All posts by Woehammer

Age of Sigmar: 4th Edition Meta Stats (2nd March 2025)

We’ve incorporated player Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, so you can now see what affect the elite players have on those pesky win rates.

All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, Stats and Ladders and Ecksen. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.

As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.

Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)

  • 2D6 OsloHammer #9 X-Mas!
  • Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament – “Troll Bowl I”
  • Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament @XPG
  • Akron Brew Brawl-AoS GT
  • AoS Singles Grand Clash 2025
  • AoS Tournament 2000pts, 1st & 2nd March – The Bristol CT
  • AoS World Pass
  • Battle for GreenHollow GT AOS
  • Cake or Death 2025 – The Cakeful Dead
  • Call to Glory 2025
  • CaptainCon AoS Event Hosted by Away Games
  • Cataclysmic Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament Q1
  • Clash of Clans 5
  • Columbus Brewhammer ’25
  • Crossroads Carnage – LVCan’tgO
  • DaBoyz GT Golden Sprue 2025
  • Dice of Destiny GT 2025
  • Everwinter: Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament
  • Final Equipos CNDKHM AoS
  • FLG Cherokee Open 2025
  • Gasts Hjaltar
  • Geekfest – Winter War Zone – Age of Sigmar
  • Gods of War V
  • GT El Mago Demente
  • Hamburg Major 2025
  • Haus of Heroes GT
  • II GT PETREO (Memorial Enric Medina)
  • LVO 2025 Age of Sigmar Champs
  • Macao Sigmar Tournament
  • Midwest Bash 2025 GT
  • North China Open IV
  • Norwegian Masters 2024
  • NPO – Saint of Meow Meow Riverlands Meowdown
  • Old Man Gaming Open 2025
  • Partisan Games AOS GT 15th/16th February 2025
  • Portal Invernal 2025
  • Prova
  • Realm of Geddon 2025
  • Realmshift 2025
  • Richmond Reroll AoS GT II
  • Sheffield Slaughter 2025
  • Sigmar Calls
  • Southern Smash GT | Age of Sigmar
  • The Big Bristol Brawl Winter GT
  • The Forge GT: Year 2
  • The Lone Star Grand Tournament
  • The Nottingham AoS GT
  • The Tracksuit GT
  • Threshold Invitational VII
  • Trandermaster
  • Warzone Atlanta ’25: AoS GT
  • Weekend Warlord 8 – Endless War
  • Winter Castle Siege 2025

GT Win Rates

Interestingly, the dying faction of Beast of Chaos have the highest Elo average of all the factions currently playable in Age of Sigmar, this will primarily be because of experienced players having them in their collection and possibly trying to make the most out of them before they are no longer tournament legal.

Disregarding both Beasts of Chaos and Bonesplitterz, our Age of Sigmar stats currently has only three over achieving faction – Flesh-eater Courts with a win rate of 62% , Slaves to Darkness at 56% and Hedonites of Slaanesh at 56% – that’s not bad. While at the other end of the table we’ve three factions under achieving when we include Big Waaagh! with them as the lowest at 26%. Ignoring Big Waaagh! who have extremely low representation, all of these factions are only a percentile percentile outside of the 45-55% green zone (balanced). Flesh-eater Courts have a slightly higher than average Elo rating for their players, which could be marginally inflating their win rates.

Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal

That’s a mouthful of title isn’t it!?

Essentially, what I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculateBut I’m playing around here).

How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the December battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 428.8. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 428.8 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)

The results suggest that perhaps Flesh-eater Courts and Slaves to Darkness may have an easier time of it than the other factions.

Battle Formation GT Win Rates

This chart only shows the Battle Formations that have achieved 100 games or more in GT play (the number of games shown in brackets).

Flesh-eater Courts have 390+ games in tournament play at GTs and we can see well over half of those games are under the Lords of the Manor (allowing an additional slain model to be returned to their unit on top of whatever the usual ability allows) battle formation. While it’s probably no surprise to many of you that Vanguard Wing for Stormcast Eternals is their top choice – allowing one Vanguard Chamber unit per turn that doesn’t move to teleport anywhere on the battlefield 9″ away from all enemy units on a dice roll of 3+. Sentinels of the Bleak Citadels is also a strong choice for Stormcast Eternal players allowing the players to pick one Ruination Chamber unit each turn to have Ward (5+) for that whole turn.

At the bottom of the table, Bacchanal of Blood isn’t too hot for the Soulblight Gravelords, though it is their most popular option – allowing them to add 1 to casting rolls for friendly Vampire units that are not in combat and adding 1 to wound rolls for combat attacks made by friendly Vampire units that charged in the same turn (see Blood Knights).

They’re by the Disciples of Tzeentch and the Wyrdflame Host (subtract 1 from wound rolls for attacks made by burning enemy units) and the Lumineth Realm-Lords and its Vanari Battlehost (The Lumineth player can use the ‘Power of Hysh‘ ability in addition to the other Facet of War ability used during the battle round).

Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)

This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).

The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.

Elite and Rookie Players by Faction

The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).

As we can see, the player base for Beasts of Chaos is largely made up of Elite players, which is adding to their win rate in the charts at the beginning of this article.

Faction Win Rates for Players with sub-400 Elo

The aim of the above chart is to show how the lower rated players of between 300 and 399 elo are performing with the various factions. The figure in brackets denotes the number of games the data is based on.

Sons of Behemat seem to be the more forgiving faction to play in Age of Sigmar at the moment.

Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Number of Wins)

The above chart breaks down the faction popularity by the number of wins each player achieved in the first 5 rounds of games at GT’s or GT+’s.

This merely shows that Stormcast and Slaves are by far the most popular factions in the game at present.

Number of GT Wins as Percentage

This chart shows the % breakdown for the number of wins players are achieving in the first 5 rounds at GT and GT+ events.

The perfect split for each faction, if everything was perfectly balanced across factions would like:

The Fabien Chart

Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.

Consecutive Wins

This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in light blue for each faction.

Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.

Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.

Grey shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.

Yellow shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.

The light blue shows the percentage of players unable to achieve a positive result with the faction at a GT or GT+.

Woehammer Database

To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.

Meet the Crew

Peter Holland

I’m the CEO, COO and CFO of Woehammer, which I started back in 2021 shortly after the birth of my son. It began as my lifeline to the wargaming world, a way to stay immersed in the hobby while sleep-deprived and covered in baby food.

My journey into the grimdark and fantastical realms began in 1994 with the iconic 2nd edition Warhammer 40k boxed set. After a brief hiatus during my university years (2001–2005, apparently they don’t give degrees in miniature painting), I dove back in with a vengeance.

These days, I consider myself more of a painter than a player, although I’m always up for a game of Age of Sigmar, Warhammer 40k, Old World or the occasional Napoleonic skirmish.

Roland Rivera

I’m Roland, and I’m one of Woehammer’s staff writers. I started engaging with the hobby via Warhammer Fantasy Battle in 2010, and while I took a hiatus from it after the End Times, the pandemic (and fatherhood) brought my interest roaring back, and I hopped back in around 2020.
My interest lies much more with the gaming side of the hobby, and you can often find me jamming late-night games of Age of Sigmar on Tabletop Simulator after my kids have gone to bed for the night. I am a devoted fan of the Chaos side of things, particularly Slaves to Darkness (which is my main tournament army), but I appreciate many of the heavily armored melee armies.

Declan Waters

I joined Peter shortly after he started Woehammer as a blog with updates on my hobby and reviews of books and products. I’d always wants to run a blog, but my sporadic writing made this difficult… so Woehammer proved the perfect solution.

I have been wargaming since 1989 with floor-hammer for Space Marine (Epic 40k) and Blood Bowl and then progressing to Warhammer Fantasy. I’ve been going to tournaments since 2002, and after COVID played a lot of tournaments with Big Waaagh, winning a 5 game tournament 5-0 and being invited to the UK masters.

A little one of my own has reduced my tournament attendance so I’m now looking at other hobby projects including Necromunda that have been on the back burner for a while.

I’m also an avid boardgames and Peter keeps asking me to do reviews… so maybe I should get some done soon!

Fitts

I like lists and lists of lists!

I also quite enjoy a bit of Age of Sigmar when I can squeeze in a few games between life, the universe, and everything. I got back into wargaming after having a couple of kids left me with more time at home than I was used to and six years later I’ve got 3.5 AoS armies and I’m starting on another new one. I dived in with Nighthaunt and they will always have a special ghostly place in my heart. I really enjoy a nice casual game but I’m a sucker for trying my hardest to be competitive (especially with wacky lists). So much so, that I’ve even taken up being a TO again just so that I’ve got a local tournament to play in. Luckily, I also rock a few games of Necromunda from time to time… everyone should play more narrative games!

I update the AoS lists archive sporadically (that just means not often enough). You’ll also see a few scattered articles here and there when I get the time. I’m always planning more and constantly have a few drafts on the go at once. You can tell which ones are mine because they’re long and waffly and tend to drift off-topic from time to time… a bit like this intro.

Ian Humpage

I dabble and help with woehammer when I can, usually diving into the narrative side with the odd announcement review tossed in.

I started with Warhammer in the mid-90s after splitting the 4th edition box with my older brother (I was given high elves as he chose night goblins). This led to a lot of army hopping due to my indecisiveness (or maybe the undiagnosed ADHD, as it turns out) so I ended up moving to dwarves, empire, vampire counts, and warriors of chaos before eventually losing interesting my late teens.

I dipped my toe in the odd time but after a complete clear out of all models in my late 20s it seemed like the final nail in the coffin. Then, in my mid-30s when spending a lot of time in hospital at the end of my wife’s first pregnancy, I spotted a white dwarf in the newsagents.

That apparently was enough to trigger the interest (addiction?). Only 5 years (and 2 kids) later I am neck deep with collections in 40K, Old World, AoS, Horus Heresy and Star Wars Armada. Certainly an expensive few years, and I can’t blame all of it on the kids (don’t tell my wife…)

Brett Martin

Resident writer from Downunder, I joined Peter a few years ago originally writing the odd article and list review. That morphed a bit and at the moment I spend most of my time on lists with only the occasional article. I hope to get more articles out this year.

During my formative years I was a role player (D&D and MERP) dabbling a little in historical tabletop. I jumped in to AoS in 2019 looking for something I could do and mix with work and small children. Initially I mostly wanted to paint I quickly found myself in a slow grow 40k crusade, AoS and Kill Team events.

