This is the top three lists for the Nova Open that took place in the US on the 29th of August to the 1st of September 2025. It saw 62 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.
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The Top Three Old World Lists
310 – Lord Magistrate, Dragon Fire Bombs, General, Sky Lantern, Iron Hail Guns and Dragon Fire Bombs, Sky Lantern Bombs, Alchemist’s Mask, Talisman Of Protection
150 – Shugengan General, Light Armour, Wizard Level 1, Lore of Yin, High Magic, Burning Blade 374 – Shugengan Lord, Heavy Armour, Wizard Level 4, Lore of Yin, Illusion, The Monkey King’s Wisdom, Learned Feng Shi Bo
165 – 2 Cathayan Grand Cannon • 1x Ogre Loader 165 – 2 Cathayan Grand Cannon • 1x Ogre Loader 165 – 2 Cathayan Grand Cannon • 1x Ogre Loader
170 – Sky Lantern, Iron Hail Guns and Dragon Fire Bombs, Sky Lantern Bombs
In the first big Old World GT, Cathay comes out with a great showing. People had been worried about how strong Cathay would be and they proved their dominance at the NOVA Open going 1 and 2.
The winning list only took a mere 2 lanterns but loaded up on 3 cannons and 2 Shugengan heroes. The level 4 goes all in on a melee build with illusion and The Monkey King’s Wisdom. 2d6 strength 10 attacks with d3 wounds can really put a hurt on something while Learned Feng Shi Bo greatly increases the chances of still getting Doppelganger while not relying on Lore Familiar.
290 – Lord Magistrate, Gunpowder Bombs, General, Sky Lantern, Iron Hail Guns and Dragon Fire Bombs, Sky Lantern Bombs, Armour of Meteoric Iron, Talisman Of Protection 344 – Shugengan Lord, Light Armour, Heavy Armour, Wizard Level 3, Lore of Yin, Elementalism, The Monkey King’s Wisdom, Learned Feng Shi Bo
130 – Cathayan Grand Cannon 130 – Cathayan Grand Cannon 130 – Cathayan Grand Cannon 135 – Sky Lantern, Sky Lantern Crane Guns
170 – Sky Lantern, Iron Hail Guns and Dragon Fire Bombs, Sky Lantern Bombs 170 – Sky Lantern, Iron Hail Guns and Dragon Fire Bombs, Sky Lantern Bombs
In second place we have a lantern heavy list running 4 total lanterns. It can be very hard for most armies to handle that many. We also see 3 Grand Cannons without the Ogre Loaders to make room for more lantern, as well as a melee focused Shugengan Lord which seem to be staples in Cathay lists. While this list and the first place list did not have to go head to head, I really would have liked to see who would have won between the two. Either way, expect to see a lot more Cathay in the top 3 with lanterns, 3 Cannons and Shugengan Lords.
420 – High Priest, Necrolith Bone Dragon, Wizard Level 3, Illusion, Serpent Staff, Warding Splint, Lore Familiar 124 – Royal Herald, Battle Standard Bearer, Skeleton Chariot, Great Weapon 452 – Tomb King, Shield, General, Necrolith Bone Dragon, Biting Blade, Armour of the Ages, Talisman Of Protection
In 3rd, we have tomb kings running the double dragon and double sphinx combo. We have seen this list do well in the past and still did well enough to score max points against every opponent except the loss to Cathay so this list still has it. This one runs the very hard to kill tomb king as well as a similar approach we saw with Cathay, in using illusion for spectral doppelganger and a magic weapon for melee punch. They also run a royal herald on chariot which can help to soak up wounds from the Tomb King making it even harder to kill, as well as run with a very fast block of chariots with Icon of Rakaph for free reforms. 5 Stalkers can ambush and keep up with a very fast-moving army with the mandatory skeleton archers being able to sit on an objective and maybe be lucky enough to pick off a wound here and there.
Well, there we have it. The first really large sample size post 1.5 updates and Cathay drop. Will we continue to see Cathay dominate? I will be watching closely to see how the meta shakes up next and only time will tell.
[ppp_patron_only level=1]
Da Vibe-Tribe, Da Red WAAGH, Da List that still loses to Phil Karl’s 2 necrosphinx+2 Bonedragons.
