Chris Brady’s 5-0 T’au Empire won the Summer Slaughter GT army lists crown by just six total battle points.
Six points separated first from second after five rounds and two days of games at the second annual Summer Slaughter in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey. Out of 78 players on August 15 and 16, that was the entire gap at the top.
Chris Brady’s T’au Empire and Hazel Kenyon’s Chaos Space Marines both finished 5-0, but Brady scored 457 battle points to Kenyon’s 451, so neither player actually lost their shot at the podium. The tiebreaker just went to Brady.
And even that six-point margin almost disappeared. Brady’s final game against Aidan Longacre’s Leagues of Votann ended 85-84. Flip just a single point there and the whole best and worst factions in the meta coming out of this weekend look a lot different. So let’s get into what the top three lists were running and how they got there.
You can also keep up with more top 40k army lists in our coverage here as the tournament season rolls along.
Summer Slaughter GT: Top 3 Warhammer 40k Army Lists
- Chris Brady’s Retaliation Cadre won on battle points: Brady and Hazel Kenyon both finished 5-0, with T’au taking the trophy 457 to 451.
- Kenyon went undefeated and still finished second: Six battle points across five rounds were all that separated the top two players.
- John Helbig actually outscored both of them: His Genestealer Cults finished with 478 battle points, but a one-point round 2 loss left him in third.
Thanks to Best Coast Pairings, we can go through the event using real pairings and battle point data.
Chris Brady’s Retaliation Cadre T’au Empire Bought the Crown One Point at a Time
Five Commanders pretty much tells you what Brady wanted this army to do. He went all-in on Commander and Crisis suit packages, giving him several versions of the same basic answer: point the right battlesuits at whatever needs to disappear.
Retaliation Cadre Roster Breakdown
Commander Farsight is the warlord and runs with Crisis Sunforge suits carrying six Fusion blasters between them. That’s the package to deal with anything tough enough to justify that much Fusion at once.
An Enforcer Battlesuit Commander with the Starflare Ignition System leads Crisis Fireknife suits armed with six Plasma rifles, giving the army a better answer to targets that don’t need the full Sunforge treatment. Next, a Coldstar Commander with a Shield Generator joins Crisis Starscythe suits carrying six Burst cannons for lighter targets, while another Enforcer with three Missile pods runs a second Starscythe unit.
The fifth Commander is another Coldstar, this time carrying four Fusion blasters alongside the second Sunforge unit.
Then there’s The Twin Lance. Ri’Lantar brings a Fusion eliminator while Ri’Locai carries an Ion scattercannon, and we’ve already broken them down with the new T’au Twin Lance rules. Brady brought two of them, giving him character hunters without wasting an entire Crisis unit on that job.
The less flashy stuff is what keeps all those suits online for the most part. Two Broadside Battlesuit units with Heavy rail rifles, Missile Drones, and Weapon Support Systems hang back and punish anything willing to stay exposed. Finally, two Pathfinder Teams bring five Rail rifles between them, with one using a Recon Drone and the other a Grav-inhibitor Drone.
Objective duty falls to a single Strike Team with a Support turret, Kroot Carnivores with a Tanglebomb launcher, and two Stealth Battlesuits units. That’s not much objective mass for a 2,000-point army, but Brady was playing Purge the Foe. So, he didn’t need piles of bodies sitting around if the other army wasn’t around to contest them.
How Retaliation Cadre Wins the Damage Race
Brady’s first four rounds gave him plenty of breathing room as he beat Avacyn Hackman’s Drukhari 100-79, Aedin Weisenberg’s Space Wolves 88-64, Lane Breneman’s Orks 93-77, and Terry Panetta’s Necrons 91-76.
Then he hit Aidan Longacre’s Leagues of Votann in round 5 and barely escaped, 85-84. Longacre had been putting up scores in the high 90s and hundreds through his first four games, so Brady finally ran into somebody scoring right alongside him. Tau vs. Votann will be an interesting matchup to watch going forward.
Hazel Kenyon’s Renegade Raiders Chaos Space Marines Never Gave Anyone a Turn Back
Hazel Kenyon finished 5-0 with a 1,990-point Chaos Space Marines list and still ended up in second. But honestly, there isn’t much more you can ask from an army besides winning every game.
Renegade Raiders Roster Breakdown
Huron Blackheart is the warlord and rides with Masters of the Maelstrom, with that same bodyguard also acting as Support for a Chosen squad whose Champion carries a Power Fist and Plasma Pistol.
