This is the top three Old World lists for the Old World Legends Open that took place in the United States on the 1st and 2nd of March. It saw 22 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
Legacy armies were allowed (and encouraged), Allies were not allowed, but mercenaries were, and the rule of 3 was in place.
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The Top Three Old World Lists
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1st OWL [1995 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, High Elf Realms
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++ Characters [996 pts] ++
Prince [523 pts]
– Hand weapon
– Full plate armour
– Shield
– General
– Star Dragon
– Talisman of Protection
– Dragon Helm
– Biting Blade
– Opal Amulet
– Seed of Rebirth
– Pure of Heart
Noble [273 pts]
– Hand weapon
– Full plate armour
– Shield
– Battle Standard Bearer
– Griffon
– Opal Amulet
– Seed of Rebirth
– Pure of Heart
Archmage [200 pts]
– Hand weapon
– Level 4 Wizard
– On foot
– Silvery Wand
– Sea Guard
– Battle Magic
++ Core Units [500 pts] ++
5 Silver Helms [151 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Lances
– Hand weapons (Hooves)
– Heavy armour
– Barding
– Shields
– High Helm (champion) [Ring of Fury]
5 Silver Helms [151 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Lances
– Hand weapons (Hooves)
– Heavy armour
– Barding
– Shields
– High Helm (champion) [Ring of Fury]
5 Ellyrian Reavers [98 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Cavalry spears
– Light armour
– Scouts
– Harbinger (champion)
5 Elven Archers [50 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Longbows
5 Elven Archers [50 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Longbows
++ Rare Units [499 pts] ++
5 Sisters of Avelorn [112 pts]
– Bows of Avelorn
– Light armour
– High Sister [Ruby Ring of Ruin]
5 Sisters of Avelorn [75 pts]
– Bows of Avelorn
– Light armour
5 Sisters of Avelorn [132 pts]
– Bows of Avelorn
– Light armour
– High Sister [Bow of the Seafarer]
Lothern Skycutter [90 pts]
– Cavalry spears
– Shortbows
Lothern Skycutter [90 pts]
– Cavalry spears
– Shortbows
—
Created with “Old World Builder”
[https://old-world-builder.com]
Sean Langford: Eric’s list went undefeated at a 5 round GT taking the meta High Elf list and tweaking it to put it over the top, and take 1st place. I was able to catch up with him and get a lot of insight on his list.
Rather than the standard double dragon, he opts to run a noble on Griffon with a Battle Standard bearer, which is one of my favorite things about this list. This keeps the Mage out of combat to be able to continue to cast, while a dragon wants to be in combat. The griffon still adds a bit of the fast punch while maintaining the casting value of the Archmage.
He says, “My playstyle is rather different. You have to be comfortable to position your stuff to flee, and flee often as necessary. I even have my dragon flee from charges because with having 18” Battle Standard Bearer reroll on rallies, why take fights you don’t need to take”.
While being a little more fragile than a dragon, it does still have the 5+ regen and the 2+ one-time ward as well.
Another interesting playstyle he adheres to is different than most players that try to get mobility on their mages to worry about dispelling magic.
He says, “I call it handshaking my opponents mage, but all that means is that I don’t normally care about dispelling what my opponent wants to do. He can get all his spells off, and I’ll play around that while I will get mine off. This fits the Archmage well since lileath blessing let’s you reroll a failed cast per turn, meaning high elves are best at consistently getting spells off, not powering spells past opposing dispel like chaos or mort cult. The critical ones are double fireball each turn, pillar of fire, arcane urgency (probably the strongest spell in the game) and courage of aenarion to usually give my dragon unbreakable so I don’t have to care about my opponent’s combat resolution or when he tries to break the dragon with combat resolution. Since it’s remains in play and casts on a 10, my opponent needs to roll an 11 with fated dispell to remove.”
The Prince on the dragon is the typical 2+ armor, 5+ ward, 5+ regen, with a one-time 2+ ward to protect multi wound sources like monster killer or the errant cannon ball. He also uses a biting blade for magical attacks to help with ethereal problems like the Green Knight.
Dipping into the new Arcane Journal, he adds 2 rings of fury on a fast delivery system with the Silver Helms. While he says that mathematically they may not be reliable, there is value in your opponent needing to respect and play around them.
He also brings Sisters of Avelorn as magic item carriers with the ruby ring of ruin and Bow of the Seafarer for extra punch as well as a third unit that will accompany the Archmage for protection.
