Category Archives: Hallowheart

Top Three AoS Lists for Dwellers Below AoS GT

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This is the top three AoS lists for the Dwellers Below AoS GT that took place in Canada on the 15th and 16th of July. It involved 20 players vying to be champion.

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: Ossiarch Bonereapers
– Subfaction: Null Myriad
– Grand Strategy: Spellcasting Savant
– Triumph: Inspired


LEADERS
Mortisan Boneshaper (140)*
– Artefacts of Power: Artisan’s Key
– Spells: Merciless Blizzard
Mortisan Soulreaper (110)*
– General
– Command Traits: Show of Superiority
– Spells: Hoarfrost
Katakros (460)**


BATTLELINE
Mortek Guard (450)**
– Mortek Hekatos
– Nadirite Blade
– 2 x Necrophoros
– 2 x Soulcleaver Greatblade
Immortis Guard (440)**
Kavalos Deathriders (180)**

– Nadirite Blade
Immortis Guard (220)**


CORE BATTALIONS
*Andtorian Acolytes
**Battle Regiment


TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000

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Roland Rivera: A new season is upon us, and the Ossiarch Bonereapers are off to a great start with a tournament win. This list showcases one of the Bonereapers’ competitive advantages in this Wizard-focused season in Null Myriad, which gives units a 2+ spell ignore when within 9″ of Arkhan or one of their Mortisans. While this benefit might require some positional fiddling with some of the larger unit, it combines with the buffs and recursion provided by Katakros (who notably does NOT benefit from the Null Myriad spell ignore) and the Mortisan Boneshaper to make a potent defensive bulwark that covers the army’s advance (which is important, as this list is on the slow side).

And once they get into melee, they are quite formidable. A 30(!) man unit of Mortek Guard with the aforementioned buffs and recursion backing them up can own the middle, Immortis Guard are formidable on offense and defense, and Kavalos Deathriders are a very efficient utility unit that can screen or provide reach to threaten Heroes or finish off wounded units. Of course, any combat army worth its salt has access to some strong buffs, and this list is no exception. Katakros’ +1 to hit and +1 to save bubble is the bedrock most Bonereapers lists are built on, and Hoarfrost is very nice on large blobs of Mortek, as it is a way to make them wound on 2+, which is something that a mere +1 to wound could not accomplish.

An interesting choice in this list is the use of the Andtorian Acolytes Battalion. While this Battalion increases the drop count for the list, the extra primal dice are very important because both the Boneshaper and the Soulreaper are pretty mediocre casters, so they need all the help they can get in getting some of the tougher spells off (Hoarfrost casts on an 8, and Blizzard needs a whopping 12 to go off). All in all, Null Myriad Bonereapers lists look to be strongly positioned into the coming metagame, and I expect to see more of it going forward.

Army Faction: Cities of Sigmar
– Army Type: Hallowheart
– Grand Strategy: Mighty Beachhead
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Celestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage (290)*
– Spells: Roaming Wildfire, Elemental Cyclone, Sear Wounds
1 x Battlemage (100)*
– General’s Adjutant
– Spells: Merciless Blizzard, Ignite Weapons, Elemental Cyclone
– Magic of the Realms: Pha’s Protection (Hysh)
1 x Battlemage (100)*
– Spells: Crystal Aegis, Warding Brand, Hoarfrost
– Magic of the Realms: Wildform (Ghur)
1 x Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix (320)**
– General
– Command Traits: Veteran of the Blazing Crusade
– Artefacts: Whitefire Tome
– Spells: Ignite Weapons
1 x Sorceress (90)**
– Spells: Rupture, Ignite Weapons, Sear Wounds

BATTLELINE
20 x Phoenix Guard (340)*
– Keeper of the Flame
– 2 x Standard Bearer
– 2 x Drummer
20 x Phoenix Guard (340)**
– Keeper of the Flame
– 2 x Standard Bearer
– 2 x Drummer
30 x Darkshards (330)**
– Guardmaster
– 3 x Standard Bearer
– 3 x Hornblower

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Malevolent Maelstrom (30)
1 x Horrorghast (60)

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Warlord
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

Codrin: The new Cities of Sigmar battletome is getting close, and the pheonix guard are sadly going away when this book arrives, but Matt Kowalyk’s Hallowheart list is putting the Aelves to good use.

This list builds on a core that has been actually quite popular during AoS 2.0 – beginnings of 3.0, and seems well adapted to the new GHB rules.

This army is very synergistic, and almost all of its pieces benefit from being close to each other.

The backbone of the army are the two big blocks of Pheonix Guard that can get buffed to the heavens. They fare well in big formations due to their 25mm bases and 2″ reach halberds. A 4+ save and 4+ ward makes them quite durable while also packing a punch.

Potential buffs that could go on a unit like this are as follows:

  • Reroll wound rolls from a command ability coming from the Anointed on Frostheart Pheonix
  • -1 to be hit (Battlemage’s Pha’s protection spell) and – 1 to be wounded (from the Pheonix’s aura)
  • Dish out mortal wounds on a 4+, each time a model from this unit dies (ability coming from the Warding Brand spell)

The Hurricanum plays a very important role in this list, using it to suffer wounds in the hero phase for buffing the casting rolls of friendly wizards, while dishing out a significant number of mortal wounds through its shooting attacks, warscroll spell and the faction spells he’s been granted.

Sorceress and Darkshards are yet again an example of good synergies exploited to the maximum in this list. Thus this shooting unit can be given run and shoot (command ability of the Sorceress) and can potentially imbue their attacks with +1 to hit (if in the aura of the Hurricanum) and +1 to wound (from Ignite Weapons spell).
To sum it up, we are looking at a unit with a range of 28″ that will put out 61 attacks, hitting on 3+ and wounding on 3+.

The malevolent maelstrom and aethervoid pendulum are very good and reliable additions that add to mortal wounds output this list has.

In a nutshell, we have an amazingly durable castle with walls made out of super buffed halberd wielding elves all while a storm of spells, mortal wounds and arrows are hitting enemies with surgical precision.

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Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh
– Army Type: Pretenders
– Grand Strategy: Selfish Desire
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Contorted Epitome (210)*
– General
– Command Traits: Strength of Godhood
– Artefacts of Power: The Crown of Dark Secrets
– Spells: Hoarfrost
– Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur
Glutos Orscollion (480)*
– Spells: Born of Damnation
Sigvald (200)*

BATTLELINE
Blissbarb Archers (160)*
Blissbarb Archers (160)*
Blissbarb Archers (160)*

BEHEMOTH
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)*

OTHER
Symbaresh Twinsouls (140)*

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1990/2000

Joshua Bennett: Welcome readers to another event, Dwellers below, where we take a look at Slaanesh in the new GHB. Mitch Khwaja took 3rd in this event with the Pretenders subfaction. (not much has changed it seems) but with a breath of fresh air even though there are still three units of them its not a mass amount of the archers. This list likes models that are very hard to take down. The contorted is the general in this list. Even though losing Fueled by Gurish Rage hurts her effectiveness in combat, she still packs one heck of a punch. This list has her listed with the new hoarfrost spell that we can safely assume will be in every list that has a wizard that can take it.

The interesting part about this list is the Incarnate that is bound to the contorted. Where typically your opponent wants her dead as soon as possible this becomes a little more problematic when doing so causes the incarnate to go wild. Which is already going to be doing well with the obvious rise in endless spells that we are going to be seeing in this new GHB. The issue with the incarnate is that you can not pick it up in one turn, you have to wait at least two combats to kill it and by that time it may have already caused too much damage to your army.

Now the third issue you have to deal with when going up against this list is the Glutos. Not only is he super tanky with the ability to heal a ton of wounds, he also scales in power as the turns progress. Gaining new abilities at the start of each turn alongside the ever growing abilities of the Slaanesh army the more depravity the army gains. The other issue with him is that he is a great support for any Slaanesh army as he gives a minus one to hit for any enemy 12 inches around him. Stack that with the -1 to hit caused by depravity not even All out attack can help you.

Then the ever faithful blissbarb archers. Even at MSU you’re still looking at 60 shots at a thirty inch threat range hitting on twos wounding on threes. These units will still punish an army and can cripple hammers giving the list the edge that it needs. You also have to worry about not getting caught up into glutos and the incarnate which allows two units to tank your main hammers while the archers chip away from afar.

Last but not least you have the twin souls that reduce the number of attacks that you can throw into this army, tag that alongside the potentially -2 to hit your not having fun as a melee army trying its best to chew through this list.

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Army Faction: Nighthaunt
Army Subfaction: The Emerald Host
– Grand Strategy: Dismantle the Brave

LEADER
1 x Guardian of Souls (150)*
– Chill Blade
– Spells: Hoarfrost
1 x Guardian of Souls (150)*
Chill Blade
– Spells: Merciless Blizzard
1 x Spirit Torment (120)**
General
– Command Traits: Ruler of the Spirit Hosts
1 x Spirit Torment (120)***
Artefacts: Beacon of Nagashizzar

BATTLELINE
10 x Chainrasps (100)**
10 x Chainrasps (100)**
6 x Spirit Hosts (260)**
20 x Grimghast Reapers (300)**

BEHEMOTH
1 x Black Coach (270)***
– Reaper Scythe

OTHER
2 x Chainghasts (90)***
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (170)***
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (170)***

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

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

Kel Pigg: Going into the new ghb with nighthaunt is something that should be applauded. While the army recently received some love in the form of some internal balancing that made some underutilized a touch cheaper the problem is that nighthaunt lost a lot going into this GHB. From the loss of galatian veterans in all forms, the recent arcane tome change, and even the loss of the previous ghb heroic action most players do not have a positive outlook going into this ghb. Michael here plans to prove that wrong!

His list follows a standard infantry hammer list that was common in the previous edition and has to make some concessions for the things we lost that I listed above. Using chainrasps and grimghast reapers Michael can get around needing galatian veterans and still fighting in two ranks. He also brings two units of harridans but they are left in 10 mans as it is still manageable to get that many into melee range using different methods. His big switch up here is bringing the black coach. A unit that nighthaunt players have all been dying to take off their shelf and put back onto their table it just now might be it’s time to shine. The black coach has dropped recently in points again but really it’s value to any nighthaunt list is in its tactic. It allows nighthaunt players to have one solid book tactic that they can rely on in any game and possibly one they could get on turn 1, albeit not the easiest turn 1 tactic.

