This is the Top Three AoS Lists for War in the Heartlands that took place in UK on 12th and 13th November. It involved 102 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle
– Subfaction Blessed Sons
– Grand Strategy Show of Dominance
– Triumphs

Leaders
Bloab Rotspawned (320)
– Lore of Malignance Gift of Disease
Great Unclean One (495)
– General
– Command Trait: Nurging infestation
– Plague Flail & Massive Bilesword
– Artefact: The Witherstave
– Universal Spell Lore Flaming Weapon
Orghotts Daemonspew (320)
Gutrot Spume (170)
Morbidex Twiceborn (320)

Battleline
10x Rotmire Creed (125)*
10x Rotmire Creed (125)*
10x Rotmire Creed (125)*

Core Battalions
*Expert Conquerors

Total: 2000/2000
Reinforced Units: 0/4
Allies: 0/400
Wounds: 95
Drops: 8

Danny: Now this is what we like to see – a crazy looking but clearly still brutal list with no flies and lots of big stinkers!

The core tech to this list is Gutrot Spume’s ability to deepstrike and take up to 3 Nurgle mortals along for the ride – yep, that means if Marc wanted to, and had the space, he could put each Maggoth lord into reserve and being them all out of reserve at once. Hilarious. Is that the way he probably played it? Almost certainly not. But could he have? Absolutely yes. Nevertheless, the ability to do it with one is a powerful mind-fuck for the opponent given how much utility and killing power each Maggoth lord brings.

Anchor that around the GUO – with his mixed phase goodness, and msu Rotmire, a cheap battleline option with native deepstrike with the ability to ‘splash’ disease points around, acting as a really effective catalyst for Nurgle’s attrition game, and you have a really quite amusingly mobile, or should we say positional Nurgle list with some fantastic meta-deployment options.

Great list, love to see it, big up to Marc!

Army Faction: Lumineth Realm-lords
– Subfaction: Helon
– Trumph: Inspired.
– Grand Strategy: No place for the weak

LEADERS
Archmage Teclis (700)*
– General
Scinari Cathallar (110)*
– Artefacts of Power: Silver Wand
– Spells: Total Eclipse

BATTLELINE
Hurakan Windchargers (150)*
Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)*
– High Warden
– Spells: Levitate
Hurakan Windchargers (150)*

OTHER
Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)*
– High Sentinel
– Spells: Overwhelming Heat
Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)*
– High Sentinel
– Spells: Speed of Hysh

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Umbral Spellportal (80)
1 x Rune of Petrification (40)

TERRAIN
1 x Shrine Luminor (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000

Ethan: In a WWE-esque blindside from the top rope Helon seems to be coming out of absolutely nowhere to be the LRL tournament faction of choice. Many LRL lists still follow the Teclis + everything else structure and I won’t keep everyone waiting to hear about Teclis: He’s quite good. Assuming most TOs are using the common sense god gave a dog about his spells known: the versatility of casting 4 spells from the various spell lores, the el classico Tecnado (d3 mortal wounds in an area that makes a Slaan blush), a 5+ ward aura and any number of other strong effects (teleportation, d3 mortal wounds and half movement, d3 mortal wounds in a line, d3 mortal wounds on a skateboard, d3 mortal wounds to a target of choice, you get the picture); in combination, make Teclis an absolutely beastly inclusion in any list. This list focuses on projecting power at distance using umbral spellportal and the rune of petrification (you guessed it, d3 mortal wounds, twice!) alongside Teclis’s spell package and other units to essentially prevent opponents’ ability to interfere with this process.

The two blocks of Sentinels, double reinforced, allow each other to shoot at 30″ under the new warscroll and output great damage and mortal wounds to force enemies to approach this castle setup. Late in games, I’d foresee this pairing splitting somewhat if enemies are out of range and need to be chased down but otherwise this is the core damage output of the list, sitting at the back and making enemy units wonder which nerfs exactly LRL players were complaining about. The other units essentially act as speedbumps, the wardens are a fun little block of 10 to sit on objectives and fighty enough that opponents can’t send their chaffiest chaff to deal with them while the windchargers take on the role of the old spirit of the wind, plinking, unleashing hell and piling out of combat as the opponent chases them up the board Benny Hill style while Teclis’s casting does it’s best impression of a Home Alone movie, ensuring that by the time enemies arrive to objectives they’re so battered as to be easy pickings for the Sentinels.

Last but not least, the Cathallar, she sits in the shrine and makes the opponent pay 2 cp for each CP they spend and sucks up any bad feelings from Elves having meth Aetherquartz withdrawals. We all love the Cathallar here at WoeHammer. What an absolute team player. Great work to Dan in piloting this relatively spicy archetype to a 5-0 and having seen some massive complaints in various discords about the difficulties of using a similar build I’d love to hear from the man himself if he has any tips for aspiring practitioners of the ancient martial art of D3 Mortal Wounds.

