Aaron Hermstedt’s 5-0 Death Guard took the Show Me Showdown army lists crown with a Poxwalker tide and an allied Knight Despoiler.
Forty Poxwalkers and a Knight Despoiler helped Aaron Hermstedt’s Death Guard go 5-0 and take first place at Show Me Showdown in Kansas City, which may not exactly be the competitive Death Guard list you think of right away.
The event ran November 6-8, with 63 players competing across five rounds of 2,000-point 11th Edition 40k, and Hermstedt wasn’t the only undefeated player, either. His Midwest Monstars teammate Kyle McCord also went 5-0 with Dark Angels, but the two never faced each other as Hermstedt finished first with 493 battle points, just ahead of McCord’s 483.
We’ve seen undefeated lists split a podium before, and it’s always worth checking how those games actually went. So, if you’re hunting through Warhammer 40k tournament results for something to try at your next event, here’s what the top three brought and how they did.
Show Me Showdown: Top 3 Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- Aaron Hermstedt’s Death Guard went 5-0 behind forty Poxwalkers and an allied Knight Despoiler: He beat Evan Shelburne’s 4-0 T’au 96-62 in the last round and finished with 493 battle points.
- Kyle McCord’s Dark Angels also went 5-0, but the two teammates never played each other: McCord’s Lion and Deathwing Knights list scored 483 battle points and beat three World Eaters armies on the way.
- Evan Shelburne’s Retaliation Cadre T’au scored 100 in each of their first four games: His only loss came in round 5 against the eventual winner, 96-62.
Thanks to Best Coast Pairings, we’ve got the real pairings and battle point data to see how the whole weekend played out.
Aaron Hermstedt’s Paragons of Putrescence Death Guard Buried the Field in Poxwalkers
Hermstedt’s Death Guard splits its 3 Detachment Points between Paragons of Putrescence and Shamblerot Vectorium. Take one look at the units, and you can see what he’s going for with both. Basically, he’s putting a pile of bodies in front of some seriously big guns; simple enough, and it clearly worked.
Paragons of Putrescence Roster Breakdown
First up, you’ve got twenty Poxwalkers with Typhus and a Noxious Blightbringer attached, with Typhus taking the Warlord spot. Then there’s a Malignant Plaguecaster with Sorrowsyphon leading another ten Poxwalkers, plus a third unit of ten doing its own thing. Yep, that’s forty zombies before we even get to the power armor.
Behind all that, you’ve got two five-model Plague Marine squads. One gets a Malignant Plaguecaster, the other gets a Lord of Poxes, and two Chaos Rhinos are there to carry them around. There’s also a Lord of Contagion joining three Deathshroud Terminators. And once you’re dealing with more than just Poxwalkers in your face, those Terminators are a pretty nasty melee problem.
Then come the bigger models: a winged Daemon Prince of Nurgle, a Foul Blightspawn, two Myphitic Blight-haulers with multi-meltas, and an allied Knight Despoiler packing two battle cannons. Sure, we’ve seen Chaos Knights in Death Guard lists before, but stick one behind forty Poxwalkers, and what does your opponent shoot first? Clear out the zombies or go after the Knight? Either way, the thing they leave alone gets to keep doing its job.
How Paragons of Putrescence Wins the Long Game
Hermstedt didn’t exactly ease into the weekend. He opened by beating Micah Meise’s Dark Angels 100-48, Peter Kapala’s Space Marines 97-35, and then Tom Deane’s Thousand Sons 100-42. Those scores are crazy because none of those games were within 50 battle points.
Round 4 was against his own teammate, Cody Jiru, where Death Guard took down Drukhari 100-67. This left Evan Shelburne’s undefeated T’au waiting in round 5, but Hermstedt finished things off with a 96-62 win over the battlesuits.
Kyle McCord’s Assault Brethren Dark Angels Ran Through Three World Eaters Lists
McCord’s Dark Angels army list uses the full 2,000 points across Assault Brethren and Wrath of the Rock. Lion El’Jonson is the Warlord, and Take and Hold is the disposition. If you’ve been keeping up with 11th Edition results, seeing the Lion and Deathwing Knights together probably isn’t a shock. It’s just everything else McCord managed to fit around them that’s worth taking a look at.
