This is the top three AoS lists for the Birmingham AoS GT that took place in the UK on the 27th and 28th of May. It involved 12 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
As this event had less than 20 players attending there won’t be any list comments here as the guys will be concentrating on the larger events of the week.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Lineage: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Lust For Domination – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (390)* – Lore of the Deathmages: Waste Away Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440) – Deathlance – Lore of the Vampires: Flaming Weapon – General: Doomed minions – Artefact: Cloak of Mist and Shadows Lauka Vai, Mother of Nightmares (300) – Lore of the Vampires: Spirit Gale Crypt Ghast Courtier (70)* – Allies
Battleline 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)*
Units 10 x Blood Knights (460)* – Reinforced x 1 1 x Corpse Cart with Unholy Lodestone (70)*
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Subfaction: Legion of Blood – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination – Triumphs:
Leaders Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (390)* – Lore of the Vampires: Soulpike Vampire Lord (130)* – General – Command Trait: Doomed Minions – Artefact: Cloak of Mists and Shadows – Lore of the Vampires: Spirit Gale – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Battleline 40 x Deadwalker Zombies (230)* – Reinforced x 1 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)*
Other 10 x Blood Knights (460)* – Reinforced x 1 10 x Grave Guard (140)* – Great Wight Blades
Behemoth Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)* – Allies
Leaders Lord of Pain (135)** – General – Command Trait: Strength of Goodhood – Artefact: Breathtaker – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Contorted Epitome (190)** – Artefact: The Crown of Dark Secrets – Lore of the Magnificent: Phantasmagoria Lord of Hubris (135)**
Battleline 11 x Blissbarb Archers (150)* 11 x Blissbarb Archers (150)* 11 x Blissbarb Archers (150)* 5 x Symbaresh Twinsouls (140)*** 9 x The Unmade (80)*** – Allies 9 x Untamed Beasts (90)*** – Allies 9 x Untamed Beasts (90)*** – Allies
Units 5 x Slickblade Seekers (200) 5 x Slickblade Seekers (200) 5 x Blissbarb Seekers (200)**
This is the top three AoS lists for the HWP Bloody Beach GT that took place in the USA on the 20th and 21st of May. It involved 31 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: Kharadron Overlords – Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin – Grand Strategy: Rule the Skies – Triumph: Inspired
Kharadron Code – Stick To The Code (Amendments): Prosecute Wars With All Haste – Stick To The Code (Artycles): Master the Skies – Stick To The Code (Footnotes): Without Our Ships, We Are Naught
LEADERS Arkanaut Admiral (125)* – General – Command Traits: Ex-Grundstok – Artefacts of Power: Celestium Burst-grenade – Aspects of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha Aetheric Navigator (85)** – Artefacts of Power: Voidstone Orb Codewright (90)** Aether-Khemist (80)**
BATTLELINE Grundstok Thunderers (405)* – Gunnery Sergeant – 3 x Honour Bearer – 3 x Grundstok Mortar – 3 x Aethercannon – 3 x Aetheric Fumigator – 3 x Decksweeper Arkanaut Frigate (300)* – Heavy Sky Cannon Grundstok Gunhauler (170)* – Sky Cannon – Great Endrinworks: Zorbacorp Debtsetter spar torpedo Grundstok Gunhauler
BEHEMOTH Arkanaut Ironclad (500)* – Great Volley Cannon – Great Endrinworks: The Last Word – The Admiral’s Flagship: Arkanaut Ironclad
OTHER Endrinriggers (120)* – Mizzenmaster Endrinriggers (120)* – Mizzenmaster
We have a mystery writer this week adding their comments for the Kharadron Overlords.
Mystery Writer: Currently a lot of KO lists tend to fall into either a melee focused, or a shooting heavy alpha strike archetype such as the feared “thunderbridge” list, that usually would bring 25 rend stacking Grundstock thunderers, that would essentially alpha strike turn one and blow your army to smithereens. Due to this It’s absolutely refreshing to see a super well thought out list that doesn’t put all its ather gold into one basket , but instead brings a lot of mobility, mortal wound output, one of each boat, some heavy shooting supported by some utility and melee options, as well as some very fun potential tricks!
As with most KO lists it is really worth looking at the “Sticking to the code” choices first, as it provides good insight into what the list might try to accomplish in the first couple of turns. For Artycles, we very often see the +1 wound vs a unit or the +4 rally (or both at once), however, this list has opted for the extra 2” movement on the boats! This coupled with the 2D6 run, and a boat being able to receive 2 commands in the same phase (meaning we can run a boat 2D6 and issue run and charge from the admiral) the Navigator hero phase move shenanigans, the humble Gunhauler could move up to 38” from deployment, for the most insane bombing run (as it can drop bombs on units it flies over), and still make a charge move for a potential 50” threat range and thats without the 3D6 charge! The list also has a handy Codewright, which I assume will try to swap to the 3D6 charge once the Gunhauler and the frigate ran up and down the board a few times to confuse the enemy!
KO have some incredible artefact choices, so picking them is fairly difficult as you might be giving up something potentially game-changing. We have a handy “Command encourage” battalion to help make the choice a bit challenging. Matthew has chosen to go with the “Celestium burst grenade”, which is a fairly standard choice as it turns off wardsaves for a unit, making them even more vulnerable to the incredible shooting of KO, along with a voidstone orb, for a potential game changing auto unbind. The command trait “Ex-grundstock” makes our Thunderers battleline, meaning we can double reinforce them to a huge 15 man stack that can receive a couple extra rend on their weapons, along with a potential +1 wound from inspired, making them incredibly scary.
The subfaction choice is also worth noting. Barak-Zilfn has become a fairly popular subfaction as of late, as it makes the Frigate battleline, making a one drop very achievable while also making the minimum 3 battleline requirement incredibly easy. However, the subfaction also provides 2 great endrinworks, which also provides some fun options. The ironclad received “The Last Word Arkanaut Ironclad”, giving it a free shooting action with one of its guns when charged, which along with “unleash hell” from the thunderers on board and the supremacy mine, makes the Ironclad incredibly resilient to charges. The other upgrade went to the Gunhauler, which, in the charge phase, gives it the ability to roll dice equal to the charge roll, and for each 4+, it inflicts a mortal wound. This could be combined with the 3D6 charge roll, for some very spiky damage output, meaning this speedy boat can go around the entire board (with its insane 56” threat range) , lifting screens off and/or stealing side objectives.
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Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz – Grand Strategy: Protect da Shrine! – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Dankhold Troggboss (200)** – General – Command Trait: Loonskin Skragrott, The Loonking (210)* Webspinner Shaman (65)* – Lore of the Spiderfang: Sneaky Distraction – Aspect of the Champion: Stubborn as a Rhinox Madcap Shaman (70)* – Artefact: Moonface Mommet – Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork
Battleline 20 x Moonclan Stabbas (125)* 20 x Moonclan Stabbas (125)* 6 x Rockgut Troggoths (320)* – Reinforced x 1 6 x Rockgut Troggoths (320)* – Reinforced x 1 6 x Rockgut Troggoths (320)* – Reinforced x 1
Gitz is a great book if internal balance is your thing. There are some many viable factions, Troggoths builds are maybe the most common, but you still see people mixing up Leaders and the Battlelines. Curtis has done that here, going down the Troggoth line but adding in a Webspinner Shaman and running Stabbas (shooters would be the usual pick). The Webspinner is a cheap caster who can just give himself run and charge on a 4+ (on 2D6) as well as counting as 10 models on objectives. Look for him to be holding an out of the way objective.
The Stabbas are about objective control (they control an objective within 9″ if there are more than 20 models). This list can spread to cover a lot of objectives easily. It forces the opponent to make choices they probably don’t want to make – chase the Stabbas for easy clearance or pin down the Rockgut Troggoths? If you let the Troggoths (especially the Dankholds) roam, they’ll cost you, but the Stabbas are pontentially worth as much as a battle tactic each round.
Otherwise, the list is fairly standard, Skragrott, because you really have to even at 200pts. Madcap for possible teleport and CP along with the Dankhold to buff the Rockgut and cause havoc. Only Blades of Khorne created issues. Their output, if the dice run hot is epic, all others succumbed to the goblin tide.
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Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords – Army Type: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Neferata (390)* – Spells: Waste Away 1 x Vampire Lord (130)* – Spells: Spirit Gale – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master 1 x Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440)** – General – Command Traits: Doomed Minions – Deathlance – Artefacts: Cloak of Mists and Shadows – Spells: Vile Transference
BATTLELINE 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)* – Skeleton Champion – Standard Bearer 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)* – Skeleton Champion – Standard Bearer 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)** – Skeleton Champion – Standard Bearer
OTHER 10 x Blood Knights (460)* – Kastellan – 2 x Standard Bearer – Templar Lance 20 x Grave Guard (280)** – Seneschal – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Hornblower – Great Wight Blade
I commented recently that we’ll be seeing a fair few variations on the Legion of Blood archetype – and here we are! Skip ahead if you’ve heard this one before…
It’s Neffie – who I think even after the FAQ ‘nerfs’ (I mean, did anyone really think they were going to remain that way?) is still a fantastic tactical pick – and tanky as all fuck VloZD (thanks to being ethereal from Cloak of Mists) – msu Deathrattle battleline tax and the two usual hammers, a brick of Blood Knights and a brick of Graveguard.
