This is the top three AoS lists for the Small Town Throwdown: The Great Stampede that took place in the US on the 22nd and 23rd of June. It saw 42 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

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)

Walter: In my first event with the new GHB, I wanted to try out something new and not death related.  Saw the new Eltharion and knew what I wanted to do.

Went 5 drops to try and get the new once per game prio reroll to try it out and see how it went.  The reroll felt nice.

The Cathallar just fits with the points.  It is a cheap caster for 90 points that can also run around and do stuff while the main castle does stuff is always a good thing to have.

The Enlightener was a solid caster who sat in the shrine all the time, providing powerful support buffs and firing some shots from the shrine.

Callis and toll were durable pieces that sat on objectives that forced the opponent to commit too much to try and get rid of them while the rest of the list did its thing. Sometimes, they started on the board to defend against aggressive matchups or went in deepstrike when on wide maps to punish opponents for leaving their back points.

Avalenor and the stone guard were the main bulwark of the list.  Solid fighting with the extra attacks Avalenor’s command can give stone guard. The temple to reduce rend and Avalenor’s rampage while all backed up with a 5+ ward let them take some of the hardest hits the enemy could throw at them.

Eltharion was durable and dished out tons of damage.  Not being affected by debuffs makes his damage very reliable in some of the more durable targets. Between the ethereal spell from the enlightener and his 4+ ward, it required people to commit a lot of stuff to take him out.  And when he finally goes down.  One of the many spell casters made him pop right back up one more time.

The twins have a massive tool kit at their disposal.  Able to teleport into important places late game for scoring tactics or taking objectives.  Their late game damage can also hurt when they are in extra damage mode.  They are also durable with a 4+ ward in caster mode.

All together, the list has a lot of durability with 4+ wards and 5+ wards all over the place. The damage felt reliable.  With speed of hysh and the heroic trait.  The list moved surprisingly fast despite Stoneguard being base speed 4.

The tactic path felt okay, but I’ll probably change them.  I’m not sure what to do yet.

Soulblight Gravelords
Bacchanal of Blood
General’s Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 3
Spell Lore – Lore of Undeath
Manifestation Lore – Manifestations of the Grave
Battle Tactics Cards: Master The Paths and Wrathful Cycles

General’s Regiment
Prince Vhordrai (490)
• General
Barrow Guard (320)
• Reinforced
Barrow Knights (210)
Blood Knights (440)
• Reinforced
Wight King (100)

Regiment 1
Vampire Lord on Nightmare Steed (210)
• Lash of the Sire

Regiment 2
Vengorian Lord (220)
• Shard of Night

Faction Terrain
Cursed Sepulchre

Connor Irwin (not Tolbert…): Congratulations to Connor Tolbert for a fantastic showing for Soulblight Gravelords. The faction has a unique challenge of getting their 4th edition battletome (and a lot of meaningful changes therein) right as season 2 kicks in. Competitive Soulblight players are left figuring out how to make their new stuff sing and win these wacky new battleplans, pick the right tactics… All at once! Let’s go through Connor’s list and see what makes it tick.

Starting from the bottom, an addition that’s growing in popularity, the vengorian Lord with shard of night enhancement is a mobile and tough hero with a great rend debuff for combat attacks of enemies in combat with it, an extra d3 vamp healing for it and vhodrai if he’s lucky enough to be wholly within 12″ at end of turn, and a nice horde-munching charge rampage. So it’s got ways to handle a lot of threats and is priced well at 220 pts. Expect him to show up on a lot of lists this summer, especially when you factor in the shard of night artefact and how much that can defang high rend shooting (I see you ironweld degenerates!).

The fresh new hotness of the Vampire Lord on Nightmare Steed is here for obvious reasons. If you’re swinging 440 points worth of blood knights you are going to want them making their  charges with a reroll and with as much rend as you can find to make it count, and maybe get a boost from vhodrai for their next combat. The Lash of the Sire Heroic Trait is still an excellent choice at 20 points and is especially useful for positioning the cumbersome reinforced blood knights to clear the way for the Vamp Lord to make his charge.

