Our latest Age of Sigmar stats paint a clear picture that the Daughters of Khaine are the strongest faction in the meta right now.
The numbers are brutal, a 62% win rate with 68% of their players achieving positive results at GTs. 45% of their players are getting 4-1 or better. On top of this they have the second strongest undefeated conversion rates in the game after Hedonites of Slaanesh.
But we’re going to dig a little deeper into the data to see what else we can spot.
Surface-Level Numbers
As of 3rd May 2026, Daughters sit at:
232 GT games played
62% overall win rate
Average player elo: 487.4
That places the at the top of the pile. However when we compare their raw win rate to their Elo-adjusted performance we start to get an idea of the driving force behind the results.
Despite having a 62% win rate, their Elo-adjusted win rate falls to 51%, a massive drop.
This suggests that the faction is being played by strong tournament players and a lot of the success we’re seeing is being driven by these players.
But that doesn’t explain everything, because even after accounting for player skill, the faction still converts extremely well into strong finishes.
The Player Base
Daughters of Khaine, currently have the strongest player pool in Age of Sigmar, with 41% of its player sitting above 500 Elo and only 5% of its players being first-time GT attendees.
That’s an unusually mature player base, especially compared to factions like Skaven (35% first-time attendees), Sons of Behemat (30%) and Seraphon (29%).
Skill Gradient
Skill Band
Win Rate
200-400 Elo
49%
500-700 Elo
73%
49% for 200-400 Elo seems average, however, this is the highest win rate of all the factions at that skill bracket. This heavily suggests that the Battletome is overtuned. We would expect an average win rate in this band to fall between 35-40%, yet Daughters are posting much higher.
What Are Players Taking?
Battle Formations
Formation
Average Elo
Win Rate
Elo Revised Win Rate
Coven of Blood (124 Games)
436.1
61%
58%
Coven Zealots* (5 Games)
593.0
80%
46%
Fervent Ritualists (68 Games)
569.8
68%
43%
Frenzied Devotees* (5 Games)
359.0
60%
68%
Coven Zealots and Frenzied Devotees do not have enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions
We can see from the above table that majority of elite players are picking Fervent Ritualists as their battle formation rather than Coven of Blood
Most Common Warscrolls
Warscroll
Win Rate
Lists Used
Games Played
Occurences Per List
Blood Sisters
63.6%
77.5%
176
1.84
Morathi-Khaine
59.4%
65.6%
149
1.00
The Shadow Queen
59.4%
65.6%
149
1.00
Khinerai Lifetakers
66.2%
48.9%
111
1.25
Khainite Shadowstalkers
61.9%
46.3%
105
1.05
Blood Hags
67.0%
45.4%
103
1.15
Khinerai Heartrenders
58.5%
44.1%
87
1.00
Shrine of Dark Tribute
64.4%
38.3%
87
1.00
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood
64.7%
38.3%
85
1.00
Slaughter Queen
68.4%
34.8%
79
1.00
Best Performing Warscrolls
Warscroll
Win Rate
Lists Used
Games Played
Occurences Per List
Krethusa the Croneseer
77.3%
14.5%
33
1.00
Hag Queen on Cauldron of Blood
74.3%
15.4%
35
1.00
Slaughter Queen
68.4%
34.8%
79
1.00
Blood Hags
67.0%
45.4%
103
1.15
Khinerai Lifetakers
66.2%
48.9%
111
1.25
Sisters of Slaughter
65.6%
33.9%
77
1.14
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood
64.7%
37.4%
85
1.00
Shrine of Dark Tribute
64.4%
38.3%
87
1.00
Blood Stalkers
63.8%
30.4%
69
1.23
Blood Sisters
63.6%
77.5%
176
1.84
Battleplans: A Potential Weakness
Daughters of Khaine perform really well on:
Creeping Corruption (90.9% Win Rate)
Passing Seasons (86.4% Win Rate)
Noxious Nexus (72.7%
But they appear to struggle on:
Surge of Slaughter (45%)
The Liferoots (12.5%)
If a TO wanted to try and counter the affects of strong Daughters performances, we would suggest using Surge of Slaughter and The Liferoots in place of Creeping Corruption and Passing Seasons.
A couple of weeks ago our friend Daniel Patterson managed to finish 1st at the Tax Man Cometh III event in the US.
Daniel was kind enough to give us his thoughts on his list and run through his tournament.
Before we jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I want to invite 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.