The way it works on the table is just a big push forward with a bunch of stuff almost no opponent will be able to easily deal with, thanks to Neffie’s -1 to hit aura, great healing potential on all the vamps, Deathrattle popping up on objectives all over the shop, and ethereal (with the FAQ, no longer ‘unrendable’) Blood Knights as the vanguard. It’s simple, tanky, and very effective.
Interestingly it lost only to Khorne, who I imagine have the sheer MW output in a demon list (which it will be given it’s Reapers of Vengeance) to cut through those ethereal saves and kill stuff off before it can heal back all the damage – but that says a lot about what you might want to bring to counter Legion of Blood lists!
Either way, congrats to Whitney for being two of the big bad meta threats along the way to a podium finish.
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Army Faction: Ossiarch Bonereapers – Subfaction: Ivory Host – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Katakros (440) Mortisan Boneshaper (120) – Spells: Empower Nadirite Weapons – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master Mortisan Soulmason (160) – General – Command Traits: Show of Superiority – Spells: Reinforce Constructs Mortisan Boneshaper (120) – Spells: Drain Vitality
Plenty of Mortek Guard and Deathriders backed by the typical heroes as part of an Ivory Host. Exploding 6s is always fun. Deathriders for mobility and pressure on objectives with a tough castle at the heart. With 2 Boneshapers and Katakros, the reinforced Mortek Guard will be very tough (impossible) to shift for most opponents. Add a potential fight last (from the crawler), and combat armies are in a world of hurt, especially if a guard unit gets both Nadirite Weapons and Soul Guide (+1 to wound). A wide, slow, and very tough castle to stake out the centre of the table and small units of Deathriders to snipe units or objectives. Tunnel master and Empower Nadirite Weapons on the same Boneshaper is interesting, probably signalling a late game Tunnel Master for either a Battle Tactic or to take an objective away from their opponent.
The list did struggle to score. Taking objectives isn’t easy with 4″ of movement, that’s why we have Deathriders. The combination of toughness and damage output worked well against the mostly melee opponents with the list dominating everything from Idoneth to Blades of Khorne). Unfortunately KOs shooting and mobility were too much to overcome, KO will probably remain a counter to OBR with their improved combat on top of their strong shooting and mobility (yes, I know it isn’t what it was).
This is the top three AoS lists for Shirecon 2023 that took place in the Sydney, Australia on the 29th and 30th of April. It involved 20 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?
The Top Three AoS Lists
Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords – Army Type: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Empire of Corpses – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Neferata (390)* – Spells: Waste Away Vampire Lord (130)* – Artefacts of Power: Amulet of Screams – Spells: Spirit Gale – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master Cado Ezechiar (135)* – Spells: Soulpike Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440)** – General – Command Traits: Doomed Minions – Deathlance – Artefacts of Power: Cloak of Mists and Shadows – Spells: Vile Transference
BATTLELINE Deathrattle Skeletons (85)* – Standard Bearer – Skeleton Champion Deathrattle Skeletons (85)** – Standard Bearer – Skeleton Champion Deathrattle Skeletons (85)** – Standard Bearer – Skeleton Champion
OTHER Grave Guard (280)** – Seneschal – Great Wight Blade – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Hornblower Grave Guard (280)** – Seneschal – Great Wight Blade – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Hornblower Fell Bats (85)**
CORE BATTALIONS *Warlord **Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1995/2000
I’m going to be writing a lot of similar commentaries aren’t I?
It’s Legion of Blood, with Neferata, the usual ethereal VloZd – and msu deathrattle.
However, the list differs a little from the archetype by doubling down on the Graveguard blobs, with a foot vampire to support them. He’s also packing the fantastic Amulet of Screams for threatening wizards with mortals every time they cast to shore up the Soulblight weakness to magic in general.
Cado also makes an appearance, which is nice to see – he’s still a really solid little indie operator with a lot of tactical flexibility, and even though he loses out on faction synergy, he’s still a great tech piece.
I imagine the new Bonereapers were the biggest threat to Qifan’s campaign, but they couldn’t stop Neffie’s roll, and so we enshrine another SBGL 5-0 in the books, and add another tick to the GW ‘nerf column’…
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– Army Faction: Ossiarch Bonereapers – Subfaction: Petrifex Elite – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Katakros (440)* Mortisan Boneshaper (120)* – General – Command Traits: Diversionary Tactics – Artefacts of Power: Artisan’s Key – Spells: Drain Vitality – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master Liege-Kavalos (180)*
Roland Rivera: Ossiarch Bonereapers have roared onto the scene since the release of their 3rd edition Battletome, and this Petrifex Elite list showcases some of the major reasons behind their success, which are potent elite troops, tons and tons of buffs, and more mobility than what you’d expect from looking at the Move stat on their warscrolls. A note that has to be provided coming in is that this tournament used the Petrifex Elite subfaction ability that was printed on the Ossiarch Bonereapers Battletome, which reduced incoming damage against units with the Hekatos keyword by 1, to a minimum of 1 (it has since been changed by FAQ to be -1 to wound those units in melee). This ability made its elite units very durable against most means of attack, and combined with the healing afforded by Katakros and the Mortisan Boneshaper to make this a very resilient list.
Speaking of Katakros, he is the engine that makes this list go. His Supreme Lord of the Bonereaper Legions command (which hands out +1 to hit and +1 to save in a huge bubble) is a fantastic force multiplier, and he has several other abilities to go with it and can contribute in combat in a pinch (though note that the Supreme Lord of the Bonereaper Legions cannot be issued if Katakros is in combat). The Mortisan Boneshaper does his part by being a Drain Vitality/Mystic Shield caddy that can also do a bit of healing and carries around the Diversionary Tactics command trait for -3 to opposing charges within 12″ of it. The Liege-Kavalos is quick, durable, and can issue Endless Duty for +1 Attacks.
This list also boasts a pretty impressive troop lineup to soak up all these buffs. Immortis Guard are a great grindhouse unit that can both hit hard and take a hit, Necropolis Stalkers are punchy and sneaky-fast thanks to Relentless Advance for +3″ move and Hunt and Kill for run & charge, and the Morghasts are fast fliers that can shut off command abilities. Last but certainly not least, the Kavalos Deathriders are a versatile tech unit that has speed, good durability, and can contribute some damage with their impact hits on the charge.
All in all, while this list is a bit thin on bodies compared to some other armies (something that likely was a factor in its loss to Soulblight), it’s generally good enough at fighting to make up for it.
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– Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh – Army Type: Pretenders – Grand Strategy: Glutton for Depravity – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Contorted Epitome (190)* – Spells: Born of Damnation Keeper of Secrets (400)* – General – Command Traits: Strength of Godhood – Shining Aegis – Artefacts of Power: The Crown of Dark Secrets – Spells: Phantasmagoria Lord of Pain (135)* – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master
OTHER Blissbarb Seekers (200)* Slickblade Seekers (400)*
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Mesmerising Mirror (60)
TERRAIN 1 x Fane of Slaanesh (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1985/2000
Flexibility and speed like all Hedonites lists. Everything fits in a Battle Regiment to give initiative control. The Grand Strategy is to have 36 Depravity Points (DP) at the end of the battle, and the list is designed to deliver. 3 Blissbarb Archers (1 reinforced) and a reinforced Slickblade Seeker unit will create a lot of DP opportunities through temptations and euphoric killers. The Keeper of Secrets can amp up the Slickblade, granting improved rend and damage to himself. Assuming Phantasmorgoria is on the right enemy unit, it can keep the Slickblade from getting clapped as well. And if this isn’t generating enough DP, the Contorted Epitome is better than 60% chance to generate 3 more a turn. Mesmerising Mirror adds to this feast of DP as well.
The list still has 2 Galletian Champions (Epitome and Lord of Pain). The Lord of Pain has the mobility through Tunnel Master. Park him on a remote objective if the centre is won and support him with the Blissbarb Seekers to use his buff to create a really annoying nest, especially late game. Everything in this list is focused on generating DP or survival (for the Keeper), making it very likely that from Turn 2 on the whole list is doing mortals on 6s and has a 5+ ward. That was enough to stop almost everything except new Bonereapers in their tracks. A tough list to face, so much of this list is mutually supporting but also expendable.
