This is the top three AoS lists for Stockholm Slaughter 9 took place in Sweden on the 18th and 19th of March. It involved 18 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: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Vostarg – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Auric Runefather (120)* – General – Command Trait: Fury of the Fyreslayers Auric Runemaster (130)*** – Artefact: Volatile Brazier – Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal Auric Flamekeeper (90)*** Auric Flamekeeper (90)*** Battlesmith (150) – Artefact: Nulsidian Icon – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Auric Runesmiter (120) – Forge Key – Prayer: Ember Storm
UNITS 15 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (450)* – Poleaxes 30 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (480)** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)**
Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness – Subfaction: Cabalists – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)** – Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh – Spells: Chaotic Conduit, Daemonic Speed Exalted Hero of Chaos (100)** – Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh – Rune-etched Blade and Chaos Runeshield – Spells: Binding Damnation – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master Slaves to Darkness Daemon Prince (195)** – General – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle – Command Traits: Not to be Denied – Daemonic Axe – Wings – Artefacts of Power: Helm of the Oppressor – Spells: Daemonic Speed
BATTLELINE Corvus Cabal (80)* Corvus Cabal (80)* Chaos Knights (460)** – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle – Doom Knight – Standard Bearer – Hornblower – Cursed Flail – Ensorcelled banner: The Eroding Icon
OTHER Chaos Chosen (480)* – Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh – Exalted Champion – 2 x Icon Bearer – 2 x Skull Drummer – Ensorcelled banner: The Banner of Screaming Flesh Ogroid Theridons (380)** – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle – Thorakon – Goroan Great Axe – 2 x Banner Bearer – 2 x Charge-caller
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Soulscream Bridge (80)
Leaders Orruk Megaboss (140)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of the Weird: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Artefact: Gryph-feather Charm (Galletian Champion) – Warbeat: Get ‘Em Beat – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Warbeat: Killa Beat
Battleline 5 x Orruk Ardboys (80)* 6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (340)** – Jagged Gore-hackas – Reinforced x 1 6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (340)*** – Jagged Gore-hackas – Reinforced x 1 6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (340)*** – Jagged Gore-hackas – Reinforced x 1 3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)** – Jagged Gore-hackas 3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)*** – Jagged Gore-hackas 5 x Spider Riders (90)* 5 x Spider Riders (90)
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Tournament that took place in the UK on the 25th and 26th February. It involved 74 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?
Warhammer World: Matched Play Event (UK) – 74 Players
Allegiance: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Greyfyrd – Mortal Realm: Aqshy – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Auric Runefather (120)* – General – Command Trait: Spirit of Grimnir – Artefact: Axe of Grimnir – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Auric Flamekeeper (90)*** Auric Flamekeeper (90)*** Battlesmith (150)*** – Artefact: Nulsidian Icon – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Auric Runemaster (130)*** – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist – Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse Auric Runesmiter (120)*** – Runic Iron – Prayer: Ember Storm
Battleline 15 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (450)* – Poleaxes – Reinforced x 2 30 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (480)** – Reinforced x 2 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)***
Peter: We previously mentioned that the flamekeeper charge was in the hero phase. This has been corrected to the combat phase.
Mike Stewart (of Team England fame) is on a personal mission to establish Fyreslayers as a meta-threat, and by Grimnir’s beard, he’s doing it.
There’s a surprising amount of tech and overlapping buffs in effect with this Fyreslayers list. The lynchpin to it all is the double Flamekeepers, who gain the ability to unleash a range of buffs depending on how many units have died nearby. Perhaps the most devastating of these options are a +1 damage effect to a unit, and the ability to make a unit charge in the combat phase – meaning a scary unit of 15 Hearthguard can suddenly threaten you in your OWN turn, which can make positioning/trading well for the opponent a complete nightmare.
To keep up on board control, given FS limited movement options, Mike has opted for a metric tonne of Vulkites. They’re not impressive on their own, but they provide excellent fodder for the Flamekeepers, and with their volume of attacks can still make for a great target for the +1 damage buff – or to just charge something and yoink the objective they thought they’d just taken, with relative impunity. Additionally, with Curse on the Runemaster, if it goes off, then the 30 Vulkites can pretty reliably just nuke something into oblivion with mortals.
Knowing a player of Mike’s calibre, I’m sure there’s all manner of extra sneaky plays baked into his list, but I think that covers the top line – a deceptively fast (with the out of phase charges) list full of ‘surprise hammers’ that creates plenty of ‘damned if you do/don’t’ scenarios for the opponent. Great work!
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Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz – Gittish Horde: Jaws of Mork – Grand Strategy: Chasing the Moon – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Fungoid Cave-Shaman (90)* – General – Command Trait: The Clammy Hand – Artefact: Moonface Mommet – Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Grinkrak The Great (190)* Skragrott, The Loonking (160)* – Lore of the Moonclans: Nikkit!Nikkit! Squigboss with Gnasha-squig (80)** Squigboss with Gnasha-squig (80)**
Battleline 20 x Moonclan Shootas (125)* 20 x Moonclan Shootas (125)* 36 x Squig Herd (360)** – Reinforced x 2 36 x Squig Herd (360)** – Reinforced x 2
Units 1 x Marshcrawla Sloggoth (150)* 6 x Grinkrak’s Looncourt (0)* 5 x Gobbapalooza (145)** – Spell1: Lore of the Moonclans: Itchy Nuisance 6 x Sneaky Snufflers (110)**
Declan: Well it seems like Squigs are the go-to option from the new Gloomspite Gitz book at the moment and another 5-0 registered. It great that there are so many squig armies already painted or getting painted – good to see the ladz getting their time at the top. Simon has taken a lot of units that recent readers will have seen, but he’s got some new ones as well. The Gobbapalozza makes an appearance, and it is great to see it. The models were always georgous, but apart from some hardcore Gitz Players (looking at Nathan of Honest Wargamer fame), they were rarely used. They are now more streamlined and able to hand out additional rend to shooting units – hence the 2 units of Moonclan Shootas here.
Simon has also taken the new underworld warband which – Grinkrak the Great – who can give models the chance to fight on death. Great for the large units of Cave Squigs in Simon’s army. You’ll need shooting to deal with this, and even so, D3 Cave Squigs will come back for each herder in the unit. But they do run away with no command abilities possible.
It continues to be a great list, but I do worry about the Cave Squig’s chances long-term against shooting armies. Only time will tell as people get more experience playing with and against the new book.