It’s a lot for an opponent to chew through, and attaching the whole thing to the Chosen makes the plan pretty clear. Kenyon put one nasty problem on the board that demands attention before the rest of the army starts hitting and then complicates things.
The character lineup keeps going with Cypher, Kravek Morne, a Lord Discordant on Helstalker carrying Dread Reaver, and Vashtorr the Arkifane. None of them needs much babysitting, which gives Kenyon plenty of models that can wander off and cause trouble somewhere else.
The actual scoring units are much simpler. Two Cultist Mobs and a Legionaries squad with a Lascannon hold ground, while two Chaos Rhinos move bodies where they need to go. Chaos Bikers with two Meltaguns and a Power Fist, a Defiler, Red Corsairs Raiders, and allied Noise Marines with two Blastmasters handle more of the killing.
Reconnaissance rewards an army that can keep turning up in places the opponent can’t cover, and Kenyon brought enough separate threats to do exactly that.
How Renegade Raiders Wins the Secondary Game
The first three rounds were 91-35 over Taylor LaRosa’s Necrons, 93-75 over Patrick Engelsman’s Necrons, and 96-41 over George Gennis’s Space Marines.
Things tightened up once at the top tables. Round 4 was a 79-71 win over Ronny Luna’s Chaos Knights, followed by a 92-87 win over John H’s Space Marines on table one.
That 79 in round 4 proved costly, even though it was still a win. When the final standings came down to six total battle points, there wasn’t much room anywhere on the scorecard.
John Helbig’s Brood Brothers Genestealer Cults Out-Scored Both Undefeated Players
John Helbig’s finish might hurt even more. His Genestealer Cults scored 478 total battle points, more than either undefeated player above him, and still finished third because he lost one game by a single point.
Brood Brothers Auxilia and Xenocult Masses Roster Breakdown
Two Benefictus characters each lead a 20-model Neophyte Hybrids brick. Both units carry two Mining lasers, two Seismic cannons, two Grenade launchers, two Webbers, and a Cult Icon. The warlord Benefictus also has Fire-point Commander, giving those 40 Neophytes a big part of their reason for being here. Our How to Play Genestealer Cults breakdown covers why those big bricks can be such a pain to move.
A Locus joins Hybrid Metamorphs with four Hand flamers, while a Reductus Saboteur works alone around objectives. Acolyte Hybrids with Autopistols and another unit with Hand Flamers handle battleline duties, two Achilles Ridgerunners and Atalan Jackals give the list mobility, and two units of Purestrain Genestealers wait for something worth hitting.
Then Helbig bolts what amounts to a small Astra Militarum army onto the whole thing. Attilan Rough Riders, two Chimeras, a Hellhound, two Kasrkin squads, Krieg Combat Engineers, and a Leman Russ Battle Tank all hit the table through the Brood Brothers rule.
How Brood Brothers Auxilia and Xenocult Masses Cover the Board
Helbig started with a 94-76 win over Theodore Nagel’s Astra Militarum. Then Lane Breneman’s Orks got him 94-93 in round 2.
One point was the difference there.
That was his only loss, and it knocked him out of the undefeated race. Helbig didn’t fade after the loss, either. He beat Evan Mellinger’s Tyranids 95-92, Ryan Sheeran’s Space Marines 96-77, and Matty Johnson’s Leagues of Votann 100-82.
He closed the event with more battle points than either 5-0 player, but there was no getting that round 2 result back. We’ve already seen Leagues of Votann going 6-0 elsewhere this year, so dropping a score of 100 into them is still a pretty serious finish.
Final Thoughts on the Summer Slaughter GT Army Lists & the Warhammer 40k Meta
Summer Slaughter gave us three very different ways to end up near the top. Brady leaned hard into Commander-led Crisis suits, Kenyon kept spreading independent Chaos threats around the table, and Helbig piled up more battle points than either of them with a Genestealer Cults and Brood Brothers mix.
The interesting one to watch from here is Brady’s five-Commander Retaliation Cadre. It tore through four rounds before Longacre’s Votann pushed it to an 85-84 finish, so we already know the list can be made uncomfortable. Now other players have a winning version to study before the next big event.
If five Commanders keep showing up near the top once people are specifically preparing for them, then Brady probably found something with legs. If not, Summer Slaughter may end up being the weekend where the matchup and mission just lined up right for him overall.
🔗 Related Reads:
- How to Play T’au Empire
- How to Play Chaos Space Marines
- 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
What do you think of the Summer Slaughter GT army lists?