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– Allegiance: Big Waaagh! – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Waaagh! – Triumphs:
LEADERS Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Warbeat: Get ‘Em Beat Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Warbeat: Fixin’ Beat Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Lore of the Weird: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork Orruk Megaboss (140)** – Artefact: Destroyer – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Swampcalla Shaman with Pot-grot (100)** – Lore of the Swamp: Choking Mist Wurrgog Prophet (170)** – Artefact: Glowin’ Tattooz – Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
BATTLELINE 5 x Orruk Ardboys (80)** – 1x Gorkamorka Banner Bearers 10 x Orruk Brutes (300)*** – Jagged Gore-hackas – 2x Gore Choppas – Reinforced x 1 5 x Orruk Brutes (150)**** – Jagged Gore-hackas – 1x Gore Choppas
UNITS 4 x Ironskull’s Boyz (80)**** 6 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (240)* – Reinforced x 1 3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)*** – Jagged Gore-hackas 3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)**** – Jagged Gore-hackas
ADDITIONAL ENHANCEMENTS Artefact Aspect of the Champion
Austin is a long-time Ork player who pushed Ironjawz and Big Waagh into the top 10 and onto the podium consistently. Big Waagh seems to be the way to go for Orks right now. This is an Ironjawz heavy list adapted for the latest Battlescroll. No Warchanta with an Arcane Tome for Hand of Gork here. The Shaman has been brought along. But made general so he can take Master of Magic to get around the Ork casting problem. 6 Leaders is a bit more than a lot of lists, but Big Waagh lives and dies by the Waagh points. A Warchanta and Wurrgog are worth 3 every round. Add in Get ’em beat to increase the chances of a successful charge an another Waagh point.
All of them have a role, though. The Megaboss is the GC everyone loves to hate. With Tunnelmaster and Destroyer, he can act independently to take an objective or clean up an objective for a BT. He works well with Brutes and is a source of free command. The Swampcaller is there for the Boltboyz, either making it hard to shoot them or hand off a poison. And then there is the Wurrgog. The build on the Wurrgog is fun, fights last is always great but the Glowing Tatts (+2 to ward rolls) and Fuelled by Ghurish rage – just when you think it’s dead, it’s back for another round of staring.
Other than that, a couple of expendable units of Boyz for screens or late game objective control. The Brutes are the real powerhouses in the list with the Boltboyz for solid backing. Gore-gruntas for early capture and Waagh points. The only real weakness in the list is Jagged Gore-Hackas. 2 rend is nice, but 1 damage means that the output is very low. Into units like Nurgle marked Knights, they really struggle. They also weaken as the game goes on which which Chaos armies don’t, at least if they have summoning. A very accessible, positive list and one to keep an eye on.
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?).
This is the top three AoS lists for the Woehammer AoS GT took place in the UK on the 13th and 14th of May. It involved 30 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: Soulblight Gravelords – Army Type: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination
LEADERS Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440) – General – Command Traits: Doomed Minions – Deathlance – Artefacts of Power: Cloak of Mists and Shadows – Spells: Flaming Weapon Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440) – Deathlance – Spells: Spirit Gale Neferata (390)* – Spells: Prison of Grief
OTHER Blood Knights (460)* – Kastellan – Templar Lance – 2 x Standard Bearer
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1985/2000
Christian had a great series of games and managed to pull off some huge charges with his Zombie Dragons against Owen Jacksons Kharadron army (2 12″ charges!). Christian has kindly given us a brief synopsis of his list below.
Christian Moore: There’s very little subtlety to the list, you have one ethereal dragon and then Neferta either makes the other dragon or the bloodknights ethereal depending on the situation, largely it moves as one castle staying within her -1 to hit aura. Make use of her redeploy at the start with her and your 3 key units so you get to see your opponents deployment regardless of drops.
Skeletons tag objectives and then it’s just a high pressure list that pins people back deals a lot of damage at the same time as being super tanky.
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Army Faction: Sylvaneth – Subfaction: Oakenbrow – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired – Seasons of War: The Dwindling
LEADERS Treelord Ancient (330) – Spells: Regrowth, Verdant Blessing Drycha Hamadreth (320)* – Spells: The Dwellers Below, Verdant Blessing Warsong Revenant (300)* – General – Command Traits: Spellsinger – Artefacts of Power: The Vesperal Gem – Spells: Treesong, Verdant Blessing – Aspects of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Battlemage (100)* – Magic of the Realms: Wildform (Ghur) Spirit of Durthu (350)** – Artefacts of Power: Greenwood Gladius
Daniel had a great result at the weekend, which included the scalps of Marc Brookes Skaven and Tom Bell’s Big Waaagh. I’ll let him describe his list to you…
Daniel Scott: Big trees teleporting around! what’s not to love. Oakenbrow makes it so that until they are on their last wound remaining any of the treelords or spirit of durthu wont bracket which is big for the spirit of durthu keeping his sword on 6 damage effectively all the time!. The Treelord ancients ability to pop a wood up anywhere on the board combos with all of the tree monsters have a teleport on warscroll and our Warsong revenant having spellsinger which lets him cast through an awakened wyldwood in the same manner as spell portal essentially but he can’t throw endless spells through them now. The warsong revenant also has vesperal gem allowing him to cast treesong through a wood which cannot be unbinded and will increase the rend of your units melee attacks when they are near that wood good to make durthu rend 3 or turn Drychas attacks into rend 2/3. Drycha is a 10 wound monster who can pump out a lot of shots at rend 1 dmg 1 that do mortals on 6s to hit, my favourite thing to do is combo her with a treelord or two so she can unleash hell and then the treelord can make one of the units that charged fight last. The dryads are there to either screen if needed or teleport around into a better position for you. The Spiteswarm hive is great when you don’t roll a 1, of course! giving you a +3 to move and charge or worsening the rend of incoming attacks to a unit, great for being offensive or defensive.
Overall the list is pretty durable and does have access to some healing in terms of a spell or being near an wood/overgrown terrain feature, all the big guys are on a 3+ save there are no ward saves, with this army you are able to position yourself better to counter this and hopefully only have fights that you want to hide away from shooting if needed. Thanks to the maneuverability of the army battle tactics are normally easy to score a great first turn one if you go first (which normally happens due to the high drops) is to complete a charge after using walk the spirit paths, a buffed up durthu can get a +5 to his charge meaning you only need a 4 hit something and then teleport out so he can receive the buffs again next turn. Overall, the list is a tonne of fun to play and really gives your opponents headaches in terms of deployment and playing out there turns!
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Allegiance: Sylvaneth – Glade: Oakenbrow – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours! – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Spirit of Durthu (350) – Artefact: Greenwood Gladius Warsong Revenant (300)* – General – Command Trait: Spellsinger – Lore of the Deepwood: Treesong – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Treelord Ancient (330)* – Lore of the Deepwood: Regrowth Battlemage (100)* – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Allies
Yep, another Oakenbrow list! But both are a little different to one another. Ash was on the verge of being champion, only to lose to Christian’s Soulblight.
Ash Coleman: I was playing Oakenbrow, which made my treelords battleline. The other main benefit of Oakenbrow is that it allows the treelord, treelord anicent, and Durthu fight at top bracket unless they have 1 wound left, but even then, you drop 1 bracket.
I also went with the burgeoning as my season of war. This allowed my units to have a 6+ ward unless they made a charge. It was hard to decide between this and the dwindling for the reroll cast, but having cogs in the list allows me to essentially have both.
The idea of the list is to make Durthu as reliable as possible as he will be doing all the heavy lifting. The main combo is giving Durthu +5 to charge from the spiteswarm hive and the battle mage. Skaeth’s Wild Hunt is in the list for +1 to wound spell. So with an AOA or titanic duel, Durthu can be 2s and 2s. The treelord ancient has a once per game ability to summon a Wyldwood anywhere on the board. This allows Durthu to get where he needs to be but also allows Warsong to cast Treesong, which is a +1 to rend spell. The Warsong can measure spells from Wyldoods with the command trait Spellsinger. All this combined with the Greenwood Gladius artefact for the extra D3 attacks makes Durthu a real threat.
All of the treelords can teleport in the movement phase. These are the units going out and getting the objectives while Durthu caused chaos. With a 3+ save and 6+ ward, they can tank a lot. They also have the strike last monster reaction, so even if you get charged, you’ll have a chance to strike them first. They also have a great ability that when you hit an enemy with any of their attacks in combat, they can’t pile in. This is great for tagging the ends of units. The main problem with the treelords is that they are not elite, so they can’t issue commands to themselves. So usually I’d send the treelord anicent with one of them to give an AOA, AOD, or reroll charge if required.
The Warsong has a great warscroll spell that can do AOE mortal wounds to enemy units with 9″ on a Wyldwood. It’s great for finishing units, clearing screens, and killing enemy GCs, and with the Spellsinger command trait I mentioned earlier, he can do it from the other side of the board.