2 spirit torments might be the standard for an infantry based nighthaunt list but 2 guardian of souls is something new. Likely a change to match the season the guardian of souls is the only nighthaunt wizard that isn’t unique, meaning he can get those juicy lore of frost spells, and that’s just what Michael did opting for hoarfrost and blizzard and hoping those primal dice will carry those spells home.

All in all the list is a modern ghb version of a recognizable nighthaunt standard and one we are likely to see other variations of. Only time will tell.

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Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for the London Open

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This is the top three AoS lists for the London Open that took place in the UK on the 15th and 16th of July. It involved 12 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: Seraphon
Constellation: Fangs of Sotek
– Grand Strategy: Spellcasting Savant
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Lord Kroak (410)*
Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140)*
Skink Starseer (150)*
Spell: Speed of Huanchi
– Lore of Primal Frost: Merciless Blizzard
Slann Starmaster (275)**
General
– Command Trait: Lord of Celestial Resonance
– Artefact: Spacefolder’s Stave
– Spell: Drain Magic
– Lore of Primal Frost: Hoarfrost

Battleline
10 x Skinks (90)**
Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (90)**
Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
5 x Saurus Guard (140)**
10 x Saurus Warriors (180)**
Clubs
5 x Raptadon Chargers (150)**

Behemoths
Bastiladon with Ark of Sotek (180)**

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (50)
Umbral Spellportal (80)
Malevolent Maelstrom (30)

Faction Terrain
Realmshaper Engine

Core Battalions
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Battle Regiment

Total: 1965 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 111
Drops: 4

Mo’s Fangs of Sotek here went all the way, beating some TOUGH lists en route, most notably KO, OBR and – what should be a really hard counter – Khorne.

Again, it’s the new dooble-forg archetype which drops the trog, since Arcane Vessel was nerfed, for…other stuff. In this case, mo Brings 5 Raptadons who can be sped up to super speed with the Speed of Huanchi spell on the Starseer, and in general are just a great trading piece, especially if they’re able to engage near an objective for the extra damage.

An Ark of Sotek is also a fantastic pick for Starborne, as it can be teleported onto an objective where it can sit, being hard to shift, until the star power and Kroak can rev up.

Interestingly, we see three endless spells: the maelstrom is quickly becoming a fan favourite due to how quickly Seraphon can power it up and send it off to explode – possible THROUGH the Spell Portal in this instance? And if not, it’s a cheap way to project at least one of Kroak’s MW spells. And Cogs, despite losing the casting re-roll, remains an excellent pick for Seraphon due to the extra ‘free’ cast, which still contributes to star points.

Big congrats to Mo on the challenging path to 5-0

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Army Faction: Kharadron Overlords
Army Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: Rule the Skies
– Triumphs: Inspired
– Stick To The Code (Amendments): Prosecute Wars With All Haste
– Stick To The Code (Artycles): Settle the Grudges
– Stick To The Code (Footnotes): Without Our Ships, We Are Naught

LEADER
1 x Arkanaut Admiral (140)*
General
– Command Traits: Ex-Grundstok
– Artefacts: Celestium Burst-grenade
1 x Aether-Khemist (100)*
1 x Aetheric Navigator (100)*
Nullstone Adornments: Pouch of Nulldust

BATTLELINE
1 x Arkanaut Frigate (300)*
Heavy Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Magnificent Omniscope
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)*
15 x Grundstok Thunderers (480)*
3 x Grundstok Mortar
– 3 x Aethercannon
– 3 x Aetheric Fumigator
– 3 x Decksweeper

BEHEMOTH
1 x Arkanaut Ironclad (500)*
Great Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: The Last Word
– The Admiral’s Flagship: The Admiral’s Flagship

OTHER
6 x Endrinriggers (240)*

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1950/2000)

Jeremy Veysseire: Hello fellow Whiskey & Sky Duardins, this is your Duardrazhal speaking, Jeremy Veysseire, about two fellow Duardin privateers who recently descended onto the field at the London Open 2023.

We will start with 2nd place finisher Joshua Jenkins, who stuck to an age-old tactic of the Kharandron, being a 1-drop army. It is still very strong, as we will explain later in his commentary. Joshua finished 2nd, while fellow privateer Philip Springall finished 3rd at the same event.

As you can guess it KO fans, Joshua is a Barak-Zilfin man and he went with the tried and true 2D6” Run, +1 to Wound versus 1 enemy unit for the game and a 2 Command Abilities on 1 friendly boat that phase. His army can be described as: “I have all of these Thunderers laying around and I am down a Soulscream Bridge this GHB”.

Joshua’s army is quite balanced in his selection and could ever be called a Highlander build. His primary display of force is in the 15 Thunderers riding into his Ironclad with the Arkanaut Admiral and Aetherkhemist providing them Speed, excellent firepower and efficient CP consumption through the Admiral being able to CP the Ironclad for free once per turn and the Thunderers as well. He has back-up shooting and melee threat in the form of the frigate, and 6 endrinriggers with Navigator for some recursion in the form of boat healing.

The biggest utility options available to him is his ability to disengage and skyhigh a boat if he chooses to in a phase, or being able to sky high and combat disembark from the Ironclad for maximum punch in a turn (for Khemist and Admiral rend). He also is 50 points down allowing him most games to have a free +1 to wound for any of his units for 1 phase (we all know it’s for the Thunderers’ second round of shooting after they Ssttled DAT GRUDGE!).

His first-round opponent was Obaid Bin-Nasir with his 2-drop Legion of Blood Nagash, VLoZD and zombies/skeleton spam on Power Flux. A 4-objective mission in which the bottom player gets to choose which pair of objectives is scoreable while Andtorian Locus can score a bonus point by scoring an active objective while also gaining a bonus point that turn if you killed any Wizard. Looking at this match up, Joshua has prio going into game turn 1 easily picking bottom of the turn so he can freely choose which objectives to activate while being out of harm’s way and forcing his opponent to face a potential double, picking Nagash for his Grudge and saving his +1 to wound for the VLoZD. While the LoB player can get no bonus points from Joshua, Joshua can get 2 and basically auto win his Grand strat by killing Nagash and VLoZD. I imagine that Nagash died on turn 2 with the VLoZD being unable to impact the game and dying the following turn. Clearly a win for Joshua.

His second-round opponent was Daniil Osudin with a 5-drop Hallowheart list that can be described as a wizard ecliptic personality including Bundo your favorite maritime Miyazaki character… oh wait that’s Ponyo. Your favorite mercenary Whale catching Mega gargant. They were playing on Nexus Collapse, a mission with 6 spread out objective, which is a mission that should not be too problematic with KO’s speed and ability to clear objectives unless of course he got railroaded by 10 Evocators that rode on a dead dude boat aka Lauchon. While not having any details on the game’s event, I can only imagine that he focused on killing Bundo turn 1 and had his Ironclad and most of the Thunderers into the Evocators. Rough times were had for the pirates of the sky as they thought Bundo was the Rum carrying caddy as they take a loss.

His third-round opponent was the experienced Max Soule with a 9 (HOLY) drop Disciples of Tzeentch list that is looking to generate Fate Dice and blow you up with some shooting and a reserve, fast melee unit in the shape of Enlightened on Disk on The Frigid Zephyr. A 3 center objective mission which should punish KO as turn 1 limit Line of Sight to only 12” while removing Fly from everything (and can continue in later turn) but sadly it also limits the reach of the Disk turn 1 if they can’t fly while the range limitation punishes Tzeentch more than teleporting KO. Overall, I can only assume that Joshua was able to remove the important threats to his army effectively early and able to remove his opponent’s ability to score in the second half. Another win for KO!

His fourth-round opponent was Krzysztof Zylawy with an 8 (HOLY) drop Blades of Khrone list that is heavy in Bloodthirster and Bloodletters on Towers in the Tundra. A thematic 2 objective mission in which you gain bonus points by controlling 1 of your opponent’s terrain features, super advantageous for a teleporting fast army like KO. Sadly, Krzysztof brought just about the same amount of death dealing flyers that weren’t loaded with a lot of Buzzsaws and aetherbullets. I can imagine that Krzysztof was unable to deliver his Bloodthirster effectively while Joshua had prime pickings of targets. I assumed he settled the grudge on the 20 Bloodletters to make sure they died ASAP removing a lot of scoring power from the list while just picking apart the poor Bloodthirsters in later turns. Another KO win.

His final opponent is our next KO player, Philip on this article, I will cover that game last!

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

Kharadron Code
Artycle: Master The Skies
– Artycle: Settle the grudges
– Amendment: Trust your guns
– Footnote: There’s No Reward Without Risk

Leaders
Arkanaut Admiral (140)*
General
– Nullstone Adornement: Hand carved nullstone icon
Aetheric Navigator (100)**
Artefact: Voidstone Orb
Brokk Grungsson Lord-Magnate of Barak-Nar (220)**

Battleline
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
Main Gun: Drill Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
Main Gun: Drill Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)**
Main Gun: Drill Cannon
– Gunhauler Modifications: ZonbarcorpDebtsettler’ Spar Torpedo
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)**
Main Gun: Drill Cannon

Units
6 x Endrinriggers (240)**
Reinforced x 1

Behemoths
Arkanaut Frigate (300)*
Main Gun: Heavy Sky Cannon
Arkanaut Frigate (300)**
Main Gun: Heavy Sky Cannon

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 101
Drops: 2

Jeremy Veysseire: Philip Springall’s KO list is what happens when you collected way too many start collecting boxes. His two-drop army is a Barak-Urbaz fleet, and I do mean FLEET as it consists of 2 Frigates, 4 Gunhaulers, 6 endrinriggers, an Admiral, a Navigator and Brokk who seems to have lost his way to his Skyport and is just borrowing Barak Urbaz’s own fleet.