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Army Faction: Maggotkin of Nurgle – Army Subfaction: Blessed Sons – Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Be’lakor (355) 1 x Lord of Plagues (140)* – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Gift of Disease – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master 1 x Bloab Rotspawned (320)* – Spells: Blades of Putrefaction 1 x Lord of Afflictions (230)* – General – Command Traits: Overpowering Stench – Incubatch – Dolorous Tocsin – Artefacts: The Splithorn Helm 1 x Orghotts Daemonspew (320)**
Ed: What an interesting and extremely top-heavy list! With only 630pts spent on battleline and a mere 25 models on the board, this list favours an intelligent approach where every piece needs to be played correctly. While 2 Maggoth Lords and 10 blightkings can both take and put out a decent amount of wounds they lack the footprint to reliably hold objectives on their own which means that Marco would be leaning heavily on the techy elements of his list and superior positioning to control the board. With a list like this, it doesn’t do to play cagey and reactively. You need to be aggressive and take decisive, perhaps risky, actions to get the best results.
This list has a lot of ways to inflict extra disease points to help supplement his damage output. If he chooses his battles carefully, Marco has the tools to remove important units from his opponent’s army with surgical precision. But he’d need to be cautious never to leave himself open to reprisal because with only 25 models in your whole army, even minor losses can cause big problems. Be’Lakor can neuter a particularly troublesome threat once per game if the dice are on your side. The Lord of Plagues with Tunnel Master is a troublesome Galletian Champion too – harder to put down than the average foot hero and thus requiring extra investment on the part of an opponent to deny your opportunity for battle tactics.
Surprisingly this list leans kind of heavily on magic. Bloab, Be’lakor and a Lord of Plagues with an Arcane Tome. They all have access to some great spells that really maximize this list’s potential but Nurgle is not a strong competitor in the magic game. Marco may have been lucky that his path to glory didn’t pit him against some of the wizardly boogiemen that are common right now like Tzeentch or Teclis.
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Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers – Legion: Petrifex Elite – Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours! – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Liege-Kavalos (160)* – General – Command Trait: Mighty Archaeossian – Artefact: Helm of the Ordained Mortisan Soulmason (120)* – Lore of Mortisans: Arcane Command Mortisan Boneshaper (110)* – Artefact: Godbone Armour – Lore of Mortisans: Drain Vitality – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
UNITS 6 x Necropolis Stalkers (340)** – 2 x Dread Falchions 6 x Necropolis Stalkers (340)** – 2 x Dread Falchions 10 x Mortek Guard (140) – Nadirite Blade and Shield 10 x Mortek Guard (140)* – Nadirite Blade and Shield 5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180) – Nadirite Blade and Shield
Alice: This season, Ossiarch Bonereapers really have to work with what they have. With only 2 Galetian Champions in the army, neither exactly standouts, they often have to compensate in other ways. The lone boneshaper exists to pick up a few battle tactics, and has a pretty nice horde clearing spell.
The primary lineholders are the mortek guard, with the Deathriders acting as outriders to grab some objectives and score the faction’s unique battletactic. The units really holding the list up are the Necropolis Stalkers, which benefit heavily from the Galetian Vets battalion so both ranks can attack. In precision stance they can hit with 20 Rend -2 Damage 2 attacks from the primary weapon, and 6 Rend -3 Damage 3 attacks from the special Dread Falchions. While fully buffed from the Soulmason they can reroll 1s and get a bonus attack per model from the Liege. Few things can face a fully buffed unit of these alive and live to tell the tale.
The Crawlers round off the list with the only shooting attacks in the army. While the Rend 0 shots can miss often, that 5 damage will absolutely chunk anything it successfully does hit.
This is the top three AoS lists for the Norseshammer Open that took place in Norway on the 4th and 5th of March. It involved 36 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: Skaven – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs:
Leaders Thanquol on Boneripper (430)* – 4 Warpfire Projectors – Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap Verminlord Warbringer (400)** – General – Command Trait: Devious Adversary – Artefact: Warpstone Charm – Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon Warlock Bombardier (110)* – Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power! Clawlord (110)* – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Battleline 20 x Clanrats (100)** – Rusty Blade – 1x Standard Bearers – 1x Standard Bell Ringers 20 x Clanrats (100)** – Rusty Blade – 1x Standard Bearers – 1x Standard Bell Ringers 6 x Stormfiends (640)** – 2x Windlaunchers – 2x Ratling Cannons – 2x Doomflayer Gauntlets – Reinforced x 1
Units 1 x Warp-Grinder (60)*
Endless Spells & Invocations Lauchon the Soulseeker (50)
Peter: Luckily, one of our Discord members had seen that Ben had discussed his list on the AoS Coach Discord channel. We reached out and asked if we could use the comments on Woehammer. Ben kindly agreed.
Benjamin Flodda: This was my list this weekend testing the rats for upcoming teams tournaments mostly. Nice bonus to go through the weekend undefeated! I think the list is pretty strong and has play into most things, although it’s pretty fragile and it doesn’t take too much poor positioning for things to start to fall apart. But played carefully, I think it has legs.
So, the warpgrinder is basically to give yourself some deployment flexibility. It gives one-drop opponents something to worry about in their deployment if they plan to give away first, and it requires them to always zone out the rattling cannons. Once the fiends are on the table, they are way too easy to play around imo. So they mostly go in deep strike regardless, although deepstriking clanrats is definitely valid in some cases. And if you place the grinder close to a gnawhole it’s amazing how many points it can score you late-game.
The most fun thing in the list is definitely the clawlord combined with arcane tome and launchon. Everybody expects the boat to be for thanquol (which it certainly can be), but early game you can sling the clawlord into the opponent with the boat (taking a mortal which gives him an extra attack) and with double death frenzy, flaming weapon and with +2 attacks from devious adversary. You can shoot down a screen and often get into fun stuff, turn 1, and with +1 to hit and wound from the warbringer, he can really do work! If you then position him within 3 of something after he fought, if he dies he can fight (this time with 13 attacks on 2+ 2+ and damage 3) or he rolls a 3+ and survives, at which point he can fight in the following hero phase AND when he dies. That little dude took down a megagargant on his own this weekend.
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Allegiance: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Greyfyrd – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (360)** – General – Command Trait: Blood of the Berzerker – Artefact: Draught of Magmalt Ale – Magmadroth Trait: Coal-heart Ancient Auric Runesmiter (120)** – Forge Key – Artefact: Ash-cloud Rune – Prayer: Prayer of Ash Auric Runemaster (130)** – Artefact: Volatile Brazier – Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Auric Flamekeeper (90)*** Battlesmith (150)*** – Artefact: Nulsidian Icon – Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha Doomseeker (80)** Knight-Incantor (120)*** – Allies
Battleline 15 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (450)* – Broadaxes – Reinforced x 2 10 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (300)* – Poleaxes – Reinforced x 1 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)***
Kevin Lathers: The current GHB is starting to hit its stride and has allowed Greyfyrd to finally shine. This subfaction was always popular, but seldom winning, and now that’s changed. It gives Galletian Champions one extra wound and also two extra artefacts. That’s hard to pass up in the current GHN and Duardin glimmerlust always shines for more treasures.