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Army Faction: Orruk Warclans – Army Type: Ironjawz – Subfaction: Ironsunz – Grand Strategy: Waaagh! – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Megaboss on Maw-krusha (480)* – General – Command Traits: Hulking Brute – Boss Choppa and Rip-toof Fist – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Mount Traits: Mean ’Un Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master – Warbeats: Get ’Em Beat Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Warbeats: Fixin’ Beat
BATTLELINE Orruk Ardboys (80)* – Gorkamorka Glyph Bearer – Waaagh! Drummer – Ardboy Boss – 2 x Orruk-forged Shield Orruk Brutes (150)* – Brute Boss – Gore-choppa – Brute Choppas – Boss Choppa Orruk Brutes (150)* – Brute Boss – Gore-choppa – Jagged Gore-hacka – Boss Klaw & Brute Smasha
BEHEMOTH Rogue Idol (430) Rogue Idol (430)*
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Prismatic Palisade (30)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1990/2000
Both Declan and I being Orruk players kept an eye on Joshua’s results all weekend. With the FAQ being released a few days before that effectively killed the Rogue Idols, we knew this would be their last hurrah…
This being the last hurrah for the Idols (unbeknownst), I had a great time smashing and bashing and getting smashed and bashed. The army list with a Maw-Krusha, 2 Rogue Idols, 2 Warchanters, 2 Brute Units and some Ard’boyz is surprisingly fast being a 2 drop I’m hoping for the chance to go first, With mighty destroyers and some good roll’s it hits hard especially with the Idols being violent furied by the Warchanters and a cheeky 3D6” charge from get em beat, a turn 1 charge can seal the deal either way.
My first opponent was a TreeMan list, who hid in his trees at the back edge, I managed to do some damage but not enough, then got out manuvered and picked apart.
My second opponent was Slaanesh, I got priority first turn, and my opponent cheekily placed The Masque 3” from my army preventing mighty destroyers, but allowing a turn 1 “This one’s mine”. It was then a game of trying not to get shot off of the board which my Idols failed but the Krusha survived to go after the big birdie but failed due to the one attack ability on big bird, it was a close game but a loss nonetheless.
My third game was a Be’ Lakor list with Nurgle Knights, Slaanesh Chosen, Khorne Varanguard, and a bridge. He won first priority and did what I was going to do if I had won. He met me at my lines, and a slog fest ensued with one Idol sitting out a turn or two (thanks Be’Lakor) I won the slog fest but not the mission.
My fourth game was against another Slaves, this time with a couple of chariots but still Nurgle Knights and 2 units of Khorne Varanguard. The Idols and Krusha this time picked apart The Slaves whilst the brutes and ard’boyz scored me points.
The last game was against some ghosts who enjoyed a few turns not dying to the Idols and eating the Krusha.
Five great games against five wonderful opponents with beautiful armies.
The Idols are now on 160MM bases and being repurposed for a three Krusha list. It is sad to see the Idols are no more as they are a wonderfully characterful unit. I was happy to win best in faction (yeah for Default Medal) and amazed to be nominated for best painted, I would just like to thank everyone who helped organise and run the event, myself and my mate, who I travelled up with both had a wonderful time, great laughs and enjoyable games.
This is the top three AoS lists for the Regicide in the Realms that took place in the UK on the 6th and 7th of May. It involved 16 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
As this event had less than 20 players attending there won’t be any list comments here as the guys will be concentrating on the larger events of the week.
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: Blades of Khorne – Army Subfaction: Skullfiend Tribe – Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours! – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADER 1 x Realmgore Ritualist (100)* – Prayers: Killer Instinct, Blood Sacrifice 1 x Realmgore Ritualist (100)* – Prayers: Bronzed Flesh, Blood Sacrifice 1 x Slaughterpriest (110)* – General – Command Traits: High-priest of Khorne – Bloodbathed Axe – Prayers: Unholy Flames, Killer Instinct – Galletian Enhancement: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage 1 x Bloodsecrator (110)** – Artefacts: Banner of Blood 1 x Bloodstoker (90)****
OTHER 5 x Garrek’s Reavers (70)* 6 x Mighty Skullcrushers (400)**** – Skullhunter – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Hornblower – Bloodglaive 6 x Mighty Skullcrushers (400)**** – Skullhunter – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Hornblower – Bloodglaive
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Subfaction: Legion of Blood – Mortal Realm: Shyish – Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination – Triumphs: N/A
Leaders – Parade Ground Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (390)* – Lore of the Deathmages: Waste Away Skeleton High King (440)* Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon – General – Deathlance – Command Trait: Doomed Minions – Artefact: Cloak of Mists and Shadows – Lore of the Vampires: Soul Pike The Ever-Living Prince (440)* Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon – Vampiric Sword – Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference The Scorned Captain (135)** Wight King – Artefact: Amulet of Screams – Aspect of the Champion: Stubborn as a Rhinox The Discarded Princess (135)** Ivya Volga, the Outcast
Battleline – Procession Host The Endless Duty (85)** 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons The Worked-To-The-Bone Brigade (85)** 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons The Impending Doom (220)** 10 x Black Knights – Reinforced x 2
Endless Spells – Delirious Visions The Reins Of Tyranny (40) Soulsnare Shackles The Great Unwashed (30) Suffocating Gravetide
Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Mortal Realm: Ghyran – Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours! – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADERS Karazai, The Scarred (550)* – General Celestant-Prime, Hammer of Sigmar (330)* Knight-Vexillor (120)** – Meteoric Standard – Artefact: Arcane Tome – Spell: Celestial Blades Knight-Vexillor (120)* – Meteoric Standard – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Knight-Vexillor (120)** – Meteoric Standard Knight-Vexillor (120)** – Meteoric Standard
UNITS 5 x Vanguard-Hunters (110)** – Boltstorm Pistols and Shock Handaxes 5 x Vanguard-Hunters (110)** – Boltstorm Pistols and Shock Handaxes 5 x Vindictors (130)** 6 x Praetors (280)*
This is the top three AoS lists for Broken Realms and Minis for War 3 that took place in Scotland on the 1st and 2nd of April. It involved 72 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: Sylvaneth – Glade: Oakenbrow – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Season of War: The Dwindling
Leaders Drycha Hamadreth (320)** – Lore of the Deepwood: The Dwellers Below Spirit of Durthu (350)* – Artefact: Greenwood Gladius Treelord Ancient (330) – Lore of the Deepwood: Regrowth Warsong Revenant (300)** – General – Command Trait: Spellsinger – Artefact: The Vesperal Gem – Lore of the Deepwood: Treesong – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Battlemage (100)** – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Allies
Battleline 10 x Dryads (100)* Treelord (230)* Treelord (230)*
Scotland has a strong and friendly AoS community. Their Discord has many members, and I was lucky enough to be invited to join. All of our lists have player comments today after, and I want to thank the Scottish AoS community and all the players mentioned in the article for helping us out.
Reece Fraser: I was playing oakenbrow, which allowed my treelords to become battleline. This is good on its own, but the real benefit was that it allowed all the treelords / ancient / durthu to fight at their top bracket when you look at the damage table on the warscroll until they are reduced one wound, but there are various ways to heal in Sylvaneth.
The general combo in the list is to get plus 5 to charge through the spiteswarm hive endless spell, which gives plus 3 on a 2+ once the spell is successfully cast. This is followed by plus 2 from the battlemage of ghur. The bonuses went on Durthu 9 times out of 10. The combo start with the Greenwood Gladius combined with the ancient’s once per game ability to place a tree anywhere on the table. Then the warsong revenant, who can cast through trees thanks to the spellsinger command trait, casts treesong, guaranteed from the use of the vesperal gem. All this combined can really catch opponents out.
The list was also built around the idea that every major threat piece in the army can teleport. All treelords, including Durthu, have this ability on the warscroll, allowing them to teleport through woods and overgrown terrain 9” away. In addition to this, they have access to the once per turn teleport which allowed Drycha to follow.
This allows you to create a treelord castle for Drycha, which I found quite effective. You put Drycha in her shooting mode at the start of each turn which gives her 20 shots instead of the base 10 (3+/3+/-1/1, 6s to hit are a mortal wound). I would then cast mystic shield on a treelord to help him go to a 2+ save and teleport him and another treelord 9” away from enemies. Drycha would then teleport behind them, but still within her 12” shooting range.
This allows you to shoot into what is needed, 20 shots with drycha and 3 each with the treelords. When it is the opponents turn and tney try to charge into this castle you can unleash hell for another 20 shots. Then in the monsterous rampage phase, if positioned correctly, you can attempt to make one charging unit fight last on a 3+ with a treelord and either roar or stomp with the other two monsters. Combined with treesong on that tree they are huddled around, this gives them all extra rend (-2 and -3) on all of their attacks.
The general of the army was the warsong revenant which, as explained earlier, casts through trees. The general plan was to just sit in a corner near a tree or overgrown to get the bonus +1 to cast.
Turn one he casts spiteswarm most times. After that, unless it needed to be recast, he would use his artifact for the rend spell that can’t be unbound and his built-in spell Unleash Spites, which causes mortals on 5+ with a 9” range. The number of models in the target unit determines how many dice you roll.
The dryads where there mostly because I had to fill battleline, but still can be quite tanky with minus 1 to hit and wound
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Allegiance: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Vostarg – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Auric Runefather (120)** – General – Command Trait: Spirit of Grimnir Auric Runemaster (130)** – Artefact: Volatile Brazier – Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse Battlesmith (150)* – Artefact: Nulsidian Icon – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Auric Runesmiter (120)*** – Forge Key – Prayer: Ember Storm Auric Flamekeeper (90)*** – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate Auric Flamekeeper (90)***
Battleline 30 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (480)* – Reinforced x 2 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)* 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)* 15 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (450)** – Poleaxes – Reinforced x 2
Alex travelled all the way up from Wales to the part in Broken Realms and we’re lucky enough that Alex agreed to give us a breakdown on how his list worked.