Since then I’ve continued to build and paint armies both 40k and AoS. Most recently I’ve switched to Sylvaneth from my beloved orcs while also playing Grey Knights and Chaos Space Marines. I’m shifting gears a little just now, looking to run some smaller events locally and maybe slow the army expansion. At least until Emperor’s Children arrive. And I really need some S2D.

Faction Stats: Skaven (Nov ’24)

Skaven are the big bad of 4th edition, but how do they really fair on the tabletop?

Battle Formation

Warpcog Convocation is by far the most popular formation, and the best balanced externally. Giving the ability to increase the wound rolls and rend at the risk of blowing up is very Skaven.

Artefacts

Heroic Traits

Foulhide is the most popular with its Heal D3 ability.

Manifestations

A fairly even split across the manifestations, but Primal Energy appears to be the most balanced.

Warscrolls

Some warscrolls like the Warp-grinder, Plagueclaw and Verminlord Corruptor haven’t been selected by players at any competitive event. Compared to other factions, we’ve looked at so far the selections appear to be a lot more spread out across the Battletome.

Performance v Other Factions

While Skaven hold their own against Stormcast Eternals they really struggle against Slaves to Darkness and Nighthaunt.

Close

As always, you’ll probably (and quite rightly) disagree with me on a lot of these points. Why not let us know I’m the comments below what you think to the Skaven.

4th Edition Faction Review: Gloomspite Gitz

Fish: Hey all! I’m here today with Lodivicus to go over the faction review for some mushroom crazed maniacs. Gloomspite can be semi-segregated into a few different armies and play styles. I’m more familiar with the Gobbos and Spiders so I will be covering those while Lodi takes Squigs and Troggs.

Before we get into it. Let me drop my bonafides, below is the army I have painted and brought to several tourneys. It’s got 100 count em one hundred individual goblins. Now let’s get into it!




Lodi: Thanks for the introduction and welcome to the team Fish. Our readers will likely recognize me from our 3rd Edition Top 3 articles over the past year or so. I am a Gitz main player, with the majority of my experience in the Squigs, Troggs and Goblin sides, either monotype or mixing two of the three. Sorry spiders, I never seem to have luck at the casino!

Lore

The Gitz are a diverse array of Greenskins, Squigs, Spiders, and Troggoths (the Age of Sigmar equivalent of trolls). They all live and thrive in the Gloomspite, the various deep underground places in every realm. Occasionally these groups stop their internecine squabbles to come to the surface and wreak havoc under the light of DA BAD MOON as it rockets low across the Mortal Realms. As much a god as a celestial body, turning people to mushrooms and all other manner of atrocities the bad moon glides through the sky trailing madness and destruction in its wake.

Fish: The Gitz are a diverse array of Greenskins, Squigs, Spiders, and Troggoths (the Age of Sigmar equivalent of trolls). They all live and thrive in the Gloomspite, the various deep underground places in every realm. Occasionally these groups stop their internecine squabbles to come to the surface and wreak havoc under the light of DA BAD MOON as it rockets low across the Mortal Realms. As much a god as a celestial body, turning people to mushrooms and all other manner of atrocities the bad moon glides through the sky trailing madness and destruction in its wake.

Playstyle

Fish: Goblins – Depending on the units selected you can have a couple of different playstyles. Generally when using goblins you will be aiming to have a main force of goblins that receive layered buffs and work with a compilation of units from the whole army. Goblin focused armies tend to pull units from all different types from across the faction. Generally having buffed goblins moving up the centre board with casters backing them up and larger more powerful units of Troggs, Squigs, or Spiders shoring up the weaknesses that goblins have.

The spider focused faction has unfortunately been taken out behind the shed and shot. However, if you want to play these incredible models, you can! They are going to focus on multiple centrepiece spiders with smaller units harassing and scoring. They can hit hard with mortals but generally won’t be able to handle a punch back. You need to hit and avoid return damage, so picking engagements is crucial. It’s also a great subfaction if you like casinos and gambling on mortals with your vicious viscous venomous varmints (no spider words begin in V dammit)

Lodi: Troggs are the slow-moving but quite hard-hitting anvil of Gloomspite Gitz.  Between their health scores, good saves, and the amount of regeneration they can do, they can be quite a formidable force to try to destroy. They are also quite punchy but can be quite swingy in output as well.  Typically, they are a ‘stand on circles’ type list, tanking incoming damage and counter punching to keep control of the objectives.

Squigs are a wild mix of glass cannon cavalry, monsters, and hordes. They don’t have high rend values and the majority of their weapons have the companions rule, but they make up for that with sheer volume of attacks and Crit Mortals (provided by the Squigboss) as well as potentially great movement (its variable).

Battle Traits

Fish: The Gloomspite battle trait revolves around them chasing the Bad Moon across the board. Each type of unit receives a different buff while under the light of the bad moon. Troggs get more durable, Spiders spike mortals easier, Squigs can reroll move dice, and Goblins get plus three to the control score (wow). The Bad Moon has a chance to move at the start of every battle round and CAN move off the board losing you access to your battle trait. There are a few ways to produce the light without the moon though, which we will get into later. For Spiders, Squigs and Troggs the light is going to be huge so ensure you place your units in the best way and timing to take full advantage of its benefits. Goblin players, it’s mostly going to be niche use cases. A 40 stack of gobbos is already going to be hard to over take at control 40 if you can fit ’em all on the objective.

Lodi: Just something to add, it is noteworthy that while a +3 control score has limited value on big units of gobbos it can have much more noticeable effects on smaller units or Moonclan heroes.  For example, it can take Skragrott (or really any non-Squig Moonclan hero) from a control 2 to a control 5.

Subfaction Traits

Fish: Spiderfang Stalktribe – This battle formation lets you drag an additional unit into reserves and set it up wholly within 12” of the Skitterstrand. Note that since it is “using” the same ability, like the skitterstrand it must ALSO be outside of 9”.  I can see this playing well in bringing along a unit of spiderfang spider riders to score points. Unfortunately it’s unlikely you will be able to bring in another Arachnarok due to the fact that each one could fit an apple pie. Go ahead and try putting two apple pies outside of 9”. I mean look at this thing, it’s massive.


Moonclan Skrap: End of YOUR turn choose three non-squig moonclan units (some form of goblin essentially) and roll a d3, on a 2+ deal equivalent mortal wounds. This one is nice! A little extra damage is something Goblins appreciate a lot. Adding onto that a 40 stack of goblins at -1 to hit with sneaky snufflers potentially giving a 5+ ward is going to be hard to shift in a single turn. Meaning you will likely be able to maximise returns on this trait regularly.

Lodi: Troggherd – Each time a friendly Troggoth unit uses a FIGHT ability, heal d3. While technically a little nerf from the previous edition this is huge, especially for your higher health units.  Keeping your Trogg walls around is a priority and this helps a lot. Between your normal regeneration and this Herd Healing passive ability, you can heal a lot of incoming damage.  It will force your opponent to commit hard (and often over commit) to kill your chonky units. 

Squigalanche Each time a friendly Squig unit charges, add 1 to its Gob attacks for the rest of the turn. This should be familiar to most squig players as it remains virtually untouched from 3rd edition.  A substantial increase in output for all your bouncy meatballs, and one of very few things that can affect the Gobs (companions weapons) as it calls it out directly. It’s noteworthy to mention even the Squigboss’ Gnasha-Squig can be affected if you are forced into a late game situation where he needs to charge. 

Spells

Fish: You have one general spell lore (Lore Of the Clammy Dank) with three unique spells. This Spell lore is mostly going to focus on Debuffing and repositioning.

Spore Maws: Goes off on a 7, choose three enemies within 12” of the caster and do d3 mortals on a 2+. It’s a nice damage spell but has the downside of needing to put your caster within shooting and charging distance, which is a negative when every wizard is massively squishy barring the Webspinner on Arachnarok.

Sneaky Distraction: Goes off on a 7, -1 to hit for all enemies wholly within 12” of the caster. Again, this is putting relatively squishy casters in danger. However it is a good overlapping buff with the stabbas innate ability to give -1 to hit to infantry units. Meaning if they do give the unit all out attack they will still be hitting at -1. Durability spells go a long way in this army.

Hand of Gork: Guess what, it goes off on a 7. Pick a friendly unit wholly within 12” of the caster and not in combat, move them to a spot wholly within 24” of said caster and more than 9” from all enemies. Repositioning is always good, the issue here being the restriction placed on it by the wholly within 24” making it hard to make huge movements. Still it’s always good especially since you always have access to it, and Troggs need to move too.

Lodi: That’s a pretty fair summary really. I would like to add a couple things to consider, however.  As we’ll see in heroic traits later, we can use Loontouched to make a hero a Wizard(1) so some of the negatives Fish just mentioned are less scary if your wizard is a more tanky hero like a Troggboss, for example.  Also of note, Sneaky Distraction is our unlimited cast spell, so depending on your list makeup you could potentially have several bubbles of -1 hit.

Manifestations: Dank Manifestations has some good ones and some less good ones, but you don’t have to pick and choose, we can get lots of casts.

Fish: Let’s reverse order this here and start with what is in my opinion best to worst.

Malevolent moon: Goes off On a 7, standard wholly within 12” and outside of 9” if I don’t say this, assume it’s the same in the others. This spell can’t fight or deal damage, it’s here for one purpose. It gives out the light of the bad moon to units wholly within 12”, in 4th edition we have lost some ways of giving out the light if and when the moon orbits away. That makes each source precious, and this guy will help to prop up the fantastic saves of troggs, the damage output of spiders, and the mobility of Squigs. It gives you back your battle trait when it leaves, what more need be said.

Scrapskuttle’s Arachnacauldron: Another simple powerful benefit. Choose a wizard within 1” and add one to its power level. Huge for a faction that has many cheap one cast wizards, you could also pump Skraggy to 3, or layer buffs on a Webspinner Shaman on a big spider with his bonus to cast.

Morks Mighty Mushroom: This one goes off on a 6 and is static so can’t move, however you can place it right on enemies. Its ability lets you deal mortals in the shooting phase to three units within 6” of it, rolling a dice for each model within 6” and doing a mortal on a 5+. Useful for screening and zoning while also giving out decent mortals into hoards.

