Top Three AoS Lists for 5 Alarm GT

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the 5 Alarm Grand Tournament that took place in Canada on 12th and 13th November. It involved 22 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

Allegiance: Daughters of Khaine
– Temple: Zainthar Kai
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders
Morathi-Khaine (340)*
The Shadow Queen (340)*
Melusai Ironscale (115)*
– General
– Command Trait: Zealous Orator
– Artefact: Crown of Woe

Units
10 x Blood Sisters (280)**
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Blood Sisters (280)**
– Reinforced x 1
15 x Blood Stalkers (540)*
– Reinforced x 2
5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 99
Drops: 3

Peter: Joshua Bennett (who you may recognise from many a top three article featuring his own lists), has kindly joined the Woehammer team to comment on Daughters Lists.

Joshua: While this list sticks to the norm of the current meta for DOK, it does have its own tweaks that make it very interesting.

At first glance, we see what looks like the basic Zainthar Kai list. At the head of the snake army is the high queen herself, Morathi. Morathi, by herself, is a menace to most opponents. She has a cap of only three wounds a turn, which becomes a great deterrent for the alpha strikes becoming a perfect screen, where the alpha strikes are running into an unkillable duo of models. As anyone knows that has ever faced off against the shadow queen, she is not to be taken lightly in combat. Shadow queen has the potential to pick up most units. She lives up to her title as a “God Model” with the ability to tank everything with the absolute barrage of attacks with high damage and rend.

Bring on the snakes! 15 blood stalkers have always and still remain to be a powerful force to deal with in the DOK list. At 30 shots, hitting on three’s, wounding on three’s, doing mortals on sixes to hit, makes stalkers a threat against any list. Add the fact that they are also shooting in the hero phase, bringing the total number of shots to 60 at a range of 24”. With all of these attacks, this unit should be feared by all. To add to the terror of the Stalkers, their melee loving counter parts, the blood sisters, are also added to this list. Two 10 man units bring each of these death ball units to 30 attacks, hitting and wounding on threes, followed by an extremely powerful turned to crystal ability. This ability allows the unit to roll a dice for each model in their unit and each 2+ inflicting a mortal wound to the selected unit an inch away from it. In this list, the blood sisters are placed in the bounty hunters battalion, which brings the damage of each attack against Galletian Veterans units, a minimum of 2 damage. But it doesn’t stop there, when the ever daunting Shadow queen is in combat within 18” of these blood soaked sisters, the sisters attacks increase to four attacks each, which gives the sisters even more power to pick their opponents units up.

So I know what you’re thinking! I am just going to stay away from this army of blood driven blood elves. This may be harder to do than you think. This is because the Shadow queen is moving 14” and the melee snakes are moving 8”. Also you must keep in mind that the Melusai is in the list as well and serves more than just a pretty face. She allows the Sisters to be able to run and charge, increasing the threat of the slithering blood crazed sisters to the potential of a 14” move bringing them into a more manageable charge range.

Wait, look in the sky! That’s right, a unit of heartrenders are circling above the battlefield waiting for the right moment to strike. This unit can deploy off the board and be placed on the table 9” away from an enemy model. In the shooting phase they each shoot an enemy within 12” of them and then move 6”. Normally we see two of these units in a list because that allows DOK players to use the Battletomb tactic Cruel Delight. This single unit still has its uses. It keeps a constant threat to the backfield objectives. Also this unit can make a great screen for the remaining army. With this units very speedy movement of 14” it can bounce back and forth between objectives causing their opponents a massive headache of leaving models on all objectives. Also with the Grand strategy of take what’s theirs the late game deepstrike can give you edge needed to gain that three extra points.

The other obstacle opponents face while playing this list, is that you must pick up entire units. Because thanks to the Command trait Zealous Order bringing models back from the dead is much easier than normal. This command trait allows the general to bring back friendly models back on a four plus rally compared to the normal six.

Overall this list hasthe range, and the face-to-face killing power to take on most lists, and I can see why it did so well at this tournament.

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Army Faction: Disciples of Tzeentch
– Subfaction: Guild of Summoners
– Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
– Triumph: Indomitable

LEADERS
Curseling (180)*
– Spells: Shield of Fate
Fluxmaster (170)*
– Artefacts of Power: Pyrofyre Stave
– Spells: Unchecked Mutation
Lord of Change (400)*
– Staff of Tzeentch and Rod of Sorcery
– Artefacts of Power: The Eternal Shroud
– Spells: Ghost-mist
Kairos Fateweaver (435)***
– Spells: Tzeentch’s Firestorm
Tzaangor Shaman (135)***
– Spells: Glimpse the Future
Magister (120)***
– General
– Command Traits: Arcane Sacrifice
– Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Arcane Suggestion

BATTLELINE
Kairic Acolytes (120)**
– Cursed Blade and Arcanite Shield
– Scroll of the Dark Arts
– Vulcharc
– 3 x Cursed Glaive and Arcanite Shield
Kairic Acolytes (120)**
– Cursed Blade and Arcanite Shield
Kairic Acolytes (120)***
– Cursed Blade and Arcanite Shield

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Burning Sigil Of Tzeentch (50)
1 x Chronomantic Cogs (70)
1 x Umbral Spellportal (80)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Expert Conquerors
***Warlord

TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000

Kieron: A super interesting list for my first time reviewing a Disciples of Tzeentch top three list. Conventional wisdom would suggest that Guild of Summoners is relatively low down in the sub-faction hierarchy but Nic has clearly made this work well for him. Conventional wisdom would also suggest that Master of Destiny is a no-brainer Grand Strategy (have Destiny Dice equal to 9 or more at the end of the battle) but Nic has again bucked the trend with Defend What’s Ours. Where the power comes from in this list can be broken down into Destiny Dice, Fate Points and Battle Tactics.