For those who don’t know where the Battleline units are, they are the Gunhaulers as they are Battleline for Barak Urbaz. He also gains 2 Artycles in which he chose +2” to move to all his many boats, +1 to wound against 1 enemy unit for the game, reroll 1 hit roll per shooting phase and a once per game 3d6” charge. The artycles make a lot of sense with 4 Drill Cannons in the Gunhaulers as any unmodified hit of 5 or 6 results is a flat 3 MW, thus the reroll gets most of its value there. The 3D6 Charge is to enable his ability to bring his Admiral, Brokk and 6 Endrinrigger from 1 Frigate into what he needs consistently. Man, Philip was so confident that he didn’t even take a Command Trait in his army. Ballsy. I would say that this list takes the A in creativity, uniqueness and AIRBORNE.

His first-round opponent was Toby Resnick with an 11-drop Jawz of Mork with a TON, literal metric TON of Squigs on Power Flux. A 4-objective mission in which the bottom player gets to choose which pair of objectives are scoreable, while Andtorian Locus can score a bonus point by scoring an active objective. You also gain a bonus point that turn if you killed any wizards. While Toby had 1 Andtorian Locus, I doubt he had much choice into which objectives he got to pick to activate. No matter how many models you are, if you can’t score points. Impressive Ballsy Springall as he takes a win for this round against a match up, I feel many KO players don’t necessarily want.

His second-round opponent was Mo Ashraf (the event winner) with a 4-drop Fangs of Sotek that spells “Kroak/Skink is back baby!” on Nexus Collapse, a mission with 6 spread out objectives. Sadly, while I do not have any details on the game, it looks like Philip took a loss in that mission. I would surmise that Mo rolled more MW than the Drill Cannons and got to bring on a lot more points to score in the second half of the game than Philip. A loss to KO.

His third-round opponent was William Matthews with a 5-drop Skaven list with dual Verminlord and a lot of Gutterrunner/Clanrats with 1 Hellpit on The Frigid Zephyr. A 3 center objective mission that I feel once again should be a KO problematic map. But Ballsy Springall managed to “blow” out this rodent’s nest with a 20-0. I can surmise that the Skaven bodies were dropping too fast to retain board presence while the KO turn up “Blasting to Smithereens” to a new level. This is probably a story of how KO Battle Tactics are superior to Skaven Battle Tactics as well.

His fourth-round opponent was George Seymour with a 1-drop OBR army that is “Peak Dad Energy” as I like to call it. A limited set of models that want to police the meta between 2+ ignore spells and -1 to hit and wound against shooting aura. It’s all about reminding these young bucks who the real Bone Daddy is. Sadly, they were playing on Towers in the Tundra which can really punish a slower aura focused army such as OBR as their ability to spread and push board pressure without sacrificing units is limited. Additionally, Ballsy Springall has a high potential of MW out that really apply pressure to the Immortis Guard tankyness. If at any point the General is targetable and dies, the firepower of the army really turns up. Another impressive win for our favorite Command Traitless Admiral.

His final opponent, the match du jour, the battle to resolve who is the penultimate Privateer at the London GT, between Joshua and Philip. It can be surmised as the following as the mission probably did not matter. Joshua shot first. FIN

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Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar
City: Hallowheart
– Grand Strategy: Control the Nexus
– Triumphs: –

Leaders
Lord-Arcanum (140)**
City Role: General’s Adjutant
– Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Hoarfrost
– Lore of Primal Frost: Merciless Blizzard
Bundo Whalebiter (460)
Allies
Battlemage (100)**
Mortal Realm: Hysh
– Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Sear Wounds
– Lore of Whitefire: Warding Brand
Battlemage on Griffon (240)*
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: crystal aegis
– Mount Trait: Soaring Guardian
– Lore of Whitefire: sear wounds
Nomad Prince (110)**
General
– Command Trait: Veteran of the Blazing Crusade
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)

Battleline
5 x Wild Riders (120)*
10 x Dreadspears (90)*
5 x Sisters of the Thorn (130)*
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Ignite Weapons
– Lore of Whitefire: Warding Brand

Units
10 x Evocators (440)*
10x Grandstaves
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Flagellants (80)*
– City Role: Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models)

Endless Spells & Invocations
Aethervoid Pendulum (30)
Lauchon the Soulseeker (50)
Malevolent Maelstrom (30)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Andtorian Acolytes

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 440 / 400
Wounds: 134
Drops: 5

Codrin: Daniil Osudin’s Hallowheart list is an interesting one as it doesn’t follow the castle build but instead it puts accent on mobile pieces, giving the army the possibility for a more adaptable playstyle.

The Kraken Eater mercenary is the anvil of the army on which using the Warding Brand spell is very efficient. Having a 35 wounds monster locking in battle enemy units that will not want to stay in combat with him because of the reflected mortal wounds, is a great way to shape the battlefield.

The other and probably most important unit of the list, are the evocators. These stormcasts count as a wizard if there’s at least two models in the unit, and if we pair them with the hoarfrost spell for extra rend, give them plus 1 to wound from their warscroll spell or Ignite Weapons from another wizard, and embark them onto Lauchon the Soulseeker we are getting a very fast and deadly unit.
Their stats would presume 41 attacks, potentially hitting on 2+ wounding on 2’s and with rend 2 or 3. After they finish their attacks they immediately roll 20 dice and each 4+ is a mortal wound.

The list is surely taking advantage of the primal magic dice adding them to the advantages that Hallowheart already has in casting magic. And speaking of which the Battlemage on Griffon is yet another key piece that will take wounds to buff casting rolls and provide with its big footprint a generous aura of enemy spell ignors on a 4+. This is also a Ghur mage and can cast Wildform, giving a +2 to charges on either the Kraken Eater or the Evocators.

The Lord Arcanum is a nice to have, but in this list his value increases because he becomes a double cast wizard. He is loaded with Hoarfrost and the scary Merciless Blizzard spells, and given all the pluses to cast this list has the reliability is very big on getting them off.

To sum it up, we have a big anvil, a lightning fast deadly hammer and a lot of mobile pieces that buff and and dish out mortal wounds, what’s not to love at this list!?

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Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for Sparkle Party Deathmatch VIII

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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)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Horrorghast (70)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Galletian Command
***Battle Regiment

Total: 1960 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 124
Drops: 4

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

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Galletian Command
**Galletian Sharpshooters
***Vanguard
****Vanguard

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

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Quicksilver Swords (60)

OTHER
2 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (240)**

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)

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.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for Midtcon GT

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This is the top three AoS lists for the Midtcon GT that took place in Denmark on the 4th and 5th of March. 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?

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
– Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours!
– Triumphs: Inspired
– Burgeoning

Leaders
Warsong Revenant (300)*
General
– Command Trait: Spellsinger
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Lore of the Deepwood: Treesong
– Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Treelord Ancient (330)*
Lore of the Deepwood: Regrowth
Spirit of Durthu (350)**
Artefact: Greenwood Gladius
Knight-Zephyros (100)**
Allies
Battlemage (100)**
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Allies

Battleline
Treelord (230)*
Treelord (230)*
Treelord (230)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Spiteswarm Hive (40)
Chronomantic Cogs (70)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Command Entourage – Magnificent

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 200 / 400
Wounds: 87
Drops: 4

Sylvaneth are really putting their roots down recently – and the nice thing is it’s still with a variety of lists – it seems like a great season for them, which is allowing people to flex their list building muscles with them and still do well.

Sune here has gone big tree heavy – with two hero trees and a full complement of treelord battleline. Durthi with the Gladius just absolutely slaps, and when such a threat is backed up by an Ancient (for a source of auto-forest at the start of the game) and a Warsong Rev for nasty casting through said forest (usually) – it’s a hell of a pincer movement.

Making full use of some allied tech, not only has Sune employed the now fairly standard Ghurish battlemage for the additional charge bonus, but he’s also rocking a Zephyros, who is just an absolute bargain basement GC who can also teleport.

Overall, I can see the root to victory for this list just being so many hyper-mobile scoring threats backed up by a killer Durthu that it’s overwhelming trying to keep up. Gratz to Sune on the evil tree 5-0.

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Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
Damned Legion: Host of the Everchosen
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)*
General
– Command Trait: Master of Magic
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh
– The Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Be’Lakor, the Dark Master (355)*
– The Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed

Battleline
5 x Chaos Knights (230)*
Mark of Chaos: Khorne
10 x Chaos Knights (460)*
Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
– Ensorcelled Banner: The Eroding Icon
– Reinforced x 1
15 x Chaos Chosen (720)*
Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh
– Ensorcelled Banner: The Banner of Screaming Flesh
– Reinforced x 2

Endless Spells & Invocations
Soulscream Bridge (80)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1965 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 109
Drops: 1

A rare HOTE list! Often overlooked in favour of Cabalists casting shenanigans or the battleline and run/charge of KOTET, a HOTE list really wants something to take advantage of that 5+ rally – aaaand 15 Chosen might just be the unit to do it!

Interestingly, Jon has Marked the Chosen as Slaanesh – *outside* of Legion, meaning he’s committing to their native -1 rend being enough, combined with their weight of attacks, to act as the list’s main hammer. HOTE offers a free second banner – so as well as the ubiquitous Eroding Icon on the pinning unit of Knights, he’s taken the Slaanesh banner on the Chosen for an additional attack on the charge – quite possibly relying on the mortal fishing to deal with more heavily armoured targets.

I suppose Be’lakor – whiffy and unreliable as he’s likely to be – does offer the option of locking down the Chosen’s natural predator for a turn or two, allowing them to clean everything else up – although I do struggle to see the logic of not even being able to roll on the EotG table with such a heavy investment of a unit – still, it worked out, and congrats to Jon for a great result!

