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.
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So a new year and a new opportunity to set some targets for the coming year. I didn’t record these last year, but suffice to say it didn’t go well.
So new year, new targets. Everything below is what I would like to achieve by the end of the year. Hopefully (if I remember) I’ll post an update each month on how I’m doing.
HOBBY GOALS
Paint up the Imperialis Boxed Set
Paint up the Cursed City Boxed Set
Paint up a division of 6mm Napoleonic French
Paint up a division of 6mm Napoleonic Austrians
Paint my remaining Kruleboyz
Gobsprakk
Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof
Murknob
Swampcalla Shaman
Killaboss with Stab-Grot
Monsta-Killaz
20 Hobgrots
20 Gutrippaz
9 Man-skewers
3 Fellwater Troggoths
Paint my remaining Imperial Guard and add to it for a 2k force
Paint a Dwarf Warmaster army of 2k points
Paint a 2k Imperialis army
Paint 2k of Dwarves for Old World
Paint 2k of Grudgebringers for Old World
BLOG GOALS
Get all AoS TO sites set up with Woehammer Stats
BCP
Stats & Ladders
Ecksen
Tourneykeeper.net
Punpun.nl
ChampionshipApp
T3
Get all 40k TO sites set up with Woehammer Stats
Do a beginners army article for each AoS Faction
Do a beginners army for each 40k faction.
Publish at least 4 Battletome/Codex reviews
Get the website updated
Try and hit 1.0m visitors
Get at least one dedicated writer for each faction in AoS
Produce at least 20 more painting guide articles
Do at least 5 more collaborations
PERSONAL GOALS
Get down to 13 stone (16.96stone 1st Jan)
Walk 2 million steps in the year
Cycle 1,500km in the year
Drink at least 730 litres of water through the year
With a 1 year old in the house for 2024, my goals are much smaller than Peter’s but we’ll see how I get on. In the past I have set 10-12 goals and aimed to achieve about a half-dozen (6 ish) of them. This gives good scope for changes in direction whatever the British weather (or GW releases) throws at us!
Paint up my Imperialis Boxed Set
Finishing painting my Bolt Action Soviet Infantry
Paint my Bolt Action Soviet Tanks and learn techniques to help with 40k tanks
Play in a Necromunda campaign (with my Van Saar … which brings me to:)
Finish painting my Van Saar in my new colour scheme
Write up all painting and hobby as Hobby Articles on Woehammer
Keep reading (30 books in the year)
Start work on a 40k diaroma
Read more source books (like Book of Chains (Necromunda) or Loyalist Legio (Titanicus) and review them
Continue playing board games (this one is a little more difficult than I’d like with small grasping hands getting taller) & write 4 reviews on Woehammer
Read and review The Old World
So that’s it a simple list and certain to fail on some of them, but hopefully enough, they are achievable to keep me going. Here’s to a good 2024!
Complete Bolt Action league with Finnished Finns
Complete 2k (or whatever standard army size is) Empire army for Old World for the Christmas game
Following on from last week’s article, I asked our resident pro AoS players how they approached their games against Soulblight Gravelords.
Nico Cavada 🇵🇭 (Maggotkin of Nurgle): I’d say the dragon, but being unrendable and it healing is insane. I guess if you can reliably do Mortal Wounds at a safe range I’d go for that first.
Justin Clark 🇦🇺 (Blades of Khorne): Yeah don’t bother grinding out against the big vamps, unfortunately. Drop them in 1 or chaff them up.
Fabien Barbusse 🇺🇲 (Blades of Khorne): Giving advice against SBGL is tricky because there are 3 subfactions that are performing very well and play quite differently:
Legion of Blood: more elite build with 3+ ethereal and a lot of heal for the monsters
Vyrkos: bodies spam with 5+ ward, just sitting on objectives
Legion of Night: teleport and counter charge shenanigans, usually with a lot of bodies as well
Raymond Lane 🇺🇲 (Maggotkin of Nurgle): Kill their heroes. Dent their movement and bile ins with bile piper or blight krieg. Plague claw and stench/geminids are amazing counters. Drones are the best demon choice into them.
Colin Klären 🇩🇪 (Nighthaunt/Nurgle/Sylvaneth): So, for me, I’ve played 5 Times against really good players with Soulblight and won all of them with Nurgle Glottkin, Belakor, Beasts of Nurgle spam and Sylvaneth Alarielle Winterleaf. I‘m playing armies which like to go against close combat armies because of abilities like no pile in, no retreat, counter charge, and so on, which is not only good against Soulblight. In my opinion, our whole meta shifts more to a combat meta with Soulblight, Khorne, OBR, FEC. Maybe there will be a change with Cities in November, but who knows 🤷🏽♂️.