Ole’s list has some interesting inclusions, particularly a Knight-Incantor and a Doomseeker. The Doomseeker is a cheap GC that can occasionally slap something hard if it can get near its “target.” The Knight-Incantor is a utility piece: he provides an automatic unbind for those pesky Lumineth, Skaven (and indeed, he saw two), and Sylvaneth matches while also giving the army a spellcaster for mystic shield. The biggest oddity here is the “Ash-Cloud Rune” which can block spell casting from targeting units wholly within 12” of the user for a turn. A very situational item that means he was very worried about spellcasting.
But the main crux of his list is the Hearthguard Berserkers and Runefather on Magmadroth. While the Hearthguard Berserkers can hold points and shred anything charging them, the DadDroth is the ultimate in Hammer Technology and with Blood of the Berserker can remove any one threat almost guaranteed. A common setup for the Droth is to use the rend rune, enhance it with the heroic action (or finest hour if the rune enhanced or you don’t need more rend), pray for +1 to wound rolls from the Runesmiter, and send him in as a missile of death.
The Hearthguard Berserkers see the common mix of one unit of poleaxes and one of broad. The broadaxes being buffed by a flamekeeper and benefitting from runes while Poleaxes provide much needed mortal wounds into matchups like Nighthaunt. The flamekeeper can really make Broadaxes shine giving them 3 damage swings, charge in their opponent’s combat phase, or fight on death.
The rest of the list reads as the usual suspects: Runemaster for prayers and fyrewall; Runesmiter for deepstrike and/or Runic Empowerment; and a Nulsidian Battlesmith for spell blocking and wards on the non-HGB.
Overall, the list is going to be a brick on objectives with a dangerous hammer inside.
Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Hammers of Sigmar (Scions of the Storm) – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs:
Leaders Knight-Incantor (120)* – Spell: Celestial Blades Lord-Relictor (150)* – General – Command Trait: High Priest – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Spell: Thundershock – Prayer: Translocation – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Battlemage (100)* – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Allies
Battleline 4 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (480)* – Reinforced x 1 5 x Liberators (120)* – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield 5 x Vanquishers (110)*
Units 6 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (480)* – Reinforced x 1 10 x Protectors (440)* – 4x Starsoul Maces – Reinforced x 1
Core Battalions *Battle Regiment
Additional Enhancements Holy Command: Call for Aid
Brett; Classic, at least in this meta, Stormcast (SCE) list giving probably the best combined arms approach in the current game. Except artillery of course but a combination of hammers from Cavalry (Fulminators), Fire support (Raptors – since artillery really isn’t an AoS “thing”) and Infantry (Protectors). Fulminators going up 10 points have made a lot of people look to Desolators and Tempestors but Fulminators on the charge are still the most consistent high damage hammer around. With Celestial Blades from the Knight Incantor and all out defence they are still hitting on 2s and wounding on 2s with -2 rend and 3 damage. Slightly down with the loss of Bounty Hunters they are good enough to make your opponent either tar pit them (looking at you Gitz) or try to manoeuvre around them.
The Protectors have similar tech piece and are another target for the same buffs. They really benefit from the Battlemage (+2 to movement/charge) and Lord Relictor giving them teleport with an effective 7″ charge. And Starsoul maces, mortals on a 2+. They are a great defensive unit as well with 2+ saves. The problem is that both the Fulminators and the Protectors need to charge and are vulnerable to Unleash Hell. And that brings the Raptors out to play. Their long range shooting could remove screens or, just as easily most other ranged units. Scions of the Storm so they can be kept in reserve, Liberators and even Protectors for screens if they are on the board and really only Sentinels to outrange them.
Has to be said that the Lord Relictor is a very busy fellow, what with prayers, spells and Tunnel Master as well as being the general. That’s a weakness of this list in the Galletian Champion era, all of these heroes are needed elsewhere and none are stellar in combat. Losing only to Lumineth in the second round and coming in a very respectable 3rd Simen proves there is still some life in SCE. Can they get a 2nd book this edition already please?
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Allegiance: Sylvaneth – Glade: Winterleaf – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Seasons of war: The Dwindling
Leaders Warsong Revenant (300)* – General – Command Trait: Spellsinger – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of the Deepwood: Verdurous Harmony – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Battlemage (100)* – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon – Allies
Battleline 20 x Dryads (200)* – Reinforced x 1 10 x Dryads (100)* 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)*
Units 6 x Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Scythes (500)* – Reinforced x 1 10 x Gossamid Archers (420)* – Reinforced x 1
A nice ‘sampling platter’ list here from Thomas. As ever, the core threats are a big blob of Scythe-noth and a Warsong Rev to handle the arcane side of things. Now, traditionally, Kurnoth are pretty ponderous, but with +3 to normal moves *and* charges from the Spiteswarm Hive, and an additional +3 from the Ghurish Battlemage, they now have an average threat range of 21″ – which is somewhat scarier. Of course, because of when both these spells proc, it means the Hunters also retain their charge bonuses if they choose to teleport – so really, very little of the board is safe, and if you don’t have adequate screens or a way to delete the Kurnoth (much more easily said than done given their durability), then you can expect these things to reap the rewards.
The rest of the list is basically supporting tech – a lone Treelord to fill the behemoth slot of the batreg while also offering Rampage access and the sneaky ‘enemy can’t pile in’ tech – Gossamids (reinforced no less!!) to potentially force melee armies to curl up and cry every time they want to charge something useful, or threaten a fair chance of some nasty spike damage – and plenty of dryads for board control and further screening. Never understimate how powerful -1 to hit and wound is by the way – doesn’t matter if you have a rubbish save if you don’t have to roll any dice.
Well done to Thomas for the 4-1 with a balanced list.
I thought as Woehammer often struggles to get all the event results out for any given week, it may be a good idea to do one post with all of the lists we intended to cover.
Below, you’ll find all the top three lists this week (that we’re aware of), along with my wildcard choices. We will post individual event results as well, and I will link them to the results below where possible.
