most efficient mobile setup come in. Four Bikers and a storm shield VanVet provide fast, relatively durable units that get all the upsides of both being INFANTRY Troops and having the defensive profile and speed of bikers. It’s definitely one of the best ways to draw value out of these units, and I’m a big fan. The other halves of these teams are kept pretty bare bones, just sporting veterans with shotguns and a single combat shield on the sergeant, but the rise of ROD as a secondary choice means you want a few more small squads you can use to split up and tick off board quarters, and thanks to the clarification of when Combat Squads happen you can now also chuck them into Teleportariums without the other half of the unit having to come too, allowing you to bring them in wherever needed, and get some real value out of the surprisingly nasty shotguns to boot.

That pretty much rounds things out here, and completes a spicy overall recipe. Excellent ranged damage, mobile, flexible units for early positional play, and powerful set of tools for adapting to any situation – what’s not to like? Congratulations to John for another event win.

Collin Watts – Adeptus Custodes – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Newly-discounted Caladii swoop back into their rent-free occupation of my mind.
• Spread-out small units of Venatari and Sagittarum Custodians provide plenty of flexibility and firepower all around the board.
• A pair of Achillus dreads and a charged-up Bike Captain provide some additional heft.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

My nemesis returns. Not Collin, who I’m sure is a very nice man, the Caladius Grav Tank. Oooh I hate it so.

Well, it’s back. Picking up a 20pt price cut in Chapter Approved, especially at the same time as the Telemon went in the other direction, seemed pretty likely to get it back on the table, and sure enough here it is. It helps that the metagame is a very target rich environment for the accelerator cannons right now – they’re great at killing Raiders, but have the AP to punch through sterner targets as well, once again including highly-buffed AdMech nonsense. They’re also very fast and decently resilient for their new price tag, all of which combines to sort them firmly into the “always at least fine” bucket.

There’s a lot of stuff like that in this list too, turning it into a real all-rounder. Sagittarum Custodians provide some solid attrition fire as long as you’ve got more mobile units to range out in front of them, something this list amply covers with three units of Venatari (including one larger one bulked up to benefit from stratagems such as Superior Fire Patterns). Quite apart from being a healthy combination of unit roles, this army ends up packing a truly monstrous number of D2 shots, causing incredible headaches for anyone packing armies that are especially vulnerable to that such as Blood Angels. The flipside is that it does open up a bit of a vulnerability to Death Guard, which makes it unsurprising that some bigger hitters round things out. A pair of Achillus Dreadnoughts boosted with Eternal Penitent stand ready to crack open targets that D2 firepower can’t handle, with six mighty swings for d3+3 damage each, and I suspect needing a source of spike damage is why they get the nod here over the more common Galatus (which trades power for durability). With plenty of CP to play with, the list can also afford to put these into deep strike in games where the lack of the shield might result in an early demise.

Finishing up, we have an Unstoppable Destroyer bike captain, ready to cause as many ObSec headaches as are needed to close the game out. I really like this model and think Destroyer should probably see play over Indomitable Constitution a bit more than it does. Here, the captain lines up alongside the multiple Venatari units to allow the list to threaten multiple objectives with fast, flying ObSec models at the same time, setting up some huge swing turns on the primary.

Custodes have been very heavy on Telemons for a while, but as this list shows they’re far from being a one-note army, and have plenty of powerful tools to operate with going forward. Including the Caladius. Caladius. Anyway, great work from Collin.

Will Taylor – Drukhari – 3rd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Dark Technomancers sticks around, with Cronos and mixed special weapons still drawing plenty of value out of it.
• Multiple tarpit Courts of the Archon line up alongside the Cronos to provide a critical mass of bodies.
• Most of the old Cult and Kabal favourites kick around in some shape or form.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

Here we see a Drukhari list that’s very much on an “Oh no…anyway!” plan for responding to the nerfs. The gang is essentially all here, with point changes covered by removing upgrades from Raiders and the slightly lower price tag on the new setup for Technomancer Wracks. That’s right – everyone’s “favourite” Coven trait is still very much alive and kicking, even if it is where the biggest changes are seen compared to the conventional builds of the past few months. Out are squads with multiple liquifier guns and Grotesques, in come hexrifle/ossefactor Wrack units and a single squad of Cronos. The former still provide some reasonable damage spikes (and can threaten to punk a character with the rifles if they get lucky) while the latter are one of the new darlings of the Drukhari world. Cronos continue to be durable, draw massive benefit from Dark Technomancers, and provide access to one of the nastier strats in the book in the form of Pain Syphon. Finesse a situation where the right unit picks up a kill early on and you’re laughing, and that’s especially true here if something strays into the range of the Cronos themselves.

The big standout elsewhere in the army is the presence of the double Court of the Archon setup, even in a build where only one is eligible for To the Last. It turns out that even without that the unit is just very cost efficient, packing in a spectacular number of wounds for the price, and sets you up with an additional pair of units that are ready to get involved in melee throwdowns against big bricks of infantry from various up-and-coming factions. Being able to nominate one as a TtL target alongside Drazhar also lets you pretty reliably bank at least 10pts if you play cautiously, which can be relevant in matchups where you’re short on good picks or expect to run things close. Mostly, however, they just provide an incredibly sticky way to contest an objective if you park the Raider containing them on top of it, and that’s what you want to line up reliable wins.

