These are the player rankings calculated by us at Woehammer using the method described previously. We think this method levels the playing field between those playing factions with a high win-rate and those playing with a low win-rate. Almost like a handicap system in Golf or similar sports.
Calculation Summary
Points are awarded to each player for a win or a draw. Points are calculated for each faction. To calculate a factions win score is a fairly simple process:
Take their current win rate as shown in our weekly AoS Meta article and times this by 5:
e.g. Lumineth Realm-Lords: 51.02% x 5 = 2.6
This is the expected number of wins that faction should achieve in a 5 game GT. Next divide 100 by this value to give a score for each win.
e.g. Lumineth Realm-Lords 100/2.6 = 39.2 per win.
When a player has finished their tournament multiply their result (draws are counted as 0.5) by the score.
e.g. a Lumineth player achieves 2 wins and a draw; 2.5 x 39.2 = 98 points
Current Scoring by Factions
The below shows the current score able to be achieved fro each player for a win with each faction. This is showen for each period of time since the release of the General’s Handbook 2022-23: Season 1
Period Name | Date From | Date To |
---|---|---|
General’s Handbook 2022-23: Season 1 | 3rd July 2022 | 1st October 2022 |
Battletome Releases: Ogors, Lumineth, Disciples and Sons | 1st October 2022 | 27th October 2022 |
Battlescroll: Galletian Reinforcements | 27th October | 21st January 2023 |
Battletome: Slaves to Darkness | 21st January | Current |
There have been no tournaments using the new GHB as yet, however when this occurs it will create a new points session.
Current Rankings
The best four results as a total make up a player’s score.
NORTH AMERICA
UK & IRELAND
EUROPE
OCEANIA
SCANDINAVIA
ASIA
WORLD WIDE
Las Vegas Open Preview
It’s going to be the biggest event in the Age of Sigmar tournament calendar. A title previously held by CanCon in Australia. Now with over 300 players attending from all over the globe, the Las Vegas Open (or often referred to affectionately by players as LVO) is the jewel in the AoS crown.
We’ve been kindly given a run down of all the lists for this years events (of those submitted anyway), and we can now start going through them and comparing this to the Meta. We’ll also look at the players and their performances over the last year to try and get an idea who’ll finish the King (or Queen) of Las Vegas.
Faction Popularity
The LVO split roughly follows the current Meta trend on the army splits, with Stormcast Eternals being the most popular army. However, where Sylvaneth are the second most popular faction in the meta, they’ve been surplanted at the LVO by Ogor Mawtribes.
For those not into graphs, the below compares the LVO uptake against what would have been expected to have been taken based on the meta.
Grand Strategies
Most players chose either a Strategy from their factions Battletome or Take What’s Theirs (More units than the opponent, inside opponent’s territory).
Two crazy cats went for Demonstration of Strength (3 or more Galletian Veteran units from your army remaining), which is considered by many easy to deny.
And, understandably, no one went for Tame the Land (control all the objectives on the battlefield wholly outside your territory).
Triumphs
Players that have lists with 1,990 points or less are more likely to be able to use their triumph
Battalions
Most players chose to go with either 1 or 2 battalions.
The majority of players seemed to include a Battle Regiment, with perhaps half the lists having Bounty Hunters. Command Entourage and Warlord also see a fair amount of use to benefit from those additional enhancements.
Drops
The average amount of drops for an army at LVO is 5.5. If you’re attending and you have less than this, you’re more likely to have the choice of priority in turn 1.
Player Rankings
Here we go, earlier in the week we published our top 8 choices based on the win rates and then a best of the rest. But, here is our full run down of everyone’s stats that is attending, and has previously attended at least one GT (that we’re aware of), sorted by their win rates,
Las Vegas Open – Player Odds
There has been a total of 319 players registered to take part in the Las Vegas Open. From those 319 players, 235 have already taken part in at least one GT at some point under this General’s Handbook. But who do you think will win?