Jeremy Lefebvre 🇺🇲 (Cities/Slaanesh): Kill the killable heros, and try to screen them out of objectives. Try not to get stuck in a grinding combat that is not on an objective, so if they want to stay on the objective, they have to stay in combat and risk losing the objective in the combat phase.
Lance Martin Tan 🇵🇭(Ironjawz): The match-up for ironjawz isn’t great, but you can collapse on their deathrattle skeletons with the hunt and crush pile-in after to mitigate models from returning next combat phase.
Joshua Bennett 🇺🇲 (Slaanesh): For slaanesh it’s a fantastic matchup. Slaanesh has the speed and dps to be able to deal with the problems.
Keegan Graves 🇺🇲 (Skaven): For me, as a skaven player, I have the body count to contest the objectives against them. I use my guns and ranged mortal wounds to take out the heroes. That’s always the first priority. The second target is grave guard if possible. Clanrats and zombies will just slap each other on the objectives forever, and clanrats usually come out on top. The match-up usually just comes down to proper positioning and being ready to deal with the tricks SBGL brings.
Dalton Kahle 🇺🇲 (Gloomspite/Tzeentch): Goblins have the ability to outmaneuver them and still sit on objectives, I think Troggs will struggle slightly due to less speed, but they also have the damage output to put down a unit a turn of the small stuff, the dragon is where Troggs would struggle.
Aaron Newbom 🇺🇲 (Idoneth/Kruleboyz): I would say the most important thing to understand in terms of fighting SBGL is that they are, at heart, a board control army. They’re seeking to outscore you while you’re trying to grind through legions of dead dudes.
You have to play accordingly. You must be scoring points early. Playing too scared will lose you the game but so will being too aggressive
You’re almost definitely not going to kill enough of them to shut them down. Going super aggro will make it hard for you to stop them from stealing your objectives and steadily beating you on points. Playing too far back does much the same.
Play according to the knowledge that they want to hold board space over you.
There’s no one single trick, and every army is going to have to take that idea and apply it differently, but it’s a good place to start.
Jon Anderson 🇺🇲 (Idoneth/Lumineth): Pretty easy, play Lumineth. Bows? Wrong. Teclis? Straight to jail.
Luis Mendoza 🇲🇽 (Stormcast): Don’t charge to the zombies 😂.
Brett Martin 🇦🇺 (Woehammer Writer): For SCE, it’s Everblaze and/or Longstrikes to deal with long-range mortals. Judicators and Vigilors let everything get a little close. Holy command is as effective as ever. You can use it to reposition a unit away from their slower units. Knight Incantors can blunt their magic quite a bit, and lists with at least 2 should be pretty common.
Luis Mendoza 🇲🇽 (Stormcast): Also, resistant units combined with a solid ward are a good mix to face the inevitable combat with zombies. Position to block the graves is a good start.
Raymond Lane 🇺🇲 (Maggotkin of Nurgle): If you roll enough 5ups you’ll beat anyone and remember grandfather loves you
Walter Brock 🇺🇲 (Ossiarch Bonereapers): For OBR, they have a couple of nice things in their toolbelt. Arkhan casting a 12-inch bubble of no reserves or summons lets him lock down one objective for a bit of time. Arkhan, being good at spells, lets him do a good job of shutting down Soulblight spells. The Soulstealer carrion can stop zombies from contesting objectives when near it. The large amount of recursion lets them pretty much be immune to their zombie damage.
The hard part is when OBR fight them on a 4 or more objective mission. SBGL can play to places that OBR aren’t while being able to strongarm themselves onto objectives with bodies to get the points they need. It’s an uphill walk in the snow both ways, but they have the tools to get there with smart play and a bit of luck.
Peter Holland 🇬🇧 (Woeful Writer):There we have it! Want to ask our pros a question? Perhaps you want to ask a particular pro a question about their faction? Drop them in the comments below, and we’ll do our best to answer them.
With a number of top players now inside our Woehammer Discord, it was suggested to me by a discord member that we should ask them a weekly question in regards to playing their respective factions.
With that in mind, I jumped straight into it this week and asked:
Which battleplan do you think favours your faction and why?
Raymond Lane (Maggotkin of Nurgle): As someone who has played too much Nurgle we generally don’t care about the battle plan… like at all… build list and play into your opponents list.
Colin Klaeren (Maggotkin of Nurgle/Nighthaunt): Playing Nurgle (Glottkin, Be’Lakor, BoN spam) a lot of these times and like Raymond mentioned, most of the time I don’t care about the battleplan. Of course it’s good if the deployment zone is big for generating summoning points. For my list I love ‘No Reward Without Risk‘ because Glottkin can cover most of the objectives very easily. With this list I don’t like battleplans too much where the objectives are spread out too wide.