Eric says, “Sisters are good enough that they trade well into almost every opposing shooter. 30″ BS5 bows with smart use of evasive should never lose a shooting battle against anything except 32″ BS5 bows with evasive from wood elves, and the rest of the army is fast enough to catch wood elves. This means my opponent has to voluntarily walk into dragon (and griffon and skycutter) charge ranges to threaten the shooting cause my army doesnt actually have to walk up into my opponents if it is not a dedicated gunline. Using these 3 units can help to weaken key armoured threats for the dragon, griffon, and skycutter. With 10 archers, 15 sisters, 6 bows from skycutters, and 1 fireball from ruby ring, and 1 fireball/pillar of fire from the mage you actually have a lot of shooting that your opponent actually has to respect and approach you to deal with. You do not need to send your dragon and griffon up into the opposing army’s face. A lot of the time, the 2 will hang out in the center of the board next to the shooting sisters and simply just wait.”
Another very interesting variation from the typical meta, is 2 skycutters that actually do not have the bolt thrower. Keeping them cheap saves points for other things and also allows greater mobility by not keeping them from marching to still be able to shoot.
He says, “I think they’re the best traditional heavy chariot. With fly 10, and can declare charges of 19 inches. You can basically always guarantee you get your impact hit charge off. They’re also just cheap enough to be tanky. 90 points for 4 wounds at Toughness 4 and 4+ save is a great value. They’re just tanky enough to go up a flank, help engage and win a combat, get shot at and be at 1-2 wounds, and then march 20” way out of the battle to hide behind terrain to deny points.”
Overall, this is a very tough list to play against that I can see having a very high skill cap and requiring careful play. When in the hands of a skilled pilot like Eric running them, there are not a lot of armies that can handle this movement on these many hammer units. Fast moving with great combo charges with a dragon, BSB on griffon, and skycutters can take down most armies.
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2nd OWL [2000 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, Dwarfen Mountain Holds, Royal Clan
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++ Characters [978 pts] ++
King [339 pts]
– Hand weapon
– Great weapon
– Full plate armour
– General
– Shieldbearers
– Master Rune of Smiting
– Master Rune of Gromril
– Rune of Preservation
– Rune of the Furnace
Runesmith [279 pts]
– Hand weapon
– Great weapon
– Full plate armour
– Shield
– Battle Standard Bearer [Master Rune of Grungni + Rune of Battle]
– 3x Rune of Spellbreaking
Anvil of Doom [360 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Shields
– Heavy armour
– Master Rune of Adamant
– Rune of Spellbreaking
++ Core Units [507 pts] ++
28 Longbeards [507 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Great weapons
– Heavy armour
– Shields
– Drilled
– Elder (champion) [Rune of Passage + Rune of the Furnace]
– Standard bearer [Rune of Battle + Strollaz’ Rune + Rune of Courage]
++ Special Units [160 pts] ++
Grudge Thrower [95 pts]
– Stone thrower
– Hand weapons
– Light armour
Dwarf Cart [65 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Bugman’s Cart
++ Rare Units [355 pts] ++
18 Irondrakes [355 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Drakeguns
– Full plate armour
– Drilled
– Ironwarden (champion) [Trollhammer torpedo + Cinderblast bombs]
– Standard bearer [Strollaz’ Rune]
—
Created with “Old World Builder”
[https://old-world-builder.com]
Peter: This list is designed to take opponents by surprise and move up the field quickly, taking advantage of Strollaz’ Runes on both Units to give them a Vanguard move to get within range for the Irondrakes to start blasting. I suspect the Longbeards and Irondrakes would have both marched forward quickly on turn 1 with the king inside the Longbeards and the Runesmith in the Irondrakes. The Bugman’s Cart would have been placed just behind and between both units to give them a movement of 4″ rather than 3″.
Dwarfs move 4″ with their Vanguard move. They then get to move 12″ forward if they’re in column and marching, and if the Anvil of Doom casts Haste & Urgency, the Dwarfs can then move again. This has them halfway up the table on turn 1. The champion in the Longbeards having the Rune of Passage means they have the move through cover rule as well.
The Grudge Thrower would have smashed away at range while the Anvil of Doom would have continued casting spells like Wrath & Ruin for a magic Missile (27″ 2D6 Strength 4, -2 AP hits) or buffing the Dwarfs with Immune to Psychology or save rerolls.
The two units of Dwarfs will be a tough nut to crack as well. The BSB giving bith units a 6+ ward to shooting attacks and one of the units a 5+ ward against all attacks. It also has the Rune of Courage to automatically pass any Fear and Terror tests. While it’s Rune of Battle will give an additional +1 to any combat res.
