This is the top three AoS lists for the Medellin Grand Open 2026 that took place in Colombia between the 8th and 9th of August 2026. It saw 26 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
Before we jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I want to invite 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
Ironjawz Ironjawz Brawl General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 2 Spell Lore – Lore of the Weird Prayer Lore – Warbeats Manifestation Lore – Manifestations of Gorkamorka Battle Tactics Cards: Burning for Vengeance and Siege of Ashes
General’s Regiment Kragnos, the End of Empires (580) • General Maw-grunta Gougers (200) Scourge of Aqshy: Brutes (320) • Reinforced Scourge of Aqshy: Brutes (320) • Reinforced Scourge of Aqshy: Megaboss (150) • An Eye For Da Fight • Chimeric Mantle
Slaves to Darkness Godswrath Warband General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 4 Spell Lore – Lore of the Damned Manifestation Lore – Manifestations of Malevolence Battle Tactics Cards: Burning for Vengeance and Siege of Ashes
General’s Regiment Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120) • General Chaos Chosen (510) • Reinforced • The Dread Banner • Brand of Apoplexy Mindstealer Sphiranx (140) Scourge of Aqshy: Chaos Warriors (400) • Reinforced
Regiment 1 Daemon Prince (250) • Pledged to Nurgle • Trophy Rack • Darkflame Pendant • Radiance of Dark Glory
Regiment 2 Gunnar Brand (180) Singri Brand The Oathsworn Kin
Regiments of Renown The Exiled One (390) Skarbrand
Faction Terrain Nexus Chaotica
Ogor Mawtribes Beast Handlers General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 3 Battle Tactics Cards: Blazing Onslaught and Siege of Ashes
General’s Regiment Kragnos, the End of Empires (580) • General Stonehorn Beastriders (260) • 1 Chaintrap
Regiment 1 Frostlord on Stonehorn (320) • Gruesome Trophies • Great Gutlord Stonehorn Beastriders (260) • 1 Chaintrap
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
There are a few changes this week, so I should probably explain myself first!
Firstly, we no longer have the traditional win-rate chart. This has been replaced by the new Faction Meta Dashboard.
The reason is to move away from treating win rates as the sacred word when it comes to balance. I’ve been saying for a while now that win rates only scrape the surface. They’re useful, but we need to dig deeper to understand how those figures are being produced.
With that in mind, the Dashboard now shows the number of players and games behind each faction’s win rate, which we’re now calling the Observed Win Rate. Next to that, you’ll see the percentage of GT runs which resulted in four or more wins across the first five rounds of events.
On either side of the Observed Win Rate are two columns marked Lower and Upper. These represent the 95% confidence interval around that result. In simple terms, they’re the range within which we think the faction’s underlying win rate is likely to sit. Factions with fewer recorded games will have a much wider range, while those with hundreds of games will give us more confidence.
Recent Form
You’ll also see a new Recent Form section. We’re comparing a faction’s most recent 200 games with its opening 200 games of the current Battlescroll. To avoid overlapping samples, we only make this comparison once a faction has recorded more than 400 games.
This gives us another way of looking at the meta. Rather than asking “How has this faction performed across the whole Battlescroll?”, we can ask “Is it still performing that way now?”
That’s already producing some interesting results, which we’ll come to later.
Skill-Adjusted Win Rates
Last, we come to probably the most interesting part of the Dashboard, for me at least. The Skill-Adjusted Analysis attempts to separate faction performance from the skill and experience of the players using it.
Using WoElo, we can estimate how likely each player was to win each individual game based solely on the WoElo of themselves and their opponent. At this stage, we’re deliberately ignoring which factions either player brought.
Take Hedonites of Slaanesh as an example. Their players have an average WoElo of 480.9, and based on the individual match-ups those players encountered during this battlescroll, we would have expected them to win approximately 55% of their games even before looking at anything to do with Factions, Formations or lists.
Their Observed Win Rate was 58%. Once we account for that player-strength advantage, our current Skill-Adjusted Faction Win Rate estimate is 52%.
That doesn’t mean Hedonites really have a 52% win rate. The 58% is what actually happened. Instead, the adjusted figure is our attempt to answer a slightly different:
How much of that performance comes from the faction, rather than the players using it?
Battle Formations
We’ve also introduced a dedicated Battle Formation Meta Table.