Wildcard – Slaves to Darkness (Legion of the First Prince)
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Warhammer World: Matched Play Event (UK) – 74 Players
Allegiance: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Greyfyrd – Mortal Realm: Aqshy – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Auric Runefather (120)* – General – Command Trait: Spirit of Grimnir – Artefact: Axe of Grimnir – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Auric Flamekeeper (90)*** Auric Flamekeeper (90)*** Battlesmith (150)*** – Artefact: Nulsidian Icon – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Auric Runemaster (130)*** – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist – Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse Auric Runesmiter (120)*** – Runic Iron – Prayer: Ember Storm
Battleline 15 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (450)* – Poleaxes – Reinforced x 2 30 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (480)** – Reinforced x 2 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)***
Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz – Gittish Horde: Jaws of Mork – Grand Strategy: Chasing the Moon – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Fungoid Cave-Shaman (90)* – General – Command Trait: The Clammy Hand – Artefact: Moonface Mommet – Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Grinkrak The Great (190)* Skragrott, The Loonking (160)* – Lore of the Moonclans: Nikkit!Nikkit! Squigboss with Gnasha-squig (80)** Squigboss with Gnasha-squig (80)**
Battleline 20 x Moonclan Shootas (125)* 20 x Moonclan Shootas (125)* 36 x Squig Herd (360)** – Reinforced x 2 36 x Squig Herd (360)** – Reinforced x 2
Units 1 x Marshcrawla Sloggoth (150)* 6 x Grinkrak’s Looncourt (0)* 5 x Gobbapalooza (145)** – Spell1: Lore of the Moonclans: Itchy Nuisance 6 x Sneaky Snufflers (110)**
Army Faction: Maggotkin of Nurgle – Army Subfaction: Blessed Sons – Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Be’lakor (355) 1 x Lord of Plagues (140)* – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Gift of Disease – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master 1 x Bloab Rotspawned (320)* – Spells: Blades of Putrefaction 1 x Lord of Afflictions (230)* – General – Command Traits: Overpowering Stench – Incubatch – Dolorous Tocsin – Artefacts: The Splithorn Helm 1 x Orghotts Daemonspew (320)**
Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers – Legion: Petrifex Elite – Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours! – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Liege-Kavalos (160)* – General – Command Trait: Mighty Archaeossian – Artefact: Helm of the Ordained Mortisan Soulmason (120)* – Lore of Mortisans: Arcane Command Mortisan Boneshaper (110)* – Artefact: Godbone Armour – Lore of Mortisans: Drain Vitality – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
UNITS 6 x Necropolis Stalkers (340)** – 2 x Dread Falchions 6 x Necropolis Stalkers (340)** – 2 x Dread Falchions 10 x Mortek Guard (140) – Nadirite Blade and Shield 10 x Mortek Guard (140)* – Nadirite Blade and Shield 5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180) – Nadirite Blade and Shield
Army Faction: Gloomspite Gitz – Army Subfaction: Jaws of Mork – Grand Strategy: Chasing the Moon – Triumphs: Indomitable
LEADER 1 x Squigboss (80)* – Aspects of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage 1 x Skragrott, the Loonking (160)* – Spells: Itchy Nuisance 1 x Fungoid Cave-Shaman (90)* – General – Command Traits: The Clammy Hand – Artefacts: Staff of Sneaky Stealin’ – Spells: The Hand of Gork
BATTLELINE 10 x Boingrot Bounderz (280) – Bounder Boss 10 x Boingrot Bounderz (280)* – Bounder Boss 36 x Squig Herd (360)** 12 x Squig Herd (120)**
BEHEMOTH 1 x Mangler Squigs (260)
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Scrapskuttle’s Arachnacauldron (50)
TERRAIN 1 x Bad Moon Loonshrine (0)
OTHER 1 x Marshcrawla Sloggoth (150) 6 x Sneaky Snufflers (110)
CORE BATTALIONS: *Warlord **Galletian Veterans
TOTAL POINTS: (1940/2000)
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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 Commands: Thunderbolt Volley – Holy Commands: Call for Aid – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Bastian Carthalos (300)** 1 x Lord-Relictor (150)** – Prayers: Translocation 1 x Lord-Castellant (160)** – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Thundershock – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master
BATTLELINE 4 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (480)** 5 x Liberators (120)*** – Liberator-Prime – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Sigmarite Shield – Grandweapon 5 x Liberators (120)*** – Liberator-Prime – Grandweapon – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Sigmarite Shield 5 x Liberators (120)*** – Liberator-Prime – Grandweapon – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Sigmarite Shield
OTHER 3 x Aetherwings (70)* 3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (240)* – Raptor-Prime 3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (240)* – Raptor-Prime
Army Faction: Lumineth Realm-lords – Army Subfaction: Helon – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Archmage Teclis (700)* 1 x Scinari Calligrave (110)* – Spells: Overwhelming Heat – Aspects of the Champion: Stubborn as a Rhinox 1 x Scinari Cathallar (110)* – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts: Silver Wand – Spells: Total Eclipse
BATTLELINE 5 x Hurakan Windchargers (130)* – Windspeaker Seneschal – Standard Bearer 5 x Hurakan Windchargers (130)* – Windspeaker Seneschal – Standard Bearer 20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)* – High Sentinel – Spells: Protection of Hysh 10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)* – High Warden – Spells: Etheral Blessings 10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)* – High Warden – Spells: Solar Flare
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Umbral Spellportal (80) 1 x Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (70) 1 x Rune of Petrification (60)
CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)
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Army Faction: Skaven – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADER 1 x Verminlord Deceiver (420) – Artefacts: Shadow Magnet Trinket – Spells: Flaming Weapon 1 x Verminlord Warbringer (400)* – General – Command Traits: Devious Adversary – Artefacts: Warpstone Charm – Spells: Flaming Weapon 1 x Grey Seer (120)** – Spells: Skitterleap 1 x Grey Seer (120)** – Spells: Skitterleap – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master 1 x Thanquol (430)** – 4 x Warpfire Projectors – Spells: Skitterleap
BATTLELINE 10 x Night Runners (90)* – Nightleader 20 x Clanrats (100)* – Clawleader – 2 x Clanrat Standard Bearer – 2 x Clanrat Bell-ringer – Rusty Blade 20 x Clanrats (100)* – Clawleader – 2 x Clanrat Standard Bearer – 2 x Clanrat Bell-ringer – Rusty Blade
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Warp Lightning Vortex (80) 1 x Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (70) 1 x Lauchon the Soulseeker (50)
Small Town Throwdown: Smoke on the Water (US) – 30 Players
Army Faction: Orruk Warclans – Army Type: Big Waaagh! – Grand Strategy: Waaagh! – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Orruk Warchanter (120)* – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork – Warbeats: Fixin’ Beat Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Warbeats: Get ’Em Beat Skragrott, the Loonking (160)* Orruk Megaboss (140)** Wurrgog Prophet (170)** – Artefacts of Power: Glowin’ Tattooz – Spells: Gorkamorka’s War Cry Wurrgog Prophet (170)** – Artefacts of Power: Gryph-feather Charm – Spells: Gorkamorka’s War Cry – Aspects of the Champion: Abhorrant Ghoul King