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Allegiance: Fyreslayers
– Lodge: Vostarg
– Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Battlesmith (150)**
– Artefact: Nulsidian Icon
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Battlesmith (150)**
Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha
Auric Runesmiter (120)***
General
– Runic Iron
– Command Trait: Master Priest
– Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse
Auric Runesmiter (120)***
Runic Iron
– Artefact: Volatile Brazier
– Prayer: Ember Storm
Auric Runesmiter (120)***
Runic Iron
– Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse
Celestant-Prime, Hammer of Sigmar (330)**
Allies

Battleline
20 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (320)*
Reinforced x 1
20 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (320)*
Reinforced x 1
20 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (320)*
Reinforced x 1

Endless Spells & Invocations
Molten Infernoth (40)

Core Battalions
*Galletian Veterans
**Command Entourage – Magnificent
***Command Entourage – Magnificent

Additional Enhancements
Artefact
Aspect of the Champion

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 330 / 400
Wounds: 153
Drops: 9

Kevin Lathers: Now we see how far someone can skew a Fyreslayer list. Gustav has decided to deal with Fyreslayer’s innate slowness by just being able to deepstrike nearly the entire army. This list also lacks the usual Flamekeepers which accompany Vulkite Berserkers in nearly all Vostarg lists.

Between the Celestant-Prime, who can not only deepstrike but guarantee a charge, and three Runesmiters, Gustav can deepstrike all but two units in the list. Vulkites further benefit from this with their built-in +1 to charge rolls, thus making it an 8 on the roll to make a charge out of deepstrike. Twenty of them in GV is quite potent as well, even without the usual Flamekeepers.

I’m not certain how Gustav played things, but it seems the typical action would be to deepstrike two units of Vulkites and a battlesmith, along with the Celestant, leaving another brick with a battlesmith on the field; or deepstrike all three Vulkites and use Tunnel Master to bring a smith closer. In both cases this ends up performing almost like a pseudo-Beasts of Chaos list, only with a lot more wounds on the field and the ability to fight on death.

Once your opponent is boxed-in by warded up blocks of Vulkites and their big-daddy Celestant, holding objectives should be easy enough for the remaining group. It also retains the option of just sitting on an objective with the battlesmiths and making the opponent have to move the vulkites off in order to score anything, which can be daunting with 40 wounds under a 5+/6+ ward and the ability to rally on 4+’s.

Anything that can punch its way out of this is going to prove formidable and without Flamekeepers the Vulkites lose their incredibly hard punch-back ability, fighting on death more than once, and their combat phase charging. Further, having two battlesmiths eats up a lot of points that could move toward other heroes or more Vulkites. This list is sacrificing a lot for its strategy. This may have resulted in the two losses to both Ogors and Big Waagh who, depending on their build, should have no trouble weathering the storm and fighting their way out.

Still, it’s an interesting list with a great performance. Definitely an interesting way to take Fyreslayers.

Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar
City: Hallowheart
– Grand Strategy: Mighty Beachhead
– Triumphs: N/A

Leaders
Battlemage of Ghur (100)*
General
– Command Trait: Master of Magic
– 1st Hallowheart Lore Spell: Ignite Weapons
– 2nd Hallowheart Lore Spell: Sear Wounds
Battlemage of Hysh (100)*
– City Role: General’s Adjutant
– 1st Hallowheart Lore Spell: Crystal Aegis
– 2nd Hallowheart Lore Spell: Warding Brand
Runelord (100)*
Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel master
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse
– 1st Hallowheart Lore Spell: Ignite Weapons
– 2nd Hallowheart Lore Spell: Warding Brand

Battleline
30 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (300)*
– 1 x Marksman
– 3 x Standard Bearer
– 3 x Piper
– Reinforced x 2
10 x Freeguild Guard (80)*
Swords and Shields
– 1 x Sergeant
– 1 x Standard Bearer
– 1 x Drummer
10 x Flagellants (80)*
– City Role: Honoured Retinue
– 1 x Prophet

Units
4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)*
1 x Drakerider’s Lance (Stormdrake-Prime)
– 3 x Drakerider’s Warblade
Reinforced x 1
Gotrek Gurnisson (480)*
Allies

Endless Spells & Invocations
Soulscream Bridge (80)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 480 / 400
Wounds: 109
Drops: 1

With a new book almost here, Adam has proven there is still life in one of the oldest, and probably never the strongest battletomes. In the end, it’s a pretty conventional approach, drawing on really mobile Stormcast allies (Dragons, of course). 3 very magical and small heroes leave a lot of room for a real hero, and Gotrek, at his current 480 points, fits well. Hallowheart really helps the wizards. Each gets an extra spell. That means 2 instances of +1 to wound (Ignite), a heal (Sear Wounds), 4+ ward (Warding Brand), and a mortal wound ward. Soulscream gives a useful teleport if required, and everything is in a Battle Regiment to give options for the initial priority.

The army is really planning to castle. The heroes are effectively buff machines, mostly for the Crossbowman. The Flagellants and Guard are there to screen, and Gotrek can prowl around, ready to pounce on anything that trys to deal with them. They can stand and deliver (with 2 shots each) at 24″ with a fantastic unleash hell. There is still the option to Wildform Gotrek and send him through the Soulscream bridge to harrass something important. And all the while, the Drakes are there to cap and harrass your enemy. With Breathe and Lance, they are very dangerous and hard to manage. Adam lost to fire and fade (Sylvaneth), who really make you go to them, a weakness. And a faction that out castles castles, Fyreslayers. 6th is a very respectable result for cities.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for Quest of Champions – Heat 1

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This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Quest of Champions (Heat 1) that took place in the UK on the 4th and 5th February. 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: Ogor Mawtribes
Army Subfaction: Underguts
– Grand Strategy: Ready for Plunder
– Triumphs: Indomitable

LEADER
1 x Icebrow Hunter (120) 1
General
– Command Traits: Voice of the Avalanche
– Aspect: Leadership of the Alpha
1 x Slaughtermaster (140) 2
Artefacts: Gruesome Trophy Rack
– Spells: Blubbergrub Stench
1 x Bloodpelt Hunter (140) 3
1 x Bloodpelt Hunter (140) 3

BATTLELINE
2 x Frost Sabres (80)
2 x Mournfang Pack (170)*
Skalg
Culling Clubs and Hackers and Ironfist
2 x Mournfang Pack (170)*
Skalg
– Culling Clubs and Hackers and Ironfist
2 x Mournfang Pack (170)**
Skalg
– Culling Clubs and Hackers and Ironfist

ARTILLERY
1 x Ironblaster (200)*
1 x Ironblaster (200)**
1 x Ironblaster (200)***

OTHER
20 x Gnoblars (120)***
20 x Gnoblars (120)***

CORE BATTALIONS:
1 Battle Regiment
2 Battle Regiment
3 Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1970/2000)

Did you think Ogors were just Ironblasters and giant cows at ramming speed? Think again! Rory here leans heavily into the new season’s Galletian Champ rule by taking four of them – and Ogors happen to have an excellent selection to choose from.

In this instance, Rory starts with an Icebrow hunter – relatively unremarkable save for the fact they make Frost Sabres battleline as a General, and can also deepstrike along with one said unit of chill-cats. So already you can see the scoring potential – now add in two Bloodpelt hunters who are relatively slappy, invisible while in cover and can move at the end of an opponent’s movement phase (if 9″ away) – starting to feel insecure about your objectives?

Rory also opts to spread the meat-by-square inch between three msu Mournfang rather than packing it into one large Frosthorn, no doubt further aiding with the scoring heavy and board control game plan.

I mean, yes, sure, there are also three ironblasters and 40 Gnoblars – but the rest of the list is a really cool, Seasonal spin that shows off the Ogors’ diverse hero roster and really plays a balanced game of AoS – as evinced by taking down a motley crew en route to the 5-0: Slaves; Tzeentch; Ogors and Sylvaneth, all of whom ask very different questions, to which this list had all the answers!

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Allegiance: Disciples of Tzeentch
Change Coven: Hosts Arcanum
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Kairos Fateweaver (440)*
Gaunt Summoner of Tzeentch (230)*
General
– Command Trait: Daemonspark
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Fluxmaster, Herald of Tzeentch on Disc (170)*
Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist

Battleline
10 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (250)*
10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)*
7x Cursed Blade & Arcanite Shield
– 3x Cursed Glaives
3 x Screamers of Tzeentch (110)*

Units
6 x Tzaangor Enlightened on Disc (360)*
Reinforced x 1
9 x Corvus Cabal (80)*
Mark of Chaos: Undivided

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (70)
Daemonic Simulacrum (70)
Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (70)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 87
Drops: 1

On to the second place list now and the one that pushed Rory, the eventual winner, the hardest, missing out on a 5-0 by only one battle tactic. Speaking to Sam after the event, it was the “Cast 3” tactic that just let him down with another book tactic being available and probably the easier option. While we’re talking about matchups, Sam also had an epic battle against Peter and his 9 (yes 9!) Revenant Seekers, so clearly Sam knows his Tzeentch!

Onto the list itself, Sam went for a one-drop list for this event and doesn’t plan to go back to more drops any time soon! The ability (most of the time) to make your opponent take the first turn and potentially come within range of those spells is excellent and, even if your opponent retains priority into turn 2 they have a really difficult choice: give it away and take Kairos bombarding you with spells into oblivion OR allow opponent to take advantage of the ‘going second’ battleplan bonuses.

Speaking of bonuses to going second, one of the MVPs of the list are the Enlightened on Discs. Lots of attacks with all of the profiles and with a couple of buffs on them and debuffs on opponent, they’re not going away any time soon. With the help of Destiny Dice, they could have a guaranteed 28″ threat range (move 16″ + 12″ charge) to reach out and wipe out whatever it touches. Combo that move with a double turn and you’ve got a unit that can take out two of your opponent’s key pieces and still be hanging around causing mayhem.

In terms of spells, Sam is a little limited in numbers, but Kairos knows all of the Lore of Change and the Gaunt Summoner (a Galletian Champion, by the way) knows all of the Lore of Fate. Combined with the Fluxmaster generating those Fate Points with his spell, it’s not unreasonable to be able to put 10 Blue Horrors down every turn.

Overall, a fab list that has given me a lot to think about in terms of how I build my own Tzeentch list (featured twice in the ‘L’ column of this rundown!) and one that I’m sure Sam will have a tonne of success with in the future.

