Hey dear Woehammer AoS community,

before I start with my “small” Worlds report, you should know who is writing down these experiences.

I’m Colin Klären and I’ve been playing AoS since the beginning of the 2nd edition. Armies I own and play competitively are Fyreslayer, Ogor Mawtribes, DoK, Nurgle, OBR, Sylvaneth, and Nighthaunt. This year, I was allowed to represent Team Germany in the Singles and Team Event with my Nighthaunt.

Before I get to my reports on the individual games, I’d like to say a few words about my general experience with the 2023 Worlds and, of course, about the process of creating my list.

In a nutshell: It was just great! That’s probably what you hear from many people who were there, and it’s 100% true. I can only recommend every player who has the opportunity to visit the Worlds next year, even if it is only the singles event. I had 11 great games that included 11 great players.

At the beginning of our team preparation, it was relatively clear that I would be playing Fyreslayer Hearthguard heavy at Worlds. After the Rally nerf, which was a big nerf for Fyreslayer, we thought about alternatives and came up with Nighthaunt. Armies have been moving more and more in the direction of having, or getting, Wards over the past few months. Also, many players were playing fuelled by Ghurish rage on key heroes. I played a few test games against certain key matchups like GSG, KO, StD, Slaanesh, Khorne, BoC, and LRL, and I quickly realized that I wanted to play NH. Then, after many small changes within the list, it was perfect for me and our team. Important to emphasize here is that we wanted a NH team list that we could pair into many green matchups and possibly underestimate opponents a bit. And that worked out perfectly. Also interesting is the above average performance in singles tournaments leading up to and in the singles event at Worlds.

Colin’s List

Allegiance: Nighthaunt
– Procession: Quicksilver Dead
– Grand Strategy: Fright or Flight
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Reikenor the Grimhailer (190)**
– Lore of the Underworlds: Soul Cage
Krulghast Cruciator (150)**
– Artefact: Lightshard of the Harvest Moon
Spirit Torment (120)**
– Artefact: Pendant of the Fell Wind
Spirit Torment (120)***
Cairn Wraith (100)***
– General
– Command Trait: Hatred of the Living
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Cado Ezechiar, The Hollow King (140)***
– Allies

Battleline
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (170)*
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (170)*
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (170)*
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (170)*
3 x Spirit Hosts (130)**
3 x Spirit Hosts (130)***
5 x Hexwraiths (180)

Endless Spells & Invocations
Lauchon the Soulseeker (50)

Core Battalions
*Galletian Veterans
**Warlord
***Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Artefact
Artefact

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 140 / 400
Wounds: 102
Drops: 13

Singles Event

Round 1 vs Sylvaneth (yellow to red matchup) on Position over Power: (List) The list included Alarielle, Warsong, Arch Rev and 6 Kurnoths with Bows and a few other small units. In this matchup, the roll offs were on my side, and so I managed to kill everything except Alarielle on a good double turn. Here, it was super useful that I could ignore Wards (also Fuelled by Ghurish rage on the Warsong). I think with Bladegheist Revenants, I would have had more problems here. After that, it was easy to outscore my opponent. 17-3 for Nh

Round 2 against KO (yellow to red matchup) on Prize of Gallet: (List) The list included Frigate, Gunhauler, 12 Endrinrigger, 15 thunderer, a few Heroes and Company, and the Soulscream Bridge. Here, I played very aggressively and charged into his army with Lauchon and Cairn wraith on the first turn. I, of course, messaured beforehand that I would be able to get into his screen with a 3“ charge and pile-in into his frigate. Of course, I put two other units in reserve beforehand so I could eat the Unleash Hell. 30 attacks 2+/2+ all rerolls -1 rend for 2 dmg yiiiikes…. The end of the song.. The frigate survived with 1 wound and healed up completely afterwards. I accomplished nothing and lost 3 units. I thought the game was over. With a clever Lauchon move on his turn, I was able to prevent him from transporting his 15 Thunderers across the bridge. After that, I lost the roll off but was able to play the game down well since he was missing a whole shooting phase. 20-0 for NH.

