Category Archives: Drowned Men

Top Three AoS Lists for the Michigan GT

This is the top three AoS lists for the Michigan GT that took place in the US on the 7th and 8th of October. It involved 90 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: Ogor Mawtribes
– Army Subfaction: Meatfist
– Grand Strategy: Ready for Plunder
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Tyrant (150)*
– General
– Command Traits: Killer Reputation
– Big Name: Brawlerguts , Fateseeker
1 x Tyrant (150)*
– Big Name: Brawlerguts
1 x Slaughtermaster (140)**
– Spells: Hoarfrost
1 x Frostlord on Stonehorn (460)**
– Artefacts: The Seat of Alvagr
– Mount Traits: Rockmane Elder
1 x Firebelly (120)**
– Spells: Billowing Ash

BATTLELINE
6 x Ogor Gluttons (240)**
– Bellower
– Crusher
– Tribal Banner Bearer with Lookout Gnoblar
– Paired Ogor Clubs or Bluntblades
4 x Ironguts (240)**
– Gutlord
– Bellower
– Rune Maw Bearer
6 x Ogor Gluttons (240)**
– Crusher
– Bellower
– Tribal Banner Bearer with Lookout Gnoblar
– Paired Ogor Clubs or Bluntblades

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Suffocating Gravetide (30)

TERRAIN
1 x Great Mawpot (0)

OTHER
1 x Gorgers (80)*
20 x Gnoblars (120)*

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1970/2000)

Well. Well well well. What have we got here? It looks like a well balance, non-skewy Meatfist list without Kragnos! And it’s only gone and gone 5-0!

So let’s try and break down how. The first obvious synergy is the two Brawlerguts Tyrants in Meatfists – what this means in practice is they’re doing charge mortals equal to on 3+s on dice equal to their charge roll. So that’s already a spicy little duo of pot-bellied rockets. The Firebelly is enjoying a bit of a resurgence in this season, mainly because of his Billowing Ash spell, which is a 12″ aura of -1 to hit, which is obviously fantastic and can now more reliably forced through with primals. You’ve also got the typical FloSH because it just represents too much utility and threat projection to leave home without.

Making up the ‘meat’ of the list are 2 units of gluttons and some Ironguts, who all received points drops recently making them much more viable. And with the +1 to charge mortal rolls from their sub-faction, are all looking for 4+ (while they’re over 2 models). The foot lads can be surprisingly slappy, and the Ironguts mean a once per game double-fight activation where necessary to tip the scales.

Rounding out the list and fitting nicely into a 2-drop, are two little bits of fun tech. Gnoblars are perennially fantastic screens who can punish people for getting close with yet more sneaky mortals, and the lone Gorger is an off-board piece for helping score Surround/Destroy or threatening a back objective. They also have the additional tech for turning off battleshock immunity and rally if they’re engaged, which in concert with another charge can potentially be devastating.

All told, the list clearly just works. It’s big, it’s slightly clever, and it’s frankly very honest. Love to see it going 5-0.


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Army Faction: Skaven
– Grand Strategy: Arch-corruptors of the Mortal Realms
– Triumphs: Indomitable

LEADER
1 x Grey Seer (120)*
– Spells: Skitterleap, Merciless Blizzard
1 x Grey Seer (120)*
– Spells: Hoarfrost, Death Frenzy
1 x Lord Skreech Verminking (370)**
1 x Plague Priest (100)**
– Prayers: Rabid-rabid!
1 x Verminlord Warbringer (380)**
– General
– Command Traits: Devious Adversary
– Artefacts: Warpstone Charm
– Spells: Flaming Weapon, Levitate
1 x Plague Priest (100)**
– Prayers: Heal

BATTLELINE
20 x Clanrats (100)
– Clawleader
– 2 x Clanrat Standard Bearer
– 2 x Clanrat Bell-ringer
– Rusty Blade
20 x Clanrats (100)
– Clawleader
– 2 x Clanrat Standard Bearer
– 2 x Clanrat Bell-ringer
– Rusty Blade
10 x Plague Censer Bearers (90)
10 x Plague Censer Bearers (90)

BEHEMOTH
1 x Hell Pit Abomination (180)

OTHER
1 x Warp-Grinder (60)**

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Andtorian Acolytes
**Warlord

TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)

Keegan Graves: Essentially the list is built around superior combat tricks, counter charging, and threat saturation. I have 5 units that do good damage in melee, and 3 that do ranged mortal wounds from spells and prayers. Then the list is designed around enabling those damage sources.

Three clawsteps ahead is the strongest ability in the skaven battletome, by far. It gives the list so much consistency in movement, and so much flexibility in the combat phase.
The extra pile ins, combined with 3” melee on the verminlords, fight on death, and the consistent charges, allows me to pick good activations to get the best value out of my melee troops, as well as extending my melee threat ranges significantly. This also combos well with the warp grinder, who usually deep-strikes a unit of censers to the battlefield, ready to fish for a 9” charge. With 3 clawsteps I essentially get 3 tries for the 9”, 1 with a prior unit, and the censers themselves with a reroll.

The plague priests and wizards give my army essentially a 13” kill box. Skreechs warscroll spell and the great plagues especially can gun down something with an average of 15 mortal wounds when I focus the two. It helps with dissuading people from charging my lines, as well as clearing space for my units to charge.

The list, simply put, just pumps out damage, everything in the army hits like a ton of bricks, from the verminlords to the hellpit to the censer bearers. The list can snowball very fast and is designed to secure games in the first 2-3 turns, to make up for skaven struggling on the tactic side.

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Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle
– Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Lord of Afflictions (230)*
– General
– Command Trait: Overpowering Stench
– Artefact: The Shield of Growths
The Glottkin (580)*
– Lore of Malignance: Blades of Putrefaction

Units
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (240)*
– 1x Dolorous Tocsin
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (240)*
– 1x Dolorous Tocsin
20 x Plaguebearers (240)*
– Reinforced x 1
20 x Rotmire Creed (300)*
– Reinforced x 1
1 x Pusgoyle Blightlords – Single (120)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1950 / 2000

Roland Rivera: Another week, another Glottkin list with a podium result – seems like that points cut is making quite the impact. The metagame shifting to be more melee-centric doesn’t hurt, either. This list is an interesting spin on using the Glottkin, however, as Drowned Men is usually not the subfaction chosen for that sort of list, as going heavy on Pusgoyle Blightlords typically burns through your points allotment in a hurry. However, with a bit of compromising on his Fly count, Raymond has made it work.

This list has paired The Glottkin with some interesting dance partners, as it features both a reinforced unit of Plaguebearers (useful for pinning opponents in place with big blobs of bodies) and Rotmire Creed (useful for peppering the opponent with shooting). It also features a Lord of Afflictions with Overpowering Stench as a way to shut off commands.

In summary, this list seems to be the result of mashing the two best-performing styles of Nurgle together to see what happens, but the end result seems to be strong enough to perform well.

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Allegiance: Nighthaunt
– Procession: Scarlet Doom
– Mortal Realm: Shyish
– Grand Strategy: Fright or Flight
– Triumphs:

Leaders
Krulghast Cruciator (150)
– General
– Command Trait: Terrifying Entity
Guardian of Souls (150)*
– Artefact: Midnight Tome
– Lore of the Underworlds: Shademist
Guardian of Souls (150)*
– Lore of Primal Frost: Merciless Blizzard
Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief (270)**
– Lore of the Underworlds: Spirit Drain

Units
10 x Bladegheist Revenants (160)**
10 x Bladegheist Revenants (160)**
10 x Bladegheist Revenants (160)**
10 x Bladegheist Revenants (160)**
10 x Bladegheist Revenants (160)**
4 x Myrmourn Banshees (90)
4 x Myrmourn Banshees (90)
Black Coach (270)

Endless Spells & Innvocations
Suffocating Gravetide (30)

Core Battalions
*Andtorian Acolytes
**Battle Regiment

Total: 2000 / 2000

Craig Ellis: In terms of support there are 2 GoS with their excellent +1 to wound aura, healing spell & one with Merciless Blizzard (extra primals needed from the acolytes battalion) & Shademist (-1 to be wounded on a unit) on the other making a unit extra hard to kill. This durability is helped with the Krulghast -1 to damage in melee aura. The Generals command trait extends the Aura of Dread trait to 6” away, meaning he’s extending the range of denying Inspiring Prescence, helping with battle tactics and also adding a bit more damage (Lady O’s lifting the veil ability adds +1MW if the enemy is terrified!) Lady O herself provides that once-per-battle bringing back models to every unit in the army to keep stuff around a bit longer, and a 5+ Command Ability deny from 12” away to help deny crucial Redeploys or AoD’s. Her Lifting the Veil is great for sniping foot heroes (don’t roll a 1!). The spirit drain spell she’s been given adds to the anti-horde theme. All of this helps charge up the Black Coach, as the dice ticks up every time a model dies within 12”, meaning he’s going to be getting multiple attempts in the game to unleash the 3d3 MW rocket from the Coach, with its Evocation of Death ability. The Suffocating Gravetide is the cherry on top for those hordes, providing a serious threat to large model count units, as well as being a giant base for controlling enemy movement.
The main weakness is staying in power. If he gets drawn into any attritional lengthy combats, he’s going to lose. Anything getting a successful alpha into this is going to put some serious hurt in, too. Careful deployment is required as there aren’t too many screens unless you count the banshees. It’s will require careful positioning to strike at the right time without being left open to the double turn.