The generals regiment is of course led by Prince Vhodrai, with a Wight King to run alongside the reinforced Barrow Guard to get both a 5+ ward and chain activate with a +1 to hit. A single, non-reinforced Barrow Knight unit is a bit of a wildcard pick without the requisite cavalry deathrattle hero to get them their 5+ ward too, but this was likely left on the cutting room floor in favor of the Vengorian Lord and Barrow Guard block. Those knights are pricey, but still a very useful skirmisher unit with charge damage and mortal crits. They have extra recursion and speed to be relevant all game.

Getting full mileage out of Vhodrai is sometimes a challenge if you don’t bring a multitude of smaller non-monster vampire units, but he’s still such an absolute chad in combat and has so much mobility now thanks to that rampage and an even more effective power through, he can still clearly do work and look great doing it.

Last but not least, the formation choice of Bacchanal of Blood is no surprise. The heroes all get a +1 bonus to casting out of combat and all vamps get an extra +1 to wound rolls when they charge, which they all want to be doing. The interesting choice here is the new Soulblight Manifestation Lore  and choice of Master of Paths and Wrathful Cycles tactic cards. Master of Paths gives you at most three rounds to kill an enemy hero before you have to get around the table with a lot of units, which with free unit return on table edges is actually not a big ask for this army. Wrathful Cycles is an interesting choice that rewards early turns where soulblight can get out and take early primary with replaceable units that can bait a double and set up the second tactic, while the third pairs with the last Paths tactic well and requires little actual enemy unit engagement at a time when things on the table have opened up quite a bit.

I think it’s safe to say the competitive Soulblight players of the world are eager to sink their teeth into all the new tech they just got, and thanks to strong showings like Connor’s, we’re learning what can succeed in practice.

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

Peter: We’re lucky enough to have Kevin as part of our commentating team and earlier this week he wrote a tournament report on his weekend at Southern Fried Sigmar, you can read that here.

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Daughters of Khaine
Arena Veterans

[Wrathful Cycles]
[Scouting Force]
[Lore of Shadows]
[Bloodshadow Rites]
[Manifestations of Khaine]
1990/2000pts
3 drops

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)

Peter: Frederick’s approach with this Daughters of Khaine force seems to lean into aggressive board control while carefully layering buffs to mitigate the army’s natural fragility. Looking at his use of Witch Aelves with paired Sciansá, it’s clear he wants to pressure early and often. With their sheer volume of attacks and the ability to auto-wound on crits, these units are ideal for flooding the midfield and threatening objectives. We can imagine Frederick launching them forward, forcing his opponent to either commit resources to remove them or risk having their lines overwhelmed.

The Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood plays a pivotal supporting role in Frederick’s list. She likely sits centrally, projecting that 9″ aura to bolster saves and improve priest chants, making the Aelves around her much more durable than they appear on paper. Combined with the Orgy of Slaughter ability to spike attack profiles at just the right moment, Frederick can pick crucial combats to swing decisively in his favour. This suggests a player who understands timing deeply and isn’t afraid to gamble on a big push when it matters most.

Meanwhile, the Bloodwrack Shrine and the manifestations, especially the Bloodwrack Viper and Bladewind,  indicate that Frederick likes to create threat saturation across the board. With tools like Wracking Gaze to enable re-rolls and Bloodwrack Stare providing punchy ranged damage, he can whittle down enemy key pieces before the melee lines crash in. The Viper’s strike-last ability almost certainly helped him shut down powerful enemy heroes at critical junctures, forcing awkward activation orders and letting his own units clean up first.

Lastly, support from pieces like the Heart of Fury shows Frederick values layered defence just as much as offence. The combination of -1 to wound and +1 to saves from the cauldron can make those fragile infantry surprisingly sticky when set up correctly. It’s a classic case of creating a “death bubble”, an area of the board that’s dangerous to approach but essential to control.

Overall, Frederick’s list likely played out as a fast, punishing hammer force with surprising resilience in key areas. He probably forced early skirmishes to seize objectives and put pressure on, then leveraged his buffs to hold those gains, waiting for the perfect moment to unleash overwhelming combat power and finish the job.

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Final Tournament Placings