Scuttletide: Goes off on a 6, same placement rules as regular. This one kind of sucks, it has the ability to do mortals in combat with 8 terrible attacks. Its big thing is giving only itself a 4+ ward when wholly within 12” of a big spider, but you can just banish it’s dumbass on a 7+. It’s free so it’s not worthless.

Lodi: I agree, Fish offers a pretty accurate assessment here on most of these.  The only thing I’d really like to add is that I’m not nearly as down on Scuttletide as he is.  It’s still a large base to take up space and use for screening.  If you can get it off with a Magical Intervention during the opponent’s turn (he doesn’t unbind it) it can be quite a difficult screen to remove in later phases if it has the 4+ ward.  It’s situational, sure, but can be pretty useful in the right setups.

Enhancements

Artefacts

Fish: You have three Troglodytic (A word I doubt any unit in this faction could pronounce) treasures.

Backstabbers Blade: Once per battle at the end of any turn pick an enemy hero in combat with this unit and roll a dice, on a 2+ deal that many mortals. For me this one is super situational. It’s possible that you could kill a foot hero with this, but it requires you to have whiffed on killing it in the combat phase. Besides the Troggboss (who has better treasures to choose) you don’t really want to leave any of our heroes in combat if you can help it. Maybe useful on a Shaman on a big spider or Loonboss for some added damage in an emergency.

Leering Gitshield: For every unmodified 1 to hit on this model the attacking unit takes a mortal. I can see this being decently usefuĺ on a Troggboss that has been kitted out for durability and healing every fight phase. Whittle ’em down while they take you to pound town, at least until you heal to full and take them on the same trip.

The Clammy Cowl: -1 to hit rolls that target this unit. Simple and solid. If you want to make a big unit or a mighty hero you take this one, especially if you aren’t planning on taking a Wizard or Stabbas for their -1s to hit.

Lodi: Backstabber’s Blade is a pooper.  A once per battle ability that still requires a 2+ to go off to get 2-6 mortals.  Save yourself the trouble, skip it!

Leering Gitshield is situational at best, as Fish pointed out, not a lot to add here.

The Clammy Cowl is, in my mind, always the pick.  -1 hit is strong this edition, especially the ones that also apply to ranged attacks, like this one.

Heroic Traits

Fish: Blessings of the Bad Moon, and man they are some good blessings hallelujah.

Fight Another Day: any combat phase roll a dice, on a 3+ retreat like the movement phase and take no mortals. A fantastic get out of jail free card for our squishier heroes like Loonbosses and Shamans, or to do free mortals with a Loonboss on mangler squigs and not get hit back.

Loontouched: make a hero a wizard (1), if it’s a wizard already give it +1 to cast. Great utility piece for troggoth or squig armies that don’t want to make regiment slots for a wizard. I’m not sure the plus to cast is worth it on any of the smaller wizards since the spell lore is maxing out at 7 anyhow.

The Clammy Hand: whenever a Gitz unit wholly within 12” of the bearer makes a rally command make 3 additional d6 rolls. Another great utility piece. This one is going to work in almost any list now that you can rally to heal big units like Arachnaroks. Rallying back 3 additional Goblins or Squigs is fantastic, and in a Trogg list those three additional may push you over the 5w edge in bringing back a Trogg. Extra recursion is always great for Gitz.

Lodi: Where we seemingly lacked for choices in Artefacts, we’ve made up for it in Heroic Traits.  All three of these are great in the right lists.

Fight Another Day offers movement shenanigan possibilities and is an instant durability boost (assuming you roll that 3+ anyways).  Having the option to evade combat before fights happen, always great.

Loontouched is amazing in an edition full of problematic Manifestations. Durable wizards pay premium points, where we can take an otherwise efficient/durable hero and make it a wizard.  It’s the Gloomspite equivalent of old Arcane Tome, fantastic!

The Clammy Hand is no slouch either.  50% more powerful Rally? Yes please! Lost a squig herder along the way? Rally him back and get back to recursion. And don’t forget that Rally can be used for healing now too!

Units

Fish: Starting from least impressive (sorry spiders) we will work our way up. Heroes and then individual units.

Spiders: Largely okay datasheets failed by humongous bases and poor rules support, let’s get into it.

Scuttle boss on gigantic spider: A much needed medium hero needed to support spider rider cavalry… wait he’s gone? Just like no replacement piece gone? Listen I’m not going to harp on all the units lost especially because of incredible themed stuff like Grinkraks’s looncourt and all the other warbands that got banished to legends. HOWEVER, this guy was a pretty integral part of many spiderfang lists, it’s a real shame that he was sent off with no substitute. Pardon the interlude, now to the actual warscrolls.

Webspinner Shaman: A surprisingly expensive 4 wound Wizard at 140 points. He brings a lot of good utility with his warscroll Spell allowing a spiderfang unit wholly within 12” of him to run and charge/shoot. He himself is slow at a move of only 6” however the spider slingshot ability is really good allowing him to teleport to a spiderfang or terrain piece within 18” of him. I suspect he will see some play in spiderfang lists because he brings good utility with his spell and movement enabling him to score battle tactics. I don’t rate him highly but he can open up another regiment if you don’t want to take the following hero.

Webspinner Shaman on Arachnarok spider: Everything the regular webspinner wishes he was. This guy is only 180 points more expensive than the on foot webspinner, at quadruple the wounds and a 4+ save. This guy can be good in melee, can give out fights last to enemy infantry heroes with his rampage, AND gives a +1 to cast to all spiderfang wizards wholly within 12”. This is the hero to go for in spiderfang considering you get a spider and a wizard at a massively reduced cost compared to buying either individually. You do lose out on the run and charge since this guy has no warscroll spell but he buffs the on foot guy anyway so you can and should take both. This guy also has great synergy with Cauldron for his bonus to casting.  NOTE: You cannot have a unit affected by the same passive twice as per the core rules, so two off these guys holding chitinous hands won’t be +2 to cast. (Core Rules 5.3 The Rules of One)

Spider riders: Fast and cheap these guys are 5 models for 110 moving at 10” with The ability to fly over terrain. A fantastic scoring piece that will prop up the slower subfactions like Troggs. In melee they don’t function like most cavalry, getting absolutely nothing on the charge. These guys won’t be killing anything so don’t think about it, but they are good at their role being fast flankers peppering units with weak shooting and scoring battle tactics. They also have a nice control 2 each, which other cavalry (Snarlfang) lack.

Skitterstrand Arachnarok: I suspect you will see this guy pop up in a lot of lists, if only because he is the only way to unlock the spiderfang formations trait. Take one to teleport himself and a unit of spider riders into the backline. You are unlikely to be able to fit two big spiders out of deepstrike so don’t make a battle plan around it. The rampage is pretty nice being able to move through infantry units on a 3+ and then dealing mortals. I can see him being used to snipe foot lords you are worried about as they won’t be able to hide behind infantry screens. This is similar to power through but allows you to do it before you attack which is a big bonus.

Arachnarok with Spiderfang warparty: Only 30 points more than the skitterstrand. For those 30 points you get 10 4+, 5+ attacks with no rend damage one. You also lose the teleport and gain a mortals on charge ability. This big lad will likely be taken for the simple reason that he has the best control of all the spiders, he is double that of any of the other Arachnarok so is needed to contest objectives.

Arachnarok spider with flinger: this spider is the most expensive non hero spider. Being only 10 points more than the warparty at 290 he is actually pretty decently priced in comparison. You keep all the extra attacks and get a ranged attack of d3 at 24” it’s not likely to do any damage, but its special ability will allow you to halve movement of anything you hit with the flinger on a 2+. He also gives minus -1 attacks to companion weapons of any unit that charges him on a 3+. I would take at least 1 for the utility. Could see play outside of mono spider as well for his ability to debuff movement and harm big monsters.

Goblins: Flood the board and take points

Skragrott the Loonking: he’s the centrepiece of any mono goblin list. He is a warmaster so must be your general, but his Regiment options allow him to bring a Moonclan Agitator and ANY Gloomspite Gitz meaning he is a good choice to make soup lists and I expect him to see play in a lot of lists for that reason alone. He is fairly expensive at 220 points. Those points are able to get you guaranteed redeploy of 4 when near him, a warscroll spell that has the possibility of spiking 12 mortal wounds into something (averaging closer to 5 in general) and his exclusive ability to command the moon once per game. The moon ability alone is fairly game changing, it ensures that on your big turn you can have the moon where you need it to be. Spiders,Squigs and Troggs all really want to stay in the light of the bad moon on their big go turn. He is also a two cast wizard which is great in the current manifestation heavy season. The major issue with him is he lost his ability to give out light of the bad moon from 3rd and they took his save from a 5+ to +6 up, he also no longer has a bonus to cast on his datasheet. He does have a 4+ ward but on only 6 wounds with a 6+ save it means basically anything in the game is likely to kill him only needing to get twelve damage through at -1 rend on average to kill him. Make sure you keep him well enveloped in the multiple layers of -1 to hit the faction can give out.

Fungoid cave shaman: 100 points for a power level 1 wizard is a pretty sweet deal, he also has the ability to pump it to power level 2 once a game, if you are willing to turn a list into three drops you can pretty easily take this guy In addition to a loonboss and Skragrott. He’s cheap and you don’t have to cry when he dies pushing up the board giving out -1 to hit within 12” of him protecting big blocks of whatever you want to stick around. He is unfortunately not a Moonclan Agitator. He lost his fart goblin attack which is a shame for the comedy of the faction.

Loonboss: If you are taking big blocks of goblins he’s your Git. Decently fighty at 5 attacks 4+4+ with rend one and a big damage d3, and allowing a big block of 40 Stabbas to fight directly after him(any non-Hero Moonclan infantry really, but it’s really not great on Shootas) . He is a perfect target for -1 to hit and the extra rally enhancement. His special ability allows him to roll a dice and on a 2+ either return d6 models to or add 1 wound to the wound rolls of a moonclan infantry wholly within 12” of him. Useful for keeping Stabbas in shape and dealing damage, or pumping up the shots from a big block of shootas. He also oddly enough has a 4+ save and a 6+ ward which is huge for goblins.