It’s aggressive, has high output, scores well, and doesn’t care about the Nighthaunts main weakness, being its susceptibility to the hit back. Very nice.

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Final Tournament Placings

To view all of the results for the tournament please follow the link below to Best Coast Pairings

https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/event/91qjJsF8WF

Top Three AoS Lists for the Nashcon Age of Sigmar GT 2023

This is the top three AoS lists the Nashcon Age of Sigmar GT 2023 that took place in the US on the 19th and 20th of August. It involved 104 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament. This is a two list tournament, players choose which one to run at the table.

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

List 1:
Allegiance: Khorne
– Slaughterhost: Reapers of Vengeance
– Grand Strategy: Slaughter of Sorcery
– Triumphs: Inspired


Leaders
Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (330)*
– General
– Command Trait: Firebrand
– Artefact: A’rgath the King of Blades
– Prayer: Bloodbind
Bloodmaster, Herald of Khorne (110)*
– Prayer: Killer Instinct
Skarr Bloodwrath (110)*
Skarbrand (380)**
Bloodmaster, Herald of Khorne (110)**
– Artefact: Halo of Blood
– Prayer: Blood Sacrifice
Theddra Skull-Scryer (160)**
– Allies


Battleline
20 x Bloodletters (360)**
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Bloodreavers (80)**
– Reaver Blades
8 x Claws of Karanak (100)**

Units
3 x Magore’s Fiends (140)**
5 x Godsworn Hunt (160)**

– Allies


Endless Spells & Invocations
Hexgorger Skulls (50)
Wrath-Axe (70)


Faction Terrain
1x Skull Altar

Core Battalions
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Battle Regiment


Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000


List 2:
Allegiance: Khorne
– Slaughterhost: Reapers of Vengeance
– Grand Strategy: Slaughter of Sorcery
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty


Leaders
Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (330)*
– General
– Command Trait: Firebrand
– Artefact: A’rgath the King of Blades
– Prayer: Bloodbind
Bloodmaster, Herald of Khorne (110)*
– Prayer: Killer Instinct
Skarr Bloodwrath (110)*
Skarbrand (380)**
Bloodmaster, Herald of Khorne (110)**
– Artefact: Halo of Blood
– Prayer: Blood Sacrifice
Theddra Skull-Scryer (160)**
– Allies


Battleline
20 x Bloodletters (360)**
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Bloodreavers (80)**
– Reaver Blades
8 x Claws of Karanak (100)**


Units
3 x Magore’s Fiends (140)**
5 x Godsworn Hunt (160)**

– Allies


Endless Spells & Invocations
Hexgorger Skulls (50)
Wrath-Axe (70)


Faction Terrain
1x Skull Altar

Core Battalions
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Battle Regiment


Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000

Roland Rivera: Despite this tournament being in a 2-list format, our winner seems to has thumbed his nose at that notion, as both of his lists are exactly the same! He has gone for the Hero-heavy Khorne approach which seems to be gaining momentum of late, as he has maxed out his Hero selections.

The list is anchored by Skarbrand and the Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury, which are a vital source of mobility in the form of 3D6″ charges (Skarbrand for himself, the Unfettered Fury Thirster for anyone) and doing most of the damage. The list also packs several Priests (including the Unfettered Fury Thirster itself) to help power out whatever Prayer or Invocation is the most useful at the moment (and this list has a pretty deep selection). An interesting addition is Theddra Skull-Scryer as an Ally (likely for Andtorian Locus-centered Battle Tactics). Skarr Bloodwrath rounds out the Hero lineup as a cheap, recurring space blocker that can also double as a source of Blood Tithe.

These Heroes have some troop support in the form of a blob of Bloodletters and Magore’s Fiends, but they will mostly be asked to do the heavy lifting in combat, on both offense and defense. Overall, this style of Khorne list seems to be gaining momentum this season, so don’t be surprised if you see similar lists going forward.


Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords
– Army Type: Vyrkos
– Grand Strategy: Empire of Corpses
– Triumphs: Indomitable

LEADER
1 x Belladamma Volga (200)*
– Spells: Spirit Gale
1 x Vampire Lord (140)*
– Spells: Hoarfrost
1 x Gorslav the Gravekeeper (120)**
– General
– Command Traits: Spoor Trackers
– Artefacts: Ulfenkarni Phylactery
1 x Torgillius the Chamberlain (150)**
– Spells: Fading Vigour


BATTLELINE
10 x Dire Wolves (140)*

– Doom Wolf
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)*
40 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)*
40 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)*
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)*
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)**


OTHER
1 x Corpse Cart (80)**

– Corpse Goad
– Unholy Lodestone
1 x Corpse Cart (80)**
– Corpse Goad
– Unholy Lodestone
6 x Fell Bats (80)**
3 x Vyrkos Blood-born (90)**


CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)


Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords
– Army Type: Vyrkos
– Grand Strategy: Empire of Corpses
– Triumphs: Indomitable


LEADER
1 x Torgillius the Chamberlain (150)*
– Spells: Fading Vigour
1 x Belladamma Volga (200)*
– Spells: Spirit Gale
1 x Gorslav the Gravekeeper (120)**
– General
– Command Traits: Spoor Trackers
– Artefacts: Ulfenkarni Phylactery
1 x Vampire Lord (140)***
– Spells: Hoarfrost
1 x Necromancer (100)***
– Spells: Merciless Blizzard


BATTLELINE
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)*
40 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)*
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)*
40 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)**
40 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)**
10 x Dire Wolves (140)**

– Doom Wolf


ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Malevolent Maelstrom (30)


OTHER
1 x Corpse Cart (80)*
– Corpse Goad
– Unholy Lodestone
1 x Corpse Cart (80)**
– Corpse Goad
– Unholy Lodestone


CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment
***Andtorian Acolytes


TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

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Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle
– Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration


LEADERS
Lord of Afflictions (230)*
– General
– Command Trait: Overpowering Stench
– Artefact: The Shield of Growths
The Glottkin (600)*
– Lore of Malignance: Rancid Visitations
Poxbringer Herald of Nurgle (130)*
– Lore of Primal Frost: Hoarfrost


UNITS
4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (480)*
– 2 x Dolorous Tocsin
10 x Plaguebearers (130)*
10 x Plaguebearers (130)*
2 x Beasts of Nurgle (200)*
3 x Nurglings (100)*


CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

2000/2000pts


Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle
– Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration


LEADERS
Lord of Afflictions (230)*
– General
– Command Trait: Overpowering Stench
– Artefact: The Shield of Growths
The Glottkin (600)*
– Lore of Malignance: Gift of Disease
Poxbringer Herald of Nurgle (130)*
– Lore of Primal Frost: Hoarfrost


UNITS
4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (480)*
– 2 x Dolorous Tocsin
10 x Plaguebearers (130)*
10 x Plaguebearers (130)*
2 x Beasts of Nurgle (200)*
3 x Nurglings (100)*


CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

2000/2000pts


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Army Faction: Flesh-eater Courts
– Subfaction: Hollowmourne
– Grand Strategy: Overshadow
– Triumph: Inspired


LEADERS
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (450)*

– Artefacts of Power: Corpsefane Gauntlet
– Mount Traits: Gruesome Bite
– Spells: Flaming Weapon, Spectral Host
Crypt Haunter Courtier (110)*
Varghulf Courtier (160)*
– General
– Command Traits: Grave Robber
Abhorrant Archregent (240)**
– Spells: Hoarfrost, Merciless Blizzard
Abhorrant Archregent (240)**
– Spells: Deranged Transformation, Hoarfrost

BATTLELINE
Crypt Horrors (330)
Crypt Horrors (330)
Crypt Ghouls (80)*


ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Aethervoid Pendulum (40)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Warlord
**Andtorian Acolytes


TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000


Army Faction: Flesh-eater Courts
– Subfaction: Hollowmourne
– Grand Strategy: Overshadow
– Triumph: Inspired


LEADERS
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (450)*
– General
– Command Traits: Grave Robber
– Artefacts of Power: Corpsefane Gauntlet
– Mount Traits: Gruesome Bite
– Spells: Flaming Weapon
Crypt Haunter Courtier (110)*
Abhorrant Archregent (240)**

– Spells: Hoarfrost
Abhorrant Archregent (240)**
– Spells: Deranged Transformation


BATTLELINE
Crypt Horrors (330)*
Crypt Horrors (330)*
Crypt Ghouls (80)*


OTHER
Crypt Flayers (180)*

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Andtorian Acolytes


TOTAL POINTS: 1960/2000

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Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for the Wartilyo GT

This is the top three AoS lists for the Wartilyo GT that took place in the Philippines on the 13th and 14th of May. It involved 24 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.

Wartilyo Top Table

If you get a few minutes, have a look at the making of the Wartilyo GT Top table. It’s a thing of beauty!

The Top Three AoS Lists

Kieron: And the crown for one of the first, if not the first Philippines GT goes to Tzeentch with another Krondspine/Guild of Summoners combo. There are a few interesting choices here compared to other similar lists, the first of which is the Shards of Valagharr. What all of the Guild of Summoners lists want more than anything is time to get the big birds on the board and an Endless Spell that halves the movement of models and prevents units from flying or being removed from the board and set back up again are always going to be good value. It’s also an easy spell for the Krondspine to eat after killing your own Magister and making the Krondspine go wild with a casting value of only 5. Staying with the theme of slowing your opponent down, nothing puts a unit off making a charge more than having one of its members turn into a gibbering chaos spawn via the Burning Sigil.