Assault Brethren Roster Breakdown
Both five-model Deathwing Knights units have the Watcher in the Dark and the Furious Assault enhancement. So yeah, he’s got two copies of the same big hammer. Add six Aggressors with flamestorm gauntlets and a Librarian in Phobos Armour, and there’s plenty to deal with. Between the Lion and those two Knights units, a lot of this army is tied up in stuff that’s really hard to kill.
For speed, he’s got the Ravenwing. Two Ravenwing Command Squads are attached to Outrider Squads, giving him a couple of fast bike units to grab objectives or contest them when needed. Eradicators, Inner Circle Companions, Reivers, Scouts, and an Impulsor handle the rest. So while the Knights are busy doing the heavy lifting, he’s still got cheaper units available to get onto objectives.
How Assault Brethren Wins the Midboard
Here’s a matchup you don’t see every weekend: McCord played World Eaters three times in five rounds and beat all three. He took down Broc Bowman 100-70 in round 1, beat Ethan Lefert 100-63 in round 4, and finished with a 100-88 win over Justin Comstock, who was also 4-0 going into that last game. Lefert ended up finishing 4th, too.
In between all those World Eaters games, McCord beat Marc Nuessen’s Grey Knights 98-64 but barely got past Kolby Long’s Space Wolves 85-77 in round 3. So overall, that eight-point win was the only game where things got especially close for him (and Long still made the top 8, finishing 7th).
Evan Shelburne’s Retaliation Cadre T’au Scored 100 Four Games Running
Shelburne called his T’au army list “I wish I got extra CP every round :(“, which probably tells you how he felt about his command points all weekend. He’s running Retaliation Cadre, putting all 3 Detachment Points into that one detachment, with Purge the Foe as the disposition and Commander Farsight as Warlord.
Regardless, we’ve already seen Retaliation Cadre put up a big result earlier this season, and Shelburne’s version is all about those battlesuits.
Retaliation Cadre Roster Breakdown
All three Commanders are leading Crisis units. Farsight goes with the fusion-blaster Sunforges, a Commander in Enforcer Battlesuit with the Starflare Ignition System joins the plasma Fireknives, and a Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit leads the missile-pod Fireknives. The Twin Lance is in there as another character, too.
Then you’ve got two Crisis Starscythe units with burst cannons, two Riptides carrying ion accelerators, and a Sky Ray Gunship. To round things out, Shelburne brought two Stealth Battlesuit units and two Pathfinder Teams. Those cheaper bodies can handle objectives and screening while the Crisis units focus on shooting things off the table.
How Retaliation Cadre Wins the Shooting Phase
And for the first four rounds, that plan worked about as well as you could ask. Shelburne beat Chase Campbell’s Blood Angels 100-36, Chris Young’s World Eaters 100-65, Will Norman’s Black Templars 100-52, and Geoffrey Hileman’s Chaos Daemons 100-52.
After four straight 100-point games, round 5 came against Hermstedt’s Death Guard. T’au managed 62 points against the Poxwalkers’ 96, giving Shelburne his first loss and a 4-1 finish; and you can see why that matchup would be rough. When you’re running a battlesuit army that wants to shoot the important stuff, having forty Poxwalkers in the way isn’t exactly what you want to see across the table.
Final Thoughts on the Show Me Showdown Army Lists & the Warhammer 40k Meta
Midwest Monstars finished 1st, 2nd, and 5th, so yeah, that’s a pretty solid weekend for one team. But if there’s one army we’d expect people to start copying at the next few Midwest GTs, it’s Hermstedt’s Death Guard. Going 5-0 is one thing, but never giving up more than 67 battle points in a game is another.
So, if your local meta has a lot of shooting armies, maybe it’s time to put forty Poxwalkers and a Knight Despoiler on the table for a test game before your next event. It’ll be interesting to see whether other Death Guard players start trying the same setup, or if Hermstedt just knew exactly how to get the most out of his list.
🔗 Related Reads:
- How to Play Death Guard
- How to Play Dark Angels
- How to Play T’au Empire
- Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- More Top Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- 40k Tournament Guide
- Warhammer 40k Factions Guide
- Munitorum Field Manual Points Updates
What do you think of the Show Me Showdown army lists, and would you bring forty Poxwalkers and a Knight Despoiler to your next GT?