Stabbas: The anvil of the goblin forge. Listen these guys don’t do much fantastically, 2 attacks each at 4+5+ with no rend damage one. 5 inch move and a 5+ save, with the ability to give enemy infantry -1 to hit in combat on a 3+. But you know what? They are massively cheap, 140 points gets you 20 models on the five up save, the more Models you have the better layered buffs become. You can have a 40 man unit with -1 to hit, +1 to wound, +1 rend, a 5+ ward and an extra attack on each weapon. That’s 120 Attacks, you’re likely to get 30 of those through without all out attack. Based on the weight of the dice you should be able to drag down most things that get tar pitted into this unit. Oh and morale doesn’t exist anymore so you have to kill all 40 damn goblins, with the guarantee for 1cp I’m bringing 20 back at the end of the turn baby.

Shootas: Stabbas at range. 2 ranged attacks at 18 inches, layer the same buffs on them and pin prick the enemy to death. Important to note they have no shoot in combat and an even worse melee profile so you can’t  rely on taking more than one of these reasonably. You can guarantee a 4” redeploy on them with Skragrott though.  Don’t let them get locked in melee if you can help it.

Loonsmasha Fanatics: made of paper with a 6+ save and only five wounds on a unit they are a supremely fragile suicide unit. The gimmick of these guys is you can hide them at the beginning of the game during the deployment phase and then in ANY movement phase you can release them placing them wholly within 6” of a moonclan unit of more than 10 models and outside of 9” any enemies. The fact they have fights first make them a very dangerous tech piece at 140 points. Release them in your movement phase and you protect a fragile dangerous unit from dying in the hero phase from spells, release them in the enemy movement phase and you can block movement or threaten a dangerous counter charge unit. I should mention the weapon profile of each model is d6 attacks with 4+3+ rend 2 damage d3, yeah they are swingy but they average some really fantastic damage numbers into most things. Just don’t put them into monsters, a rampage or mortals will turn these guys into a fine green mushroom smelling mist.

Sporesplatta fanatics: These guys have a similar profile to Loonsmashas with a worse damage profile and losing the ability to hide them in other units. They have a really great passive of being able to add +1 attacks to a moonclan unit wholly within 12” and -1 attacks characteristic of enemy units in combat with them. Here’s the issue, they don’t have fights first and can’t hide. That means that in an edition that is shaping up to be dominated by the hero phase any half decent player is going to focus down this incredibly fragile unit, and if they don’t get it in that phase they will certainly get it in the shooting phase. It might be worth running one but I can’t see them sticking around long enough to do their job against a competent player that understands what they can do.

Sneaky snufflers: You will be seeing at least one of these in many lists, and likely always in a goblin list. 6 models with 2 health a 5+ save and a 5+ ward for 140 is pretty sweet, more importantly they provide a really really good buff for a moonclan unit wholly within 12” once a turn (per army meaning that two snuffies in your army can’t each do the ability) roll a dice and add one if under the light of the bad moon, on a 3+ the unit has a 5+ ward on a 6+ add 1 to the attacks characteristic of melee weapons. This is a huge buff to a giant block of Stabbas giving 40 models a bonus attack. Always take one of these in a goblin list.

Snarlfang riders: a fast cavalry unit that is going to be mainly used for harassing and threatening points and battle tactics. 130 points gets you 5 models at 2 health a piece with a 12” move and 5+ save. They come with some piddly shooting and no bonus damage on the charge for their melee weapons. These guys can’t and won’t attack as cavalry so will see play only for objectives. Once per turn (per army) ability allows them to make a free move of d6 if not in combat. Here’s the issue with this unit, Spider Riders do it better. These guys cost 20 points more and have half the control, they also don’t fly over terrain. I’d give up that bonus 2” of move for all the savings you get with Spider Riders. A genuine stinker of a unit in my opinion.

Gobbapalooza: Let’s wrap up my section with genuinely my favourite unit for Goblins. Not only are these some of the best models in Age of Sigmar, they have a pretty crazy warscroll. So, starting off you pay 150 points for this unit. That gives you 5 models with 3 wounds a piece, they have a 4+ ward save that goes down by one each round. Surprisingly a decent melee profile 5 attacks 4+4+ but -1 rend and damage d3. Here is the kicker for these guys, their ability allows you to make a roll in your hero phase and on a 3+ you can choose one of three effects. +1 to run and charge +1 to rend, or an enemy unit within 12” can’t use commands, the best part is this isn’t a limited ability so multiple Gobbapaloozas’ could use it every turn. My favourite part of this unit however is it’s a power level 1 wizard that isn’t a hero, the applications of that are huge since you can’t stack as many as you want to get the extra casts. I love these guys.

Lodi: Troggs – The Trogg Wall of Gitz. ‘nuff said.

Trugg:  The Troggoth King himself, centrepiece of the Troggs.  His Malfunctioning Leystone ability is the main thing you are taking him for.  Six possibilities, three that affect himself only (takes d3 mortal damage/can unbind as if he had Wizard(1)/5+ward) and three that also buff Troggoth units wholly within 12” (+1 attacks to melee weapons/+1 to the rend characteristic of melee weapons/-1 hit rolls for shooting attacks that target friendly Troggoth units). He’s also a pretty hard hitting, but inconsistent due to lower number of attacks, monster with reasonable durability and good healing.  It’s also noteworthy that he’s a hero that can take a Dankhold Troggboss in his regiment and can take any Gloomspite Gitz units as well, without even being a warmaster (and being forced to be your general). 

Dankhold Troggboss:  The other Troggoth hero, the Troggboss’ schtick is his Shepherd of Destruction rampage ability (if he’s in combat, roll a 3+ to get +1 to the attacks characteristic of melee weapons used by friendly Troggoth units while they are within his combat range).  A really good boost to output if you can get that 3+! Like Trugg, he’s a pretty hard hitting monster with reasonable durability and good healing, just a scaled down (but cheaper) version. He’s also resistant to magic.

Dankhold Troggoth:  This is essentially the non-hero version of a Dankhold Troggboss except that he’s a couple health less, but has more consistent output.  His rampage is Wade and Smash, which allows him to move around a bit in combat and do a little bit of mortal damage.

Fellwater Troggoths:  Fellwaters are the first of two types of Troggoth Infantry.  Their main gimmick is their Noxious Vomit ability where if they allocate any damage with their ranged attack, that enemy becomes drenched in vomit (-1 save and can’t benefit from positive modifiers to save rolls).  They are a good utility piece but are not very durable (5+ save, no ward) so use them sparingly.

Rockgut Troggoths:  The meat and potatoes core of any Trog list, the Rockguts are one of the best scrolls in Gitz in my opinion.  With a base 4+ save (3+ under the Moon), 5+ ward, and 5 Health Rockguts are unbelievably survivable for their points.  When in doubt, add more Rockguts!

Squigs:  Where Troggoths are anvils, Squigs are … not! Squigs are glass cannons who do their output with volume of attacks.  They aren’t durable at all, so you’ll need to set up effective trades.

Loonboss on Mangler Squigs:  The Loonboss on Mangler Squigs is the hero big monster of the squig side.  If you are taking him, you are likely doing it for the Bite Da Moon (+1 wound for Gob attacks wholly within 12”) ability.  His output otherwise is pretty abysmal for his points.
Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig:  Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig is a fighty little cavalry hero.  His schtick is Let’s Get Bouncin’ (which allows another Squig cavalry unit to fight immediately after he fights and they get +1 hit when they do so).  Unfortunately, since it doesn’t call out an exception to the Companions weapons specifically, it will only give +1 hit to non-Companions weapons, so is pretty limited in its benefit.  The immediately fight portion can be pretty good though.

Squigboss with Gnasha-Squig:  The key to making Squig lists get through good saves, the Squigboss can give Crit(Mortal) to Squig units Gob attacks on a 2+.  It’s once per turn (army) in your hero phase and only lasts the turn instead of the round, but it’s a huge help to solve armor and/or increase output.  He can instead give a Squig unit +3” of movement, but it would be situational how often you’d be willing to give up the mortals for that.


Mangler Squigs:  The non-hero version of Mangler Squigs is similar to the hero version, except instead of buffing squigs the Mangler Squig uses Giant Boing rampage to do some movement shenanigans to snipe small heroes out.  Again, not great output for the points currently. 

Squig Herd:  Squig Herd are the ‘swarms’ of the Squig universe.  While significantly nerfed from their 3rd edition version, they have also gotten much cheaper.  They still have good recursion and good output, but between Beast (max control score of 1) and Companions ability on their Fang-filled Gob they have some new downsides as well. Its noteworthy that they have also been dropped to 1 health now (from the 2 they had previously) so they won’t last like they did before. Send them as missiles, don’t expect them to last, bring more out of the Loonshrine.

Squig Hoppers:  The ‘light cav’ of Squigs, Hoppers are fast moving missiles. The can Boing! Boing! Boing! for some mortal damage in flyover attacks, which actually is pretty great against faction terrain or some manifestations.  If you take a reinforced unit you can get 40 health, snuffle it for 5+ ward, and that’s about as durable as a Squig unit gets now.  I find myself always taking one unit in a Squig list.

Boingrot Bounderz:  The ‘heavy cav’ of Squigs, Bounderz are a little slower than Hoppers but still quick.  They get +1 damage on their charge on their lances, but due to smaller unit sizes are only a little more punchy than other Squig units.  They are affordably priced, and make great flankers/second wave units though.  You’ll see lots of these!

The rest: Rabble-Rowza – The Rabble-Rowza is a ‘moonclan agitator’ so can be included in regiments that allow for those, which is a boon to list building.  Between Secret Tunnels and Emerge from the Depths he can deep strike and then use his Neh Neh Na-Neh Neh! Can’t Catch Me! ability to allow a beast unit or monster to run and charge for the turn as long as it ends closer to him then it began.  Can be pretty good if your list has a reasonable amount of beasts or monsters.

Bad Moon Loonshrine:  The faction terrain piece, the Loonshrine provides the Light of the Moon in a 12” bubble which is really great.  The best ability it has is Moonclan Lairs though.  For 1CP once per turn(army) at the end of your turn you can pick a destroyed non-hero, non-monster, non-war machine unit and return a half sized replacement unit wholly within 12” of the Loonshrine (and outside of 3” of enemy units).  It’s free, it’s awesome, take it!