Unit wise, two units of pinks is a great start to the list as there’s only summoning of Lords of Change in Guild of Summoners and, alongside the Krondspine, and good use of terrain, it’s going to be difficult to get to the casters for several turns. The Magister is a mainstay of these lists – giving you two potential casts, with the Krondspine giving an additional +1 on top of the +1 from Kairos as well. The other caster is a Thaumaturge, with the Gryph Feather Charm adding a 5+ ward save to this model – really key as if there are no Arcanite heroes alive (i.e. the Magister and the Ogroid) then there’s no summoning in Guild of Summoners.

In terms of how Carlo probably planned each battle to go, it would be to either Cunning Manoeuvre or Tide of Anarchy (take an objective with 9+ models) while building up to 8 summoning points. T2, Call for Change by earning one more summoning point through your opponent’s hero phase or simply through one of your own and then dropping in your first bird. T3, potentially finish off a 9 model unit or 9 wound hero/monster for Ninefold Dismantlement. T4 could easily be whichever of Cunning Manoeuvre or Tide wasn’t done in T1 and then, assuming you have at least two big birds and Kairos on the board and in range of each other, getting Kairos to cast 3 spells with +3 to cast is very straightforward or, just use Destiny Dice to cast them. Make sure you’ve got 9 on Destiny Dice at the end and that’s the Grand Strat as well. You may not even have had to use Desecrate Land or Eye for an Eye, two of the easier tactics to score, with This One’s Mine with the Ogroid being very viable too. And this is how Tzeentch wins – 13 points on the battle tactics and Grand Strategy meaning that even if you only score 10 points on the primary, you still have a very healthy score of 23. If your opponent doesn’t quite finish off enough Horrors to take an objective on a turn they chose Gaining Momentum…a one or two point turn is probably game over against this kind of list.

Congrats Carlo on the result and congrats to the Filipino AoS community!

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After a couple of seasons in the shadows, their hunger building, Soulblight are finally back for blood – Legion of Blood, to be precise. And it’s a list archetype you’re going to see a lot of for a while.

The core of the list revolves around a vampire lord on dragon (VloZD) with the Cloak of Mists and Shadows to make it ethereal, aka a 3+ save that can’t be modified either way. Combined with the Doomed Minion trait, allowing it to apply the following effect to d3 enemy units that aren’t heroes/monsters they into engagement with: ANY friendly unit hits that enemy unit on unmodified 2+s. With the new hunger ability – healing up to 6 wounds of damage done – this makes the VloZD a terrifying utility piece that is insanely hard to kill and can make killing key units trivially easy.

Neferata brings up the rear, bringing two key pieces of utility to bear – the ability for her and 3 units to redeploy before the first battle round begins and her spell to make something _unrendable_, i.e. it can still benefit from positive save modifiers. The 10 blood knights are obviously a great receiver for that spell, but it works well on herself too, or the giant blob of Deathrattle to make them an absolute nightmare to fully deal with, especially given the new timing on their ability – essentially a free 4+ rally at the start of the combat phase.

All told, it’s a list with huge utillity, super anvils and fantastic board control – which as you might expect was only dealt with successfully by DoT and their sheer MW output being able to bypass all that tankiness and access to horrors etc to compete with the chaff hordes on objectives. This is a great result for John Paul and certainly not the last we’ve seen of this list.

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We’ve a new commentator who joins us this week, and boy, does he love his Chaos armies! Roland Rivera is a US player who’s big into his Khorne, Nurgle, and Slaves to Darkness. As well as that, he also plays Ironjawz, Ogors, and Stormcast. So we’ll probably be hearing a lot from him going forward!

Roland Rivera: Ah, Nurgle. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We’ve been seeing lists built around Pusgoyle Blightlords and the Drowned Men subfaction place well for over a year now, and this is the latest entry in that file. The pregame move Drowned Men provides is very powerful, as it can help you position the Blightlords to engage in midboard attrition scenarios (where they excel) ahead of schedule, or otherwise adjust to your opponent’s deployment and counter the disadvantage of being a 1-drop. Once in combat, Pusgoyle Blightlords can be very hard to deal with, because of their high wound count, solid saves, 5+ Ward, and multiple mortal wound generation abilities. The Blightlords are also paired with the customary Lord of Afflictions General with the Overpowering Stench command trait, which turns off the ability to issue and receive commands. This ability has only gotten stronger as the edition has progressed, as more and more powerful command abilities enter the game. The list also has Bloab as an efficiently costed Hero Monster with a powerful warscroll spell. A unit of Nurglings rounds things out by providing backfield pressure, which in Nurgle also translates to faster generation of Contagion Points you can then use for summoning more Daemons. An interesting bit of tech here is the inclusion of a Plague Priest. This Priest plays multiple roles in this list – he helps interact with Invocations (which Nurgle cannot do with its main roster), he is a Galletian Champion with Tunnel Master for sneaky objective capturing, and he can chant a high-upside prayer in Curse. The Pusgoyle Blightlords have lots of attacks but lack Rend, so Curse provides a nice source of extra damage. Do note that mortal wounds generated from Curse will not stack with disease points – you’ll have to pick one. Overall, this list is very good at what it does – it’s an attrition meatgrinder that can shove tough, elite units in its opponent’s face and pin them down.

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Brett: Bullgors centre stage in a list that focuses on board control as much as power with Ungors and Raiders for days. With summoning going away there is more play in Ambush (starting unit, up to the whole army off the board). That pairs well with the Herdstone which increases Rend from Round 2. Combined here with Darkwalkers to let a unit within 9″ of a board edge to leave the board and teleport back on;

4 Ungor and Ungor Raider units to take advantage of that mobility. The raiders being in Galletian Sharpshooters is surprising – their shooting isn’t strong but it does give them more utility. With the Doombull and Bullgors to hold the centre and be buffed by the Sharman this is a durable list with some punch especially later. However both of the Bullgor units only have 5+ saves which might have hurt them (although they can have a ward save). The Ungors (all of them) are free to score points and just be annoying all over the place. Unfortunately, even with their new book, their output can be disappointing since they mostly hit on a 4+. Combined with initially low rend they don’t hit hard until the later part of the game. The Bullgors are loaded for maximum damage but are also vunerable to being roared. If they are removed then the rest of the list lacks punch.

Looks like the Sons of Behemet used that against them and inflicted enough damage early enough to force a loss. Very respectible effort beating Soulblight, Seraphon and Slaves (Nurgle Knights?).

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Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for the Borderlands Bash

This is the Top Three AoS lists for Borderlands 2k Bash that took place at Borderlands Comics and Games in Greenville, SC on November 19th. There were a total of 12 players competing in this three-round event.

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: Ogor Mawtribes
Army Subfaction: Underguts
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
Frostlord on Stonehorn (445)*
– Mount Trait: Rockmane Elder
Butcher (135)*
– General
– Command Trait: Master of Magic
– Cleaver
– Spells: Molten Entrails
Slaughtermaster (135)*
– Artefacts of Power: Gruesome Trophy Rack
– Spells: Blubbergrub Stench

BATTLELINE
Ogor Gluttons (265)*
– Tribal Banner Bearer with Lookout Gnoblar
– Bellower
– Crusher
– Paired Ogor Clubs or Bluntblades
Leadbelchers (170)*
Leadbelchers (170)*

Artillery
Ironblaster (170)*
Ironblaster (170)
Ironblaster (170)
Ironblaster (170)

Terrain
Great Mawpot (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

Patrick: When the Ogor Mawtribes Battletome was released it was a fair assumption that some unit spamming/abuse would come out of the new book. Tobias made this assumption as well and decided to test the waters by dropping as many Ironblasters as he could on the table. “Ironblasters are awesome,” Tobias told me. “I’m not playing Ogors because I want to play greenish stunted gitz… So none of that in my list.” He is also taking advantage of the -1 to wound from Rockmane Elder, providing some extra beef on the Stonehorn.

His Ironblasters played well into all of his matchups, although with some minor difficulty into Idoneth Deepkin due to shooting restrictions that the army carries with it. His Ironblasters killed Bloab Rotspawn in the first round of his second match. Two units firing the long range shot were able to remove him from across the table, and went on to table his Nurgle opponent by the bottom of round 2. “They will be a meta pick. If I had a big event I’d run them, but they weren’t great fun.” It may be too early to say if the warscroll needs some adjustments, but I think at the very least we will see a points increase in the future.

Congratulations to Tobias on his win, and we hope to see more lists from him in the future (the upcoming Cherokee GT, perhaps?).

Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords
Army Type: Kastelai Dynasty
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

LEADER
Manfred Von Carstein (380)
Spells: Fading Vigour
Vengorian Lord (280)
– General
– Command Traits: Swift and Deadly
– Artefact: Fragment of the Keep
– Spells: Invigorating Aura, Amethystine Pinions
Belladamma Volga (200)
Spells: Vile Transference

BATTLELINE
10 x Blood Knights (390)*
– Kastellan
– Standard Bearer
10 x Blood Knights (390)*
– Kastellan
– Standard Bearer
5 x Blood Knights (195)*
– Kastellan
– Standard Bearer
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)**
– Skeleton Champion
– Standard Bearer
– Champion’s Mace or Halberd
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)**
– Skeleton Champion
– Standard Bearer
– Champion’s Mace or Halberd

CORE BATTALIONS
* Bounty Hunters
** Expert Conquerors

TOTAL POINTS: (1995 / 2000)

Patrick: “After narrowing down to Soulblight, I went back and forth between a horde of Zombies and Skeletons and a mixed armes list like we have ssen across the meta. However, I thought ‘I own 25 Blood Knights,’ why not run all of them.” And run them, he did, to great effect. The list sees Manfred and a Vengorian Lord bringing buffs and spellcasting to round out his list, as well as some Expert Conqueror Skeletons for objective maintenance. Manfred’s base size came in especially handy due to his unique command ability, providing +1 to hit and wound wholly within 12”. His base size and careful positioning meant that Stuart could have at least 2 units of 10 knights with 2+/2+, -1 rend, and 2-3 damage lances.