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Slaves to Darkness Godswrath Warband General’s Handbook 2025-26 Drops: 2 Spell Lore – Lore of the Damned Manifestation Lore – Forbidden Power (20 Points) Battle Tactic Cards: Intercept and Recover, Restless Energy
General’s Regiment Be’lakor, the Dark Master (450) • General Chaos Chosen (540) • Reinforced • The Dread Banner Chaos Lord (120) • Head of the Unworthy • Radiance of Dark Glory – (20) Points Varanguard (310)
Regiment 1 Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount (140) Chaos Knights (250) Darkoath Fellriders (140) • 1x Marauder Javelin
Faction Terrain Nexus Chaotica
Daniel: This is my iteration on the beloved Belakor 1-Drop with reinforced Chosen and reinforced Varanguard. By splitting the Varanguard and adding Chaos Knights and a Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount (CLODM), I get more bodies for spread maps and a trading piece that can convert my Chaos Lord (CL) on foot into a Daemon Prince (DP) via Head of the Unworthy for better grinding. The core gameplan stays familiar—castle mid, apply pressure asymmetrically with Fellriders on the weak side and Knights/CLODM on the strong side—though I still have the classic “yeet” threat with Chosen via Bridge + 3D6 charge + Khorne mark.
Round 1: Seraphon, Kroak Castle on Noxius Nexus Generally a good map for STD, but rough against Serephon here because he can play on two objectives and remain in his territory for the (-1 Rend) buff. I Khorne marked the Chosen and full sent, as one often does, and tried to line up good opportunities to pull stuff in and get value out of Chosen strike last. My opponent was smart though and pulled to deny some of my activations and I didn’t get too much out of my fight twices. 4 total Varanguard fights got into Kroak but didn’t do enough to kill him. The big thing here was that I was able to Dark Master one of his reinforced Saurus Guard units and roll the (3+) to stop him from moving and limit his Top of 2 clap back by simply body blocking. He also couldn’t retreat Kroak out because he only moves 5in in his Frieza Chari, lol. This was my closest game because I was grinding against Kroak’s spell and mass of bodies in the center but he never could overcome my big lead from pinning him in.
Round 2: Helsmiths of Hashut, Subfaction Stuff Powers up Faster Here I hid in obscuring from all the scary shooting, as one does, and waited for my opportunity to go in. I got off 3d6 charge on the Chosen but failed bridge and had to Tzeentch mark them to get them in position. I rolled a big enough charge on them to sneak in past the screens and engage a Dominator Engine, the side of the reinforced Infernal Cohort, and tag one of the Rocket Batteries. On the other flank my CLODM was able to get into another Dominator Engine with Knight support and almost kill it. The CLOD tagged the other Rocket Battery with his pile-in and survived with AOD to keep it pinned. I proceeded to get my only impactful double of the tournament and push everything in for the big win.
Round 3: Gloomspite Gitz, Troggherd, lot’s of fking Troggs This is a really hard match for Slaves as they can bring the Troggs back as 3 and still be very effective. Bringing bodies back in general is big trouble for us. He was also 2-drops so prio roll actually mattered. I won prio, deployed first, and gave turn, but I deployed my stuff too close together and rolled a 1 in redeploy on my Chosen so he was able to use the Soggy Sporesplattas to pin everything I had with their end of turn 2D6 move and limit my options. The only thing I was really able to do was move my Varanguard over behind Belakor and the Chosen to support them. He got prio and pushed his Troggs in. Between Fangs of the Badmoon and the Troggs first activation, (5/10) Chosen died before they could activate. I did however, get to countercharge my Varanguard in. I used both fight twices here, but only killed (2/6) in one reinforced Trogg squad. I eventually fought out of the pin, utilizing the large area terrain pieces to get cover and Belakor’s (-1 Hit) spell to force him to have (5+) to hit. I was able to grind with his Troggs and eventually kill his Trogg heroes. All of which hit very hard and can’t come back. The Fellriders Javelins had a big moment where their shooting attack finished off the returned 3 man unit of Snarlfang Riders to take a side objective back.
Round 4: Lumineth Real-lords, One of the current big bads, can have four activations before you get one on their turn with their sub-faction and Lyrior the Strike-first hero He sets up (-2) to charge, gets the (5+) ward bubble up, puts can’t be crit on The Light, and obscures the two reinforced units of Dawnriders. I get 3D6 charge off, Khorne Mark my Chosen, and set up outside of 12 with them for a 3D6 charge into one unit of Dawnriders. He has a cheeky redeploy to put his (-2) to charge Wardens in range of my Chosen to make their charge a 14 into them and tag the Dawnriders or a 15 to just go into the Dawnriders like I want to. I fail the charge but then re-roll into a fking 17 and get in there! He uses the teleport combat ability to bring The Light over with the can’t be crit buff to help the poor Dawnriders. I activate the Chosen but can only get 5 Khorne marked Chosen into The Light and deal (3/7) dmg to him and kill 5 Dawns. The Light claps back and only lifts three Chosen through AoD, while the remaining Dawnriders kill another. My remaining 6 Chosen fighting a second time are able to just barley lift The Light and we are cooking from there.
