Welcome to another Top 10 Warhammer 40K Lists article, the monthly overview from Grimhammer Tactics covering the top performing Warhammer 40K lists for the month.
Competitive 40K is an ever-changing landscape. New army codexes, Balance Dataslates and updated points, and new mission packs all combine to create and dictate the competitive 40K metagame. In today’s article I want to dive into the top 10 competitive Warhammer 40K lists for the month of July 2025. These are top lists that performed well or won at major events over the past month.
10. Space Marines – Stormlance Task Force – Josh Roberts – The Leeds Super Major
The first list comes from Josh Roberts out of the UK at The Leeds Supermajor. Josh’s list went undefeated in a 286 player event. This is an interesting take on the Space Marines favoring Stormlance over the traditional Gladius Task Force build we have been accustomed to seeing.
One might look at this list and ponder why take a detachment that can make a Charge move after Advancing or making a Fall Back move but have very limited assault elements? Well, the answer is simple really; the reactive move stratagem. Wind-Swift Evasion is a super powerful stratagem in the arsenal for Space Marines offering a full reactive move of 6” for Infantry and Mounted units when the enemy comes near. This flexibility offers a lot of options in reacting to the opponent’s movement and is just in general a very strong ability.
Uriel allowing Eradicators to deep strike also presents an opportunity to drop in close and nuke a Vehicle or Monster unit without needing Oaths of Moment. What really stands out here is the triple Storm Speeder Hammerstrike units. With the ability to fly around and strip cover off of three different targets each turn it really ramps up the shooting potential of the rest of the army. And of course you have double Oath of Moment goodness from Guilliman making this just a solid and efficient gunline style force.
9. Chaos Knights – Infernal Lance – Ratna Vaidya – The Leeds Super Major
Chaos Knights have certainly made a big splash in the meta since their codex dropped and while most of the attention has been focused on the Lords of Dread Detachment thanks to OC 5 “sticky”, the real meat of this army book might just be Infernal Lance. With a suite of awesome detachment rules and the ability to give those Despoiler’s Gatling Cannons or the Atrapos’s Graviton cannon Sustained Hits or get a 5+ Invulnerable Save and 6+ Feel No Pain in combat, it really ramps up the deadly firepower and survivability of arguably already undercosted large Knight platforms. With some Nurglings and Beast of Nurgles in the list to provide positional secondary support and hold the home field objective, this turns into a particularly deadly force on the table.
Infernal Lance also comes with just a great set of stratagems to use for Chaos Knights to include reducing incoming AP and the ability to grant a 4+ invulnerable save in the shooting phase, this combination of strong detachment abilities and strats makes for a difficult army for any player to deal with and Ratna took advantage of this being the only other undefeated player at The Leeds Super Major alongside Josh Roberts Space Marines (detailed above.)
8. Space Marines – Firestorm Assault Force – Chase Chappell – The Silver State Major 25
Another take on the Space Marines this time coming in the form of Firestorm Assault Force. This list is interesting because it’s pretty straight forward and no frills. Firestorm allows every unit to Advance and shoot granting their weapons the Assault ability and improving the strength of those weapons by 1 when targeting enemy units within 12″. A unique take on the Space Marines as they continue to see great results in the metagame.
I can assume that Chase loaded up the Land Raider Redeemer with Bladeguard Vets and the Judiciar to spring out and eviscerate targets although being able to hop out a squad of Vanguard Veterans is also a possibility. Being able to advance and shoot all of those units makes even the lowly Firestrike Servo-turrets a formidable unit. This list is pretty straight forward. It’s advancing and shooting you with double Oath of Moment from Guilliman and +1 to STR and +1 to wound from being the Oaths target. This force packs a nasty punch making otherwise mundane units strike much harder.
7. Imperial Knights – Noble Lance – Michael Hamilton – Geelong 40K Town
Canis Rex is back and better than ever! With a massive points reduction (70 points…seriously GW?) Canis Rex is popping up everywhere again. This list features an accompanying Atrapos to deep strike in to nuke opposing enemy Titanics and a Warden with Mythic Hero providing 2 Armigers within 12″ with a -1 Damage buff. Finally supported by a Ministorum Priest and an allied Sisters of Battle Immolator tank to strip cover off of enemy targets for the Knights to blast away, this makes for a very deadly force.
The toughness and durability of Knights makes them currently the superior option over their Chaos Knights brethren notably because of the army-wide 6+ Feel No Pain (which turns to a 5+ if the enemy Warlord dies), and a nice suite of strats and abilities. And being able to reroll one hit and wound roll of 1 each activation is really nice as well. All in all a great Knights list with a lot of synergy.
6. Chaos Space Marines – Renegade Raiders – Dekkers – III GT Tormenta de Hostias
So, it turns out CSM using Noise Marines as allies is pretty darn potent. While they don’t gain Dark Pacts, they do get to benefit from the Detachment ability of being able to advance and shoot and gain extra AP on their weapons when targting units on objectives. Couple that with the Ruinous Raid stratagem to allow a unit to reroll ALL hits AND wounds the turn they hop out of a Rhino this makes for a devastating and scary unit. Then of course you have the Noise Marines backed up by three Chaos Predator Destructors this army has the ability to blast nearly anything off the table with extremely potent shooting. The Disco Lord also makes an appearance here being able to take advantage of the Opportunistic Raiders stratagem to make a Fall Back move at the end of the opponent’s turn. This list has some notably deadly shooting combos and melee making anything think twice before sitting near an objective.