Belladomma works to provide a quality fighter to deal with chaff units. Her ability to turn salin models into Dire Wolves worked in Stuart’s favor to keep the board saturated with threats, and can be used to bait an opponent’s dispel attempt to make room for casting from Mannfred and the Vengorian Lord.

Army Type: Maggotkin of Nurgle
– Army Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration

– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
Bloab Rotspawned (320)
– Spells: Gift of Disease
Orghotts Daemonspew (320)
Lord of Afflications (230)
– General
– Command Traits: Overpowering Stench
– Incubatch
– Dolorous Tocsin
– Artefacts of Power: The Splithorn Helm

BATTLELINE
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)*
– Dolorous Tocsin
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)*
– Dolorous Tocsin
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)*
– Dolorous Tocsin
10 x Plaguebearers (150)**
10 x Plaguebearers (150)**

ENDLESS SPELL
Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (60)

TERRAIN
1 x Feculent Gnarlmaw (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
* Bounty Hunters
** Expert Conquerors

TOTAL POINTS: (1980/2000)

Patrick: Jake’s Nurgle list was tooled to the event. “With Prize of Gallet on the list it was going to be incredibly hard to score if I went first.” This meant that he had to break away from his original list (which included no Galletian Veterans) and build in two units of Plaguebearers. They are cheaper than Blightkings, and in this instance would perform the same duty. That left three units of flies, one to deep strike with the Lord of Affliction and one to Drowned Men across the table and lock his opponent down.

Jake feels that some better deployment of Bloab could have kept him alive longer. Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws would have done a lot of work into Tobias’s chaff units, and he may have been able to get a better performance in the third round. “Mawtribes are gross now,” he told me, but he is happy with the list and his performance. “The list did what I expected it too. Flies and Jaws eat the grunts and you aim the Maggoth lords at their heroes.”

He made some final notes in our conversation as well. “Nurgle is fine, the thing that bothers me the most is the lists that are winning are the same archetype. I’d love to see a non-Drowned Men win rate. The issue is everything in that book just pushed it towards that load out. Better units, better artefacts into the best subfaction.” His next event will see the use of a Great Unclean One in more close-range battleplans, one of which will include a “no deep strike” rule.

Army Type: Seraphon
– Army Type: Coalesced
– Army Subfaction: Thunder Lizard
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance

– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
Skink Starpriest (130)**
– General
– Command Traits: Master of Magic
– Artefacts of Power: Fusil of Conflagration
– Spells: Levitate

BATTLELINE
Skinks (75)*
– Skink Alpha
– Boltspitter, Celestite Dagger and Star-buckler
Skinks (75)*
– Skink Alpha
– Boltspitter, Celestite Dagger and Star-buckler
Skinks (75)*
– Skink Alpha
– Boltspitter, Celestite Dagger and Star-buckler

BEHEMOTH
Dread Saurian (545)**
Dread Saurian (545)**
Dread Saurian (545)**

CORE BATTALIONS
* Expert Conquerors
** Linebreaker

TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)

Patrick: This list is the perfect example of why I love one-day events. The fact that large prizes generally aren’t on the line means that people will be more willing to accommodate casual crowds and test off-meta lists. Jon’s list fits this perfectly.

“The idea…was to make a bad list” Jon told me during a discussion. The Greenville AoS community tends to be newer or more casual players than he normally plays. He didn’t want to create a list that would completely shut other players out. Jon told me “I like the idea of giant lizards stomping around, and this was the only time I would ever actually run them at an event.” Dread Saurians will certainly feel robust in a Thunder Lizard list, but overall they won’t accomplish very much. They’re an ideal unit for new players to feel good dumping wounds into without getting punched back too hard, but players also need to be sure to watch the Skinks, since it would be easy to focus on the big intimidating models while Jon’s battleline consistently scores VP. It’s a lesson in threat assessment and target priority for new players.

While Jon didn’t win the event, he certainly accomplished his goals. Hopefully we see more people approach play with this attitude in event in the future.

Note: Jon did not compete in the final round due to matchups. He was scheduled to face someone he plays multiple times a week, and he decided to give them a chance to play a different opponent (not to mention it is a pain to move three Dread Saurians around).

Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for TCC: Age of Sigmar 2 Day Event

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the TCC: Age of Sigmar 2 Day Event that took place in Australia on 12th and 13th November. It involved 24 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: Maggotkin of Nurgle
Army Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand strategy: Blessed Desecration

LEADER
1 x Lord of Afflictions (230)*
General
– Command Traits: Overpowering Stench
– Dolorous Tocsin
– Artefacts: The Splithorn Helm
1 x Be’lakor (360)*

BATTLELINE
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)*
Dolorous Tocsin
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)*
Dolorous Tocsin
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)*
4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (500)*
10 x Plaguebearers (150)*

TERRAIN
1 x Feculent Gnarlmaw (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1995/2000)

Danny: Maggotkin are still good after the flies went up a few points, who’d a thunk it! We got drowned men here for the pre-game move with 10 flies, and a cheeky Be’Lakor to stop your main thing from doing whatever it does that MIGHT kill some flies for a turn (or two if they give away/lose the double).

Oppressive pinning list and attrition through disease points is the name of the game here. Be’Lakor is a cheeky inclusion but makes plenty of sense, given it’s a nightmare to claw back points from fly spam – and let’s be honest, it’s still fly spam – after a turn of your biggest piece sitting on their arse.

We’ll see how it goes – initial feelings are Drowned Men, not the price of flies, is the real problem. But in the meantime, gratz to Thomas for rolling with the punches and taking down some tough armies along the way.

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Allegiance: Sylvaneth
– Glade: Heartwood
– Mortal Realm: Ghyran
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs:

LEADERS
Alarielle the Everqueen (840)*
Spirit of Durthu (370)*
General
– Command Trait: Gnarled Warrior
– Artefact: Greenwood Gladius

UNITS
5 x Tree-Revenants (110)*
5 x Tree-Revenants (110)*
5 x Tree-Revenants (110)*
6 x Spiterider Lancers (420)*
Reinforced x 1
Spiteswarm Hive (40)
*Battle Regiment

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 90
Drops: 1

Ethan:One of the real pillars of Sylvaneth currently is Alarielle + good stuff and this list fits it to a Tree (Sorry). Alarielle is a large, fast and durable beatstick that comes back after you deal with her the first time. Her durability is well supported by Durthu as a backup, teleporting spiteswarm recipient, using his warscroll teleport and the additional +3′ to charges to gain consistency on this hammer. Combined with gnarled warrior, durthu becomes quite durable making the 90 wounds of the list slightly misleading. Throw in 15-20 summoned wounds from alarielle and you’ve got quite the beefy core with which to gain board control and threaten across objectives.

Tree revs fill out the middle to complete battle tactics well but the more interesting unit here is the Spiterider Lancers. At 1 damage some people question their staying power after Bounty Hunters rotates but Mitch must think they don’t need the help, taking them in a battle regiment – absolutely key with this kind of list – controlling game flow is invaluable without durable anvils or notable shooting. The Spiteriders always strike first on the charge, allowing for some flexibility with Strike and Fade and giving the Matt a chance to make an educated call about whether he needs to make like a tree (Sorry, Sorry) before a reprisal happens or whether he can use his successive activations to clear an area and hold it safely.

I can see this list being quite swingy in some matchups, Alarielle is notoriously weak to MWs and shooting, but Matt has obviously piloted it well to a 4-1, only losing in the final game to a Maggotkin list. Perhaps Alarielle’s reputation of being pillowfisted coming to the fore against the extremely durable Nurgle units, though he has taken out great competition along the way with Snakes, Ogors, Rats and Bravery bombs under his belt. Well done Matt!

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Allegiance: Daughters of Khaine
Temple: Zainthar Kai
– Grand Strategy: Bloodthirsty Zealots
– Triumphs:

Leaders
Bloodwrack Medusa (130)**
Artefact: Shadow Stone
– Lore of Shadows: Mindrazor
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood (315)**
General
– Command Trait: Zealous Orator
– Artefact: Crown of Woe
– Prayer: Sacrament of Blood
Hag Queen (110)**
Prayer: Blessing of Khaine
Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (315)**
Allies

Battleline
10 x Blood Stalkers (360)
Reinforced x 1
15 x Blood Sisters (420)*
Reinforced x 2
10 x Witch Aelves (115)*
Pairs of Sacrificial Knives

Units
5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)**
5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)**

Endless Spells & Invocations
Heart of Fury (45)

Core Battalions
*Bounty Hunters
**Warlord

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 315 / 400
Wounds: 106
Drops: 9

Danny: If you don’t take Spinedog, you probably take…. double takes a Frostheart on Phoenix allied in!? That’s some interesting tech – it’s not inconsiderably killy but I think the idea behind it is a mobile platform for a 9″ aura of -1 to wound in melee, which will obviously go a long way to keeping a fragile army like DoK alive. Combine that with the 12″ Heart of Fury aura for -1 damage, and a Cauldron of Blood for +1 save within 18″ and Blessing on Khaine prayer on the Hag Queen for re-roll ward saves and, funnily enough, you just make the glassiest of cannons into something resembling a…porcelain cannon! Hell, maybe even a solid oak cannon.