The last minor things worth noting are some character choices. The Succubus here sports the new, post-FAQ hotness of comboing Dark Lotus Toxin, razorflails and Precision Blows for the headache-inducing prospect of just straight-up evaporating opposing characters and taking a huge chunk out of anything else. She does a nice job playing support for the Courts too, able to charge in and suppress overwatch, then consolidate out before getting hit back thanks to Show Stealer. The other notable upgrade present is Labyrinthine Cunning, as it would appear that being down a couple of CP post-FAQ makes the regen quite a bit more appealing.

What this army mostly shows is that Drukhari are going nowhere. Being down a few CP and not having as easy a ride to lock in To the Last clearly stings a bit, but overall the army remains incredibly vicious and tough to defeat, and Will was able to pilot this all the way to the top table before finally falling to John’s dedicated Raider killing concoction.

Bryan Malpass – Tzeentch – 4th Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

The Standout Features

• Mortal wounds for days from this wizard-packed list, extremely ready for Lucius Skitarii to try it on.
• Huge bricks of Horrors provide surprisingly durable screens against enemy vengeance.
• Flamers provide a powerful emergency bomb of Mortal Wounds.

Why it’s Interesting in 9th

For our final top four list today, something exciting, new and different. What else would you expect from Tzeentch?

This list is primarily an absolute mortal wound nightmare, sporting a mighty seven Character casters, including several particularly vicious ones. Ahriman is as great as ever, but he’s backed up by a Cult of Magic Devastating Sorcery caster for maximum splash damage from Astral Blast, which can be further augmented by Infernal Gateway from the High Magister Daemon Prince. If the opponent is too clustered up (and there are quite a few armies around that might be thanks to layered buffs) then they’re going to have an extremely bad time, and even if they spread out they’re not going to be totally safe. Tzeentch’s Firestorm on the Devastating Sorcery caster is a sneaky one, because of all the spells available it’s got the highest potential to spike upwards, meaning that enemy Characters are going to have to be perpetually wary of getting incinerated from above, and a cast of Doombolt or Bolt of Change can finish the job if you miss by a single wound or something. The sheer amount of psychic firepower on show here can plausibly push past the normal issues it has with dealing with transports, while standing the army in good stead against various stacked defensive tools (though I imagine new Sisters might give it fits thanks to the new 5+ auto-deny Sacred Rite).

All these wizards need minions to keep them safe, of course, and here that service is amply filled by two massive bricks of Pink Horrors, with points in the bank to roll out additional models if an opponent is looking like chewing through them. With the Changeling here as well to provide a 6+++, on top of their base 4+ invuln, these will die incredibly hard and cause your opponent a huge headache on the way out. They’re also extremely effective horde clearers, especially with some reliable Flickering Flames casters around, and use of Warp Reality off any of the Cult of Mutation units can sometimes slow the enemy to force them to eat another round of this formidible firepower. My guess here is that the summoning points are going on extra horrors almost all of the time, but I do think it’s amusing that once in a blue moon this army is going to Bolt of Change or Gift of Chaos some chump and actually turn them into a Spawn, ready to soak some overwatch or flip objective maths.

Most of the rest of the list is filled out with units for objective play, but one more nasty surprise is lurking in the wings – a squad of Flamers tuned to be just below 10PL so they can be chucked into Strategic Reserves for a single CP (or into Denizens for 2 if you’re feeling spicy). They then come in and kick off an impressive barbecue with Flames of Mutation, providing yet another tool that averages enough mortals for the rest of the damage to easily finish the job. They then demand to be dealt with, drawing attention from the main body of the force.

It’s a very different but still very powerful list overall, and performed extremely well on the day, only dropping a game to the Drukhari build above. It’s great to see some less common choices out and about, and a mortal-heavy damage output potentially stands it in good stead in the near future. Great work from Bryan.

The Rest of the Best

Two more players achieved 4-1 records at this event. They were:

• 5th – Gavin Conn – Necrons: Another showing for a Mephrit/Silent King combo with a big Gauss Flayer unit at the centre, similar to the build from the Rocky Top Rumble. This variant switches out the heavier support firepower for more warriors and some extra utility character support in the form of a Hexmark Destroyer with the Gauntlet of the Conflagrator, professional ruiner of the day of deep striking chaff.
• 6th – Justin Vonsik – Space Wolves: Big Space Wolf energy on show in this wrecking ball of a list – two Wulfen Dreads spearheading a charge by multiple units of ThunderCav, backed up by grav Long Fangs with storm-shield packing Wolf Guard leaders at the head.

Wrap Up

That’s it for this week, the calm before the proverbial metagame storm. Next week will be a big one, and we’ll see you then! In the meantime, comments, questions or suggestions to contact@goonhammer.com.