Alex Bruce: The list relies on two main bricks of the army, the unit of 30 Vulkites with Fyresteel Handaxes and the unit of 15 Hearthguard Berzerkers with Poleaxes who act as a strong brick and counter punch to the army. Being in Vostarg, the units of Vulkites get +1 to Hit and +1 to Wound on the charge along with the +1 Attack from the weapon option chosen. This means that they become 2+/2+/-/1 with 3 attacks per model on the charge. In the Galletian Veterans battalion, this lets the first two ranks fight, which makes both the big unit of 30 as well as the two units of 10 dangerous threats for your opponent.
Whilst these units work well on their own merits, the runes that you can use compliment the base profiles with a number of buffs. Additional Rend and Mortal Wounds on 6s to Wound are the most frequently used however rolling the enhanced effect of the +1 to Hit rune gives the Vulkites another +1 Attack taking them to 4 attacks each on the charge. 6+ Ward (or 5+ for the enhanced effect) as well as +2 Move (with +2 Charge for the enhanced effect) board wide are both really useful utility runes. On top of this, each of the units of Vulkites can fight on death once per game, which can really boost the output of these units even when they aren’t on the charge.
Backing this up is a good number of unique buff heroes. The Runefather allows the runes to be enhanced on a 5+ rather than a 6+ and can give another +1 Attack to all units wholly within 12″ once per game. The Runemaster has the Volatile Brazier artefact to make sure that your Molten Infernoth is reliably on the board and in the opponents army causing damage (which your Grand Strategy is also to have this on the board at the end of the game!). The Battlesmith provides a 4+ Spell Ignore and 6+ Ward, which can be pushed to a 5+ Ward once per game, both wholly within 12″ as well as Rally on a 4+ for any units wholly within 18″ thanks to him being a totem. The Runesmiter provides that backboard pressure with the deep strike ability, which he can take one unit with him and backup prayer for run and charge, which both the Runemaster and Runesmiter know. Finally, the two Flamekeepers provide the army with further flexibility and buffs either providing more fighting on death to any of the units, +1 Damage to their attacks for that phase (which can stack!), or allowing units to charge at the start of either player’s combat phase.
Overall, the army is very resiliant and controls the board space very well. Any opponent who dares come close to this army is quickly overwhelmed by the amount of output it can dish out. There are layers of flexibility and redundancy in the list even down to the fact that the terrain piece provides a bonus +1 to pray for all priests within 18″.
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Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz – Gittish Horde: Jaws of Mork – Grand Strategy: Chasing the Moon – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Dankhold Troggboss (200)*** – General – Command Trait: Alpha Trogg – Artefact: Glowy Howzit Madcap Shaman (70)*** – Artefact: Moonface Mommet – Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Squigboss with Gnasha-squig (80)** Skragrott, The Loonking (160)*** Grinkrak The Great (190)**
Battleline 20 x Moonclan Shootas (125)* 40 x Moonclan Shootas (250)* – Reinforced x 1 30 x Squig Hoppers (540)** – Reinforced x 2
Units 6 x Grinkrak’s Looncourt (0)* 6 x Sneaky Snufflers (110)** 10 x Loonsmasha Fanatics (220)** – Reinforced x 1
Nathan is starting to become somewhat of a regular on the Top Three’s now! Following up on his Brewdog result a couple of weeks back, he’s at it again, I asked him for a few words about his list:
Nathan Watson: It’s very much the same as my Brewdog list in how it plays, but I wanted to take the fanatics in a unit of 10 to better benefit from the all out attack to make them more consistent. I also swapped the loonboss to a Dankhold Troggboss to try and have the option to play for a guaranteed grand strategy. Chasing the moon involves keeping your general alive to the end of the battle, and the Troggboss is very survivable with a 4+ spell ignore and a 4+ ward.
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Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Lineage: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Vampiric Conquerors – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Vampire Lord (140)* – General – Command Trait: Sanguine Blur – Expertise: Arcane – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate Vampire Lord (140)* – Artefact: Oubliette Arcana – Expertise: Arcane – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate Radukar the Wolf (140)* – Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions Necromancer (130)** – Lore of the Deathmages: Decrepify – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Necromancer (130)** – Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour Gorslav the Gravekeeper (80)**
Battleline 60 x Deadwalker Zombies (360)*** – Reinforced x 2 60 x Deadwalker Zombies (360)*** – Reinforced x 2 20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)* 20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)* 20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)** 20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)**
I saw this lost with 200 Zombies and couldn’t resist including it as out wildcard!
William Cruickshanks: Alright, 200 Zombies.
So when I first saw this list, my first thought was that it’d be a stupid idiot spam list. That said, after looking at the list a bit more, there’s actually quite a bit to it.
I will say, any idiot can play this list vs. LRL or something. You just need to box them in and have bodies for the most part. But vs melee matchups, there is so much nuance to having 200 bodies with 6″ pile in, access to flight / 9″ pile in and fight twice that you can actually pull off some pretty astonishing things.
Your general win condition is to just flood the board with Zombies, and make it so that even if your opponent kills stuff they’re only really denting screens of Zombies, and then a unit of 2-3 attack fight twice zombies punches back and takes zones back off them. Fight twice with a 9″ pile in is often used more for movement / leapfrogging off units than it is for anything else. My biggest tip would be to try and conserve models as long as possible, and never let your opponent kill your stuff on their turn if you don’t have to. Also, 6″ pile in has SO MUCH you can do with it, so learn it! It’s fall back and retreat, it’s free movement every combat phase even if you don’t end within 3″, it makes you a super useful movement blocker as you can end 3.01″ away, the applications are endless.
You don’t have to do anything crazy vs. guns, but vs. melee the skill ceiling is pretty high 😀
Oh, and zombies are really good in the new book too. Very different, but very good. Three games in and can’t wait til it comes out!
This is the top three AoS lists for Sparkle Party Deathmatch VIII that took place in the USA on the 11th and 12th of March. It involved 52 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Lineage: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Vampiric Conquerors – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (350)* – Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour Vampire Lord (140)** – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Expertise: Arcane – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Lauka Vai, Mother of Nightmares (280)*** – Lore of the Vampires: Spirit Gale
Battleline 5 x Black Knights (100)*** 5 x Black Knights (100)*** 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)*
Units 10 x Blood Knights (400)*** – Reinforced x 1 20 x Grave Guard (280)** – Great Wight Blades – Reinforced x 1 1 x Corpse Cart with Unholy Lodestone (80)*
Some of our readers may remember that we interviewed Jeremy Veysseire some time ago on General Speaking. We reached out once more, and ever the gentleman, Jeremy agreed to give us a rundown of his list.
Jeremy Veysseire: The important thing about the Legion of Blood army I played at Sparkle Death party is that it was designed originally roughly 1 year ago to counter the hyper aggressive meta that was around Maggotkin Flies, Dragons and Ironjawz through the following important mechanics of Neferata’s spell allowing a unit of mine to ignore negative modifiers to saves (aka REND) for either Neferata and the Blood Knights on a 3+ save platform making them easily 2+ save during the crucial fights and the minus 1 to hit Aura from Neferata’s Command Ability, the reduction in attacks to 1 unit with the book spell. The additional mechanics that were more of a bonus such as the Bravery Reduction, the additional models fleeing and the Horrorghast combo really punished in some cases Dragons and the flies themselves since my army does not do straight raw damage per say but more of this “I will kill you by a thousand slow cuts while you scream for the hills.”
So we fast forward to Spark Death Party, why bring this army since the meta has evolved so much since then? Well, I wanted to see if the combo was a good counter to Gitz, Slaves and Mawtribes, which all fit those hyper aggressive archetypes. The difference being that all of those armies have abilities to deal out a lot more MW consistently than the previous meta (yes, even more than dragons) and still punch very hard. I made some tweaks by incorporating Lauka Vai and the Corpse Cart for the +1 to cast aura, hoping that in some games I could get Lauka Vai’s spell off allowing me to really control how my opponent could choose the engagement and the additional thought process was if the Gitz armies went deep in Squig Herd since they can’t reroll charges, it could potentially stop them when they want to charge.
Now lets cover some of the additional combos in the list that are less obvious, Levitating Blood Knights to always be able to move any enemy units when they retreat and plant themselves easily where they want while removing terrain to clunk them up. Making the Grave Guards Sworn protectors allows me the ability to do another Battle Tactic “A Matter of Honor” with them and just in the off chance I can get them to activate in the Hero Phase with the Vampire Lord. Lauka Vai’s MW on the Charge really allows me to sometimes get Neferata out of combat or lets me remove a GC consistently with her as she can be kind of a surgical strike unit and she provides the Blood Knights coverage if Neferata fails to cast her spell.