241 – Black Orc Warboss, General, War Boar, Martog’s Best Basha, Trollhide Trousers 30 – Night Goblin Bigboss 30 – Night Goblin Bigboss 95 – Night Goblin Oddgit, Wizard Level 1, Waaagh! Magic, Idol Of Gork 135 – Orc Bigboss, Cavalry Spear, Light Armour, Shield, Battle Standard Bearer, War Boar, Dead ’Ard Armour
186 – Orc Weirdnob, War Boar, Wizard Level 3, Battle Magic, Lore Familiar 147 – 10 Black Orc Mobs • 1x Black Orc, Great Weapon, Standard Bearer • 1x Black Orc, Great Weapon, Boss • 3x Black Orc, Great Weapon • 5x Black Orc, Shield 165 – 30 Night Goblin Mobs • 3x Fanatic • 30x Night Goblin, Shield 165 – 30 Night Goblin Mobs • 3x Fanatic • 30x Night Goblin, Shield 165 – 30 Night Goblin Mobs • 3x Fanatic • 30x Night Goblin, Shield
45 – Goblin Bolt Throwas 45 – Goblin Bolt Throwas 210 – 7 Orc Boar Boy Mobs, Cavalry Spear, Heavy Armour, Shield, Big Un’s, Boss, Standard Bearer, The Big Red Raggedy Flag, Musician 95 – Doom Diver Catapults 95 – Doom Diver Catapults 75 – Goblin Rock Lobbers 75 – Goblin Rock Lobbers
First the huge Errata and Faq drop and now we get the much anticipated Matched Play Guide! The Old World’s answer to the General’s Handbook. Another little quality of life addition we have all been yelling for. All along with the buzz of Cathay on the same day?! It is a good day to be an Old World player. So what do we have here and does it live up to all the hype?
Before we continue, just a gentle reminder that we have an affiliation with Element Games, where you can buy the Old World Matched Play Guide for £14.02 (15% off RRP). It also gives a little kick back to the site too!
Let us start at the very beginning since it is the most important part I believe. One of the very first sentences is “the Old World is a game that thrives upon narrative”. Shots fired! It is true though. Majority of the games I have played and have seen played, are not what we hear complaints about. People aren’t going to casual matches and throwing out 2 dragons, tons of Pegasus Knights, Dragon Ogre spam, etc. The vast majority of players actually do not need this book. It goes on to talk about matched play and tournament play and the joys of a high competitive level and how this book can enhance that. This is not to say this book is solely for tournaments or high level play. The casual player can enjoy this book and it’s scenarios and objectives just as much, but it definitely does a lot to control a lot of the feel bad lists that are out there, or at least tries to.
Let’s skip ahead to the organizing the event section. This part details just about everything you would need to, well, organize an event. From the organizer, to referees, to the players, and everything in between. They even awkwardly note that players “must” use official games workshop and forge world miniatures, but I guess that would really be up to the Tournament Organizer (TO). There is also a section on pairing players and how to pair them in rounds after the first round, as well as the usage of a spare player if there is one.
On to the controversial part of the book. They do add a tournament points table. It calculates how many points each player will score a round from 0 for a crushing defeat to 6 for a crushing victory. These are based on the size of the game and the difference in victory points. You often see tournament points based on a scale from 0-20 because of the range of scores, so this is wildly different than many of the standard methods currently used. It does provide an easy way to do this for those running their first tournament and we will have to see if this new table causes any headaches for TOs running events that a 0-20 point system might alleviate.
Now we come to what people have been homebrewing for a year now. Army composition. They have laid out 3 different universal compositions but aren’t super clear how to use them. The first is Open War which is basically the rule book with no comps at all. This is important to note that we don’t have to comp every game or every tournament with this book being released. We also have Grand Melee which has been commonly used by many already and limits a single unit to only be 25% or less of the total points. Sucks to be Warriors of Chaos players that bought a Lord on Dragon in this world. This also affects units as well, so Death Star units also take a hit here too. Casters are also capped at 1 level 4 per 2000 points and 1 level 3 per 1000 points. The other comp is Combined Arms and this one limits the number of the same unit you can take with max 3 for characters, 4 for core, 3 for special, and 2 for rare. The army rule overrides this, but these keep units with no restrictions from getting spammed. It is obviously up to the TO but I imagine you can use one or even both of these 2 new ones concurrently, but I do like that there is a universal set that people can just reference when a tournament says they are using Open War or Grand Melee and Combined Arms. Hopefully these are enough, and we don’t have to see a lot of other homebrew comps coming up anymore, but time will tell if the rules changes and this book will have fixed the need for heavy comps in tournaments.
They touch on the terrain and battlefield and deploying but we won’t go into that. They do lay out 3 different game length rules. Fixed turn is a 6-round game, random game length is rolling after the 5th round and adding a dice where the game ends when you roll a 10, and break point where the game ends when an army goes below 25% total Unit Strength. This allows for easy mixing and matching of rules to create a tournament pack.