The rest of the list is normal enough – a nice big 15 blob of Blood Sisters for putting out eye-watering mortals after they fight, and the obligatory 2x Khinerai for battle tactic scoring. But love to see the Frostheart tech for a really interesting alternative to the tankiness Morathi brings (to herself) – instead spreading it over a key unit or two.

On the way to 3rd. Liam lost only to the winner, and managed to beat out Fangs of Sotek, SCE and Slaves, who can all put some serious melee hurt, so the list clearly performed. Kudos!

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Allegiance: Kruleboyz
Warclan: Big Yellers
– Grand Strategy: Demonstration of Strength
– Triumphs:

Leaders
Breaka-Boss on Mirebrute Troggoth (180)
Mount Trait: Fast ‘Un
Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof (150)
General
– Command Trait: Supa Sneaky
Murknob with Belcha-banna (95)
Artefact: Mork’s Eye Pebble

Battleline
10 x Gutrippaz (160)**
10 x Hobgrot Slittaz (80)
10 x Gutrippaz (160)**
10 x Hobgrot Slittaz (80)
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)*
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)*
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)*
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)
20 x Shootas (120)**

Core Battalions
*Bounty Hunters
**Expert Conquerors

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 156
Drops: 16

Kieron: So, with the new Battlescroll buffs and the existing staples for almost all Kruleboyz lists, we’d be expecting Joel to write a list to make the most of these, yeah…well, maybe not! With most Kruleboyz lists focusing on some degree of castle, Joel decided to go all Realmstone Cache with his Boltboyz and spray them all over the battlefield.

There’s some logic to this though as Big Yellers means the Boltboyz are battleline, making Demonstration of Strength a solid Grand Strategy choice as you need to kill 11 of the 13 battleline units to prevent it. Big Yellers also get to re-roll one of the hit rolls in the first battle round. Combined with the extra shot from the Boltboy Boss that’s 32 shots, re-rolling 8 of them.

The Mirebrute is probably thrown forward with Supa Sneaky and then opponent has to take first turn to kill it (though with Noisy Racket for -1 to wound, Best Day Ever for +1 to save and then All out Defense) that might not be as easy as you think OR give the turn away and have the Breakaboss rampage through your lines.

All in all, a really interesting take on Kruleboyz that Joel clearly played extremely well in some very tricky matchups.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for Ragnarok AoS GT

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Ragnarok AoS GT that took place in the UK on 5th and 6th November. 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: Disciples of Tzeentch
Change Coven: Hosts Arcanum
Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny
Triumphs: Indomitable

LEADERS
Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch (180)*
General
– Command Trait: Cult Demagogue
– Lore of Fate: Arcane Suggestion
Kairos Fateweaver (435)*
Lord of Change (400)
Artefact: The Eternal Shroud
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Fluxmaster, Herald of Tzeentch on Disc (170)* – Artefact: Arcane Tome
– Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist

UNITS
10 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (250)**
10 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (250)**
10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)**

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
Horrorghast (40)
Burning Sigil of Tzeentch (50)
Umbral Spellportal (80)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Expert Conquerors

TOTAL: 1975/2000
WOUNDS: 69
ALLIES: 0/400
REINFORCED UNITS: 0/4
DROPS: 7

Ed: This list is a very competent summoning/control list and Ryan is focusing all his resources into that style of play as the best lists tend to. Hosts Arcanum gives automatic unbinds on turns 1, 3 and 5 which has valuable synergy with the Curseling. After successfully unbinding a spell, the Curseling can cast his own spell in the enemy hero phase which teaches him his target’s warscroll spell and, crucially, grants the Tzeentch player a fate point despite having denied his opponent a spell. Add together the Curseling’s in-built ability to re-roll unbinds and the extremely reliable casting/unbinding from the Lord of Change and Kairos and Ryan seems to be throwing down a challenge. “I dare you to cast a spell. I dare you to stop me casting a spell.”

The Curseling also has the Cult Demagogue command trait, which gives double fate points to any spell cast on a double and Tzeentch players can guarantee that by using destiny dice. Then the Fluxmaster’s warscroll spell is a bona fide summoning battery all by itself, and can be thrown through the Umbral Spellportal to ensure maximum gain while keeping him safe and sound behind your screens. Add together the spells from the birds and (even the battleline) and Ryan has the potential to generate a huge amount of summoning points in each turn. Enough to summon whatever he needs to most effectively combat his opponent whether that be bodies, ranged damage, melee damage or just more spellcasters. The force potential and versatility of his summoning really can’t be understated.

Finally between Kairos and the Eternal Shroud artefact, Ryan is recycling his spent destiny dice every round. This means he doesn’t need to be precious about spending them to ensure success on a crucial roll and helps to ensure he will meet his grand strategy of having a combined value of 9 or more in his destiny dice at the end of the game. Removing the chance from a game of chance and simply being able to say “I do this” is strong. It’s easy to see how, in the hands of a good player, this list could do so well.

Double Trouble

We reached out to Ryan who shared a picture of the winning army (above) and commented that understanding your opponent’s list is absolutely key to his strategy, as “one screening mistake and you lose the game”. He also shared that this list is not fun to play against as it is “denial heavy” and I can believe it! It’s looks like a hard list to get right, and not one you play to make friends, but rewarding if you can pull it off. Thanks, Ryan and good luck at LGT! Hopefully we’ll see him in another article soon!

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Army Faction: Maggotkin of Nurgle
Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Lord of Afflictions (230)*
General
– Command Traits: Overpowering Stench
– Incubatch
– Dolorous Tocsin
– Artefacts of Power: The Splithorn Helm
Lord of Plagues (145)*

BATTLELINE
Putrid Blightkings (250)*
Icon Bearer
– Sonorous Tocsin Bearer
– Blightlord
Pusgoyle Blightlords (500)*
Pusgoyle Blightlords (500)*
Putrid Blightkings (250)*
Icon Bearer
– Sonorous Tocsin Bearer
– Blightlord

OTHER
Mindstealer Sphiranx (95)

TERRAIN
1 x Feculent Gnarlmaw (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1970/2000

Ed: The eagle eyed will notice that Luke drew against the previous list, meaning that he was close to taking the event if it weren’t for tiebreakers. That just goes to show how much work Pusgoyle Blightlords do, even after their price hike. People worried, or perhaps hoping, that the age of flies was over should take note: they’re still something to worry about. I’m sure you’re bored to death reading about flies by now though, so I won’t re-tread old ground.

Luke’s special flavour includes a Lord of Plagues and 2 units of Blightkings who can benefit from the Lord of Plague’s +1 attack buff. This really is a list that concentrates it’s power in small, elite groups which can both hold their own and dish it out in equal measures. When you’re playing an army like Nurgle which excels at the attrition game having such a small, focused force like this can be great for speeding up your play and ensuring you get to turn 4 and 5 where your army really comes into its own.

The Mindstealer is a fun touch. It’s 10″ move makes it quite zippy for a Nurgle list, which is good for nabbing an objective while the rest of your Rotbringers gum up the board. It’s -2 bravery aura can help to clear hordes or waste your opponent’s command points on Inspiring Presence. It also gives out a fight-last effect once per round which can be disruptive enough to swing important battles in your favour. Plus, if the opponent uses resources to focus the Mindstealer down it’s only 95 points and it has given a reprieve to your more important units. A worthy unit to fill up those awkward leftover points for any chaos army.

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Allegiance: Skaven
Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Grey Seer (125)**
Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap
Thanquol on Boneripper (415)
4 Warpfire Projectors
– Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap
Verminlord Deceiver (405)**
Artefact: Shadow Magnet Trinket
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Verminlord Warbringer (395)**
General
– Command Trait: Devious Adversary
– Artefact: Warpstone Charm
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Grey Seer (125)**
Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap

Battleline
20 x Clanrats (100)*
Rusty Blade
– 2x Standard Bearers
– 2x Standard Bell Ringers
10 x Night Runners (90)*
20 x Clanrats (100)*
Rusty Blade
– 2x Standard Bearers
– 2x Standard Bell Ringers
10 x Night Runners (90)**

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (70)
Warp Lightning Vortex (80)

Core Battalions
*Expert Conquerors
**Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1995 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 110
Drops: 9

Declan: Skaven again, but this is a very different one to the one I reviewed last time. This one has none of the Warp Lightning shenanigans, but does have 2 Verminlords and Thanquol. Backed up by 2 Grey Seers and there’s not going to be much difficulty casting the Warp Lightning Vortex. On it’s release it was a very popular spell (particularly with KO players with suspicious bottles), but it’s seen less now. However it’s still good tech as it messes with your opponents move and it’s casting value (8) can make it difficult to dispel, but the Skaven have +1 to cast from their mystical Gnawholes.

Games Workshop via Wahapedia

The damage can take a little of getting used to – and you’ll definitely need to explain it – but it’s played for preventing running.

Alexander has also gone for Flaming Weapon on his two Verminlords meaning he can power one up, send it in, kill stuff, and then repeat with the 2nd Verminlord. It’s a hell of a one-two – especially as Thanquol’s there to make it a ‘one-two-three’. There’s a lack of models (for a Skaven army) and the 9 drop means he’s not choosing to go first or second but that’s fine and Alexander did really well.