Raymond: I love me a good Glottkin. You had a plan? I have a Glottkin!
Joshua Bennett (Hedonites of Slaanesh): Sure as hell not ‘Icefields‘! With Pretenders all the missions are great for us except ‘Icefields’. Considering we run and shoot that sucks lol.
Colin: Nighthaunt in the old GHB was an army which didn’t care about battleplans. All were solid. Now it’s a big difference because battleplans like ‘Icefields‘ and ‘Every Step Forward‘ are just horrible for them.
Fabien Barbusse (Blades of Khorne): Playing with Skarbrand I love ‘Spring the Trap’.
Justin Clark (Blades of Khorne): Mine failed the 3D6 9″ rerolled charge this weekend on Spring….
Brett Martin (Ironjawz):For Ironjawz, it’s list dependent. With the Crusha/Goregrunta list it doesn’t really matter because you have so much mobility. For infantry lists, anything that takes objectives away is a blessing and a curse (concentrated enemy but too slow to get to the new objective). And ‘Icefields‘ should die in a fire!
Raymond: I thought ‘Icefields’ would be terrible but every game I’ve played on it simply didn’t care about the run thing.
Colin: I think the 1 on charges is the problematic thing for armies like Nighthaunt for example.
Raymond: Eh, I’ve got wards 🙂
Brett: Nurgle doesn’t run or charge. Orruks don’t walk and only know how to charge. I’ve tried teaching them other tricks, but they really don’t like them.
Colin: I really want to play on ‘Icefields‘ with Beasts of Nurgle spam too….
Raymond: I usually do Rotmire Plaguebearer spam.
Colin: With that it’s totally fine of course!
Raymond: With Nurgle its more about getting reps and knowing your opponents army as well as your own.
Colin: 100% agree.
Brett: Fyreslayers on ‘Icefields‘……
Colin: Fyreslayers on ‘Every Step is Forward‘ sounds really good.
Keegan Graves (Skaven): Skaven’s best battleplan is probably ‘Geomanctic Pulse’. We have good power projection, have a doable turn one tactic on that map and we have bodies to stand and score well.
Fabien: For Khorne it really depends on the list since there are so many archetypes, but the biggest weakness of the army being current battle tactics I’d say battleplans that allow easy surround / intimate are the best for the army.
Aaron Newbom (Idoneth/Orruk Warclans): I would say ‘Spring the Trap‘ is probably best for the Idoneth. Wide spaced out objectives leave people strung out and easy to pick apart. Outflanking Reavers is powerful, but outflanking vs Idoneth isn’t very powerful as you’ll likely just get isolated and ripped apart. It’s definitely one of the better ones for the fish.
As for Kruleboyz it’s gotta be ‘Icefields’. You’re rarely, if ever running, and armies that want to apply heavy pressure to you get punished pretty hard. The ranges on the objectives leaves you with powerful firing lanes, and the narrow board let’s you utilize your auras, screens, and castle very easily.
Peter Dixon (Ogor Mawtribes):Ogors love ‘Geomantic Pulse‘, being exceptionally mobile and counting as a million models on objectives, we can follow the bouncing ball. The same with ‘Nexus Collapse’, where the usual thinking is score less as to control which objectives are lifted. But in my experience, I can just move onto the remaining ones easily unless I get stuck by Murderlusting Khorne units. This is also true on ‘Limited Resources’ where the standard idea is not to over cap your home objectives so as to score them later, but in my games in this battleplan I’ve just rolled up the board ending in my opponents deployment, as that’s where I wanted to be at the end of the game for the Grand Strategy.
Ogors feel a bit over costed currently, but I’ve had reasonable success at the tourneys I’ve attended with the new GHB. That said, Ogors still live and die by the Battle Regiment. This is still the case in my opinion for this GHB, stealing the initiative and deciding who goes first or second is too important for the faction.
I do believe this is the best GHB so far. There’s no clangers of a battleplan, such as ‘Lurkers Below‘ (I had a 100% win rate on that battleplan last season) where it was far too easy to just Stonehorn Monsterous actions onto the 3rd objective and auto win.
A few of the Age of Sigmar sites you know and love have got together and organised a little competition between us all. It’s a veritable who’s who of AoS blogging! PlasticCraic, Goonhammer, AoS Shorts, Sprues & Brews, and No Rerolls will be facing off to see who can be crowned champion. Each person taking part is choosing a Galletian Champion, tooling them up and letting them loose on the enemy bloggers! With 5 participants, Woehammer has a strong representation in the tournament. Hopefully, we don’t all go out in the first round!
