The Event and Venue

This was the 2025 Southern Fried Sigmar GT in Atlanta, Georgia. We had 42 people (after drops) in attendance! Not bad from less than 20 just a few years ago. 

The tournament is actually part of a larger gaming event called “Southern Fried Gaming Expo” and your ticket comes with a badge to the expo. The expo itself centers heavily on arcade and pinball games as well as tabletop games and some vendors – it’s a small convention, but nice. 

(they had like a billion arcade and pinball machines)

The venue is the Renaissance Waverly hotel which is… fine. It’s connected to a very very dead spooky mall. So if you like liminal spaces and slenderman, this is the place for you!

The actual tournament hall, seen below, is quite a good space. There is enough room between tables you can actually walk completely around them; you are not crammed in, shoulder-to-shoulder or butts-to-butts!

(there’s more tables outside the frame, fairly spacious for 21 tables)

My List

Fyreslayers
Scales of Vulcatrix
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 5
Prayer Lore - Vulkyn Gifts
Manifestation Lore - Magmic Invocations

Battle Tactic Cards: Wrathful Cycles, Attuned to Ghyran

General's Regiment
Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (320)
• General
Scourge of Ghyran Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (310)
• Thickened Scales
• Droth-helm

Regiment 1
Auric Runesmiter on Magmadroth (280)

Regiment 2
Auric Runemaster (200)
• Ash-beard
Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)
Vulkyn Flameseekers (160)

Regiment 3
Scourge of Ghyran Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (310)

Faction Terrain
Magmic Battleforge

Regiments of Renown
Saviours of Cinderfall (270)
Callis and Toll
Toll's Companions

I made six lists of various configurations: three 4+ droth lists, 1 2-droth list, and 2 1-droth list (i.e. infantry heavy). I then rolled a dice and this is the one I got to play! I think they were all competitive to some level and this one turned out to be more competitive than I anticipated. Still, a part of me wonders if the Auric Hearthguard augmented droth list would have been better.

This particular list is about options. At first blush the list looks as though it should play very aggressively; four magmadroths and the option for hero-phase-movement, on top of the run+charge rune, means you certainly can play this as an alpha strike or “go turn” list. 

But that’s not all it has. Because of the new prayer lore allowing for hero phase movement as well as additional mortal damage when bleeding, on top of the regular flexibility of runes, the list can do whatever you need. If you need to sit back and watch things unfold, that’s certainly an option. If you need to deny opponents movement or tactics, it can do that. If you need to punch them in the mouth or absorb a hit, it can do those things too.

But it can only do each of those things for a very limited time and not quite as well as other lists. Thus, the list becomes a jack-of-all trades and master of none. But more than that it becomes a list that is even more reliant on positioning and timing. 

Saviours of Cinderfall shore up the list’s one glaring weakness: inability to deepstrike and inability to hold an objective. Saviours accomplishes both these things, being both a deep strike threat (especially to support heroes) as well as an objective babysitter. You can plop them somewhere and say “everyone else is going to go do real work, you guys make sure no one messes with this, okay?” 

In retrospect I think the tactic choice was lacking and if I could redo things I would definitely have not taken “Attuned to Ghyran.” But it also wasn’t the worst choice and I did accomplish 1 or 2 of them nearly every game.

The Games

Preface: I am usually half asleep in round 1 and have been drinking in the later rounds, so my memory is often foggy on the details. 

Round 1: Win Against Sylvaneth on Surge of Slaughter

Sylvaneth
Lords of the Clan
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 4
Spell Lore - Lore of the Deepwood
Manifestation Lore - Aetherwrought Machineries

Battle Tactic Cards: Master The Paths, Intercept and Recover

General's Regiment
Alarielle the Everqueen (680)
• General
Tree-Revenants (100)
Treelord (220)

Regiment 1
Belthanos, First Thorn of Kurnoth (350)

Regiment 2
Scourge of Ghyran Drycha Hamadreth (320)

Regiment 3
Spirit of Durthu (330)
• Radiant Spirit
• Glamourweave

Faction Terrain
Awakened Wyldwood

Monster heavy Sylvaneth! Looks like we get to smoosh monsters into each other and boy did we! Landon’s list was quite strong and the new Drycha is a true monster. Her 18” aura of anti-charge or debuff is also quite strong. Drycha is a great inclusion in his list and put in real work. 

