Warzone Atlanta is just around the corner! The lists are submitted and you can check them out yourself here. We’ve combed through the data and have the faction count for you. Oh and we noticed some other fun tidbits like the fact that there will be 14 Primarchs and 47 Knights stomping around the tables in Atlanta next weekend. Our own Dernicus will deploying quite a few of those himself so stop by and say hey! Now are you ready to know what you’ll see at Warzone Atlanta 2018?
| Faction | Count |
|---|---|
| Aeldari/Ynnari | 10 |
| Drukari | 8 |
| Chaos Space Marines | 7 |
| Tau | 7 |
| Tyranids | 6 |
| Imperial Knights | 6 |
| Harlequin | 6 |
| Adeptus Custodes | 6 |
| Deathguard | 5 |
| Guard | 5 |
| Thousand Sons | 5 |
| Adeptus Astartes | 5 |
| Space Wolves | 4 |
| Sisters | 3 |
| Chaos Daemons | 3 |
| Dark Angels | 3 |
| Orks | 2 |
| Blood Angels | 2 |
| Adeptus Mechanicus | 2 |
| Deathwatch | 2 |
| Genestealer Cult | 2 |
| Nurgle | 1 |
| Renegade Knights | 1 |
| Grey Knights | 1 |
Analysis and Observations
Primarchs
There are going to be 18 primarchs continuing the long family feud. Guilliman is still a great force multiplier for Astartes and Imperial forces even if Space Marines have struggled this edition. I think the really challenging armies are going to be Bash Brothers, fielding both Mortarion and Magnus. That’s some serious target priority issues right there. But hey if you have a Castellan you’ve got a pretty good answer. Speaking of which…
Knights for Days
The FAQ may have hurt an Imperial Soup army’s ability to regenerate command points but that hasn’t stopped many Knight players. 47 Knights means you have very good odds you’ll fight one over the course of the weekend. 13 of those Knights are Castellans, 28 non-dominus Imperial Knights, 5 Renegade Knights (traitors), and 1 extremely brave Valiant. We’ve known this was the meta for a while. Looking through the lists we noticed a lot of armies weighting towards dealing with high toughness, high invulnerable save, high wound count models.
Eldar Reborn
Since they came out Ynnari have been in and out of the top competitive armies. They’ve never been terrible even as GW has struggled to keep their unique action economy in check. Nerfs to Dark Reapers and Shining Spears have disrupted Craftworld armies enough that they’ve been knocked down to top of the middle tier in many events. With Warzone however we may be seeing the “rebirth” if you will (I tried for the pun) of Eldar armies. With the current Knight meta there are a lot of Eldar armies. Why? Harlequin Haywire jetbikes. They move fast, the haywire effect ignores invulnerable saves, and they can shoot twice in Ynnari or take an additional -1 to hit. We’ll see if they can overcome THE Castellan, Guard, Custodes/Blood Angels Captains list post FAQ.
THE List
There’s 13 Castellans tearing up tabletops at Warzone this year. Now there is one 3 Castellan list which is both hilarious and terrifying at the same time but the other 10 are almost all in THE list. We talked about this build extensively in our Best Armies of NOVA Open article but the FAQ has presumably hurt it pretty badly. A Castellan screened by a Guard blob that can regenerate command points paired with an assault element like Blood Angel Captains or Custodes Shield Captains on bikes is a great combination. With the nerf to command point farming I think we’re going to see the Custodes Shield Captains do a little better since they can farm pre-game command points at many events and aren’t as CP intensive as Slamguinius.
Miscellaneous
We did see a couple other odd things. I really love events like this because you get to see some things that I never get to see in normal competitive play. For example someone invested both the points and money in bringing a Lord of Skulls. Who doesn’t love that big goofball of a model! I bet it tears someone up too who isn’t expecting it. There are also plenty of Forgeworld models like Leviathans, Sicarans, Spartans, and all sorts of other goodies also floating around that we just don’t see but so often. In addition someone is bringing 3 Helldrakes. I hated playing those suckers in 7th but haven’t seen them too much in 8th. They can actually fight now like the big mechanical daemon dragon they are which is cool. I’ll be watching that list for sure. Finally on a personal note I’ve been playing around with Assassin detachments for utility. There are going to be quite a few 3+ Assassin detachments in Atlanta this weekend. With the change to CP farming a Callidus might actually be useful… Something to keep an eye on!
Final Thoughts
Warzone Atlanta is going to be one of the first major events with the new FAQ on the east coast. We’ll see how the data shifts from NOVA only a couple of months ago with the changes. Primarchs, Knights, and plenty of Forgeworld units should make pictures especially thematic and unique. Will Eldar retake the top slot as the faction to build against? Can THE list survive the FAQ? Do I need to buy all the Harlequin bikes in my area before everyone else jumps on the hype train? We’ll answer all those questions in our Best Armies of Warzone Atlanta 2018 article after the event!
Questions, comments, concerns? Yell at Dernicus in the bottom left for letting me write this! Alternatively comment on our Facebook page or email us at [email protected]