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Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
Option: Grimscuttle Tribes
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Dankhold Troggboss (220)**** – Trev the Troggboss
General
– Command Trait: Alpha Trogg
– Artefact: Glowy Howitz
Fungoid Cave-Shaman (95)**** – Freddie the Fungoid
Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork
Madcap Shaman (80)**** – Madcap Max
Artefact: Moonface Mommet
Lore of the Moonclans: Itchy Nuisance
Breaka-Boss on Mirebrute Troggoth (180)* – The Celestant Slime
Allies

Battleline
6 x Rockgut Troggoths (290)***
Reinforced x 1
6 x Rockgut Troggoths (290)***
Reinforced x 1
3 x Fellwater Troggoths (155)**
3 x Fellwater Troggoths (155)**

Units
5 x Spider Riders (90)*
3 x Rippa’s Snarlfangs (70)*
1 x Marshcrawla Sloggoth (150)* – Drummer Dave

Behemoths
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (160)* – Big Bert & Nipper

Endless Spells & Invocations
The Burning Head (20) – Steve the Swamp Trogg
Mork’s Mighty Mushroom (40) – Marv the Misunderstood

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters
***Expert Conquerors
****Command Entourage – Magnificent

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1995 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 330 / 400
Wounds: 146
Drops: 8

Declan: Gitz on a 4-1… hurrah! Peter knows how to get my comments and Dominic has not let Skagrott’s Asylum (the WhatsApp Group for Gitz players) down here. Every unit is named — even the Endless Spells. He has Troggs which can hit hard especially as Bounty Hunters and a Marshcrawler and Rippas. The only disadvantage here apart from it still being a weak book is that Bounty Hunters against him – especially those on mounted units – really hurt. You can lose a whole Trogg unit in a turn.

Dominic may have had an interesting first three games dodging most of the worst out there, but he did very well to beat Nurgle in game 5… a battletome that is ripping up tournament results everywhere. In fact his only defeat was to Tzeentch piloted by 1st placed Ryan. Great result Dominic.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for US Open: Kansas City

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Kansas City Open that took place in USA on 29tg and 30th October. It involved 79 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: Daughters of Khaine
Temple: Zainthar Kai
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Bloodthirsty Zealots
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
The Shadow Queen (340)*
Morathi-Khaine (340)*
Bloodwrack Medusa (130)*
General
– Command Trait: Zealous Orator
– Artefact: Crown of Woe
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon

Battleline
15 x Blood Stalkers (540)*
Reinforced x 2
10 x Blood Sisters (280)*
Reinforced x 1
10 x Witch Aelves (115)*
Sacrificial Knives and Blade Bucklers

Units
5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)*
5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (95)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (40)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1975 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 94
Drops: 1

Danny: Gavin Grigar is not an uncommon name to see in these parts, but it’s especially nice to see it followed by a complete lack of Spinedog (RIP)

Turns out two big monsters with a timed-invincibility was quite appealing? Anyway – this list reverts to type, Morathi and the bow sneks, 10 stabbers, and 2×5 Khinerai. In case you’re not familiar with the flygirls – they’re perfectly good for 95 pts as a harassment unit, but their true value comes in unlocking a DoK specific battle-tactic, to drop two of them down and use their ‘fire and move’ ability – so, essentially an auto-score.

The beauty of them in this season is that they’re then perfectly positioned to score Barge Through in the following turn unless the opponent dedicates resources to dealing with them, which would usually pull them out of position in so doing. And if they don’t…they’re probably nicely set up for objective stealing and Desecrate too. It’s a really strong little scoring combo for 190 pts and a lot to deal with while you have slithery hammers coming atcha in the meantime.

GavGar took down not one but two tough mirror matches (including Thomas, below), not one but two SoB and a cheeky Legion list on his way to 5-0 – congrats, and good to see ‘pure’ DoK representing again.

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Army Faction: Maggotkin of Nurgle
Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration
– Triumph: Bloodthirsty

LEADERS
Lord of Afflictions (210)*
General
– Command Traits: Overpowering Stench
– Dolorous Tocsin
– Artefacts of Power: The Splithorn Helm
Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur

BATTLELINE
Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)*
– 2 x Dolorous Tocsin
Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)*
– 2 x Dolorous Tocsin
Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*
Dolorous Tocsin
Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*
Dolorous Tocsin
Ungors (65)*
Brayhorn
– Banner Bearer
– Ungor Blade and Half-shield

BEHEMOTH
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)*

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1995/2000

Peter: Rather than us explaining how Nurgle Flies and a Spinedog work for the umpteenth time. Emma Mangels has kindly agree to share her experiences of the tournament instead. Thank you Emma!

Emma Mangels: Since the battlescroll update did not drop in time for the open I figured I would combine the 2 worst things in the game into 1 list. I am very happy they increased the points, but they unfortunately did not address any of the issues with the flies or krondspine in the recent battlescroll. The toughest game I had was round 2, a fly mirror with Be’lakor. I’ve played 2 mirrors before at ACO, so I’ve already had some reps in mirrors. I knew it was going to be a dice game, and that my chance of making a run for 1st was already gone due to the mirror match (the mirror is low scoring). I used my pregame move to set up for the strongest counterplay, which included pregame moving 4 flies wholly within 6 of a garrisonable terrain piece and using 2×2 flies on other side to lure my opponent in. Yes, that is right, I garrisoned a unit of 4 flies. I gave up some points in the first 2 turns, but it was about securing every advantage I could since his list had the early edge of 1 more fly and the Be’lakor to shut down my Krondspine. Had a wild moment where I sent my level 1 Krondspine into a single fly (was a 4 man unit) to kill or prevent it from rallying next turn. I did 0 damage, it did 5 damage back and I rolled a 5 killing the Krondspine. He then rolled 2 6s on his 3 dice rally and brought back 2 flies. In the end I was able to muscle out a win with a hard choice top of 5 of going for a battle tactic but opening the door to a VERY low but possible chance my opponent could pick up an extra point (idols) to go ahead OR to just drop the tactic and guarantee the win. I elected to secure the win by tying him up with Nurglings I had summoned to prevent Barge and running away with the last fly unit which was an idol to prevent him from taking the +1 point.

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Army Faction: Daughters of Khaine
Army Subfaction: Hagg Nar
– Grand Strategy: Bloodthirsty Zealots
– Triumphs: Indomitable

LEADER
1 x Slaughter Queen (130)
Prayers: Sacrament of Blood
1 x Hag Queen on Cauldron of Blood (270)***
Artefacts: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Mindrazor
– Prayers: Covenant of the Iron Heart
1 x High Gladiatrix (90)***
Artefacts: Crown of Woe
1 x Melusai Ironscale (115)***
General
– Command Traits: Zealous Orator

BATTLELINE
10 x Sisters of Slaughter (135)*
Kruiplash and Bladed Buckler
10 x Sisters of Slaughter (135)*
Kruiplash and Bladed Buckler
30 x Witch Aelves (345)*
Hag
– 6 x Death Pennant Bearer
– 6 x Hornblower
– Sciansá and Bladed Buckler
10 x Blood Sisters (280)**
10 x Blood Sisters (280)**

BEHEMOTH
1 x Avatar of Khaine (155)

INVOCATION
1 x Heart of Fury (45)

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Expert Conquerors
**Bounty Hunters
***Command Entourage – Magnificent

TOTAL POINTS: (1980/2000)

Danny: ALSO dropping Spinedog – praise be! – is another familiar name. Thomas however has opted for the increasingly (albeit slowly) popular Norathi list variation, dropping the big shadow momma in favour of loads more bodies and overlapping synergies.

There’s a lot more going on than maybe meets the eye to this kind of list. It centers around the Cauldron of Blood with Hag Queen – an excellent utility piece that radiates a +1 save aura and is a ‘tanky’ (in DoK terms – 13 wounds!) platform for some key enhancements – and more importantly, casting Heart of Fury on a 2+ (+1 to prayers from…itself!).

Heart of Fury is utterly key here – reducing melee damage by 1 in an aura – to keeping the big blob (and more besides) of Witches alive. Combined with the 4+ rally, it really takes a lot to chew through them, especially as Thom has opted for bladed bucklers, putting them on a 5+ that also reflects a MW back with a 6+ save roll. While supported by the buffs of the Gladiatrix and the Avatar (including the one riding shotgun on the cauldron), that blob is also putting out 61 attacks at 2/2/-2/1.

The 2x 10 Sisters of Slaughter benefit from all the same buffs, but the reason you take them instead of Witches is their eligibility to fight within 6″ (and pile in the extra 3″) – allowing you some flexibility with activation.

Interesting, Thom has still included the Ironscale, despite not needing her to make sneks battleline to fill that requirement – she’s an odd duck and often known as a ‘snake tax’, but she does have a command ability to allow one of the 2×10 stab sneks to run and charge – combined with their 8″ move, the +1 to both from the Blood Rites in round 2 – thanks to the +1 to Rites from being Hagg Nar – that gives them some serious slitherin’ speed.

This is looking like the new overall ‘shape’ of a Norathi build, and it’s awesome to see just how viable it is. I would love to have seen the mirror with Gavin!

