With Space Marines finally dialed back a few notches, we’re already seeing the meta shift in new creative ways. Check out these top 3 40k army lists.
Are the days of the Iron Hands over? Coming from the Two Rivers Open GT, we’ve got one of the first looks at where the meta stands now that Space Marines are sitting within normal limits. Spoilers: there aren’t any Iron Hands in the top 3! Let’s not waste any time and jump into the latest meta lists.
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3rd: Place Tyler Devries- Imperial Soup
This list is really simple. Three Tank Commanders were brought with the Vigilus Emperor’s Fist formation being brought. This let Tyler throw a relic battle cannon on a Leman Russ that hit like a thunder hammer. Some Scions made up the Troops choices, which, thanks to the support out of Psychic Awakening, they have so many incredible uses.
And finally, two Crusaders and a Warden stomped onto the table ready to wreck some Primaris. With each Knight equipped with an Avenger Gatling Cannon, these guys could shred really anything the wanted, but especially Primaris-heavy lists.
Overall awesome job utilizing a list with majority T8 toughness!
2nd Place: James Kelling- Aeldari
This first detachment is something that we’ve seen over and over in Aeldari lists. Dire Avengers were brought to fill out a Battalion while nearly a quarter of the list’s points were thrown into blobs of Shining Spears. These guys have shown to be the Aeldari’s bread & butter unit.
They’re quick, great in melee, and can be easily overlooked if you’re bringing a bunch of other scary targets. It’s also important to note that James used custom Craftworld rules out of Psychic Awakening as well. Until recently, it’s really only been popular among Space Marine lists.
This is where things get really interesting. We already covered the detachment above and mentioned how it’s sort of a Craftworld staple. However, these next detachments are absolutely full of less-popular options that still proved to saturate the board with scary targets.
Starting off, Yvraine led a Spearhead that also had some Forge World Hornets, a Nightspinner, and a space of some Support Weapons thrown in. All of these units could hang back and do some incredible damage if they weren’t dealt with. However, the enemy also had to deal with Shining Spears in their frontlines on turn one as well!
To keep the theme of filling the list full of good targets to shoot at, three Falcons were also taken. These are the less-popular version of a Wave Serpent (they use the same chassis) but are still a great damage-dealing, wound-tanking option.
Overall, this army had a massive list absolutely filled to the brim with units that were easy to ignore, but could really back a punch. The enemy was definitely on a clock with against this army. It was fast, and maybe not the tankiest, but it did have way more individual cannons than most others.
1st Place: Nicolas Weiss- Imperial Soup
We’ve seen a lot of soup lists ever since 8th edition began. With recent updates to the game, soup sort of fell off for Imperium… The extent of soup was mainly Knights and Guard. However, this list is probably the heaviest amount of soup we’ve seen in a while and it managed to climb its way to first place!
Starting off, this list was decked-out with Scions all kitted with either Plasma guns or Meltaguns. Using the Lamdan Lions rule for Scions out of Psychic Awakening, everything in the list had a bonus -1 AP, bringing non-overcharged Plasma to -4 AP and Meltaguns to a whopping -5 AP.
Basically, just take your invuln if you’ve got it.
Moving on from the anti armor save army, some Sisters were brought using Celestine and really, just a bunch of Sister bolter spam. Two Imagifiers were seeded into the list, but these girls’ main job was probably just to pepper enemy targets in S4 firepower.
Finally, a Supreme Command of Grey Knights hit the table with Kaldor Draigo, a Champion, and a Brother-Captain. Draigo has always been Draigo. No real need to explain the 2+/3+++ Grey Knight version of a Smash Captain.
The other two characters were also great at combat… One specializing in taking out the tough nuts to crack with a Daemon Hammer and the other, more designed for mulching characters and elites with the Blade of the Forsworn. Awesome list.
There you have it! We’ve got three new unique lists that have emerged since Space Marines got thrown off their high horse.
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With these results in, do you think we will begin to see even more Imperial Soup once again? Have you taken your Iron hands back to the drawing board?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Wesley Floyd
Job Title: Staff Writer
Joined: 2018
Socials:@RealmbrushPainting
About Wesley Floyd: Wes has been in the Warhammer hobby since 2015 and joined the Spikey Bits writing team in 2018. He is known for his satirist takes on trending topics and imaginative yet amazingly affordable hobby solutions to painting Warhammer miniatures.
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, and the self-proclaimed King of Sprues. He knows for a fact that Mephiston red is the best-tasting paint and is the commission painting equivalent of a Wendy’s 4 for $4. If you like what he writes and want to contact him or have your tabletop minatures painted (to a mostly okayish standard), message him on Instagram.