Sample Lists

Fish:

Spiders:
Spiders tester (2000 points)

ARMY

Grand Alliance Destruction
Gloomspite Gitz
Spiderfang Stalktribe
2000 Points Limit
Drops: 2

Spell Lore – Lore of the Clammy Dank
Manifestation Lore – Dank Manifestations

Regiments
General’s Regiment
Webspinner Shaman on Arachnarok Spider (320)
• General
• Loontouched
• The Clammy Cowl
Arachnarok Spider with Flinger (290)
Arachnarok Spider with Spiderfang Warparty (280)
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (250)
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (250)

Regiment 1
Webspinner Shaman (140)
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (250)
Spider Riders (110)
Spider Riders (110)

Faction Terrain
Bad Moon Loonshrine

Goblins:
Tester gitz (2000 points)

ARMY

Grand Alliance Destruction
Gloomspite Gitz
Moonclan Skrap
2000 Points Limit
Drops: 3

Spell Lore – Lore of the Clammy Dank
Manifestation Lore – Morbid Conjuration

Regiments
General’s Regiment
Skragrott, the Loonking (220)
• General
Gobbapalooza (150)
Rockgut Troggoths (340)
• Reinforced
Spider Riders (110)
Spider Riders (110)

Regiment 1
Loonboss (130)
• The Clammy Cowl
• The Clammy Hand
Loonsmasha Fanatics (140)
Moonclan Stabbas (140)

Regiment 2
Fungoid Cave-Shaman (100)
Loonsmasha Fanatics (140)
Moonclan Stabbas (280)
• Reinforced
Sneaky Snufflers (140)

Faction Terrain
Bad Moon Loonshrine

Lodi:

Troggs:

A Troggherd Example (2000 Points)

ARMY
Gloomspite Gitz
Troggherd
2000 Points
Drops: 2

Spell Lore – Lore of the Clammy Dank
Manifestation Lore – Dank Manifestations

Regiments

General’s Regiment
Skragrott, the Loonking (220 Points)
• General
Fellwater Troggoths (180 Points)
Rockgut Troggoths (340 Points)
• Reinforced
Rockgut Troggoths (170 Points)

Regiment 1
Trugg, the Troggoth King (360 Points)
Dankhold Troggboss (220 Points)
Rockgut Troggoths (340 Points)
• Reinforced
Rockgut Troggoths (170 Points)

Faction Terrain
Bad Moon Loonshrine

Squigs:

A Squigalanche Example (2000 Points)
ARMY
Gloomspite Gitz
Squigalanche
2000 Points
Drops: 3

Spell Lore – Lore of the Clammy Dank
Manifestation Lore – Morbid Conjuration

Regiments

General’s Regiment
Skragrott, the Loonking (220 Points)
• General
Boingrot Bounderz (240 Points)
• Reinforced
Rabble-Rowza (120 Points)

Regiment 1
Squigboss with Gnasha-Squig (110 Points)
• Loontouched
• The Clammy Cowl
Squig Herd (200 Points)
• Reinforced
Squig Herd (200 Points)
• Reinforced
Squig Herd (200 Points)
• Reinforced

Regiment 2
Squigboss with Gnasha-Squig (110 Points)
Boingrot Bounderz (120 Points)
Sneaky Snufflers (140 Points)
Squig Hoppers (340 Points)
• Reinforced

Faction Terrain
Bad Moon Loonshrine

Woehammer is now Ad-Free!

Thank you to everyone who has signed up to our Patreon! With your help we’ve been able to replace our ad income and have enough to fund the website running costs for the year. This has allowed us to turn the ads off!

But there’s more to do! My aim now is to pay the writers a fair amount for the work they produce rather than chocolate bar money and kind thoughts! As a bare minimum I’m aiming for a target on Patreon of £700 per month, this would allow me to pay the writers at least £20 per article and £5 per top 3 comment. But I’m sure you’ll agree that’s not enough!

You can help us by signing up to our Patreon now, our lowest tier starts at only £1 per month! Thank you again!

Top Three Old World Lists for Buckeye Battles GT (2,500)

This is the top three Old World lists for Buckeye Battles GT that took place in the USA on the 29th and 30th of June. It saw 36 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.

Before I jump into the Top Three Old World Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.

If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?

Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.

The Top Three Old World Lists

===
Luna Valentine [2496 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, Kingdom of Bretonnia
===

++ Characters [1237 pts] ++

Duke [401 pts]
Hand weapon
– Lance (if appropriately mounted)
– Heavy armour
– Shield
– Royal Pegasus
– Falcon-horn of Fredemund
– Bedazzling Helm
– Virtue of Heroism

Paladin [241 pts]
Hand weapon
– Lance (if appropriately mounted)
– Heavy armour
– Shield
– The Grail Vow
– Battle Standard Bearer [War Banner]
– Royal Pegasus
– Gauntlet of the Duel
– Gromril Great Helm
– Virtue of Duty

Prophetess [320 pts]
– Hand weapon
– Level 4 Wizard
– Royal Pegasus
– Lore Familiar
– Ogre Blade
– Illusion

The Green Knight [275 pts]
– The Dolorous Blade
– Heavy armour
– Shield
– Barding

++ Core Units [626 pts] ++

10 Peasant Bowmen [50 pts]
Hand weapons
– Longbows
– Unarmoured
– Skirmishers

10 Peasant Bowmen [50 pts]
Hand weapons
– Longbows
– Unarmoured
– Skirmishers

10 Peasant Bowmen [55 pts]
– Hand weapons
– Longbows
– Unarmoured
– Skirmishers
– Standard bearer

6 Mounted Knights of the Realm [165 pts]
Hand weapons
– Lances
– Shields
– Heavy armour
– First Knight (champion)
– Standard bearer
– Musician

6 Mounted Knights of the Realm [165 pts]
Hand weapons
– Lances
– Shields
– Heavy armour
– First Knight (champion)
– Standard bearer
– Musician

5 Mounted Knights of the Realm [141 pts]
Hand weapons
– Lances
– Shields
– Heavy armour
– First Knight (champion)
– Standard bearer
– Musician

++ Special Units [633 pts] ++

5 Pegasus Knights [289 pts]
Hand weapon
– Lances
– Shields
– Heavy armour
– Standard bearer
– Musician

6 Pegasus Knights [344 pts]
Hand weapon
– Lances
– Shields
– Heavy armour
– Standard bearer
– Musician

Luna Valentine: Howdy friends, some notes on the top lists for Buckeye. Note that Buckeye had no comp rules.

Duke on Pegasus– I tried out a pegasus duke again, mainly for the option to get two characters with 2+ armor through Dazzling Helm. Overall I didn’t care for it, he isnt tough enough to face thunder stomping monsters (as he is only monstrous cavalry), he is highly vulnerable to Killing Blow, and his damage potential isn’t enough to solo infantry blocks.

I definitely plan to swap over to a Hippogryph Duke for my next tournaments, to match up against enemy dragons/monsters and also fight against pesky Killing Blow units. One of the main reasons I still run a Duke at all, is to hold the Falcon Horn. Its definitely viable to skip this guy and spend 450 pts on something else, as long as you always bring the horn.

Paladin BSB – Absolute rockstar, he has astounding durability with T5, 2+ reroll 1s/5++, and he brings +3 combat resolution with BSB, War Banner, Vow of Duty. Grail Vow also means he never panics and Stubborn for bad combat rolls. I often run him solo in center field, next to some knights for Lone Character rule, and aim to use ‘Gauntlet of the Duel‘ to force a challenge, denying them any attacks from the front. Combined with the natural combat res, he can be a brutal front threat.

I also like to use him to supplement my Duke against enemy dragon duels, and aim for a combat res flee (especially with a knight or pegasus unit to force Outnumbered 2:1 break tests)

Prophetess: A recent addition, she buffs up the Pegasus unit with The Lady’s Wrath, and brings a terrifying Assailment with the Illusion spell+Ogre blade. Pegasus units often have trouble cracking monsters or armor targets especially if they get stuck in. She tends to solve these problems. She has the ability to voluntarily retire to keep her safe, but she is a very expensive investment. I’m not entirely convinced she is worth an entire pegasus knight unit. She does help a lot with shutting down bound spell spam against certain armies (casket, sisters of the thorn, fireball ring).

Green Knight: A powerful strategic piece, GK is great at assassinating wizards and locking down big monsters. He helps a lot with creating uncertainty in my opponents game plan, and getting into the backlines of shooting heavy armies. He is very expensive and not always reliable (I had two games where he did not appear until turn 4+), but strong enough to warrant taking.

CORE UNITS

Peasant Archers, Skirmishing: These guys are amazing. They exist mostly to protect against enemy shooting (especially the very common elf shooting), but also help to score many scenario points in tournaments. If you layer them up against one another, they can provide soft cover to each other, and are a powerful anti-shooting barrier. Against combat heavy armies, you’re better off leaving these guys in the back.

If I had realized Buckeye had no comp rules, I probably would have brought 4-5 of these.

Knights of the Realm:
They’re very okay, expect very little from them. Best used to combo charge with other units for a little extra combat res, or to help a character crush a weak infantry unit. One of their best uses is pushing up in the middle (about 10-15″ away), and then fleeing incoming charges to split up an opponents line. Just remember to mark that you lose the Lady’s Blessing when you do this!

SPECIAL UNITS:

Pegasus Knights: Ah, what a wonderful unit. 360 charge direction and 20″ fly march is very hard to most armies to deal with. Far more fragile than you might imagine, and even a full flank charge with 5+ pegasus is probably not enough to crack monsters. Where they shine is constantly marching to right outside enemy charge arcs on the flank, and putting pressure on every unit around them. From there, aim for sandiwching charges or picking off weaker units first.

If you charge these in the front against most elites, you will lose. If you leave them out to be shot 2+ turns by elf shooting, you will lose. Avoid those traps and you will win. Be patient and setup winning charges (something where you should have a +3 combat res advantage on average, and no chance for the enemy to counter charge with another unit on their turn)

Counter charge also makes it possible to aggressively bully out small units, as long as you stay out of their minimum move range.

