With the release of the Battlescroll: Galletian Reinforcements I’ve been able to go back through the data from the release of the General’s Handbook and tidy everything up. In doing so, I though it may be cool to give you a run-down of how each faction performed under the current General’s Handbook until the Battlescroll took effect.
The data used for analysing these results was taken from 110 Grand Tournaments between 3rd July 2022 and 6th November 2022.
Gloomspite Gitz
Region Comparison – Popularity
Everyone’s favourite faction saw their highest popularity in North America with 3.5% of players choosing the faction for tournament play, while in Oceania, the uptake was only 0.8%.
Region Comparison – Win Rates
The one player that played them in Oceania managed to wrangle three wins from them, giving them a win rate of 60%. In Scandinavia this dropped as low as 24.4%.
No 5-0 results for the Gitz, the best they could manage were some 4-1’s in N. America and the UK & Ireland.
Subfaction Analysis
Subfaction
Players
Win Rate
Glogg’s Megamob
15
41.33%
Jaws of Mork
10
37.00%
Grimscuttle
1
40.00%
None/Unknown
86
36.74%
Faction Total
112
37.41%
Most players chose to play without a subfaction. But out of those who chose one, Glogg’s Megamob was the most populat and successful at 41.3%.
Top 10 Gloomspite Gitz Players
You may notice that some players have a better World/Nation ranking than players above them in this table. This is due to players playing with multiple factions. These players have been ranked on their top 4 Gloomspite Gitz results only.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for Almost Loremaster that took place in Montreal, Canada on December 3rd. It involved 30 players vying to be crowned champion in a 3-game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
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Allegiance: Sylvaneth – Glade: Heartwood – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumphs: Inspired – Season of war: Dwindling
Leaders Arch-Revenant (120) Branchwych (130) – Artefact: The Vesperal Gem – Lore of the Deepwood: Verdurous Harmony Warsong Revenant (305) – General – Command Trait: Spellsinger – Artefact: Acorn of the Ages – Lore of the Deepwood: Treesong
Battleline 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)** 6 x Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Scythes (500)*** – Reinforced x 1 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)**
Units 3 x Revenant Seekers (235)*** 10 x Gossamid Archers (440)* – Reinforced x 1
No stranger to podiums across Quebec and Ontario, Olivier Gandouet takes first in a scrappy field with his take on the familiar Sylvaneth Heartwood skeleton. Eschewing common pieces like Drycha, a reinforced Seeker unit, or the Celestant-Prime, Olivier instead gets the most out of a reinforced unit of Gossamid Archers – a unit often maligned by Sylvaneth players.
You’ll find many of the usual suspects in this list – teleporting Tree-Revenants easily score battle tactics and potentially Show of Dominance, the Warsong provides reliable access to the strong Sylvaneth spell lore and bursts of AOE mortal wounds, and the Kurnoths are an unholy anvil/hammer combo that can be launched through the Wyldwoods crunked out on Spiteswarm sap to send something to the shadow realm and then fade away. A reinforced unit of Gossamids is really the elephant in the room here. While their durability and expected damage is low relative to their cost, they are capable of truly gruesome spikes and can be difficult to interact with for armies lacking in ranged reach. They will always be a risky include just because their strengths and weaknesses are so polarized, but the risk paid off for Olivier in this case.
We’ve seen Sylvaneth lists slowly edge toward lower drops over time, but Olivier reverses course and instead opts for a high drop list with all the bells and whistles. It’s a strategy that paid off in this event – Sylvaneth can still have a productive and relatively risk-free turn 1 if given first thanks to the Warsong + Spellsinger combo and Strike and Fade, but are also naturally resistant to alpha strikes if given second due to how far back they can set up. A unit of Seekers and a Branchwraith auto-casting Verdurous Harmony provides a layer of insurance for any mistakes, effectively negating any incidental chip damage and enabling rapid recovery from failed kill shots.
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Allegiance: Flesh-eater Courts – Grand Court: Blisterskin – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADERS Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (445)* – General – Artefact: Eye of Hysh – Mount Trait: Gruesome Bite – Lore of Madness: Spectral Host Abhorrant Archregent (245)* – Lore of Madness: Deranged Transformation
UNITS 9 x Crypt Flayers (540)* 10 x Crypt Ghouls (85)* 10 x Crypt Ghouls (85)*
BEHEMOTHS Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)* – Allies
Season of War’s own Carl Ong really put Flesh Eater Courts on the map of the Canadian tournament scene when he went on a run with his own FEC-Krondspine list. Perhaps seeing no reason to teach an old spine-dog new tricks, Frederic proves the nerfed Krondspine is still very much a thing in deftly piloting his ghoulies to a 3-0 finish.