We’re going to try and help you answer that question by giving you some key stats on the top players and then what we believe their odds are of walking away with the crown.
The Favourites
These eight players are my choices to reach the knockout stage of the tournament. All of the following players have competed in at least four events under the Season Handbook.
Best of the Rest
PLAYER | WIN RATE | MONEYLINE | UK | EUROPEAN |
---|---|---|---|---|
Owen Jackson | 78.75% | +105 | 21/20 | 2.05 |
Dan Arnold | 78.00% | +110 | 11/10 | 2.10 |
Joe Krier | 78.00% | +110 | 11/10 | 2.10 |
Michael Vagenos | 78.00% | +110 | 11/10 | 2.10 |
Barton Kennelly | 76.00% | +125 | 5/4 | 2.25 |
Jiwan Noah Singh | 75.68% | +137.5 | 11/8 | 2.38 |
Christopher Schelling | 75.00% | +140 | 7/5 | 2.40 |
Ridge Hanna | 74.29% | +150 | 6/4 | 2.50 |
Carl Ong | 73.86% | +160 | 8/5 | 2.60 |
Thomas Guan | 73.61% | +160 | 8/5 | 2.60 |
Daytond Obre | 72.50% | +175 | 7/4 | 2.75 |
Aaron Newbom | 72.00% | +180 | 9/5 | 2.80 |
Oliver Dempsey | 71.43% | +187.5 | 15/8 | 2.88 |
Joshua Bennett | 70.83% | +200 | 2/1 | 3.00 |
Alexander Gonzalez | 70.00% | +220 | 11/5 | 3.20 |
John Lindsey | 70.00% | +220 | 11/5 | 3.20 |
Roberto Campos-McDonald | 70.00% | +220 | 11/5 | 3.20 |
Robbie Steinbring | 68.00% | +240 | 12/5 | 3.20 |
Gregory Brewer | 66.67% | +250 | 5/2 | 3.50 |
Jordan Duncan | 66.67% | +250 | 5/2 | 3.50 |
AoS Meta Stats W/Ending 15th January 2023
Faction Win Rates
We’ve probably only got a couple more weeks of stats to do for this Handbook before the next one gets released and the tournament scene starts in earnest once more.
The second part of this season has been sorter than the first, with a few of the factions still not meeting our requisite 20 players to have their stats published. Although like I said earlier, there’s still a couple more weeks….
Those factions that have not yet had 20 players:
- Legion of the First Prince (5 Players)
- Bonesplitterz (9 Players)
- Big Waaagh! (12 Players)
- Hedonites of Slaanesh (16 Players)
- NEW Slaves to Darkness (5 Players)
Win Rates
Beasts of Chaos have dropped slightly again with win rate from 62.07% down to 60.94%. This means the margin between the top and bottom factions has decreased to 24.80% (60.94% – 36.14%).
So when comparing this gap to the first half of the season:
General’s Handbook Season 1: Differential 23.41% (BoC 60.82% – GG 37.41%)
Galetian Reinforcements: Differential 24.80% (BoC 60.94% – GG 36.14%)
Either way you look at this, it has definitely been Beasts of Chaos‘ Handbook!
Player Results by Wins
This graph has at least two purposes. Firstly it shows the faction popularity by the number of players and secondly it breaks down those players results in terms of the number of wins they achieve.
As always the entry army Stormcast Eternals, proves to be the most popular faction, leading Sylvaneth and a newly revitalised Ogor Mawtribes.
Players Achieving 5-0 Wins
Although Beasts of Chaos have the highest win rate, this has not translated into the number of 5-0 results. Ogor Mawtribes, Stormcast Eternals and Disciples of Tzeentch are joint top here, with 5 a piece.
Win Chance
This shows the chance each faction has of achieving 5-0. This is calculated using the number of players that go 5-0 against the full number of players using that faction.
