This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Midwest Makeup that took place in Indianapolis, USA on 16th and 17th July. It involved 27 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers
– Legion: Petrifex Elite
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Liege-Kavalos (170)*
– General
– Command Trait: Mighty Archaeossian
– Artefact: Godbone Armour
Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament (340)*
Mortisan Soulmason (115)*
– Artefact: Soul Reservoir
– Lore of Mortisans: Drain Vitality
Mortisan Boneshaper (115)
– Lore of Mortisans: Empower Nadirite Weapons

Battleline
20 x Mortek Guard (280)***
– Nadirite Blade and Shield
– Reinforced x 1
20 x Mortek Guard (280)***
– Nadirite Blade and Shield
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Kavalos Deathriders (380)**
– Nadirite Blade and Shield
– Reinforced x 1

Units
3 x Necropolis Stalkers (175)**

Endless Spells & Invocations
Bone-tithe Shrieker (50)
Chronomantic Cogs (40)
The Burning Head (20)

Core Battalions
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Bounty Hunters
***Expert Conquerors

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1965 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 111
Drops: 8

Brett: What’s happening in the US? We are only a couple of weekends in but we’ve seen a wide variety of armies winning since the new GHB. Even if they weren’t using the new GHB (Texas Masters). Another OBR (Ossicarch Bonereaper) army, Petrifax Elite, to challenge everyone. Michael’s army was the only 5/0, excellent work with a faction a lot of people have written off. In an infantry meta (according to GW) we should expect to see more of OBR who have some of the best heavy infantry in AoS.

6 casts from 3 Wizards, 3 Endless spells and 2 healing heroes with the ability to heal or return models, if there are no damaged models, to up to 5 units. Soul Drain, the Soulmason’s spell can be cast twice (and potentially up to 4 times) granting reroll 1s. Thematic but the second spell does depend on a dice roll and then a casting roll. Don’t rely on it. Liege-Kavalos has taken the fixed trait and artefact, again a hold over from AoS2.0, not bad on a combat hero though with an extra 2 wounds and negating the first damage he takes. You always want to hit Liege with low damage, insignificant attacks and hold back on the big stuff.

Drain Vitality forces your opponent to reroll good rolls (6s) to either hit or as saves, very annoying. And Empower Nadirite Weapons lets one unit have exploding hits on a 5 not a 6. Then there are 3 endless spells, Cogs for rerolls, the Burning Head for cheap mortal wounds/AOE and the Bone-tithe Shrieker stopping units from Inspiring Presence or Rally within 12″ and +1 to hit units within 12″. Most of all the spells combine to make the Guard tougher to kill and hit a bit (or lot harder). The army builds in a lot of flexibility with the choice of characters and the third battleline. Mortek Guard have a movement of 4″ and their support characters 6″. But the Deathriders, Liege and Arkhan all move at least 10″.

This army lets you construct a castle with the Guard Units backed by the Stalkers and Soulmason/Bonerepear that locks down a home objective and stretches to the centre depending on the map. They would have reroll ones and exploding 5s (on one unit). Not very inviting to charge into, they also count as 60 models on objectives and have very high moral. Exactly what you need in an objective unit. That leaves the Liege and Deathriders free, Liege can grant Endless Duty to the Deathriders giving them another attack (for a total of 4) which magnifies their exploding 6s. And they have an extra damage into Galletian Veterans. Lastly there is Arkhan with enough movement and threat to support either the castle or the roving unit. Any small unit trying to hold an objective is very exposed.

Allegiance: Nighthaunt
– Procession: Scarlet Doom
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Spirit Torment (115)
Guardian of Souls (150)
– General
– Command Trait: Master of Magic
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Lore of the Underworlds: Shademist
Krulghast Cruciator (150)
– Artefact: Lightshard of the Harvest Moon
Reikenor the Grimhailer (190)
– Lore of the Underworlds: Seal of Shyish

Battleline
20 x Bladegheist Revenants (350)*
– Reinforced x 1
20 x Bladegheist Revenants (350)*
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Bladegheist Revenants (175)*
3 x Spirit Hosts (125)*
20 x Chainrasps (220)*
– Reinforced x 1

Units
4 x Myrmourn Banshees (105)

Endless Spells & Invocations
Purple Sun of Shyish (70)

Core Battalions
Bounty Hunters
Warlord
Expert Conquerors

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 106
Drops: 10

Brett: If I’m not mistaken Nicholas is from the Die is Cast podcast/battle report channel and you can watch his development of the list through a series of battles since the Battletome dropped. Well worth giving them a look. To the list; Quite a few Nighthaunt lists lately have had 1 Spirit Torment, 2 Guardians of Souls, or 2 Spirit Torments and 1 Guardian of Souls, focusing on returning models to the Battleline units.

Nicholas has instead gone with Reikenor, expensive but a great wizard and wizard slayer. He can snuff a corpse candle for +3 to cast. Used on Purple Sun that reduces it to a Casting Value (CV) of 5 or 75% chance to succeed. With Arcane Tome on the Guardian we have 3 casts/denies and the Guardian (as the strongest non named character) being the General. Shademist and Seal of Shyish are almost autotakes; they grant one unit -1 to wound rolls that target it or a 5+ Ward (normally a 6+).With Krulghast’s ability to reduce damage by 1 (terrified units only) and the Purple Sun -1 to save rolls within 6″ the army has a lot of buffs, mostly durability, for one or 2 units.