Round 3 against LRL (red matchup) on Presence of Idols: (List) The list was the classic Teclis Helon Sentinels list seen more often at Worlds. It was the worst matchup I could have gotten. David from the Scottish team also knew that NH was actually a very thankful matchup. By the way, I’m a super cool person and player. He took the first turn because he could hit my whole army with the Mw spell from Teclis. Afterwards we talked about it and came to the conclusion that this was rather a mistake. I lost 2x 10 harridans, which hurt, but was also ok for me somewhere. On my first turn, I was able to kill all of his screens and, due to the fortunately diagonal setup zone, placed my army perfectly for a possible double turn by placing Cado with +2 to cast and Cairn wraith outside of 30″ to Teclis (auto rebind) so that I could rush in with Lauchon and Cairn wraith and end the game in Turn 2. I didn’t get the turn, of course, so again, I thought it was going to be very hard. David took the turn, and then I guess 3 game-changing things happened. I managed to dispell the Spell Portal and unbound both 5+ Mw buffs on the sentinels. He didn’t do a lot of dmg and played a bit too aggressively, so I was able to kill 20 sentinels and Teclis (with -4 on the save) on my second turn. After that, we talked through the game. 20-0 for NH

Round 4 against StD (Green matchup) on Ours for the taking: (List) The list included Belakor, Sorcerer, 2×6 Varanguard, 5 Khorne Knights, and a heroic Chaos spawn. The game was streaming on Tsportsnetwork, and I knew this time the matchup was good for me. Danny from Team Norway played it great, yet the -1 dmg debuff hurt the Varanguard too much, and so I was able to fight through slowly. The game could have been over in round 2 if I had managed to kill 6 Varanguard with 2/3 of my army (like in my test games). Unfortunately, in my second turn, the dice failed (5 of 6 charges were not higher than 4″), which made the game tighter than it should have been. 16:4 for NH

Round 5 against GSG (yellow matchup) on Nisidus path: (List) This game was also available on the stream because it was the final table. The matchup against GSG is interesting because we actually took my list also for this matchup to the teams event. The problem here was simply several unfortunate circumstances. Starting with Jorin’s list. Jorin unfortunately had 2x the Indomitable Triumph, 2x Squigboss (so on both Squig herds 6s to hit mws) and the gobbapalooza for the -1 to hit bubble. So basically, all things that are incredibly good against my list. Also, Nisidius Path is definitely the worst battle plan for my list because I want to castle. There was, unfortunately, very little terrain on the table, so Jorin had enough room for his squig herd to get them into melee well. In addition, my first turn unfortunately went completely wrong because my Hexwraiths took 5!!!! Dmg from the stupid squig catapult and so did not survive the turn. This had many bad consequences for me. First, I failed my Nh Battletactic, and second (10 times more important), my Hexwraiths didn’t tag up his units anymore, allowing him to go in with his entire army on his first turn I lost 30 Harridans, and so the game was actually over. Congratulations again to Jorin for the world title! 0:20 for Gitze.

Team Event

Round 1 vs Slaanesh (yellow matchup) on Realmstone Cache: (French Lists) The list was very well matched to mine. Belakor, Epitome (with Crown), 55 Archer, 10 Seeker, 5 Blissbarb seeker were exactly what a slaanesh list needed against me. I practiced a lot against the list beforehand and played it exactly the same in the game. 10 Harridans, a unit of Spirit Hosts and cairn wraith in reserve so he couldn’t be targeted by Belakor and the Crown. Reikenor and Cado outside of 30″ to his two casters. First round finest hour and mystic shield on Cado and with Lauchon ahead so he could eat unleash hell. Then the important charge phase. Cado 12″, Harridans 11″, Spirit hosts 9″…. My Cairn wraith, who would have ended the game right away with a 9 charge and reroll of course didn’t make it. I would have been able to directly kill 22s Archer in my combat phase, then do the same with strike at the opening with the other big block Archers. Wasn’t supposed to be. After that I lost the first 3 roll offs. Had I won the prio from 1 to 2 or from 2 to 3, I would have had a very good chance to win. So, unfortunately, from turn 3 I only have my two Spirit Torments and Reikenor on the field. With these 3 models I still managed to score well. 6:14 for Slaanesh

Round 2 against Fyreslayer (green matchup) on Only the worthy: (Scottish Lists) I got to play Stu from the Scottish team. The list consisted of 3×20 Vulkites, 10 Hearthguard and the typical heroes and artifacts. My advantage was definitely that I have played Fyreslayer a lot myself and know this army by heart. Surprisingly, Stu set up very defensively (very very defensively indeed). I was able to kill his Voltile Blazier Runemaster with Lauchon and Cado in turn 1, which made it much easier for me to screen the Molten infernoth as the game went on. I won the roll off to turn 2, and since I had already placed myself relatively far ahead on turn 1, I was able to completely charge into his army, which was still in his deployment zone at the time. So I was able to pick my melees, tag units and apply enough dmg that the game was actually over there. Because he wasn’t allowed to use Inspiring presence, I killed 10 Hearthguard and about 40 Vulkites on my second turn. The Cairn wraith alone engaged and killed 2×20 Vulkites in the middle alone. Stu also mentioned after the game that my Nighthaunt list was a bit underestimated and he never thought the Harridans would have such a strong output and still be so tanky on their own charge. Not to mention the Cairn wraith. Still a great game and one of my favorite teammates – thanks Stu! 19-1 for NH

