With the release of the Battlescroll: Galletian Reinforcements I’ve been able to go back through the data from the release of the General’s Handbook and tidy everything up. In doing so, I though it may be cool to give you a run-down of how each faction performed under the current General’s Handbook until the Battlescroll took effect.
The data used for analysing these results was taken from 110 Grand Tournaments between 3rd July 2022 and 6th November 2022.
Hedonites of Slaanesh
Region Comparison – Popularity
Hedonites of Slaanesh saw their highest popularity in Scandinvia with 2.3% of players choosing the faction for tournament play, while in the UK & Ireland the uptake was only 1.1%.
Region Comparison – Win Rates
North America saw their highest win rate with just over 50%, while players in Oceania could only manage 31.6%.
North America was the location of the Hedonites of Slaanesh only 5-0 result piloted by Anthony Trentanelli.
Subfaction Analysis
Subfaction
Players
Win Rate
Lurid Haze
34
50.61%
Godseekers Host
12
42.50%
Faultless Blades
5
42.31%
Scarlet Cavalcade
1
40.00%
Pretenders Host
5
20.00%
None/Unknown
9
54.44%
Faction Total
66
46.47%
Lurid Haze was the only subfaction in which players ended the first half of the season with a win rate inside the 45-55% bracket.
Top 10 Hedonites of Slaanesh Players
You may notice that some players have a better World/Nation ranking than players above them in this table. This is due to players playing with multiple factions. These players have been ranked on their top 4 Hedonites of Slaanesh results only.
With the release of the Battlescroll: Galletian Reinforcements I’ve been able to go back through the data from the release of the General’s Handbook and tidy everything up. In doing so, I though it may be cool to give you a run-down of how each faction performed under the current General’s Handbook until the Battlescroll took effect.
The data used for analysing these results was taken from 110 Grand Tournaments between 3rd July 2022 and 6th November 2022.
Beasts of Chaos
Region Comparison – Popularity
Blades of Khorne saw their highest popularity in Oceania with 4.9% of players choosing the faction for tournament play, while at the opposite end of the world the uptake was only 1.3% in Scandinavia.
Region Comparison – Win Rates
Their popularity in Oceania transferred to their regional win rates as well with 52.5%. While players in Europe could only manage 37.3%.
Scandinavia was the location of the Blades of Khorne only 5-0 result piloted by Eirik Hilbom.
Subfaction Analysis
Subfaction
Players
Win Rate
Goretide
10
52.00%
Baleful Lords
6
51.67%
Reapers of Vengeance
73
50.56%
Bloodlords
2
50.00%
Flayed
2
30.00%
None/Unknown
8
27.50%
Faction Total
101
48.49%
Although Goretide appears to have the most successful win rate, they were by far not the most popular faction, with the vast majority of players choosing Reapers of Vengeance as their go to.
Top 10 Blades of Khorne Players
You may notice that some players have a better World/Nation ranking than players above them in this table. This is due to players playing with multiple factions. These players have been ranked on their top 4 Beasts of Chaos results only.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for 2D6 Carnage that took place in Norway on 26th and 27th November. It involved 48 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Lineage: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs:
Leaders Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night (380) – Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (345)* – Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (435) – General – Deathlance – Command Trait: Sanguine Blur – Artefact: Soulbound Garments – Expertise: Martial – Mount Trait: Foetid Miasma – Universal Spell Lore: Amethystine Pinions
Battleline 5 x Black Knights (100)** 20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)*
Units 10 x Blood Knights (390)** – Reinforced x 1 1 x Corpse Cart with Unholy Lodestone (80)*
Danny: Do my eyes deceive me? Does that say ‘1st’?! Soulblight have been struggling to rise from the gravesite that Bounty Hunters unceremoniously put them back into, taking a number of podiums recently but pipping the post at a singles event – until now! The route to 1st at first sight looks relatively soft, but the MW output of Kruleboyz can definitely trouble Soulblight, as can the shenanigans of Sylvaneth. Ben here has gone for the ‘double mortarch + VloZD’ archetype, which essentially works as either a giant death star of overlapping buff and de-buff auras (-1 to hit from Neffie, her spell to make something unrendable, CA from Manny for +1 to hit AND wound) or three fast, self sufficient monsters who can harry flanks and generally score well. In Legion of Blood, the VloZD is also able to be ‘Martial, making him slightly more reliable in combat, with Pinions for the extra movement and therefore threat projection.The rest is just good old fashioned objective play. Black knights are fast chaff, the zombies are vulnerable to BH but a ‘small’ squad can mitigate this by hiding in gravesites and popping out onto objectives – super strong on any plan like Silksteel nests or Prize of Gallet – while the Deathrattle do the same job but cheaper and with a smaller footprint. Meanwhile, a brick of 10 Bloodknights act as another potential home for the Mortarch buffs, and can function as a dual-purpose anvil AND hammer. All of this is backed up by some magic tech – the Corpse cart with Lodestone gives off +1 to cast in a 12″ aura (and bizarrely +1 save to zombies…which I can’t see coming in particularly handy) and Cogs protects against miscasts and helps those clutch early auras to go off, giving off plenty of protection if doubled. All in all, it’s a really nice balanced list with some great heroes and huge scoring potential – big up to Benjamin for the rare SBGL 5-0!
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Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Astral Templars (Scions of the Storm) – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Lord-Castellant (155)* Knight-Draconis (300)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Mount Trait: Celestial Instincts – Spell: Celestial Blades
Battleline 5 x Liberators (115)* – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield 2 x Stormdrake Guard (340)* – Drakerider’s Warblade 6 x Stormdrake Guard (1020)* – Drakerider’s Warblade – Reinforced x 2
Units 3 x Aetherwings (65)*
Core Battalions *Battle Regiment
Additional Enhancements Holy Command: Call for Aid
Brett: The second of our 5/0 armies from the event and an army that shows the impact of some of the more recent releases. Astral Templars are the monster hunting Stormhost turning off monstrous rampages. It’s a small thing but with the Dragons issuing their own commands and relatively few units (so exposed to a roar) it’s a very solid defensive play.
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Allegiance: Lumineth Realm-lords – Great Nation: Ymetrica – Mortal Realm: Chamon – Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Alarith Stonemage (120)** – Artefact: Molten Talisman – Lore of the High Peaks: Unbreakable Stoicism Scinari Enlightener (170)** – General – Command Trait: Loremaster – Artefact: Silver Wand – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh, Protection of Hysh, Total Eclipse Avalenor, the Stoneheart King (420)**
Battleline 15 x Alarith Stoneguard (360)* – Stone Mallets – Reinforced x 2 10 x Alarith Stoneguard (240)* – Stone Mallets – Reinforced x 1 5 x Alarith Stoneguard (120)** – Stone Mallets
Units 5 x Vanari Dawnriders (140)* – Spell1: Lore of Hysh: Protection of Hysh 20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)** – Spell1: Lore of Hysh: Overwhelming Heat – Reinforced x 1
Alice: Since the launch of the new book the Alarith lists have sort of dwelled on the outskirts but we haven’t seen a ton of effective use for them and this one definitely gets there. All Alarith units, including the stoneguard, Avelnor and the Stonemage here, reduce Rend -1 to 0, making them much harder to defeat with chaff. The Stonemage is a solid caster handing out a bonus attack to the 3 stoneguard. The Enlightener is a general purpose buff bot with 2, possibly 3 spells per turn. Avalendor is here as the hammer, to crash through just about anything in his way.
Alarith Stoneguard are the bread and butter of this list, their damage is fine, nothing mind blowing but 2 attacks per model (3 with the stoneguard) at -1 to Rend Damage 1 with an additional mortal wound on 6s isnt nothing. Their strength comes from the reduction of rend and a 4+ ward against mortals on objectives. Frustratingly difficult to move, once they’re on that point they aren’t moving.
Sentinels are still here of course, that much ranged damage on a 5+ for mortals is too tempting to pass up, with a Ballista to increase their range and do a bit of damage itself.