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Army Faction: Fyreslayers
Army Subfaction: Lofnir
– Grand Strategy: Masters of the Forge
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (360)**
General
– Command Traits: Blood of the Berzerker
– Mount Traits: Coal-heart Ancient
1 x Auric Runemaster (125)**
Artefacts: Volatile Brazier
Prayers: Curse
1 x Battlesmith (150)**
Artefacts: Nulsidian Icon

BATTLELINE
1 x Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)*
Ancestral War-axe
– Mount Traits: Flame-scale Youngblood
10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (170)*
Hornblower of Grimnir
– Karl
15 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (480)*
Karl
– Flamestrike Poleaxe
10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (170)***
Hornblower of Grimnir
– Karl
10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (170)***
Hornblower of Grimnir
– Karl

INVOCATION
1 x Molten Infernoth (40)

TERRAIN
1 x Magmic Battleforge (0)

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Bounty Hunters
**Command Entourage – Magnificent
***Expert Conquerors

TOTAL POINTS: (1985/2000)

Peter: As none of us have any real experience with Fyreslayers. Kevin Lathers has agreed to step in and fill in our knowledge gap. Kevin previously wrote a fantastic guide on Fyreslayers which you can read here.

Kevin: Vito’s list is definitely an abnormality in the grand world of Fyreslayer lists. Like any Fyreslayer list, this will play a little different dependent on opponent, it’s the nature of Fyreslayers. A Lofnir list which eschews the normal 3 or 4 magmadroths and only takes two: a Runeson and a Runefather. These are supported with a mix of Vulkite Berserkers and Hearthguard Berserkers.

It still relies on a couple key pieces few Fyreslayers leave home without: A Runemaster chanting the Molten Infernoth for the Grand Strategy; Masters of the Forge may be one of the best GS in the game; and a battlesmith providing its normal role of anti-magic aura and its once per game 5+ ward being extremely powerful into possible double turns.

In play, Vito has a few options at his disposal depending on the opponent and this list is going to be a tide that can wash over anyone underestimating the once per game buffs. Hearthguard Berserkers receive their 4+ ward off any hero, including both magmadroths.

Without a Runesmiter for forward drops, this list will rely on the built in speed of the Magmadroths as well as the Runemaster’s “Ember Storm” prayer to give the Hearthguard or Vulkites run + charge. Further, Vulkites have a built in +1 charge to help get them across the baord.

Vulkites can be both a hammer — having decent damage on the charge with certain runes like the Rune of Searing Heat or Awakened Steel — and a shield, where their fight on death means they turn into an extremely punishing blocker/screen for the Magmadroths. Some of the Vulkites are also in Expert Conquerors forcing opponents to deal with them where they can further act as a quagmire of pain.

Heathguard Berserkers hit very hard and, with Magmadroths being there to provide their ward aura, are freed from the shackles of a foot hero. They can also be given run and charge to keep up with the droths and provide an incredible hammer, netting 10 mortal wounds on average. Or they can be left to guard the backline providing a threat that few things want to deal with.

And all this is followed up with a Runefather which can not only buff the surrounding units with more attacks, but can fight twice once per game. The multitide of infantry shields means the Runefather can be positioned to make full use of the fight twice ability. If played right this ends up with the an incredible wombo combo: The Runefather goes in, pops his Lord of the Lodge ability, the Hearthguard Berserkers charge in getting more swings for 14-16 mortal wounds on average, and the Vulkites come in with a whopping four attacks each under the aura. Meanwhile the Runefather can fight twice into something beefy or important or even into multiple units. If applied at just right time this could feasibly table an opponent or at least remove all of their key pieces.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for AoS @MOAB 2022

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

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 400 / 400
Wounds: 76
Drops: 1

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

Total: 1975 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 400 / 400
Wounds: 105
Drops: 4

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

BATTLELINE:
Bloodreavers (80)*
Icon Bearer
– Hornblower
– Chieftain
– Meatripper Axe
Bloodreavers (80)*
– Chieftain
– Icon Bearer
– Hornblower
– Meatripper Axe
Flesh Hounds (105)*

BEHEMOTH:
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)

OTHER:
Wrathmongers (145)**

TERRAIN:
Skull Altar (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Expert Conquerors
**Warlord

TOTAL POINTS: 1990/2000
DROPS: 10

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.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for the Facehammer GT

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Facehammer Grand Tournament that took place in the UK on 8th and 9th October. It involved 50 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.

It was organised (as you can tell by the name) by the fantastic Facehammer crew. Check out their awesome YouTube channel here

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: Fyreslayers
Lodge: Lofnir

LEADERS
Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (360)
General
– Command Trait: Blood of the Berzerker
– Artefact: Axe of Grimnir
– Magmadroth Trait: Coal-heart Ancient
Battlesmith (150)
Auric Runemaster (125)

BATTLELINE
Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)
Ancestral War-axe
– Magmadroth Trait: Flame-scale Youngblood
Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)
Ancestral War-axe
– Magmadroth Trait: Lava-tongue Adult
Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)
Ancestral War-axe
10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (160)
10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (160)
10 x Freeguild Guard (85)
Swords and Shields
– Allies

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 85 / 400
Wounds: 125
Drops: 9

Danny: Fyreslayers have been in an interesting place since their 3e tome – hovering around sub-par stats and, despite their limited roster, flitting between ‘meta’ builds. So it’s great to see them take down an event without resorting to a spam list.

Theres’ not too much we haven’t seen before here – the usual must-have HQs, followed by three more Magmadroths with Runesons. These guys are just *good* for their points, and offer durability, decent ranged attacks and ‘speed’. Two units of basic vulkites, who are surprisingly tanky by default and perfectly capable of screening effectively or picking up chaff. Finally, a unit of freeguild guard get allied in – presumably as a cheap-as-chips screen.

Taking down the mortal output and speed of Nighthaunt, a mirror-match and the shooting/flexibility of Skaven, plus the general ‘all the good stuff’ of Tempest’s Eye Cities is no mean feat, so big up Ritchie for a large contribution towards Fyreslayers being taken very seriously at the competitive level.

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Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords
Sky Port: Barak Zilfin
– Grand Strategy:
– Triumphs: Inspired

Kharadron Code
– Artycle: Master The Skies
– Amendment: Don’t Argue With the Wind
– Footnote: There’s Always a Breeze If You Look For It

Leaders
Arkanaut Admiral (125)
Artefact: Staff of Ocular Optimisation
Arkanaut Admiral (125)
Aether-Khemist (90)
General
– Command Trait: Collector
– Artefact: Spell in a Bottle
Aetheric Navigator (85)
Artefact: Svaregg-Stein Illuminator Flarepistol
Aetheric Navigator (85)

Battleline
20 x Arkanaut Company (180)
2x Light Skyhooks
– 2x Aethermatic Volley Guns
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)
1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)
1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns

Behemoths
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)
Main Gun: Great Volley Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: The Last Word
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)
Main Gun: Great Volley Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Ebullient Buoyancy Aid

Endless Spells & Invocations
Purple Sun of Shyish (90)

Additional Enhancements
Artefact Magnificent (50)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 103
Drops: 10

Danny: GUNS. Two especially big, floating ones dominate this undefeated list, as is the trend these days. Fabian’s list here is packed with HQs, but they all offer plenty of utility – with the double admiral also being a hot new trend – understandably, given they offer run and shoot to a skyvessel, and a choice of three powerful effects to pick from at the start of the battle. This kind of tactical flexibility is always valuable, and at 125 points – especially given they’re actually pretty darn nasty in melee – you’d be mad not to take two.

Double navigator can also utterly shut down the main threats to a KO list, namely flying units, because of their ability to tag skyvessels and turn off their fly high. Given ‘Aetherstorm’ stacks, taking 2 makes halving the movement of one nasty flying thing almost a given, and makes either doing it to two things, or quartering the movement of one a likely event too – completely shutting down threats like Morathi, a Maw Krusha, dragons et al.

A bunch of objective grabbing cannon fodder (in both senses!) rounds out the list along with the Purp Sun, who KO still love because of the rend. KO are back on the scene in a big way these days…probably to the chagrin of anyone who doesn’t have an answer to teleporting giant cannons or relies on anything with the fly keyword…

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Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle
Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Lord of Afflictions (210)
General
– Command Trait: Overpowering Stench
– Artefact: Muttergrub- 1x Dolorous Tocsin
Festus the Leechlord (150)
Lore of Malignance: Blades of Putrefaction
Orghotts Daemonspew (300)

Battleline
5 x Putrid Blightkings (250)
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)
1x Dolorous Tocsin
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)
1x Dolorous Tocsin

Units
10 x Rotmire Creed (125)
1 x Beasts of Nurgle (110)
1 x Beasts of Nurgle (110)
3 x Plague Drones (200)
3 x Nurglings (105)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 133
Drops: 11

Danny: Another undefeated list, who only tied with 2nd place KO – this event looks to have been a photo finish!

And pleasingly for a Nurgle list, there’s something to write about. But let’s get the same ol’ outta the way first – Aaron has here brought the new, disease point catalysing hotness of the Rotmire Creed (basically, when a disease point is put on an enemy by them, every other unit within 3! also gets one – splash damage!) He also opts for the best of the Maggoths – Orghotts – a unit of blightkings and 5 flies as usual buzz along for the ride, side-eyeing the imminent Battlescroll all the while.

The fun part is, those big ol’ bluebottles bring along their slightly less chonky cousins the plague drones too. They’re nowhere near as good but they are an additional model and slightly cheaper – a nice screening option perhaps with a good horde clearing 7″ ranged attack for utility. 2 Beasts of nurgle – beautiful, beautiful beasts of nurgle – slither along to generally annoy folks with their ability to run/retreat and charge, disease you with their slime on the way out, and do impact mortals on said charge. Aaron has also snuck in a Festus (what a dude!) who offers reliable healing and a great warscroll spell to subtract 1 from save rolls to a unit.