It’ll be a knockout competition (think, the World Cup). Battles will take place in a 9″ x 9″ space and will be simulated on Tabletop Simulator over on Pete Brizio’s Twitch channel throughout May. The 1st round draw will be live at 11 am on Saturday, 13th May BST.
Brett
My first thought was to go Stormcast, with 19 warscrolls there had to be a contender. A Lord-Castellant fits the bill his output is a little weak. The Celestant-Prime is good but only 3 attacks (he has to be on the board). No to win this we have to look to the future, and the future is Chaos. I present the thing of unspoken nightmares, it has no use for a name, instead it reflects your darkest fears:
Credit: Brett Martin
With only 7 wounds and a 5+ save, is he mad I hear you ask? The Epitome has 2 spells, Mystic Shield goes without saying and then either Flaming Weapon or Arcane Bolt. In built casting rerolls, Horrible Fascination (within 3” no commands can be issued or received) and 2+ ward against Mortal Wounds.
That’s just the warscroll. Stongest Alone for +1 to hit and wound rolls, now hitting on 2s and wound on 3s. The Crown of Dark Secrets lets you to pick one unit at the start of your hero phase and they will only have 1 attack with their melee weapons. And finally Fuelled by Ghurish Rage for the 3+ ward.
Two ways to run him depending on priority. If our epitome has priority then we’ll take finest hour then cast flaming weapon and overwhelming acquiesce (don’t forget rerolls) before picking our target for the Crown of Dark Secrets. Assuming they’ll throw everything into that attack we’ll activate Fuelled by Ghurish Rage and after a 6” move we’ll charge. If they survive and there is a second round we’ll repeat (except the single use Fuelled by Ghurish rage).
If we don’t go first then we’ll still use Finest Hour and then pray. Before going with the sequence above.
Declan
With the Galletian Champions being foot bosses I had a lot to chose from and – although it may steal Pete’s thunder – I was definitely going for Destruction. But which one – would it be the Orruk Warclans and Big Waaagh which had done me so well, or would it be little Gitz stabbing at knees.
I was very tempted by a Loonboss with his D3 damage, but there was really only one option… go fight, or go home – and do it large! With heads exploding all around – all I would have to do is survive a round of combat (so All Out Defense)… but which chap am I referring to… well it’s got to be the Wurrgog Prophet!
Credit: Declan Waters
The Wurrgog was why I ran Big Waaagh in 2021 (that and having most of my attacks on 2+/2+ by turn 3). And he can be a monster. I’m sure by now everyone knows his Stare mechanic and with Fuelled by Ghurish Rage he can keep going until he dies and get back up (on a 3+)… then do it all again.
The key is that he must be within 12″ at the start of the hero phase to use his ability so no shenanigans – but he’ll just cast magic instead! Finally the 4+ ward makes his 7 wounds much more like 14 making him even more dificult to kill (so what if most of those 14 wounds are going to be caused by himself).
Patrick
It’s fun to play with a new toy. I recently picked up Blades of Khorne (I’m not a meta-chaser, I swear!) and have been reading and re-reading that book to prep for games. In the spirit of that research, I decided that I wanted to pull in a GC that showed off some of Khorne’s new tech pieces.
Enter: the François, the Bloodmaster.
Credit: Patrick German
The bloodmaster, on paper, is a straighforward beast. He’s a daemon priest that brings a couple of abilities to the table. I won’t touch onThe Blood Must Flow, since that will have no bearing on this event. Decapitating Blow borrows from the Kruleboyz book and deals mortal wounds on a hit roll of 6. His warscroll prayer is the equivalent of All-out Attack, but with wound rolls.
I’ve opted to make him a high priest. With no support from other units, it’s vital that his prayers are heard. I’ve also given him Ar’gath the King of Blades, which removes all wards (including Fueled by Ghurish Rage) within 3″. While I wouldn’t normally hand this off to a back-line support piece, it’s going to be extremely useful in this competition, since everyone will take FbGR.
Peter
Let’s be honest, I was always going to be the one who’d pick a Kruleboy.
The only Galletian Champion that could, maybe, possibly, get through a round or two once kitted out would be the Stab-Grot with Killaboss.
This dude can certainly pack a punch!
Credit Games Workshop Age of Sigmar App
That’s an average of 0.75 damage before saves! His assistant is also pretty useful, being able to equip the big lug with a boss-hacka and a choice of either a Rusty Flail or skareshield.While two weapons are enticing, the flail would only kick out an average of 0.87 additional damage per turn. While the Skareshield will give our Grot a little more durability with a 3+ save instead of 4+. In number crunching terms, this would mean a – rend 1 damage weapon would have to land 18 attacks to kill him on average rather than 12 with the 4+ save. Granted, it’s unlikely our plucky grot will be facing 1 damage, no rend weapons, but even so.