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Army Faction: Blades of Khorne – Subfaction: Reapers of Vengeance – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280) – Artefacts of Power: Skullshard Mantle Skarbrand (380) Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster (310) – General – Command Traits: Mage Eater Bloodsecrator (125)* Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (295)* – Artefacts of Power: The Crimson Crown Slaughterpriest (100)* – Hackblade and Wrath-hammer – Prayers: Blood Sacrifice
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Hexgorger Skulls (50)
TERRAIN 1 x Skull Altar (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Warlord **Bounty Hunters
TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000
Alice: It genuinely warms my heart to see Khorne lists making a good effort even ahead of the new book. You got the Bloodthirster Flush with 1 of each, including Skarbrand. For the most part there isn’t anything too surprising here, Bloodthirsters bring the beat down, sacrificing 4 blood tithes if they need another swing at the start of the next round. One interesting choice here is the Crimson Crown on the Bloodthirsty of Unfettered Fury so he can use Rejoice in their Slaughter for free for a 6″ pilein.
Supporting them is the Bloodsecrator is frankly far too cheap for what he does, granting an additional attack to each unit within 16″, making those terrifying bloodthirsters even more intimidating. The Slaughterpriest is a token priest, with Blood Sacrifice giving those precious Blood Tithes that can be hard to farm on low drop lists. Flesh House make cheap battleline to hold objectives while Wrathmongers are a solid hammer to round out the list.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Gourds of War FT that took place in Texas, USA on 12th and 13th November. It involved 18 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Army Faction: Lumineth Realm-lords – Subfaction: Zaitrec – Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
LEADERS Sevireth (320) Scinari Cathallar (110)** – General – Command Traits: Loremaster – Artefacts of Power: Silver Wand – Spells: Protection of Hysh, Solar Flare, Total Eclipse The Light of Eltharion (240)** Vanari Lord Regent (170)** – Spells: Protection of Hysh
BATTLELINE Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)** – High Warden – Spells: Overwhelming Heat Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)** – High Warden – Spells: Solar Flare Vanari Auralan Sentinels (450)** – High Sentinel – Spells: Total Eclipse
OTHER Vanari Bladelords (130)* – Bladelord Seneschal Vanari Dawnriders (140)* – Steedmaster – Standard Bearer – Spells: Speed of Hysh Vanari Dawnriders (140)* – Steedmaster – Standard Bearer – Spells: Speed of Hysh
TERRAIN 1 x Shrine Luminor (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Bounty Hunters **Battle Regiment
Ed: Dustin’s List seems simple at first glance, but it is a deceptively hard list to run. All his units have the potential to be stars depending on match ups and battle plans, but they are fragile. You need to be thinking at least a turn ahead to ensure your key pieces are in the right place ahead of time. It is a common mantra that “Games are won in the movement phase”, and I feel like Dustin’s list takes this to heart with his highly manoeuvrable choice of units. Don’t leave an objective open around Dustin!
The Zaitrec subfaction gives all wizards a +1 to casting, unbinding and dispelling rolls. That added reliability is key for getting off important spells, particularly Power of Hysh which represents a huge increase in damage and Protection of Hysh which keeps your army alive.
After so long on the bench, it’s nice to see Eltharion included in a list that’s performing well. As a mid-level threat with a small presence on the table he is often able to fly under the radar until he connects with something important. He is much more reliable since the new battletome, and has been referred to as a Diet-Gotrek – although mortal wounds will bring him down very quickly.
To have achieved 5 wins with this list, Dustin must have played wonderfully. It is an army with a high skill ceiling and an extremely techy set of core mechanics. It’s not your typical netlist army that can be copied by a novice and still do fairly well. But if you’re looking to improve your skills, playing a list like this is a good challenge to test your mastery of strategic buff placement, unit positioning and long term thinking.
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Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Lineage: Kastelai Dynasty – Mortal Realm: Shyish – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead (955)** Wight King on Skeletal Steed (110)** – General – Command Trait: Rousing Commander – Artefact: Fragment of the Keep
Battleline 5 x Blood Knights (195)* 5 x Blood Knights (195)* 5 x Blood Knights (195)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)** 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)**
Endless Spells & Invocations Umbral Spellportal (80) Purple Sun of Shyish (90)
Edited: Sorry I somehow forgot (it’s wishful thinking…) that Blood Knights aren’t summonable! That’s what you get for re-reading Nagash’s scroll after a 1-dayer when your brain is mush. Post is now accurate!
Danny: It’s Nagash! Again! What is happening??
Well, there’s a fairly standard core at play here, with 3x msu Blood Knights in Kastelai providing a roaming set of both tanky AND killy – especially in bounty hunters – fast movers. Aaron will have had the option of layering them up or splitting them off for board control, and either way the Wight King on Steed is a relatively budget general acting as a ‘Rousing Commander’ caddy – which allows the best of the Kastelai ‘kill a unit and gain a buff based on its type’ effects to pop off once per battle ‘for free’, as it were. And the battleline is rounded out by the 2x msu Deathrattle are cost-efficient grave-site lurkers.
So in this context, Nagash seems to really be offering the magical dominance. He can’t buff Blood Knights in the same way Mannfred/Coven Throne etc can, but with Spellportal (and no Cogs – living dangerously!) he can stay at a safe range and shut down a lot of the usual magic threats that would ordinarily threaten the Blood Knights. Soulblight have some excellent debuffs too.
So overall, your opponent has a tough choice. Try and take down Nagash – not easy unless you have excellent ranged firepower – or focus down the Blood Knights and leave the magic powerhouse at liberty. Clearly making his opponent make tough choices paid off, with a brutal anti-aelf campaign, losing only to Zaitrec LRL who could probably stand up to the magic and shut down most of Nagash’s utility. Big congrats to Aaron for the 4-1 with Nagash!
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Army Faction: Blades of Khorne – Subfaction: Reapers of Vengeance – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280) – Artefacts of Power: Skullshard Mantle Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (295) Skarbrand (380)* Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280)** – Artefacts of Power: Ar’gath, the King of Blades Bloodsecrator (125)** – General – Command Traits: Mage Eater Slaughterpriest (100)** – Bloodbathed Axe – Prayers: Resanguination
Peter: Our new colleague, Alice, needs no introduction! You may know her as Ragnarok Angel, the lead AoS writer for Goonhammer. Alice has kindly offered her skills and expertise to help us with top three commentary.
Alice: Blades of Khorne is a real underdog that is often underestimated when faced (Source: Me being the receiving end of it not too long ago). “It’s a bad book, the changes to priest nerfed them!” you say and you aren’t wrong, but piloted by a skilled player and a far too eager opponent, Khorne can put out a lot of damage.
Reapers of Vengeance is still considered the best subfaction, Devour the Craven causes D3 extra models to run on a failed battleshock which is fine but the real meat is the Leave None Alive command ability, allowing a Daemon model to fight a second time. When you look at the quadruple Bloodthirsters, you start to see the profit here.
On top of this, the change to Blood Tithes so they no longer burn all their points at once has had a bigger impact on the faction than is generally understood. For 4 Blood Tithe points, a unit can fight at the beginning of the Hero phase, including your opponent’s, before your opponent has had a chance to set up their buffs. That means a Bloodthirster fighting potentially three times in a single turn of gameplay, assuming something even survives that many hits.
The Bloodthirsters are the showstoppers, but rounding off the list is some decent anti-magic. The forced artefact is a 2+ shrug for spells, which while not ideal is still really good at forcing an enemy wizard to choose different targets. The mandatory Mage Eater is much better, allowing the General, Karnak and Flesh Hounds to unbind spells and even do Mortal Wounds with the General and Karnak. Hexgorger Skulls force -2 to casts, and can potentially cause more mortal wounds. It won’t stop an overwhelming number of spells, which explains the one loss against Lumineth, but it’ll shut down armies with only a handful of crucial spells.
When brought together it creates a list that is just incredibly difficult to engage in close combat. If you fight a Bloodthirster you better go first and you better win because if it hits you on the kick back it’ll kill most things. A blunt instrument, but a reliable one, as Khorne would wish.
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Allegiance: Flesh-eater Courts – Grand Court: Blisterskin – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs:
Leaders Abhorrant Archregent (245)** – Artefact: The Dermal Robe – Lore of Madness: Blood Feast Abhorrant Ghoul King (165)** – Lore of Madness: Miasmal Shroud Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (445)* – General – Command Trait: Hellish Orator – Artefact: Eye of Hysh – Mount Trait: Gruesome Bite – Lore of Madness: Spectral Host Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Zombie Dragon (430)** – Lore of Madness: Monstrous Vigour
Battleline 9 x Crypt Flayers (540)* – Reinforced x 2 10 x Crypt Ghouls (85)* 10 x Crypt Ghouls (85)*
Peter: Another new writer, and perhaps a familiar name to those on the Canadian tournament circuit. Jake Seguin is currently ranked 20th in Canada.