BATTLELINE Moonclan Stabbas (125)* – Moonclan Boss – Bad Moon Icon Bearer – Gong Basher – Stabba – 3 Barbed Nets Orruk Ardboys (80)** Orruk Ardboys (240)*** – Ardboy Boss – 3 x Gorkamorka Glyph Bearer – 3 x Waaagh! Drummer – 6 x Orruk-forged Shield Orruk Brutes (450)*** – Brute Boss – Jagged Gore-hacka Orruk Brutes (150)*** – Brute Boss – Jagged Gore-hacka
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (70)
Allegiance: Idoneth Deepkin – Enclave: Nautilar – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: The Creeping Gloomtide – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Akhelian King (250)* – General – Bladed Polearm – Command Trait: Unstoppable Fury – Artefact: Potion of Hateful Frenzy – Mount Trait: Voidchill Darkness Lotann, Warden of the Soul Ledgers (110)* Battlemage (100)* – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist – Aspect of the Champion: Stubborn as a Rhinox – Allies
Battleline 6 x Akhelian Morrsarr Guard (360)* – Reinforced x 1 20 x Namarti Reavers (340)** – Reinforced x 1 10 x Namarti Reavers (170)** 10 x Namarti Reavers (170)** Akhelian Leviadon (460)* – Mount Trait: Ancient
Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness – Army Subfaction: Legion of the First Prince – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Centaurion Marshal (145)* – Artefacts: The Conqueror’s Crown 1 x Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)* – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Chaotic Conduit – Aspects of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage – Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh 1 x Eternus, Blade of the First Prince (235)* 1 x Be’lakor (355)*** – Spells: Daemonic Speed
BATTLELINE 24 x Chaos Legionnaires (330)** 6 x Furies (90)** 6 x Furies (90)***
BEHEMOTH 1 x Chaos Warshrine (185)*** – Prayers: Curse – Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh
OTHER 1 x Cockatrice (105)* 3 x Gorebeast Chariots (345)*** – Exalted Charioteer – 3 x Chaos Greatblade and Lashing Whip – Mark of Chaos: Undivided
This is the top three AoS lists for the Sheffield Slaughter that took place in the UK on the 21st and 22nd of February. It involved 98 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: Gloomspite Gitz – Subfaction: Jaws of Mork – Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours – Triumph: Indomitable x2
LEADERS Skragrott, the Loonking (160)* Squigboss (80)* – General – Command Traits: The Clammy Hand Madcap Shaman (70)* – Artefacts of Power: Moonface Mommet – Spells: The Hand of Gork – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master
BATTLELINE Boingrot Bounderz (420) – Bounder Boss Squig Hoppers (540) – Squig Hopper Boss Squig Hoppers (180) Moonclan Stabbas (125)** – Bad Moon Icon Bearer – Gong Basher – Moonclan Boss – 3 Barbed Nets – Stabba Moonclan Shootas (125)** – Bad Moon Icon Bearer – Gong Basher – Moonclan Boss – 3 Barbed Nets
OTHER Marshcrawla Sloggoth (150) Sneaky Snufflers (110)**
It’s amazing what a new book can do, and Dan Bradshaw has pivoted from Beasts of Chaos to Gloomspite Gitz following their (near-) simultaneous release. Guess we know which one he thinks is better in the current meta. A lot of the army will be familiar with those who played Gitz through the dark times of the last 3 years, and indeed much of the ‘tech’ that is used has been hardened on the crucible of defeat throughout that time.
Dan has no doubt benefitted from his knowledge of the game and the other armies, but it’s still good to see Gitz doing well with an immediate 5-0 out of the gate. Some of this is going to be ‘what does that do’ as people get used to the new army. Other Gitz players did not perform so well, with long term Trogg player – Stuart – going 1-1-3 (but close in all 5!)
So how does it work, and how do you beat it? Well I may leave the 2nd question for a few weeks yet (got to have some time under the light of the moon), but Dan has gone for a toolkit of toys. Skragrott is much improved, and much cheaper – gaining the Warmaster trait and so being able to play with the moon. The Squigboss gives out helpful bonuses and makes Boingrot Bounders battleline (allowing Dan to take 15 of them). The final character is the Madcap with the two stalwarts of Hand of Gork and Moonface Mommet. Both of which are back and both of which are still as good as ever (dare I say essential).
There’s some support in the Marshcrawler and Snufflers both of which buff the other units. The stabbas and shootas are for objective control (within 9″!) and the hitting power comes from Hoppers and Boingrots. Now they have consistent movement (10″+D6 and 7″+D6″) respectively, can run and charge under the moon and cause mortal wounds… plus the squigs can do some real damage. In the previous book I was very happy if my hoppers moved 10″ as (with run) this was normally enough for a maximum attempt at mortal wounds. Now there’s limited risk and the 10″+D6 is much more generous than I expected.
It’s a great start, but we’ll see if this is a ‘flash in the pan’ or a genuine 5-0 consistent battletome. Only time will tell, but well done to Dan for a really good start.
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Allegiance: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Vostarg – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Indomitable
Battleline 30 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (480)* – Reinforced x 2 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)* 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)* 15 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (450)** – Poleaxes – Reinforced x 2
Kevin: With Bounty Hunters out and foot heroes in, there’s a resurgence in non-Magmadroth Fyreslayers. This list abandons the ‘droths entirely for an all-foot list. Its plethora of GCs means it has a solid footing in this season’s tactics.
Andrew’s running Vostarg, the sub-faction for buffing Vulkites, and his six heroes rounding out the leaders are the usual suspects for any Vostarg list, excepting the foot-father. No Fyreslayer can leave home without a Nulsidian Icon Battlesmith for the 4+ spell ignore, and double flamekeeper is basically a must-have for any Vostarg list. Flamekeepers allowing out of phase charging – the combat phase in this case – is absurdly powerful, as is adding damage to the high amount of attacks Vulkites enjoy. The runefather can further pump up those attacks once per game.
In a bit of an oddity for Vostarg, Andrew has added 15x Hearthguard to support his Runefather. This not only gives him some bodyguards, but also some objective holding power that can hit back hard. Those poleaxes’ mortal wounds can rack up fast. Further, with ember storm (prayer to run and charge) and Tunnel Master, the Hearthguard can speed ahead and have the runefather simply teleport to them without fear of them losing their ward or him losing his bodyguard. Tunnel Master can also allow the runefather to position perfectly to share his once-per-game buff with the vulkites. The hearthguard can also be pumped up or charged by the flamekeepers if need be.
The Vulkites do what Vulkites do in any Vostarg list: die while doing damage, pump the flamekeepers, then punch back absurdly hard – either by running and charging or combat-phase-charging. The 30x Vulkite unit will receive buffs excellently as well as Rally’s from the Battlesmith. 30 charging Vulkites with the runefathers and flamekeepers can output, theoretically, 121 attacks of 3 damage (especially with GV battalion allowing them to fight through each other). Those high attack numbers certainly spell trouble for his Nighthaunt opponent. There’s nothing quite as sweet as charging that into an opponent in their combat phase and then activating strike first to wipe out a unit before it gets off its activation. The two units of ten Vulkites can either be deepstriked by the Runesmiter or stay on the field to act as screens, food for the flamekeepers, or objective holders.