It also goes through common objectives and VP scored. Many of these are the same as the main rulebook. One that was in the errata and now here, is the addition of gaining VP of half of the points for a unit at 25% of its starting wounds. Now keeping that dragon alive with 1 wound doesn’t deny 500 VP anymore. They also add that you get 500 VP for breaking the opponent through the Break Point game length so basically get that extra 500 VP for the stuff that was still alive when the game ended.
Here is the bread and butter of the book. They added 6 scenarios. They are pretty cool, and I will not go through them all. Buy the book or find some leaks but they look quite fun. The main part is that they each recommend certain game lengths, have their own scenario special rules for most of them, and have recommended secondary objectives. This makes it easy for a TO setting up a tournament or even casual players rolling up a scenario, to determine the best ways to play it. Although, we could just as easily pick one not recommended and play that too.
Secondary objectives are the part of the game that will change it the most, and can be picked for any scenario. The first one, baggage train, requires you to defend a baggage train and capture or destroy your opponents for VP. Next, special features are like the main rulebook but have unusual properties that are rules you will roll for at the start of the turn that offer benefits, as well as the VP you get for controlling it. Domination is basically controlling a table quarter with more Unit Strength than your opponent for VP, which was actually a standard way to score VP in every game back in older Warhammer Fantasy Battles editions. Lastly there is Strategic Locations (x). If you’ve played Age of Sigmar or 40k you know these. These are objectives on the table and (X) can range from 2-4 objective markers to control. Now here is the caveat for most of these, outside of domination. To control something, it has to be a core unit and it has to be unit strength 10 or greater. If you want to score secondary objectives, you will have to bring and utilize your core units. Will this be enough to get players to stop referring to a “Core Tax” like it is a bad thing and want to take more core units to score? This is another time will tell kind of thing, but I hope it does add variety to list building and maybe keep people from trying to keep their core units as close to the minimum as possible.
The final way they added VP to be scored is from secret objectives. These hold up to their name since they get a couple paragraphs and are on the last page of the book so they are quite secret. That is unfortunate because I think that these are one of the coolest things that they added. There are 12 different secret objectives that reward VP for completing. When you write your muster list for a tournament you pick 6 of them. When you battle you can choose one to try to complete for that game and you can’t use it again for the event. So, a 5 round GT, you bring 6 and use 5. I absolutely love this rule and will be encouraging its use for any tournament I go to and will even be implementing it in my escalation league.
There are also rules for doubles events and how to run those including army composition and minor rules changes. They also have 3 scenarios to use for a doubles event, and these also use the same secondary objectives as the single player games. There are also rules for team events with how to match using vanguard, battleline, and rearguard assignments for team play. This is actually a really cool system so check it out and spread the word and hopefully teams become popular in The Old World like it is in 40k because I would love to try this!
All said and done, I am not disappointed in this book. The ease of being able to set up a tournament or league where you can just say we are playing scenario 2 at 2000 points, using Grand Melee and Combined Arms, with secondary objectives baggage trains and special features is incredibly convenient and easy to do. I do like this for casual and tournament players alike and recommend picking it up. Will this fix all of The Old World’s problems alongside the Errata? I will be keeping a close eye on the meta to find out but at the bare minimum, it makes it feel like a fresh new game.
Now that we got this book out of the way, though. Let’s give us what we really want. A narrative campaign book!
Finally, we have various other changes not affecting magic or combat. Some of these seem a little weird to me as I don’t think they were as big of a part of the problem as combat and magic were. Let’s see what else they changed.
The biggest change I would say is the change to poisoned attacks. Now, rather than auto wounding, you get +2 to your wound rolls. Poisoned bricks looked stupid and did not really fit into the spirit of the game. They were, however, an effective solution to the problem with dragons. Poison has never been an issue in the 4 previous editions I have played, so this one is confusing to me. Poisoned bricks are not great against anything except large targets, so I think this poison nerf actually is a buff to the Dragon spam that was already out of control.
This leads us to the next change. Shooting at large targets only gives you one extra rank rather than the entire unit shooting at them. Another rule that seems unnecessary to me. They seemed to try to dissuade dragon and monster spam but have toned down magic, shooting at large targets, and nerfed poison. I may be wrong, but with these three changes that were counters to dragons, we may actually see more dragons and monsters than ever before. Hope I am wrong, but if you want to run double dragon lists, you are actually a little safer to do so than you were pre errata. Just make sure to compensate for the changes to combat res when you do charge those dragons in.