Like above, this show the chance of getting 4 or more wins (including 5-0).
And finally the chance of going 3+ wins (including 5-0 and 4+).
Our Database
This is our most copy of our database.
AOS Hall of Fame
Below is a list of all the players who first achieved a 5-0 with a faction (At a Singles Event). The list is completed in date order (earliest first).
Player Rankings (W/Ending 15th January 2023)
These are the player rankings calculated by us at Woehammer using the method described previously. We think this method levels the playing field between those playing factions with a high win-rate and those playing with a low win-rate. Almost like a handicap system in Golf or similar sports.
Calculation Summary
Points are awarded to each player for a win or a draw. Points are calculated for each faction. To calculate a factions win score is a fairly simple process:
Take their current win rate as shown in our weekly AoS Meta article and times this by 5:
e.g. Lumineth Realm-Lords: 51.02% x 5 = 2.6
This is the expected number of wins that faction should achieve in a 5 game GT. Next divide 100 by this value to give a score for each win.
e.g. Lumineth Realm-Lords 100/2.6 = 39.2 per win.
When a player has finished their tournament multiply their result (draws are counted as 0.5) by the score.
e.g. a Lumineth player achieves 2 wins and a draw; 2.5 x 39.2 = 98 points
Current Rankings
The best four results as a total make up a player’s score.
NORTH AMERICA
UK & IRELAND
EUROPE
OCEANIA
SCANDINAVIA
ASIA
WORLD WIDE
AoS Meta Stats W/Ending 8th January 2023
Faction Win Rates
We’ve probably only got a couple more weeks of stats to do for this Handbook before the next one gets released and the tournament scene starts in earnest once more.
The second part of this season has been sorter than the first, with a few of the factions still not meeting our requisite 20 players to have their stats published. Although like I said earlier, there’s still a couple more weeks….
Those factions that have not yet had 20 players:
- Legion of the First Prince (5 Players)
- Bonesplitterz (7 Players)
- Big Waaagh! (10 Players)
- Hedonites of Slaanesh (15 Players)
- Ossiarch Bonereapers (18 Players)
Win Rates
There’s been a few big results for Beasts of Chaos players this week, this has seen their win rate increase from 59.26% up to 62.07%. This means the margin between the top and bottom factions has grown to 26.57% (62.07% – 35.50%).
As a result this has shown that perhaps the external balance hasn’t been as great in the second half of the season as the first:
General’s Handbook Season 1: Differential 23.41% (BoC 60.82% – GG 37.41%)
Galetian Reinforcements: Differential 26.57% (BoC 62.07% – GG 35.50%)
Either way you look at this, it has definitely been Beasts of Chaos‘ Handbook!
Player Results by Wins
This graph has at least two purposes. Firstly it shows the faction popularity by the number of players and secondly it breaks down those players results in terms of the number of wins they achieve.
As always the entry army Stormcast Eternals, proves to be the most popular faction, leading Sylvaneth and a newly revitalised Ogor Mawtribes.
Players Achieving 5-0 Wins
Although Beasts of Chaos have the highest win rate, this has not translated into the number of 5-0 results. Ogor Mawtribes and Disciples of Tzeentch are joint top here, with 5 a piece.
Win Chance
This shows the chance each faction has of achieving 5-0. This is calculated using the number of players that go 5-0 against the full number of players using that faction.
Like above, this show the chance of getting 4 or more wins (including 5-0).
And finally the chance of going 3+ wins (including 5-0 and 4+).
AOS Hall of Fame
Below is a list of all the players who first achieved a 5-0 with a faction (At a Singles Event). The list is completed in date order (earliest first).
Player Rankings (W/Ending 8th January 2023)
These are the player rankings calculated by us at Woehammer using the method described previously. We think this method levels the playing field between those playing factions with a high win-rate and those playing with a low win-rate. Almost like a handicap system in Golf or similar sports.