I deploy heavily in the center, keeping 3 of my droths there and 1 to the right. I place the Shield Vulkites on the left to tag that objective and do nothing but hang out. 

With my 5-drops I was obviously out-dropped. He gave me the top of round 1. I put Callis and Toll dead center (not knowing about Drycha’s ward removal, RIP) and basically barely moved the rest of my army, keeping them just a bit behind CNT. I do intentionally stay away from the center, I don’t want to score too much and give him the possibility of a double-turn while still becoming the underdog.

On his turn he plops down some trees, pushes up Alarielle on the left, Drycha, and Durthu in the center, and uses Belthanos and a Treelord to cap to the right side (near my lone droth). Alarielle kills most of my shield Vulkites, Durthu + Drycha clear Callis and Toll plus all but one or two companions and take the center objective. He’s now outscored me!

Priority roll goes off, I take the turn and proceed to kill Drycha, Durthu, and surprisingly, Alarielle. Durthu and Drycha nearly kill a magmadroth, but Alarielle folds like a house of cards to a Runeson Droth I send that way  – bonus rend (from being the underdog) with anti-monster means I’m on rend 3 with the son’s axe into her. On the right side my other droth kills the Treelord near Belthanos. Drycha goes down to the lava blood + ichor prayer mortals and then Durthu is finished off with a Power Through from the Runefather. 

While my Magmadroths are very thin on wounds, with me having used the 5++ ward and +1 save rune, they are still alive. He has very little and needs an Alarielle revive to stay in the game. He doesn’t get it. 

Alarielle making no saves and dying so rapidly was a huge swing in the game. I was in a good position if she had lived, but her dying so swiftly sealed things. The fear of Drycha or Durthu coming back had me on edge, but making her have to bring herself back first means I was in a great spot. When she failed to even bring herself back the game was over. 

Landon took his crappy dice rolls in stride and was a good opponent. A fun game and a good start for me. He proceeded to go 4-1! This is good since the tie breaker includes the opponent win percentage.

My win 54-25.

(Fred and Luna battle it out)

Round 2: Win Against Soulblight Gravelords on Grasp of Thorns

Grand Alliance Death | Soulblight Gravelords | Bacchanal of Blood
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 2
Spell Lore - Lore of Undeath
Manifestation Lore - Aetherwrought Machineries
Battle Tactics Cards: Attuned to Ghyran and Scouting Force
-----
General's Regiment
Vampire Lord on Nightmare Steed (190)
• General
• Immortal Ego
• Amulet of Graves
Barrow Knights (210)
Barrow Knights (210)
Blood Knights (440)
• Reinforced
Deathrattle Skeletons (100)
---
Regiment 1
Prince Vhordrai (490)
Vargheists (120)
Vargheists (120)
Wight Lord on Skeletal Steed (120)
-----
Faction Terrain
Cursed Sepulchre

I’ve come back from lunch with food and whiskey sour in me. The cocktail only empowers my dice when playing Fyreslayers!

John’s list is an interesting one. It can easily snag tactics, which is problematic, but it lacks a bit of punch in return.

I deploy, again heavily in the middle leaning to the left, away from his Vhordrai positioning on his right objective. I do put the flameseekers on the right in hopes that if he drags Vhordrai across on round 1 they’ll at least neuter his damage and lock him into combat.

He takes the top of 1, which I found unexpected, and makes me think he will go for an alpha strike: so I pop the fight first rune and chill. He proceeds to… chill on his side of the board and even pull back a bit. The fight-first rune is very scary. He does put the barrow knights in the center with the skeletal steed to get a tactic. They do have to fight my Infernoth, which they easily dispatch.

He’s way up on points and I plop CNT on the right side objective in my territory and proceed to dumpster the barrow knights + hero with three magmadroths. I also position in hopes he’ll get the next turn and charge the blood knights into my SmiterDroth and SonDroth on the left.

