This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Harambe’s Heroes and Goldmine Games Rumble in the Jungle held in Richmond, Texas, USA on 6th and 7th of August. It involved 28 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.

Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.

If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?

Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.

The Top Three AoS Lists

Allegiance: Daughters of Khaine
– Temple: Zainthar Kai
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Bloodthirsty Zealots
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
The Shadow Queen (340)*
Morathi-Khaine (340)*
Bloodwrack Medusa (130)*
– General
– Command Trait: Zealous Orator
– Artefact: Crown of Woe
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon

Battleline
15 x Blood Stalkers (540)*
– Reinforced x 2
10 x Blood Sisters (280)*
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Witch Aelves (115)*
– Sacrificial Knives and Blade Bucklers

Units
5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)*
5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (40)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1975 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 94
Drops: 1

Brett: Another strong showing from Daughters of Khaine, with all the sisters in the one army. This is a hardcore shooting list with solid melee and fast movers for grabbing objectives/completing battle tactics.The Grand Strategy indicates all strategies and battle tactics were in play.

The Bloodwrack Medusa has girded herself for war with Crown of Woe and Flaming Weapon but I don’t think you want her in combat with 6 wounds and a 6+ save. She serves as a totem for the Sisters and Stalkers though advancing Blood Rites and potentially allowing Turn 1 charges. A double reinforced Blood Stalker unit and a reinforce Blood Sister unit are the damage dealers and will take some moving. The Witch Aelves are a screening unit early on and a combat threat in their own right although this list doesn’t offer a lot of buffs for them.

DoK isn’t thought of as a casting army but casting is really important to them, elite and squishy they need to either max their damage or minimist blowback. They achieve that through their spells, Chronomatic Cogs is a good choice for reliability to things like Zealous Orator (rally on a 4+) or Mindrazor. Rember that Morathi knows the entire spell lore. Not much more to say really, it’s an effective and efficient way to go into a tournament. So long as you can choose your combats it should go fairly well. During his run Gavin took down 2 very different Nighthaunt armies and Maggotkin (including 2nd and 3rd). Solid effort and demonstrating the depth in the new DoK book.

Army Faction: Nighthaunt
– Army Subfaction: The Quicksilver Dead
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

LEADER
1 x Krulghast Cruciator (150)***
– Artefacts: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Seal of Shyish
1 x Spirit Torment (115)***
1 x Spirit Torment (115)***
1 x Guardian of Souls (150)***
– General
– Command Traits: Master of Magic
– Chill Blade
– Artefacts: Midnight Tome
– Spells: Shademist

BATTLELINE
5 x Hexwraiths (160)*
20 x Dreadscythe Harridans (320)*
20 x Dreadscythe Harridans (320)*
3 x Spirit Hosts (125)**
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (160)**
10 x Chainrasps (110)**

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)

OTHER
4 x Myrmourn Banshees (105)***
2 x Chainghasts (95)***

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Bounty Hunters
**Expert Conquerors
***Warlord

TOTAL POINTS: (1995/2000)

Brett: An interesting Nighthaunt list focusing on Harridans this time, I almost this army had taken the tournament. We’ve gotten used to Scarlet Doom as the most popular procession choice closely followed by Emerald Host (also the most popular in late AoS2.0) so Quicksilver is an unusual choice. Beyond making Harridan’s battleline it turns off ward save’s for anything hit by a Harridan. Harridan’s have no rend but do come with 4 attacks each. In Bounty Hunters for the larger units.

Taking that further, you always want to be attacking with the Hexwraiths or smaller Harridan unit first. When attacking a unit with wounds or slain models they drop from 4s to 3s to hit and wound. Otherwise the army is much the same as we are seeing from Nighthaunt players at the moment with 4 small heroes (Kruleghast, Spirit Host and Guardian of Souls), Hexwraith for oppurtunistic actions, a leavening of Spirit Hosts and Myrmourn for body guarding and dispells. The army does include Chainghasts, which aren’t a frequent inclusion. They provide Nighthaunt units with an additional attack within 12″ of them.

It would take careful positioning and awareness of where any ranged units are but it should be possible for both 20 model blocks of Harridans to be putting out 101 attacks. Even without rend that’s 60 damage on average into a Galletian Veteran unit (any battleline) with a 4+ save. That was a pretty effective combination on the weekend removing Thunder Lizard and Big Waagh armies but Gavin’s Blood Stalkers proved too much. They have the capacity to remove the 20 x Harridan block in a single turn and the Blood Sisters could do the same. Good to see some variation in Nighthaunt lists and for being different paying off. Kel’s more patient than me – I’ve only ever managed to build 4 Harridans. And I got all this way without mentioning the Purple Sun.

Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle
– Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Mortal Realm: Ghyran
– Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration
– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders
Bloab Rotspawned (300)
– Lore of Malignance: Rancid Visitations
Lord of Afflictions (210)**
– General
– Command Trait: Overpowering Stench
– Artefact: The Splithorn Helm

Battleline
4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)*
– Reinforced x 1
4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)*
– Reinforced x 1
4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)*
– Reinforced x 1

Units
1 x Pusgoyle Blightlords – Single (110)**

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

Core Battalions
*Bounty Hunters
**Vanguard

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 124
Drops: 6

Brett: Maggotkin are very popular at the moment, interesting mechanics in even a simple build that isn’t going to tax you too much in how to play it. Interesting army in taking that extra Blightlord and only leaving enough for Gnashing Jaws, except that’s a pretty awesome spell. Rolling with 3 blocks of 4 Blightlords is an interesting idea as well, giving you a very durable block of hard to shift and damaging both to be near and also via their 44 attacks.

Using the larger unit groups limits mobility, you need to tie a few of the big units down to hold objectives or score no primary points. That means you also probably lose their MW on charges as well. All of those big blocks are in Bounty Hunters just to up that damage a lot more. Playing the army should be pretty straight forward and vary with the number of objectives. The single Blightlord is probably going to camp on a home objective while one or 2 of the large units hold another one or 2 objectives. That’s pretty intimidating unless you have ranged units to deal with them. The spell selection includes Rancid Visitations (short range MW spells) which isn’t as common at the moment and might surprise someone.

This is a popular army because this works, 4/1 in a strong field is a good effort only losing to the eventual winner. Well done and good work doing it a little differently.

Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords
– Army Type: Vyrkos Dynasty
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Vengorian Lord (280)
– General
– Command Traits: Driven by Deathstench
– Artefacts: Cloak of the Night Prowler
– Spells: Amethystine Pinions, Invigorating Aura
1 x Belladamma Volga (200)***
– Spells: Spirit Gale
1 x Radukar the Beast (315)***
1 x Necromancer (125)***
– Artefacts: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Fading Vigour, Invigorating Aura

BATTLELINE
10 x Dire Wolves (135)**
– Doom Wolf
40 x Deadwalker Zombies (240)**
10 x Dire Wolves (135)**
– Doom Wolf

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x The Burning Head (20)

OTHER
3 x Vargheists (155)*
– Vargoyle
5 x Blood Knights (195)*
– Kastellan
– Standard Bearer
5 x Blood Knights (195)*
– Standard Bearer
– Kastellan

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Bounty Hunters
**Expert Conquerors
***Command Entourage – Magnificent

TOTAL POINTS: (1995/2000)

Brett: In 6th we had an interesting Soulblight army, an army I’m seeing in top 10s a fair bit but not quite getting to the top. In this case he came back from losing his first 2 rounds and won the last three with good scores. All of the battleline are in Expert Conquerors and the mobile units in Bounty Hunters. Back to the battleline it’s an interesting set up, as Conquerors those Zombies count as 120 on objectives. Combining that with the Dire Wolves is a strong move, they can act as independent operatives and still give up to 30 on an objective. Great for stealing something important with their speed.

The Soulblight book is a little bloated at the moment and they have a lot of heroes, they rival Stormcast. For opponents it’s hard to keep track of all of the abilities. Since most (not the Necromancer) of the heroes in this army are vampires they have high mobility (Radukar only has 8″). They combine spells with reasonable combat meaning that there are a lot of threats to keep track of. And that’s without the Blood Knights and Vargheists. I know that both seem to underperform but really this army is quite aggressive. The Zombies can castle on something near the centre and out wait you. Attacking them may just strengthen them and unless you can do a lot of damage you aren’t going to shift them. That leave the wolves free to control other objectives and the Heroes to act as trading pieces.

Not an easy army to play and tracking all of the mobile elements is hard. Effective though and well done on bouncing back after losing to the Fyreslayers and Skaven. The Fyreslayers had 3 magmadroths which are hard to counter in this army and Skaven brought a Doomwheel and 2 Warp Cannons. If those roll well the Zombies are going to disapper and Thanquol or a Verminlord can deal with any of the heroes in this list. 3/2 is a good result with an off meta list and it’s good to see people pushing the edges of the meta.

Final Tournament Placings