Speaking of combat res and dragons, let’s talk about the change to fly. You can no longer use the fly move when following up or pursuing. I really like this one. Making these dragons use ground movement is pretty thematic and does do a little bit to help to control their power, even if just a little bit.
Regeneration got a little bit of a change as well. You now roll a regeneration save after a wound is lost. Things that inflict multiple wounds will now roll before regeneration saves. Let’s say a cannonball hits that tomb king on dragon, and it fails it’s armor save and ward. You now roll how many wounds and then roll that many regeneration saves. This one I do like. It also has another effect on those unstable units, though. You can now get your regen against crumbling to combat res. This seemed like an oversight, but the old faq about getting regen saves to that was removed so it does seem intended.
Vanguard rules added that you can not declare a charge in the first turn. Sorry Pegasus knights, this one was a long time coming.
Impetuous finally got a little more manageable. Rather than a random 50% chance roll, you now test on your leadership. This is a great one and really makes a lot of those impetuous units that were never seen a little more useable.
Frenzy, on the other hand, took a really weird nerf. If someone can tell me what frenzied units were out there causing problems, I would like to know. Was it chosen chaos knights that ruined it for everyone? You now only get the +1 attack during the turn it charged. Frenzy was generally not used very often because good opponents can easily bait out charges or send these units on wild goose chases all over the battlefield. Now I think you really don’t see frenzied units at all anymore. Too bad, I really liked the idea of the brand new minotaur army, but with impetuous and frenzy, the whole army really got the axe (of Khorgor) before it even got off the ground.
Finally, they may have finally settled on the stupidity rule. I really did like moving an infinite amount when failing it, but that argument is dead now. Now, if you fail, you really can’t do anything. No casting, no shooting, no moving, no dispelling. Just stand there and take a charge if you were charged. At least you can still fight, though.
There are many other changes, but I really wanted to highlight the most significant ones. If you have any that you feel had a great effect on your game personally that I did not cover, let me know. Overall, I think the game has changed for the better. Magic doesn’t seem super overpowered, and infantry doesn’t feel like you are being punished for taking them. Will the meta flip upside down now, or will dragons and monsters still rule the sky? I am excited to be following the upcoming meta changes and see. Coming up next, the matched play guide rundown that really may show changes and improvements to the tournament scene.
Welcome to part 2 of the massive Old World Faq and Errata review. This one will cover what we have all been asking for. Changes to combat. Will it be enough? Let’s dive right in.
The biggest one is changes to infantry and heavy infantry with the Press of Battle rule. This allows infantry to have the second rank be a fighting rank. The stipulations with this are you cannot have charged that turn and you have to be in combat order. This is accompanied by another change that models have to be within their movement to be able to fight so no more linehammer. They have also changed supporting attacks with things such as spears to reflect this and support from behind a fighting rank so you can now fight in 3 ranks with spears. Note that the second rank is not in base to base so you still only get 1 attack even if it is considered a fighting rank. This brings up another question for another faq though. Can you now remove slain models from the second rank since it is a fighting rank? While it may not be relevant to many units, if you can take casualties from the second rank, models with 2 or more attacks can kill off their second rank that would be only getting 1 attack to still get their full attacks from the front rank. Whether or not you can this is definitely a great improvement to infantry.
Credit: Warhammer Community/Games Workshop
They also made some improvements to the survivability of infantry and heavy infantry. You can now get the parry rule of old 7th edition. When fighting with a hand weapon and shield, you can no get +1 to your armor save. This does, however, have a cap of max 3+ armor so something like chosen chaos warriors with shield will still only get a 3+. Things with light armor and shield now get a very respectable 4+ armor save now. You can also now change weapons when combat is chosen so you can do things like take spears and shields and use hand weapon and shields on the charge for a better save and switch to spears the next round for 3 ranks of attacks. Conversely, there is a max of 2+ armor save for infantry while chariots, monsters, and war machines can now only max out at a 3+ armor save.
The Errata made other big changes to combat resolution. To start, close order only gives you the bonus if you are unit strength 10 now. No more spamming small close order units for combat res. Another rule of old Warhammer I never knew why they did away with was the outnumber bonus. You can get +1 combat res for outnumbering and I have been asking for this since day 1! Another rule change that has huge implications to combat res is that now mounts in challenges do not get attacks against dead models. When a dragon is in a challenge now, the rider may kill a unit champ if it has higher initiative and only their wounds will count for overkill. The dragon will not get it’s attacks and stomp to rack up a ton of overkill resolution. Impact hits did get a bit of a glow up because they will hit the unit before being drawn into a challenge.