Jake: Don’t call it a renaissance, but things have been looking up of late for our favourite Bretonnian roleplayers. Harnessing both the power of the Incarnate and the frightening damage and recursion of max-size Knight units, a few ghoulish generals have successfully piloted an off-meta army to notable tournament success. Eddy Andrews ascends to abhorrent greatness with his take on a Blisterskin list that foregoes the Incarnate in favour of expanding his royal family with the oft-overlooked King on Zombie Dragon.
You’ll find much of the familiar FEC architecture here: an Archregent, the King on Terrorgheist, and MSU ghouls to fill the battleline slots. What the Zombie Dragon lacks in the spiky mortal wound output of his batty brother, he makes up for in force multiplication. His signature spell (at only a CV of 6) provides a 16” wound reroll bubble for friendly FEC units, juicing the double-fighting Flayers to incredible heights of carnage and closing his own average damage gap significantly with the Terrorgheist.
With 36 wounds, a natural 6+ ward, and conditional access to a 5+ ward from the Terrogheist, the Flayers are sporting some real beef to complement their reach and offence. As FEC can now get an additional Muster from any hero courtesy of White Dwarf, any failed attempt to remove this unit can become a game-losing swing. It may fall short of turning water into wine, but a single hero phase can certainly turn one remaining Flayer into nine. Presenting a tough force allocation dilemma and providing the frail FEC army with an actual anvil, 9 Flayers can threaten to take over any matchup where there isn’t a strong Bounty Hunters threat opposite them.
The four Kings will cast their respective buff spells, supercharge something with up to +4 attacks and run+charge, and slam into the enemy until someone is tabled. Leveraging the ability to summon up to four units from any board edge, the list is also deceptively wide and can play a more cagey objective game if the situation calls for it. While flesh-eating enthusiasts will continue to debate the merits of Blisterskin over Feast Day/Crusading Army until the next End Times, Eddy decided that the army-wide +2 movement and teleport utility was worth giving up his first artefact slot. Instead, he took a Command Entourage for the dermal robe, giving his Archregent that extremely important casting buff in a list where he couldn’t fit Cogs.
Excellent work by Eddy, who only dropped his last two games to the eventual 1st and 3rd-place finishers.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Shakespeare Invitational that took place in the UK on 29th and 30th October. It involved 32 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Hammers of Sigmar (Stormkeep) – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs:
Leaders Lord-Celestant on Stardrake (500)* – General – Celestine Hammer – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Mount Trait: Celestial Instincts – Spell: Celestial Blades Celestant-Prime, Hammer of Sigmar (325)* Slann Starmaster (265)* – Allies
Battleline 5 x Liberators (115)* – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield 5 x Liberators (115)* – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield 4 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (460)* – Reinforced x 1
Peter: Owen is one of those players that places consistently well, as proven by the Woehammer player rankings where Owen now sits 10th Worldwide.
Here we’ve got two big hammers in the form of the Lord-Celestant on Stardrake and Celestant-Prime. The latter of which can twiddle his thumbs in reserve until you need him. An allied Slann Starmaster who’s purpose is to dominate the magic phase with its ability to cast three spells and unbind three spells (from anywhere on the table).
What better to protect 1,090 points of heroes than two units of Liberators and some Dracothian Guard Fulminators. The Fulminators can kick out an average of 48 damage before saves which, I might add, are all at rend -2 AND thats without the Lord-Celestant giving them +1 to wound rolls through Celestial Blades….. On top of that each model in the unit (6), has a 50% chance of causing D3 mortals to units within 12″. My assumption is for the Liberators to cap objectives who, because the army is Stormkeep, count as three models each on an objective AND have a 6+ near an objective thanks to being Hammers of Sigmar. Meanwhile the Fulminators ride around smashing face.
The unit of Farstriders can be quite nifty at taking far flung objectives or setting up elsewhere on the battlefield to harass the enemy backlines with chip damage.
We’ll down to Owen for going 5-0!
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Allegiance: Lumineth Realm-lords – Great Nation: Ymetrica – Grand Strategy: Alarith Aftershock
Leaders Alarith Stonemage (120) – General – Command Trait: Unyielding Toughness – Lore of the High Peaks: Unbreakable Stoicism – Lore of the High Peaks: Living Fissure Alarith Stonemage (120) – Artefact: Molten Talisman – Lore of the High Peaks: Unbreakable Stoicism – Lore of the High Peaks: Living Fissure Avalenor, the Stoneheart King (420)*** Scinari Calligrave (115)*** – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh – Lore of Hysh: Protection of Hysh Scinari Calligrave (115)*** – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh – Lore of Hysh: Protection of Hysh
Battleline 15 x Alarith Stoneguard (360)* – Reinforced x 2 10 x Alarith Stoneguard (240)** – Reinforced x 1 10 x Alarith Stoneguard (240)** – Reinforced x 1 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)* 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)*
Endless Spells & Invocations The Burning Head (20) Lauchon the Soulseeker (30)
Ed: The Alarith models got some tasty buffs in the new Lumineth tome, so it’s not suprising to see a list that leans heavily into those units do well. In the Ymetrica subfaction everything except the Calligraves and the Tree-Revenents ignore rend of -1 or -2 and since Stoneguard and Avalenor have save characteristics of 4+ and 3+ respectively, they can be tough nuts to crack. They hit pretty hard too and synergize well together too, a wonderful way to build an army if you fancy dipping your toe into those crystal clear Hyshian waters. The Stonemages add crucial support to this list, allowing Avalenor to fight on his top bracket regardless of wounds taken and adding rend to the Stoneguard’s weapons. Having two of them just means that Matthew can spread those buffs around where they are most needed.
“Don’t leave the objective unattended…”
The allied Tree-Revenants are something I’ve been seeing in a lot of lists now that Sylvaneth are a valid ally. As Galetian Veterans who can teleport and pile-in 6″ they make up for the slow pace of all those Stoneguard and open up a lot of creative objective play. By putting them in Expert conquerors Matthew has 2 adaptive units great for taking advantage of poor positioning and seizing control of objectives without putting his heavy hitters out of position. It’s a great investment for now, but it remains to be seen how valuable they will be when the next GHB drops and the focus moves away from battleline infantry.
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Allegiance: Lumineth Realm-lords – Great Nation: Ymetrica – Grand Strategy: Alarith Afterschock – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Avalenor, the Stoneheart King (420) The Light of Eltharion (240) Archmage Teclis and Celennar, Spirit of Hysh (700)** Alarith Stonemage (120)** – General – Command Trait: Tectonically Attuned – Artefact: Molten Talisman – Lore of the High Peaks: Unbreakable Stoicism Scinari Calligrave (115)** – Artefact: Silver Wand – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh
Battleline 5 x Alarith Stoneguard (120)* – Stone Mallets 5 x Alarith Stoneguard (120)* – Stone Mallets 5 x Alarith Stoneguard (120)* – Stone Mallets
Endless Spells & Invocations Rune of Petrification (40)
Ed: Herohammer at it’s best! A whopping 1,595 points of Shanee’s list is made up of heroes, with only 360 points allocated for the mandatory 3 units of battleline. Like Matthew, Shanee has gone for Stoneguard in Ymetrica for her infantry units meaning they are extremely defence anvils with decent output. However, to go 4W/1L with such a spartan list attests to Shanee’s skill as a player. There isn’t a lot of room for error when one mistake can cost you a quarter of your list or deny you crucial victory points with so few models on the board to play the objectives. I would love to have watched over her shoulder during one or two of her games and see her approach.
Teclis obviously provides some of the best magic power in the game, providing a 5+ ward save and a variety of utility options that can change to suit your match up. Also, between his Searing Storm of White Light warscroll spell and the Rune of Petrification this list features a lot of multi-target mortal wound output which will tear through multiple small units or anything without a ward save. Avalenor and Eltharion provides a pair of powerful beat-sticks to clean up anything unlucky enough to find itself stuck to the Stoneguard anvils. Finally the Stonemage and Calligrave are support pieces which synergize well with the rest of the list. While the stonemage keeps Avelenor fighting at his best in tough times, the Calligrave is the perfect steward to sit in the Shrine Luminor in the early game dispensing free command points and casting/unbinding rerolls from atop his floating assault waterfall. Fantasy games are weird.