Credit: Declan Waters
As for which Subfaction, the choice had basically been made for me. With no shooting, there was no point going Big Yellers, and with a 9″ x 9″ playing area, there was no point going for Grinnin’ Blades. That left the little used Skulbugz. Basically, it forces the enemy to roll a dice before their combat with him. On a roll of 6, they’ll be forced to subtract 1 from their hit rolls.
On to the Artefact, and here a plan started to form in my mind. I went with the Tuskhelm, this would allow our plucky grot to roll a number of dice equal to their charge roll. On each 4+, he’d cause a mortal wound. Nice, right? This then made the choice of Command Trait easier, as I was left with two options that went well with the Tuskhelm. The first was Battle-lust, which would allow him to re-roll his run and charge rolls. Meaning I could try and up the number of dice I’d be rolling 4+ on for the mortals. Or I could go with Slippery Skumbag, which would allow him to retreat and charge in the same turn. I decided on the second, just in case combat went beyond one round, it would mean I had a chance to cause more mortals.
The Aspect of the Champion was a really easy one to make as Fuelled by Ghurish Rage would be the one played by every… single… champion… in the tournament.
That done, it was time to pick a name for our Grot. For this, I let the name generator on Realm of Plastic make the decision:
Ian
So I have decided to stay loyal to my first AoS faction and go with an Arkanaut Admiral. My approach here is to try and shoot them dead before they reach me and settle the grudge with my hammer if I have to. Seems a sensible and business-like approach fitting to a Kharadron Overlord Admiral. Just a shame he’s not allowed to bring his flagship…
Credit: Peter “Woehammer” Holland
Arkanaut Admiral (125) Sub-faction: Barak-Zon (+1 to hit and wound rolls for melee weapons on the charge) General Command Trait: A Scholar and an Arkanaut (Additional Footnote) Artefact: Masterwrought Armour (5+ Ward Save) Battle Trait: Grudgebreaker Rounds (+1 Rend on Missile Weapon)
Stick to the Code Artycle: Settle the Grudges (+1 to Wound Rolls against a Unit) Amendment: Trust to your Guns (Re-roll 1 hit roll of 1 in your shooting phase) Footnotes: There’s no Reward without Risk (3D6 for charge rolls) There’s no Trading with some People (Once per battle, at end of enemy shooting phase, a unit fired upon can shoot back)
The approach here is if I get first turn to basically shoot them dead. As my Masterwork Volley Pistol will be hitting on 3+, Wounding on 2+ (with the artycle) and a rend of -2 on 3 shots (with some re-rolls thrown in for good measure) he has half a chance. There is a potential 6 damage there (averaging about 4 damage without re-rolls) they should be on the ropes. And mixed with my There’s no Trading with some People footnote, I may even cause an upset to an opponent by shooting them in their own phase and then shooting them on the charge! I am seriously hoping for an Indiana Jones moment here…
The additional charge dice is just to make sure the charge roll is less likely to whiff, and I couldn’t see much else of benefit to take. The ward save will be nice and may help with survival against scrawny opponents who rely on mortal wounds to do their damage. We shall see, it will all come down to the dice!
As for a name, well I feel my Path to Glory warlord, Khreld Thundergust, should have a chance to prove himself. Maybe I will add this tournament to his backstory as a fever dream…
I recently asked Baz Norman Jr if he’d care to comment on his list from Blood in the Snow on 14th and 15th of January. I also asked him if he’d like to give a run-down of his games as part of that.
As always Baz’s response blew me away, and I thought it deserved an article in it’s own right. So thank you once again Baz!
Peter! Thank you once again for having me on the site. I attended Mark Ward’s Blood in the Snow at Hull’s Angels Gaming Club on the 14th and 15th January 2023. This was my second two day event already of 2023.
Army Faction: Daughters of Khaine – Subfaction: Khailebron – Grand Strategy: Bloodthirsty Zealots – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Melusai Ironscale (115)* – General – Command Traits: Zealous Orator – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Mindrazor – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur Morathi-Khaine (680)* The Shadow Queen (680)*
BATTLELINE Witch Aelves (115)* – Hag – Death Pennant Bearer – Hornblower – Paired Sciansá Witch Aelves (115)* – Hag – Death Pennant Bearer – Hornblower – Paired Sciansá Blood Sisters (420)* – Gorgai
BEHEMOTH Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)*
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Horrorghast (40)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1965/2000
I have hit the competitive scene a lot, running Daughters of Khaine (DoK) over the last year so running them again at this event was no surprise to anyone, but what might be a surprise was that it isn’t my usual list.