This turns out to be true. He gets the top of 2 and I take the underdog. I proceed to lock Vhordrai onto the back right objective where he can’t move. The underdog ability from the battle plan is VERY strong (locks units to an objective). He scoots around some units and charges the BKs into the two magmadroths. Their rampages alone kill 3 blood knights. The enhanced lava blood kills 2 more. The magmadroths then kill the other 5 knights easily and leave the lord alive on low health; a successful defense of my left objective. His vargheists are just doing tactics in the corners.

I go to my turn, kill his vampire lord, send one droth to the back left to cap the enemy objective there and the other two to the back right to kill Vhordrai. Vhordrai does kill one magmadroth but he dies to the other. 

The game is basically over now. He scores some points with Vhargeists bouncing around, but they can’t win the game. 

My win 68-41.

Round 3: Win Against Nurgle on Cyclic Shifts

Maggotkin of Nurgle
Plague Cyst
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 3
Spell Lore - Lore of Malignance
Prayer Lore - Bendictions of Sickness
Manifestation Lore - Aetherwrought Machineries

Battle Tactic Cards: Intercept and Recover, Master The Paths

General's Regiment
Scourge of Ghyran Rotigus (430)
• General
Putrid Blightkings (380)
• Reinforced
Sloppity Bilepiper, Herald of Nurgle (100)
• Unctuous Preacher
• Rustfang

Regiment 1
Bloab Rotspawned (300)
Putrid Blightkings (380)
• Reinforced

Regiment 2
Orghotts Daemonspew (280)
Rotmire Creed (130)

Faction Terrain
Feculent Gnarlmaw

A tanky list on one of the more spread out battleplans! Zain is on a quest to become more competitive and is on quite a win streak with the new GHB. I’m actually sad I couldn’t give him a cleaner and more coherent game, but I had maybe dipped a bit too hard into the drinking.

We both deploy towards the center on the same side. I know he’s slow so I have no fear of him crossing top of 1. We played the round 1 game of staring hard at each other. But I notice that he leaves a nice opening near Rotigus for two droths to fit through.

I get the top of 2 and take full advantage of this. I send The droths into Rotigus, nearly downing him and cleaning up some blightkings along the way. My left side is playing “hold the line” against Orghotts and doesn’t need to push. I plop CNT over there to help the shield vulkite unit out for when Orghotts possibly comes in.

Bottom of two he’s locked in here with me and applies some pressure with Bloab. But the three magmadroths in combat prove too much and with a (finally) successful rampage from the runefather, Bloab and Rotigus go down. It does cost me the runefather (and gives him a tactic).

With his right side folding he needs his left side to pick up, but it can’t. Orghotts is basically playing games with the Saviours and slowly winning, but that only can last until a magmadroth gets over there to pick him off. I’ve taken the entire right and center so primaries are mine. 

Oghotts dies and the game is very over. Zain’s scramble to bring it back was admirable, but the huge positioning mistake with Rotigus at the bottom of one cost him the game when I exploited the magmadroth speed.

My win 66-39

(Nathan’s threat range is at least 44 inches)

Round 4: Win against Daughters of Khaine on Noxious Nexus

Daughters of Khaine
Arena Veterans

[Wrathful Cycles]
[Scouting Force]

[Lore of Shadows]
[Bloodshadow Rites]
[Manifestations of Khaine]

Krethusa the Croneseer [SoG] (240)
- 20 x Sisters of Slaughter with Bladed Bucklers (220)
- 20 x Sisters of Slaughter with Bladed Bucklers (220)

Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood (320)
- 20 x Witch Aelves with Paired Sciansá (220)
- 20 x Witch Aelves with Paired Sciansá (220)

Bloodwrack Shrine [SoG] (230)
[General]
[Khainite Pendant]
[Zealous Orator]
- 5 x Khinerai Lifetakers (80)
- 5 x Khinerai Lifetakers (80)
- 5 x Khinerai Lifetakers (80)
- 5 x Khinerai Lifetakers (80)


1990/2000pts

Fred and Walter are probably the best players in this tournament and DoK are one of the strongest armies in the game. I know this is going to be a hard game, but luckily it’s on a low objective count mission so he can’t abuse the Lifetakers being insanely fast and cheap to force me to spread.