Drive this floating rock closer, I want to hit them with my stave!
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Allegiance: Khorne – Slaughterhost: Reapers of Vengeance – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Be’Lakor, the Dark Master (360) – Allies Skarbrand (380) Bloodsecrator (125)** Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280)** – Artefact: Khartoth the Bloodhunger Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (295) – General – Command Trait: Mage Eater – Artefact: Skullshard Mantle Slaughterpriest (100)** – Prayer: Blood Sacrifice
Battleline 5 x Flesh Hounds (105)* 5 x Flesh Hounds (105)* 5 x Flesh Hounds (105)** 10 x Bloodreavers (80)* – Reaver Blades
Kieron: After getting absolutely demolished by a Boomthirster in a recent game, part of my therapy is to write up the feedback from this wildcard list! This list includes a trio of Bloodthirsters: a Boomthirster that does 4 mortal wounds as AoE damage on each 6 to wound; the angriest Bloodthirster there is, Skarbrand, who will also do a ton of mortal wounds on top of 9 damage 3 attacks; then a third Bloodthirster who allows Daemon units to fight from 6″ away, which synergises well with the Reaper of Vengeance sub-faction Command Ability to fight twice.
Put this all together and you can auto-run the Boomthirster 16″ and then pile in 6″, avoiding Unleash Hell, do up to 20 mortal wounds to all enemy units within 8″…pile in up to another 6″ and then do it again. And all of those mortal wounds are in addition to the D6 damage from the Great Axe of Khorne. Then Skarbrand can attack if there’s anything left alive on the board by this point as the Daemon Weapon Khartoth the Bloodhunger allows the bearer to activate out of sequence at the start of the command phase on a 4+. It is at this point that you give your by now weeping opponent the choice of who to fight with next.
There’s also a Bloodsecrator to give each of those angry red monsters an extra attack and make casting more difficult. The Hexgorger Skulls complement making depending on magic against Khorne a risky business by subtracting 2 from all casts and potentially wiping a spell from a wizard’s mind if not killing them outright. It’s also a prayer, so unless you also have a priest, the only way to get rid of it is to detonate it with one of your casters.
The list also has ready access to the Barge Through Enemy Lines bonus point with its speedy Flesh Hounds and access to summoning through Blood Tithe points and to cap everything else of there is Be’Lakor poised and ready to shut down a unit at a key moment where a battle tactic is at stake.
If an opponent can take out the AoE mortal wound threat early on, they can probably cope with the other threats and the list lost to two Stormcast Eternals lists that had the tools to do exactly that. If not…more Blood for the Blood God!
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for AoS @MoAB 2022 that took place in New South Wales, Australia on 1st and 2nd October. It involved 44 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Allegiance: Idoneth Deepkin – Enclave: Ionrachet – Grand Strategy: The Creeping Gloomtide – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADERS Akhelian King (250)* – General – Bladed Polearm – Command Trait: Unstoppable Fury – Mount Trait: Voidchill Darkness Eidolon of Mathlann, Aspect of the Sea (325)* – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of the Deeps: Steed of Tides – Incarnate bonded Lotann, Warden of the Soul Ledgers (115)*
UNITS 6 x Akhelian Morrsarr Guard (390)* – Reinforced x 1 10 x Namarti Reavers (170)* 10 x Namarti Reavers (170)* 1 x Akhelian Allopexes (165)* – Retarius Net Launcher
BEHEMOTH Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)* – Allies
Brett: Sitting right in the middle with a win rate of 50%, Idoneth are performing well and feature frequently on the podium, but not normally number 1. 5 wins in a bigger event is certainly a credit to the general. Joel’s doing things a bit differently as well, including Morrsarr (Eels) as a key part. With Legacy of Glory from Ionrach the Eels gain either run and charge or fallback and charge in addition to whatever the Tides are providing. 4 clear hammers (Akehlian King, Eidolon, Morrsarr and Krondspine) means there is a lot to deal with. The Reavers add solid shooting, flexibility to garrison the Shipwreck (not clear if it was here). While Lotaan has a really solid aura for a list that tends to castle, +1 to wound rolls for melee within 12″ making even Reaver melee something to consider.
The core though are those 6 eels having the ability to run and charge or fallback on the charge. It is easier to set up a fall back and charge to avoid a redeploy so having it is really strong. On the charge their Voidspear goes to -2 rend and 2 damage. Use the Krondspine backed by Reavers to pin one side of you attack and hit them with the Eels. If something needs dealing with both the King and Eidolon can act independently. Joel’s scored well throughout including all battle tactics and grand strategies with 27 as his lowest score. The last 2 rounds were against top 10 opponents with Big Waagh (Ironjawz heavy backed by BoltBoyz) and Khorne (both Bloodthirsters and Skarbrand.)
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Allegiance: Sons of Behemat – Tribe: Breaker Tribe (Fierce Loathing: Bossy Pants and Clever Clog) – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)* – General – Command Trait: Louder than Words – Artefact: Vial of Manticore Venom (Universal Artefact) (fortcrusha flail) Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)* Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)* – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon – Bonded to incarnate
Behemoths Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400) – Allies
Core Battalions *Bosses of the Stomp – Magnificent
Brett: Sons have really started to tower in the last couple of months, this is a very popular list in Season 1. 3 Gatebreakers (ranged attack) with a Krondspine in Breaker Tribe being especially peeved by heroes and wizards. Bosses of stomp with an extra artefact, in this case Manticore Venom and Tome with the Flaming Weapon. Very aggressive option as opposed to the tanky builds that we frequently see. The Incarnate is almost as difficult to remove as a gargant and gives good protection against Endless Spells. Dares your opponent to risk levelling the Incarnate? Terrenance’ scores were more volatile than Joel’s and he dropped 2 battle tactics which was enough to make him 2nd even with his 5/0.
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Army Faction: Maggotkin of Nurgle – Army Subfaction: Drowned Men – Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration
LEADER 1 x Be’lakor (360) 1 x Lord of Afflictions (210)* – General – Command Traits: Overpowering Stench – Incubatch – Dolorous Tocsin – Artefacts: The Splithorn Helm 1 x Orghotts Daemonspew (300)*
BATTLELINE 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)* – Dolorous Tocsin 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)* – Dolorous Tocsin 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)* – Dolorous Tocsin 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)* – Dolorous Tocsin 5 x Putrid Blightkings (250)* – Blightlord – Icon Bearer – Sonorous Tocsin Bearer
TERRAIN 1 x Feculent Gnarlmaw (0)
CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)
Brett: Variation on the very popular (especially in the UK) Nurgle Blightlord/Blightking list. Be’Lakor is now a common inclusion as a great combat wizard in his own right, combined here with Orghotts and Lord of Afflications. Tom has gone with a block of Blightkings instead of a group of 4 Blightlords to free up points for Be’Lakor/Orghotts. The heroes are 870pts or 44% of the list value. The Blightkings are slow but can give a lot of board control (base stats give 60 effective wounds – 20 wounds, 4+ save and 5+ ward). Otherwise everything is moving 8″ and spewing disease points/mortal wounds everywhere. It’s a flexible list that is hard to concentrate force against. While a shooting army might drop 2 x Blightlords that would mean you aren’t shooting the deamon princes.
Overall Tom and Terrance (2nd) were very close on score scoring 23 tactics and all grand strategies on the day but Tom lost to Terrance in the 3rd round. That’s a possible weakness of the smaller Blightlord units, a Gargant can deal with those pretty easily but the reverse isn’t true.