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Allegiance: Ogor Mawtribes
Mawtribe: Boulderhead
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Ready for Plunder
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Frostlord on Stonehorn (450)*
General
– Command Trait: Touched by the Everwinter – Keening Gale
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Mount Trait: Rockmane Elder
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Slaughtermaster (140)*
– Lore of Gutmagic: Molten Entrails
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Tyrant (150)*
Big Name: Deathcheater

Battleline
2 x Mournfang Pack (170)*
– Culling Clubs and Hackers with Ironfists
Stonehorn Beastriders (310)*
Weapon: Blood Vulture
Stonehorn Beastriders (310)*
Weapon: Blood Vulture

Units
4 x Ironguts (270)*

Artillery
Ironblaster (200)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 95
Drops: 1

A little more of a traditional Ogor list here from Peter – with a big ol’ Frostlord, your top tier value Tyrant, and two large-and-in-charge Stonehorn Beastriders. It’s a pin and pressure list, the likes of which many of you will be familiar with by now – with one Ironblaster for a little sniping and lots of mortals on the charge.

One unit of Ironguts stomp along for the ride to double-fight and mince whatever is stupid enough to let them catch up to them. A good, honest, hungry list that avoids spamming anything but is still more than capable of just boxing you in and scoring you out!

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Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar
– City: Hallowheart
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Battlemage (100)*
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Warding Brand
– City Role: General’s Adjutant
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Lore of Whitefire: Ignite Weapons
Luminark of Hysh with White Battlemage (270)*
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Sear Wounds
– Lore of Whitefire: Warding Brand
Nomad Prince (110)**
General
– Command Trait: Veteran of the Blazing Crusade
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Ignite Weapons
– Lore of Whitefire: Warding Brand
– Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha

Battleline
5 x Sisters of the Thorn (130)*
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Crystal Aegis
– Lore of Whitefire: Sear Wounds
5 x Sisters of the Thorn (130)*
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Crystal Aegis
– Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist
20 x Eternal Guard (240)**
City Role: Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models)
– Reinforced x 1

Units
6 x Vanguard-Palladors (400)*
Boltstorm Pistols and Starstrike Javelins
– Reinforced x 1
3 x Demigryph Knights (170)*
Lance and Sword
6 x Vanguard-Palladors (400)*
Boltstorm Pistols and Starstrike Javelins
– Reinforced x 1

Endless Spells & Invocations
The Burning Head (30)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Galletian Command

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 133
Drops: 3

For the wildcard list at this event we have Freddie Leggett’s Cities of Sigmar list, variations of which he has been playing with great success over the last few months. Freddie not only specialises in being an absolute top bloke and lovely guy (David Wymer and I were fighting over who would get to ‘grudge’ Freddie round 1 – David got round 1; I got round 5) but also in taking units that most generals wouldn’t take and making them work.

The joke at the event was that it was the Eternal Guard who were the linchpin of the army, especially with the new Galletian battalion, it’s really the Palladors that make this list tick with the help of the Hallowheart wizards.

With the combination of spells Freddie has at his disposal, the unit of 6 can redeploy instead of move anywhere on the battlefield with Ride the Winds Aetheric at which point they can open up with their shooting attacks that all have +1 to wound. They can then attempt a 9″ charge, which is actually a 7″ charge thanks to the Battlemage of Ghur. The +1 to wound buff also helps in the fight phase and with All out Attack, this means that they’re all hitting and wounding on 2s. When they are hit back, they can have a -1 to hit from the Luminarch, have a bonus to their save with Mystic Shield and All out Defence (3+, ignoring rend -1) and, if the opponent does wound the Palladors, another spell turns them into little fluffy Magmadroths and bounce mortal wounds back on 4s. If a Sisters of the Thorn unit is nearby, they can boost the spell ignore for Hallowheart up to a 4+ to mean that not even magic can reliably clear them (I have personal experience of that).

But it’s okay. They did some damage and it took more resources than you’d like to take care of them, but they’ve been lifted now. Then Freddie sends in the second unit of 6!

Well done, Freddie, for a fab list, a great 4-1 and a huge congratulations on being named Captain of the UN Worlds Team. Fingers crossed the stars align to have you lead the team, maybe even with 12 Palladors along for the Ride Aetheric.

Final Tournament Placings

Cities of Sigmar – Faction Review (Jul-Nov ’22)

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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.

Cities of Sigmar

Region Comparison – Popularity

Cities of Sigmar saw their highest popularity in Europe with 3.5% of players choosing the faction for tournament play, while their close neighbours in Scandinavia had the lowest take-up with only 0.3%.

Region Comparison – Win Rates

They may not have been popular in Scandianvia but their win rate there was the top of the pile at 60.0%. While players in Europe could only manage 43.2%.

Cities of Sigmar saw their only 5-0’s in the UK & Ireland and North America.

Subfaction Analysis

SubfactionPlayersWin Rate
Excelsis180.00%
Phoenicium766.13%
Hallowheart4057.21%
Hammerhal850.00%
Har Kuron150.00%
Tempest’s Eye2449.17%
Living City1443.57%
Misthavn140.00%
Anvilguard333.33%
Greywater Fastness428.95%
None/Unknown1444.20%
Faction Total11750.77%

Out of the many, many factions that Cities have available to them, Hallowheart and Tempest’s Eye were the most popular with win rates of 57.21% and 49.17% respectively.

Top 10 Cities of Sigmar 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 faction results only.

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Top Three AoS Lists for the Slambo GT

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This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Slambo Grand Tournament that took place in Texas, USA on 5th and 6th November. It involved 65 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: Seraphon
Constellation: Thunder Lizard
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Lord Kroak (430)**
Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140)**
Artefact: Fusil of Conflaguration
Skink Priest (90)**
Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal
Engine of the Gods (265)***
General
– Command Trait: Prime Warbeast
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Mount Trait: Beastmaster
– Spell: Hand of Glory
– Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse

Battleline
20 x Skinks (150)*
Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Skinks (75)*
Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (75)*
Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
5 x Saurus Guard (115)**

Behemoths
Bastiladon with Solar Engine (250)***
Bastiladon with Ark of Sotek (165)***
Bastiladon with Ark of Sotek (165)***

Endless Spells & Invocations
Horrorghast (40)
Chronomantic Cogs (40)

Core Battalions
*Expert Conquerors
**Warlord
***Linebreaker

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 120
Drops: 11

Danny:It’s that man Grigar! Can he be stopped? Evidently not. Playing with ‘old’ points, he’s taken the HQ combo. Interestingly (a relative term when writing about Thunder Lizsts) he’s *tripled* down on Thunder Lizardy goodness with one laser Basti and two meat-shield variants. For 165, their tankiness and base size makes them excellent move blockers and objective grabbers – if they push out a few wounds and a road/stomp into the bargain, so much the better. Amusingly, they’ll only get better once Expert Conqs. dies off.

Lots of skinks make up the battleline, for obvious reasons that we’ve often covered.

So what did he beat and how? (Indulge my guesses) KO would have been dealt with by parking bastis on objectives, whose 1+ saves are generally good at coping with massed rend 1 firepower with little in the way of MWs. DoK I imagine would have straight up melted to Solar Engine firepower, Kroak’s MW output and Horrorghast – that’s a lot of attrition for their fragile frames to deal with even with a 4+ rally.
Fyreslayers may have presented a challenge with their ward saves, possible spell ignores and bodies-on-objectives plan – but skinks in Expert Conqs combined with a well-screened Kroak – and ‘Slayer’s lack of ranged threat – clearly put paid to their angry waddling. Hedonites, bless ’em – if they brought any daemons, the Solar Engine would have been damage three against their heaviest hitters. Lumineth would have depended on the list, but if anything can stand up to their magic it’s Kroak, and without their magic-synergy, the old-book often folds.

GG to GG once again. Now do us a favour and go 5-0 with like, an all-Terradon list!

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Army Faction: Sylvaneth
Subfaction: Heartwood
– Season: The Burgeoning
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumph: Indomitable

LEADERS
Drycha Hamadreth (335)*
Spells: Regrowth, Verdant Blessing
Arch-Revenant (120)*
General
– Command Traits: Warsinger
– Artefacts of Power: Seed of Rebirth

BATTLELINE
Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows (230)*
Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows (230)*
Tree-Revenants (110)*
Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Scythes (500)**

OTHER
Gossamid Archers (220)*
Revenant Seekers (235)**
Seeker Banner Bearer
– Seeker Hornblower

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters

TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000

Ethan: Howdy, Ethan here for the Sylvaneth bit and wow is this Matt Robisch list a departure from the regular Sylvaneth structure we’ve seen in the 4-1+ crowd thus far. Heartwood is a relatively standard pick but the Season selection of the Burgeoning is the beginning of a picture showing a more durable, less mobile and less spell dependent Sylvaneth army. This is a list that requires enormous skill to play as it is elite, relatively fragile despite the defensive season and lacks many of the tools such as the Spiteswarm hive and a battlemage which allow for the single-unit Strike and Fade strategy regularly seen which plays like a scalpel, removing a unit a turn as magic support pushes for board control.

Warsinger and the Seed of Rebirth ensure that the Archrevenant has defensive tools to help it survive incidental MWs and shooting while Warsinger makes the large blocks of Kurnoth hunters sufficiently mobile at the same time as sending the gossamids and revenant seekers into overdrive. 6 bows create a sufficient shooting threat to force opponents to approach the sylvaneth force while Gossamid archers support this to threaten 5-wound heroes and to add tech to slow the advance of a variety of shooting lite armies. Looking at Matt’s MUs, he has admittedly had a relatively lucky run, coming up against 5 armies with little to no shooting with which to remove his gossamid archers. This allows for a greater deal of board control than you would expect into armies with the tools to remove them outside of their unleash and retreat charge phase mechanic.