At the event itself, I played in order into FEC, Fyreslayers, Mawtribes, Gitz, Cities of Sigmar. My first 4 matchups were exactly the type of army I wanted to face, aggressive melee armies and man oh man did the combo work. Some highlights, keep Gotrek debuffed with less attacks and half charges while the army picked up everything else around him, into Mawtribes watching Stonehorn hit on 5’s with Neferata’s minus 1 to hit, into Gitz watching BK just absolutely lock units up and the Black Knights blocking avenues up the board. Neferata slayed a Terrorgheist, a Phoenix, a Grimwrath, and terrified the Heroes on Stonehorn with her dagger. The army obviously got to play the type of armies it was designed to fight into and it did incredibly well due mostly to its ability to keep my opponent’s army locked away and debuffed as I cut him ever so slightly to drain him of his life essence like perhaps…a Vampire. But honestly, all it took was probably a non Static shooting army like KO or Seraphon to just ruin my day. What a great last ride for this army before the new battletome.
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Army Faction: Stormcast Eternals – Army Type: Scions of the Storm – Army Subfaction: Hammers of Sigmar – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Holy Command: Thunderbolt Volley – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Lord-Castellant (160)* – Artefacts: Quicksilver Draught – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master 1 x Lord-Relictor (150)*** – General – Command Traits: High Priest – Prayers: Translocation 1 x Battlemage (100)**** – Ally – Realm: Ghur
BATTLELINE 5 x Judicators with Boltstorm Crossbows (190)** – Judicator-Prime – Thunderbolt Crossbow 5 x Judicators with Boltstorm Crossbows (190)** – Judicator-Prime – Thunderbolt Crossbow 2 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (240)**** 5 x Drakespawn Knights (110)**** – Dread Knight – Standard Bearer – Hornblower
OTHER 10 x Protectors (440)* – Protector-Prime – 4 x Starsoul Mace 3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (240)** – Raptor-Prime 1 x Stormstrike Chariot (170)*** – Stormstrike Axe and Tempestuous Spear
Total Points: 1990/2000 Total Drops: 10 Total Units: 10 Total Wounds: 109
Through our friends at Stormkeep, we were able to reach out to Stark and ask if he’d give us a rundown of his list. Thanks again, Stark, for the comments, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you again in the future!
Stark Pister: This list is a natural evolution of my HaXbows list from last season, with which I topped out at 4-1. Last season I played 15 Judicators + 3 Longstrikes in a 3 drop with double chariot bounty hunters and so this list pulls back on the shooting and chariots for a more durable anvil/hammer in the block of 10 protectors to fit the more midboard grind battleplans of this season.
In my opinion the strongest Stormcast lists tend to be mixed arms builds with durable screens protecting efficient shooting and high damage melee hammers to riposte threats that try to get through the screens to threaten the shooting, all supported by minimal characters since our faction synergies tend to be minimal. I tend to build my tournament lists with this a general philosophy as the balanced nature allows the flexibility to deal with most types of opponents. In a similar vein, I try to have units with diverse types of damage to have the tools to minimize polarized matches. I find Stormcast’s incredibly deep roster tends to provide the options to really customize what you want available in any given meta.
This new season presents a lot of opportunities and a lot of challenges for Stormcast lists. Fortunately, our main minimal support characters are all GCs (except Gardus). One of our big strengths is the ability to snipe out small enemy buff heros and now that is even better with enemy GC’s being critical for half the non-book tactics and several battle plans, incentizing use of the Sharpshooter battalion. However, they balanced sharpshooters well by forcing it to be 3 required units so you can’t be very low drop. High drops can be problematic for shooting armies because an early double can allow melee to close the gap and for opposing shooting to gain the upper hand in output, so this needs to be compensated for somehow. Longstrikes make the perfect GC hunters, and with scions, translocate, and Thunderbolt volley, they provide very flexible turn one threat that helps offset those high drops. The added threat of the Judicators forces conservative screening of heros while they efficiently clear those screens from a safe distance.
The Gallatian Command battalion provides the opportunity for a very strong combo in Stormcast when used alongside a Galatian Champion with the Quicksilver Draught and the new Tunnel Master makes it easy to set up even with a hero like the Castellant who wants to be on the board in the hero phase for his ability. More importantly, it allows the combo to be down at the start of the game as part of your initial deployment castle, and with the help of the Relictor, it can be anywhere it needs to be on turn one. This allows you to defend from alpha strike armies that choose to go first against you (or the rare person you outdrop), while being able to get them buffed and into the optimal position when given top of one. Lord Castellant is the perfect hero for this job not just because of his ability to buff them to a 1+ save but critically because he has a 40mm Gryph Hound that enables the whole 10 block to fit within the 2.5″ bubble to allow them to strike first with him when someone charges them. This provides a HUGE deterrent to hitting your midbaord castle from the front and specifically acts as protection of your main melee hammer against the double turn.
The Ghur Battlemage helps make up for the paladin speed issues in the mid game and pairs well with the Relictor for melee units in general throughout. I often lead with Mystic shield on one of the screens to help with weathering the potential double as well, before flipping to wildform to go on the offensive. He also provides the bare minimum magic defense, which coupled with heroic willpower and the relictor Dispel at least let you disrupt the low hanging fruit.
The efficient battleline slots provide the opportunity to pick up an all-star screen in the Drakespawn Knights, who pair well with the Chariot to safely claim objectives and pin large threats until their buffs are down. The Chariot even has vanguard battalion to reroll its first charge outside of hero range. Because the battleline are the riposte and ranged units, they can easily stay back to protect heros from shooting for a while.
Another critical consideration this season has been the battle tactics. The teleporting GC lineup and Sworn Bodyguard paladins make most of the new ones achievable with some planning, though This One’s Mine is rarely an option. Hammerstrike Assault and Draconith Desctruction can be good backup options, albeit riskier that come in handy against armies where killing the one thing needs to be your focus anyway. The spicy Drakespawn pick can even sneak a late game Pioneers of the Realms.
Shoutouts to my mentor Matt Beasley for helping refine the list and forcing me to get reps in (and for lending the Drakespawn), to my painting mentor Ricky Fischer whose squigs I beat in round 5 to finish the tournament, and to the whole of Dimensional Cascade. Special thanks to my partner Larc for the unending support of my unbelievably-high-time-commitment hobbies.
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Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness – Army Subfaction: Knights of the Empty Throne – Grand Strategy: Follow the Path to Glory – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADER 1 x Be’lakor (355) – Spells: Binding Damnation 1 x Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore (265)* – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Daemonic Speed – Mark of Chaos: Undivided 1 x Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)* – Spells: Chaotic Conduit – Mark of Chaos: Undivided – Leadership of the alpha 1 x Exalted Hero of Chaos (100)* – Rune-etched Blade and Chaos Runeshield – Mark of Chaos: Undivided
BATTLELINE 3 x Varanguard (290)* – 3 x Daemonforged Blade – Mark of Chaos: Khorne 10 x Chaos Knights (460)* – Doom Knight – Standard Bearer – Hornblower – Cursed Lance – Ensorcelled Banner: The Eroding Icon – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle 5 x Chaos Knights (230)* – Doom Knight – Standard Bearer – Hornblower – Cursed Lance – Mark of Chaos: Khorne 10 x Splintered Fang (100)*
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Umbral Spellportal (80)
CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)
Another notch on Be’lakor’s bedpost! If you’ve not met him on the table before, Be’lakor’s man schtick is being able to stop a key unit from doing stuff (on a 3+ each phase) until your next hero phase. He’s been hotly debated in (all 9) S2D player circles because, while he offers a great amount of short-term control, which potentially allows you varanguard/10 knights (as in this list) to do their work, it’s also entirely possible that you roll a few crucial 2s, and then you’ve basically paid 355 pts for a not very durable, not very killy and kinda fast hero.
He has been cropping up recently though, suggesting that, overall, he’s worth it for the time he buys the hammers to do their work. Ricky here has actually gone for KOTET, which will allow the two units of knights, the Varanguard, and the Sorcerer on Manticore to all make up plenty of ground by running and charging. Obviously, that’s going to allow a fair bit of early pressure, especially with daemonic power being cast on 3d6 with a re-roll by the Manticore Sorc, allowing one unit to charge with 3d6 as well. I imagine the spell-portal is also there to allow the Manticore’s warscroll spell – one of the few good offensive spells S2D has access to – to reach out across the board to soften stuff up.
Finally, we have an Exalted Hero, who is utterly garbage, but only 100 points, and I imagine it is mainly there for GC based scoring.
Taking down one of the two mirrors and also managing to chew through NH and a monster heavy Ogor list means this is a great result with a techy list from Ricky!