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Army Faction: Blades of Khorne – Subfaction: Reapers of Vengeance – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
LEADERS: “Khaen, Harvester of Skulls.” Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (295) – Artefacts of Power: Skullshard Mantle “Oryx, Bane of Aqshy.” Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280) – Artefacts of Power: Deathdealer “Skarbrand, the Exiled One.” Skarbrand (380)** “Rakhan, The Red.” Slaughterpriest (100)** – Hackblade and Wrath-hammer – Prayers: Bronzed Flesh “Khargos, the Destroyer.” Bloodsecrator (125)** – General – Command Traits: Mage Eater – Artefacts of Power: Skullshard Mantle – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur
Brett: The extra list is an example of what Khorne is capable of now. It’s a hero list from the outset concentrating on the awesome power of Skarbrand with both Bloodthirsters. Doubling down with a Krondspine and only relatively small weak screening/action units (maybe not the Wrathmongers). The Flesh hounds have decent mobility to grab objectives in early rounds otherwise these units are mostly protecting the big boys and giving blood tithe points when they die. Khorne has some of the cheapest daemon summoning available (the can to it with 2 points). That cheap unit dies easily and refunds the cost, or you can unlock some very strong abilities if you don’t summon.
Krondspine is mostly a distraction in this list forcing you to split your attention, if you can focus fire it’s not that hard to drop either Bloodthirster or Skarbrand. His only loss was to Joel (1st) whose shooting/melee combination was too much to handle. Otherwise the lack of bodies appears to have reduced his scores across the board and saw Blake take 20 battle tactics. Still a really strong performance from a faction that even 4 months ago no one was really running.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Bathurst Grand Tournament that took place in Bathurst, NSW, Australia on 10th and 11th September. It involved 33 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament in the Mountains west of Sydney. The tournament didn’t allow book Battle Tactics or Grand Strategies, instead following the GHB Season 1 alternatives only.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Allegiance: Bonesplitterz – Warclan: Icebone – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Wurrgog Prophet (150)** – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Mork’s Boney Bitz – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate – Krondspine Bond Wurrgog Prophet (150)** – Artefact: Glowin’ Tattooz – Lore of the Savage Beast: Glowy Green Tusks Wardokk (80)** – Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry Wardokk (80)*** – Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry
Battleline 5 x Savage Boarboys (140)** – Chompas 5 x Savage Boarboys (140) – Chompas 5 x Savage Boarboys (140) – Chompas
Units 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)*** 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)*** 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)*** 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)*** 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)*** 5 x Savage Boarboy Maniaks (145)* 5 x Savage Boarboy Maniaks (145)*
Brett: Another Bonesplitterz win, this time in the mountain country which seems like it would a natural home for the smaller orcs. And pretty cold at this time of year, especially nice for Icebone. Similar to some other recent Bonesplitterz lists but with extra Wurrgog and some Wardokks. Only one of the Wurrgog’s has the tattoos for the 4+ and the other is the general so you don’t want him to die. That means late game you’ve very likely got a screened Wurrgog that if you’re pushed you can still do the stare. Bottom of 3 or in turns 4/5 that’s a real game changer. Similarly the Krondspine is here as well, I can see that working really well by giving you a durable option, something the Bones are missing.
You can anchor one end of the line with him forcing your opponent to really commit then counter assault with either the Big Stabbas or the Boars. Lots of mobility from the pregame move and the 5 units of Boars. 4 casters giving 6 casts and unbinds, both the Wurrgog and Wardokk have unique abilities, the Wardokk healing, wounding or improving spell casts. A Wardokk near the Wurrgog General combined with the 6+ natural ward and the 4+ ward during the Waaagh makes him as dangerous as the Wurrgog with Glowing Tattoo’s combo. The Glowing Green Tusks improves a Boars rend by 2 (-2) and War Cry applies a fight last.
A lot of tricks even in a straight forward list with some nasty stings that would take a lot of thought to work around. Definitely a worthy winner, and no Purple Sun either.
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Allegiance: Sons of Behemat – Tribe: Breaker Tribe (Fierce Loathing: Shiny ‘Uns) – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Kragnos, The End of Empires (720) Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)* – General – Command Trait: Extremely Bitter – Bossy Pants and Clever Clogs – Artefact: Vial of Manticore Venom (Universal Artefact) Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)* – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Battleline 1 x Mancrusher Gargants (170)
Core Battalions *Bosses of the Stomp – Magnificent
Brett: Kragnos for mortals and 3D6 charges with a pair of Gatebreakers both with weapon enhancements (+1 to wound rolls for the Venom and +1 damage for Flaming Weapon) for extra deadliness. It does make you wonder why Kragnos has less wounds than a Gargant though. Otherwise there isn’t a heap to say, Extremely bitter for additional loathings – HQs and Wizards attract an extra +1 to hit rolls. Anything with a save of 1+ through to 4+ also attracts a +1 to hit. Terence only lost his last round match (to Dalton) and honestly that’s a pretty hard counter to this list. Wurrgogs can be hard on Gargants and are really dangerous for Kragnos, potentially killing him before he gets to Bellow. If I have the right army Terence also did really well in the painting on top of being a great general.
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Allegiance: Lumineth Realm-lords – Great Nation: Alumnia – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Scinari Cathallar (110)* – General – Command Trait: Burning Gaze – Artefact: Waystone – Lore of Hysh: Total Eclipse Vanari Lord Regent (155)* – Lore of Hysh: Lambent Light
Battleline 10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (145)*** – Lore of Hysh: Lambent Light 10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (145)*** – Lore of Hysh: Lambent Light 10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (145)*** – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh 30 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (510)* – Lore of Hysh: Protection of Hysh – Reinforced x 2 20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (340)* – Lore of Hysh: Lambent Light – Reinforced x 1 5 x Vanari Bladelords (130)** 5 x Vanari Dawnriders (140)** – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh
Units 5 x Vanari Dawnriders (140)** – Spell1: Lore of Hysh: Lambent Light
Brett: Described by his own team members as a filthy list, we have the 50 x Sentinel shoot for the sun list. But there is a lot more than Sentinels happening here. By lightening his HQ slot Sam has left room for 3 multi purpose Warden units (MSU) and still had room for a decent mobile Bounty Hunter units (Bladelords and Dawnriders). The Wardens are useful as screens, very good on objectives (they are Expert Conquerors) and a decent threat with Power of Hysh giving them mortals on 5s and 6s. They are also boasting Lambent Light to serve as marker lights for the Sentinels making at least 2 units very dangerous to bully off objectives.
The Bladelords are probably going to stay near the Cathallar for their bodyguard but the 2 Dawnriders are useful not only as battleline to harry GV units but are a good way to pick up a Battle Tactic or 2 with their speed. Then there are the 50 Sentinels with their superior range, mortal wounds and indirect fire. Sam recovered from a first round loss to finish on 4/1. The first round was into a Fangs of Sotek list with Lord Kroak turning of most Lumineth magic making them much less effective. A difficult match up. Despite the description at the start this is a fairly risky list, maximising troops over some efficient HQs and a very good result as pay off.
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Allegiance: Blades of Khorne – Slaughterhost: The Goretide – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Bloodsecrator (125)**** – Banner of Khorne (Artefact): Banner of Rage Bloodsecrator (125)**** – Artefact: Thronebreaker’s Torc Bloodstoker (80)**** – Artefact: Talisman of Burning Blood Bloodstoker (80)*** Slaughterpriest (100)*** – Prayer: Bronzed Flesh Skarr Bloodwrath (105)*** – General
Battleline 6 x Mighty Skullcrushers (330)* – Bloodglaives – Reinforced x 1 30 x Bloodreavers (240)* – Meatripper Axes – Reinforced x 2 10 x Bloodreavers (80)** – Meatripper Axes 10 x Bloodreavers (80)** – Meatripper Axes 10 x Bloodreavers (80)** – Meatripper Axes
Units 10 x Ungor Raiders (80)*** 10 x Wrathmongers (290)* – Reinforced x 1 5 x Wrathmongers (145)****
Brett: Patrick is a member of Measured Gaming and you can find him running lists similar to this one on the Measured Gaming youtube channel. Great battle reports but they aren’t kid or work friendly. Pat went 3/2 and finished 10th with Khorne, but hasn’t taken any of the big Daemon models, instead sticking with mortals to make it much harder. Double warlord battalion for 2 extra relics so lets start with those. Thronebreaker’s Torc is mandatory for Goretide, Banner of Rage is 12″ aura of reroll 1s, and Talisman of Burning Blood adds 1 to charge rolls within 12″ of the bearer. Goretide includes a run and charge (with an auto 6″ run) command ability for mortal units, and more dangerously grants reroll 1s to wound within 12″ of an objective.
