40K: Duel Con and the Current Meta

Hey everyone, Reecius here from Frontline Gaming again to discuss the current meta and what we learned from the Duelcon 40K GT.

Duel Con was the past weekend, and Frankie and I ran the 40K GT and Team Tournament. We used our standard BAO format, the same as at Comikaze. It is a combination of 3 book missions played simultaneously with all three book bonus points. Whoever earns more points, wins. It’s a really simple system that has proven to be easy to learn, flexible, and popular. Results and pictures of the event can be found here.

Unlike Comikaze, we did not have as diverse of a field at Duel Con. We had a large amount of Cron Air armies this go around, definitely the most represented list at the event. Cron Air has a really big advantage against most of the armies out there currently having an overwhelming amount of Flyers that are each an individual unit. Interestingly, few folks took advantage of the AA options Forgeworld allows. A few Hydra Support platforms, Sabres, Hyperios defense platforms, etc. and that would have certainly put the kybosh on a Cron Air list. A Quad Gun and a few flyers would serve nearly as well.

Amusingly though, our pairing software paired almost all of the Cron Air lists against each other! Haha, apparently the pairing gods have a sense of humor! (And we have no control over pairings, just to be explicit). And for those of you thinking Chaos will provide some respite from Flyer Nation, from what we’ve read…not really. We could be wrong of course, but everything we’ve seen is that the Dragon really isn’t going to spell doom to other flyers (seems to be much better vs. Infantry) and Flakk missiles, at least as they are defined in the BRB, only have Skyfire, not Interceptor. So, Flyers will come on and look to destroy them first before they fire.

We did have a few surprise wins over the flyer lists though. Josh Dearth’s Nids dfeated Dave Fay’s Cron Air with his 2 Dakkafexes and 3 Tervigons. Board control and twin-linked rate of fire are excellent tools when facing an Air Force. Also, Flying Monstrous creatures can be quite good as well. We also had Brian Marino with his Mech Dark Eldar list fighting for all the marbles in the finals. He had defeated Shane Irons’ Cron Air army the round prior. With a beneficial Warlord trait (-1 to reserve rolls) and first turn Night Fighting, Brian was able to play to objectives and win the game. In the finals against Allen Campbell’s Cron Air/Horde Ork list, he put up a great fight but lost a tight game (6-5) to Allen who took it all! I found it very interesting to see another essentially 5^th ed Dark Eldar list kicking butt. At Comikaze we had several Dark Eldar players doing great, and here we had another stand-out DE list. It would appear so far, that they have made the transition to 6^th very well.

Allen’s list style is one that has a lot of synergy and powerful combos, and one that we’ve seen doing well in other events. Fuegan17, a member of our team, won the local Feast of Blades qualifier with an Ork/Cron combo. The Orks provide durable, cheap, reliable scoring units, and great support units in Lootas, Dakkajets, etc. while the Crons provide the killing power. I think this is a combo we’ll be seeing a lot of.

As for Forgeworld representation at Duel Con, it was light. We had a Hades Breaching Drill, a Vulture with Punisher Cannons (AWESOME model!), Storm Eagle, and an Ork Gun Wagon. Nothing was overpowering at all. I’m not saying there isn’t room for some abuses there, but people bring what they have painted to tournaments, and this was no different. Once again, FW’s impact on the event was underwhelming. Had I not asked people what they thought about it being there, most folks wouldn’t have even noticed.

It was a very fun event, and I am really enjoying watching the 6^th ed meta unroll. It is such a more complex and multi-faceted game now, I love it! I hope we see folks get away from the rinse and repeat Cron Air lists (and 2 of the 5 Cron players said they were selling theirs as they didn’t like playing them that much) and take advantage of the incredible variety 6^th allows. The great thing is that now not only can you build a truly unique army, but it can be effective on the table top as well!

Thanks to everyone that came, we had some first time tournament goers and it was awesome to see them get the bug and get excited for their next event.