On top of the 3 denies the Banshees are here to shut down spell casting. With 4 models they have +1 to their 2D6 spell ignore and they only roll against the casting value not your cast. Otherwise the list uses Bladegheists on the charge to remove things (60 attacks after applying mortal wounds from Scarlet Doom. All Nighthaunt can fall back and charge so you can charge every round. ., I can’t tell but I would expect them to be in Bounty Hunters for +1 damage to Galletian Veterans. The Spirit Hosts can protect one character, it’s only a 66% chance of the wound passing over but it’s after saves so still pretty strong. Chainrasps to hold a backfield objective, in Expert Conquerors so counting as 60 models on an objective.

A solid army with plenty of mobility (ie 8″ move) and hitting power but with the no rend, 6+ ward and all of the debuffs, as hard to hit as ghosts should be. Good results through the weekend with maximum scoring in pretty much every round except of course the first one. We’ll talk about that list a little later but it’s as close to an anti meta nightmare as you’ll find. If they roll well the Bloodthirsters will remove entire units quickly and Khorne hates magic. Not a good combination for Nighthaunt.

Army Faction: Maggotkin of Nurgle
– Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Lord of Afflictions (210)*
– General
– Command Traits: Overpowering Stench
– Incubatch
– Dolorous Tocsin
– Artefacts of Power: The Splithorn Helm
Be’lakor (360)*

BATTLELINE
Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*
Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)*
– 2 x Dolorous Tocsin
Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*
Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*
Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*

OTHER
Pusgoyle Blightlords (Single) (110)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000

Brett: And we’re back with Maggotkin of Nurgle. They play the new Battle Tactics well, able to score a few along the way and denying their opponents their Battle Tactics through their resilience. Sam’s army is a good example, with each of the troop units having 16 wounds (apart from the single). Even worse for a lot of opponents they aren’t Galletian Veterans; Bounty Hunters don’t do extra damage. If that’s not enough, with no Galletian Veterans in the list 3 of the 8 Battle Tactics aren’t even available to your opponent. That feels like a bit of an oversight from GW .

Powerful army full of almost impossible to kill things, 118 wounds with a 5+ ward and it’s 2 drop. The army is very mobile for a Nurgle one, with 8″ move for everything. The Lord of Afflictions is loaded for bear with the Tocsin, a 4+ ward (Splithorn Helm) and interferes with commands. Belakor adds a mobile battering ram but needs to operate independantly not to suffer from the Lord’s Incubatch ability MW because he doesn’t have the Nurgle keyword. Drowned men lets the entire army except Belakor redeploy before first turn.

Blightlords pregame move over they have an 8″ movement letting them apply pressure assuming they aren’t taken into the sky by the Lord (effectively a teleport). Charging, the Blightlords (and Lord) inflict D3 MW on a 4+, 2+ with Dolorous Tocasin which the Lord and the large unit of Blightlords have. This is per model making that large unit very damaging. Blightlords apply 1 MW just for being near them (3″) if they roll above the opposing units wounds before disease points. Blightlords are very good at applying them with 22 attacks per unit (44 for the larger unit) averaging just under 4 disease points per combat phase. That’s not to mention the 1 for being near them or 1 that carries over. It would be very easy to have 6 points on a unit being near them. 6 disease points gives an average of 3 MW (4+).

To break that down, a 2 model Blightlord unit that would need 36 Rend -1, damage 1 attacks to clear can apply an average of 7.5 MW (charge, presence and disease points) into 1 wound models. Against 2 wounds it’s more like 7MW on average. That’s without counting their attacks. How to deal with it? Shooting comes to mind and maybe staying mobile, loosing Outmuscle, Head to Head and Against the Odds as Battle Tactics hurts a lot. What’s interesting is the only loss was to a foot Fyreslayers army (no Magmadroths) so mobility wasn’t important. But it does have Gotrek and Demon Slayer which turns off Ward save’s and a 4+ Ward for the troops near a hero. That would mitigate a lot of the incoming MW including the disease points.

A very hard to deal with army.

Allegiance: Khorne
– Slaughterhost: Reapers of Vengeance
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leader
Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (295)**
– General
– Command Trait: Mage Eater
Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280)**
– Artefact: Skullshard Mantle
Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280)
– Artefact: Khartoth the Bloodhunger
Skarbrand (380)
Bloodsecrator (125)**
Slaves to Darkness Daemon Prince (210)**
– Sword
– Mark of Chaos: Khorne

Battleline
10 x Bloodletters (110)*
10 x Bloodletters (110)*
5 x Flesh Hounds (105)**
10 x Gors (70)*
– Gor-Blades & Beastshields

Core Battalions
*Expert Conquerors
**Warlord
Artefact

Total: 1965 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 109
Drops: 10

Brett: Do you hate magic users? Does your local meta have a lot of Death armies with 1 wound models and magic? Or are you just a very angry angry being? Here is an army for you, 3 Bloodthirsters and Skarbrand to let all of the hate flow. And it looks like a Khorne army with some Bloodletters.

In a meta where 20 Namarti, 10 tree revenants or 20 bladegheist are dominating a lot of battlelines the big daemon heroes can shine. But they are very swingy so high risk, high reward. If they go off they can remove entire units in a turn. With Skarbrand you want to hold him back a turn so that when he gets in on the 2nd turn he is fighting from his bottom bracket (Slaughter has 9 attacks and Carnage hits on a 1+). With the Demon Prince halving charge rolls Nighthaunt, particularly Scarlet Doom will suffer. Even falling back just over 3″ to charge is going to leave them with a 7″ or 8″ charge which is no sure thing. With mulitple sources of reroll 1s and the anti magic of Wizard eater this is a fast and hard hitting army that will chew up armies with weaker troops.

Which is amusing given how squishy Bloodletters and Gors are. The Fleshhounds are a good inclusion for extra wide mobility and Gors are really good for screening home base. An imaginative army from one of the factions normally seen as a bit weaker, is Gallet Khorne’s territory?

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