The infernoth accomplishes the beautiful Grand Strategy of keeping an invocation on the field while also chasing around Galletian Champions. It can also be used as a poor-man’s fyrewall in some cases, particularly against large bases like Archaon or Mawkrushas.
This list results in the classic Fyreslayer playstyle: a wave of naked dudes with axes that just can’t be removed from objectives. They trade incredibly well with anyone willing to try to remove them in the combat phase, making that route a daunting task. At the same time, shooting is hampered by a 4+ rally under a 6+ ward (5+ ward, occasionally) from the Battlesmith who can not be shot.
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Allegiance: Disciples of Tzeentch – Change Coven: Guild of Summoners – Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch (180)* – General – Command Trait: Cult Demagogue – Lore of Fate: Treacherous Bond – Lore of Fate: Arcane Suggestion Fluxmaster, Herald of Tzeentch on Disc (170)* – Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist – Lore of Change: Bolt of Tzeentch Magister (120)** – Lore of Fate: Shield of Fate – Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master The Blue Scribes (160)** Fatemaster (140)** – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of Fate: Shield of Fate – Lore of Fate: Arcane Suggestion
Battleline 10 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (250)* 10 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (250)* 10 x Tzaangors (180)* – 10x Pair of Savage Blade 10 x Tzaangors (180)* – 10x Pair of Savage Blade 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)* – 10x Cursed Blade & Arcanite Shield
Endless Spells & Invocations Chronomantic Cogs (70) Purple Sun of Shyish (90) Umbral Spellportal (80)
With more chickens than a KFC basket, we have another Guild of Summoners list doing extremely well this weekend. While Kaleb called in the support of a Krondspine to give him time to get those Lords of Change on the board, Stephen goes the more traditional (and pink) tarpit of Horrors to slow his enemy down. Another big change to several other Guild of Summoners lists is that it doesn’t start with a LoC/Kairos on the board at the beginning, allowing more Arcanite casters to be taken instead. This is key, as one way of shutting down a Guild of Summoners list is to kill the mortal characters who the Lords of Change must be summoned through. With three such characters, it’s going to be hard to do that to Stephen’s list.
Once the summoning does get going, the shooty Lord of Change is great here as it’s up to 12 shots, hitting on 3s, wounding on 3s (or 2s if the Fatemaster is nearby), rend -1 BUT if you’re shooting at something in Purple Sun range (helpfully auto-cast by The Blue Scribes) now you’re at rend -2. Have the Curseling use a pair of Destiny Dice to make Arcane Suggestion’s armour debuff be unable to be unbound, suddenly those shots are up to rend -3.
Tzaangors being surrounded by wizards is also a great pick as they’re be doing mortal wounds on 4+ at range, rolling a number of equal to the number of wizards within range, so probably at least 5 dice T1, increasing as the game goes on. Twice. The last troops choice is Kairics, probably there for cheap screening, but get their warscroll spell off and shoot them at the Purple Sunned/Arcane Suggested unit and that’s another 10 rend -3 shots going down range.
All in all, a great take on Guild of Summoners, throwing in a couple of Galletian Champions for battle tactics and being able to quite easily access 4/5 of the Tzeentch specific ones.
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Allegiance: Flesh-eater Courts – Grand Court: Blisterskin – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Abhorrant Archregent (240)* – Lore of Madness: Deranged Transformation – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Abhorrant Ghoul King (170)* – Lore of Madness: Spectral Host Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (450)* – General – Command Trait: Hellish Orator – Artefact: Eye of Hysh – Mount Trait: Gruesome Bite – Lore of Madness: Bonestorm Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Zombie Dragon (430) – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Battleline 9 x Crypt Flayers (540)** – Reinforced x 2 10 x Crypt Ghouls (80)** 10 x Crypt Ghouls (80)*
Discord user: gualtikhan: This list utilizes the full summoning power from the fec Heroes to maximize the number of summons it brings to the table. This adds some mass with which to take the board and pin the opponent off of the objectives. This helps counter the faction’s natural lack of durability as well.
There are some really good spells, mainly a couple of really strong unit buffs (+d3 attacks, +1 attack, 5+ ward, reroll to wound, +1dmg) but fec typically lacks the reliability to cast those often enough. In particular, this list relies on spectral host, combined by the +2 movement of the subfaction, to give the two dragons and the flayers an huge threat range.
Crypt flayers’ ranged attack has big variance but against the right unit can definitely pack a punch. I’m a bit surprised to see arcane tome for an extra unreliable cast instead of the more often taken garland, for -2 bravery, increasing both the efficiency of the scream attacks and the bravery damage.
The aforementioned buffs to damage output synergize really well with the fec command ability to fight twice, allowing one buffed unit to pack some serious damage, and also helping to burst open some bunkers against imperfectly deployed armies.
The teleport is great as it helps with scoring battle tactics and objectives greatly in this edition, and it can be used also to let the flayers scream the right unit at the right time.
All in all this is the best attempt l’ve seen at running Fec, which is a subfaction that is having an hard time right now, having several key units with poor durability and a weakness to alpha strikes, since killing the heroes would prevent their summoning.
This is the top three AoS lists for Bloodshed in the Shires that took place in the UK on the 4th and 5th February. It involved 80 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: Lumineth Realm-lords – Great Nation: Helon – Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Archmage Teclis and Celennar, Spirit of Hysh (700)* – General Scinari Cathallar (110)* – Artefact: Silver Wand – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Battleline 5 x Hurakan Windchargers (130)* 5 x Hurakan Windchargers (130)* 10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)* – Lore of Hysh: Overwhelming Heat 20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)* – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh – Reinforced x 1
Other Units 20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)* – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh – Reinforced x 1
Endless Spells & Invocations Rune of Petrification (60) The Burning Head (30) Umbral Spellportal (80)
What a whopper! Of course, at the top is Teclis, who knows all the spells, and casting 4 at casting value 10 (Without a roll, making crucial spells like Total Eclipse all but inevitable). Through the Umbral Spell Portal, he can throw Searing White Light through to deal a staggering number of mortal wounds all over the place. Between the book spells, Burning head and Rune of Petrification mortal wounds will be dropped all over the place. Adding to the headache, Searing Heat and Rune of Petrification also inflict movement penalties, slowing the enemy army to a crawl.
The rest of the list is mostly pure efficiency. Sentinels still have some of the deadliest shooting in the game, and with 2 units supporting each other, their range is extremely deadly. Even if the enemy gets close, Helon gives +1 shots, putting opponents in a no-win situation. Wardens will keep the enemy at bay while Windchargers move up and grab objectives.
