This is the top three AoS lists for Smash & Bash that took place in the USA on the 22nd and 23rd of April. It involved 62 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: Gloomspite Gitz
– Gittish Horde: King’s Gitz
– Grand Strategy: Chasing the Moon
– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders
Dankhold Troggboss (200)**
– General
– Command Trait: Loonskin
– Artefact: Glowy Howzit
Skragrott, The Loonking (210)*
Fungoid Cave-Shaman (90)*
– Artefact: Moonface Mommet
– Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master

Battleline
9 x Rockgut Troggoths (480)*
– Reinforced x 2
6 x Rockgut Troggoths (320)*
– Reinforced x 1
6 x Rockgut Troggoths (320)*
– Reinforced x 1
3 x Fellwater Troggoths (160)*

Units
1 x Dankhold Troggoths (180)**

Terrain
Bad Moon Loonshrine

Endless Spells & Invocations
Loonskin Scuttletide (0)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Troggherd Heavies

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1960 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 129
Drops: 3

Well, there’s no doubt that the new Gloomspite Gitz book is better than the original, but I must admit that I’m still suprised to see Troggs smashing their way to a 5-0. Christopher didn’t have an easy route either ending on the other Destruction go-to army – Ogor Mawtribes.

The Troggs don’t have the bodies that you might expect in a Gitz list, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have sneaky tricks in abundance, and Christopher has brought along some Gobbos to help his Rockguts. The Fungoid can Hand of Gork – a great threat to his opponent – whilst Skragrott can do that, and can keep the moon where you need it to be – as well as giving a little ranged damage with his scroll spell.

A spell that wouldn’t be out of place in an Aelf book. Glorious stuff.

Meanwhile the Rockguts are healing in both turns, and if you can kill nine of them – 5 can come back! That’s a hell of a hammer piece appearing within 12″ of the Loonshrine near the end of game (because you’re not killing them early). It’s great to see the list do so well, and a list mostly unchanged from the Trogg lists before the new book (with the notably addition of Skragrott). Goes to to show what a few well placed warscroll re-writes can do.

Army Faction: Blades of Khorne
– Army Subfaction: Bloodlords
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (330)
– General
– Command Traits: Firebrand
– Artefacts: Ar’gath, the King of Blades
– Prayers: Killer Instinct, Blood Sacrifice
1 x Skarbrand (380)**
1 x Realmgore Ritualist (100)**
– Prayers: Bronzed Flesh, Bloodbind
– Aspect Tunnel master
1 x Bloodmaster (110)**
– Prayers: Unholy Flames, Blood Sacrifice

BATTLELINE
20 x Bloodletters (360)*
– Bloodreaper
– Icon Bearer
– Hornblower
5 x Flesh Hounds (100)*
5 x Flesh Hounds (100)*

INVOCATION
1 x Bleeding Icon (40)
1 x Hexgorger Skulls (50)

TERRAIN
1 x Skull Altar (0)

OTHER
5 x Garrek’s Reavers (70)*
6 x Bloodcrushers (360)**
– Icon Bearer
– Hornblower
– Bloodhunter

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Galletian Veterans
**Warlord

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

Khorne’s new book is having a rush of blood to the head and starting to post results! This here is a forerunner for a very solid competitive archetype, and here’s how it works.

The big, daemonic blob of core synergy here is the Thirster of Unfettered Fury projecting a -1 to hit aura, and taking the command trait ‘FIrebrand’ that makes him into a priest. Because of the warlord battalion, each priest in the list knows two prayers – and the Khorne scripture is SO GOOD. With him is 20 Bloodletters, who in Bloodlords, are doing MWs on 5s to hit instead of 6s. The Thirster also has the ability to give a unit a 3d6 charge – meaning this blob is suddenly annoyingly hard to kill with the Thirster parked beyond, but also capable of long-bombing and handing you a whole bunch of MWs on a bronze platter.

Skarbrand is simply another very scary beatstick that can’t be ignored, meaning the other priests – the Ritualist and Bloodmaster, whose warscroll spell can give daemons +1 to wound vs a target – are probably free to do their thing, unmolested. Factor in two key Invocations, the Bleeding Icon to turn off inspiring presence in an aura and the Hexgorgers to absolutely lock down casting – and you have a very difficult equation to solve.

There are more moving parts to this list and a whole lot of strategy and further synergy based around Blood Tithe use that is all acts as a force multiplier but would take an essay to explain – but that gives you the core idea. A nasty, ‘everything is scary’ list full of movement shenanigans and board control. A great result and a sure sign of Khorne lists to come.

Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords
– Sky Port: Barak Urbaz
– Grand Strategy: Rule the Skies
– Triumphs: Inspired

Kharadron Code
– Artycle: Master The Skies
– Urbaz Artycle: Settle the Grudges – Amendment: Trust to Your Guns
– Footnote: There’s No Reward Without Risk

Leaders
Aetheric Navigator (85)***
– Artefact: Voidstone Orb
Arkanaut Admiral (125)*
– General
– Command Trait: Stormcaller
– Artefact: Celestium Burst-grenade
– Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Endrinmaster with Endrinharness (90)***
Endrinmaster with Endrinharness (90)***

Battleline
3 x Endrinriggers (120)*
3 x Endrinriggers (120)**
10 x Arkanaut Company (100)**
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
10 x Arkanaut Company (100)**
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)***
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon

Behemoths
Arkanaut Ironclad (500)
– Main Gun: Great Sky Cannon
– Major Installation: Zonbarcorp ‘Dealbreaker’ Battle Ram
Arkanaut Ironclad (500)
– Main Gun: Great Sky Cannon

Core Battalions
*Galletian Command
**Galletian Sharpshooters
***Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 105
Drops: 11

Kharadron and I have a love/hate relationship, I love the concept and like to see them do well, but I don’t love their play style or look. Jame’s list is brilliant, no attempt to outdrop you – he isn’t going to deploy near you anyway. 2 x Ironclads and a Gunhauler all with Sky Cannons is no joke, 50/50 to hit at long range (but all out attack can help) with only 2 shots but D3+3 damage. And through the artycles, amendments, and footnotes, those boats have +2″ movement, +1 to wound against a unit, a reroll of a 1 and once per battle 3D6 charge. Guess which Ironclad that’s going to go on (battleram rolls for mortals with a number of dice equal to the charge roll).

On top of the boats shooting, their embarked Akanaut’s are Galletian Sharpshooters. Very difficult to use their disembarked ability to give them +1 to hit to anything contesting objectives. But there is no reason they can’t target a GC from the boat with All Out Attack after a fly high command. The Galletian Command is an unusual choice for a non combat army but a decent way of accessing the season’s Battle Tactics. It might leave you open to the Bodyguard being killed, but the Admiral could contest an objective effectively particularly late game. But wait, there’s more – this is not just a shooting army. There are a lot of moving parts and buffs. From the Navigators reading the winds to the Admiral granting rerolls to the reading the winds, drops, movements, and profiles. It’s a lot to keep track of. Essentially, though, if they shoot, they will lift most units in the game.

They would have the drop on most of the armies James faced, the loss to Ogors is interesting – Ogors do have tricks to get close and if they do they can dominate. They are hard to put down as well. Poor Fyreslayers though, slow, forced into the open and gunned down.

Allegiance: Skaven
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Thanquol on Boneripper (430)
– 4 Warpfire Projectors
– Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap
Verminlord Warbringer (400)*
– General
– Command Trait: Devious Adversary
– Artefact: Warpstone Charm
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Warlock Engineer (100)*
– Universal Spell Lore: Levitate
Clawlord (110)*
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Aspect of the Champion: Fueled by Ghurish Rage

Battleline
20 x Clanrats (100)*
– Rusty Blade
20 x Clanrats (100)
– Rusty Blade
20 x Clanrats (100)
– Rusty Blade
20 x Clanrats (100)
– Rusty Blade

Behemoths
Hell Pit Abomination (210)

Artillery
Warp Lightning Cannon (150)
Warp Lightning Cannon (150)

Endless Spells & Invocations
Lauchon the Soulseeker (50)

Core Battalions
*Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 147
Drops: 11

80 clanrats and 2 warp lightning cannons, who cares how you go, this army is going to be a laugh with lots of death. There is no special list tech here, just some really hard-hitting hammers (Thanquol, Warbringer, and even the Hellpit) with deep deep screens. Thanquol has his skateboard (Lauchon) and is built for maximum melee. He’ll hit harder than a Mawcrusher. The Warbringer will, with this build, hit as hard a Thanquol (8 x 3 damage attacks) with his melee weapons. It’s a great list for killing, but maybe not for scoring. That’s an issue for Skaven their heroes are either massive or very small (5 wounds), and season 3 battle tactics are hard work for them.

At that’s how Smash and Bash went down; 4/0/1 and finishing in 9th with a few close battles. The only one he didn’t overcome was 2nd place, Blades of Khorne. And when your army is all about trading bodies to maintain position and killing your opponent, your worst nightmare is an opponent that wants exactly that. The more you kill, the more bloodtithe, and Khorne isn’t fussy who died. Bloodthirster/Skarbrand on Thanquol is going to depend on who goes first and the dice. Brilliant to see on the tabletop. Fantastic list to see, maybe hindered by the new season, but it is still a very effective and bloody machine that will grind out wins.

Final Tournament Placings