The list above is a slight variation to the DoK list I ran last weekend on the 7th and 8th January, where I had the absolute pleasure of playing alongside the legends that are Team England at Brotherhood III at Firestorm Games in Cardiff, on Team England’s South team.
So let’s delve into it…
SUB-FACTION – I love my manoeuvrability. I’ve said on previous posts that movement is king, and I wholeheartedly stand by this. Being able to get into positions to threaten enemy units, objectives and push for future turns is huge, so Khailebron was a staple.
GRAND STRATEGY – This list revolves around being in combat, so Bloodthirsty Zealots matched perfectly.
TRIUMPH – At 1,965pts, +1 to wound when I wanted to hit hard just worked.
LEADERS Melusai Ironscale– Having Khailebron as the sub faction doesn’t make Blood Sisters battleline, and knowing I wanted to run 15 of them meant that it would have to be the Melusai Ironscale as general. The Command Trait was a given at Zealous Orator. Who doesn’t love a 4+ rally? My Artefact of power being Arcane Tome and knowing the spell, Mind Razor. The bonding to the Krondspine provides a +1 to cast within domination range.
Morathi – because its Morathi.
BATTLELINE Witch Aelves – Two units of 10. These give a decent screen, but also with the run and charge, reroll failed battleshock test, and buckets of attacks, they can still threaten wounded units or chip wounds off when needed. Not to mention being objective grabbers whilst the rest of the army is doing the heavy lifting.
Blood Sisters – One unit of 15. Yes they’ve only got a 5+ save and the DoK 6+ ward save, but that’s where the negatives stop in my opinion. Three attacks base (+1 for the Gorgai), 3’s to hit, 3’s to wound, -1 rend, damage 1, and then the turned to crystal effect after the unit has fought for the first time in a phase. This attack profile alone is spicy, 46 attacks base from this unit. Now we add in and start tuning this unit to another level. Factor in the blood rites table, run and charge from the Ironscale, all out slaughter, mind razor and Fury of the Shadow Queen ability, this unit can suddenly end up having 61 attacks, 2’s to hit with exploding 6’s, 2’s to wound, -2 rend, and 2 damage a piece, then the crystal touch on top… not much can come away from this to be honest.
BEHEMOTH Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur – You’ve probably all heard about it, 480 pts that can’t be auto killed, doesn’t allow retreats, is good, but not broken as there are some easy ways around it, but is still strong, especially coupled with the units above.
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS Horrorghast – I had points left over, easy to cast, can certainly help finish off units if you’ve fluffed a couple dice rolls and left a few models alive.
CORE BATTALION Battle Regiment – Works for this list, as I normally govern who takes 1st turn.
Game 1 vs Kruleboyz / Mike Chadderton and Head-on Collision.
Army Faction: Orruk Warclans – Army Type: Kruleboyz – Army Subfaction: Grinnin’ Blades – Grand Strategy: Waaagh! – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof (150) 1 x Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof (150) 1 x Killaboss on Corpse-rippa Vulcha (220)* – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Mount Traits: Fast ’Un – Spells: Nasty Hex 1 x Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast (290)** 1 x Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-grot (105)** – Spells: Choking Mist 1 x Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-grot (105)** – Spells: Sneaky Miasma
BATTLELINE 10 x Hobgrot Slittaz (80)* 10 x Hobgrot Slittaz (80)* 10 x Gutrippaz (160)** – Wicked Hacka 10 x Gutrippaz (160)** – Wicked Hacka
OTHER 6 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (240)** 3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)** 3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)**
Mike (of Goonhammer fame – Peter) is a great player, we regularly converse over Twitter and I’ve had the pleasure of playing Mike before at Sheffield Slaughter 2022; one of my first bigger events. The result ended in his favour before, so he had that psychological benefit.
I deployed just over 24” away, and being a gentleman, I gave Mike turn 1.
Mike made a few little movement wiggles, buffed up his units with elixirs from the Swampcalla Shamans ready to receive the DoK threat.
My turn 1, and I moved my whole army up to threaten his position and to give him too many threats to deal with all at once if Mike got the priority for turn 2.
Turn 2 dice off. I won priority.
Taking the turn, I knew this was the opportunity I needed to hit his army hard, so I prepped for it. Mind Razored the Shadow Queen, withered key units, Black horrored a Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof, cast the Horrorghast and then at the end of the movement phase, teleported the 15 Blood Sisters 9” away from his Killaboss on Corpse-rippa Vulcha and a unit of Gutrippaz.
