Goatboy’s 40k: The Unbeatable, Winning ATC Lists
The ATC came and went this weekend. Here are the lists that went all the way and took the prize!
First congratulations to Beast Coast for winning the ATC tournament. The team is full of names we all know from the competitive scene like Nick Nanavati and Tony Kopach. They put a lot of work into the game and it shows by them winning it all in the end. They are normally near the top each year at the ATC and it looks like they didn’t drop a game and only had one tie versus my buddies on the Has Beens Team (Nick Rose, Brad “The Unicorn King”, Ben “Bad Touch” Mohile, PJ Pants himself, and the Boston Ork Bill Souza). Let’s delve into their lists and see what makes them good – especially in this team format where you are striving to trap opponents armies in bad matchups and create 3 solid wins for yourself.
Brad Nicholas – Chaos Space Marines/Thousand Sons – aka Chaos Horde List O’ Doom
Battalion Detachment – Black Legion – 5CP
HQ: Abaddon
HQ: Exalted Champion, Combi-Bolter, Mark of Khorne, Power Sword/Murder Sword
Troops: 40 Chaos Cultists, Autoguns, Mark of Slaanesh
Troops: 40 Chaos Cultists, Autoguns, Mark of Slaanesh
Troops: 40 Chaos Cultists, Pistol, Brutal Close Combat Weapon, Mark of Khorne
Patrol Detachment – Alpha Legion
HQ: Sorcerer, Combi-Bolter, Force Sword, Mark of Slaanesh
Troops: 40 Chaos Cultists, Autoguns, Mark of Slaanesh
Battalion Detachment – Thousand Sons – 5CP
HQ: Ahriman
HQ: Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, Malefic Talons X 2, Wings
HQ: Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, Malefic Talons X 2, Wings
Troops: Chaos Cultists X 10, Autoguns, Mark of Tzeentch
Troops: Tzaangors X 28, Twistbray, Tzaangor Blades, Brayhorn
Troops: Tzaangors X 28, Twistbray, Tzaangor Blades, Brayhorn
If you can’t tell what this army does then you haven’t been playing competitive 8th edition 40k for long. It is a huge swath of bodies that cover the table, have some tricks to do some damage, and just be a pain in the butt to get rid of. Everyone is fearless here if they have one tendril of their unit near Abbie – so it is just hard to remove without a ton of dedicated firepower. It also has a ton of command points so Veterans of the Long War mixed with Abbies bubble of reroll shooting means this will put out a ton of damage. You also have access to 4 full smites all the time with some of the best spell casting from Thousand Sons. This is an army that can be thrown out a lot just due to its size. I feel for Brad’s back with moving all those models. It is 170 cultists backed by 56 deep striking blue goatmen. Probably the current “good” Chaos Space Marine list.
Lucas Riabowol – with a pure Dark Eldar Army
First kudos to not mixing in some Eldar for Doom and other nonsense. This list looks like the prototypical pure DE army we might see from time to time. I think in normal tournament formats you will see Eldar mixed in to give access to doom as the Wych side of things is not really needed. Still this is a Kabal of the Black Heart/Prophets of Flesh Army that is normal for any pure pain loving Space Elves.
Spearhead Detachment – Kabal of the Black Heart
HQ: Archon, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Venom Blade, Splinter Pistol – Warlord Writ of the Living Muse
Heavy: Ravager, 3 Disintegrator Cannons
Heavy: Ravager, 3 Disintegrator Cannons
Heavy: Ravager, 3 Disintegrator Cannons
Battalion Detachment – Prophets of the Flesh
HQ: Urien
HQ: Haemonculus, Electrocorrosive Whip, Hexrifle
Troops: Wracks X 8, Ossefactor
Troops: Wracks X 5
Troops: Wracks X 5
Elites: Grotesques X 7, Cleaver/Gauntlet
Elites: Talos X 3 – Haywire Blaster X 2 , Chain Flails/Macro Scalpel
Elites: Talos X 3 – Haywire Blaster X 2 , Chain Flails/Macro Scalpel
Battalion Detachment – Wych – Cult of the Cursed Blade
HQ: Succubus, Shardnet/Impaler
HQ: Succubus, Shardnet/Impaler
Troops: Wyches X 19, Shardnet/Impaler X 2
Troops: Wyches X 6
Troops: Wyches X 6
This is an army with a large footprint due to the Talos’s and the Grotesques. It also has some decent troops and ways to tie stuff down as needed. I don’t see the other Relics they might have taken and would expect to see the reroll wound mask on the Archon etc. There is a lot to like in this big ole blob of murder space elves.
Nick Nanavati – with a Ynarri/Craftworld Army
He has talked about it before and won with the Space Elves a lot. It is a strong army with the ability to do a ton of different things with great Stratagems, strong units, and powerful psychic abilities. There isn’t much else to say then this is something you see all the time in Competitive events.