Outside of this, the list is very much what you see on the tin, Drycha is an excellent damage threat in midrange with her shooting profile further disincentivising charges as 30 shots doing MWs on 6s is nothing to sniff at (average of 5 MWs for the mathematician savants in the audience). The Kurnoth hunters with scythes are supported by the Revenant seekers, bringing 1 back a turn and serving as an anvil with 30 wounds on a 3+ base, supplemented by a 6+ ward (and often a mystic shield, I’d hope). This list holds space well compared to most Sylvaneth lists and functions in the absence of spellcasters, demonstrating a different aspect of the Sylvaneth than we’ve seen thus far and perhaps heralding somewhat the direction many will take their Sylvaneth lists as the book starts to mature and players become more willing to experiment.

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Army Faction: Cities of Sigmar
Army Type: Hallowheart
– Grand Strategy: Mighty Beachhead
-‘ Bloodthirsty

LEADER
1 x Celestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage (290)
General
– Command Traits: Master of Magic
– Spells: Warding Brand, Ignite Weapons
1 x Bundo Whalebiter (490)***
1 x Lord-Castellant (155)***
Artefacts: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Warding Brand Ignite Weapon
1 x Battlemage (100)***
Artefacts: Whitefire Tome
– Ghur
– Spells: Sear Wounds, Elemental Cyclone, Warding Brand, Crystal Aegis, Ignite Weapons, Roaming Wildfire

BATTLELINE
10 x Flagellants (80)*
Prophet
10 x Flagellants (80)**
Prophet
10 x Flagellants (80)**
Prophet

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Aethervoid Pendulum (40)

OTHER
4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)*
Stormdrake-Prime
– Drakerider’s Warblade

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

TOTAL POINTS: (1995/2000)

Peter: I reached out to Tom who kindly agreed to give us a quick run down on the way his list works.

Tom Guan: The list does a lot of mortal wounds and good target selection between the dragon and hurricanum shooting, all the casting, and impact hit from the gargant. Let’s it deal with armor fairly well, with conquerer on the flagellants, it can steal objectives pretty well also. I felt like the list had a lot of different play available to it against everything and would play something similar in the future.

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Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes
Army Subfaction: Underguts
– Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Butcher (135)**
Cleaver
– Artefacts: Gnoblar Blast Keg
– Spells: Blubbergrub Stench
1 x Hrothgorn (170)**
1 x Tyrant (150)**
General
– Command Traits: Mass of Scars
– Big Name: Fateseeker
– Artefacts: Gruesome Trophy Rack
1 x Blackpowder’s Buccaneers (105)***

BATTLELINE
8 x Leadbelchers (360)*
4 x Leadbelchers (180)*
4 x Leadbelchers (180)*

ARTILLERY
1 x Ironblaster (130)
1 x Ironblaster (130)***
1 x Ironblaster (130)***
1 x Ironblaster (130)***

TERRAIN
1 x Great Mawpot (0)

OTHER
20 x Gnoblars (100)
20 x Gnoblars (100)
3 x Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers (170)

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Bounty Hunters
**Command Entourage – Magnificent
***Grand Battery

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

Declan: When Peter asked me to comment on an Ogor list for the top 3 series I was happy to oblige… but a little ‘Gut’-ted that they were outside the top 3 – however a 4-1 result is still special with Ogors, so congrats to Bryan on this one.

The US scene has already been a bit strange for Ogors with Ironblasters and Leadbelchers being a lot more common there than on this side of the pond. The approach here is to shoot the world, and then charge and do mortal wounds. However the real tech is in the spell:

Games Workshop via Wahapedia

A low casting value and a bubble make this a great spell when you remember that the Ironblasters have the Rhinox keyword – so they all benefit.

Games Workshop via Wahapedia

And what a benefit. Mortal wounds on a 4+ instead of a 6+ and this is based on the actual charge distance rolled, not what was moved. You also get to shoot with the Ironblasters first. I’ve never known why it hasn’t caught on elsewhere but it is an interesting list that will likely only get better in the new book, where the Ironblaster looks like a beast of a warscroll.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for Smite Club Open 2022

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This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Smite Club Open AoS 2022 that took place in Mesa, Arizona on the 10th and 11th of September. It involved 47 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: Cities of Sigmar
Army Type: Hallowheart
– Grand Strategy: Mighty Beachhead                                                                       

LEADER                                                                                                                                              1 x Battlemage on Griffon (255)*
Mount Traits: Soaring Guardian
– Spells: Crystal Aegis, Elemental Cyclone, Warding Brand
– Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur                                                                                 1 x Freeguild General (100)*
General
– Artefacts: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Ignite Weapons, Sear Wounds, Warding Brand                                                      
1 x Battlemage (100)*
General’s Adjutant
– Spells: Ignite Weapons, Sear Wounds, Warding Brand                       

BATTLELINE                                                                                                                                    20 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (200)*
Marksman
– 2 x Standard Bearer
– 2 x Piper                                                                                                                                               10 x Freeguild Guard (85)*
General’s Retinue
– Sergeant
– Standard Bearer
– Drummer
– Freeguild Sword and Shield                                                                                                   20 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (200)*
Marksman
– 2 x Standard Bearer
– 2 x Piper                                                                                                                           

BEHEMOTH                                                                                                                                    1 x Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)*                                                                

ENDLESS SPELL                                                                                                                                     1 x Soulscream Bridge (80)                                                                                                         1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)                                                                                                         1 x Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (60)                                                                                     

OTHER                                                                                                                                                                    10 x Protectors (450)*
Protector-Prime                                                                                                                       

CORE BATTALIONS:                                                                                                                  *Battle Regiment                                                                                              

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

Brett: Demonstrating how open things are we have a Cities list taking a big event that doesn’t lean on Stormdrakes. And answers the question “Where are all of the SCE paladins and why are they always on backorder”. Hallowheart, the mystical city, giving a 5+ magical ward, +1 to cast, and an extra spell to wizards. The list has 3 mage HQs, Krondspine and 210 pts of endless spells to take advantage.. Purple Sun for +1 rend (that’s the effect of -1 to saves) and a 16% per turn to eat something, Ravenak’s for it’s mortal wounds and Soulscream Bridge for teleports. The BM on Griffon is a Ghur mage, I assume the other Battlemage is as well. This means the the Griffon can cast Mystic Shield and Wildform before moving 15″ with +2 to the charge.

Or the other mage could do the same on the protectors before they stepped on the Bridge to move 24″ for a 7+ charge roll. The learned spells include improved magical ward (4+, Crystal Aegis), MW (Elemental  Cyclone), Warding Brand (MW following a hit on a 4+), Ignite Weapons (+1 to wound, includes ranged weapons), and D3 heal with Searing Wounds. The protectors, Krondspine and the Griffon can act as hammers supported by the Crossbows. The Crossbows get an extra attack (2 total) so long as they are more than 3″ from opponents and more than 10 models. That gives 2 units with 20+ attacks potentially wounding on 2s. Challenging.

5/0 against pretty strong lists including Ironjawz, Sylvaneth and Beasts of Chaos. The list has a lot of options centred around a castle with 2 heroes and a lot of archers. Charging into that is hard work but Thomas (who was playing Bonesplitterz last time we saw him) also took down a 30 Sentinel Lumineth list as well.

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Army Faction: Flesh-eater Courts
Grand Court Delusion: Feast Day
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Abhorrant Archregent (245)*
Artefacts of Power: The Dermal Robe
– Spells: Spectral Host
– Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (445)*
Mount Traits: Gruesome Bite
– Spells: Blood Feast
Crypt Haunter Courtier (110)*
General
– Command Traits: Dark Acolyte

BATTLELINE
Crypt Ghouls (85)*
Crypt Ghouls (85)*
Crypt Horrors (330)**
Crypt Horrors (220)**

BEHEMOTH
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)*

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)

TERRAIN
1 x Charnel Throne (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters

TOTAL POINTS: 1990/2000

Brett: In second we have another uncommon faction who received a bit of a boost recently. Fairly horrific combination of two large blocks of Crypt Horrors combined with Krondspine and the Purple Sun. FEC don’t ignore rend like Nighthaunt so the Purple Sun affects them but with their heals, wound count and regeneration it’s just not that bad. Keep the Abhorrents away, particularly if it goes wild. Potentially you are looking at a very nasty castle, at least early game. The Archregent applies D3 attacks to the larger unit of Horrors (from the Carnal Throne, the Terrorgheist grants them a 5+ ward (they have 6+), on the Throne he can summon for free as well. They reroll all hits within 18″ of an Abhorrent. Dark Acolyte grants the Haunter Courtier the wizard ability and they know the Abhorrent Ghoul Kings Black Hunger giving another attack (or buffing a second unit).

Crypt Horrors with up to 6 attacks (Ferocious Hunger) with 2 wounds normally and 3 wounds on sixes (or 4 and 3 against Galletian Veterans). No rend but weight of dice counts even into 2+ saves. The block of 9 with 4 wounds, 5+ save and 5 or 6+ ward takes serious effort to shift. And they can be returned. The Terrorgheist has rerolls to Fanged Maw, it can receive additional attacks and of course Fanged Maw does 6 MW on 6s. The Terrorgheist can also receive run and charge (on top of 14″ move) from Spectral Host (up to 3 units can receive fly or if they have fly, run and charge). That’s before summoning. Both the Abhorrents can summon a unit of Galletian Veterans anywhere on the board.

Very hard to screen against and almost automatic Against the Odds, Desecrate their Lands and Barge through their lands. This is a list that can surprise people and is difficult to counter, unless you have good shooting. That said he lost his first round and recovered well to go 4/1 to the Sylvaneth list with little shooting sitting just below in 3rd.

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Army Faction: Sylvaneth
Subfaction: Gnarlroot
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Warsong Revenant (305)**
General
– Command Traits: Spellsinger
– Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Treesong, Verdant Blessing
Treelord Ancient (360)**
Spells: Verdant Blessing, Verdurous Harmony

BATTLELINE
Tree-Revenants (110)**
Waypipes
– Glade Banner Bearer
– Scion
– Protector Glaive
Tree-Revenants (110)**
Glade Banner Bearer
– Waypipes
– Scion
– Protector Glaive
Dryads (100)**

OTHER
Spiterider Lancers (420)*
Spiterider Scion
– 2 x Spiterider Standard Bearer
– 2 x Spiterider Hornblower
Revenant Seekers (235)*
Gossamid Archers (220)**

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Spiteswarm Hive (40)
1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)

TERRAIN
1 x Awakened Wyldwood (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Bounty Hunters
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1970/2000

Brett: interesting Sylvaneth list with all of the new stuff (or a lot of it anyway). 4 spells Verdurous Harmony (returns models to Tree Revenants) and Treesong (+1 Rend within 9” of a wyldwood). The Warsong has Spellsinger to extend casting range (a Wyldwood becomes a spell portal). Works really well for Unleash Swarm of Spities. This is really dangerous, you want to avoid grouping up and stay away from trees. List tech wise we have 2 endless spells, because the Purple Sun is mandatory.