The shooting phase came and went, with a couple more wounds going onto the already wounded Gnashtoof. Big charge phase inbound. Started with Morathi who was 4” away; into the 2 Gnashtoofs. Krondspine going into a unit of Gutrippaz. 9” long bomb charge required for the Blood Sisters, needed 8 on the dice, due to the Blood Rites table, rolled a 9. Big charge phase ticked off.
The combat phase followed, having Morathi curb stomp the already wounded Gnashtoof, killing it, and making room for her to pile round into some tasty Boltboyz. I started the combat phase with the Blood Sisters to ensure maximum damage. The unit was split between the Vulcha and a unit of Gutrippaz, a couple of Blood Sisters went into the Vulcha, chipping 5 wounds off it, whilst the rest went into the Gutrippaz. Turned to Crystal, which is what I was wanting, all went into the Vulcha, killing it. I did take some damage from other units piling in, and with the misplay of the Horrorghast, 12” is huge! I lost 5 Blood Sisters to battleshock…. lesson here for sure lol
The dust settled from that turn and Mike calculated just over 1000pts lifted in one turn. Solid turn for me.
Being pinned in by Morathi, Krondspine and the Blood Sisters and losing all those units made it really hard for Mike to come back so he played for points and got what could. With me winning turn 3 priority again, the nail in the coffin. We ended the game 32-5 to DoK. So that’s 1 game a piece now Mike….until next time! 😉
Game 2 vs Sons of Behemat / Rob Anderson and Battlelines Drawn.
Army Faction: Sons of Behemat – Army Type: Breaker Tribe – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Gatebreaker (520)* – Artefacts: Amberbone Totem 1 x Gatebreaker (520)* – General – Command Traits: Monstrously Tough – Artefacts: Vial of Manticore Venom 1 x Warstomper (450)** 1 x Warstomper (450)** – Artefacts: Glowy Shield of Protectiness
CORE BATTALIONS: *Bosses of the Stomp – Magnificent **Bosses of the Stomp – Magnificent
TOTAL POINTS: (1940/2000)
So no “remove from battlefield and set up again”, but I was playing into the Sons of Behemat; an army that just wants to get in your face and ‘Triple H Pedigree’ slam enemies, which, I am weirdly okay with. I screened out with Morathi-Khaine, the Shadow Queen and the Krondspine. And with the Witch Aelves on the flanks, I gave turn 1 away as before.
Rob moved his 4 big boys up to capture objectives (table quarters in this mission), capped the centre terrain piece with Desecrate and charged one of his Warstompers into a unit of Witch Aelves I had on the flank. He rightfully killed them and chipped 3 wounds off Morathi-Khaine.
My turn 1, I chose Gaining Momentum and committed to lifting the giant that had just slapped Morathi-Khaine and the Witch Aelves. Turn 1 finished, and I had lifted 2 giants.
Turn 2 priority was won by Rob, where he continued with the points increase and reducing Morathi to 6 wounds, and did enough damage to reduce the Krondspine to level 1. Another 5 points for Rob. Seeing the work that happened from the DoK turn 1, turn 2 was no different.
Game 2 finished 26-10 to DoK.
Game 3 vs Skaven / Duncan Woods and Turf War.
Army Faction: Skaven – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumph: Inspired
Duncan is a loyal member of the GAF gaming group and has been to several of our events run by the Warrior Lodge, and every interaction with Duncs is….how can I describe it….erm….lets just say that he is a character and a gentleman to boot, so I knew this game would be laugh regardless.
Skaven is an army that I’ve not played a lot of to be honest, and with him rocking up with two Warp Lightning Cannons and 6 Stormfiends, I knew I had to be on him asap.
No surprises here when I gave Duncs turn 1 and with me deploying out side of his shooting range, he moved some units up to cap objectives. I was surprised that he didn’t go through the Gnawholes with his 6 Stormfiends and try to shoot off the Blood Sisters turn one….maybe he knew something I didn’t…? My turn 1 was simple, move up, and prep for later turns.
Turn 2 priority went in my favour, meaning that Morathi and the Krondspine could get into position for a charge. I also teleported the Blood Sisters for a supportive charge. Dice rolls went back and forth. Duncs killing his own general and bombardier through Skaven antics finished the game 28-9 to DoK.
Game 4 vs Hedonites of Slaanesh / James Mackenzie and The Silksteel Nests.