This works in the same way as the Faction Dashboard, showing the number of players and games recorded for each formation, its usage within the faction, 4+ win finishes, Observed Win Rate and the 95% confidence interval around that result.
We then apply the same player-skill analysis to produce a Skill-Adjusted Formation Win Rate.
I think this is important because a faction sitting comfortably at 50% doesn’t mean every way of building that army is balanced. One formation might be outperforming while another struggles, with the two averaging out into what could be seen as a healthy faction result.
The Charts
We’ve retained our two player population charts, showing the number and percentage of players within each WoElo bracket. These provide some useful context for the Dashboard by showing just how differently the player populations of each faction are distributed.
We’ve also kept the Fabien Chart, showing what percentage of players finished their GT runs with 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4+ wins. Averages are useful, but sometimes it’s much more informative to see what actually happened to the people who took an army to an event.
Finally, we have one new chart, Observed vs Skill-Adjusted Faction Win Rate. Blue represents the Observed Win Rate and orange represents our estimate after taking into account player WoElo.
The line between them is where some of the interesting stories in the data live. If a faction moves substantially down after adjustment, we have evidence that a strong player population may be helping its results. If it moves upwards, its players may actually be underperforming.
And with all that explanation out of the way, we can finally get onto what the numbers are actually telling us this week…
Faction Dashboard Analysis
With the boring explanations out of the way, let’s get into the good stuff.
Hedonites of Slaanesh
Hedonites are sitting pretty with 58%, but there’s more being that. Hedonites have the highest Observed Win Rate in the game, and that 58% comes out of 350 games. That would be where most people stop, they’re three percentage points above the traditional 45-55% window, and 30% of their completed GT runs have resulted in four or more wins, which is also the highest in our data.
But Hedonites players also have an average WoElo of 480.9, the highest of any faction. Looking at the individual opponents they’ve faced, we’d have expected these players to win around 55% of their games based on their ratings alone. Their skill-adjusted estimate falls from 58% to 52% which is the largest downward adjustment on the table.
It doesn’t mean Hedonites are a 52% faction, or that there’s nothin to worry about. But what it tells us is that Hedonites raw results are going with a very strong player population.
Fyreslayers
Fyreslayers are 57% from 223 games. But unlike Hedonites, adjusting for the player strength doesn’t make that performance disappear.
Fyreslayers players have averaged out at 448.2 WoElo, with their match-ups giving them a player-skill baseline of roughly 51%, this has meant their skill-adjusted win rate remains at around 54%.
So we have two factions with similar headline results:
Hedonites: 58% falling to 52% adjusted Fyreslayers: 57% falling to 54% adjusted
It would arguably mean that the Fyreslayers are the more interesting faction to watch. But, Fyreslayers only have 223 games recorded which means the confidence interval is quite wide at between 51-64%.
They’re also having 21% of their players achieve 4+ wins compared to Hedonites 30%.
Cities of Sigmar
Cities have 720 games from 145 players on record, with an Observed Win Rate of 56%. Their confidence interval is narrower at 53-60%, and 29% of their players reach four or more wins.
Cities opening 200 games had an Observed Win Rate of 58% which has fallen to 54% across the most recent 200 games.
Their WoElo is good, averaging at 454.1, but even taking that into account their skill-adjusted win rate is still 55%. But there’s even more behind this when we get to the Formation dashboard.
Daughters of Khaine
Their overall Observed Win Rate is 56%, but their most recent 200 games have reached 58%, up 4.8 percentage points compared with their opening 200.
Their average WoElo is a tough 465.8 and their expected player performance was around 52%, which brings their adjusted down to 53%.
Gloomspite Gitz
At the other end of the table we have the Gitz. They’ve won 45% of their 519 games this battlescroll, and their latest 200 games is sitting at just 38%. Unlike some of the other factions, player strength doesn’t seem to explain this one. Gitz players have an average WoElo of 404.0 and a player-skill baseline of 49%. Our adjusted win rate only goes up to 47%.
Something has changed recently, it could be anything between the players, builds, match-ups or simply the wider meta adapting to Gitz.
Ogor Mawtribes
The new Ogor Mawtribes have been getting a lot of attention recently and have an awful lookin 38% Observed Win Rate. But that is only based on 89 games across 19 players, Their confidence interval is a massive 28-48%, and their skill-adjusted estimates climbs to 44%.