Nurglings for a cheeky early objective grab finish up a nice, relatively varied Nurgle-goodstuff list which clearly sets out the stall for them not needing to worry too much about the incoming fly nerf.

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Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
Option: Glogg’s Megamob
– Grand Strategy:
– Triumphs: inspired

Leaders
Dankhold Troggboss (240)
General
– Command Trait: Sheperd of Idiotic Destruction
– Artefact: Aetherquartz-studded Hide
Madcap Shaman (80)
Lore of the Moonclans: Call da Moon
Madcap Shaman (80)
Lore of the Moonclans: Itchy Nuisance
Madcap Shaman (80)
Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork
Breaka-Boss on Mirebrute Troggoth (180)
Allies

Battleline
3 x Rockgut Troggoths (145)
3 x Rockgut Troggoths (145)
9 x Rockgut Troggoths (435)
Reinforced x 2
6 x Rockgut Troggoths (290)
Reinforced x 1

Units
1 x Marshcrawla Sloggoth (150)
Allies

Endless Spells & Invocations
Purple Sun of Shyish (90)
Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (60)

Total: 1975 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 330 / 400
Wounds: 132
Drops: 10

Danny: I mean, even at 15th place you have to choose the Gitz as a wildcard. Especially if they bring triple madcap shamans (for CP generation and wizardry), an allied in but perfectly thematic Sloggoth and Mirebrute Troggoth, and then _21_ Rockgut troggoths. Troggoths for days! #TroggothLyfe

Underestimate this combo at your own expense – with the Sloggoth aura and Dankhold Troggboss, Rockgut’s can put out 2 attacks each, 2s re-rolling 1s, 3s to wound at -2 rend for 3 damage each. Honestly, they slap – and big congrats to Ben for 3-2 and a really decent finish with the undergitz!

Final Tournament Placings

For the full tournament placings visit tabletop.to

Top Three AoS Lists for the London GT

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the London GT that took place in the UK on 1st and 2nd October. It involved 76 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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The Top Three AoS Lists

Allegiance: Daughters of Khaine
Temple: Zainthar Kai
– Grand Strategy: Bloodthirsty Zealots
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
The Shadow Queen (340)
Morathi-Khaine (340)
Hag Queen on Cauldron of Blood (270)
General
– Command Trait: Zealous Orator
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Lore of Shadows: Mindrazor
– Prayer: Sacrament of Blood

Battleline
15 x Blood Sisters (420)*
Reinforced x 2
10 x Witch Aelves (115)*
Pairs of Sacrificial Knives
10 x Witch Aelves (115)*
Pairs of Sacrificial Knives

Behemoths
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)
– Allies

Core Battalions
*Bounty Hunters

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 400 / 400
Wounds: 81
Drops: 7

Danny: Darren Watson is a beast, unbeaten in 15 games and 3 GTs. He brought his DoK out for the HUGE London GT, opting for a relatively close to the chest but clearly brutally effective list centered around a double reinforced blob of stab sneks and the Spinedog.

The piece you don’t usually see at tournies these days is the Hag Queen on Cauldron. It’s a great piece full of utility – the Avatar riding shotgun is plenty killy and the Queen offers a prayer and separate ability to bump something up the Blood Rites table – meaning two units can go up 1, or you can double down on one unit…such as giving the 15 sneks +1 to hit and wound from BR 2. Better yet, it projects a +1 save aura and acts as the tankiest platform available to DoK for the Zealous Orator (4+ rally) trait. Arcane Tome obvs completes the combo, allowing something in the army to benefit from the Krondspine’s +1 – which makes getting Mindrazor – a completely devastating spell to get off (or not, as it’s CV 8) on stabbers – so getting it down to a 7 is potentially game changing.

It will be interesting to see if this list survives the rumoured incoming Spinedog nerfs. Either way, it’s a powerful archetype, clearly able to take down the sheer volume of bodies BoC can field (twice!) and the movement and MW output of Fangs of Sotek. A huge tournament to win for Darren and the snek-ladies.

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Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle
Subfaction: Drowned Men
– Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Be’Lakor, the Dark Master (360)*
Allies
Lord of Afflictions (210)*
General
– Command Trait: Overpowering Stench
– Artefact: The Splithorn Helm
– Dolorous Tocsin
– Incubatch

Battleline
4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)*
2x Dolorous Tocsin
– Reinforced x 1
4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)*
2x Dolorous Tocsin
– Reinforced x 1
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*
1x Dolorous Tocsin
2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*
1x Dolorous Tocsin

Units
3 x Nurglings (105)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1995 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 360 / 400
Wounds: 130
Drops: 1

Danny: Flies, and Be’lakor to probably shut down your one key piece with any hope of dealing with them. One of my club-mates faced Hadrien in the first round as KO, with predictable results – however he did say that Hadrien was frustratingly lovely and skilled as an opponent.

Flies were called out in the recent Metawatch article with good reason, and will clearly see nerfs soon – it will be interesting to see if they go as far as touching the Drowned Men pre-game move too. Either way, this exact list is probably not long for this world, with good reason – it’s completely oppressive and very, very few lists have any kind of answer to it.

Still, credit to Hadrien for 2nd at such a big event and for being a great competitor and a gentleman while he crushed dreams.

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Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords
Sky Port: Barak Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Aether-Khemist (90)**
General
– Command Trait: Collector
– Artefact: Spell in a Bottle
Arkanaut Admiral (125)*
Arkanaut Admiral (125)**
Artefact: Staff of Ocular Optimisation
Aetheric Navigator (85)**
Artefact: Svaregg-Stein Illuminator Flarepistol

Battleline
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)*
1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)*
1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)*
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns

Units
10 x Grundstok Thunderers (270)*
2x Aetheric Fumigators
– 2x Decksweepers
– 2x Aethercannons
– 1x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 1

Behemoths
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)*
Main Gun: Great Volley Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: The Last Word
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)
Main Gun: Great Volley Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Zonbarcorp ‘Dealbreaker’ Battle Ram

Endless Spells & Invocations
Rune of Petrification (40)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Command Entourage – Magnificent

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 108
Drops: 5

Danny: KO have gone from zeroes to heroes after a steady trickle of FAQs and generic enhancement tweaks have meant they can play the ‘3rd edition’ game properly now.

With an extreme paucity of unit types to choose from, there’s only so much flex and variations on the theme of ‘FLYING GUNS’ KO can manage, but this one doubles down on the Ironclad – the biggest, most flying of guns possible. One is endowed with The Last Word, allowing for double unleash hell – which is generally a good way to avoid there being a combat phase at all – while the other has installed the Dealbreaker Ram, allowing for a roll of dice equal to the charge roll, with 4+ doing a mortal. An amusing contrast of tactical roles – one you don’t want to get busy with, the other wants to charge in to finish off a weakened unit with a clutch of mortals.

Beyond that, there’s one very interesting piece of tech in the list. Usually, the Spell in a Bottle (a free cast of an endless spell that can’t be unbound) is stuffed full of Purple Sun for the extra rend (which, given KO are a majority rend 1 army, they love) or the warp lightning vortex – yep, ‘Any endless spell can be chosen (all restrictions are ignored)’. But Stephen has opted for the LRL endless spell ‘Rune of Petrification’ which has a 6″ aura of mortals on a 4+ and -1/-1 from run and charge rolls – presumably a handy way to slow down threats and cause key charges to fail, so the double-Ironclads can go to work from a safe range.

With some big wins against tough opponents, Stephen rightly takes 3rd, further cementing KO as back in the gunning (I mean, running) for a spot in the A tier of armies.

Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords
Lineage: Legion of Night
– Mortal Realm: Shyish
– Grand Strategy: Vampiric Conquerors
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night (380)*
Lore of the Deathmages: Decrepify
Necromancer (125)*
General
– Command Trait: Unbending Will
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
Vampire Lord (140)*
Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions

Battleline
30 x Deathrattle Skeletons (240)**
Reinforced x 2
10 x Dire Wolves (135)**
10 x Dire Wolves (135)**

Units
5 x Blood Knights (195)*
1 x Corpse Cart with Balefire Brazier (80)*
20 x Grave Guard (280)*
Great Wight Blades
– Reinforced x 1
20 x Grave Guard (280)*
Great Wight Blades
– Reinforced x 1

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Expert Conquerors

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 153
Drops: 4

Danny: We’ve talked before about how Soullblight are enjoying a resurgence – and while they’re not quite cracked the podium recently, in London or otherwise, they’re creeping closer. James here was in winning position – losing only to the eventual winner, which set him down the table a fair way.

He’s opted for a nice balanced list of tech – the ever-popular Mannfred for utility and teleporting/move blocking shenanigans, with some cheap supporting heroes behind a big blob of skellies and two units of our favourite, undead fluffy friends, the Dire Wolves.

Skellies are often run MSU as cheap chaff who can pop back out of a gravesite – but the blob of 30, combined with their ability to bring back models that have died in the same phase on a 4+, before they attack – can make them truly resilient objective grabbers. Think you’ve killed 25? Well, on average 12 of them are coming back and now the unit counts for 51 on the objective again! No doubt this unit was supported with the corpse cart, projecting a -1 to wound aura, making them a bony nightmare to chew through.

Elsewhere of note is the DOUBLE Graveguard brick – 2 units of 20 – that would be putting out silly damage when supported by one or both the foot heroes.

Two big hammers, one giant anvil, some furry fast objective grabbers and screens – it’s a quality list and 10th feels like a harsh result when it came so close to winning the whole thing – big congrats to James!

Final Tournament Placings