Battalion Detachment – Alaitoc
HQ: Warlock
HQ: Warlock Conclave – 2 Warlocks
Troops: Guardian Defenders X 10
Troops: Rangers X 5
Troops: Rangers X 5
FA: Swooping Hawks X 5
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannon, Twin Shuriken Cannon
Dedicated Transport: Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannon, Twin Shuriken Cannon
Supreme Command – Aeldari Craftworlds – Mixed
HQ: Spiritseer – Bieltan
HQ: Farseer – Alaitoc
HQ: Farseer – Alaitoc
Outrider Detachment – Ynaari
HQ: Yvraine
FA: 9 Shining Spears, Exarch with Star Lance – Biel-Tan
FA: 5 Swooping Hawks – Biel-Tan
FA: 9 Shining Spears, Exarch with Star Lance – Saim-Hann
Heavy: 8 Dark Reapers, Exarch with Tempest Launcher – Alaitoc
I shouldn’t have to say much as you have 2 “death ball units” that get powered up and start heading towards the murder town at your side of the board. The Ynarri side of things can do all sorts of dumb stuff like shoot twice Dark Reapers, attack again Shining Spears, and other “fun” things. They really should have said the Craftworld keyword is gone when they become Ynarii – but I suspect that is coming whenever they get a new book. We’ll see. This list can take on just about anyone and have a good chance to win – especially at the hands of Nick.
Tony Kopach – IG blob, Blood Angels Smash lord, Castellan Knight
It is again a horde of miniatures meant to crush you under the weight of numbers. Mix this in by taking a long time to set up and you get a pain in the butt army to deal with. If you haven’t figured it out – horde seems to be defining the meta right now by either just limiting the amount of turns the games go thru (slow playing etc – monopolizing the game time etc) or just being too many things to remove to effectively control/affect the objectives. We’ll see if this changes later on or if they find other ways for Elite armies to get a chance to win. Tony has some amazing looking AM models so I can understand why he always plays them. Metal Army men to the rescue for the Emperor!
AM Brigade Detachment – Catachan (Strength 4 cheap guys seem good?)
HQ: Straken
HQ: Company Commander with Aquila
HQ: Company Commander with Powerfist
Troops: Infantry Squad, Heavy Weapon Team – Mortar, Chainsword/Laspistol
Troops: Infantry Squad, Heavy Weapon Team – Mortar, Chainsword/Laspistol
Troops: Infantry Squad, Heavy Weapon Team – Mortar, Chainsword/Laspistol
Troops: Infantry Squad, Heavy Weapon Team – Mortar, Chainsword/Laspistol
Troops: Infantry Squad, Heavy Weapon Team – Mortar, Chainsword/Laspistol
Troops: Infantry Squad, Heavy Weapon Team – Mortar, Chainsword/Laspistol
Troops: Infantry Squad, Heavy Weapon Team – Mortar, Chainsword/Laspistol
Troops: Infantry Squad, Heavy Weapon Team – Mortar, Chainsword/Laspistol
Elites: Ministorum Priest
Elites: Platoon Commander
Elites: Platoon Commander
FA: Hellhound, Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter
FA: Hellhound, Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter
FA: Hellhound, Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter
Heavy: Heavy weapons Team X 3, Mortar X 3
Heavy: Heavy weapons Team X 3, Mortar X 3
Heavy: Heavy weapons Team X 3, Mortar X 3
Superheavy Aux – House Raven
LoW: Imperial Knight Castellan, 2 X Twin Shield Breaker Cannon
Battalion – Blood Angels
HQ: Captain, Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer
HQ: Captain, Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer
Troops: Scouts Squad X 5
Troops: Scouts Squad X 5
Troops: Scouts Squad X 5
Ugh – so much reroll the number of hits on those Mortars. Who thought this many was ok for the game eh? It is another – horde list of doom that just takes forever to set up, move around, and crush your soul with a bit. Oh and it has a Knight that is probably going to be rerolling 1’s all game with an amazing Plasma Cannon from Cawl.
Wernor Born – with a Necron army
Wernor is a nice guy who I have never gotten the chance to play against. But he is always friendly when we see each other and I enjoy checking out his art and costumes he makes on the Facebooks. He brought the dumb Necron Army everyone talked about when the list initially came out. I wonder if he owns all of those Vaults. Anyway onto the list – full of mortal wound damage monstrosity.
Super Heavy Detachment – Nihilakh
LoW: Tesseract Vault
LoW: Tesseract Vault
LoW: Tesseract Vault
Outrider Detachment – Sautekh
HQ: Destroyer Lord, Phylactery, Warscythe, Nightmare Shroud
Elites: C’Tan Shard of the Deceiver
FA: Canoptek Scarabs X 4
FA: Canoptek Scarabs X 4
FA: Canoptek Scarabs X 4
So big models that spit out mortal wounds and other damage that can fly around, get redeployed, and be a pain in the butt? There is the army. If you can’t deal with flying jails for ancient gods of the cosmos then you know what this list is designed to go after.
Overall the team had the hordes covered with 2 of the better horde lists (no Nid Smite/Gaunt spam), an elite killer in the Vaults, an amazing all comer list with the Eldar, and a pretty decent all comer with the Dark Eldar. Congrats to team Beast Coast for getting the win in the end. A few of these lists could easily show up for a normal event to as with some small tweaks they could be designed to take on whatever list is thrown out there.
~Have at it!