Otherwise Spiteswarm Lancers for mobile damage, they strike first and can heal making it a little bit tougher. Gossamer Archers to do your opponent’s head (fade when charged), Revenant Seekers to return models (including Lancers). And finally Tree Revenants for opportunist attacks, teleporting and fire and fade. The last are among the most effective scoring units at the moment. No really big threats (the Treelord hits hard though) this list is about control and scoring. Hard to come to grips with and able to wear you down in attritional warfare (flavourful or frustrating). Differential type scoring was its only weakness, because it does rely on a longer game.

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Army Faction: Orruk Warclans
Army Type: Kruleboyz
– Subfaction: Big Yellers
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Breaka-boss on Mirebrute Troggoth (180)*
Killaboss on Corpse-rippa Vulcha (240)**
General
– Command Traits: Supa Sneaky
– Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome
– Mount Traits: Fast ’Un
– Spells: Nasty Hex
– Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur

BATTLELINE
Man-skewer Boltboyz (360)**
Boltboy Boss
Man-skewer Boltboyz (360)**
Boltboy Boss
Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)**

BEHEMOTH
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)**

OTHER
Hobgrot Slittaz (80)*
Hobgrot Slittaz (80)*
Hobgrot Slittaz (80)*
Hobgrot Slittaz (80)*

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000

Brett: Kruleboyz 4th, that’s an awesome effort with one of the weakest if not weakest faction right now. Since they appeared as the poster boys of the new edition they’ve struggled to make a serious impression on their own (they are crucial to the success of Big Waagh). How did he do it? You look at it and think it’s a skew list but it really isn’t, this is a balanced list with hard hitting HQs bearing the brunt of combat,  ranged battleline and some of the cheapest screens around. The Hobgrots are not even GVs, his opponents are going to have to kill them the old fashioned way (and they will). Killaboss on Gorpse-rippa Vulcha loaded with Fast’Un, Arcane Tome so there is one wizard and Supa Sneaky for a redeploy. Nasty Hex to turn off wards.

The list is looking to work at range and try to stop someone charging (or using endless spells) with Krondspine, he makes it really hard to get to particularly the bigger Boltboyz units. With their extra range they outrange almost all archers (Sentinels, Raptors and Kurnoth excepted). If you do charge one Unleash hell is going to be fun. With Covered in Mud they may also be invisible so hard to shoot. Gambling that the opponent can’t charge in multiple places (so only one unit uses Unleash hell). The Breaka Boss can pick off things or stop pressure on a flank and the Killaboss offers a lot of mobility particularly mid late game (I think you want to avoid a wild Krondspine too early so your opponent doesn’t send it into your archers).

It’s a different take and great to see hobgrots have a use (bullet shields, awesome), have you painted yours?

Another tournament, and week, throwing up unusual winners. The diversity in winners is amazing and puts AoS in a really great place for interesting games and tournaments. It’s genuinely exciting to see what’s going to win next week, other than Nurgle, there will always be Nurgle.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for the Capital City Bloodbath – Age of Sigmar Champs

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This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Capital City Bloodbat that took place in Ontario, Canada on 20th and 21st August. It involved 43 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: Flesh-eater Courts
Grand Court: Court of Delusion – The Feast Day
– Mortal Realm: Shyish
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Crypt Infernal Courtier (130)*
General
– Command Trait: Dark Acolyte – Deranged Transformation
King of the Krondspine (245)*
Abhorrant Archregent
Artefact: The Dermal Robe
– Lore of Madness: Spectral Host
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (445)*
Mount Trait: Gruesome Bite
– Lore of Madness: Blood Feast

Battleline
10 x Crypt Ghouls (85)*
10 x Crypt Ghouls (85)**
9 x Crypt Flayers (540)**
Reinforced x 2

Behemoths
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)*
Allies

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (40)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 400 / 400
Wounds: 83
Drops: 3

Brett: Carl (Season of War) is back and with a different army as well. Jordan took 4th with his slippery eels as well. This time Carl’s running Flesh Eater Courts reminding everyone there is more to death than Nighthaunt (or maybe Soulblight). No Grand Court listed, that avoids the mandatory trait and artefact common to 2nd edition book subfaction but they can still take a delusion – Feeding Frenzy. This command grants a second pile in and fight to a unit, very useful on the Flayers or Terrorgheist. The Archregent and Ghoul King are wizards with 3 casts/dispel but as senior officers of the court they can also muster (summon) units. Both the Archregent and the Infernal can muster or return Flayers or Horrors as can the Ghoul King. The Archregent can also bring in cryptghouls (Galletian Veterans) and Courtiers.

All of this adds up to the listed army being on the start. The Flayers will be hard to remove, 9 with 4 wounds is enough to survive most attacks and they can grow back. Chronomatic Cogs to ensure rerolls, the spells that they use tend to increase the number of attacks, grant fly or mortal wounds. The warscroll spells are good enough that you want access to them most of the time. Apart from the Infernal Courtier/Flayer connection important aura’s are large (18″ reroll 1s for Grypt Ghouls). They can spread a little to cover an objective with certain death. But their ability so summon Galletian Veterans anywhere on the map that isn’t occupied they play into this season really well. The army has 3 full hammers between the Ghoul King, Incarnate and Flayers.

And they are very mobile, particularly when everything can be made to fly so terrain is irrelevant. One loss to a very strong Witch Aelve army – 50 stabby ladies and the High Gladitrix is hard to punch through and they hit very hard. Otherwise they’ve taken down strong combat and magic armies as well as Gargants. Amazing effort with what is currently seen as one of the weakest factions in the game. More than anything I think this shows the level of balance in Age of Sigmar (and what a good general can do). Shout out to Karl Turbide for the very interesting Ironjawz list Carl played in Round 2.

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Allegiance: Bonesplitterz
Warclan: Icebone
– Grand Strategy: Get Dem Bones!
– Triumphs:

Leaders
Savage Big Boss (65)*
General
– Command Trait: Great Hunter
Maniak Weirdnob (100)*
Artefact: Mork’s Boney Bitz
– Mount Trait: Fast ‘Un
– Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry
– Lore of the Savage Beast: Power of the Were-boar
Wurrgog Prophet (150)*
Artefact: Glowin’ Tattooz
– Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry
– Lore of the Savage Beast: Power of the Were-boar
Savage Big Boss (65)**
Savage Big Boss (65)**
Savage Big Boss (65)**

Battleline
5 x Savage Boarboys (140)*
Stikkas
5 x Savage Boarboys (140)*
Stikkas
5 x Savage Boarboys (140)**
Stikkas
5 x Savage Boarboys (140)**
Stikkas

Units
5 x Savage Boarboy Maniaks (145)***
5 x Savage Boarboy Maniaks (145)***
4 x Savage Big Stabbas (160)***
Reinforced x 1
2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)
2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)
2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)
2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)
2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)
2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

Core Battalions
*Warlord
**Warlord
***Bounty Hunters

Additional Enhancements
Artefact
Spell

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 191
Drops: 19

Brett: Ah the cunning orcs. No one in their right mind would just run at you and throw their bodies at you to kill you. So they’ll never suspect that’s our cunning plan. 19 drops, count ’em, 19. They get a turn whenever you want them to. Do you want them to go first with a pregame move? Icebone does Mortal Wounds on 6s based on the damage characteristic across the army. Big Stabbas are strong (and there are a lot), 6 high quality attacks hit and wounding on 3s per pair is great. Running the fairly cheap Maniacs backed by the standard Boarboy is another great idea, making it easier to hunt down Galletian Veterans where ever they are.

Not strong on objectives so their preference is always to charge into an enemy for the +1. With the double Warlord the army has an extra spell and artefact. Glowing Tatooz to improve his Ward to 4 (+2 to ward casts) making lifting his stare much less of a risk.

His warscroll has a useful spell into hordes as well. 3 casts but both casters have the same spells, one to force fight last (very bad against Bonesplitterz) and the other to grant +1 to run and charge. The Savage Big Bosses bring 6 attacks and allows another unit within 12″. With 4 Savage Big Bosses they can either spread out or concentrate and maximise their chance to remove something. His only loss was to Oliver (3rd) who brought a lot of shooting and casting which would quickly wear down teh Bonesplitterz. I think we will continue to see versions of this army for most of this season. They are a fun army, who doesn’t want semi naked greenskins running across the field at you.

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Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar
City: Hallowheart
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Knight-Incantor general adjudant(125)*
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Ignite Weapons
– Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist
Battlemage on Griffon (255)*
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Sear Wounds
– Lore of Whitefire: Elemental Cyclone
Celestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage (290)
Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Crystal Aegis
– Lore of Whitefire: Roaming Wildfire
Freeguild General (100)*
General
– Command Trait: Master of Magic
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Sear Wounds
– Lore of Whitefire: Warding Brand

Battleline
10 x Dreadspears (85)*
City Role: Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models)
30 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (300)*
Reinforced x 2
30 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (300)*
Reinforced x 2

Units
2 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (230)*
5 x Drakespawn Knights (120)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Horrorghast (40)
Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
Soulscream Bridge (80)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1995 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 126
Drops: 2

Brett: Very spell heavy army (from Hallowheart so that’s to be expected) back with a lot of shooting and some thin screens. 4 Heroes that in Hallowheart all (even the SCE and the non caster with Arcane Tome) have 2 spells. Hallowheart grants the ablity for a cast to give themselves D3 mortal wounds and add that to their casting roll, most of their spells are CV5 or 6 to begin with so this is mostly useful in getting the Purple Sun out but useful for any clutch spells and in early turns no reason not to do it. The Knight Incantor still has a once per game dispell/deny and ignite weapons grants +1 to wound, most likely on the Crossbow men (wounding on 2s). Between the Wildfire Lore and their warscrolls the wizards have access to 5 damaging spells, 3 that are AoE.