===
Shannon Powell [2500 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, Ogre Kingdoms
===

++ Characters [735 pts] ++

Slaughtermaster [345 pts]
Hand weapon
– Level 4 Wizard
– General
– Halfling Cookbook
– Ruby Ring of Ruin
– Biting Blade
– Beastkiller
– Battle Magic

Bruiser [390 pts]
Great weapon
– Light armour
– Battle Standard Bearer [Cannibal Totem]
– Thundertusk
– Armour of Meteoric Iron
– Talisman of Protection
– Deathcheater

++ Core Units [630 pts] ++

7 Iron Guts [333 pts]
Hand Weapons
– Great Weapons
– Heavy Armour
– Look-out Gnoblar (Standard bearer)
– Veteran
– Gutlord [Daemon-Slayer Scars]
– Standard bearer
– Bellower (musician)

3 Ogre Bulls [99 pts]
Hand weapon
– Light armour
– Crusher (champion)

3 Ogre Bulls [99 pts]
Hand weapon
– Light armour
– Crusher (champion)

3 Ogre Bulls [99 pts]
Hand weapon
– Light armour
– Crusher (champion)

++ Special Units [735 pts] ++

Ironblaster [185 pts]
Cannon of the Sky-titans
– Hand weapons

Ironblaster [185 pts]
Cannon of the Sky-titans
– Hand weapons

4 Mournfang Cavalry [365 pts]
Ironfist
– Heavy armour
– Crusher (champion) [Daemon-Slayer Scars]
– Standard bearer [Razor Standard]
– Bellower (musician)

++ Rare Units [400 pts] ++

Giant [200 pts]
Giant’s club
– Light armour (Calloused hide)

Giant [200 pts]
Giant’s club
– Light armour (Calloused hide)

Luna Valentine: Pretty standard ogres. The terror scars adds some extra leadership threat when he charges. The Bull units were all deployed 1×3 in marching formation for redirecting. The lack of a traditional General means a lot of units are relying on leadership 7 to get them through terror/restraint tests, or rerolling 7’s for panic. The giants are a nice anchor early/mid game, though they tend to run out of wounds by late game.

The Bruiser BSB uses a clever combination of items+banners to get a reliable triple 5+ save, which made it quite durable to cannons/high quality attacks. The two cannons and wizard run solo, can be a substantial threat over 6 turns. Mournfangs absolutely slap, and are definitely the highlight of the list (along with the obligatory double iron blasters).

===
Vampire Counts [2588 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, Vampire Counts
===

++ Characters [1249 pts] ++

Master Necromancer [425 pts]
Hand weapon
– Level 4 Wizard
– General
– Mortis Engine
– Sceptre Of De Noirot
– Crown Of The Damned
– Necromancy

Necromantic Acolyte [120 pts]
Hand weapon
– Level 2 Wizard
– On foot
– Ruby Ring of Ruin
– Necromancy

Vampire Thrall [170 pts]
Lance (when mounted)
– No armour
– Battle Standard Bearer
– Nightmare
– Biting Blade
– Charmed Shield
– The Accursed Armour
– Dark Magic

Wight Lord [44 pts]
Great Weapon
– Heavy armour
– On foot

Vampire Count [490 pts]
Hand weapon
– No armour
– Zombie Dragon
– Sword Of Kings
– Talisman of Protection
– Dark Acolyte
– Dark Magic

++ Core Units [719 pts] ++

6 Dire Wolves [48 pts]
Claws and Fangs (Hand weapons)

6 Dire Wolves [48 pts]
Claws and Fangs (Hand weapons)

27 Grave Guard [457 pts]
Great weapons (replace shields)
– Heavy armour
– Shield
– Drilled (0-1 per 1000pts)
– Implacable Defence (0-1 per 1000pts)
– Seneschal
– Standard bearer [Standard Of Hellish Vigour]

26 Zombies [83 pts]
Hand weapon
– Standard bearer

26 Zombies [83 pts]
Hand weapon
– Standard bearer

++ Rare Units [620 pts] ++

7 Blood Knights [415 pts]
Hand weapons
– Lances
– Iron-Shod Hooves
– Full plate armour
– Shield
– Barding
– Drilled
– Kastellan [Lord Of The Night]
– Standard bearer [Drakenhof Banner]
– Musician

Terrorgheist [205 pts]
Filth-encrusted talons
– Rancid Maw
– Calloused hide (light armour)

Peter Holland: Although this is list is showing as over the points limit, we can’t be certain that there wasn’t some error when copying this list onto New Recruit, or whether if this is the list submitted, whether it was caught by the TO and changed before the tournament began.


Luna Valentine:  Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure to play with Ryan yet, so these are guesses. He was able to leapfrog Phil after Phil and I had our draw game 5.

Mortis Necro- Screams, 18″ bubble of +1 move is nutty. Double invocation scepter and the 4++ crown makes it insanely durable, though the stupidity checks mean it will probably hang close to the BSB (or sit behind zombies and not worry about stupidity moves)

Vamp on Zombie Dragon- Sword of kings for extra kb potential and 5++ for durability. Personally, I think the sword is overrated and would prefer a lance/ogre blade. Dark Acolyte for extra regen potential.

Vamp BSB– this dude assumedly hangs with the blood knights. +1 toughness armor is good, but it seems wasted on a t4 thrall, especially hanging in an already strong unit.

Wight Lord– barebones, obviously there to unlock grave guard core

I don’t love the grave guard infantry, but with Banner of Hellish Vigour (reserve move) they can at least push up on their own. I would guess he has them away from the Mortis, being an anchor for the other side?

The rest of the list is pretty standard, a mega block of blood knights and a Terrorgheist. The blood knights are very hard to shift with traditional attacks, and with four invocations of Nehek in the list & 5+++ from Drakenhof, they can tank through most lists. Folks who aren’t ready for the counter charge potential and insane durability will lose very badly.

This seems like a list that might struggle against some monster mash TK or Brett flying circus, but it definitely earned a top 3 spot, and was very nicely painted!

If you’re a Patreon, you can view the wildcard list by simply clicking on the link below.

Sorry! This part of content is hidden behind this box because it requires a higher contribution level ($1) at Patreon. Why not take this chance to increase your contribution?

Final Tournament Placings

For all the lists visits New Recuit

4th Edition Faction Review: Hedonites of Slaanesh

By Trish Celefaze

Introduction

Hedonites of Slaanesh are the servants of the god of excess, depraved flocks of hedonists committing wanton chaos in service and in search of their absent deity. They’ve had a storied history of once having rather overtly strong rules in the early portion of 2nd edition and struggling with intensely punitive rebalancing for each following iteration (with brief periods of strength in-between). Has Slaanesh finally escaped the clutches of the Realm of Nerfs? Let’s explore.

Playstyle

The Hedonites of Slaanesh are a risk versus reward faction, featuring one of the few Battle Traits with a noticeably negative downside. This results in a faction that can empower itself to some truly effective levels, but can trip over the flexibility and raw power afforded to their opponent when doing so. Our three primary playstyles will likely come down to massed evasive cavalry, darting in and out of combat to pick their fights as they please, large mobs of daemonettes stacking buffs to become battlefield blenders, and multiple small units of sybarites stacking control score bonuses high enough to keep even mega-gargants from taking their staked claims.

Battle Traits

The Battle Trait for the forces of Slaanesh comes in two separate parts, both linked inextricably into what functions as a single ability:

The first listed and the active ability of the two is An Excess of Depravity, which allows you to designate up to three of your units to become Euphoric, which will become important later. For each unit you do so with, you grant your opponent a temptation dice, which each allow your opponent to replace the roll of a to-wound, run, save, or ward save with a 6, or to spend two at once to allow your opponent an automatic charge result of 12. This is distinct as being a powerful detriment to the Slaanesh player.

The upside to this is Euphoric Killers, a passive ability that solely serves to provide what benefits the euphoric status provides. These are significant, granting the unit crit (2 hits) on all attacks (at least, those without the companion ability), as well as enabling the unit to charge or shoot if they used a run ability previously in the turn. The unlimited use spell for the faction can boost this further, however we’ll go over that in the spell section.

This ability is odd. It requires careful strategic consideration on the part of the Slaanesh player, as granting your opponent the defensive buffs of automatic success can blunt some amount of the advantages gained; but even more impactful is the ability for your opponent to have an automatic 12-inch charge. Without careful planning on the hedonite player’s part, this can be utilised with counter-charge to by the opponent to cause battle tactics to fail, and combats to become far less in the Slaanesh player’s favour, despite the boons provided by the euphoric status.

Battle Formations

The Hedonites of Slaanesh do have the benefit of some impactful Battle Formations.

Possibly the least of these is the Depraved Carnival, whose ability, The Ecstatic Throngs provides sybarite infantry units with a +1 to hit if they are damaged or any of their models were slain in the same turn. This has some amount of play with our self-inflicted damage from our faction terrain, but is difficult to engineer on the level that allows for a consistent benefit. Of our Battle Formations, this is the one I would rate lowest.

The next is one that provides a nod towards our old summoning-based playstyle in previous editions, Epicurean Revellers, which provides an additional 3 dice when using the rally command on a unit of non-hero daemons. As we will get to, Daemonettes are incredibly powerful in mass numbers in our latest incarnation, and this does allow us to keep those numbers up for longer into the game. This formation is perhaps more situational than the next two, but it has a solid place, even if it does require a certain amount of resource cost to see any benefit from.

The Seeker Cavalcade is an incredibly strong formation, allowing our cavalry units to retreat and charge, and critically to that effect they do not suffer mortal damage from retreating. This is very powerful, as it allows our cavalry (which have received significant improvements) to be an unpredictable and highly mobile threat that can strike where and when we want. Combined with the mobility of our battle trait, as well one of our most potent spells, this will be high on my radar as a go-to formation moving forward.

The formation I feel will be most impactful for the highest number of lists, however, is Supreme Sybarites, which provides +3 to the control scores of non-hero units in the combat range of a friendly hero. Note that this is a bonus to the control score, which is the sum of control values for models in one unit contesting an objective, not to their objective control characteristic. This is a decent buff on a singular unit. A little control advantage is a boon for sure. However, this becomes far more powerful with multiple small units, taking advantage of the distinction that it is “within” and not “wholly-within” combat range. It also stacks with other sources of control score increases, which we’ll touch upon in the unit section.

Spells

Like most of the indexes, we have only 3 spells to hand, with one that can be cast any number of times, and two that are once per turn.

Sadistic Spite is our unlimited spell, and allows a euphoric unit to trade in its crit (2 hits) ability for crit (mortals) in melee only. This is not a strict upgrade, and will require careful consideration to ensure that you’re using the right option for the right target.