Let’s start with Destiny Dice, or cheaty dice as some less charitable (and non-Tzeentch players might call them). Nic would roll 9 at the start of the game and the Eternal Shroud would allow new dice to be rolled on a 5+ whenever they are used. The Tzaangor Shaman can lurk at the back of the board (see battle tactics below) generating a new one with Glimpse the Future which will be supporting Kairos who is generating one per turn if you have less than 9. This means that over the course of the game, there should be in the region of 20 dice that the Tzeentch player will know ahead of time, allowing them to be super aggressive or defensive as the game demands.

Next up is fate points and if you thought 20 was a lot of a resource to generate then you haven’t seen anything yet! If Tzeentch go first and all the possible spells go off they will have: 1 from Burning Sigil; 2 from The Curseling; at least 1 and probably 3 from Fluxmaster (theoretically 10, but if you roll 9/9 5+s against me I’m probably conceding or calling a TO!); 2 from the Lord of Change; 3 from Kairos; 1 from Shaman; 3 from Magister; 1 from each Kairic unit making around 15-18 in Turn 1. And what do we do with those points I hear you ask? You summon another Lord of Change for only 9 points and bank the other points for the next turn. Next turn you will have another two casts meaning that you will have more than enough to summon another Lord of Change 18 fate points! At this point you would be facing over 1600pts of prime Tzeentch Turkey that are giving each other (and nearby heroes) +4 to cast. Diminishing returns from this point in as there won’t be enough spells for them all to cast, so probably just bring in 20 pinks a turn instead! If the Tzeentch player is not locked down quickly, they could summon 1500pts by turn 5 (EDIT: Thanks to Tasteless for getting me to go back and not blah, blah , blah the sub-faction ability: Guild of Summoners can ONLY summon Magic Chickens, meaning that a 5 turn game could actually see 2000pts of summoning and Nic possibly in need of kidney to donate to fund the 7 Lords of Change that could be on the board at this point…).

This is all well and good, but if you don’t score points then you don’t win and this is also a list that really wants to use book battle tactics! Call for Change is extremely straightforward as you just need to summon a Lord of Change; the Tzaangor Shaman is an excellent choice for Reckless Abandon, where you need to complete a charge move with a mortal unit more than 18″ away from all enemy units; Ninefold Dismantlement needs you to kill a unit with 9 models or a hero/monster with a wounds characteristic of 9 or more and Tide of Anarchy needs you to take an objective off your enemy with 9 or more models. To truly flex on your opponent, Kairos could even go for Mass Conjuration by casting 3 or more spells for a full 5/5 Tzeentch tactics.

Congrats to Nic for doing fantastically well with some more off-meta choices, demonstrating the internal balance of the Disciples of Tzeentch book.

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Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords
– Sky Port: Barak Zilfin
– Mortal Realm: Chamon
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Aether-Khemist (90)*
– General
– Command Trait: Collector
– Artefact: Staff of Ocular Optimisation
Aether-Khemist (90)**
– Artefact: Spell in a Bottle
Arkanaut Admiral (125)*
Aetheric Navigator (85)*
– Artefact: Svaregg-Stein Illuminator Flarepistol
Gotrek Gurnisson (485)**

Battleline
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)**
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)**
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)**
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns

Units
10 x Grundstok Thunderers (270)**
– Reinforced x 1

Behemoths
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)**
– Main Gun: Great Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Ebullient Buoyancy Aid

Endless Spells & Invocations
Purple Sun of Shyish (90)

Core Battalions
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Battle Regiment

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1995 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 97
Drops: 4

Peter: Another new member of the team today. Randal Brasher, who some may remember from General Speaking, has agreed to join us to comment on KO, Cities and Stormcast lists.

Randal: Oh boy, here we go! Karl is no stranger to Kharadron Overlords this season and has found 5-0 and 4-1 success with both Double Ironclads and Whole Fleet lists, but the one constant has been his inclusion of Purple Sun. This list leans in on the power of the Endless Spell even more than his previous winning lists by overloading an Ironclad with heroes, Arkanauts, and some spicy Grundstock Thunderers then using the Zilfin Hero Phase move alongside Ebullient Bouyancy Aid. After moving the murder boat across the board it wants to unleash the Purple Sun then leverage the once per game effects of the Flare Pistol (full rerolls in the shooting phase) and the Admiral’s Special Ammunition for either additional rend or eliminating a ward save. It is a very high volume of shots at very high rend, more than enough to cripple most elite armies or clear the flank of a horde army. If the opponent somehow manages to survive the barrage in any condition to fight, they get a facefull of Gotrek.

A bit of tech in this list is to use the Great Sky Cannon over the more synergistic and higher damage Volley Cannon. It lets the boat play the objective game and still contribute some shooting after it unleashes its payload due to the superior range. This list is going to play very well into elite armies or high save armies but it has a serious issue with ranged mortal wounds as its loss to Disciples of Tzeentch shows. Armies with a lot of summoning, such as Beasts of Chaos or Nurgle, might also give it some problems. However, into a metagame of Giants, Daughters of Khaine, Sylvaneth, and Seraphon it is a monster of a metabreaker.