The General can increase ward saves against magic and heal wounds (also useful if you take wounds on say the Hurricanum to boost casting). The crossbows need to be more than 3″ from enemy units and not have moved to receive an extra attack if there are more than 10 models – so 61 attacks. No rend but if they are wounding on 2s weight of dice is an issue. Horrorghast helps because even if you only kill enough to force a battleshock, they are losing an extra D3 models if they fail. Against MSU units that can be devestating. Both Fulminators and Drakespawn Knights are nasty, particularly on the charge, in this army they can be given Wildform (Mage on Griffon) for +2 to run and charge. They could use the Soulscream and then only have a effective 7″ charge into something important.

Most of this army is going to be a big castle with a lot of buffs and reach. There aren’t a lot of screens so there is a chance something can reach the casters/crossbowmen. If you are close then the Crossbowmen really drop in effiency. Against FEC (a really close game – only 2 points) I wonder about the impact of FEC summoning, particuarly of units outside of the shooting range. In the end this is a spell casting army with limited mobility (4 really mobile units but 2 of them will struggle solo) so it’s dependant on the dice. A gambler’s army, really fun to play with and against.

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Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
Option: Jaws of Mork
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
– Triumphs:

Leaders
Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig (110)*
General
– Moonclan Stabba
– Command Trait: Envoy of the Overbounder
– Artefact: Syari Screamersquig
Madcap Shaman (80)**
Lore of the Moonclans: Squig Lure
Madcap Shaman (80)**
Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork

Battleline
20 x Shootas (140)***
2x Badmoon Icon Bearers
20 x Shootas (140)***
2x Badmoon Icon Bearers
20 x Shootas (140)***
2x Badmoon Icon Bearers

Units
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)*
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)*
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)*
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)*
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)*
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)**
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)**
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)**
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)**
5 x Boingrot Bounderz (105)**
1 x Marshcrawla Sloggoth (150)
Allies

Endless Spells & Invocations
Mork’s Mighty Mushroom (40)
Purple Sun of Shyish (70)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment
***Expert Conquerors

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 150 / 400
Wounds: 186
Drops: 6

Brett: 186 wounds of Madness. Watch your army be swarmed and overwhelmed by funny little creatures with Slittas. This is the Jaws of Mork White Dwarf army right down to the option use of a General with a Squig. This isn’t a Tome Celestial but an older 2nd Edition buff. Lots of cheap Shootas in units just big enough to qualify for the +1 to hit. Jaws of Mork has a command ability to return (on a 4+) a slain squig unit at half strength near the Loonshrine. On top of that we have the Marshcrawla to buff nearby units of Bounder’s melee attacks to make sure they do something and attract attention.

2 casters to castle with the Shootas (expert conquerors to really control objectives), they are bringing a teleport and an ability to run and charge for 3 units. The plan is to buff up 3 bounders and run then charge them into your face. Returning squigs and a genuine horde are hard to deal with unless you have horde killing abilities. FEC does and also plays into low bravery units really well (you will have many running squigs) and Fangs of Sotek Seraphon have better heavy hitting units with big screens of cheap tradeable Skinks. Their spell casting would have limited the effectiveness of things like the Purple Sun. I really like that this is a 6 drop list (madness) – those are long drops. A crazy off meta list that performed really well, horde Gitz are meant to make a come back.

Final Tournament Placings

AoS Meta Stats (w/e 10th July 2022)

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Here are the AoS Meta Stats for all the Grand Tournaments that have taken place between Monday 4th July and Sunday 10th July 2022. These are all the GT’s that I can locate on Tabletop.to or BestCoastPairing, if you know of any others please send me a link and I’ll add them.

Once again, another quiet week, with only 3 Grand Tournaments.

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Grand Tournaments

Ranked from largest to smallest.

South Coast Series July – England/UK
40 Players

PositionFactionSubfactionResult
1stSlaves to DarknessHost of the Everchosen5-0-0
2ndNighthauntScarlet Doom4-0-1
3rdSylvanethHeartwood4-0-1
4thSylvanethGnarlroot4-0-1
5thSeraphonFangs of Sotek4-0-1
6thIdoneth DeepkinFuethan4-0-1
7thMaggotkin of NurgleDrowned Men4-0-1
8thBonesplitterzDrakkfoot3-1-1
9thNighthaunt Emerald Host3-0-2
10thDaughters of KhaineZainthar Kai3-0-2
South Coast Series July

Summer on the Coast AoS GT – Washington/USA
37 Players

PositionFactionSubfactionResult
1stKharadron OverlordsBarak-Zilfin5-0-0
2ndDaughters of KhaineHagg Nar4-0-1
3rdBlades of KhorneGoretide4-0-1
4thHedonites of SlaaneshLurid Haze4-0-1
5thSlaves to DarknessHost of the Everchosen4-0-1
6thNighthaunt Scarlet Doom4-0-1
7thSeraphonThunder Lizard3-0-2
8thSons of BehematBreaker Tribe3-0-2
9thSylvanethHeartwood3-0-2
10thSylvanethGnarlroot3-0-2
Summer on the Coast AoS GT

Kingdom of Skrappa Spill – England/UK
28 PlayersGenerals Handbook: Pitched Battles 2022-23 Season 1

PositionFactionSubfactionResult
1stCities of SigmarHallowheart5-0-0
2ndDaughters of KhaineKhailebron4-0-1
3rdCities of SigmarHammerhal4-0-1
4thSkaven4-0-1
5thMaggotkin of Nurgle3-1-1
6thSeraphonThunder Lizard3-1-1
7thDaughters of KhaineKhailebron3-0-2
8thDaughters of KhaineHagg Nar3-0-2
9thNighthaunt 3-0-2
Kingdom of Skrappa Spill

Grand Alliance Stats

These stats reflect the last four weeks of GT’s that we’re aware of at Woehammer.

303 players (-182) took part in 12 GT’s (-4) over the last four weeks.

Grand AllianceWin RateArmies% Share of Armies5-0 Wins4+ Wins
Chaos56.4%6220.46%520
Order51.0%14949.17%421
Death43.8%5016.50%16
Destruction43.8%4213.86%03

Chaos continue to lead the way in the win rates, dropping only slightly from 56.7% last week to 56.4% this week. While Order pick up the most number of armies represented and most 4+. Chaos steal the crown this week for most 5-0’s.

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Faction Stats

The below stat show the results for those factions represented by 5 armies or more only.

FactionWin RateArmies% Share of Armies5-0 Wins0-5 Losses
Slaves to Darkness72.2%61.98%11
Beasts of Chaos63.1%134.29%20
Nighthaunt61.3%175.61%10
Blades of Khorne60.0%51.65%00
Sylvaneth58.5%134.29%00
Cities of Sigmar57.1%175.61%11
Seraphon56.3%247.92%21
Kharadron Overlords55.0%61.98%11
Big Waaagh!54.0%51.65%00
Maggotkin of Nurgle53.8%216.93%12
Bonesplitterz51.5%72.31%00
Lumineth Realm-Lords50.0%123.96%00
Daughters of Khaine50.0%175.61%01
Sons of Behemat50.0%82.64%00
Idoneth Deepkin47.8%185.94%00
Sons of Behemat48.5%214.33%01
Skaven46.7%61.98%10
Legion of the First Prince46.7%61.98%01
Stormcast Eternals45.6%268.58%03
Ogor Mawtribes44.8%61.98%01
Fyreslayers43.0%165.28%01
Flesh-eater Courts40.0%51.65%00
Soulblight Gravelords37.8%185.94%02
Gloomspite Gitz33.3%61.98%00
Ironjawz32.8%72.31%02
Ossiarch Bonereapers27.0%103.30%02

Slaves to Darkness and Blades of Khorne continue their run of good form in experienced hands. While the new battletomes of Nighthaunt and Sylvaneth can also be seen in the +55% area. Daughters of Khaine are smack in the middle with a perfect 50% win rate. While Skaven are beginning to climb.

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Subfactions

All factions listed below have been represented at tournaments by at least 5 players.

FactionSubfactionWin RateArmies% Share of Armies5-0 Wins0-5 Losses
Maggotkin of NurgleDrowned Men69.1%113.63%10
NighthauntScarlet Doom67.6%72.31%00
Beasts of ChaosNone61.4%72.31%10
Cities of SigmarLiving City57.1%72.31%00
SeraphonThunder Lizard55.7%216.93%21
Sons of BehematBreaker Tribe53.4%61.98%00
Stormcast EternalsHallowed Knights52.9%72.31%00
FyreslayersLofnir51.7%61.98%00
NighthauntEmerald Host48.3%61.98%00
Lumineth Realm-LordsZaitrec48.1%113.63%00
Daughters of KhaineZainthar Kai47.1%72.31%01
Legion of the First Prince46.7%61.98%01
Skaven46.7%61.98%10
Soulblight GravelordsVyrkos Dynasty43.3%61.98%00
Stormcast EternalsHammers of Sigmar42.3%154.95%03
Soulblight GravelordsKastelai Dynasty38.6%72.31%01
FyreslayersGreyfyrd35.2%92.97%01
Ossiarch BonereapersPetrifex Elite27.5%82.64%01

Drowned Men continue to lead the way with a win rate of 69.1% despite Maggotkin overall only having a win rate of 53.8%. Nighthaunt and Scarlet Doom find themselves near the top now as predicted by Danny some weeks ago. Meanwhile at the bottom of the table Ossiarch Bonereapers/Petrifex Elite are the only subfaction below 30% win rate.

Interestingly Fyreslayers have Lofnir (6 PLayers) with a win rate of 51.7% and the more popular Greyfyrd (9 Players) at 35.2%, are people playing the wrong subfaction?

Next Week

I’ll have graphs. Because nothing says stats like some graphs…..