Allegiance: Slaanesh – Host: Lurid Haze Invaders Host (Host of Chaos) – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders The Contorted Epitome (245)* – General – Command Trait: Feverish Anticipation – Artefact: Oil of Exultation – Lore of Slaanesh: Hysterical Frenzy Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (205)* Glutos Orscollion, Lord of Gluttony (440)* – Lore of Pain and Pleasure: Battle Rapture
Battleline 22 x Blissbarb Archers (280)** – Reinforced x 1 22 x Blissbarb Archers (280)** – Reinforced x 1 5 x Hellstriders with Hellscourges (135)*
Units 5 x Blissbarb Seekers (220)* 5 x Centigors (85)* 5 x Centigors (85)*
Endless Spells & Invocations The Burning Head (20)
Having not played Hedonites of Slaanesh before, meant I had had to do some homework the previous evening. High manoeuvrability, lots of units, a lot of shots, buffs from Glutos, the hindrance that Sigvald can bring meant this would be new to me, not to mention the 8 available objectives.
I set up so that each of my 4 objectives, had models touching it and gave James turn 1. He was on me straight away, his Blissbarb Archers being screened by the Centigors lifted both units of Witch Aelves that were on either flank. I had to play super aggressive and hit his key units right from the get go, as I was behind on points. Morathi moved up to just behind a building, being 9” from Glutos and the Krondspine moved up ready to ‘eat’ from Centigors. Charges were made and the Warrior Lodge dice rolled well, meaning that my turn 1, Glutos was dead, the Krondspine was in combat doing its thing.
Turn 2 priority was won by James and he played big for points scoring 7 points his turn 2. Bottom of turn 2 the score was 9 to me, 12 to James…
Turn 3 priority was again won by James and he kept on racking up the points, although he was behind with model count, if he could keep scoring points though, that could see him win overall. Turn 3 finished 15 to me and 18 to James.
Turn 4 priority was won by….James again…I must have used up all my priority rolls on day 1! Again more points racking up in James’s favour finishing turn 4 on 20 to me, 24 to James.
Turn 5 priority came and went….finally in my favour. I managed to get into positions in the previous turns to eventually pin him in and lift the pesky Hedonites which were so quick. Game 4 finished 29-24 to DoK. Phew.
Game 5 vs Sylvaneth / Peter Twigg on Won’t Back Down.
Army Faction: Sylvaneth – Subfaction: Harvestboon – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Indomitable
LEADERS Warsong Revenant (305)* – General – Command Traits: Spellsinger – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Treesong, Verdant Blessing Celestant-Prime (325)*
BATTLELINE Tree-Revenants (110)* Tree-Revenants (110)* Revenant Seekers (705)** – Revenant Soulwarden – 3 x Seeker Banner Bearer – 3 x Seeker Hornblower Spiterider Lancers (420)** – Spiterider Scion – 2 x Spiterider Standard Bearer – 2 x Spiterider Hornblower
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment **Bounty Hunters
TOTAL POINTS: 1975/2000
A little birdy had mentioned to me that Pete wanted revenge from our last meeting from across the table where we were both on table 1, game 5. That last game was also played over Won’t Back Down so things felt similar, even if our lists were different.
Sylvaneth have historically been a challenging match up for me as they’re really nimble and I struggle to pin them down, so knew this match up would be tough, not to mention the fact that Pete had 9 Revenant Seekers and 6 Spiterider Lancers…oh and the Prime!
I did my thing with deployment ensuring that the Witch Aelves were snaked (pun intended!) round the Blood Sisters at 3” just in case the Prime was to come down turn 1, and gave Pete turn 1.
Against the Odds was chosen and he moved units up to threaten, but also to take objectives for a solid 5 VP round.
My turn 1, I did some hero phase shenanigans as usual and ran the buffed Blood Sisters up so they were 5” away from the 9 Revenant Seekers and their pool of 45 wounds. There was no redeploy which I was expecting, even though I had explained the abilities at the start. Charge phase started and the Blood Sisters failed their 5” charge. CP reroll… then I rolled a 8. Here we go! Spending a CP for all out attack and burning my triumph for +1 to wound saw them lift the Revenant Seekers to the wound, nothing more nothing less…. a big dent made.
Turn 2 I got the double turn, which allowed me to move up into position again ready for another charge. The Shadow Queen failed her charge, but the Blood Sisters got another charge off, this time into the 6 Spiterider Lancers but without the Mind Razor buff. Lifting 4 of them meant that Pete could retaliate and then in his turn nip through the woods far away…. Far, far away to the other end of the board…. i.e., my deployment zone lol.
I slowly managed to take the lead with a couple of points difference but at the cost of Morathi dying and we shook hands finishing the game 26-21 to DoK.
Peter: What a result. Thanks again to Baz for sharing his tournament review. Hopefully we can get him on again in the future.