It’s not flashy, but it doesn’t have to be: the trifecta of the Ghoul King on Terrorgheist, a block of 9 Flayers, and the Krondspine provide the savvy general with the tools to be competitive in most matchups. The Terrorgheist is an infamously explosive rocket-powered scalpel, threatening to tear even the hardest targets down by fishing for mortals with his Gaping Maw. The Krondspine gives the FEC army the durable mid-board unit it desperately wants and a temporary answer for units the Terrorgheist may not want to engage. In tandem, the Gheist and the Krondspine can either remove or tie up the opposing pieces that have the damage (see: Bounty Hunters) to threaten the Flayers, letting them safely leverage their recursion capability and project their force across the table with Run and Charge from Spectral Host.
This list is here for a good time, not a long time. It will launch a new Archregent-buffed unit across the board each turn until someone runs out of threats. Blisterskin is required here to turn the Flayers into GVs, but is also a strong blanket option with +2 move and access to a teleport for shifty objective play. The Horrorghast is a smart take here, helping to ensure that the list gets the kills it needs on the turn the pilot pulls the trigger and commits. Kudos to Frederic for an excellent finish here.
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Army Faction: Ossiarch Bonereapers – Subfaction: Petrifex Elite – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Arkhan the Black (340) Katakros (450) Mortisan Soulmason (115) – General – Command Traits: Mighty Archaeossian – Artefacts of Power: Godbone Armour – Spells: Drain Vitality
Legends say that on one fateful night a secret cabal of OBR players got together, prayed to effigies of Nagash, Bill Souza, and Owen Jackson, and received the revelation that big bricks of Necropolis Stalkers in Bounty Hunters can do very bad things to almost anything in the game. Dan Fortin was obviously in attendance at this clandestine ritual and has successfully spread the Stalker gospel in Montreal with convincing wins over Sylvaneth, KragGitz, and the OBR mirror.
What DON’T stalkers do, besides disappoint? They’re relatively fast by OBR standards (mimicking the FLY keyword and re-rolling charges), have access to a vintage 2.0 mechanic in re-rollable saves, and scale hard with powerful buffs from Katakros and the Soulmason to drown juicy targets in a sea of hyper-accurate damage 2 and 3 attacks. Arkhan provides damage diversity with his own personal orbit of arcane bolts, while Katakros acts as a buff vector and a constant threat to the opponent’s precious CP. The Mortek Crawler is a good utility add-on, allowing this otherwise melee-range army to reach out and threaten opposing wizards, monsters, and buff characters with a frightening 5 flat damage projectile. It’s worth noting that the Crawler’s normal profile can benefit from Katakros’ attack buff as well, making the payload extremely deadly in concert with a synergistic Horrorghast to lock in the casualties.
No silly frills like “screens” here: just twelve very large and VERY angry skeletons ready to receive positive affirmations from Katakros and punch a few one-way tickets to the bone zone. Congrats to Dan and looking forward to seeing the Ossiarchs again!
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Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz – Option: Jaws of Mork – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)* Loonboss on Mangler Squigs (270)* – General – Command Trait: Envoy of the Overbounder – Artefact: Syari Screamersquig Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig (110)* – Moon-cutta
Battleline 20 x Shootas (120)* 20 x Shootas (120)* 20 x Shootas (120)*
Units 10 x Boingrot Bounderz (210)* – Reinforced x 1 6 x Sneaky Snufflers (75)*
How cool is it that two Gloomspite Gitz lists finished back-to-back in 7th and 8th? In a true homage to the random nature of the Bad Moon, I rolled a dice to decide which I would cover. It seems Raphael Boyon continues to enjoy the moon’s fickle favour, though there was nothing lucky about his performance – he only dropped a game to Olivier’s winning Sylvaneth list!
A lot of the (justified) criticism of the Gloomspite tome boils down to it feeling like playing a losing game of keyword bingo: the juicy synergies seem to be there, but inevitably end up being just out of reach. Raphael’s Jaws of Mork list may represent the best combo this old 2.0 tome is capable of, solving the unreliable reach of Squig units with access to re-rollable movement, +3 movement, and 3d6 charging. On the offensive side of things, these Squigs can hit surprisingly hard: the Loonboss on Mangler provides a generous +1 to wound buff, while the Sneaky Snufflers are perhaps the cheapest source of the very powerful +1 Attack buff in the game. Kragnos ties the package together, serving as a cataclysmic melee threat and anchor that also allows the buffed Squig units to travel potentially shocking distances.
Interesting that Raphael opted for a 2-drop here, but it certainly makes sense for this configuration of the list. If the opponent makes a deployment mistake or fails to respect his movement, Raphael could potentially pull off an Ironjawz-esque alpha strike that pins the opponent at worst and cripples them at best. Going second, Raphael can sit behind the generous screening provided by the Shootas and then pierce the opponent on their weakest flank, threatening a deadly double with Kragnos. Props to Raphael for squeezing every drop of competitive juice out of a beleaguered battletome.
