The 2020 LVO brought in roughly one-thousand people for 40k alone. And now that the tourney is over, we can look back at some shocking army lists!

Every now and then, there is a hobbyist that shows up to a tournament rocking the anti-meta units that most others would overlook. However, more often than not, those units actually perform better than anyone ever expected. Check out these three unique lists that were spotted at different events recently. Maybe it’ll inspire you to venture out from the safety of the obvious “meta” choices!

Looking back at one of the biggest 40k events of the year, we are going to be pulling out some of the more unique lists that were spotted and didn’t do too bad. In the face of a brutal Iron Hands/Space Marine meta, here are what these players brought!

Thanks to Best Coast Pairings, we can look back at the event as if we were there ourselves.

Malik Amin-Rubio- Imperial Fists

After seeing the Imperial Fists, you might have thought you were going to see a spam of Intercessors with stalker bolgtuns. But Malik brought in a “You can’t see me” list that actually did surprisingly well.

Lacking in CP, this army actually wasn’t very CP hungry, so it was an okay sacrifice to make by not bringing any Battalion detachments. Stepping a bit further, the only units that really stayed in harm’s way were the Stormhark Interceptors. These would fly up the board and pop key units quickly to buy time for the rest of his list.

Speaking of the rest of his list, he brought only units that could fire without LOS. Three Thunderfire Cannons along with different Whirlwind patterns meant that he would park these dudes behind buildings and lob +1 damage shots (thanks to the Doctrine bonus) at the enemy each turn. Board control might have been a little on the weak side, but with the enemy not being able to run from his entire army’s firepower looks to have been a solid trade-off.

Jay Jones- Aeldari

For this Eldar list, some units were brought that we don’t see too much of. Jay could have easily brought nine Aeldari Flyers and called it a day. However, he played the ground game. Bringing the Warlock Skyrunner Conclave, this ate up nearly 600 pts of his list from the start, Then, a mix of Dire Avengers and Rangers flooded the board to create space for his characters and the conclave. Finally, a Spearhead was brought with Night Spinners and Support weapons filling up the slots for the detachment.

Overall, this list didn’t bring one really big, high toughness unit. Rather, in true Aelari fashion, brought potent Psykers and spammed firepower that would act like a bunch of papercuts against things like Knights.

Matthew Allee- Thousand Sons

Finally, we have a Thousand Sons list running a bunch of Rubric Marines and some key characters. Matthew is still holding it down for the T-sons.

Rubric spam was something that we saw on and off again in the earlier days of 8th. However, with the new Ritual of the Damned book from Psychic Awakening, they got a lot better (but that wasn’t in effect for this event).

Two Battalions full of Rubrics hit the field to create space for the melee wrecking balls like Daemon Princes and Magnus-LITE , Ahriman himself. A Scorpius was also brought for that nice little extra spice of indirect fire.

Cultists were taken in a third Battalion just to help screen and put cheap bodies on some objectives. The rest of the points were thrown into an Obliterator squad with the Mark of Slaanesh for the ability to make the unit fire twice in a single phase. Nice job bringing a slow and grindy list with unforgiving melee and a surprising amount of firepower!

Overall, none of the lists from above stuck to any particular “meta” build for their faction. And best of all, they came in the top 50!

With these lists being so unique and doing so well, has this inspired you to experiment with your collection? What faction do you play?

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