Mani Cheema’s 7-0 Adeptus Custodes took the Manchester Super-Major army lists crown without dropping a single game.
Two hundred and twenty-seven players packed into Urmston this past weekend, and Mani Cheema was the only one who made it through without taking a loss. The Glasshammer player ran Adeptus Custodes through five Swiss rounds, a quarter-final, and a semi-final without putting anything but W’s on the scorecard.
The rest of the top tables were a lot closer, though. Orks finished second and fourth, Imperial Knights took third, and the games that settled the bracket came down to margins you could count on one hand. Put that next to last year’s Manchester Super-Major, and it barely looks like the same tournament, which isn’t all that surprising just a few months into 11th Edition, where the meta isn’t really figured out yet.
Manchester Super-Major: Top 3 Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- Mani Cheema’s Adeptus Custodes went 7-0 through 227 players without dropping a game: Three Allarus bricks, three jetbike squads, and not much else in the list to shoot at.
- Ben Jones lost once all weekend, then beat that same Necrons player in the quarter-final: The Orks got handed a rematch by the bracket and took it 100-30.
- Dom Ridley’s Imperial Knights won the quarter by two points and lost the semi by one: Seven models on the table, and his whole weekend hung on single digits.
Thanks to Best Coast Pairings, we can go back through the event using real pairings and battle point data.
Mani Cheema’s Lions of the Emperor Custodes Took the Crown on Pure Attrition
Cheema’s list is the kind that makes you nervous to play against before rolling a single die. He paired Lions of the Emperor with Might of the Moritoi at three Detachment Points, took Take and Hold, and spent all 2,000 points on things that are miserable to actually destroy. There’s no hidden gimmick here; you just have to chew through the army, and basically nobody managed it.
Lions of the Emperor Roster Breakdown
Three Allarus Custodian blocks carry most of that weight, two units of six and one of five, all armed with guardian spears and Balistus grenade launchers. They walk onto an objective, soak up whatever gets thrown at them, and usually stay there. By the time enough firepower gets committed to clear one brick, the other two are already destroying the rest of the board.
Then you’ve got three Shield-Captains on Dawneagle Jetbikes leading Vertus Praetors in units of three, two, and two. The warlord took Admonimortis while another Shield-Captain carried Fierce Conqueror, and their job is pretty obvious. While the Allarus keep everyone tied up in the middle, the bikes go after the flanks.
The only genuinely soft targets are one squad of Prosecutors and one of Witchseekers. That’s the entire cheap end of the army, and just enough chaff to score.
How Lions of the Emperor Wins the Attrition Race
Cheema scored 100 in each of his first four Swiss games before putting up 99 against Sean McQuaid’s Genestealer Cult in round five. That’s exactly the kind of matchup that can make a low-model-count army miserable, with the GSC turning up where you don’t want it, but it still couldn’t crack him. Even Matt Puffett’s Adepta Sororitas ran into the same wall in the quarter-final and lost 100-64.
Dom Ridley’s Imperial Knights finally made the Custodes look beatable in the semi-final. Cheema got through that one 79-78, and that’s the closest anybody came to stopping them all weekend.
Ben Jones’s War Horde Orks Turned One Loss Into a Rematch
Jones brought War Horde and Take and Hold, but best of all, the list isn’t trying to do ten things at once. It just sends waves of bodies onto objectives, while never letting the opponent rest.
War Horde Roster Breakdown
Ghazghkull Thraka is the warlord with Makari beside him, sitting in a 20-strong Boyz mob alongside a Painboy carrying Follow Me Ladz. That’s a seriously chunky unit your opponent is probably not going to ever properly deal with.
Most of that speed comes on squigs. Mozrog Skragbad leads a smaller Squighog Boyz unit, while two Beastbosses on Squigosaur each lead an eight-model Squighog block, with Kunnin’ but Brutal on one of them. Those units cover ground fast and hit hard enough when they arrive that throwing a screen in front of them doesn’t always buy the turn you’d hoped for.
Wazdakka Gutsmek runs solo as another fast threat, while a Big Mek Dakkarig brings some shooting, and three Gretchin units plus a squad of Lootas handle the less glamorous jobs. Plenty of 40k ork army lists are using some version of the squig package; Jones just didn’t clog his up with too many.
How War Horde Wins the Movement Phase
Jones opened with four straight 100-point games before Matt Bell’s Necrons finally caught him in round five, 95-85. It was his only loss of the weekend and easily could’ve ended the run right there.
Instead, the bracket handed him Bell again in the quarter-final. Jones turned around and won the rematch 100-30, then followed it with a 100-35 semi-final over Orks.
Dom Ridley’s Gate Warden Lance Knights Lost the Whole Weekend by One Point
Ridley ran Gate Warden Lance with Questor Forgepact and Take and Hold with very few models. In a field of 227 players, the smallest army in the top eight made the semi-final and came within one battle point of going farther.
Gate Warden Lance Roster Breakdown
Two Cerastus Knight Atrapos give the list the answers it needs. Between the lascutter and graviton singularity cannon, they can go after big targets without leaving Ridley stuck when infantry plants itself somewhere inconvenient. With those two covering both jobs, the rest of the lance gets to go and get the most dangerous enemy units.
A Knight Errant handles the melta work, while a Knight Destrier goes hunting, and a Knight Paladin serves as the warlord. The new 11th Edition Imperial Knights detachments give mixed builds like this enough room to work, and Ridley used that instead of just stacking the same Knight profile over and over.
The only non-Knights are two ten-model Skitarii Ranger squads taken as allies. Those twenty bodies get the thankless job of holding home objectives and screening deep strikes while the giant robots do everything else. It’s thin support for an army this small, sure, but it got Ridley all the way to the semi-final.
How Gate Warden Lance Wins the Damage Race
Ridley went 5-0 through Swiss with scores of 93, 94, and 99 before finishing with two straight 100s. Once the elimination games started, every point suddenly mattered. He edged Danny Evison’s Dark Angels 80-78 in the quarter-final.
Then Cheema beat him 79-78 in the semi, so overall, Ridley won one game by two points and lost the next by one, which is about as close as an event like this can get.
Final Thoughts on the Manchester Super-Major Army Lists & the 40k Meta
Allarus-heavy Custodes are probably going to get a lot more attention after a 7-0 run through a 227-player Super-Major, but now there is also a pretty obvious “meta problem” to start working on. Cheema wasn’t cruising through the elimination bracket. The semi came down to one point, and Ridley’s quarter-final had already been decided by two.
What gets interesting now is seeing what people actually bring to crack those Allarus bricks, because that answer still has to sometimes survive fast Orks and seven-model Knight armies depending on the overall field.
🔗 Related Reads:
- How to Play Adeptus Custodes
- How to Play Orks
- How to Play Imperial Knights
- Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- More Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- 40k Tournament Guide
- Warhammer 40k Factions Guide
- Latest 40k Balance Dataslate
What do you think of the Manchester Super-Major army lists?