This list is going to fight near objectives, 4 of the 6 small heroes are buffing pieces – the Bloodstokers grants 3″ to run and charge where the Bloodsecrator adds an attack. Bloodsecrators also force rerolls of successful casts. The Slaughterpriest is the source of magic (since Khorne hates magic) including dispels and Skarr is a bomb looking for your large horde like blob to explode in. With luck he can return and fight again. Large blocks of Mighty Skullcrushers, Wrathmongers and Bloodreavers in Bounty Hunters for the potential extra damage and to take advantage of the increased attacks (or hand them out for Wrathmongers) Khorne loves to provide. The multiple smaller units are useful as screens but they are really here to die and give up Bloodtithe points. Khorne doesn’t care where the skulls come from.
Pat’s doubled up on their usefulness by putting them in Eternal Conquers for additional impact on objectives. Which they want to fight near due to Goretide. Very easy for a lot of factions to lose an objective to stray Bloodreavers. Great to see a variant list which I’m sure caused some issues for opponents.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Salt Lake Open 2022 that took place in the USA on 20th and 21st August. It involved 33 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Army Faction: Fyreslayers – Subfaction: Greyfyrd – Grand Strategy: Masters of the Forge – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Auric Runefather (125)** – General – Command Traits: Spirit of Grimnir – Artefacts of Power: The Daemon Slayer Battlesmith (150)** – Artefacts of Power: Nulsidian Icon Auric Runeson (80)** – Ancestral War-axe – Artefacts of Power: Axe of Grimnir Auric Flamekeeper (90)**** – Artefacts of Power: Draught of Magmalt Ale Auric Runemaster (125)**** – Artefacts of Power: Volatile Brazier – Prayers: Heal Auric Runesmiter (135)**** – Forge Key – Prayers: Prayer Of Ash
BATTLELINE Hearthguard Berzerkers (320)* – Karl – Berzerker Broadaxe Hearthguard Berzerkers (320)* – Karl – Flamestrike Poleaxe Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (160)*** – Fyresteel War-pick and Bladed Slingshield Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (170)***
OTHER Auric Hearthguard (250)**
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Molten Infernoth (40)
Ethan: Holy moly what a collection of lists this tournament presents! In the vein of Bill Souza this list uses many battalions in order to stack up bonus enhancements and abilities but that is where the comparison ends. Fyreslayers are uniquely suited to taking high drop lists in that they, unlike most armies, don’t care about taking first and can weather an enemy double turn thanks to their durability. This opens up a broad cadre of list building options with the sheer number of heroes present here not reasonable for those armies relying on Battle Regiment to have play.
Getting into the list itself, this Greyfyrd army runs a large contingent of cheap foot heroes, using a combination of the subfaction and battalions to outfit the heroes with a selection of the Fyreslayers’ rather stacked artefact list. Prayers are made more consistent, damage output is improved and items like the Nulsidian icon provide spell ignores in a meta still often visited by Nagash’s Favourite Sphere. At 1965 points this list will often get its triumph and the selection of inspired helps to ensure the large units of troops aren’t losing more than they need to to battleshock. The hero selection here gives this lists an absolute keyring of tools ranging from forgekeys and latchkey grandaxes to the extra CP of the Runemaster and the deepstrike of the Runesmiter. Of particular note is the Flamekeeper, the hero released with the Fyreslayers’ recent FOMO box, which doesn’t often see play in the tournament scene. With such large units of foot troops, his abilities – which are activated at the start of the combat phase whenever 6 models have died near the Flamekeeper since the previous turn – are going off with alarming frequency to provide powerful effects such as: – 6+ ward (meh) – Fight on death (alright) – Charge, including during the enemy turn (!!!!!!!) – +1 damage (still !!! but less so)
The rest of the list is still exciting (when was the last time anyone saw Auric Hearthguard?) but less in-depth than the heroes. Auric hearthguard deepstrike with the runesmiter and shoot quite well while the remainder of the army racks up objective scoring with difficult to shift statlines and wound characteristics. Putting these in Expert Conquerors and Bounty Hunters is a nice bonus in a list that already has drops to high heaven and the list is capped off with the Molten Infernoth, which gives the list an easy way to achieve its Grand Strategy. The notable bonus of the infernoth over other options is that you aren’t obligated to move it meaning, as the game is coming to a close, you can elect to not attempt a move and thus eliminate the chance of rolling it off the board with hot dice.
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Army Faction: Stormcast Eternals – Army Type: Scions of the Storm – Army Subfaction: Celestial Warbringers – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired – Holy Command: Thunderbolt Volley
LEADER 1 x Lord-Relictor (145)* – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Thundershock – Prayers: Translocation 1 x Knight-Vexillor (120)* – Meteoric Standard 1 x Knight-Vexillor (120)* – Meteoric Standard 1 x Knight-Vexillor (120)** – Meteoric Standard 1 x Knight-Vexillor (120)** – Meteoric Standard 1 x Knight-Vexillor (120)** – Meteoric Standard
BATTLELINE 5 x Judicators with Skybolt Bows (200)** – Judicator-Prime 5 x Judicators with Skybolt Bows (200)** – Judicator-Prime 5 x Judicators with Skybolt Bows (200)** – Judicator-Prime
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Everblaze Comet (90)
OTHER 3 x Annihilators (200)* – Annihilator-Prime 3 x Annihilators (200)* – Annihilator-Prime 1 x Stormstrike Chariot (165)* – Stormstrike Axe and Tempestuous Spear
Ethan: I mentioned it in the Fyreslayers but my goodness we’re in funkytown. The subfaction here is largely irrelevant but useful for re-rolling a save?
Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to the fun bit. The completely normal general here is a translocating Lord-Relictor and that’s where our dose of normal ends. Five Knight Vexillors. Count ’em. Five. For those not in the know (and who would be?) the Knight-Vexillor is the little Stormcast bloke with a banner. His ability? Do d3 wounds to everything within 6″ of a point anywhere on the board. So that’s 5d3 Mortals, averaging around 8-10 mortals to everything in range. This is then topped off with the Everblaze Comet which does d3, or d6, Mortals within a large area at a 36″ range. What a combo. In a double battle-regiment this list comes in at 2-drop, being one of the few lists that is likely to take the first turn, hitting anything remotely resembling a castle like, well, a storm? (I’m so sorry).
The rest of the list backs up this combination with tools to turn this opening blow into a knockout with a stormstrike chariot thundering around the board (I’ve moved past shame) while the Annihilators and their 2+ save come crashing into the opponents lines and punch a hole while tying things up for the judicators to rain down a squall of shots (we’re still going).
The only loss for this list was against Gargants and honestly, that tracks, considering how the list functions. While the list does incredible damage spread across a huge number of units, it would struggle to deal the concentrated pain required to take down wound-dense Sons of Behemat. What a list. Noe Aquino should be absolutely thrilled with this exciting result.
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Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes – Army Subfaction: Bloodgullet – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADER 1 x Huskard on Thundertusk (335) – General – Command Traits: ‘Nice Drop of the Red Stuff!’ – Blood Vulture – Artefacts: Skullshards of Dragaar – Prayers: Pulverising Hailstorm 1 x Frostlord on Stonehorn (430)* – Artefacts: Splatter-cleaver – Mount Traits: Metalcruncher 1 x Hrothgorn (170)* 1 x Butcher (135)** – Tenderiser – Spells: Ribcracker, Molten Entrails 1 x Frostlord on Stonehorn (430)** 1 x Slaughtermaster (140)** – Spells: Ribcracker, Greasy Deluge
BATTLELINE 3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)* 3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)* 3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)*
Peter: I’m starting this with a caveat! None of us know anything about Ogors…. Mind you we still get some of the comments wrong on lists we do know about so….
We have three characters on Stonehorns or Thundertusks who have a threat distance of 24″ (average 19″). These boys are tough with 13 wounds each, a 3+ save AND a 5+ ward. The Frostlords on Stonehorns can kick out an average of 18 damage before saves if they get a charge in.
The Huskard has the Blood Vulture which allows him to cause a free mortal each turn on any enemy unit within 24″. On top of this he has a tasty missile weapon which on its top bracket will roll 12 dice and will cause mortal wounds on 6’s (if the unit is less than 10 models), 5+ if the target had 10+ models or 4+ if it has 20+ models. He also has a command ability which allows other Beastclaw Raider (those Stonehorns) units within 12″ to re-roll their charges.