These all seem to be really good changes for the game of Old World and especially infantry in general. Will this change the Meta? It is too early to say. I think we will definitely still see dragons and maybe even 2 in a lot of uber competitive lists, especially with magic getting toned down and a nerf to poison I will discuss in the next part. Both were great counters to monsters, so monsters got a little tougher to deal with now. Infantry at least does not feel like a bad option anymore like it used to and in a casual game it can be significantly more fun to play with. With the Matched Play Guide coming it may also tip the scales of infantry to being a staple in armies rather than a feels bad to take unit.
Here it is. What we have been waiting a year for! The Old World 1.5 we are calling it. We have complained and they have listened. Will this fix all of the issues of The Old World? Let’s break down some of the significant changes. The first part I will cover are the new changes to magic.
Every list started with a level 4 wizard. Even if you weren’t needing it, you definitely did not want your opponent to be throwing out 5 spells with +4 to cast succeeding on nearly every cast. It was mandatory to include one to keep your opponent in check.
Magic has definitely been toned down. The big one is the positives to casting and dispelling. You now only get +1 for level 1’s and 2’s and +2 for level 3’s and 4’s for both casting and dispelling. Now, a level 1’s bonus is only 1 lower than a level 4, so needing to take a level 4 to keep from getting spanked in the magic phase is no longer a necessity.
You can also only cast as many spells as your level, so no more getting to cast 5 spells if you have an item that lets you know more than your level. You still know 5, but you have to pick which one not to cast.
The last major change is dispelling remains in play spells. This one lets you dispel if in range of the wizard but now adds the caveat that you can dispel, specifically vortexes if you are in range of the vortex. I am not sure if this is an oversight or intentional, but it is only for vortexes. You can still have an ethereal hero flying around with steed of shadows, but being in range of them does not let you dispel it. You still have to get in range of that wizard hiding in a corner to dispel that one. It’s weird to target just vortexes, and not all remain in play spells.
While we are on magic let’s skip ahead to the spells. There are several changes to spell casting values, but you can read them so I won’t go through everyone. The biggest and best one, in my opinion, was the change to the Travel Mystical Pathway. You can no longer move insane distances with it by keeping one model in range. Now, the entire unit has to be within 12” of its original location and outside of 6” from enemy models. This one was mostly locally fixed already with house rules, but now it’s official.
Pillar of fire got both buffed and nerfed. It is no longer dangerous terrain and is now difficult terrain. It also moves in a random direction rather than the direction being chosen by the player. However, as compensation, it only damages enemy units rather than all units, friends, and foe.
All of the vortexes lost their dangerous terrain and are now difficult but most remained unchanged otherwise. The only other one that took a hit was Spiritual Vortex. It is now whilst within 8” of one or more so you can no longer stack -1 leadership modifiers with multiple Spiritual Vortexes.
Lastly, we have magic items. They have magic in the title, so we will just cover them here. The biggest one I think was the Ruby Ring of Ruin. This auto include item went up to 35 points and dropped to bound spell Power Level 1 instead of 2. Is it still auto include now? It is still in my lists at the moment, but that is TBD. Also, the Ogre Blade went up to 75 points. Now you have to choose between Ogre Blade or Talisman of Protection. You can no longer have both.
That is it for all things mystical and magical. When I first got the rule book and went through the magic phase, I thought to myself, “This feels really bad” and I am apparently not the only one who thought that. This seems like the gap in magic being too good and auto include is narrowed, and I feel like there is much more diversity in list building. I am not starting every list by adding a level 4 like I did just last week, so that is at least a start to having diversity, which is important for the health of ToW. They seemed to have found a way to make it less overwhelming without completely nerfing the magic phase, which is great news. Although if you ask me, I still really liked having a pool of power dice!
Stay tuned. Next, I will cover what everyone has been waiting for. Changes to combat! Will infantry finally be useful?
This is the top three Old World lists for the Old World Legends Open that took place in the United States on the 1st and 2nd of March. It saw 22 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
Legacy armies were allowed (and encouraged), Allies were not allowed, but mercenaries were, and the rule of 3 was in place.
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.
