Sam Nash’s 8-0 Adeptus Mechanicus took the Coventry 40k army lists crown while near-identical Mortarion lists took 2nd and 3rd.
Two Death Guard players showed up to Coventry 40k with basically the same Mortarion list, and finished 2nd and 3rd out of 143 players. Normally, that would be the big story. But Sam Nash brought Adeptus Mechanicus, went all eight rounds without losing, and beat Mani Cheema’s Death Guard 92-87 on table 1 in the final round.
A lot of UK players still call this the Coventry GT, and this year’s tournament ran for three days in Ryton-on-Dunsmore on the UK Tournament Circuit, so there weren’t exactly any easy games. Three Team Carnage players made the top eight, while T’au and Custodes both finished 7-1 and still missed the top three.
And after all that, it came down to robots against Mortarion.
Coventry 40k: Top 3 Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- Sam Nash’s Adeptus Mechanicus went 8-0 and beat Mortarion on table 1 in round 8: His lowest score all weekend was 89, and the 92-87 win over Mani Cheema settled first place.
- Two Death Guard players ran the same Mortarion list one unit apart and took 2nd and 3rd: Mani Cheema and Craig Bedford both paired Paragons of Putrescence with Shamblerot Vectorium, and Craig swapped a Blight-hauler for a Foetid Bloat-Drone.
- Craig’s only loss came in the Death Guard mirror against Mani back in round 3: Mani won that game 100-85, and Craig didn’t drop another one all weekend.
Thanks to Best Coast Pairings, we’ve got the real pairings and battle point data to see how the whole thing played out.
Sam Nash’s Cohort Cybernetica Adeptus Mechanicus Went 8-0 Behind Four Kastelans
Sam paired Cohort Cybernetica with Eradication Cohort for 3 Detachment Points, and you can pretty much see what he was going for. Big robots, plenty of guns, and enough cheap units to keep everything else busy. Thulia Ghuld is the Warlord, with Belisarius Cawl just along for the ride. Throw in four Kastelans and two Skorpius Disintegrators, and that’s an Adeptus Mechanicus army most Death Guard players probably wouldn’t be thrilled to face.
Cohort Cybernetica Roster Breakdown
The Cybernetica Datasmith has Martial Signatum Amplificator and joins four Kastelan Robots with heavy phosphor blasters. That enhancement gives the bearer’s unit the Skitarii keyword, which matters because Eradication Cohort’s re-rolls of 1 only apply to Skitarii. The Kastelans get a rule they normally wouldn’t have, and robots rerolling anything is going to be strong.
Thulia Ghuld brings something else to the table too. She’s a T8, 10-wound Monster with a 4+ invulnerable save, and she dishes out mortal wounds to enemy Vehicles at the start of the Shooting phase. Not a bad thing to have when there are Defilers, Blight-haulers, and Knight Despoilers running around. Meanwhile, Cawl, a Tech-Priest Enginseer with Necromechanic, both Disintegrators, an Onager Dunecrawler, and three Ironstrider Ballistarii help handle the anti-tank work.
Of course, you still need units to actually play the mission. That’s where two squads of Skitarii Rangers, two units of Pteraxii Skystalkers, Sicarian Infiltrators, and a small unit of Serberys Sulphurhounds come in. They round out the 2,000 points, and while none of them are particularly scary alone, that’s not their job really. They’re there to grab objectives and screen out deep strikes while the robots get on with shooting things.
How Cohort Cybernetica Wins Without a Bad Round
Sam never scored below 89 battle points all weekend. Seriously, eight games in a 143-player event without a single bad score is pretty impressive, especially with AdMech. He beat Matthew Langton’s Tyranids 99-58 in round 5, with Langton eventually finishing 8th, then took down Kyle Grundy’s T’au 99-86 in round 7 (that finished 4th, by the way). The closest Sam came to losing was round 4, when Scott Morris’s Adepta Sororitas pushed him to a 93-91 finish.
That brought him to table 1 against Mani’s undefeated Death Guard in round 8. First place was on the line, and Sam pulled out the 92-87 win.