I deploy center, as does he. I get the top 1, as expected, and proceed to do the usual of putting Callis and Toll on the far objective to babysit it until the end of time which they do and throughout the game that does net me 8 points plus the 10 at the end. Eighteen points! Great work CNT!

In the center in round 1 we both on our respective turns barely move. It’s not worth it to take objectives we can’t hold and it’s too risky to go forward. Fred is particularly fearful of the lava breath and flamespitter thinning Aelves before they can get into combat, so he hugs obscuring while failing to make the objective obscuring. I do spread the flameseekers right but keep the Shields back with the runemaster, they are Scouting Force deterrents.

I win priority on round 2 and give it to him. I pop fight first rune and let him move all his units forward to hold the objective. He can’t risk charging and mostly keeps the witch aelves back. I push forward on my turn, kill most of the sisters of slaughter on the right but my runefather proceeds to do almost no damage at all and fails to kill them all. 

He gets the round 3 priority and tries to buzzsaw a unit of Witch Aelves into my magmadroths. Fortuitously for him my rampages all fail to go off and this allows him to have most of his fighting force around for combat. I also have been completely unable to banish his manifestation for -1 wound which is problematic. To make matters worse I haven’t gotten almost any prayers off the entire game except for Ichor. And thank Grimnir for that prayer!

The Witch Aelves nearly down two droths, but fall just shy of getting the job done (thank god for Mind Razor not going off). Krethusa’s prayer is super busted, as expected. Still, the droths punch back and kill nearly all the sisters of slaughter and the witch aelves.I do whiff hard on some attacks but thankfully Ichor had already thinned the Aelfs out pretty heavily. Honestly the dice have failed me hard this game outside an unbind, so thank god for lava blood turning those fails into a success!

He’s way behind on points now as my droths, while held down, clear him off the objectives in my turn.

Going into round 4 he NEEDS the priority roll… and fails to get it. This effectively seals the game as I can charge his remaining Witch Aelf unit and take them out. I also have been slowly killing his Lifetakers with shooting and my roaming unit of Flameseekers.

He still has his big heroes remaining and Krethusa, who revives a unit of Witch Aelves which proceed to charge and kill a droth because why not. But this won’t get him the points needed and the game is mathematically over here.

A tight game that could have gone either way in a few moments. I think I could have also blown it open at a couple moments but failed to capitalize. The new obscuring mechanic was an absolutely massive boon to him and the lava breath not being able to hit as much stuff as I’d like was rough. This was a really fun and techy game. I think it wrinkled my brain a bit.

My win 57-38.

Round 5: Loss against Lumineth Realm Lords on Lifecycle

(I bask in Watler’s glory)

Lumineth Realm-lords
Alarith Temple
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 5
Spell Lore - Lore of Hysh
Manifestation Lore - Manifestations of Hysh

Battle Tactic Cards: Attuned to Ghyran, Wrathful Cycles

General's Regiment
Avalenor, The Stoneheart King (410)
 • General
Alarith Stoneguard (240)
 • Reinforced
Alarith Stoneguard (240)
 • Reinforced

Regiment 1
Scinari Cathallar (90)

Regiment 2
Scinari Enlightener (200)
 • Silver Wand
 • Flawless Commander

Regiment 3
Ellania and Ellathor, Eclipsian Warsages (280)
Scourge of Ghyran The Light of Eltharion (250)

Faction Terrain
Shrine Luminor (20 Points)

Regiments of Renown
Saviours of Cinderfall (270)
Callis and Toll
Toll's Companions

I haven’t played Lumineth in a long while, at least a few months. I’ve also never played this battleplan and Walter is a skilled player. I know this is going to be a rough game but at least Walter’s a gem.

Lifecycle has one of the more odd deployments in this GHB and I’m really uncertain how to deploy. Walter deploys heavy on the right so I choose to deploy heavy on the left. We get to go around in a big cycle.

