Warhammer 40k 9th edition doesn’t have long left, but there’s evidence that it will be bowing out on a high note. According to tournament results reported on the sites Tabletop Archive and MetaMonday, no single faction dominated the top positions across six sizable Grand Tournaments on the weekend of April 22 – 23.
The largest tournament was the 113 person MayhemGT in Mebane, North Carolina; each of the top ten positions was claimed by a different Warhammer 40k faction. Likewise, the 88 person Rataclysm at Ballarat East, Australia, saw ten different factions in the top ten positions.
The podium positions were also fairly diverse. MayhemGT was won by Chaos Daemons, followed by Dark Angels – despite the massive nerf to the Deathwing in the most recent balance dataslate – then Death Guard in third. Rataclysm was also a win for the Daemons, but second position went to the Genestealer Cults, followed by the recently de-nerfed Tyranids.
Looking at tournaments with 40-60 players, each of the Grand Clash in Trois-Rivieres, Canada; Out Of The Furnace IV in Cardiff, Wales; War Calls 2023 in Kelmscott, Australia; and Frontier Open in Cheyenne, Wyoming, had five different factions take the top five places. Only the 53-player Normandy Grand Tournament at Gourg Archard, France saw repetition in the top five, with the Ynnari Eldar subfaction taking first and third place.
These are the first tournaments to take place since using the final Warhammer 40k balance dataslate for ninth edition 40k, which Games Workshop published on April 13. This tournament season may only last a few months before Warhammer 40k 10th edition arrives, but these early results indicate that it could be a very healthy, diverse competitive environment while it lasts.
MetaMonday is a Patreon-supported site focusing on Warhammer 40k tournament stats. Tabletop Archive is also Patreon-supported, and focuses on tutorials about painting miniatures. Both participate in the r/WarhammerCompetitive subreddit.