This does suggest the Ogors performance could be partly down to the skill and experience of the players using faction. But we don’t have enough data yet.
Formation Analysis
Lumineth Realm-lords
Aelementor Guardians are leading the way. Sitting with a whopping 61% Observed Win Rate across 124 games and 35% of their players achieving four wins or more.
Player strength accounts for some of that with Aelementor players having an average WoElo of 474.9 with a player baseline of 52%. But even taking this into account, the formation still has an adjusted win rate of 55%.
Cities of Sigmar
Cities’ Zealous Hordes are more of a concern. With 284 games from 59 players. It has a 60% Observed Win Rate and a 31% 4+ success rate. Their average WoElo is 473.6 and after taking in the player skill, we would still expect Zealous Hordes to hit around 57%. Compare that to the other formations:
Formation
Observed Win Rate
Adjusted Win Rate
Zealous Hordes
60%
57%
Stalwart Guardians
53%
51%
Swift Reinforcements
48%
50%
Zealous Hordes seems to be doing the heavy lifting in the Cities Observed Win Rate.
Hedonites of Slaanesh
With Hedonites, Depraved Carnival are used in 75% of their games. They have 58% across 261 games, which is pretty much the same as the Hedonites overall figures.
But again, their player base is strong at 483.2, and their players were expected to win 54% of the time regardless of faction. Their estimated win rate falls to 53%.
Sylvaneth
Sylvaneth have two Formations that are giving us some interest. The Faction overall has 53%, but their Formation Lords of the Clan has 56% over its 241 games and an adjusted win rate of 56%. Their players have a modest WoElo of 413.9 and an expected win rate regardless of Factions at 47%. Meanwhile Glade Defenders sits at 51% observed and 51% adjusted across 319 games.
Interesting because Lords of the Clan isn’t producing good results because of a high skill player base. Its players are outperforming what we’d expect from their ratings.
Blades of Khorne
Khorne aren’t particularly alarming at 50% Observed and 53% Adjusted. But Murderhost is currently at 52% Observed and 54% Adjusted, while Khornate Legion sits at 51% and 52%. Northing scary there.
But what’s interesting is that both improve after player adjustment. Murderhost players have a baseline expectation of only 46% yet won 52% of their games.
Kharadron Overlords
The Endrineers Guild Expeditionary Force makes a jump from 44% observed to 50% adjusted. Their average WoElo is just 351.6 which is incredibly low.
I’m not claiming they secretly balanced, but its difficult to look at the 44% without looking at who’s piloting the army in those games.
Popularity Analysis
Disciples of Tzeentch have one of the strongest populations in the game, around 34% of their players are rated 500+ WoElo, including 6% above 700. Daughters of Khaine aren’t far behind, with 38% at 500+.
That helps put some of their results into context. Both factions are performing well, but they’re also attracting considerably stronger-than-average players.
At the opposite end sit factions such as Kharadron Overlords, where around 60% of players are below 400 WoElo, and only around 9% are currently above 500.
Skaven and Gloomspite also have particularly large sub-400 populations at 56% apiece.
This doesn’t tell us why. It could be that those factions attract less experienced players, that experienced players have moved away from them, or as was raised in our Discord this week, that repeatedly playing a struggling army may itself suppress a player’s WoElo.
That’s something we’re going to look at, and not pretend we’ve already got the answer.
Win Analysis
This remains one of my favourite charts because it translates abstract win rates into something much more tangible. If I take this faction to a GT, what sorts of records are people actually coming home with?
At the top, 30% of Hedonites runs reach four or more wins, followed closely by Cities at 29% and Daughters of Khaine at 27%.
But the rest matters too. For Hedonites, another 32% finish on three wins. That means roughly six in ten Hedonites GT runs are currently finishing with at least three wins from the five rounds we’re measuring. Compare that with Stormcast Eternals. Only 10% reach four wins, while 31% finish 3-2, 27% finish 2-3, 19% manage one win and 12% go winless.
And then there are Ogors. None of the 19 recorded Ogor players have yet reached four wins, while 48% finished with either zero or one win. The sample is tiny, as we’ve already discussed, but that’s still rather grim.
Accounting for Player Strength
This helps us see more clearly what I’ve been talking about this week. When we account for players strength some factions barely move at all while others move massively.