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Army Faction: Cities of Sigmar – Army Type: Hallowheart – Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours! – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Battlemage (100)* – General’s Adjutant – Spells: Roaming Wildfire, Ignite Weapons – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master 1 x Freeguild General (100)* – General – Command Traits: Veteran of the Blazing Crusade 1 x Celestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage (290)* – Spells: Ignite Weapons, Sear Wounds 1 x Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (320)** – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Sear Wounds, Flaming Weapon 1 x Lord-Arcanum (140)** – Spells: Warding Brand, Roaming Wildfire
BATTLELINE 20 x Freeguild Handgunners (200)* – Marksman – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Piper – Long Rifle 20 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (200)* – General’s Retinue – Marksman – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Piper 10 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (100)* – Standard Bearer – Marksman – Piper 10 x Flagellants (80)** – Prophet 10 x Freeguild Guard (80)** – Sergeant – Standard Bearer – Drummer – Freeguild Halberd 10 x Freeguild Guard (80)** – Sergeant – Drummer – Standard Bearer – Freeguild Halberd
Once you get one player comment, you can often get two or three from the connections those players have. That was the case here as well when Stark said he could reach out to Louis-Philippe for his comments.
Louis-Philippe: The Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix should only have Flaming Weapon (The mistake has been spot before start of the tourney and opponents were dully advise).
Game plan: First of all, AoS is a dice game. Luck is part of the game, but careful planning can sway the odds in your favour. …sometime 😛
Flagellants are there for the easy ‘’Sanctify’’ battle tactic T1 (White dwarf). Since I always let my opponent go first (I was lucky not to face a 1 drop), he usually doesn’t kill anything. So that was a free one turn 1. (Aside from game 4, where the battleplan didn’t favour that BT (Position Over Power). Fun fact, that was the only game my opponent concentrated on his resource to kill my flagellant on his T1.
This list has 4 (double, cause Hallowheart) casters, meaning an 8 cast hero phase T1. The Hallowheart command ability lets you take D6 mortals for the same amount in casting bonus. Meaning this list is usually casting at +1, if not +2 or +3, but could reach a whopping +9! and since all your spells are cast on 6s (aside Flaming weapon) unless your opponent is able to unbind, everything goes flying out. Fun fact (not so fun for my opponent): In my 4th round T1 hero phase, I was casting with a +5 from that command ability since my phoenix failed all his ward saves. Got to heal 3 wounds back with Sear Wounds though.
I mostly face Melee lists (Fireslayer, Skaven (night/gutterrunners), Nighthaunt, nurgles (beast), Soulbright Grave lord)
So, the plan was to deploy away from their charge range. For the skaven, I deployed my shooting units 3’’ aways from the front of my shaft unit, so his deepstriking rats only had my shaft to shoot at (and my Fulminators which they killed with mortals). He also charged my shaft with his deceiver (one of them failed the charge). His deceiver didn’t like mortals from magic bottom of 1 (and the other rats didn’t like my shooting).
As for the Soulbright, well Jeremy is impressive, tactics wise and had a bit of luck, he stole initiative T2, forcing me to move forward by burning my ‘’back’’ objective, and had Neferata do 1 wound (yes only 1 unsaved wound to my Phoenix, mind you it was the dagger that got through, Phoenix was at 11 health, he rolled a 5… pouf no more Phoenix).
Units : The goal was to use the Freeguild Guards and Flagellants as chaff around the Handgunners and Crossbowmen. My general and the battle mage from Ghur had to be close to each other for the adjutant rule and my general was in the middle of the range unit, providing +1+1 with his CP and a 18’’ wholly whiting immune to bravery. The Phoenix was there to act as tarpit and increase survivability (if there’s any) of the chaff unit since his -1 wound bubble affects any enemy unit within range. Fulminators are there to act as a menace, which they did great since most of my opponents were scared of them and diverted resource to deal with them. Finally, th Lord-Arcanum was there to :
Be an extra GV
Give 1 more (possibility of 2) HP to the fulminators
But mostly give 6’’ more movement range on the Quicksilver Swords, which make them a 20’’ threat range on cast (remember the casting bonuses I talked about earlier)
Battleplans : R1-Prize of Gallet R2-Ours for the taking R3-Only the Worthy R4-Position over power R5-Jaws of gallet.
Possible upgrade : Swap ‘’Tunnel Master’’ from the battlemage to the Lord-Arcanum.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for 2D6 Carnage that took place in Norway on 26th and 27th November. It involved 48 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Lineage: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs:
Leaders Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night (380) – Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (345)* – Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (435) – General – Deathlance – Command Trait: Sanguine Blur – Artefact: Soulbound Garments – Expertise: Martial – Mount Trait: Foetid Miasma – Universal Spell Lore: Amethystine Pinions
Battleline 5 x Black Knights (100)** 20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)*
Units 10 x Blood Knights (390)** – Reinforced x 1 1 x Corpse Cart with Unholy Lodestone (80)*
Danny: Do my eyes deceive me? Does that say ‘1st’?! Soulblight have been struggling to rise from the gravesite that Bounty Hunters unceremoniously put them back into, taking a number of podiums recently but pipping the post at a singles event – until now! The route to 1st at first sight looks relatively soft, but the MW output of Kruleboyz can definitely trouble Soulblight, as can the shenanigans of Sylvaneth. Ben here has gone for the ‘double mortarch + VloZD’ archetype, which essentially works as either a giant death star of overlapping buff and de-buff auras (-1 to hit from Neffie, her spell to make something unrendable, CA from Manny for +1 to hit AND wound) or three fast, self sufficient monsters who can harry flanks and generally score well. In Legion of Blood, the VloZD is also able to be ‘Martial, making him slightly more reliable in combat, with Pinions for the extra movement and therefore threat projection.The rest is just good old fashioned objective play. Black knights are fast chaff, the zombies are vulnerable to BH but a ‘small’ squad can mitigate this by hiding in gravesites and popping out onto objectives – super strong on any plan like Silksteel nests or Prize of Gallet – while the Deathrattle do the same job but cheaper and with a smaller footprint. Meanwhile, a brick of 10 Bloodknights act as another potential home for the Mortarch buffs, and can function as a dual-purpose anvil AND hammer. All of this is backed up by some magic tech – the Corpse cart with Lodestone gives off +1 to cast in a 12″ aura (and bizarrely +1 save to zombies…which I can’t see coming in particularly handy) and Cogs protects against miscasts and helps those clutch early auras to go off, giving off plenty of protection if doubled. All in all, it’s a really nice balanced list with some great heroes and huge scoring potential – big up to Benjamin for the rare SBGL 5-0!
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Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Astral Templars (Scions of the Storm) – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Lord-Castellant (155)* Knight-Draconis (300)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Mount Trait: Celestial Instincts – Spell: Celestial Blades
Battleline 5 x Liberators (115)* – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield 2 x Stormdrake Guard (340)* – Drakerider’s Warblade 6 x Stormdrake Guard (1020)* – Drakerider’s Warblade – Reinforced x 2
Units 3 x Aetherwings (65)*
Core Battalions *Battle Regiment
Additional Enhancements Holy Command: Call for Aid
Brett: The second of our 5/0 armies from the event and an army that shows the impact of some of the more recent releases. Astral Templars are the monster hunting Stormhost turning off monstrous rampages. It’s a small thing but with the Dragons issuing their own commands and relatively few units (so exposed to a roar) it’s a very solid defensive play.
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Allegiance: Lumineth Realm-lords – Great Nation: Ymetrica – Mortal Realm: Chamon – Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Alarith Stonemage (120)** – Artefact: Molten Talisman – Lore of the High Peaks: Unbreakable Stoicism Scinari Enlightener (170)** – General – Command Trait: Loremaster – Artefact: Silver Wand – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh, Protection of Hysh, Total Eclipse Avalenor, the Stoneheart King (420)**
Battleline 15 x Alarith Stoneguard (360)* – Stone Mallets – Reinforced x 2 10 x Alarith Stoneguard (240)* – Stone Mallets – Reinforced x 1 5 x Alarith Stoneguard (120)** – Stone Mallets
Units 5 x Vanari Dawnriders (140)* – Spell1: Lore of Hysh: Protection of Hysh 20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)** – Spell1: Lore of Hysh: Overwhelming Heat – Reinforced x 1
Alice: Since the launch of the new book the Alarith lists have sort of dwelled on the outskirts but we haven’t seen a ton of effective use for them and this one definitely gets there. All Alarith units, including the stoneguard, Avelnor and the Stonemage here, reduce Rend -1 to 0, making them much harder to defeat with chaff. The Stonemage is a solid caster handing out a bonus attack to the 3 stoneguard. The Enlightener is a general purpose buff bot with 2, possibly 3 spells per turn. Avalendor is here as the hammer, to crash through just about anything in his way.
Alarith Stoneguard are the bread and butter of this list, their damage is fine, nothing mind blowing but 2 attacks per model (3 with the stoneguard) at -1 to Rend Damage 1 with an additional mortal wound on 6s isnt nothing. Their strength comes from the reduction of rend and a 4+ ward against mortals on objectives. Frustratingly difficult to move, once they’re on that point they aren’t moving.
Sentinels are still here of course, that much ranged damage on a 5+ for mortals is too tempting to pass up, with a Ballista to increase their range and do a bit of damage itself.
