Season 29: Week 1: the Primarchs gathered at Ullanor
Welcome to the San Diego 40k Big League! Like the drop ships arriving on Arrakis, it is time for our mighty armies to assemble. A couple of notes for noobs to our league or folks who have a short memory. First, once a new rule set is available for purchase or download, it is live for the league. That doesn’t include leaks but if you get your hands on a copy of a codex in an army box, you’re good to go. The day new dataslates or points drop, they’re live for the league. Second, this league is the qualifier for the Spring Final tournament! That means that if you get in the top three pods by the end of this league, you’ll get an invitation to the Spring Final Tournament. The winner of this gets invited to our SoCal League Invitational in October (along with the winner of the Fall Final)! So, if you can make it to Pod 3 by the end of this season, you’re on the list!
Let’s take a moment at the start of this league to look at the Pods and see what our local meta looks like. In Pod 1 we see a pretty good mix of factions Chaos Demons, Ultramarines, Adeptus Custodes, Astra Militarum, Heretic Astartes, Genestealer Cult, Chaos Knights, and (perhaps as a homage to Mark Hertel’s win at LVO) Deathwatch. No duplicates and a pretty good spread of meta factions right now (excluding Death Guard). The players in the Pod remind me of the Primarchs gathered at Triumph of Ullanor. Matt Geyer, Tony Baumayr, Kory Marlatt, Juan Diego Vasquez, Jeremy Larson, Victor Campos, Stone Freedom(Rock Liberty), and Hans Lieber are all slayers. This remembrancer has seen them all in battle and I can testify that if you make one wrong move against these guys they will capitalize on it and you’re done. Hans is the champ here but he’s going to have to fight for every win if he is to hold onto glory!
Pod 2 is similarly diverse, if a little off-meta with Adeptus Mechanicus, Grey Knights, Tyranids, Drukhari, Death Guard, Chaos Demons, Ultramarines, and Imperial Knights. By my reckoning, the Death Guard is the strongest faction in this hand with the Grey Knights a close second. Tyranids and Demons will be strong contenders depending on the lists. Pod 3 is the first instance we see of duplicate factions represented. This is frankly amazing and shows what a diverse meta we have in our league (and in the game itself). Blood Angels are represented twice and they’re joined by T'au, Genestealer Cult, Adeptus Custodes, Ultramarines, Deathwatch, and Astra Militarum. The Astra Militarum, Custodes, and GSC choices are meta favorites with Deathwatch appearing from out of "nowhere".
Pod 4 is so diverse that it’d make JD Vance blush. World Eaters, Orks, Astra Militarum, Thousand Sons, Death Guard, and Adepta Sororitas join twin Necron players. This Pod is really a story of the Meta factions vs the off meta factions with Necrons, TSons, IG, and Death Guard being the ones to beat here. I have my fingers crossed for an upset. In Pod 5, Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperial Fists, Chaos Demons, Astra Militarum, Death Guard and T'au join two sets of Adeptus Custodes for some great match ups. You can really see the popular factions come to the fore with Adeptus Custodes, Death Guard, Astra Millitarum represented here and in the earlier three pods.
Finally, in Pod 6, we find Tyranids, Adeptus Astartes, Necrons, Heretic Astartes, T'au, Dark Angels, Ultramarines, two sets of Blood Angels, and Black Templars. This Pod seems to be coalescing around power armor builds with seven of the ten players here carrying 3+ saves into battle.
It’s really exciting to see so many new faces joining returning players (some returning after long hiatus). Get out there, roll some dice, and win one for the gipper! And remember, the object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.