Calculation Summary
Points are awarded to each player for a win or a draw. Points are calculated for each faction. To calculate a factions win score is a fairly simple process:
Take their current win rate as shown in our weekly AoS Meta article and times this by 5:
e.g. Lumineth Realm-Lords: 51.02% x 5 = 2.6
This is the expected number of wins that faction should achieve in a 5 game GT. Next divide 100 by this value to give a score for each win.
e.g. Lumineth Realm-Lords 100/2.6 = 39.2 per win.
When a player has finished their tournament multiply their result (draws are counted as 0.5) by the score.
e.g. a Lumineth player achieves 2 wins and a draw; 2.5 x 39.2 = 98 points
Current Rankings
The best four results as a total make up a player’s score.
NORTH AMERICA
UK & IRELAND
EUROPE
OCEANIA
SCANDINAVIA
WORLD WIDE
My Database
Below is the file for all of the data we hold at Woehammer in regard to GT’s. This has everything from tournament results to player ranking calculations.
Vanguard: Slaves to Darkness – Beginners 1,000 Point Army
Following on from Danny and Phil’s excellent chat about the new Slaves to Darkness Battletome, we thought it would be great to give you an option for a beginners army based on the new Vanguard: Slaves to Darkness.
Vanguard: Slaves to Darkness
This new boxed set priced at £85 through Games Workshop comes with 17 models in total to give you an (almost) complete beginners army. I say almost, the total points in this set amounts to 680 points.
Included in the box you have:
- 1x Chaos Lord (115 points)
- 10x Chaos Warriors (220 points)
- 5x Chaos Knights (230 points)
- 1x Gorebeast Chariot (115 points)
But we want a full 1,000 point army that we can start playing with, so to add to the above I’d possibly look at buying a Chaos Sorcerer Lord, a Darkoath Warqueen and a set of Darkoath Savagers.
What will it all cost?
- Battletome: Slaves to Darkness £32.50
- Vanguard: Slaves to Darkness £85
- Darkoath Warqueen £21
- Darkoath Savagers £35
That’s total of £173.50 at Games Workshop prices for everything you need to play at 1,000 points with Slaves to Darkness.
You can of course get these cheaper through your local retailers. Element Games in the UK offer between 15-25% off on these prices. Why not use our affiliate link below to start your army today?
The List
Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness
– Subfaction: Host of the Everchosen
LEADERS
Chaos Lord (115)
– General
– Mark of Nurgle
– Reaperblade and Daemonbound Steel
– Command Trait: Death Dealer
– Artefact: Hellfire Sword (Reaperblade)
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)
– Mark of Nurgle
– Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed
Darkoath Warqueen (100)
BATTLELINE
10x Chaos Warriors (220)
– Mark of Nurgle
– Murderous Weapons
– Retinue
5x Chaos Knights (230)
– Mark of Nurgle
– Cursed Flail
– Ensorcelled Banner: The Eroding Icon
10x Darkoath Savagers (100)
OTHER
1x Gorebeast Chariot (115)
– Mark of Khorne
– Lashing Whip & Chaos War-Flail
TOTAL POINTS: 1000/1000
This army is tough! and it has fast elements which can also pin units in place while you bring your Chaos Warriors and Darkoath Savagers to bear. We’ve gone for Host of the Everchosen as our subfaction, this will allow us to bring back slain models on 5+ instead of 6+ with our rally ability. This only applies to the Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights, but these two units with the Mark of Nurgle are already going to be blighters to shift anyway, this will just make it even harder for our oppposition!
How it could play
Chaos Lord
Our general for this particular list. He’s tough and hits like a hammer. Giving him the Mark of Nurgle means the enemy have to subtract 1 from their wound rolls that target him when using melee weapons. It also gives him the ability to use the Command Ability: Bestow Contagion. This will allow our other Nurgle Marked units (Chaos Warriors and Knights) a chance to cause D3 mortal wounds to enemy units within 3″ on a 3+.