Round 3 against Slaanesh (yellow matchup) on position over power: Slaanesh again, but a very different game. Rick’s list from Team Wales consisted of a Keeper (with Crown), Epitome, Sigvald, 2x 22 Archers, 10 Deamonettes, 5 seekers and 5 Blissbarb seekers, plus the Visage endless Spell (don’t know the exact name). Again, I placed the same units in reserve. This time the Slaanesh player took the first turn, but he had to because of a deployment mistake. Otherwise I could have tagged everything directly and the cairn wraith would have taken out both units of Blissbarb archer with a successful charge. So he took out just one unit of Harridans (luckily another one survived). In my turn, everything that didn’t work in the first game worked. Rick still had the Keeper, the epitome, Sigvald and about 17 archer on the field. If I had won the roll off here, the game would have been over right away. So he could apply some damage again, but in the end it wasn’t enough. Rick by the way also a very cool dude – thanks for the game! 20-0 for NH

Round 4 against StD (yellow to red matchup) on Realmstone Cache: (Dutch Lists) This round could be watched on stream and I first want to emphasize what a brilliant game this was. Nico a super good player and a great person made this game the best game at Worlds for me. He played Ravagers with Archaon, two small heroes, 60 Splintered Fang in total and other small warbands like the unmade, or the untamed beasts. In the end, my whole army countered Archaon and all his Splintered fang countered my whole list (except the Cairn wraith Muhaha). The game went up and down. At first it looked very good for me, because I managed 4x 10+ charges in my second turn and was able to dmg Archaon well. Then the dice luck turned and Nico was able to clean up well with the splintered fang. Fortunately Archaon died in turn 3, but Nico still had a lot of splintered fang, which made life difficult for me. I had to invest a lot of time in rounds 2 and 3 to plan my moves and not make any mistakes. For this reason I finished my turn 4 in 4 minutes and my turn 5 in one!!!! minute and I played them very very well despite the little time. At the end we talked about the match and next time I would leave Archaon completely alone and just focus on splintered fang. 13-7 for NH

Round 5 against IDK (green matchup) on Twist and Turns (Booooo): (Polish Lists) The Polish player’s list consisted of Lotaan, Tidecaster, Killer King, Leviadon, 2x 2 Sharks, 2x 10 Reaver. We set up very close to each other, and he still gave me the first turn. In my opinion, this was a crucial game mistake, as I was able to play very aggressively and run on the objectives. On this really luck-based battle plan, I think it’s so important to get on the objectives first to be able to take them out. So after a very aggressive first round on my part, where I was able to take out both units, Reaver and one shark each from both squads, I was already 3 points ahead of my opponent. After that, he won the next two roll offs, which were very important for him. On the other hand, the objectives in the whole game were about 60% to 40% rather than on my side. Mutually, we took more and more from the field so that in the end, his Turtle and my Spirit Torment, Krulghast, and Cado were still on the field. So in the end, I was able to prevent his Grand strat and fulfil my own. 15-5 for NH

Round 6 against Nurgle (Green matchup) on Ours for the taking: (Canadian Lists) Again, I would first like to commend my fellow Team Canada player Matt for a great game on his part, as obviously this has not been a good matchup for him, as I am ignoring his entire ward saves with my harridans, and yet he played it flawlessly in my opinion, only losing every roll off because I simply rolled 6s (this was my cooked dice). In his list were Bloab, Orgotths, LoA with the known equipment, Bilepiper, 4x 3 Plage Drones (which are incredibly good against my list because of many many attack in shooting and combat) and of course the best unit in the game.. one unit of 3 Nurglings. I must honestly say that the matchup was not quite as green as we had previously estimated. Of course it was very strong that I could ignore his ward saves, so 10 harridans easily took out 3 drones each, but all the mws were pretty nasty for me. One game mistake on my part almost cost me the game when Matt won the roll off from 3 to 4. I left my home objective pretty open and matt just flew over my army with the LoA and summoned 10 Plaguebearers onto my home objective. Had he won the prio, instead he probably would have scored 2 points each round for three rounds in total. With the roll offs I won, I was able to quickly decimate his army. 17-3 for NH

What a week at Worlds for me and my ghosts. 9-2 overall and only great games with great opponents. I will definitely try to be there again next year… but then probably with a different army. It was an honor for me to compete for Team Germany and the German community and I think my ghosts and I represented our country in a worthy way.

Thanks to each and every one of my opponents, to my teammates from Team Germany and to each and every one of the German AoS community who rooted for me at home and thanks for you reading this little report! See you next year at AoS World!