Warhammer 40K Competitive Monday Meta Review: Victrix Take Leicester

Welcome to another Meta Monday 40K, the weekly roundup from Grimhammer Tactics covering the latest Warhammer 40K tournament meta trends.

See all past editions of Meta Monday 40K here.

Welcome to another Meta Monday 40K edition. This week I’ll be looking at the top 3 largest Warhammer 40K events from the weekend of December 5-7th from Best Coast Pairings, looking over the winning lists for each as well as the Top 5 from each event. We start over in the UK with the Leicester 40K Super Major, then head on over to Missouri in the U.S.A. for Feliz Exterminatus IV and finally over to the east coast in Boston with the Everwinter Warhammer 40K GT. Let’s get into it!

The Leicester 40K Super Major 2025 – England – 275 Players

The Leicester 40K Super Major was by far the weekend’s biggest event with nearly 300 players. This was the first truly super major event since the drop of the Victrix Honour Guard a few weeks ago. They have been on a tear in smaller GTs since that time racking up event wins and the trend continued at this past weekend’s largest event. Nassim Fouchane is a renowned player in the UK having won many major events over the past few years. In the Final he took on Matthew McCurdy and his Space Wolves to take the event win. Let’s look at the top 5 and Nassim’s list.

1. Nassim Fouchane – Space Marines – 7-0
2. Clement Tournade – Aeldari – 7-0
3. Mani Cheema – Aeldari – 6-1
4. Matthew McCurdy – Space Wolves – 6-1
5. Brett Smith – T’au Empire – 6-1

The Winning List: Nassim Fouchane – Space Marines Gladius Task Force

The dreaded 18 Victrix Honour Guard List has officially arrived! Making the finals of the largest Warhammer 40K competitive event of the weekend. Nassim has chosen to go with the cheaper (and older) version of Cato with the Captain Sicarius datasheet. The key difference between the old and new datasheet being that the older Captain Sicarius model gives his unit the Scouts 6″ ability as well as making their ranged weapons Assault. The classic model keeps the reactive move of 6″ similar to the new version, but lacks the versatility of the different melee weapon profiles of the newer version. The classic Captain Sicarius has a decent enough statline in combat however hitting with 6 attacks on a 2+ Weapon Skill at Strength 5, AP -2, and 2 Damage with Lethal Hits. Uriel is, of course, attaching to a 2nd unit of Victrix for the Deep Strike and more importantly, Rapid Ingress, threats. Meanwhile Gravis Calgar and his 2 stooges attach to the 3rd Victrix Honour Guard unit giving them 9 models that hit like a truck and can Advance and/or Fall Back and still shoot and charge. All of this backed up by powerful shooting in the form of Ballistus and Redemptor Dreads. This list is the thing of nightmares in the current metagame as players are scrambling to find counter play. Will this list survive this week’s Balance Dataslate? Guess we will have to wait and see, but for now this list is certainly rising to the top as the scariest bully on the block, and with good reason.

Feliz Exterminatus IV – Missouri – 98 Players

Moving back to the U.S. we head to the mid-west to the Feliz Exterminatus IV, a 98 player event featuring some of the mid-western United States best players. Once again Tyranids win yet another major event. This time Ryan Verbeck leads his Subterranean Assault list to an undefeated record at 6-0.

1. Ryan Verbeck – Tyranids – 6-0
2. Nathan Blankenship – Orks – 5-1
3. Treynor Wolfe – Space Marines – 5-1
4. Dan Sammons – Ad Mech – 5-1
5. Jake Durham – Space Wolves – 5-1

The Winning List: Ryan Verbeck – Tyranids – Subterranean Assault

Ryan takes an interesting twist to the Subterranean Assault detachment opting not to go entirely all-in on combat. This list features two big blobs of Zoanthropes able to pop out from a burrow marker to draw line of sight with devastating shooting. We can assume that the Hyperadapted Raveners are attaching to the 5 man Ravener squads to wreak havoc as well and provide some melee punch. This is a unique take on the Tyranids detachment. Congrats to Ryan for taking it all the way to the top. I have played Ryan before in events and he is a class act player. Well done!

Everwinter Warhammer 40K GT – Boston, MA – 98 Players

Finally we wrap up this week’s Meta Monday 40K with a trip to New England in the cold icy Boston, MA for the Everwinter GT. Here the Sisters of the Adeptus Sororitas ran by Benjamin Rubenstein take a top finish going 7-0. Let’s see the top 5.

1. Benjamin Rubenstein – Adeptus Sororitas – 7-0
2. Drew Salzborn – T’au Empire – 6-1
3. Ari C – Drukhari – 6-1
4. Cullen Burns – Ad Mech – 6-1
5. Thomas Davies – Genestealer Cults – 6-1

The Winning List: Benjamin Rubenstein – Adeptus Sororitas – Hallowed Martyrs

Sisters continue to be a dominant force in the meta bringing down several big event wins since the Q3 Balance Dataslate a few months ago. Their meteoric ascent is sure to come crashing down with the Balance Dataslate later this week (right?) They have continued to have big results across the global metagame. Benjamin’s list name was hilarious as we see the Victrix spam list striking fear in the hearts of players across the larger meta. So to answer the question, did Benjamin actually pair into the dreaded 18 Victrix list? As a matter of fact, yes he did. Defeating them handily in Round 6 by the tally of 79-48. So it seems like Benjamin’s list actually was set to fight the boogeyman and he did just that taking the nuns with guns to victory and onto the finals where he would win the event. Well done, Benjamin!

Final Thoughts

Despite the UKTC finding more and more ways to frustrate me when I try to write these articles (hiding placings and saying their will be 8 rounds when there are only 7 etc), it still looked to be an exciting weekend for competitive 40K. Of course we are getting a slew of new Grotmas detachments and we have already seen 3 as of this writing in the form of Grizzled Company for Astra Militarum, Nightmare Hunt for Chaos Space Marines and Rage-cursed Onslaught for Blood Angels. We will see 3 more this week before the Balance Dataslate hits on Thursday to shake things up just in time for the new year! Will GW let the Victrix Honour Guard stand despite the multitude of voices decrying their power level (to include myself)? Will the new detachments have an immediate impact on the larger metagame? A lot of questions remain to be answered but 2026 is definitely going to be an exciting year for 40K.

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