Hedonites fall from 58% to 52%, and Daughters from 56% to 53%. At the opposite end we can see that Kharadron rise 46% to 50% and Ogors go from 38% to 44%.
This is not intended to show any “real” win rate. WoElo and faction performance aren’t independent. A player repeatedly winning with a strong army will increase their WoElo, and someone sticking with an underperforming faction could see theirs fall. But we’ll look into refining this as we get more data.
Think of this as answering: “How did this faction perform compared with what we’d have expected from the previous performance of the players involved?”
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database.
This database is included in an additional article which is Patreon only and posted on the same day. These Patreon posts also include additional stats which aren’t available in the standard stats article, such as Faction v Faction stats.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the July battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 411.1. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 411.1 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This chart shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Battle Formation Win Rates
This chart shows the win rates for Battle Formations that have seen 100 games or more at GT events.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
Battleplan Win Rates
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database.
This database is included in an additional article which is Patreon only and posted on the same day. These Patreon posts also include additional stats which aren’t available in the standard stats article, such as Faction v Faction stats.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the July battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 411.1. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 411.1 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This chart shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Battle Formation Win Rates
This chart shows the win rates for Battle Formations that have seen 100 games or more at GT events.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
Battleplan Win Rates
This is not yet updated, and shows data from 26th July only.
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database.
This database is included in an additional article which is Patreon only and posted on the same day. These Patreon posts also include additional stats which aren’t available in the standard stats article, such as Faction v Faction stats.
This is the top three AoS lists for the Warzone Southern Fried Sigmar GT that took place in the US between the 1st and 2nd of August 2026. It saw 36 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
Before we jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I want to invite 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
Soulblight Gravelords Bacchanal of Blood General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 4 Spell Lore – Lore of Undeath Manifestation Lore – Manifestations of the Grave Battle Tactics Cards: Flanking Firestorm and Smokescreen
General’s Regiment Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (450) • General Deadwalker Zombies (250) • Reinforced • The Never-Dead Vargheists (240) • Reinforced
Regiment 1 Lauka Vai, Mother of Nightmares (200) Askurgan Trueblades (140) Deathrattle Skeletons (90)
Regiment 2 Scourge of Aqshy: Vengorian Lord (310) • Shard of Night • Immortal Ego Askurgan Trueblades (140) Fell Bats (80)
Regiment 3 Ivya Volga, The Outcast (100)
Faction Terrain Cursed Sepulchre
Connor Irwin: Congrats to Mckenzie for the superb showing! Let’s break down the list. The ever-present Bachanal of Blood formation helps out vampire heroes and hammers alike with +1 casting for vamps out of combat and +1 to wound when they charge. Manifestations of the grave is a popular choice to capitalize on the harder to reach sepulchres and just add a little extra something everywhere. Flanking firestorm and Smokescreen tactics lean heavily into the zombies and disposable felbats or skellies to make work, capitalizing on unit return in the opponents turn to bypass setup restrictions that would limit other armies.
Talking about the units let’s start from the bottom. Ivya Volga is an efficient antimonster tech piece and wizard that can defang enemy monsters trying to clear infantry or lift a key piece.
The star of the show is the new Scourge of Aqshy: Vengorian Lord. It’s ability to shuffle a friendly non-hero infantry unit or monster and itself right into combat with a target up to 12.99” (fury level+d3+2.99”) away extends the threat range and just greases all the wheels for tactics. Add to that avoiding shooting rend via the Shard of night artifact and getting increased accuracy and durability from the Immortal Ego heroic trait and you can see why the sticker shock has worn off for this unit since it rolled out this season.
Felbats and a unit of skellies serve as tactical toolboxes and covering fire sponges, jumping on risky primary and returning to the table at inconvenient times and places for the opponent.
Trueblades are as good as ever, and capitalize on the vengo lord shuffle by adding a 4+ fight last and antimonster tech to the equation.
Lauka Vai is priced to sell and with how strong the vengo lord is her spell adding d3 attacks to its strongest profile… they work very well together! She’s no slouch either in a scrap.