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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
=== 1st OWL [1995 pts] Warhammer: The Old World, High Elf Realms ===
++ Characters [996 pts] ++
Prince [523 pts] – Hand weapon – Full plate armour – Shield – General – Star Dragon – Talisman of Protection – Dragon Helm – Biting Blade – Opal Amulet – Seed of Rebirth – Pure of Heart
Noble [273 pts] – Hand weapon – Full plate armour – Shield – Battle Standard Bearer – Griffon – Opal Amulet – Seed of Rebirth – Pure of Heart
Sean Langford: Eric’s list went undefeated at a 5 round GT taking the meta High Elf list and tweaking it to put it over the top, and take 1st place. I was able to catch up with him and get a lot of insight on his list.
Rather than the standard double dragon, he opts to run a noble on Griffon with a Battle Standard bearer, which is one of my favorite things about this list. This keeps the Mage out of combat to be able to continue to cast, while a dragon wants to be in combat. The griffon still adds a bit of the fast punch while maintaining the casting value of the Archmage.
He says, “My playstyle is rather different. You have to be comfortable to position your stuff to flee, and flee often as necessary. I even have my dragon flee from charges because with having 18” Battle Standard Bearer reroll on rallies, why take fights you don’t need to take”.
While being a little more fragile than a dragon, it does still have the 5+ regen and the 2+ one-time ward as well.
Another interesting playstyle he adheres to is different than most players that try to get mobility on their mages to worry about dispelling magic.
He says, “I call it handshaking my opponents mage, but all that means is that I don’t normally care about dispelling what my opponent wants to do. He can get all his spells off, and I’ll play around that while I will get mine off. This fits the Archmage well since lileath blessing let’s you reroll a failed cast per turn, meaning high elves are best at consistently getting spells off, not powering spells past opposing dispel like chaos or mort cult. The critical ones are double fireball each turn, pillar of fire, arcane urgency (probably the strongest spell in the game) and courage of aenarion to usually give my dragon unbreakable so I don’t have to care about my opponent’s combat resolution or when he tries to break the dragon with combat resolution. Since it’s remains in play and casts on a 10, my opponent needs to roll an 11 with fated dispell to remove.”
The Prince on the dragon is the typical 2+ armor, 5+ ward, 5+ regen, with a one-time 2+ ward to protect multi wound sources like monster killer or the errant cannon ball. He also uses a biting blade for magical attacks to help with ethereal problems like the Green Knight.
Dipping into the new Arcane Journal, he adds 2 rings of fury on a fast delivery system with the Silver Helms. While he says that mathematically they may not be reliable, there is value in your opponent needing to respect and play around them. He also brings Sisters of Avelorn as magic item carriers with the ruby ring of ruin and Bow of the Seafarer for extra punch as well as a third unit that will accompany the Archmage for protection.
Eric says, “Sisters are good enough that they trade well into almost every opposing shooter. 30″ BS5 bows with smart use of evasive should never lose a shooting battle against anything except 32″ BS5 bows with evasive from wood elves, and the rest of the army is fast enough to catch wood elves. This means my opponent has to voluntarily walk into dragon (and griffon and skycutter) charge ranges to threaten the shooting cause my army doesnt actually have to walk up into my opponents if it is not a dedicated gunline. Using these 3 units can help to weaken key armoured threats for the dragon, griffon, and skycutter. With 10 archers, 15 sisters, 6 bows from skycutters, and 1 fireball from ruby ring, and 1 fireball/pillar of fire from the mage you actually have a lot of shooting that your opponent actually has to respect and approach you to deal with. You do not need to send your dragon and griffon up into the opposing army’s face. A lot of the time, the 2 will hang out in the center of the board next to the shooting sisters and simply just wait.”
Another very interesting variation from the typical meta, is 2 skycutters that actually do not have the bolt thrower. Keeping them cheap saves points for other things and also allows greater mobility by not keeping them from marching to still be able to shoot.
He says, “I think they’re the best traditional heavy chariot. With fly 10, and can declare charges of 19 inches. You can basically always guarantee you get your impact hit charge off. They’re also just cheap enough to be tanky. 90 points for 4 wounds at Toughness 4 and 4+ save is a great value. They’re just tanky enough to go up a flank, help engage and win a combat, get shot at and be at 1-2 wounds, and then march 20” way out of the battle to hide behind terrain to deny points.”
Overall, this is a very tough list to play against that I can see having a very high skill cap and requiring careful play. When in the hands of a skilled pilot like Eric running them, there are not a lot of armies that can handle this movement on these many hammer units. Fast moving with great combo charges with a dragon, BSB on griffon, and skycutters can take down most armies.
