This weekend saw 734 players battle it out in the London GT Super-Major, Europe’s largest Warhammer 40k tournament. Of the eight players invited back for the finals today, half are commanding the Aeldari, despite the faction being nerfed in Games Workshop’s most recent balance update for Warhammer 40k.
The London GT is a four day event, that hosts organised play for many game systems, and its headline 40k Super-Major is the world’s second largest Warhammer 40k tournament after the Las Vegas Open. Four Super-Major finalists are commanding the Aeldari Warhammer 40k faction, two have chosen the Chaos Space Marines, one Raven Guard, and one Dark Angels.
Nassim Foucham of the London Warmasters club has already won his quarter-finals game, his Aeldari defeating Aidan Brocklehurst’s Dark Angels by a convincing 98 : 35 according to Best Coast Pairings. YouTube channel Wargames Live is providing live coverage of the top eight today if you want to see the games in action.
As well as making up half of the armies fielded by the top players, Aeldari are the most popular faction at the tournament overall, taken by nearly 8% of all players.
The Aeldari faction has been the dominant force in tournaments since Warhammer 40k 10th edition dropped: YouTube channel Contact Lost even produced a video specifically for prospective GT players about how to deal with the Aeldari:
It’s tempting to interpret the results from the London GT as a clear sign that the Balance Dataslate and points updates Games Workshop published on September 7 haven’t done enough to nerf overperforming factions.
It’s hard to disentangle the quality of a faction from the quality and experience of the people fielding it; tournament veterans have had three months honing their skills with the Aeldari in 10th edition.
Just slightly down the rankings for the Super-Major, the list of factions that placed well is encouragingly diverse. Glasshammer’s Josh Roberts made it to 10th place with Chaos Knights, Mark Crombleholme of DeadRedGaming made it to 11th with Necrons, and Dino Kho of Stat Check took the T’au Empire to 13th.
Perhaps most impressive, Try Hard Wargaming’s Danny Porter piloted a Leagues of Votann list to 19th place. That’s a remarkable turnaround for 40k’s undisputed worst faction before the September 7 balance dataslate.
If you’re intrigued by organised play but don’t know where to start, check out our review of Vanguard Tactics Warhammer 40k 10th Edition Accelerator programme; it’s one of many training toolkits Vanguard offers to get players up to speed with tournament gaming.
Photographs all provided by the London GT.