Finally, Neferata and her neverdead zombies plus reinforced varghiests. The Mortarch of Blood has a cheeky pregame move she hands out to a few infantry units, likely used to push the zombies, skellies or trueblades closer to their final destination. Her -1 to hit aura helps protect herself from combat abuse and adds a lot of durability to nearby units like the varghiests who can keep up with her and pack a punch, and are a good target for her ethereal spell. Finally, Neferata is a deceptively good pick for Unleash Fury attacks at the end of turn since, if it connects, it adds another possible target for her 5+ hero autokill rampage. The Neverdead seasonal enhancement is a popular pick for 40 zombies since for just one little rage dice in the hero phase it adds a 5+ ethereal save to a big block of health for just 10 points. You’ll see the enhancement on varghiests or reinforced skellies, but neither of those have the health pool to capitalize on the ability quite like 40 zombies sitting on an objective just flailing away.
I’ve found soulblight centerpieces like the mortarchs and vhodrai underwhelming of late compared to the vengo lords and infantry and I wonder if Mackenzie was feeling the same way about Neferata by the end of the weekend?
Late Breaking: I heard from McKenzie and he had nothing bad to say about Neferata. He pointed out the vengorian lord shuffle also pulls in deep striking varghiests, which is downright wicked. Congrats again and I hope your next event is just as successful!
Lumineth Realm-lords Aelementor Guardians (10 Points) General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 3 Spell Lore – Lore of the Awakened Realms Manifestation Lore – Manifestations of Hysh Battle Tactic Cards: Burning for Vengeance, Blazing Onslaught
General’s Regiment Sevireth, Lord of the Seventh Wind (350) • General Hurakan Windchargers (350) • Reinforced • Perfect Footwork – (10) Points Hurakan Windchargers (340) • Reinforced
Regiment 1 Ellania and Ellathor, Eclipsian Warsages (310) The Light of Eltharion (300)
Regiments of Renown Gotrek Gurnisson (320) Gotrek Gurnisson
General’s Regiment Frostlord on Stonehorn (320) • General • The Fang of Ghur Huskard on Stonehorn (300) • 1 Chaintrap • Horn Toss Stonehorn Beastriders (260) • 1 Chaintrap Stonehorn Beastriders (260) • 1 Chaintrap Stonehorn Beastriders (260) • 1 Chaintrap
Regiment 1 Frostlord on Thundertusk (250) • Touched by the Everwinter Frost Sabres (70) Icebrow Hunter (100) Thundertusk Beastriders (180) • 1 Chaintrap
Faction Terrain Mawpit
Ironjawz Weirdfist General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 4 Spell Lore – Lore of the Weird Prayer Lore – Warbeats Manifestation Lore – Manifestations of Gorkamorka Battle Tactic Cards: Blazing Onslaught, Legend of the Parch
General’s Regiment Scourge of Aqshy: Megaboss (150) • General • Amberbone Whetstone • Hulking Brute Scourge of Aqshy: Brutes (320) • Reinforced Scourge of Aqshy: Brutes (320) • Reinforced Zoggrok Anvilsmasha (160) • 1x Ward-smashing Choppa
Regiment 1 Warchanter (110) Brute Ragerz (100)
Regiment 2 Weirdnob Shaman (110)
Regiment 3 Ardboy Big Boss (90) Ardboyz (320) • Reinforced Ardboyz (320) • Reinforced
Faction Terrain Bossrokk Tower
Noumu: By the looks of Ironjawz lists like Kevin’s, Ogors aren’t the only wall of infantry meat we’ll be likely to see in upcoming tournaments. Boasting 182 wounds and 3+ saves across almost 70 models makes this list a huge grind to get through, and with the new Aqshy Brutes it’s a wall that is going to grind you back.
The new iteration of Brutes added with this season’s GHB adds a considerable amount of killing power to a unit that already held a considerable amount of killing power. Brutes already had 3 health per model on a 3+ save with damage 2 attacks. The only thing holding them back, as with most destruction lists, is their 4+ to hit. With their new ability you have the option of letting your brutes take a hit first, relying on their bulk to keep them in fighting order and then swinging back with +1 to hit and wound. Giving them an impressive 3 attacks hitting on 3s, wounding on 2s and dealing 2 damage per hit. And that’s before their big weapons have a go. They’re an amazing unit for making your opponent think about swinging into them and risking not clearing enough to dent their damage, or letting them swing first and praying that you don’t get eviscerated.
