The New Year’s Iron Man GT delivered some great new factions to the podium. Check out some of the top Grey Knights, Leagues of Votann, and Chaos Daemons army lists in 40k now.
The New Year’s Iron Man GT brought the heat, and we’re not talking about plasma guns. If you want to see which lists ruled the tables and what tricks they used to crush their foes, you’re in the right place.
Let’s break down the top 40k army lists from the weekend, shaking up the meta right now.
Top 40k Tournament Army Lists: New Years Iron Man GT
Studying these winning army lists for their tactical synergies can provide great insights for playing your army since the latest balance dataslate rules changes and points updates.
If you want to elevate your game even further, consider applying to Team USA to compete at the World Team Championships each year!
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1st Place: Sean Bursek, Grey Knights Army Lists
This Grey Knights Warpbane Task Force is trying to win by turning the board into a whack-a-mole problem. Lots of compact units, lots of angles, and a steady rhythm of “show up, hit something important, score, then force the opponent to chase ghosts.”
This isn’t a list that wants to stand in the open and compare datasheets. It wants to control where fights happen, then trade up while the Strike Squads keep the points rolling.
First up, the Brotherhood Librarian (Warlord) is the list’s pressure valve and problem solver. Vortex of Doom is the kind of threat that makes elite units and tougher targets suddenly feel less safe, and the combi-weapon means he is not dead weight outside the big moment. He works best when he is not the first piece shown.
Castellan Crowe is the amplifier. He takes a Purifier unit and cranks the “answer this now” dial. He is not there to babysit a backfield unit or wander around looking cool. He wants to be in the main punch, where Purifying Flame output and melee threat can bully an objective and force awkward saves.
If the opponent underestimates that package for even one turn, it usually costs them a key unit and the center of the table.
The three Strike Squads are the list’s scoring spine. One is almost always doing the boring but necessary work early, holding home, screening out easy deep strike angles, and making sure the Grey Knights player is not wasting premium movers on chores. The second Strike Squad is the flexible helper, rotating onto a safer midboard point or plugging a gap in the screen when the opponent tries to sneak in.
The third one is the late turn thief, the unit that suddenly appears to take an objective after the board has thinned out. Opponents hate spending real resources killing five-man Strike units, and that is the point.
Every time they do, something else lives.
The three Interceptor Squads are the engine that makes the whole plan feel unfair. One unit pressures early, tags a flank, threatens to flip an objective, and forces wider screens than most armies want to commit. The second doubles that headache, so the opponent cannot solve the problem with one line of chaff. The third is the closer.
Late turns are where Interceptors win games, grabbing far points, forcing last-second trades, and turning “the opponent is ahead on primary” into “the opponent cannot physically stand on objectives anymore.” They are also the best bait in the list. If the opponent overcommits to killing Interceptors, the Purifiers get a cleaner drop and a better fight.
The Purgation Squads are the steady ranged backbone that keeps all the movement tricks honest. The psycannon squads are there to punch into mid-weight targets and punish units trying to sit on objectives behind cover and good intentions. They are not always deleting whole units in one go, but they are constantly shaving models, forcing saves, and clearing screens so the rest of the army has landing zones and charge lanes.
The psilencer squad is the volume broom, great into lighter infantry, wounded units, and anyone trying to play the body spam game.
Together, these squads make it harder for the opponent to simply screen everything and call it a day. If the screens disappear, Grey Knights start showing up in all the wrong places.
Then come the Purifiers, who are the real damage dealers and board bullies. The Incinerator Purifiers are the setup crew, clearing the trash that blocks movement and scoring. Incinerators plus Purifying Flame is brutal against anything trying to play cheap objective games, and it opens space for follow-up drops or charges.
The other two Purifier bricks are the “take that objective and dare the opponent to shift it” pieces. They hit hard, they pressure with Purifying Flame, and they make the opponent trade real units into them. This is where Crowe wants to live, turning one of those bricks into the main hammer for the most important fight on the table.
How This Grey Knights Army List Scores
Primary scoring is built on constant presence: Strike Squads hold and screen, Interceptors flip and steal, and Purifiers clear and occupy the important midboard objectives. Secondary scoring leans on the army’s ability to appear in awkward places with multiple small units that can still contribute.
The list scores best by trading small pieces for points early, using Purifiers and Crowe to swing the midgame on key objectives, then letting Interceptors close the door in the late turns when opponents run out of bodies and movement.
2nd Place: Sweet Lew, Leagues of Votann Army Lists
How This Leagues of Votann Army List Wins
This Hearthband list is classic Votann: hand out Judgment Tokens to whatever matters, then erase it with blunt, unapologetic shooting while a stack of armored bodies and tanks squats on the mid-board.
Ûthar and the Champions turn the Einhyr packages into real “touch this and regret it” threats, with the Bastion Shield setup punishing anyone who tries to get cute with a charge. Hearthguard bring the bully plasma pressure, Thunderkyn quietly do the heavy lifting with grav cannons into tough targets, and the Hekaton Land Fortress anchors the whole plan while the faster vehicles and utility units make scoring and screening a pain for your opponent.
3rd Place: Timothy Grant, Chaos Daemons Army Lists
How This Chaos Daemons Army List Wins
This Chaos Daemons army list plays like a “pick a flank, delete a unit, then disappear” magic show, with Be’lakor acting as the grumpy stage manager who makes bad trades feel even worse. Kairos and the two Lords of Change are the real engine, sitting in that nasty threat band and just lobbing premium shooting and spell nonsense until something falls over.
When a problem refuses to die, the winged Daemon Prince steps in with the Neverblade and turns “tagging the birds” into a very short life choice, while the fast and cheap pieces do the boring work that wins games.
Final Thoughts From Us on New Year’s Iron Man GT Army Lists
The fun part about this New Year’s Iron Man GT podium is how clean the game plans are. The Grey Knights army list wins by making the table feel too big to defend. Meanwhile, the Leagues of Votann army list wins by turning the midboard into a no-parking zone, and the Chaos Daemons Army list works by throwing monster math at problems until the opponent runs out of answers.
Different toolkits, same idea: multiple threats, multiple scoring pieces, and no single unit that has to do all the work.
If the latest Balance Dataslate shook anything loose, it is this. The army lists that keep showing up are built to take a hit, lose a piece, and still keep the pressure on objectives. So steal the parts that fit. More redundancy, more units that can score on their own, and fewer “if this dies, the plan dies” moments.
Now let’s hear it. How do the New Year’s results stack up, and which factions are starting to look like the real troublemakers going into the next run of events?
See the Top Warhammer Army Lists & Latest 40k Tournament Schedule
What do you think of the results from the New Years Iron Man GT Warhammer 40k Grey Knights, Leagues of Votann, and Chaos Daemons army lists?