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Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness – Damned Legion: Knights of the Empty Throne – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Archaon the Everchosen (860)* – The Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch (240)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate
Battleline 3 x Varanguard (290)* – 3x Daemonforged Blade – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle 3 x Varanguard (290)* – 3x Daemonforged Blade – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle 3 x Varanguard (290)* – 3x Fellspear – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
New Slaves are starting to make their first splashes in the scene! Initial impressions (including my own) is that there isn’t a great deal of depth to the competitive parts of the book – and Ben here is proving that out with a 3 warscroll list – that is nevertheless highly effective.
Varanguard are pricey at 290 but obviously still slap. The main question when taking them is ‘which weapon’ – with three units, Ben has opted for 2 units to have the Daemon blades (additional mortals on 6s) for tough armour/unrendable cracking – and one ‘scalpel’ unit with rend 3 (on the charge) lances. Keeping them MSU fulfills the battleline tax – and marking them all as Nurgle (-1 to wound in melee) means that on the off-chance they don’t vaporize whatever they go into, or get counter-charged, they could well stick around to hit back down the line.
In KOTET, they can all run and charge, which gives them a huge degree of threat projection and in a battle regiment, Ben probably often gave first away for a devastating first turn of multiple charges where a double could end it there – or postured up carefully and pounced once the opponent over-extended.
Archaon has been a controversial topic among the community since the new rules dropped, but Ben here finds success – given Archaon selects his Mark at the start of the game, there’s tactical flexibility there – for my money, I’d bet he marked him Nurgle most of the time and used him as a durable, utility platform (especially for issuing fight on death to the Varanguard) with a huge board presence.
A cheeky gaunt summoner rounds out the list for a vulnerable but incredibly reliable source of casting – with the Slaves heroic action ‘Draw on Power’, he will have been casting 3 spells on 3d6+1 with one re-roll.
Big congrats to Ben for a strong showing with the new book.
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Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness – Damned Legion: Cabalists – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – The Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed – The Lore of the Damned: Chaotic Cunduit – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)* – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – The Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate
Battleline 10 x Chaos Knights (460)* – Cursed Lance – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle – Ensorcelled Banner: The Eroding Icon – Reinforced x 1 9 x Corvus Cabal (80)* – Mark of Chaos: Undivided 9 x Corvus Cabal (80)* – Mark of Chaos: Undivided
Units 10 x Chaos Chosen (480)* – Mark of Chaos: Undivided – Reinforced x 1 6 x Varanguard (580)* – Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield – Mark of Chaos: Khorne – Reinforced x 1
Big Phil’s list – unchanged from his LVO outing – operates a bit differently to Ben’s, by dint of the 10 blob of Nurgle Knights with the banner – making the unit 30 wounds of 3+, -1 to wound and -1 to rend. Combined with the Soulscream Bridge – reliably cast in Cabalists along with the other important buff spells of Daemonic Power (+1 to hit and wound) and Daemonic Speed for a 3d6 charge – they operate as an alpha pin piece.
Then, the 6 Varanguard follow up behind, marked Khorne to ensure they obliterate whatever they reach. Two sets of cheap’n’cheeky deepstriking Corvus Cabal fill out the battleline while 10 Chosen bring up the rear as a durable, very slappy 3rd wave. Marked Undivided, if they take an objective off the opponent, or kill a hero/monster, they have the ability to start stacking important buffs from the Eye of the Gods table – such as additional rend, +1 to charge, etc!
As mentioned, this is all supported by a brace of sorceror lords – who in Cabalists, and including Arcane Tome, while within 3″ of one another – will be putting out 5 3d6 casts!
It’s a savage list that only lost to LRL Helon, who are capable of throwing out insane weight of mortals while also being Slave Cavalry’s worst nightmare, -1 to hit.
Big love to Phil (whose interview about the Slaves book we’ll be just about to publish as you read this) for pioneering a list I imagine we will see more of in the very near future.
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Allegiance: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Greyfyrd – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (360)* – General – Command Trait: Blood of the Berzerker – Artefact: Draught of Magmalt Ale – Magmadroth Trait: Coal-heart Ancient Auric Runesmiter (120)* – Runic Iron – Artefact: Ash-cloud Rune – Prayer: Ember Storm Auric Runesmiter (120)* – Runic Iron – Artefact: Volatile Brazier – Prayer: Prayer of Ash Battlesmith (150)** – Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha – Artefact: Nulsidian Icon Auric Runeson (80)** – Ancestral War-axe Auric Flamekeeper (90)** Doomseeker (80)**** – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Battleline 10 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (300)**** – Poleaxes – Reinforced x 1 10 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (300)* – Broadaxes – Reinforced x 1 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)*** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)***
To save us getting any info wrong on the list, I reached out to Dominic, who kindly agreed to write a few words on how his list works. Congratulations again, Dominic. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of you and your Fyreslayers this season.
Dominic Stonebridge: If I were to summarise the build of this list – it was designed to be able to score maximum points every turn. It plays the primary well, finds easy battle tactics, and offers the chance to stop your opponent from achieving theirs. It’s a real grind list, but you win warhammer on scoring the most points…and that was the idea behind this list.
Firstly, I chose Greyfyrd for the additional artefacts and extra wound on the heroes. Taking a large number of survivable heroes enables easy scoring of battletactics, especially when coupled with those in the book.
Given the inability to shoot the heroes, the Magmadroth now plays a different role as you can afford to send him into more risky situations if he’s going to trade well, rather than having to protect him to keep the 4+ ward on the Hearthguard! Here I’ve built him as a combat machine with the ability to double his axe attacks and also fight twice once a game. In one round of combat you can get his big axe of 10 attacks – 2s, 2s, -3, 3 and fighting twice…clear a screen and pile into the good stuff or save it for something you really want dead.
Two priests give you options to run and charge but the artefacts are the real tech…one makes you invisible to spells for one hero phase (one of the biggest threats to the slayers GC) and the other gives a reroll and double range of the Magmic invocations. This enables you to pin your opponent at 36” with the wall or start getting mortals into your opponent turn one…such reach slayers lists are normally lacking. This also achieves your battletactic just having one on the board…wild.
Now the Battlesmith. The main event. A 4+ rally, with which you can do 3x using the leadership of the alpha, though I’ve mainly used that for three AODs or AOAs. He also has a 4+ spell ignore bubble and dishes out a 6+ ward, which one a game becomes a 5+. This Slayers list ticks with all the GC alive, and he helps you do that.
The Flamekeeper is next up who gives you a nice little toolbox. Once five slayers die in range, which you’ve probably rallied back on a 4+, he can make a unit charge in your opponents combat phase (or your own to avoid unleash hell!), give plus one damage or fight on death. Fight first and on death Hearthguard play really well into alpha lists or use a counter charge to get onto an objective and stop, say, a battle tactic.
The runeson is mainly there for more survivability and to babysit one unit of Hearthguard, as he shrugs wounds onto them, and then the Doomseeker offers a teleporting GC – opening up even more battle tactics.