I’m given the top of round 1. I put Callis and Toll right in front of his army on the rightmost objective. The plan is to hope that CNT can tank enough to hold him down so I can give him the top of 2. I move up on the left to take out his only unit of stoneguard but forget to shoot or even charge my Runefather droth on the left side  – I was wrong, the Fred game smoothed my brain out! Everything else just sort of hangs out in the center and center-left. There’s no real openings to push into him otherwise.

On his turn he pushes up and easily crushes the Saviours of Cinderfell. Turns out The Light of Eltharion does infinity damage, huh. His left side plays keep away moving on to the back center objective.

I’m given the top of 2 but can’t really penetrate his castle. I decide to clear his center objective to push into his heroes but just roll super shit and cant kill almost anything. The swinginess of Magmadroths is really coming to light. I also try to put some invocations to block countercharges but roll nothing but 1s, I manage to get no prayers off.

To make matters worse, my positioning errors are stacking up and he counter charges Avalenor into my SmiterDroth (expected when I failed the fyrewall block) but isn’t in combat range of my SonDroth (unexpected, I should have been more careful on measurements). I also forgot to activate my 5++ ward rune (I thought about it but then sort of forgot, don’t drink and drive, kids). Avalenor does take a lot of damage from the SmiterDroth but nearly kills it. Still, I am holding him off the objectives and tactics for now which means I’m well ahead on points.

His turn comes around and since I forgot to activate the rune last turn I can at least activate the fight first rune (which I’d hoped to have for the next turn). He loses Avalenor (to lava blood trading with SmiterDroth) and Eltharion (also to lava blood I think). My positioning errors from the previous turns have stacked too much now and I don’t have a ton of responses. To make matters worse my Runefather has done basically 0 damage to the units he can hit and failed his rampage every combat. His lava blood has done more than he has! The battles on the back center and right side of the map have gone his way big time now.

Despite my mistakes I still have a chance to come back due to the living Runefather and Runeson droth and the prayers coming out. I’m up on points so if I can punish his units and heroes I can keep him off objectives long enough he won’t be able to catch up. My gameplan is sort of working, just not how I intended.

Walter gets the double though, uh oh, and brings back Eltharion (GW, pls explain) in round 3 and proceeds to finish off my remaining magmadroths except the (mostly useless) Runefather. I think this seals the game. 

I do scramble for points and kill more stuff, as well as bog him down on the back objective, but I have nothing left that can deal with his heroes who are tough for a magmadroth to fight, let alone Shield Vulkites and Flameseekers. Still, my point lead and tactics denial means Walter has to work extra hard for those final few points. The twins have to kill a model to teleport to the objective on the left, if they fail it may well be a draw, but they nab a vulkite to do it.

Walter clearly had a plan (a good one) to rotate around the board clearing me out and it worked flawlessly. My plan to play aggressive fell apart and I need much better positioning to achieve it. The transition into tactics and points denial plan did almost work, but when you’re playing poorly you need a dice bailout and that’s just a gamble that won’t always work.

Walter is gracious in victory and it was a fun game. Very instructive for me, mostly that I need to try to reserve brain energy for game 5, but also learning how LRL works again. I definitely need more reps to see more stuff. A really close and fun game; I always like when a game teaches me a lot.

I lost 43-51. Walter wins the tournament!

Conclusion

(dem Georgia bois)

Very fun and very instructive tournament. Everyone was nice and the incredibly spooky convention center, hotel, and mall is actually a great place to host a GT. I don’t normally make full use of the convention, but it’s open until midnight so that’s certainly an option for some people.

I learned a lot about this GHB and can see some of how the current meta is developing. 

I also started to get the hang of Magmadroths. They remain incredibly swingy, but when they pop off their damage is INCREDIBLE. The new prayer lore is also clutch with both Ichor (extra mortals on lava blood) and Blazing Impetus (hero phase move) being really powerful. I went into this thinking Ichor would be useless and instead it was the MVP. I think it did at least 15 mortals every game minimum, probably close to 25 in my game against DoK. Overall the list performed well even if I think the tactics choices were very wrong. Still it’s hard to argue with a 4-1 and I think I had a chance at 5-0 but just got outplayed.