=== 2nd OWL [2000 pts] Warhammer: The Old World, Dwarfen Mountain Holds, Royal Clan ===
++ Characters [978 pts] ++
King [339 pts] – Hand weapon – Great weapon – Full plate armour – General – Shieldbearers – Master Rune of Smiting – Master Rune of Gromril – Rune of Preservation – Rune of the Furnace
Runesmith [279 pts] – Hand weapon – Great weapon – Full plate armour – Shield – Battle Standard Bearer [Master Rune of Grungni + Rune of Battle] – 3x Rune of Spellbreaking
Anvil of Doom [360 pts] – Hand weapons – Shields – Heavy armour – Master Rune of Adamant – Rune of Spellbreaking
++ Core Units [507 pts] ++
28 Longbeards [507 pts] – Hand weapons – Great weapons – Heavy armour – Shields – Drilled – Elder (champion) [Rune of Passage + Rune of the Furnace] – Standard bearer [Rune of Battle + Strollaz’ Rune + Rune of Courage]
++ Special Units [160 pts] ++
Grudge Thrower [95 pts] – Stone thrower – Hand weapons – Light armour
Dwarf Cart [65 pts] – Hand weapons – Bugman’s Cart
++ Rare Units [355 pts] ++
18 Irondrakes [355 pts] – Hand weapons – Drakeguns – Full plate armour – Drilled – Ironwarden (champion) [Trollhammer torpedo + Cinderblast bombs] – Standard bearer [Strollaz’ Rune]
— Created with “Old World Builder”
[https://old-world-builder.com]
Peter: This list is designed to take opponents by surprise and move up the field quickly, taking advantage of Strollaz’ Runes on both Units to give them a Vanguard move to get within range for the Irondrakes to start blasting. I suspect the Longbeards and Irondrakes would have both marched forward quickly on turn 1 with the king inside the Longbeards and the Runesmith in the Irondrakes. The Bugman’s Cart would have been placed just behind and between both units to give them a movement of 4″ rather than 3″.
Dwarfs move 4″ with their Vanguard move. They then get to move 12″ forward if they’re in column and marching, and if the Anvil of Doom casts Haste & Urgency, the Dwarfs can then move again. This has them halfway up the table on turn 1. The champion in the Longbeards having the Rune of Passage means they have the move through cover rule as well.
The Grudge Thrower would have smashed away at range while the Anvil of Doom would have continued casting spells like Wrath & Ruin for a magic Missile (27″ 2D6 Strength 4, -2 AP hits) or buffing the Dwarfs with Immune to Psychology or save rerolls.
The two units of Dwarfs will be a tough nut to crack as well. The BSB giving bith units a 6+ ward to shooting attacks and one of the units a 5+ ward against all attacks. It also has the Rune of Courage to automatically pass any Fear and Terror tests. While it’s Rune of Battle will give an additional +1 to any combat res.
The King is designed to stick around as well, he has immune to killing blows and multiple wounds while his Master Rune of Smiting gives his own weapon D6 multiple wounds. He also has a 2+ save from the Master Rune of Gromril and a 3+ Ward against any wounds suffered that were caused by an attack which has the Flaming Attacks special rule.
With a sprinkling of Runes of Spellbreaking. The list is designed to withstand the enemy onslaught while plugging away at them at range and wearing them down in combat.
Sean asked Eric how he went about beating this list in the fourth round, Eric had this to say:
“I used my mobility to kill off everything else but the anvil and the Longbeard unit. I had to sacrifice a skycutter to keep the Longbeards at bay for a critical turn but that was enough to secure 400 points from killing the Irondrakes. There is no reason to fight the Longbeard unit since its so slow. It is fast at marching with up to 27″ of movement on turn1, but their charge range is only up to 9 (10 if they slow down to keep the cart alongside).“
=== 3rd OWL [1999 pts] Warhammer: The Old World, Warriors of Chaos ===
++ Characters [963 pts] ++
Chaos Lord [622 pts] – Hand weapon – Full plate armour – Shield – Mark of Chaos [Mark of Nurgle] – General – Chaos Dragon – Ogre Blade – 2x Favour of the Gods – Brazen Collar – Enchanting Aura
Sorcerer Lord [341 pts] – Hand weapon – Heavy armour – Mark of Tzeentch – Level 4 Wizard – Chaos Steed – Armour of Meteoric Iron – Spell Familiar – Infernal Puppet – Favour of the Gods – Battle Magic
15 Forsaken [285 pts] – Mutated weapons (Hand weapons) – Heavy armour – Forsaken by Khorne
10 Marauder Horsemen [155 pts] – Hand weapons – Light armour – Shields – Mark of Chaos [Mark of Tzeentch] – Musician
++ Special Units [196 pts] ++
3 Dragon Ogres [196 pts] – Great weapons – Heavy armour – Shartak
++ Rare Units [340 pts] ++
Gigantic Spawn of Chaos [170 pts] – Slashing talons – Gnashing maws – Heavy armour (Scaly skin) – Gigantic Spawn of Nurgle
Gigantic Spawn of Chaos [170 pts] – Slashing talons – Gnashing maws – Heavy armour (Scaly skin) – Gigantic Spawn of Nurgle
— Created with “Old World Builder”
[https://old-world-builder.com]
Sean Langford: This Warriors of Chaos list starts off strong with a Chaos lord on dragon. This guy is a beast in combat and with the mark of Nurgle, becomes even harder to kill. Ogre blade adds some real killing power and enchanting aura helps to let him unleash first before the opponent and even buff other units as well by giving opposing units strike last when in combat with multiple units. When going into deathstar units with multiple units, this can be extra nice.