Hrothgorn and the Mantrappers are a clever inclusion for objective capturing and battle tactics as they can be set up in reserve and bought on in a friendly turn anywhere on the board more than 9″ from the enemy.
The Yhetees, while not great at dishing out damage can run and charge if they’re with 16″ of a Thundertusk when they do so. They also have the annoying ability to pile in from 6″ away instead of the usual 3″.
Both the Butcher and Slaughtermaster know additional spells thanks to their Bloodgullet allegiance and both have Ribcracker which deducts 1 from a an enemy units save. Molten entrails allows a Ogor Monster to add 1 to the damage of their mounts attacks (great on the Stonehorns), while Greasy Deluge forces an enemy unit to deduct 1 from their attacks.
Sprinkle in things like the Splatter-Cleaver which allows you to heal nearby Ogor units D3 wounds if you were successful with any of that models attacks. And a Nice Drop of the Red Stuff which is a command ability that allows units within 12″ of the general an additional 3″ pile in (9″ pile in for Yhetees).
All of this adds up to a tough and hard hitting army
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Allegiance: Khorne – Slaughterhost: Baleful Lords (Host of Chaos) – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Bloodstoker (80)**** – Artefact: Talisman of Burning Blood Bloodstoker (80)**** Bloodsecrator (125)*** – General – Command Trait: Thirst for Carnage – Artefact: Black Brass Crown Skarbrand (380)*** Valkia the Bloody (135)*** Slaughterpriest (100)**** – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist – Prayer: Blood Sacrifice
Battleline 10 x Bloodreavers (80)** – Meatripper Axes 10 x Bloodreavers (80)** – Meatripper Axes 10 x Bloodreavers (80)** – Meatripper Axes
Units 5 x Wrathmongers (145)* 1 x Chaos Chariots (100)*** – Greatblades – Mark of Chaos: Khorne 1 x Chaos Chariots (100)**** – Greatblades – Mark of Chaos: Khorne 4 x Khagra’s Ravagers (125)* – Spell1: Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon – Allies 9 x Untamed Beasts (70)*** – Allies 9 x Untamed Beasts (70)**** – Allies
Ethan: I’m going to coin this list the “Skarbrand launcher”. A multitude of battalions provide a slew of artefacts to this list, mitigated by the untamed beasts’ pregame move ensuring that objectives are contested from word go. The Baleful lords subfaction is usually utilised by “Oops, All Bloodthirsters” builds, however this list has eschewed such choices in favour of a hectic collection of units which all seem to be built around the uniting goal of “Skarbrand runs and charges at anything on the board”.
In the Heroes section, the arcane tome and ghost-mist, in combination with the prismatic palisade create powerful counterplay against shooting lists, ensuring the army’s lack of ranged options aren’t punished before it has a chance to walk up and beat you to a bloody pulp. The combination of Bloodsecrator, Wrathmongers and Valkia ensure that the Reavers punch above their very cheap cost and, with the benefit of additional attacks, the chaos chariots become a threat, aided by their incredible movement to be a scary prospect across the board. Bloodstokers double down on the theme handing out more movement bonuses to their willing whipees. The keyword for this list is mobility and it has it in spades. Castle build? This is the trebutchet, and the keystone boulder is a running and charging Skarbrand, enough to put fear into the heart of even the most seasoned Living Cities player.
Now, let’s talk about the Jabberslythe. I don’t quite get it? For 150 points, Sean knows something I don’t. It can make a high-output unit absolutely self destruct with self inflicted mortals or kill something that is killing it, Magmadroth style, but I’ll be real with y’all: I’m not sure what this does in the list. That said, it’s a very cool inclusion and provides a wonderful end point for a top 3 article discussing some of the most thrillingly different lists I’ve seen in the last few years. AoS is feeling spicy right now for the Johnnys of the world, with the GHB’s maturation proving that initial overreactions to Bounty Hunters were exactly that. Exciting times!
The following stats are for the week ending 28th August only, essentially GT’s that took place on the 27th and 28th August.
Rolling 4 Week Stats
The rolling stats includes all GT’s since the weekend of 30th/31st July to the 20th/21st August. This covers a total of 983 players (+152 players) across 24 Grand Tournaments (+3 GT).
As the new release of the GHB takes hold it looks as though the overall effect is a positive one, although the stats are starting to shift away from the 50% mark slightly again. With Destruction once again falling.
Its not been a good week for the Kruleboyz and this is also reflected in the four weeks stats with them falling to 35.0%. Come on GW, show them some love.
Here are the rolling four weeks win rates since we began tracking this information:
Faction Stats (Version)
The below stats are for every match in a grand tournament since the release of the new General’s Handbook.
A great week for Seraphon sees them extend a lead over the Daughters of Khaine with 9 clean sweeps to their 6.
Meanwhile at the lower end of the tables factions who have gone a whole tournament with five losses…
As for the win rates of each faction since the release of the new GHB:
In terms of faction popularity:
By rights, each faction should have an equal share of the player base, however we know this will not be the case due to either the appeal of the miniatures or the rules for the factions. Here we can see the most popular factions are Stormcast Eternals, Nighthaunt, Sylvaneth, Daughters of Khaine, Maggotkin of Nurgle, Seraphon and Skaven.
Currently it would appear that Seraphon players have the highest chance of going 5-0 at an even.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Gateway Open that took place in USA on 20th and 21st August. It involved 43 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS 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 AoS Lists
Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Knights Excelsior (Scions of the Storm) – Mortal Realm: Ghyran – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
Battleline 3 x Annihilators with Meteoric Grandhammers (240)*** 3 x Annihilators with Meteoric Grandhammers (240)** 5 x Vanquishers (125)**
Units 2 x Stormdrake Guard (340)** – Drakerider’s Warblade 3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (240)*** 3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (240)*** 3 x Aetherwings (65)*
Brett: A rare venture into top spot by Stormcast with an army composition that is showing a lot of promise in the current meta. A few subtleties in the construction of the list though. Firstly the Grand Strategy – that will force you to hunt down the opponents battleline. It’s a fair chance that you’d be doing that to win anyway, and an equally fair chance that the drakes (Bounty Hunters) will be doing that if any try to hide. The Magnificent Bonus from Warlord is important, Warlord is rarely used by Stormcast, but they probably benefit the most from it with their Holy Commands. The chosen 2 are amoung the best, in one turn one of the raptors are shooting in both the Hero and Shooting phase.
That gives you an effective 9 Raptors worth of shooting (one turn, 18 shots for 36 potential damage). Call for aid returns the Vanquishers the first time they are killed (recycling if you will). The heroes are the standard combination – Lord Imperatant for 7″ charges, Lord Relictor for Translocate (here with the Tome to increase utility) and the Knight Incantor for casting an a clutch dispel (one guaranteed/battle). The 7″ charge applies to any Thunderstrike unit (includes the Lord, Storm Drake and Vanquishers as well as the Annihilators) put only one unit per turn. This list is sometimes called a gambler’s list – you are banking on the 7″ charge (82% chance with reroll) otherwise you have 10 wounds with a 4+ save waiting to die.
This list is a bit low in durability with 85 wounds, mostly on a 4+ vs the normal SCE 3+. And 3 Galletian Veteran units make 28 of those wounds. The Aetherwings and Vanquishers are valuable as screens to begin with to keep the raptors safe. Later turns their mobility (Aetherwings) and damage is useful for board control and grabbing objectives. The drakes provide mobile, swingy damage – their breath weapons can hit hard or whiff horribly. Even the number of drops plays into the strategy – does your opponent make you go first? Or do they try to blunt your shooting (unlikely)? His matches were basically melee armies and the DoK armed (10 Blood Sisters) are overmatched by the Raptors.
Quite a few good players are using variants of this list, with Prime Hunters gone it should see man improvement in SCE win rates. It’s not instant win by any measure but gives you the tools to get the job done. The high drops is a nice touch, as is Horrorghast to maximise the impact on low bravery units of that long range shooting.
