This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Outlaw Open at LSO that took place in Texas, USA on 23rd and 24th July. It involved 46 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament. A return to the correct order with a Daughters of Khaine (DoK) taking the event pushed hard by the Sons of Behemet. Ogor Mawtribes make a welcome showing at the top table as well, just underlining how open the meta is.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

Army Faction: Daughters of Khaine
– Army Subfaction: Zainthar Kai
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x The Shadow Queen (680)*
1 x Morathi-Khaine (680)*
1 x Bloodwrack Medusa (130)*
– General
– Command Traits: Zealous Orator
– Artefacts: Shadow Stone
– Spells: Mindrazor

BATTLELINE
10 x Witch Aelves (115)*
– Paired Sciansá
10 x Witch Aelves (115)*
– Paired Sciansá
15 x Blood Sisters (420)**

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Chronomantic Cogs (40)

OTHER
1 x Gotrek Gurnisson (485)**

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters

TOTAL POINTS: (1985/2000)

Brett: Morathi and Gotrek together feels wrong somehow, like shouldn’t Gotrek be after Morathi. Not in this army though, they’ve worked together to go 5/0 and take the event. Elves are fragile and die easily – not this army, that’s 1165 points of the nigh on impossible to kill. We saw a lot of Gotrek early in 3rd edition but he has faded as people have learnt to play around his slow movement. Including him here is a great idea because your opponent really wants to get at the Shadow Queen. You really need to be in combat with her to max your wounds against her. She only takes 3 a turn, so you need to be able to shoot or attack her in your turn and fight back in her players turn to get more than 3 wounds a round. Now you have to go through Gotrek.

Until you kill the Shadow Queen you can’t kill Morathi who is both casting spells and working as a blender in combat. A 3 cast wizard with a special command to make a unit shoot or fight in the hero phase (it’s eligible to fight again in the shooting or fight phases). She knows the full spell lore, includes a mortal wound and has 3 casts. All up the army has 4 casts and 4 unbinds available. The Bloodwrack Medusa has Zealous Orator for a boosted rally (models return on a 4+), Shadow Stone for +1 to cast and is casting Mindrazor. Mindrazor has a CV of ,8 hence the stone, but provides (additional rend and +1 damage to a unit within 18) . On the Blood Sisters that adds to 46 attacks on 3s with -2 rend and potentially 3 damage (into Galletian Veterans).

The Medusa lets a single unit advance the Blood Rites table for that phase and her warscroll spell lets you subtract 1 from wound rolls for 1 unit. Blood Rites is a Battle Trait for DoK that gives an army wide buff starting with add 1 to run rolls and ending with a 5+ ward. Advancing the table might let you surprise your opponent with getting something into combat or being more lethal. This is a combat army with next to no range attacks (the Shadow Queen has some). It doubles down on the combat with Gotrek, Reducing incoming attacks to 1 damage, 3+ ward, as long as something is within 3″ fighting again (and again). Unfortunately most of the buffs in the army are keyworded to the elf units and Gotrek isn’t sharing them.

Choosing Blood Sisters and Witch Aelves with no Heartenders or Blood Stalkers is interesting. This list is either going to come at you hard (first 2 Blood Rite abilities) or force you to come to them through some heavy damage dealers. Which way you take it would depend on your opponent, as a 3 drop army it will choose priority much of the time. In this event 2 armies had strong shooting, although SCE have fallen off with the change to holy command. Really though that strong combat, particularly with the ever popular Blood Sisters, is going to let you dictate battle around the objectives you choose. Good solid on meta army that without specific experience is hard to counter. Well done.

Allegiance: Sons of Behemat
– Tribe: Breaker Tribe (Fierce Loathing: Idiots with Flags)
– Grand Strategy: Stomping Order
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)*
– General
– Command Trait: Monstrously Tough
– Artefact: Amulet of Destiny (Universal Artefact)
Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)*
Warstomper Mega-Gargant (470)*
Warstomper Mega-Gargant (470)*

Core Battalions
*Bosses of the Stomp – Unified

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 140
Drops: 1

Brett: Did the Sons ever go away? Or did they just sleep for a little while. For a while they were taking less events but they are still a good army and difficult to play into. Using a faction Grand Strategy has attracted some attention lately with some of the Battle Traits and Grand Strategies being easier than the new Season 1 choices. Stomping Order means that they are going to run or charge every turn, it may be one of the less interactive ones. Bosses of the Stomp gives either one drop or an additional Enhancement. Christopher has chosen to go for a one drop, giving the opportunity of a 1st/2nd round double, very very frightening.

2 Gatebreakers, 2 Warstompers, no casting, the general has 40 wounds (up from 35) and a 6+ ward for that little extra something. The Fierce Loathing is a solid choice, any unit with a Totem or a Command Model gives up a +1 to hit. There are a lot of units with Command Models baked in particularly Stormcast but pretty much all of the troops with higher wound counts have the ability. A bit of extra work for players. Limited ranged attacks – Gatebreakers – and horrific melee. The Warstomper’s Titanic Boulderclub shouldn’t surprise anyone now with it’s attacks characteristic of however many models are within 3″, +4 for monsters and +* (for the warscroll table) to a maximum of 10.

His matchups for the most part were pretty favourable, although pulling KO twice must be pretty rare. The melee SCE list would suffer horrible clap back, interestingly those are shield Annihilators with much lower damage. The KO lists concentrate their shooting in Ironclads and use a “super hero” either the Incarnate or Gotrek. Gotrek is a bit slow to chase Gargants (but is effective into them since they struggle to kill him) and Sons are one army that can deal with the Incarnate quickly. The Kragnos/Ogor and Sons match up that ended in a draw would have been very interesting to watch live. Can Kragnos out stomp Gargants?

