Top Three AoS Lists for 2D6 Oslohammer #2

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the 2D6 Oslohammer tournament that took place in Norway on 27th and 28th December. It involved 20 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

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

Leaders
Battlemage (100)*
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Allies
Knight-Incantor (125)*
– Spell: Celestial Blades
Lord-Relictor (145)*
– General
– Command Trait: High Priest
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Spell: Thundershock
– Prayer: Translocation

Battleline
5 x Liberators (115)*
– Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield
5 x Liberators (115)*
– Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield
4 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (460)*
– Reinforced x 1

Units
10 x Protectors (450)*
– 4x Starsoul Maces
– Reinforced x 1
6 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (480)*
– Reinforced x 1

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Additional Enhancements
Holy Command: Call for Aid

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 100 / 400
Wounds: 102
Drops: 1

Brett: Classic 3rd edition Stormcast army made up of 1st and 2nd edition units. Absolutely nothing here with the Thunderstrike Keyword. Geir has chosen Scions of the Storm here mostly for the Vanguard Raptors I think, it’s standard for SCE armies to keep them safe from their opponents shooting. The Battlemage and Lord Relictor can team up and grant teleport (Translocation) and a 7″ charge (Wildform grants +2 to move, run and charge). They can do that from outside of deny range, that can drop either the Fulminators or the Protectors close to your ranged units unless you have very good screens. Both can eat an Unleash Hell through either wounds (4 x Fulminators is 24 wounds at 3+, Protectors are 30 wounds at 2+) or saves.

Ideally the Knight Incantor gives the Fulminators +1 to wound rolls (Celestial Blades) before they are teleported to within 7″. They still have a shooting attack and then do 3 damage on the charge. Defensively the Lord Relictor has Thundershock to subtract 1 from the opponents wound rolls and the Liberators as screens and objective holders. The Holy Command, Call for Aid returns a Redeemer unit (the Liberators) outside of 9″ of enemy models and within 12″ of a Hero unit.

So long as those criteria are met you can place them anywhere on the board. Situationally, it’s great for moving a screen, protecting a hero or grabbing an objective. At at the worst it gives you back 10 wounds of Galletian Veterans. Looking at the opponents they really don’t have the answers. Only one of the Ogor lists included multiple Ironblasters and Leadbelchers but both units are badly outranged by the Vanguard Raptors. Fulminators would average 20 wounds on the charge into the Bladegheist and there are no screens in that army to prevent it. Combinde with the shooting it’s likely that they are gone in one turn. And for anything more durable, the Protectors and Raptors can all do mortal wounds in abundance. Without something like the teleport/fight on death of DoK or mortal wound shooting this is a hard list to counter directly. It has elements that want to hold back and pound you and others that are trying to get at you. Importantly, through Scions and Translocation, they have mobility on top of durability.

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Army Faction: Seraphon
– Army Type: Coalesced
– Army Subfaction: Thunder Lizard
– Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Engine of the Gods (285)**
– General
– Command Traits: Prime Warbeast
– Artefacts: Incandescent Rectrices
– Mount Traits: Beastmaster
– Prayers: Curse
1 x Skink Priest (120)***
– Prayers: Heal
1 x Slann Starmaster (285)***
– Artefacts: Fusil of Conflagration
– Spells: Stellar Tempest
1 x Celestant-Prime (325)***

BATTLELINE
10 x Skinks (75)*
– Boltspitter
– Celestite Dagger and Star-buckler
10 x Skinks (75)*
– Boltspitter
– Celestite Dagger and Star-buckler
5 x Saurus Guard (115)***

BEHEMOTH
1 x Bastiladon with Solar Engine (250)**
1 x Bastiladon with Solar Engine (250)**
1 x Bastiladon with Ark of Sotek (165)**

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Horrorghast (40)

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Expert Conquerors
**Linebreaker
***Warlord

TOTAL POINTS: (1985/2000)

Danny: Seraphon are in an interesting place at the moment – in the last year they’ve received new rules (Tome Celestial) and two rounds of point hikes (with more coming in the new GHB) – and yet they still occupy a strange space of having some busted 2e style rules in both good and bad ways, awful internal balanced and absolutely the ability to take down tournaments.

Here, Tom takes a relatively common spin on things – a core of the Engine of the Gods which just offers insane utility for its price, along with the ‘buff core’ of a Slann and Priest – supplemented by the lizards’ favourite ally, C-Prime. Seraphon in general have a good mixed phase output but lack something that can really hit hard and fast in melee – hence the big shiny boi’s inclusion.

Thunder Lizard battleline units are, as usual, built around the minimum taxation, which we see here with 2x 10 skinks and the Saurus guard to help keep the Slann alive.

And then we have the bastiladons. Double Bastis have fallen out of favour recently due to their lack of objective play but Tom opts for 3, 1 of which is the bargain-basement CHONK loadout – basically it’s a tonne of wounds on a 1+ save with -1 damage for 165 pts.

