A few of the Age of Sigmar sites you know and love have got together and organised a little competition between us all. It’s a veritable who’s who of AoS blogging! PlasticCraic, Goonhammer, AoS Shorts, Sprues & Brews, and No Rerolls will be facing off to see who can be crowned champion. Each person taking part is choosing a Galletian Champion, tooling them up and letting them loose on the enemy bloggers! With 5 participants, Woehammer has a strong representation in the tournament. Hopefully, we don’t all go out in the first round!

It’ll be a knockout competition (think, the World Cup). Battles will take place in a 9″ x 9″ space and will be simulated on Tabletop Simulator over on Pete Brizio’s Twitch channel throughout May. The 1st round draw will be live at 11 am on Saturday, 13th May BST.

Brett

My first thought was to go Stormcast, with 19 warscrolls there had to be a contender. A Lord-Castellant fits the bill his output is a little weak. The Celestant-Prime is good but only 3 attacks (he has to be on the board). No to win this we have to look to the future, and the future is Chaos. I present the thing of unspoken nightmares, it has no use for a name, instead it reflects your darkest fears:

With only 7 wounds and a 5+ save, is he mad I hear you ask? The Epitome has 2 spells, Mystic Shield goes without saying and then either Flaming Weapon or Arcane Bolt. In built casting rerolls, Horrible Fascination (within 3” no commands can be issued or received) and 2+ ward against Mortal Wounds.

That’s just the warscroll. Stongest Alone for +1 to hit and wound rolls, now hitting on 2s and wound on 3s. The Crown of Dark Secrets lets you to pick one unit at the start of your hero phase and they will only have 1 attack with their melee weapons. And finally Fuelled by Ghurish Rage for the 3+ ward.

Two ways to run him depending on priority. If our epitome has priority then we’ll take finest hour then cast flaming weapon and overwhelming acquiesce (don’t forget rerolls) before picking our target for the Crown of Dark Secrets. Assuming they’ll throw everything into that attack we’ll activate Fuelled by Ghurish Rage and after a 6” move we’ll charge. If they survive and there is a second round we’ll repeat (except the single use Fuelled by Ghurish rage).

If we don’t go first then we’ll still use Finest Hour and then pray. Before going with the sequence above.

Declan

With the Galletian Champions being foot bosses I had a lot to chose from and – although it may steal Pete’s thunder – I was definitely going for Destruction. But which one – would it be the Orruk Warclans and Big Waaagh which had done me so well, or would it be little Gitz stabbing at knees.

I was very tempted by a Loonboss with his D3 damage, but there was really only one option… go fight, or go home – and do it large! With heads exploding all around – all I would have to do is survive a round of combat (so All Out Defense)… but which chap am I referring to… well it’s got to be the Wurrgog Prophet!

The Wurrgog was why I ran Big Waaagh in 2021 (that and having most of my attacks on 2+/2+ by turn 3). And he can be a monster. I’m sure by now everyone knows his Stare mechanic and with Fuelled by Ghurish Rage he can keep going until he dies and get back up (on a 3+)… then do it all again.

The key is that he must be within 12″ at the start of the hero phase to use his ability so no shenanigans – but he’ll just cast magic instead! Finally the 4+ ward makes his 7 wounds much more like 14 making him even more dificult to kill (so what if most of those 14 wounds are going to be caused by himself).

Patrick

It’s fun to play with a new toy. I recently picked up Blades of Khorne (I’m not a meta-chaser, I swear!) and have been reading and re-reading that book to prep for games. In the spirit of that research, I decided that I wanted to pull in a GC that showed off some of Khorne’s new tech pieces.

Enter: the François, the Bloodmaster.

The bloodmaster, on paper, is a straighforward beast. He’s a daemon priest that brings a couple of abilities to the table. I won’t touch onThe Blood Must Flow, since that will have no bearing on this event. Decapitating Blow borrows from the Kruleboyz book and deals mortal wounds on a hit roll of 6. His warscroll prayer is the equivalent of All-out Attack, but with wound rolls.

I’ve opted to make him a high priest. With no support from other units, it’s vital that his prayers are heard. I’ve also given him Ar’gath the King of Blades, which removes all wards (including Fueled by Ghurish Rage) within 3″. While I wouldn’t normally hand this off to a back-line support piece, it’s going to be extremely useful in this competition, since everyone will take FbGR.

