This 2024 winner of the Warhammer 40k grand tournament at the World Championships of Warhammer is Folger Pyles, who came out swinging with the Adeptus Custodes against the 2024 runner-up John Lennon and his Astra Militarum. The match-up heavily favored the Militarum, but Pyles’ immaculate play – and faith in the Emperor – saw him through to the win.
The Warhammer 40k finals took place on November 24 in Atlanta. The mission primary objectives were Lynchpin – which calls for players to hold their home objective zone while grabbing as many other zones as possible – and Raise Banners, which provides a small bonus for holding zones with Battleline units.
The whole match is available to watch on the Warhammer Twitch channel, and it’s well worth your time. On paper, the match-up was heavily in Lennon’s favor. The Stat Check Warhammer 40k meta data dashboard, which collates win and loss data from hundreds of games and dozens of tournaments, shows the Adeptus Custodes have a 49% win rate across almost 500 tracked games in October and November, making them one of the mid-table Warhammer 40k factions. If you filter that data down to just Custodes vs Astra Militarum matches, they drop to a 31.5% win rate.
Most of the Custodes’ offensive output comes from melee. That melee capability is attached to small, elite infantry units, which – although well protected as far as infantry goes – will go down to a large volume of enemy fire, something that the Militarum can deploy in abundance.
While the Militarum’s ranged offense is concentrated into its tanks, it also has access to cheap and mobile infantry, whether that’s Catachan squads in Chimeras or deep-striking Tempestus Aquilons. If the Custodes don’t punch out of their deployment zone very early they will be walled off with meatshields that delay them from scoring objectives and keep them away from the critical Militarum tanks.
This was exactly the bind Pyles found himself in on his first turn. Lennon played first and advanced up two Chimeras, one containing Catachan infantry close to the central objective, and the one nearest to Pyles’ deployment zone. A whole armored company of guns was in position to shoot the Custodians if they responded to this threat.
Pyles did have a response. The heart of his list was made up of three units of Custodian Wardens, each led by a Blade Champion. This is a very durable, and explosively fast unit that calls for careful timing. The Blade Champion grants rerolls to charge and rerolls to advance, and once per game allows the unit they lead to charge even if they advanced that turn.
Pyles advanced all three Warden units aggressively up the board, and then used two of the once-per-game abilities to engage the two Chimeras, destroying both, before consolidating into the infantry that piled out of the wrecks.
Lennon withdrew his infantry from combat and then formed them up into blocking lines around the Custodes, effectively fixing the position that they would charge from next turn. Units of Aquilons landed by deep-strike to contain Custodes units in the back field, and to get into positions to shoot the Warden unit that still had access to its advance-and-charge ability.
A reactive movement stratagem allowed Pyles to minimise the number of Wardens that unit was presenting to the scariest of Lennon’s tanks, but then it was time for the Militarum shooting phase.
This was the turn when Pyles’ aggressive gambit met the test of the Militarum guns. Custodes Wardens have a native ability that makes them harder to wound when led by a character, and a once-per-game ability that they can declare in the enemy shooting phase to gain them a 4+ Feel No Pain. But even with multiple layers of protection, they have just three wounds each.
It was a game-deciding turn, and Lennon’s best chance to break the Wardens. But the Emperor smiled on the companions – despite every tank in the army firing, only seven Wardens fell. While there was still a bloody struggle to follow, Pyles had secured a position on the objectives, and was well poised to cull infantry and charge and demolish tanks at a rate that Lennon couldn’t keep up with. The match finished 71-57 in favor of the Custodes, with two devastated armies.
It’s a gripping match, with excellent positional play as well as that audacious Warden gambit. Lennon also put up a great fight, and has demonstrated a mastery over the Astra Militarum to match his 2023 finals performance with the Space Marines.
The World Championships finals weren’t the only exciting thing to come out of Atlanta this weekend – make sure you check out the previews of the upcoming Aeldari and new Death Korps of Krieg miniatures!
Source: Wargamer
