Good morning, good afternoon, good night and welcome to another CI with me Ellarr and a big ol’ pile of tournament lists to look through. Two events this week to cover, with Kharadron’s release we’ve seen a rise in their usage on top tables as players figure out optimal alpha strike lists that can really punish players who aren’t disciplined with their deployment, make use of multiple screen units in list building or are simply not in a position to do so. Let’s get to it.

Quest of Champions Heat 2

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England GB on April 01 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Fabian Quinn – Barak-Zilfin: One drop Alpha Boats
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vs.

Phil Marshall – Pretenders Host: Two Drop combined arms
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Thoughts

Two team england players face off, Fabian with the same list that team Coach Tom Mawsdley won the Justice Series GT with, Phil with the new Slaanesh hotness that has tempted him away from Slaves to Darkness.

What makes Phil’s list tick? It wants to present a high number of threats between Sigvald, the Keeper (with rend 3 claws thanks to Strength of Godhood), the 10 Slickblades and even the Masque. Most of the army is highly mobile thanks to high movement values and/or run/shoot/charge abilities. Pretenders subfaction is notable in that it gives the army access to the Ironjawz style megabossy ability, allowing Phil to issue the same command from the Keeper 3 times a phase, leading to some hugely potent movement phases, as well as the ability to pull off the hellish triple Unleash hell.

The crucial element of this is the range for both armies – Fabian edges him out on that front and can afford to corner deploy and play cagey, ideally positioning himself in such a way that he can go first, force Phil to come forward heavily or hang back and then be able to do very little on a double turn. If Phil was a 1 drop it can change the dynamic slightly, but the shooting potential of Fabian’s list is too much the moment that Keeper of Secrets gets within kill range.

Result

Barak-Zilfin Victory – 26 – 20

Fabian Quinn – Barak-Zilfin – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Alpha strike Zilfin

Thoughts

It’s the same list I covered here, so I guess all I’ll say is that this core list has legs (or balloons?) and it’s going to present a real challenge for some armies to get past if this gets widely adopted. It’s got quite the initial haymaker punch, but will wilt if it fails to cripple the opponent in the first volley. I expect we may see some armies take some anti shooting tech or adjust slightly to add reach, or perhaps simply go for hyper aggressive 1 drop lists and hope to win the initial role off.

The Best of the Rest

There was 1 player on a 4-0-1 record and 4 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – John Dale – Stormcast Eternals (4-0-1): Karazai, 4 Knight-Vexillors for aoe mortal wound spam and a Celestant prime make up the damage, with Vanguard-Hunters and Praetors for protection and mobility
• 3rd – Phil Marshall – Hedonites of Slaanesh: See showdown
• 4th – Graham Betteridge – Ogor Mawtribes: Graham’s a real Glutton for punishment, bringing 24 of the big bois in a list that wants to charge you and grind you out
• 5th – Tom Marshall – Slaves to Darkness: The brother of Phil, he’s an exceptional player in his own right, finishing 4-1 with a Legion of the First Prince list that wants to stack up Eye of the Gods buffs on a block of chosen and shut down your best unit with Be’lakor
• 6th – Martin Mckenzie – Sons of Behemat: Martin’s opted to take advantage of the newest mercenary rules to bring the Kruleboyz shooting battalion into his Sons list, giving them an angle they’ve never had before – Interesting!

Contest of Fools

A 56 player, 5 round event that took place in Toowomba, Australia. All the lists for this event can be found in Stats and Ladders.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Prize of Gallet

Timothy Macdivitt – Kharadron Overlords: Frigate Melee Alpha

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vs.

Timothy Macdivitt – Kharadron Overlords: Ironclad Thunderers Shooting

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Thoughts

It’s the old versus the new, with the more classic Thunderer Ironclad build that was prevalent in the old book meeting the new, hot model in the Frigate Endrinrigger build. Both want to get to within 12″ of you, but one wants to charge you afterwards and has a little bit better objective play as a result.

It’s hard to really distil down what this matchup may have looked like on paper, because quite simply so much of this comes down to the priority roll it feels like to me – neither army is built to play the long game, so a potential double early likely swung this in favour of team Frigate.

Meet the new face of the metagame – you can’t see it because it’s behind a mask/helmet, but it’s a grinning dwarf under there.

Result

Kharadron Overlords (Timothy Macdivitt) – 25-16

Timothy Macdivitt – Kharadron Overlords – 1st Place

The List

See showdown

Archetype

Hyper aggressive alpha strike

Thoughts

There’s some interesting little quirks in this list I feel it’s worth highlighting – Rather than opting for Galletian Sharpshooters, the Endrinriggers are in Veterans so they can more basically all fight in combat without too much trouble… but they also have Grapnel Launchers. These have been changed in the new book to allow a once per game pseudo-teleport to a nearby terrain feature, and it gives this list an added wrinkle for objective play once the riggers have piled out of the ships and done their dirty business in combat.

Additionally, the Knight Incantor has been brought along, likely simply for access to the guaranteed unbind for a key spell – a savvy move when this army is looking to get ahead early and coast to a victory, it can’t afford to get crippled by something like Runes of Petrification.

The Rest of the Best

Position – Name – Faction

2nd – Geordie Flett – Beasts of Chaos: An allherd list that has the 20 Gor anvil supplemented by the usual suspects: Some Bulgors to lift pretty much anything in the game, a Cockatrice and a Gargant for nightmare debuffs
3rd – Zachary Lehr – Kharadron Overlords: A whopping 20 Thunderers and an Ironclad, for all in firepower list
4th – Tyler Macdonald – Maggotkin of Nurgle (5-0): Post fly nerfs, this Nurgle list has one core brick of 4 flies and then supplements it with Rotmire Creed to make up numbers and give the army some ranged chip damage
5th – Matthew Dale – Stormcast Eternals: 11 Dragons has still got it!
6th – Patrick Carter – Kharadron Overlords: See showdown
7th – Tim Baumann – Fyreslayers: A mix of everything here, as it utilises some of the Flamekeeper Vulkite tech we’ve seen recently but also runs 20 Hearthguard Berzerker and a Magmadroth
8th – Jayden Hargreaves – Maggotkin of Nurgle: Glottkin Pusgoyles takes advantage of the Glottkin price drop last Battlescroll to still pack in a Overpowering Stench LoA, a tunnel master Rotbringer Sorcerer and some Rotmire/Nurglings for objective play

Wrap Up

Kharadron are still on top this week, though Slaanesh have emerged as a plucky challenger! I personally speculate if we’re going to see a rise in anti shooting tech armies like Nurgle or Idoneth Deepkin in response to this meteoric rise of the bubble boys, or if simply a move towards more screens is the broadly applied answer. What do you think? Tell us!

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