Sorcerer lord with infernal puppet is a must to help shut down opposing magic and adds some speed being on a steed. He can also join the marauders for the extra casting buff. Forsaken can really spike some damage with random attacks and the extra attack on the charge as well as the random buff from rampant mutation. Impetuous might be the downside but they can be easy to control, if necessary, with the Chaos Warhounds blocking charges until they are ready. The three Dragon Ogors are a must-have that can also do some serious damage with the Great Weapons as well.
Lastly, they add a little extra spice by throwing in 2 Gigantic Chaos Spawns of Nurgle. While they are a little less reliable with random movement and random attacks, D6+1 and D6 stomp attacks are still pretty good damage output. They also got a little buff with the last errata, changing the roll to being the maximum movement. They no longer need to go the full dice roll and can now set up some 3d6 charges instead of shambling into the opponent’s easy charge range, so expect to see these guys more. Plus having the Mark of Nurgle and Toughness 6 makes opponents figure out how to do 22 wounds between 2 of these and a Chaos Lord on Dragon, that all have the Mark of Nurgle to make them even harder to kill. This can be a pain for a lot of armies out there and they really need exceptional damage output to really handle these 3 units but if they really focus on bringing these down the Forsaken and Dragon Ogres shouldn’t be underestimated.
[ppp_patron_only level=1]
=== 4th OWL [2000 pts] Warhammer: The Old World, Chaos Dwarfs ===
++ Characters [910 pts] ++
Sorcerer-Prophet [475 pts] – Darkforged weapon – Heavy armour – Level 4 Wizard – General – Bale Taurus – Armour of Meteoric Iron – Talisman of Protection – Mantle of Stone – Daemonology
Black Orc Warboss [350 pts] – Hand weapon – Full plate armour – Wyvern – Enchanted Shield – Da Choppiest Choppa – Trollhide Trousers
Hobgoblin Khan [85 pts] – Hand weapon – Throwing weapons – Giant Wolf – Ruby Ring of Ruin
18 Black Orc Mob [329 pts] – Hand weapon – Full plate armour – Stubborn – 9x Shields – 9x Great weapon – Boss – Standard bearer [The Big Red Raggedy Flag] – Musician
++ Special Units [585 pts] ++
Iron Daemon [310 pts] – Steam Cannonade – Hand weapons – Hellbound
Iron Daemon [275 pts] – Steam Cannonade – Hand weapons
— Created with “Old World Builder”
[https://old-world-builder.com]
Peter Holland: Neither myself nor any others on the team are completely up to speed with Chaos Dwarfs, but having fought them the most, the commentary has fallen to me….
Iron Daemons are particularly tough and great at tying up units you want to pin in one place. I’ve faced lists with single one of these, but never one with two like Daniel has here. They cause D6+1 impact hits when they charge and with toughness 7 and 7 wounds each, it’s hard for pretty much anything to make a dent into these. Plus being a better Organ Gun than the Dwarf version (being that it both moves and doesn’t suffer from them multi-barrelled special rule) means it can actually shoot too. Daniel gave one of the Iron Daemon’s a 6+ Ward as well for adding staying power. I imagine, these would have moved forward firing and then, with the Black Orcs, they would have helped tie units down allowing the Wyvern to smash stuff and the Bale Taurus to then roam the battlefield and destroy units at will with magic.
While this was going on the Infernal Guard would have been popping away at targets with their Fireglaives and if they do get into combat, then the Hellshard on the Champion means if he dies, the unit causing the death suffers D6 S5 hits at -1 AP.
The Hobgoblin Khan is there purely as a way of getting the Ruby Ring of Ruin into the list.
[/ppp_patron_only]
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