We’ve got Death Dealer as our Command Trait, and this will allow our General to fight for a second time in the fight phase once per battle. Admittedly it’s with the Strike-last effect, but even so, well worth having.
With Chaos Lords you’re also allowed to choose a retinue which you can pass wounds off to on a 3+ (the reasons for this shown in the Chaos Warriors section), for this I’ve chosen the Chaos Warriors, as really he should be sticking to them like glue throughout the game. The other benefit from being retinue is they can fight immediately after our Chaos Lord if they haven’t fought yet. Essentially giving you two fight activations for the price of one!
As an artefact, I’ve gone for Hellfire Sword, which will allow our Reaperblade to cause two mortal wounds for each hit roll of 6.
Giving him the Reaperblade and Daemonbound Steel does mean that the damage output is slightly better than that of the Daemonbound Flail when you also take into account the mortal wounds caused by Hellfire Sword:
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Reaperblade | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Daemonbound Steel | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
TOTAL | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Daemonbound War-Flail | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Chaos Sorcerer Lord
This lovely fellow is a good buff to your forces. He’s a single cast and single unbind wizard which isn’t anything to write home about, but what he does provide is his spell Daemonic Power. With a casting value of 6 and a range of 18″ it should be fairly easy to cast each turn, and when you do you’ll be able to give ANY of your other units in this list +1 to hit and +1 to wound for their melee attacks. That’s nothing to be sniffed at!
As well as this he can give a 6+ ward to one of your other units in this list until the next hero phase. Hopefully you’re starting to see the tankiness of those Chaos Warriors now with their Mark of Nurgle (-1 to wound them) and a 5+ Ward Save against mortals and 6+ Ward against everything else.
Darkoath Warqueen
I absolutely love this model, which is mainly why I’ve chosen it (never discount rule of cool!). Like the Chaos Lord, this unit can allow the Darkoath Savagers to fight immediately after herself (as long as they haven’t already fought), another twofer!
She has an ability where if issuing the inspiring presence command while inside the enemy territory she can give it up to 2 Darkoath or Cultist units. We only have one for this list, but perhaps consider buying one of those awesome Warcry warbands when you look to expand to 2k?
Chaos Warriors
The first of our three battleline units. Keep these near your Chaos Lord so that they can benefit from the Retinue rule and fight immediately after the Chaos Lord in the fight phase.
With a 3+ save, a 5+ ward against mortals and a 6+ ward against everything else using the Chaos Sorcerer Lords Oracular Visions, AND the ability to have slain models return from the rally command on 5+, this unit is going to take A LOT of punishment before it goes away! In fact they would need an average of 72 damage from zero rend weapons to be allocated to them before saves, for the enemy to have a chance of destroying them.
By getting the Chaos Sorcerer Lord to cast Daemonic Power on them as well you’ll soon see their average damage output after saves is not to be ignored:
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Murderous Weapons | 14 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 7 | 5 |
Murderous Weapons (Enemy Territory)* | 21 | 21 | 18 | 14 | 11 | 7 |
Darkoath Savagers
Another unit I absolutely love. These guys have an added benefit of causing mortal wounds on hit rolls of 6 when in combat. This is the perfect unit to try and take objectives with, because if you manage to claim one previously held by the enemy then this unit will get a 5+ ward save until the end of the game. They won’t stand up to much punishment though, so if you’re going to commit them make sure you can win!
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Darkoath Weapons | 8 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
Chaos Knights
Another tanky unit. They also benefit from the 5+ ward save against mortal wounds. We’re also giving them Mark of Nurgle (who is Mark anyway?) so the enemy is at -1 on their to wound rolls.
These guys are quick as well, we’ve given our Chaos Sorcerer Lord the spell Daemonic Speed. This will allow to roll 3D6 for their charge rolls when within 18″.
We’ve also chosen to give these chaps The Eroding Icon Ensorcelled Banner, this will worsen the rend of melee weapons used against them by 1, making them even harder to kill!