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
– Stormhost: Hallowed Knights (Scions of the Storm)
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Gardus Steel Soul (150)*
Knight-Draconis (300)*
– General
– Command Trait: Master of Magic
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Mount Trait: Scintillating Trail
– Spell: Thundershock

Battleline
4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)*
– Drakerider’s Lance
– Reinforced x 1
2 x Stormdrake Guard (340)*
– Drakerider’s Lance
2 x Stormdrake Guard (340)*
– Drakerider’s Lance

Units
5 x Tree-Revenants (110)*
– Allies

Endless Spells & Invocations
Horrorghast (40)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Additional Enhancements
Holy Command: Steadfast March

Total: 1960 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 110 / 400
Wounds: 99
Drops: 1

Brett: The last of the 5 and 0 lists for the event and we see the return of the Dragon List. Not as extreme as some with 9 drakes altogether but it’s still a hard list to play into. There is an ongoing debate surrounding Lances vs Warblades but Lances make a lot of sense in a Hallowed Knights list with Gardus. There is a really nice synergy between Gardus’s warscroll abilities and Lances with both an extra reroll (so the Drakes can save theirs) and an additional attack. On the charge the lances are -2 Rend, 2 Damage for maximum impact. Statistically best on the unit of 4, all units within 12″ benefit. It would be hard (but possible) to get more than 6 drakes wholly within 12″.

Horrorghast is an unusual choice but makes sense, Drakes don’t do huge damage and might not clear a unit completely through shooting and combat. Bottom of a round this might make a difference. Everblaze is a good option with the build on the Knight Draconis and the points. Tree Revenants are another good choice, their ability to walk the spirit paths (teleport) is better than the similarly costed Vanguard-Hunters because they don’t need to arrive close to the board edge. Choosing Tree Revenants means no need for a priest (Translocation) and a redeemer. In this list that’s worth an extra 2 dragons.

Mobility with endurance and reasonable hitting power is usually effective. Everything fits in a single battle regiment and at 1960 pts, the triumph should be in play most games. Daniel’s scores were competitive but his opponents were ranked lower through the tournament so his Swiss SoS placed him 3rd. A really good way to play SCE if you have the patience to build and paint that many dragons. It still needs good generalship, you don’t have a lot of bodies to control objectives or the board.

Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
– Damned Legion: Knights of the Empty Throne
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Knights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 6 (560)*
– General
– Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield
– Command Trait: Inescapable Doom
– Artefact: Grasping Plate
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
Knights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 6 (560)**
– Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield
– Artefact: Corrupted Nullstone
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135)**
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
– Spell: Mask of Darkness
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135)**
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
– Spell: Mask of Darkness

Battleline
8 x Iron Golems (75)*
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
8 x Iron Golems (75)*
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
8 x Iron Golems (75)*
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
8 x Iron Golems (75)*
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch

Units
1 x Mindstealer Sphiranx (95)*

Behemoths
Chaos Warshrine (215)*
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
– Prayer1: Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Command Entourage – Magnificent

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

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

Peter: I reached out to fill to see if he would be kind enough to comment on his list. He not only agreed but also gave us a tournament run down, which I’ll be publishing later today in its own article.

Phil Marshall: Knights of the Empty Throne – How does it work? In Knights of the Empty Throne, you are able to take Varanguard as Heroes, the first unit which is your general has Inescapable Doom and Grasping plate, meaning it can pile 6 inches and you cant retreat from this unit, the other unit has Corrupted Nullstone which is an auto unbind. The list is designed around two units of six Varanguard with the Mark of Tzeentch which allows the re-rolls of 1s to armour saves and gives units a 5+ spell ignore. Then you’ll look to really capitalise on these mechanics with other buff pieces in the army, which include two Sorcerer lords. Sorcerer lords have a built in mechanic called Orcular Visions which gives a unit +1 to save (this ability can stack), they are also wizards so offer the ability to cast mystic shield, demonic power (re-roll all hits and wounds) and mask of darkness (teleport). The final buff piece is the Warshrine, the prayer for Tzeentch is +1 save and a 4+ spell ignore, the only other prayer that may be used is Undivided which allows a unit to re-roll all hits and wounds. On top of this the Warshrine has an aura of 6+ ward which degrades as it takes damage. With all of these buff pieces it allows you to essentially make an unkillable unit (or two) of Varanguard. You can get +6 to your save re-rolling 1s once per game (oracular visions twice, mystic shield, Tzeentch Prayer, all out defence and finest hour), on top of this you can have a 4+ 5+ 5+ spell ignore as the Varanguard have a warscroll ability for spell ignore, mark of tzeentch grants spell ignore and then an additional spell ignore from the warshrine. As a result there are very few things that can deal with these units once they have the buffs on, you need to be able to do mass mortal wounds in the shooting and combat phase, otherwise there is a strong likelihood that you will never do any damage to this unit. I tend to evaluate the main threats of my opponents army and see how they have deployed, if I can capatalise on getting my general into the bulk of it and keeping them locked in combat for as long as possible. The rest of the list is designed to be very hard to kill with four units of iron golems who get +1 to their save if they havent made a normal move, meaning before rend they will be a 3+ re-rolling 1s.

Final Tournament Placings