Allegiance: Ogor Mawtribes
– Mawtribe: Bloodgullet
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs:

Leaders
Frostlord on Stonehorn (430)*
– General
– Command Trait: Nice Drop of the Red Stuff!
– Artefact: Splatter-cleaver
– Mount Trait: Metalcruncher
Butcher (135)*
– Tenderiser
– Bloodgullet 2nd Spell: Ribcracker
– Lore of Gutmagic: Greasy Deluge
Butcher (135)*
– Tenderiser
– Artefact: Bloodrock Talisman
– Bloodgullet 2nd Spell: Molten Entrails
– Universal Spell Lore: Levitate
Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)

Battleline
2 x Mournfang Pack (160)**
– Culling Clubs or Prey Hackers with Iron Fists
2 x Mournfang Pack (160)**
– Culling Clubs or Prey Hackers with Iron Fists
2 x Mournfang Pack (160)**
– Culling Clubs or Prey Hackers with Iron Fists

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (40)
Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (60)

Core Battalions
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Bounty Hunters

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 81
Drops: 7

Brett: An army that does extra damage on the charge with Kragnos who grants an 18″ charge to units within 12″. What could go wrong with that? A very clever army that probably shows the struggle for Destruction at the moment. Really strong units but it’s difficult to survive, score and hit back however Jacob scored well during the weekend.

Bloodgullet grants an extra spell (and cast but not dispel) to the Butchers. Both of the chosen spells are offensive (very – these are Ogors) – Ribcraker taking 1 from a unit and Molten Entrails for +1 to damage for a unit. As we are seeing a lot of there are 2 Endless Spells, Chronomatic Cogs (rerolls) and Gnashing Jaws. Bloodrock Talisman adds +2 to the roll for an Endless Spell so we know who is most likely to cast the 2 Endless Spells. Levitate is a useful spell, letting you grant flying to a unit. Flying Kranos anyone? Certainly doable, meaning you could easily prevent early rounds shooting but you probably want to get him out early to buff charges.

The Frostlord brings the mandatory trait and artefact on top of his ward and ability to command a unit to reroll their charge. Everything does mortal wounds on the charge (except the Butchers of course) and the Mournfang can do (really occasionally) MW on 6s with their range attack for just a little more sting. Good quality attacks punish MSU hurting several of his opponents. Short range shooting is very vunerable to the long charges Kragnos brings. The Frostlord and even more Kragnos could hit the Incarnate hard enough to slow it’s growth (but are vunerable to it’s type of attacks). And of course there is no battleline infantry for Bounty Hunters to worry at. All up a very well rounded army for the current meta. Coming 3rd by 1 pt with Mawtribes, not one of the stronger factions, is a great achievement.

Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers
– Legion: Petrifex Elite
– Grand Strategy: Unrelenting efficiency
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

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

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 Mortek Guard (140)**
– Nadirite Blade and Shield
10 x Mortek Guard (140)**
– Nadirite Blade and Shield

Artillery
Mortek Crawler (215)
Mortek Crawler (215)

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (40)
Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
Bone-tithe Shrieker (50)

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

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 106
Drops: 9

Brett: This is the first time I’ve seen the same unit in both Bounty Hunters and Expert Conquerors, do they get on or is the squabbling in the ranks? Petrifix Elite, which grants -1 rend to all units and lets you increase rend by 1 for a unit per phase (so it can have +1 rend in both yours and your opponents combat phases). A better Armour of Contempt for the 40k players. Like most older books this has mandatory items, an artefact and command trait. Both are very good – +2 wounds and melee weapon set to rend -3 so they aren’t a burden. Command Entourage was taken as the battalion for the leaders to access an additional artefact, Gothizzar Cartouche, +1 to wound rolls is the target does not have the DEATH keyword. Particularly good with the crawlers.

For non DEATH targets that means hitting and wounding on 2s doing 5 damage. Nice. The army has very strong magic as we are seeing a lot in Season 1, with all up 6 casts covering 2 Lore of Mortisans spells, 3 endless spells and 3 solid warscroll spells. Arkhan’s +2 to casts/dispells is clutch for getting Purple Sun out, the play being Chronomatic Cogs then Purple Sun so you have a reroll. Bone-tithe can be cast by anyone that is close enough to make sure one of the Mortek Guard units gets +1 to hit. Arkhan’s Curse of Years from his warscroll sounds nasty but on average is slightly better than Arcane Bolt. If it spikes though, it could be a lot worse.

You’d also want the Soulmason to cast his Soul-Guide most turns, re-roll 1s to hit on a larger block of Guard. That’s worth 6 hits (if they have Empower Weapon) from the average 6 x 1s you roll in 41 attacks. Hopefully you’ve gotten the idea of what this list is like, other than Arkhan everything is only moving 4″ or 5″. Move a block to the centre or better yet stay back and make the opponent walk through your Endless Spells, spells and Crawler fire causing chip damage. Then fall on them with your Bounty Hunters Mortek Guard. The worst case is you attacked them with Galetian Veteran’s into a unit with empowered weapons and soul-guide. That averages 23.5 hits at rend -1, 2 damage before saves.

While not extremely hard hitting elite armies will struggle to field enough units in later turns and Bonereapers can start to dictate. You have to close with them because you need to shut the catapults down but that opens you up to the spells. Looking at his path to 4/1 his one loss was to a Skaven list with decent shooting from Stormfiends and melee from Thanquol. While short range they are beyond the threat range of Guard (or just inside it) and Stormfield are pretty fighty as well. Otherwise a lot of bodies to kill that all move a bit faster so a good counter. Watching Morathi against this army would have been interesting, that was Jonathan’s highest scoring round.

Final Tournament Placings