Mani Cheema’s Paragons of Putrescence Death Guard Rode Mortarion to Table 1
Mani finished 7-1 with Mortarion as his Warlord, and before that final game, he’d been running over people pretty hard. Five of his seven wins were perfect 100-point games. One of those was a 100-32 win over Liam Callebout’s Custodes, which turned out to be Liam’s only loss all weekend.
Paragons of Putrescence Roster Breakdown
Mani paired Paragons of Putrescence with Shamblerot Vectorium, and once you look at the character lineup, the Paragons choice makes a lot of sense. Friendly Death Guard Characters get +3″ to their Contagion Range, up to a maximum of 12″. He’s got five characters to make use of that: Mortarion, Typhus, a Noxious Blightbringer with Rejuvenating Swarm, and two Malignant Plaguecasters, one with Sorrowsyphon. That’s a whole lot of plague auras covering the middle of the table.
Then come the Poxwalkers. Typhus and the Blightbringer join a big unit of 20, one Plaguecaster leads another ten, and the last ten wander around on their own. That’s 40 Poxwalkers total, which we’d guess is a big reason Shamblerot Vectorium is here. For the heavier stuff, Mani brought a Defiler, three Myphitic Blight-haulers, a Chaos Rhino, and an allied Knight Despoiler.
How Paragons of Putrescence Wins the Mirror
Mani faced Craig Bedford in round 3, so we actually got to see these near-identical Death Guard armies play each other. Mani won 100-85, putting 15 points between the two lists that are separated by just one unit. Plus, he could handle the close games too. In round 4, he beat Will B’s Space Marines 87-85, so tight finishes weren’t anything new by the time he reached table 1.
Craig Bedford’s Paragons of Putrescence Death Guard Won Two Games by a Single Point
Craig also went 7-1, finishing 3rd for Team Carnage. Once Mani beat him in round 3, Craig didn’t lose another game, and when you compare what they brought, well, let’s just say it’s pretty easy to see why both armies did so well.
Paragons of Putrescence Roster Breakdown
Put Craig’s roster next to Mani’s, and almost everything matches. Same detachments, Mortarion as Warlord, Typhus and the Blightbringer hanging out with 20 Poxwalkers, plus the same Defiler and Knight Despoiler. So what’s different? Craig took a Foetid Bloat-Drone with a fleshmower instead of Mani’s third Myphitic Blight-hauler. That swap uses the exact 5 points Mani had left over, bringing Craig’s list to an even 2,000.
Sure, the Blight-hauler gives you more shooting, but the Bloat-Drone can get onto an objective or hop over a screen, and when the rest of your army is pretty slow, having something that can move around might be more useful than another gun.
How Paragons of Putrescence Wins the Close Ones
Craig had a couple of games that really could’ve gone either way. In round 5, he beat Ed Cartwright 88-87 in another Death Guard mirror, then got past Will B 93-92 in round 7. After losing to Mani by two points, he finished with an 88-80 win against Ben Jones’s Orks in round 8 (who, himself, finished 6th overall).
Final Thoughts on the Coventry 40k Army Lists & the Warhammer 40k Meta
You know people are going to look at two Death Guard lists in the top three and start bringing their own versions to events now, lol. So, we’d expect to see plenty more Mortarion, big Poxwalker units, and that Paragons of Putrescence plus Shamblerot Vectorium combo.
But Sam gave everyone something else to think about. Thulia Ghuld, a Datasmith leading four Kastelans, and a bunch of cheaper units holding objectives that managed to go 8-0 against that kind of field. So if you’re playing against a lot of Death Guard and AdMech next weekend, Coventry might be the reason why.
🔗 Related Reads:
- How to Play Adeptus Mechanicus
- How to Play Death Guard
- Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- More Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- 40k Tournament Guide
- Warhammer 40k Factions Guide
- Latest 40k Balance Dataslate
- Munitorum Field Manual Points Updates
Which of the Coventry 40k army lists would you take to your next event, the Kastelans or Mortarion?