The King is designed to stick around as well, he has immune to killing blows and multiple wounds while his Master Rune of Smiting gives his own weapon D6 multiple wounds. He also has a 2+ save from the Master Rune of Gromril and a 3+ Ward against any wounds suffered that were caused by an attack which has the Flaming Attacks special rule.
With a sprinkling of Runes of Spellbreaking. The list is designed to withstand the enemy onslaught while plugging away at them at range and wearing them down in combat.
Sean asked Eric how he went about beating this list in the fourth round, Eric had this to say:
“I used my mobility to kill off everything else but the anvil and the Longbeard unit. I had to sacrifice a skycutter to keep the Longbeards at bay for a critical turn but that was enough to secure 400 points from killing the Irondrakes. There is no reason to fight the Longbeard unit since its so slow. It is fast at marching with up to 27″ of movement on turn1, but their charge range is only up to 9 (10 if they slow down to keep the cart alongside).“
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3rd OWL [1999 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, Warriors of Chaos
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++ Characters [963 pts] ++
Chaos Lord [622 pts]
– Hand weapon
– Full plate armour
– Shield
– Mark of Chaos [Mark of Nurgle]
– General
– Chaos Dragon
– Ogre Blade
– 2x Favour of the Gods
– Brazen Collar
– Enchanting Aura
Sorcerer Lord [341 pts]
– Hand weapon
– Heavy armour
– Mark of Tzeentch
– Level 4 Wizard
– Chaos Steed
– Armour of Meteoric Iron
– Spell Familiar
– Infernal Puppet
– Favour of the Gods
– Battle Magic
++ Core Units [500 pts] ++
5 Chaos Warhounds [30 pts]
– Claws and fangs (Hand weapons)
5 Chaos Warhounds [30 pts]
– Claws and fangs (Hand weapons)
15 Forsaken [285 pts]
– Mutated weapons (Hand weapons)
– Heavy armour
– Forsaken by Khorne
10 Marauder Horsemen [155 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Light armour
– Shields
– Mark of Chaos [Mark of Tzeentch]
– Musician
++ Special Units [196 pts] ++
3 Dragon Ogres [196 pts]
– Great weapons
– Heavy armour
– Shartak
++ Rare Units [340 pts] ++
Gigantic Spawn of Chaos [170 pts]
– Slashing talons
– Gnashing maws
– Heavy armour (Scaly skin)
– Gigantic Spawn of Nurgle
Gigantic Spawn of Chaos [170 pts]
– Slashing talons
– Gnashing maws
– Heavy armour (Scaly skin)
– Gigantic Spawn of Nurgle
—
Created with “Old World Builder”
[https://old-world-builder.com]
Sean Langford: This Warriors of Chaos list starts off strong with a Chaos lord on dragon. This guy is a beast in combat and with the mark of Nurgle, becomes even harder to kill. Ogre blade adds some real killing power and enchanting aura helps to let him unleash first before the opponent and even buff other units as well by giving opposing units strike last when in combat with multiple units. When going into deathstar units with multiple units, this can be extra nice.
Sorcerer lord with infernal puppet is a must to help shut down opposing magic and adds some speed being on a steed. He can also join the marauders for the extra casting buff. Forsaken can really spike some damage with random attacks and the extra attack on the charge as well as the random buff from rampant mutation. Impetuous might be the downside but they can be easy to control, if necessary, with the Chaos Warhounds blocking charges until they are ready. The three Dragon Ogors are a must-have that can also do some serious damage with the Great Weapons as well.
Lastly, they add a little extra spice by throwing in 2 Gigantic Chaos Spawns of Nurgle. While they are a little less reliable with random movement and random attacks, D6+1 and D6 stomp attacks are still pretty good damage output. They also got a little buff with the last errata, changing the roll to being the maximum movement. They no longer need to go the full dice roll and can now set up some 3d6 charges instead of shambling into the opponent’s easy charge range, so expect to see these guys more. Plus having the Mark of Nurgle and Toughness 6 makes opponents figure out how to do 22 wounds between 2 of these and a Chaos Lord on Dragon, that all have the Mark of Nurgle to make them even harder to kill. This can be a pain for a lot of armies out there and they really need exceptional damage output to really handle these 3 units but if they really focus on bringing these down the Forsaken and Dragon Ogres shouldn’t be underestimated.
Final Tournament Placings
For the full tournament rankings and lists, please visit Best Coast Pairings.