Now, you look at the the path to 2nd – double Disciples? One of the only armies able to out-magic a Slann? Top of the win-rate pile? And then you remember Bastiladons do +1 damage to chaos daemons. Losing to Ogors makes sense, as the shooting output in Underguts is easily enough to just blast through any lizard capable of holding an objective.

Without spoiling anything, let’s just also say this list gets WREKT by the incoming points changes. I don’t know where Seraphon go from there that isn’t a ditch until their new book to be honest, but for now, gratz to Tom for a podium finish¬!

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Kieron: New book; same old Krondspine holding the line for Disciples of Tzeentch. Despite the points increase, Krondspines are still useful for Tzeentch as a combat anvil that can hold units in place long enough for the mortal wound hammer says hello (and goodbye shortly after!). Arcane Suggestion from the Ogroid can also make the Krondspine’s attacks more potent by reducing the armour of what it is currently trying to eat OR make what it is trying to eat less effective in combat by subtracting one from hit and wound rolls. Coupled with Mystic Shield and All Out Defense, that monster is probably hanging around for an annoying period of time. Another sneaky tricky the Tzeentch player can pull is to have the Magister, to whom the Krondspine is bonded, kill themselves by first casting a spell and then casting a second that is a double, guaranteed by the Destiny Dice. Instead of turning the Magister into a spawn, the Tzeentch player can choose to slay the Magister, turning the Krondspine wild for run and charge and +1 to hit. On top of that, if the Magister cast an Endless Spell, Burning Sigil, for example, the Krondspine can then eat that spell to go up a level. Please note, however, this cannot be done with the spell automatically cast at the start of the game with Arcane Armies until battle round 2 at the earliest.

In terms of the rest of the list, Screamers are very fast and can be brought back to full strength with the Fold Reality spell that both Kairos and the Fluxmaster can cast, but not as effective as they could potentially be in a unit of 9…but that would ruin the list composition as there would not be three battleline units. The 9 could have been handy for the only battleplan Danny failed to win – Lurkers Below – to be able to speed on to that third objective for the auto-win. As it happened, the second place army of Tom Kenneth Solli managed the auto-win instead (hence the 20-0 loss), the Celestant-Prime potentially being a great bit of tech to hold back in Azyr until that key turn to swoop in and snatch the opponent’s home objective and meet the auto-win conditions.

Otherwise, Danny cleaned up very effectively, with the next closest result being a 7 to 8 point victory over Nurgle and then 15+ margins of victory in every other battle. The ability to generate 2 spawn a turn (through Burning Sigil and the Magister’s warscroll spell) would have probably been key shutting down the Kruleboyz Boltboyz in Round 5 but the most impressive result has to be against the 7 dragons of Stian Engebretsen with their 4+ ignore magic ability on their warscroll, meaning that Danny had to beat them in other ways and not just magic (or was aided by some unlucky dice rolls from Stian!) It would be interesting to see what would have been the outcome were Lurkers Below not included in the pack as a 5-0 could have been on the cards. With this battleplan being one of the 6 carried forward into next season’s General’s Handbook, it’ll be interesting to see if it continues to be a bit of a wild card battleplan.

Allegiance: Nighthaunt
– Procession: Scarlet Doom
– Grand Strategy: Fright or Flight
– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders
Awlrach the Drowner (175)*
Guardian of Souls (150)***
– Artefact: Midnight Tome
– Lore of the Underworlds: Shademist
Krulghast Cruciator (150)***
Spirit Torment (115)***
– General
– Command Trait: Master of Magic
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Lore of the Underworlds: Seal of Shyish

Battleline
5 x Hexwraiths (160)*
30 x Bladegheist Revenants (525)**
– Reinforced x 2
3 x Spirit Hosts (125)***

Units
3 x Fell Bats (75)*
3 x Fell Bats (75)*
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (160)**
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (160)**

Endless Spells & Invocations
Purple Sun of Shyish (90)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters
***Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1960 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 110
Drops: 8

Declan: Despite an increase in points and a reduction in power Eirik is still rocking the purple sun in this Nighthaunt army and it’s great to see it still getting use. The main benefit here is not the mortal wounds on a 1 (but that’s fun), it’s the -1 rend to all units within range… an effect that doesn’t change ethereal saves of the Nighthaunt. So all the benefit, none of the disadvantages – it’s a great piece of tech!

And that’s before the Nighthaunt start charging to really rack up those negatives to armour saves (or increases to rend if you prefer)

Those 8-9 really hurt, but when you consider you can drop a level, it’s really 8+ (almost 42% before re-rolls). I’ve given my opinion on this before, but there doesn’t seem to be a FAQ and Nighthaunt players have definitely paid with their time in the wilderness (what is it with the non-Stormcast box armies? – Bloodbound, Nighthaunt, Kruleboyz!)

The army itself is all about the Bladegheists – if you can kill them in one turn (or in a double) then you’ve likely won… but wow what a unit to have to kill. And if it charges you, with any small units and characters also charging expect to have no armour. And how do you beat a Nighthaunt army… shooting! None-the-less great work from Eiric on a 4-1. I think Nighthaunt are much closer to a 3-2 army so he’s done well to get 4th here.