Supporting these boyz is a wide footprint of 40 ardboyz with a big boss bumping their shield bash rolls to 5+ at the start of each combat, that’s an average of 6 mortals just for being in combat with them, and you’re not likely to clear that combat in one round.
The rest of this list contains the tech pieces to help it function. The new SoA Megaboss brings with it the additional destroyer movement utilised by a lot of lists in SoG, Warchanters with their relatively recent extension to their buffs are vital for making the most out of your go turns as destruction. Rounding the support off is the army formation, providing a 6++ ward to any units within 12″ of the warchanter or shaman.
For tactic’s Kevin has chosen Blazing Onslaught and Legend of the Parch. Legend of the Parch is scored by basically doing exactly what you want to do as destruction, getting stuck into combat and then piling more boyz in until you win. Blazing Onslaught is an interesting one for Ironjawz though as they are fairly lacking in easy multi-phase damage for the first step. To mitigate this we have the shaman who provides hero phase damage with the Ironjawz spell list, as well as movement phase damage with the Foot of Gork stomping around the board. There is also his green vomit ranged attack that can do in a pinch. In addition to this Kevin has fitted his megaboss with the hulking brute trait, providing a reliable way to ping a small amount of damage in the charge phase. Once you’ve gotten past that first hurdle though, walking upto and holding the hideout should be a waagh in the park.
This is the top three AoS lists for the Siege of York IV that took place in the UK between the 25th and 26th of July 2026. It saw 22 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
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A great showing from Daniel with a more unique Fyreslayers list than most. It's clear the Runesmiter + AHG combo is now on the rise.
The first thing to note is that this list is not a magmadroth heavy list: there is only one in the list and it's the Runefather Droth who is almost certainly here for supporting the infantry via his once per game attack boost and his save reduction rampage. Thickened Scales makes him a little tankier for the role.
The list itself is an infantry-heavy list making good use of the subfaction, Warrior Kinband, which gives +1 to wound rolls when making a charge and the newly-reduced-in-points Auric Hearthguard (aka "shoot guys") and Hearthguard Berserkers.
Notably, everything in both Runesmiter regiments can be deepstriked; over 1000 points of this list are likely not starting on the board. This leaves a Runemaster, Droth, and SoA Flameseekers as the only pieces having to be deployed.
The AHG are an incredibly swingy hammer that have to be respected for their potential to pop off. They also provide fire support for the Hearthguard and Flameseekers which are themselves a hammer.
SoA Flameseekers' ability is (Army) so having only one makes sense here, aside from their high cost, but it's a potent ability and so one unit of them is always worth having. An infantry unit that can move potentially 11" in the hero phase (from the Prayer Lore) and then 11" again is quite spicy. The Runemaster having +2 to chant rolls (from the faction terrain and Ash-beard) means getting that hero-phase move off is fairly likely.
This adds up to a list that really really wants to brawl in the middle, but doesn't have to and in fact with the chosen tactics probably won't all the time. While it is brawling there will be 30 Auric Hearthguard reigning down shots on anything that gets stuck in or is caught out, the AHG themselves have Shoot in Combat meaning even if tagged they are still unloading.
Add to this mix the Ash-Cloud Rune on a Runesmiter so that the FS player can stop all shooting to infantry wholly within 12" of that Runesmiter (no matter the range they are, it's a full block). Against opponents who may have their own mixed-arms armies like Skaven and Helsmiths (both played against) this removes their tools from the board while your threats gain positional advantage.
Opponents have to make really tough target priority decisions into this list and no matter what answer they arrive it they may find it was the wrong answer. This list is a "classic" Fyreslayers list in that it is a toolbox that has the answers for the opponents questions.
Still, it's a tricky list requiring careful decision making on when and where you deepstrike, especially map dependent due to the tactics and the unit types. Outside the turn with the enhanced ward rune, this is a squishy list that will fold to a stiff breeze if mispositioned. This list won't be for everyone, but clearly it is for Daniel.