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Army Faction: Blades of Khorne – Subfaction: Reapers of Vengeance – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage (280) – Artefacts of Power: Skullshard Mantle Skarbrand (380) Wrath of Khorne Bloodthirster (310) – General – Command Traits: Mage Eater Bloodsecrator (125)* Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (295)* – Artefacts of Power: The Crimson Crown Slaughterpriest (100)* – Hackblade and Wrath-hammer – Prayers: Blood Sacrifice
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Hexgorger Skulls (50)
TERRAIN 1 x Skull Altar (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Warlord **Bounty Hunters
TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000
Alice: It genuinely warms my heart to see Khorne lists making a good effort even ahead of the new book. You got the Bloodthirster Flush with 1 of each, including Skarbrand. For the most part there isn’t anything too surprising here, Bloodthirsters bring the beat down, sacrificing 4 blood tithes if they need another swing at the start of the next round. One interesting choice here is the Crimson Crown on the Bloodthirsty of Unfettered Fury so he can use Rejoice in their Slaughter for free for a 6″ pilein.
Supporting them is the Bloodsecrator is frankly far too cheap for what he does, granting an additional attack to each unit within 16″, making those terrifying bloodthirsters even more intimidating. The Slaughterpriest is a token priest, with Blood Sacrifice giving those precious Blood Tithes that can be hard to farm on low drop lists. Flesh House make cheap battleline to hold objectives while Wrathmongers are a solid hammer to round out the list.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Lost Legion GT that took place in Australia on 19th and 20th 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
Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes – Subfaction: Underguts – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
Declan: I don’t know if the tournament allowed the new book, but Patrick is well prepared for it if they didn’t. 4 Ironblasters never really appeared in the UK meta, but was reasonably common in the US and has appeared in Australia. It’s a great example of how the tournament scenes are different in each country.
Why is everyone talking about Ironblasters….? Well more consistent damage is coming and the Hailshot is getting very good! Expect to see similar lists to this once the book is fully allowed at tournaments.
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Army Faction: Kharadron Overlords – Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Aether-Khemist (90)* – General – Command Traits: Collector – Artefacts of Power: Staff of Ocular Optimisation Aetheric Navigator (85)* – Artefacts of Power: Svaregg-Stein ‘Illuminator’ Flarepistol Arkanaut Admiral (125)**
BATTLELINE Arkanaut Company (90)* – Company Captain – Light Skyhook and Gun Butt – Skypike – Aethermatic Volley Gun and Gun Butt – Volley Pistol Arkanaut Company (90)* – Company Captain – Light Skyhook and Gun Butt – Skypike – Aethermatic Volley Gun and Gun Butt – Volley Pistol Arkanaut Company (90)** – Company Captain – Light Skyhook and Gun Butt – Skypike – Aethermatic Volley Gun and Gun Butt – Volley Pistol
BEHEMOTH Arkanaut Ironclad (490)** – Great Sky Cannon – Great Endrinworks: The Last Word Arkanaut Ironclad (490)* – Great Sky Cannon – Great Endrinworks: Zonbarcorp ‘Dealbreaker’ Battle Ram
OTHER Grundstok Thunderers (270)* – Grundstok Mortar – 2 x Honour Bearer – 2 x Aethercannon – 2 x Aetheric Fumigator – 2 x Decksweeper Grundstok Gunhauler (155)** – Drill Cannon
Randal: There are two primary archetypes of Kharadron Overlords that have been successful this season. There is the Full Fleet list with four or more boats, and the Double Ironclad with an Anvil lists which have also seen a lot of success like this wonderful list from Luca Foerster.
Luca took this list in a slightly different direction from the typical double ironclad lists we have seen in the past, by foregoing the Krondspine or Gotrek anvil choices and instead taking a reinforced unit of Grundstok Thunderers with Special Weapons. This is extra spicy since it gives the unit an enormous amount of firepower but has limited range with most of the weapons limited to 12” or less. This list gets around that restriction by being in Zilfin which gets a hero phase move for one of the Ironclads allowing the Thunderers to jump out and pummel the enemy’s frontline. The usual suspects for heroes and battleline accompany the two heavy boats, but there is a surprise Grundstok Gunhauler which provides a little extra extra for the two big boats in the form of a 6+ ward if it is nearby.
Another surprise here is that Luca has foregone using Spell in a Bottle which is a mainstay for Kharadron Alpha-Strike lists. This is likely a concession to stay in Zilfin and still get a Navigator instead of the common double Khemist builds that we usually see.
There is not much out that wants to play against this, but the lack of mortal wounds output or Purple Sun means that after the Flarepistol and Admiral’s Special Ammunition are used there isn’t much punch left to deal with a good save army that managed to survive the opening barrage.
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Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Hallowed Knights (Stormkeep) – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Gardus Steel Soul (150)** Karazai, The Scarred (550)** Lord-Relictor (145)** – General – Command Trait: High Priest – Artefact: Mirrorshield – Prayer: Translocation Lord-Castellant (155)** – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Spell: Celestial Blades
Battleline 5 x Liberators (115) – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield 5 x Liberators (115) – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield 10 x Vanquishers (220)* – Reinforced x 1
Units 2 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (230)* 6 x Praetors (290)* – Reinforced x 1
Core Battalions *Bounty Hunters **Warlord
Additional Enhancements Holy Command: Call for Aid Artefact
Brett: Joel is a member of Measured Gaming (as is Pat who took first) who loves Liberators and Stormstrike Chariots (he has a battle report on youtube with 5 in a single game – against Pat). Very experienced SCE general who has been developing this list since Karazai came out. This army is about Karazai and trying to get him into battle while within range of the Praetors or Gardus (bodyguard and ward don’t stack). The Praetors, as Bounty Hunters, they are capable damage dealers, just a bit slow, with 19 attacks at Rend -1 and 2(3) Damage. The army has a few more surprises, Fulminators are efficient even in pairs and with a 5+ ward if near Gardus, hard to shift. Bounty Hunters can really help them if they are caught in combat, against GV anyway.
Vanquishers are good anti horde (3 attacks against 5 models and 4 attacks against 10 or more) all with Rend -1. The Castellan isn’t the general but still included for utility with his Lantern ability (improved saves or mortal wounds). Teamed with the Vanquishers he can make them as robust Vindicators (3+ save) while they have a much better damage profile. Hallowed Knights grants fight on death to the Liberators and Vanquishers (Redeemers). The same units benefit the most from the army being Watchful Guardians (Stormkeep). They get the benefit of Eternal Conquerors without the battalion (except they only count as 3 models on home objectives before round 3) and when successfully charged while on an objective they do mortal wounds to the attacker.
With the Relictor’s translocate and Liberators counting as 3 models you can sometimes steal an objective in Turn 4 with a unit that is hard to shift and has really strong objective control. The army has a really balanced approach with a solid mix of resilience and damage ultimately finishing only 4 points behind Luca (2nd) who he beat in the 1st round. Ultimately he lost to Pat with the revitalised Ogors and their amazing Ironblasters.
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Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Lineage: Legion of Blood – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Vampiric Conquerors – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (435)* – General – Deathlance – Command Trait: Aristocracy of Blood – Artefact: Soulbound Garments – Expertise: Martial – Mount Trait: Foetid Miasma – Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions Belladamma Volga, First of the Vyrkos (200)* – Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions Big Drogg Fort-Kicka (525) – Allies
Battleline 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)* 10 x Dire Wolves (135)*
Units 5 x Blood Knights (195)** 5 x Blood Knights (195)** 3 x Fell Bats (75)*
Danny: This list harks back to a brief period around the turn of editions where zombie spam + Big Drogg was a tournament winning Soulblight list. William has ditched the zombies like everyone else while Bounty Hunters is a thing (and here’s to it dying off soon) but kept Big Drogg – and why not? The guy is a source of rend 2 that Soulblight traditionally lack, and, well, he’s a gargant. They’re fast, soak up serious punishment and dish it out in turn – leaing your msu Deathrattle, speedy wolves and Fell Bats (LOVE seeing them) and the tankier 2 units of Blood Knights to head out and score.
It’s an interesting HQ selection too – Belladamma is a great buff piece but not usually taken these days, however for 200 pts she’s relatively cheap, speedy, and can cast a spell on a 6 for a 12″ aura of exploding 6s – which can help Blood Knights hit much more reliably. With her built in +1, she’s also a good Jaws caddy and being able to use the wolves as bodyguards ups her survivabillity.
Topping things off you have the always-reliable Lord on Zombie Dragon, who in Legion of Blood gains a built in horrorghast effect, and gains +1 attack on his Deathlance with Martial Expertise, while Soulbound Garments for +1 save gets him on a 2+ as standard before anything like AoD, Finest Hour – etc – making him SUPER tanky.
The one thing this list doesn’t have is access to good MWs outside of jaws, which may explain the loss to Stormcast – presumably they were able to tank the VLoZD, out-compete William on objectives and strike down Big Drogg with the usual SCE hammers. Still, a great result for an unusual list – I’m loving seeing the variation and the resurgence of top 5 SBGL lists these days after a slow start to the season!