5. Genestealer Cult – Host of Ascension – Tucker Rickey – Layton Gaming 40K Event Hosted by Away Games
Genestealer Cults continues to climb in the ranks with the Host of Ascension build. With a strong detachment rule granting Sustained Hits 1 and Ignores Cover to units that arrived as Reinforcements, it really ramps up the abilty of those big blobs of Neophyte Hybrids. With the ability to drop in wholly within 6″ of a cult ambush marker instead of the normal 3″ restriction it really frees up space for those big blobs to do work.
Host of Ascension has a lot of flexibility being able to cycle units and just flood the board with bodies. With no real strategic center it makes all units useful and a threat to be dealt with and makes target priority difficult for the opponent.
4. Drukhari – Reapers Wager – Alvaro Perez – II GT Ciudad De Avila
Well it appears you don’t need to be named Skari to pilot Drukhari to success as we see this Reaper’s Wager build by Alvaro Perez finish undefeated at 5-0 in a major event. It looks like Drukhari players have solved the puzzle of the Reaper’s Wager build simply choosing to go (mostly) all in with Drukhari units, not worrying about whose winning or losing the wager in the Detachment ability and simply leaning into the reroll 1s to hit for all Drukhari units. This seems to be a great approach as it combos quite well with the stratagems in the Detachment which are all very good and useful.
Reaper’s Wager features basically any useful stratagem you could think of from getting Sustained Hits/Lethal Hits to being able to Advance and Charge and even a reactive move. The Beastmaster unit is a large part of this build’s strategy as they have Scouts 9″ followed by a 12″ move. Pair this with a Pain Token and this unit is able to get rerolls on Charges making them an effective “jail” unit boxing the opponent in their deployment zone with a Turn 1 charge. This particular build seems to be leaning very heavily into the anti-knight meta featuring three units of Scourges with guns easily equipped to drop large knight bodies quickly. There’s a lot to like about this build and congrats to Alvaro for piloting it to a strong finish in this 100 player event.
3. Death Guard – Virulent Vectorum – Liu Guanbo ilias – Midsummer O.P.A. 2025 WH40K GT
Not a surprise to see Death Guard in this top 10 list and this particular build leans heavily on what makes the faction so good; just a strong set of datasheets to pull from. With the classic Virulent Vectorum detachment for sticky objectives, this list has deadly firepower and terrifying melee threats in the form of Deathshroud Terminators to land within 6” of the enemy and unleash a deadly charge. As of the release of their codex and this writing Death Guard have won over 30 events and one begins to wonder if this reign of terror will end soon.
2. Adeptus Custodes – Lions of the Emperor – Matthew Wood – Ironweld: Warhammer 40K Summer Assault ITC Major
Lions of the Emperor win a major event coming in 1st place with a 5-0 record. Lions has seen a lot of play since its release in December during the Grotmas Detachment wave the March Update (Solar Spearhead was the Grotmas version…seriously how many detachments do Custodes need? The answer is all of them) and this list builds off the army’s strengths. What is a bit surprising here is the absence of Wardens in favor of going all in on Custodian Guard. This list is trading durability for straight up overwhelming damage. Trajann being able to pop off his once per battle Moment Shackles ability twice in the game via the stratagem really ramps up his value in this build. The Venatari provide some rapid ingress shooting support and it’s all backed up by two Caladius Grav-tanks for some potent firepower. All in all a great build and goes to show that Custodes are still a capable force in the meta even with Knights popping up on every other table.
1. Death Guard – Mortarion’s Hammer – Steve Trimble – Warhammer 40,000 GT – Warhammer Open Tacoma
Who said Plagueburst Crawlers were dead? They are alive and well and thriving even. They are especially good in Mortarion’s Hammer where you can choose 2 units more than 12” away from enemy models to be afflicted meaning they have some real potential to splash mortal wounds with their built-in datasheet ability.
Death Guard tend to “struggle” into the knights matchup with their traditional Virulent Vectorum build. Mortarion’s Hammer seems to be the answer for the knights heavy meta with plenty of high damage shots with rerolls and great durability. Steve was able to pilot this build to an 8-0 finish in the largest singles Warhammer 40K event of the month.
Final Thoughts
July was a busy month for Warhammer 40K events and that’s not even counting the team events (of which there were many). While Imperial Knights seem to be dominating the overall metagame right now in competitive 40K, Death Guard aren’t far behind them in terms of wins. It is nice to see some factions still able to pull out impressive records in the current state of the meta such as Space Marines and Drukhari.
Now, the big question is after the GW Tacoma Open event will GW step in and provide some sort of FAQ to reign these armies in. Not factoring in mirror matches, Imperial Knights and Death Guard have staggering win percentages in the upper 60s. The last half of 2025 should be interesting to say the least.
2 Comments on “Top 10 Competitive Warhammer 40K Lists July 2025”
A minor correction – the Lions of the Emperor detachment was released along with March balance dataslate and additional detachments for Orks, Tau and Daemons. The Grotmas detachment for Custodes was Solar Spearhead
Oops! That’s correct! Thank you for the correction! Post has been updated 🤘
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A minor correction – the Lions of the Emperor detachment was released along with March balance dataslate and additional detachments for Orks, Tau and Daemons. The Grotmas detachment for Custodes was Solar Spearhead
Oops! That’s correct! Thank you for the correction! Post has been updated 🤘