Peter

Let’s be honest, I was always going to be the one who’d pick a Kruleboy.

The only Galletian Champion that could, maybe, possibly, get through a round or two once kitted out would be the Stab-Grot with Killaboss.

This dude can certainly pack a punch!

That’s an average of 0.75 damage before saves! His assistant is also pretty useful, being able to equip the big lug with a boss-hacka and a choice of either a Rusty Flail or skareshield. While two weapons are enticing, the flail would only kick out an average of 0.87 additional damage per turn. While the Skareshield will give our Grot a little more durability with a 3+ save instead of 4+. In number crunching terms, this would mean a – rend 1 damage weapon would have to land 18 attacks to kill him on average rather than 12 with the 4+ save. Granted, it’s unlikely our plucky grot will be facing 1 damage, no rend weapons, but even so.

As for which Subfaction, the choice had basically been made for me. With no shooting, there was no point going Big Yellers, and with a 9″ x 9″ playing area, there was no point going for Grinnin’ Blades. That left the little used Skulbugz. Basically, it forces the enemy to roll a dice before their combat with him. On a roll of 6, they’ll be forced to subtract 1 from their hit rolls.

On to the Artefact, and here a plan started to form in my mind. I went with the Tuskhelm, this would allow our plucky grot to roll a number of dice equal to their charge roll. On each 4+, he’d cause a mortal wound. Nice, right? This then made the choice of Command Trait easier, as I was left with two options that went well with the Tuskhelm. The first was Battle-lust, which would allow him to re-roll his run and charge rolls. Meaning I could try and up the number of dice I’d be rolling 4+ on for the mortals. Or I could go with Slippery Skumbag, which would allow him to retreat and charge in the same turn. I decided on the second, just in case combat went beyond one round, it would mean I had a chance to cause more mortals.

The Aspect of the Champion was a really easy one to make as Fuelled by Ghurish Rage would be the one played by every… single… champion… in the tournament.

That done, it was time to pick a name for our Grot. For this, I let the name generator on Realm of Plastic make the decision:

Ian

So I have decided to stay loyal to my first AoS faction and go with an Arkanaut Admiral. My approach here is to try and shoot them dead before they reach me and settle the grudge with my hammer if I have to. Seems a sensible and business-like approach fitting to a Kharadron Overlord Admiral. Just a shame he’s not allowed to bring his flagship…

Arkanaut Admiral (125)
Sub-faction: Barak-Zon (+1 to hit and wound rolls for melee weapons on the charge)
General
Command Trait: A Scholar and an Arkanaut (Additional Footnote)
Artefact: Masterwrought Armour (5+ Ward Save)
Battle Trait: Grudgebreaker Rounds (+1 Rend on Missile Weapon)

Stick to the Code
Artycle: Settle the Grudges (+1 to Wound Rolls against a Unit)
Amendment: Trust to your Guns (Re-roll 1 hit roll of 1 in your shooting phase)
Footnotes: There’s no Reward without Risk (3D6 for charge rolls)
There’s no Trading with some People (Once per battle, at end of enemy shooting phase, a unit fired upon can shoot back)

The approach here is if I get first turn to basically shoot them dead. As my Masterwork Volley Pistol will be hitting on 3+, Wounding on 2+ (with the artycle) and a rend of -2 on 3 shots (with some re-rolls thrown in for good measure) he has half a chance. There is a potential 6 damage there (averaging about 4 damage without re-rolls) they should be on the ropes. And mixed with my There’s no Trading with some People footnote, I may even cause an upset to an opponent by shooting them in their own phase and then shooting them on the charge! I am seriously hoping for an Indiana Jones moment here…

The additional charge dice is just to make sure the charge roll is less likely to whiff, and I couldn’t see much else of benefit to take. The ward save will be nice and may help with survival against scrawny opponents who rely on mortal wounds to do their damage. We shall see, it will all come down to the dice!

As for a name, well I feel my Path to Glory warlord, Khreld Thundergust, should have a chance to prove himself. Maybe I will add this tournament to his backstory as a fever dream…