Round 5: Index Daughters of Khaine, Coven Zealots, lot’s of fking Witch Aelves that can be buffed to the moon He goes first and keeps everything back building up prayer points. I consider yeeting Chosen but he unbinds 3D6 Charge so I Khorne Mark Knights and send them in on a flank with the CLODM. I kill (16/20) witches and half of his teleporting Shadowstalkers but he pulls me out of combat so the Knights can’t Power-Through back to be supported by the rest of my army. Top of 2 he overextends a unit of Witch Aelves to clean up my Knights and basically just kills them with shooting. Bot of 2 I am able to get my Chosen, CL, Belakor, and Varaguard into the three central Witch Aelves units. He counter-prays for the (-1 Wound) bubble prayer, instead of Krethusa’s no crit/no command prayer for just one unit, and I am cooking. My CL tandem fight gives (+1 Wound) to my Chosen for both activations and negates this. After all my fights and both activations all 60 Witch Aelves are dead. I am even able to use my Varanguard’s second activation to get them back to obscrring. He wins prio into Top of 3 to try and clap back. He buffs his melee cauldron to the moon, I am able to redeploy my Chosen into obscuring so they can’t be shot, and I Dark Master his buffed melee cauldron. I fail the (3+) to stop if from move, shooting, and charging, but finally get it to stop it from fighting (we roll it off to the side and it would have killed 5 Chosen through AOD, lol). I weather his clap back and push into finish the rest of his stuff, barring some objective grabbers, bot of 3 and that is that!
While the list is mostly unchanged from previous iterations, in this infantry centric ogors army there’s one main difference, which is hard focusing on two kill tactics instead of including Restless Energy. The pack for this tournament gradually progressed from dense maps to spread maps, in which Restless Energy is difficult to score steps 2 and 3 (particularly on Creeping Corruption). Being forced to play a certain way just to score this tactic makes those battleplans more difficult. Instead, with only kill tactics, I was able to focus purely on combining primary objective scoring and positioning against my opponent. While it resulted in me only scoring two tactics in my harder matches, it still gave me the freedom to position for counterpunch as opposed to forcing me to position for tactics. In addition, it usually meant that I was able to be the underdog and have 5 CP for more counterplay in my opponent’s turn. This is very ideal for redeploying + burgerlusting closer to an opponent that’s choosing to be very far away. All in all, having more freedom to respond to your opponent’s plays is quite nice!
This last weekend Fabien Barbusse took Cities to first place at the Cherokee Open. This is the first time this battlescroll that we’ve seen a Cities list place in the top three of any event.
We asked Fabien how the list worked.
Cities of Sigmar Fearless Exemplars General’s Handbook 2025-26 Drops: 5 Spell Lore – Spells of the Collegiate Arcane Prayer Lore – Scriptures of Sigmar Manifestation Lore – Forbidden Power (20) Battle Tactic Cards: Intercept and Recover, Master the Paths
General’s Regiment Fusil-Major on Ogor Warhulk (150) • General • Brazier of Holy Flame (20) • Cosmopolitan Leader (20) Freeguild Cavaliers (300) • Reinforced Freeguild Command Corps (180) Freeguild Command Corps (180) Ironweld Great Cannon (110)
Regiment 1 Freeguild Marshal and Relic Envoy (100) • Heirloom Warhammer Freeguild Command Corps (180) Freeguild Command Corps (180)
Regiments of Renown Sky-Port Profiteers (350) Codewright Grundstok Thunderers • 2x Grundstok Mortar or Aethercannon Grundstok Thunderers • 2x Grundstok Mortar or Aethercannon
Fabien: Cities right now is not in a great place: the most powerful/effective build (SoG Cavaliers with Zenestra and Cannons) is subpar compared to other armies, and is frankly quite boring to play. That’s why I went with my list (and also because new Tzeentch was not out in time for Cherokee).
This list is fun to play, with a ton of tools but it has 2 mains weaknesses: lack of damage (especially against good armor) and high randomness (hello Command Corps). And the downside of having a ton of tools is that the decision tree is massive, so it’s easier to miss the optimal play, in which case the army will really struggle.
The list plays as a castle formed by the 4 units of Command Corps as screens, around the Fusil-Major, with the remaining heroes and cavaliers safe in the back. The goal is to win on primaries and eventually score enough tactics to win the game, but it’s usually small wins. The KO RoR brings the tools for the list to work: turning off wards (4 of my 5 games were against armies with army wide 5+ ward) and teleporting Command Corps then moving 3″ with the Advance in Formation order (it doesn’t have the MOVE keyword so it works after setup). Finally the Cavaliers are the only source of consistent damage in the list so they need to be protected until they can go into a valuable target.