Overwhelming Acquiescence is a very powerful spell that debuffs an enemy unit to be wounded at +1 from any attacks, melee or ranged. This is an excellent way to shore up our rather lackluster 4+ to wound on most of our units, and is great for any type of army. Good stuff.

Phantasmagoria is the hidden powerhouse in our spell lore. Another debuff that targets an enemy unit but provides us with the benefit, this allows us to mark a unit so that when it is selected to make an attack action in combat, we select one unit that can move a mostly unrestricted 2d3”. This allows us to backslide out of combat, providing incredible utility for choosing our fights. Combine this with the new command ability that allows for casting a single spell in your opponent’s turn, and you can have two units with this debuff on at once, allowing the Slaanesh forces to play at Sylvaneth levels of combat evasion. 
Our manifestation lore is decidedly not as potent as our less-than-endless spells.

Mesmerizing Mirror has seen much better days. Unable to move, it sits in place wholly within 12” of the caster, and punishes enemy units wholly within 12” of it for ending their move actions further from it than where they were before with d3 mortal damage. The wholly within 12” is easy to avoid, and typically puts them in range of the next ability, that picks specifically an enemy unit in 6” to receive d3 mortal damage, in exchange for +1 to hit for the rest of the turn (combat and shooting). This is simply too big a buff to hand out for so little damage. It could have some utility on small non-combat heroes, but doesn’t have a lot of general use. At least it’s optional.

Wheels of Excruciation flies around the board at 8” speed, rolling 6 dice for each of up to 3 enemy units it moves over and dealing a mortal damage for each result that is less than their save characteristic. It also boasts a flurry of 2d6 attacks at 4/4/-/1. A decent enough spell, especially with saves having become overall fairly worse with the edition shift.

The Dreadful Visage is very similar to its previous incarnation, but diminished somewhat. Now it rolls 6 dice for an enemy unit in combat, with each 4+ being a mortal wound. If any models die from this (as opposed to previously only needing to be damaged), the unit will strike-last for the remainder of the turn. Boasting 8 attacks at the same profile as a daemonette on top of that, this is a fairly solid spell, providing some useful utility, if not against all targets.

We may be much better suited using one of the other manifestation lores available, with significant utility being provided by Twilit Sorceries to extend the range of our spells (particularly Phantasmagoria) and reduce the impact of shooting, and Morbid Conjuration for the crucial save debuff to really turn Daemonettes up to 11.

Enhancements

Our enhancements are less impactful than our spell lore, and with a few exceptions mostly suited to the keeper of secrets.

Of our Heroic Traits, Glory Hog stands out as the only way to make any of our units euphoric without the tradeoff of providing temptation dice to the opponent, by making the bearer euphoric for the rest of the game as long as they slay a hero. Good stuff. Strongest Alone is still not terribly good, requiring the bearer to be 6” from all friendly units to receive +1 to hit and wound. A decent buff, but worrying at best to engineer. Into the Fray is inconsistent, but quite good when it goes off, providing strike-first to the bearer if they make an unmodified charge roll of 8+

Our Artefacts of Power are all quite useful, without a single dud in the bunch. The Icon of Infinite Excess provides amazing synergy with Daemonettes, with a one-per-game granting of +1 to attacks for a non-hero unit wholly within 12”. Given the once-per-game nature of it, you really want to take this in a list that capitalises on large units with a lot of attacks. For lists that don’t have such units, but favour a more defensive style (such as those focusing on our control score bonuses), look no further than Threnody Voicebox another one-use artefact that subtracts one from the attacks characteristics of enemies in combat range. Combined with bodyguard Twinsouls you could potentially bring a 4-attack unit down to swinging a single time each, an incredible amount of defensive utility for a key turn. The Pendant of Slaanesh by contrast can be used every turn, and provides Heal (3) at the end of any turn in which the bearer took damage. Excellent for builds where a Keeper of Secrets might want to be in constant combat (and perhaps a use-case for Strongest Alone?).

Units

Many of our units have received glow-ups (and a few dimming-downs), and both Shalaxi Helbane and the standard Keeper of Secrets have received incredible buffs compared to their previous iterations. Shalaxi is our method of attacking twice now (and only with non-hero units) and boasts some incredible damage output of her own, in addition to a free modified form of counter-charge that works to interrupt enemy hero charges with one of her own. The twins, Dexcessa and Synessa have become excellent support pieces, with Dexcessa providing their sibling with +1 power level if fielded together, as well as +1 to the attacks characteristics of 3 non-hero daemon units wholly within 12”. Synessa has a spell that makes an enemy hero easier to take down in combat, and an ability to provide +5 or -5 to the control score of either a friendly or enemy unit respectively.  Glutos Orscollion changed significantly, with regrettably all companion attacks, losing a point of save as well as the -1 to hit aura. However this is buffeted by a buffet of buffs, with a running track of cumulative bonuses for sybarite units wholly within 12”, escalating through +1 run and charge -> +3 to control score -> +1 to hit -> +1 rend to melee attacks. This can combo with Supreme Sybarites to provide eligible units with an incredible +6 to control score each. Stack 5 small non-hero units on an objective alongside him and enjoy 30 control score before even accounting for the models themselves. Syll’Esske has dropped the “mini-game” aura of the previous edition in exchange for being a utility beat-stick, with appreciable damage and the ability to allow the use of the same command to be used twice in a phase split between one sybarite and one daemonic unit.

Our smaller heroes remain tech pieces, though not nearly as mandatory as before, with the Lord of Pain providing only +1 to wound in melee, though the Lord of Hubris has a slightly more flexibility with their You First, I Insist ability giving the opponent a hard choice of striking first and only at him, or strike-last. The Shardspeaker remains a save debuffing piece, but will struggle to find a spot in many lists with the new nature of regiments. The Masque and Sigvald both remain mostly unchanged, remaining a deep-striking early threat and a charge-happy anti-ward beatstick respectively. The daemonic heralds are all rather so-so, the Contorted Epitome now far less effective than before for any of its roles, the Bladebringer serving as support for a very specific list focusing on chariots, and the Infernal Enrapturess perhaps the most usable of the bunch, now allowing you to see your opponent’s casting roll and choose to react, forcing a potentially damaging re-roll.

For non-hero units, Daemonettes are one of the great stand-outs of the bunch. Losing their native run and charge, they instead gained +1 attack on a turn in which they charged. Starting at a base of 2, this can be boosted through both Dexcessa and the Icon of Infinite Excess to a staggering 5 attacks on the charge, possibly with either crit (2 hits) or crit (mortal). That is incredible output. Slickblades and  Hellstriders are both appreciable cavalry damage units, with the latter losing a little resilience in exchange for +1 health and -3 to the control scores of enemy units they charge. Also, whips and spears are the same profile, which is a godsend for those frustrated with the fragility of whip-bearing models. Hellflayers are quite effective now, able to roll over multiple units and deal mortal damage while doing so, and boasting an improved melee profile overall.

Seekers, Seeker Chariots and Fiends all saw significant downgrades in their damage output and/or speed, with Fiends getting hit particularly hard by the shift to beast status, but picking up an reliable once per turn (army) strike-last debuff. Symbaresh Twinsouls now cannot charge if they want their debuffs, but remain an appreciable tech-piece, whilst Myrmidesh Painbringers traded extra save for the offence of +1 rend when storming a hostile objective.

Blissbarb Archers are no longer the stars of the show, having seen some downgrades to their offence, losing run and shoot and +1 to wound in favour of a fragile -1 to be hit by shooting ability. They are cheap enough to run en masse however, and benefit from euphoric killers, so could remain a threat into the new edition. Blissbarb Seekers are no longer debuffers, but receive additional rend against targets contesting hostile objectives alongside a small buff to their melee output, which shifts them to appreciably aggressive push pieces. Slaangors return to the bench, boasting a fairly limited number of damage 2 attacks on a fragile chassis that can move once when receiving damage from outside combat.

The Fane of Slaanesh also bears mentioning here as improving significantly, trading d3 unwardable damage to provide one of a plethora of buffs, +1 run and charge, +1 to wound in melee, or the incredibly rare +1 to both casting and unbinding. No longer does this model awkwardly take up real estate on the board. It has a use for as long as your opponent is willing to let it stand.

Sample List

This is a list from my own private vintage, showcasing a particularly terrifying amount of offensive might:

List Name: Will it Blend?
Battle Formation: Epicurean Revellers
Manifestation Lore: Morbid Conjuration

Shalaxi Helbane 490 (General)

Dexcessa 240
Daemonettes x20 220
Daemonettes x20 220
Daemonettes x20 220

Shardspeaker 130 (Icon of Infinite Excess, Glory Hog)
Hellstriders x5 150
Hellstriders x5 150

This list hits hard, fast, and strong. Screening early with Hellstriders, the Slaanesh player is striving to line up a payload turn, charging with the Daemonettes for a ceiling of 280 attacks on the charge, all potentially with either crit (2 hits) or crit (mortals) depending on the target. Shalaxi allows the unit benefiting from the Icon of Infinite Excess to attack again at strike-last speed, mopping up any unfortunate survivors from the last volley of crab-clawed death. The Purple Sun and the Shardspeaker can both provide -1 to saves, allowing all of this to be done with an effective rend of -3 if everything goes right. I almost feel bad showing this one off, as it’s simply filthy. If you’re willing to cram quite a lot in the general’s regiment you could condense this down to two regiments you could swap the Shardspeaker for an Infernal Enrapturess, though with the emphasis on killing units in the general’s regiment I’m hesitant to advise that.

Old World Win Rates: 16th June 2024

Below are the Old World win rates for each faction since the release of Old World. These win rates are for every 2,000 point event that has 10 or more participants and that include legacy factions. Mirror matches have been excluded, as have matches where information is not available for both participants.

Want to view our database? Download the Excel file below. Why not come and join our friendly Discord while you’re here?

Chat with the Champs: Best and Worst Battletomes of 3rd Edition? And Why?

Peter Holland: Which battletome in 3rd was the best in your opinion and which the worst? And why?

Keegan Graves: In terms of quality, I think the worst is definitely Ogors. An argument could be made for overall for them, too. Their book is so boring, and the army is meh. The book is 90% copy-paste.

Roland Rivera: I don’t think most of the 2023 books  qualify because they were overcooked on power level.