Ogor Mawtribes (Beast Handlers) General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 5 Spell Lore – Lore of Maw-magic Prayer Lore – Everwinter Prayers Manifestation Lore – Primal Energy (10 Points) Battle Tactics Cards: Burning for Vengeance and Siege of Ashes
General’s Regiment Frostlord on Stonehorn (340) • General • The Fang of Ghur • Touched by the Everwinter Gnoblars (130) Gnoblars (130) Huskard on Stonehorn (290) • 1 Harpoon Launcher
Regiment 4 Scourge of Aqshy: Huskard on Thundertusk (260) • 1 Harpoon Launcher Mournfang Pack (150)
Faction Terrain Mawpit
Mike Mercurio: An excellent example of the Beastclaw archetype, this list combines the army's strengths with solid secondary scoring. Beast Handlers is the standard subfaction choice, guaranteeing between 4 and 7 mortals per impact. With 4 priests, and the Aqshy Huskard at +1, this army can easily keep up the prayer cycle needed to maintain the 5+ ward around blizzarded objectives. The prayer lore also allows for some key scalpel play with Hailstorm combined with the Mawpit to remove support heroes or small scoring units. While most of the spell lore is of low value to BCR, the Slaughtermaster can be used to control space by occupying the Mawpit and extending it's range, while also casting the Primal manifestations to help keep the monsters health up. While Mage Eater is gone with the move to Aqshy, Ogors still have access to the Fang of Ghur for a once per game ward removal for when a unit needs to be driven off the board by the power of the Everwinter.
The most interesting design choice is choosing to go with only 4 monsters (3 Stonehorns and a Thundertusk). Typically BCR lists rely more heavily on monsters for their charge damage, but this list takes a different approach. Two units of Gnoblars provide important screening units to ensure the monsters are able to charge and maximize efficiency. While two small units of Mournfang offer anti-shooting tech, and some extra damage if needed. This lets the army operate as either two smaller castles, or as one large bulldozing wedge depending on mission and matchup.
Burning for Vengeance is an easy tactics pick for a list like this, where you intend to be aggressive right off the cuff. Siege of Ashes is a great synergy pick, especially because the tactic does not have a setup restriction for the first step. This makes the Icebrow Hunter a great tool to guarantee the tactic if the other pieces need to be somewhere else on the board. He can also be used for scoring additional primary, or to set up or future scoring either along the side of the board or opponent's backfield.
Overall a more technical take on the Beastclaw archetype, and shows that even Destruction can have some subtle tools in it's arsenal.
Daughters of Khaine Fervent Ritualists General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 3 Spell Lore – Lore of Shadows Prayer Lore – Prayers of the Khainite Cult Manifestation Lore – Manifestations of Khaine Battle Tactics Cards: Burning for Vengeance and Flanking Firestorm
General’s Regiment Morathi-Khaine (750) • General Khainite Shadowstalkers (130) Khinerai Heartrenders (100) Khinerai Lifetakers (110) The Shadow Queen
Niel Addleman: As we start to see the meta form, a pair that seems to be doing well for Skaven is Thanquoul and six Stormfiends which this list managed to do well with. Stormfiends are a proper melee bruiser, and with the ability to drop on the board on your opponents or your own turn gives them great versatility as well. And with the new season now you can use the Transplanted Brains enhancement to either give them a free +1 to hit (great for a unit that hits on 4’s) or extra OC. Played well, they can win you games on their own.
Thanquol is a very solid support piece for them. With +1 to cast, as well as a possible +d3 to cast from the Masterclan Connections on the Warbinger, you can more easily get off his spell for no-commands to stop that pesky redeploy or covering fire or all out defense (as well as more niche things such as Sylvaneth’s strike first command), or strike last a big anvil so you can dogpile it. And with the Skaven teleport spell he can be wherever your Stormfiends need him to be.
Backing this power duo up is Doom-Flayers and a Verminlord Warbringer to give you some extra melee juice and even help with tactics. Flayers can tear up infantry, and Warbringer can certainly punch up with his damage 3 attacks if you roll well. While the Flayers charge mortals and Warbringers end of turn mortals can help with Blazing Onslaught step one. While some Skaven lists are forgoing the Warbringer for a foot hero and a doomwheel to help with tactics, Warbringer gives you a bigger threat while providing similar utility in terms of tactics. And between Foulhide healing him every turn and rage dice he can stick around and be a nuisance for sure.
Finally there are TWO reinforced units of Jezzails that are going to be shooting from behind 40 plague monks. Jezzails can be swingy with only having 13 attacks per reinforced unit, that rend 2 damage 2 profile can tear high armor save armies up. Or whittle down a hammer before you send your melee threats in.
Skaven lists are always better than the sum of their parts and this list shows that very well.
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