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Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar – City: Living City – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Bastions of Hope – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (315)* – General – Command Trait: Ironoak Artisan – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of Leaves: Lifesurge Battlemage (100)* – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Lore of Leaves: Ironoak Skin Sorceress (90)* – Lore of Leaves: Lifesurge Gotrek Gurnisson (485)** – Allies
Battleline 10 x Dreadspears (85)* – City Role: Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models) 10 x Dreadspears (85)* 10 x Dreadspears (85)*
Units 4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)** – Drakerider’s Warblade – Reinforced x 1
Endless Spells & Invocations Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
Brett: Living cities with SCE based hammers was popular before Prime Hunters so no surprise they are back with the new season. Gotrek is arguably a Cities character since he hangs there between adventures. The book Grand Strategy is interesting, you need to control more terrain features than your opponent at the end of the battle. Interesting since that implies keeping the Dreadspears alive, 1 W and a 4+ save makes that “fun”. Doubly so since the Sorceress is likely taking wounds from them to empower her spells (kills a model for +2 to cast). Overall with the Tome there are 3 casters and 3 casts. Lifesurge can heal D6 wounds and Ironoak Skin makes incoming attacks -1 to wound.
The Battlemage has Wildform which you could put on Gotrek (+2 to run and charge) to make him more mobile. Otherwise the Stormdrakes or Anointed could benefit. The Stormdrakes and Gotrek are in bounty hunters (so Gotrek is rocking a 4 damage axe). Using the Anointed early might be risky but he is quite tanking particularly with Ironoak Artisan that also grants +1 to wound rolls with melee weapons, it shouldn’t apply to the mount unfortunately. A big block of Dragons to threaten any open flanks or open objectives, they can also be covered by the Anointed (and cover the Anointed). Lifesurge is very useful healing the 9 wound dragons for D6 every turn. A very mobile hard hitting block. And of course the Purple Sun for both it’s debuff and it’s board control abilities. Your opponent will normally try to avoid it as much as possible.
A dependable list, Gotrek is an interesting addition even though he suffers from a lack of mobility. It’s possible to play around him but with the Dragons and Purple Sun there isn’t that much board to play with. In this case Ryan’s opponents for the most part needed to come to him to play making it much easier to get Gotrek into combat.
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Army Faction: Blades of Khorne – Subfaction: Reapers of Vengeance – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (295) – General – Command Traits: Mage Eater – Artefacts of Power: The Crimson Crown Skarr Bloodwrath (105)** Slaughterpriest (100)** – Hackblade and Wrath-hammer – Prayers: Blood Sacrifice Skarbrand (380)** Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280)*** – Artefacts of Power: Skullshard Mantle Bloodsecrator (125)***
Brett: Ahead of a possible new book (40k is getting new Daemons codex and Tzeentch is due soon, does that mean a new Khorne tome?). Khorne is another faction that really benefited with the end of Prime Hunters, it gives them more freedom with their Greater Daemons. Reapers of Vengence subfaction granting a Horrorghast effect (D3 extra fail battleshock) and a 3″ pile in and fight again command. Mage-Eater and Skullshatter are the mandatory trait/artefact but grant a spell deny and a 2+ spell ignore. The Crimson Crown effectively grants a free CP every round (5) that can only be used on the bearer’s warscroll ability (if they have one). In this case a 6″ pile in within 16″.
The key to Khorne in AoS are the big Daemons,, the Bloodthirsters and Skarbrand. Unusually there is no (Slaves to Darkness) Daemon Prince to affect movement/charges. Each of the Greater Daemons can do appalling levels of damage but each has an element of chance so they can also whiff horribly. The Unfettered Rage is probably the least damaging with a 12″ ranged attack and 6 melee attacks all doing D3 damage. The Insensate Range. His number of ranged attacks and to wound chance in melee degrade with wounds. Insensate Rage does D6 damage with his axe, and the number of attacks plus the Mortal Wounds (MW) caused on 6s degrade. The MW are to all units within 8″. Your best tactic against these is to get some damage in early to degrade them. Skarbrand needs to be treated differently though.
Skarbrand’s attacks increase as he degrades, and if he isn’t engaged in combat he fights next round as if he was in his lowest bracket. His main weapon is a flat 3 damage, his 8″ ranged attack is a 50% chance to inflict 1 MW for each successful attack and his Carnage 8MW. At lowest bracket it does that on a 1. Skarbrand either needs to be engaged all the time or removed early. Haven’t even mentioned the smaller heroes – Skarr can return to the field after death on a 8 (2D6) and is an anti horde fighter (either 5 attacks or the number of models within 3″), the Bloodsectator forces wizards to reroll successful casts within 16″. He also grants an additional attack to Khorne units within 16″. The Slaughter Priest is here to farm Blood Tithe points for summoning.
Finally we finish with the troops and summoning. Reinforced Bloodletters get +1 to hit (for 20 models in the unit), 6s do MWs, they can force rerolls on successful bravery rolls for the enemy and on a battleshock roll of 1 return D6 models to this unit. They only have 1 wound and a 5+ save so die easily. Bloodreavers are even more fragile but double up on the bonus attacks from the presence of a Bloodsectrator. Unnamed Beasts are very fragile but bring a lot of mobility and potentially grab outlying points or Battle Tactics. The Hexgorger is a nice touch, it is a prayer that is an endless spell. It inflicts a -2 to casting within 12″ and if a wizard within 8″ casts an 8, the spell fails, they forget the spell and take D6 MW. Nice.
That’s a lot to take in for a simple army that wants to get close,bash, stab, slash and generally maim you. You are best to shoot them from afar and hope for the best. When you look at his opponents though almost all of them had decent shooting (not the Skaven, those poor rats) but only one was able to use it effectively. That’s the difference between 24″ and 30″ range I suspect.
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Allegiance: Legion of the First Prince – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Be’Lakor, the Dark Master (360)* – Lore of Ruinous Sorcery: The Master’s Command Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280) – General – Command Trait: Ruinous Aura Kairos Fateweaver (435) – Lore of Ruinous Sorcery: The Master’s Command The Blue Scribes (160)* – Lore of Ruinous Sorcery: The Master’s Command The Contorted Epitome (245)* – Artefact: Fourfold Blade – Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist
Battleline 5 x Flesh Hounds (105)* 5 x Flesh Hounds (105)* 5 x Flesh Hounds (105)*
Endless Spells & Invocations Emerald Lifeswarm (60) Purple Sun of Shyish (70) Umbral Spellportal (70)
Brett: Another hero based list with 3 combat and 2 caster heroes, all with 10″+ movement. 3 Greater Demons is fairly common, we’ve already covered The Unfettered Rage above. Otherwise, and even with the Khorne elements, this is a casting army with 7 casts. The “Masters Command” on most of the leaders lets model, if slain, fight on Death. Otherwise Be’Lakor’s warscroll spell is enfeeblement giving an opposing unit -1 to wound. That’s on top of his once a game ability to stop pretty much all actions from a unit on a 3+ in each phase. Kairos is the epitome of a caster, his key ability is everytime he casts, dispels or unbinds he can set the lowest D6 (of the 2D6 roll) to match the highest D6. To summon the Purple Sun or his warscroll spell he only needs one 4 on 2 dice.
His Oracle of Eternity is also clutch, allowing him to set the number on a dice once per battle. It doesn’t have to be his roll, there is no range and no limit on what type of roll it’s used on. That’s on top of his 3 spells. You may be wondering why there is no Cogs in this list, the Blue Scribes are why. They have a warscroll spell with a casting value (CV) of 4 that allows other wizards to reroll. They can also copy spells and ensure successful casting once per hero phase on a 2+. Kairos then summons whatever Endless Spells are needed that turn. Umbral Spellportal to extend spells range, Purple Sun for threat and Lifeswarm for healing. The Contorted Epitome is mostly a combat unit but Ghost mist is a good choice to hide it’s approach.
The Flesh Hounds are here because outside of Gargants you need battle line. They are somewhat durable (2 wounds on a 5+), fast (8″) and annoying in combat. They are expendable and of course more units can be summoned. For LoFP it’s a battleline unit based on the Chaos god they represent (Bloodletters, Horrors, Demonettes etc). Belakor can summon any of these or 6 Furies. Chose which hero based on what you need and where it on the board (the reinforcements are arriving within 12″). A very broad range of abilities that it would be hard to track and apply but that means the list plays well into almost anything. The only loss was to 2nd place, Gotrek is great into daemons and the Stormdrake block is capable of clearing anything in this list in a turn. Once the Greater Daemons start dying this list is pretty fragile.