Hanna Leppänen: Best: Nurgle. They got a huge glowup in style and faction fantasy that speaks with the rules.

Worst: Slaanesh. The faction fantasy is ok, but inner balance and playstyle are really bad/annoying.

Noel Fundora: One of the best has been FEC. They nailed the rules in a thematic sense. More importantly, the book has a good variety of play styles, even with such few warscrolls.

Roland Rivera: I’m biased… but it might be Slaves to Darkness. They had to get points cuts to keep up with the 2023 absurdity, but overall, I think it was a really good and interesting book.

Keegan: Best: S2D. The book was a huge flavor win and had a pretty solid internal balance.

Worst: Ogors. The book was 90% copy paste with horrid internal balance, and it was unimaginative.

Roland: Ogors has some competition in the bottom bracket, IMO.

Keegan: Winrate aside, it’s easily the worst designed book imo.

Roland: Deepkin is still “pick whatever unit scroll you like and spam the daylights out of it”

Vladislav Turusov: Gits and Seraphon are candidates for the worst. Gits released completely broken and underpriced. Seraphons just create tons of negative play experience.

Best i would say Khorne(i’m sure you are not surprised). The book is not very strong at first glance, but it doesn’t have broken units, but it does generate a lot of tactical possibilities due to allegiance abilities.

Roland: Khorne is a contender for best book because of the strong internal balance and interesting play for sure.

Keegan: I could also agree with this.

Roland: I just couldn’t overlook how it made a bunch of other armies get points cuts 😄

Blood Warriors at 190 are the reason Chaos Warriors are 180.

Keegan: S2D and khorne, I think, are close for me for best designed book.

If Daemon Princes had a better warscroll on launch, I would say the S2D book was close to perfect.

Randal Brasher: Ogors was the best Battletome. They nailed a nice moderate rules army that allows for multiple viable archetypes and play styles.

Furthermore, looking at the FAQ/Errata, it’s a single page. Which shows how well written and balanced the base rules of the army are.

Honorable mention: Khorne. Fairly well balanced with interesting mechanics. It’s fun to play and play against. Flips the script on how an army can move in the game without resorting to teleports.

Worst book? OBR, massively and needlessly complex ruleset that decided to throw out core rule systems in favor of recreating the wheel. It is impossible to balance in its current incarnation and easily solved due to just spamming the best unit.

Honorable mention: KO, narrowed an already narrow army into a single gimmick, score battle tactics. It is boring and unfun for both the player and opponent.

Vladislav: The nomination for the most boring book goes to the sons of Behemat(i do not count King Brod’s Stomp).

Roland:Ogors is solid power wise, but you’ll have a hard time convincing me that’s the best designed book. It’s the 2e book with a few QOL fixes. I think it’s on the lower end from the design POV tbh.

We have this completely unnecessary rule to make Gutbusters count as 2 when they could have just been 5 Wounds base. Mournfang matrix-dodge their way out of benefiting from most of their allegiance abilities. They still haven’t figured out Thundertusks, and they whiffed badly on maneaters.

Randal: If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. The internal balance of the book is great outside of Thundertusks and associated units.

Roland: But it was broken, and they only fixed part of it.

Vladislav: The book played either from ironblaster spam or from mammoth spam. Plus, Tyrant spam if we count Kragnos.

Roland: There’s a mixed arms Gutbusters list now, but that’s a recent development.

Keegan: I think this is where we disagree. The second edition book was also very bad. GW, make a good BCR unit besides stonehorn, please. Thundertusks have been completely useless for forever, and  everything else is pretty bad. Gluttons need depth badly. They just don’t have options.

Colin Klären: Best book: Nurgle. Fun to play and the lore is represented in their rules. Internal balance is great since the book came out. Great job from Gw!

Honorable mention: Khorne! In terms of power and internal balance, great. It’s also fun to play as I can imagine and definitely interesting to play against.


Worst book: Little bit surprised that no one has said Daughters of Khaine yet. Internal balance is awful. Like the ogor book, 90% copy and paste from the second edition and the only mentionable list to play at a high competitive level is Morathi and the bow snakes since the start of the second edition book 😂🤷🏽‍♂️

Honorable mention: I have to mention Ogors, too, of course. All the 4+ to hit units.. just awful, and I really thought they would change it before the book came out, but nooo 😅.

Luiz Medoza: Uhm, good and interesting question…

I have no clear winner, but here are my two cents

1st Khorne… Has a great internal balance, in units and synergies, even in a season specialized in wizards. The option to summon or use customized enhancements is a great aid and has a big value. Besides, the chance to base your list in Daemons or Mortals is strong.

2nd. Cities… Quite flavored and diverse factions are strong, wide, and effective versus any other faction. The order system is heavy bc helps in strategic decisions even in your opponent’s turn.

Vladislav: The Daughters book is so bad that everyone just forgot about it.

Roland: It’s true, lol

Carson Whitlock: Best book: Khorne. They’ve oddly created one of the techiest and most control focused books in the game, and gave it right to the god of mindless violence. It’s got a ton of super interesting tools, and it plays very differently from so many other books (in a good way). If two experienced players are in a match where khorne is present, it’s much more akin to a game of chess.

Worst book: OBR. From being at the top of the recursion meta, to the top of the anti magic meta, and still existing as a very solid melee castle, GW has had to adjust them constantly and they still don’t feel quite right. On top of this, them essentially playing with everybody else’s toys ability-wise is frustrating, albeit the lore supports it. Nice army-wide retreat and charge, Nighthaunt. I’ll take that! Army wide spell shrug, khorne? Yoink! Hmm, impact mortals? Don’t mind if I do!

… I’m only a little bit salty about it.

Jeremy Lefebvre: The best book should have the most build variety and player expression, which Khorne does not have. No ward blood thrister is in every winning list. SCE has the most variation, but maybe that is due to the vast number of scrolls.

Worse book is seraphon. Nothing is even close. one side is STILL unplayable, the other is a giant NPE mess

Peter: Personally, I find the Orruk Warclans to be the worst. It was a bad idea from the get-go, an almost impossible task to balance four factions within one book. Whatever they do to one always affects BW and vice versa.

Lodivicus: I had Seraphon as my worst (internal balance issues and no real way to separate Coalesced and Starborne for balancing)… with OBR really really close to taking it (pretty much for the reasons Carson described).

I went with Khorne as my best (even tho I think we’ll see them as the ‘big winners’ of this battlescroll period, I think their internal balance is among the best and they should be a benchmark in how books should be written in respects to that).

No one wants to watch their favorite models sit out an edition (looking at you Engine of the Gods) because they were either too good last edition or GW has decided that they couldn’t get them closer to balanced to the other options. So, internal balance is very important to me.

Brett Martin: For me it’s between that and Stormcast – neither book really led the way into the edition, and power crept so badly. The SCE book is just dull. But I loath the Seraphon tome for the same lack of flavour (separation between Starbourne and Coalesced).

Best: Nurgle, such an amazing change in their overall play and solid balance from the early days (still had a clear, most powerful sub faction, unfortunately).

Ben Hall: Not sure on worst, but from my completely unbiased opinion, Slaves is one of the best tomes – it has several good and unique subfactions, plenty of models that have valid usage (lets just not talk about demon princes) and good defined playstyles (sure we see varanguard a lot but theres plenty of castle counterpunch lists and warband lists that do very well competitively and narratively) as well as sitting at a very balanced win rate for the entirety of its release, was never broken nor underpowered, and very sick looking models all across the board. Very simple to play at an entry level so people can pick them up fairly easily, with a high skill ceiling for advanced play.

Madigan Mason: I think I would put Nighthaunt on the bottom? While it’s having power issues rn, I think it has…a lot of internal design flaws. The fact that it’s a “your turn” army makes it hard to play, but I think that’s…. allowed to be part of its identity. However, it has really bad internal issues? It has only four subfactions, three of them which just inherently encourage spam. All its basic troop units are fairly interchangeable and have no specific role – you just take the one for your subfaction. It also has abysmal command traits and awkward battle tactics, and half its units are just completely unplayable?

Top…hm. I feel like there’s a few I’d like to nominate, but they all fall short a bit? khorne is a really cool book with well designed abilities and a wide variety of options, but imo it doesn’t actually feel particularly “khorne.” OBR has pretty good internal balance post-scroll, lots of build options, and plays super flavorfully, but imo has too many one-off ‘silver bullets’ to counter its weaknesses like carrion or aura slaves maybe? they’ve for a bunch of neat playstyles and options, all thematic and cool? they have a little bit of a bloat issue, tho. I wish they’d move a few of the warbands out (give like, slaanesh the unmade and tzeentch the cypher lords y’know).


Peter: We also asked the members of our Discord to vote on their best and worst battletomes:

Cities of Sigmar – Battlescroll: Tactics of Andtor

All the data used in the charts on this article are drawn from events that have been hosted on Best Coast Pairings, Stats & Ladders and Ecksen using the points and FAQs from Battlescroll: Tactics of Andtor published in September 2023.

This chart shows the faction popularity, using the number of players using them at events.

The Combined win rate chart shows the overall win rate for these subfactions. This is the most comparable data to GW’s own metawatch articles. The figure in brackets shows the number of games featuring that subfaction the data is drawn from.

The above shows the win rates for each subfaction at GT events. These are events of single player tournaments of 2,000 points per player spread over a minimum of 5 rounds. This would be considered the most competitive view, with many of the players being experienced and looking to optimise their lists.

RTT/Casual shows the win rates for events that are not classified as a GT event. This could be doubles, teams, narrative, but mostly revolves around single day events known as RTTs.

The nitty gritty of a faction! This chart shows the win rate for lists where the specified warscroll has been included in the players list. The figure in brackets shows the number of games that featured the warscroll.

This shows the source of the Grand Strategy used in the players’ games, whether they are from the Battletome or the General’s Handbook.

Here you can see both the win rate of each Grand Strategy when it was used, as well as the popularity of the strategies.

Like our Grand Strategy source chart, this shows the same information but for Command Traits.

Once again, we can see the win rate of each Command Trait when used in players’ lists. The figure in brackets shows the number of games where that Command Trait was used.

Finally, we have the win rates for Endless Spells when included in lists.

Why not come and join our friendly Discord server? Or help us improve the site by joining our Patreon?