You’ll want these guys quickly claiming objectives and tying up units you want to hold in place ready for your Chaos Warriors to pummel.
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cursed Land (Charging) | 8 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 4 |
Cursed Lane* | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Cursed Flail* | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Trampling Hooves* | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
TOTAL* | 10 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
Gorebeast Chariot
Another flanker unit for our army. We’ve given this the Mark of Khorne which allows us to add 1 to the attacks of its melee weapons when it charges.
Don’t forget that at the end of the combat phase it can make a normal move even if still within 3″ of the enemy. If it does so, it can cross across models with wound characteristics of 4 or less as though it can fly. If you do so, pick a unit that this model passed over and roll a dice, on 3+ that enemy suffers D6 mortal wounds! You’ll probably do an average of 3 or 4 mortal wounds… And it only costs 115 points! Bargain!
Weapon | – Save | 6+ Save | 5+ Save | 4+ Save | 3+ Save | 2+ Save |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lashing Whip | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Chaos War-Flail | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Crushing Fists | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
TOTAL | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Where to go next?
Everything in this book looks cool and you certainly couldn’t go wrong by possibly buying a second Vanguard box! If not, have a look at the Varanguard and Chosen, both heavy hitting units if that’s what you like. There’s also a certain bloke named Archaon…
How to Play: Black Powder 2nd Edition (Part 1: Introduction)
An Introduction to Black Powder
Black Powder is a game system produced by Warlord Games and written by Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson. As the introduction to the rules says:
Black Powder is a game for militarily inclined gentlemen with straight backs, bristling beards and rheumy eyes that have seen a thing or two. If tales of battle and glory in days-gone-by stir nothing in your breast, if the roar of cannon does not quicken the pulse and set a fire in the belly, then stop reading forthwith. Ours is not an adventure to be embarked upon by the faint hearted. Put down this book and be glad that you have spared yourself the discomforting spectacle of grown men attempting to relive the great conflicts of history with armies of toy soldiers.
Black Powder 2nd Edition (2019)
So heft your muskets and prepare for battle. The library or billiard room will serve as our battlefield, or else some similarly spacious and secluded refuge. Ensure that children are put to bed and lie safely beyond earshot. Secure the doors against the intrusion of womenfolk as yet unfamiliar with the conventions of war. Ready your armies for the long march to glory.
And finally, let us remember that the ideal accompaniment to the journey may be found in good brandy, fine cigars, and the companionship of like-minded enthusiasts.
Black Powder covers the Horse and Musket period from 1701 (War of the Spanish Succession) to 1898 (Second Sudan War). Most commonly you’ll find players use the system to refight engagements from the Napoleonic Wars or the American Civil War.
I personally believe that Horse & Musket games come in one of two formats. Either simulation, where the rules will try and accurately represent a battle of that period in minutiae. Or in a more ‘Arcade’ format, where an approximation of the overall battle is given.
The game itself can be played at most miniature scales, with the smaller scales adding to the big battle feel of the game you’re playing.
Black Powder doesn’t have miniature removal and instead uses markers to show the status of units. Units are usually made up of 4 stands and these will be arranged to shoe what formation a unit is in. Units are usually at a battalion/squadron level, but you can use Units to represent larger formations such as Brigades.
So if this time period interests you and you have a specific war in mind, Black Powder may be the system for you.
To give you more of a taster, we’ve put together a number of articles covering the basics of a turn in Black Powder which, should give you a feel of how the game plays.
News – Final Weekend of 4 for 3 at Warlord Games
Warlord Games have entered the final weekend of their 4 boxes for the price of 3.
This covers many of their game systems, such as Bolt Action, Konflict 47′, Black Powder, Epic Battles, Hail Caesar and a lot more.
If you’re looking to get into and of these gaming system then this is definitely one way to do it that would save you a lot of money!