Finally, onto normal units…Vulkites with dual Handaxes can get 30 attacks in a unit if they charge and also fight on death. You can use them really effectively with the slayers runes, such as -1 rend or mortals on 6s to wound, and they’ll trade really well if used properly. They also offer screens against alpha armies with high rend…as Hearthguard will die if you can’t roll 4 ups! You can get these Vulkites onto a 5+ ward and -1 to wound too…making them actually quite hard to shift and a bit of a battle tactic trap!
Last but not least, the Hearthguard. A hammer and an anvil – you can deepstrike them with a rune smiter who, in the absence of sharpshooters, can’t be shot and therefore you no longer need to stay in your castle as you once did as a Slayer player! You can build multiple castles around the board…
The 2023 Las Vegas Open for Age of Sigmar had the most participants ever! It was a new experience for me, as it was my first Grand Tournament with over 50 participants and this one had over 300 competitors. This tournament used the 2022-2023 Season 1 GHB, with a standard 5 rounds, followed by a knockout tournament for the top 8 competitors.
The event was held at the convention hall connected to the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. If Vegas is a “sinful theme park,” then the Rio can be described as a dumpster of depression therein. However, the convention hall was nice; silver linings or something.
I’d be attending with a fantastic group of beautiful people: The Georgia Warband. A big shout out to my friend Josh Bennet for finishing 10th! My team all did great, and it was a lot of fun. I’m personally very happy with my 12th place finish and 4-0-1 record for my first LVO.
As a preface, the exact details of matches are sometimes fuzzy or forgotten, so the reports are to the best that I can do with my awful memory.
The List
I had a few lists in mind for the event. I seldom take cookie-cutter lists and so indecision struck me hard; I like being a special snowflake. This was further compounded by being unable to practice while in COVID isolation. In the end I simply asked my wife, “what should I bring to LVO?” to which she responded, “lots of naked men.” Thus, Vostarg was selected with a list I had used variations of on a few occasions.
Allegiance: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Vostarg – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Auric Runemaster (130)* – General – Command Trait: Master Priest – Artefact: Volatile Brazier – Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (360)* – Artefact: Axe of Grimnir – Magmadroth Trait: Coal-heart Ancient Auric Runesmiter (120)* – Runic Iron – Prayer: Ember Storm Battlesmith (150)** – Artefact: Nulsidian Icon Auric Flamekeeper (90)** Auric Flamekeeper (90)**
Battleline 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)*** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)*** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)*** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)**** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)**** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (160)****
This list would hinge on how many Bounty Hunters I would face, but I was confident there would be few. This proved to be a correct assumption, as the tournament had very few Bounty Hunters overall. Part of me feared the mirror match against a 3-BH Runeson Lofnir list.
This Vostarg list operates by forcing opponents to make tough decisions where they often believe both are the bad choice. Killing the Vulkites – which must be done to capture points and slow damage – only counts up flamekeepers to make the remaining Vulkites more powerful. But focusing heroes, such as flamekeepers, means the Vulkites continue to hold objectives while still outputting high damage. Combine this with a Runic Fyrewall to block undesirable movement and a molten infernoth to pressure foot heroes/low wound units, and you have a list which forces opponents to be aggressive.
But aggression only leads to death between fight on death, first-strike, and flamekeepers. This is a high damage list and these Vulkites can table an army that is not playing carefully. For any higher save units, the Runefather can be juiced up to -4/-3 rend swings. When the Runefather goes full bane mode there’s few things he won’t kill.
In play the most important pieces seemed to be the Expert Conquerors which often held objectives against swarms or monsters while forcing opponents to fight them. The Molten Infernoth is the true MVP though: for 40 points it did more than it should in nearly every game.
Games Summary:
Game 1 vs. Karl Rohr, Slaves to Darkness: Cabalists – Major Victory Game 2 vs. Alexander Gonzalez, Soulblight Gravelords: Vyrkos – Draw Game 3 vs. Cam Reid, Flesh-Eater Courts: Blisterskin – Major Victory Game 4 vs. Seth Monegue, Maggotkin of Nurgle: Blessed Sons – Major Victory Game 5 vs. Matthew Barker, Maggotkin of Nurgle: Blessed Sons – Major Victory
Day 1: I Feel Chill, My Heart Says Otherwise
(Yes, that’s my heart rate on day 1)
Game 1 vs. Karl Rohr, Slaves to Darkness: Cabalists on The Presence of Idols
Opponents List:
Faction: Slaves to Darkness – Subfaction: Cabalists – Triumph: Inspired – Grand Strat: Take What’s Theirs
Leaders Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore (265)* – General – Mark of Nurgle – Master of Magic – Binding Damnation – Daemonic Speed Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)* – Mark of Nurgle – Chaotic Conduit – Binding Damnation Chaos Lord on Manticore (270) – Mark of Nurgle – Flame Weapon – Sword and Spear Chaos Lord (115)* – Mark of Nurgle – Spite-tongue Curse – Reaperblade and Daemonbound Steel
Battleline Chaos Warriors (440)* – Mark of Nurgle – Sword and Shield – Eroding Icon – Reinforced Once Chaos Marauders (85)* – Mark of Nurgle – Sword and Shield Chaos Marauders (85)* – Mark of Nurgle – Sword and Shield
Units Chaos Chosen (480)* – Mark of Khorne – Reinforced Once
Endless Spells Gnashing Jaws 70 Cogs 70
Core Battalions *Battle Regiment
Total 2000/2000
Karl is a great guy and was running an awesomely kitbashed army. It was probably one of the coolest armies I’d seen at LVO. I sadly took no pictures during LVO, I don’t know why, but I assure you his army was dope.
Karl’s list is interesting: two manticores! Reinforced Nurgle Warriors are also going to be no easy task to chew through. Luckily I am playingFyreslayers so few things can’t be murderzoned.
I get the chance to put terrain on the board. I put it such that two large impassable pieces lock both players from the long-ways objective from their deployment. This allows me to make use of invocations to block lanes.
Karl outdrops me (as does everyone in the tourney) and takes the top of 1. This is what I meant by “tough decisions.” He, correctly, sees that I’m going to drop a Fyrewall to completely lock off the center of the map from him. He has no priest and no way to stop it if I take top of 1. So he has to do it. I proving grounds (PG) the bottom-right objective, as the left is blocked to him by impassable terrain.
The only unit he can take the PG with is Chaos Warriors, forcing them onto it, while his Chosen and Manticores move up the middle. But I’ve deployed back far enough they cannot reach me. He plays it cautious and toes the objective.
In my turn I auto-run EC vulkites to the upper-left objective and put two units of Vulkites on the center with a 5+ ward up from the battlesmith. My molten infernoth goes off and slaps some wounds on various things.
Round 2 proves decisive for me. I push hard forward, wiping out his chosen down to one guy and holding the center, denying him the central objective. He counter punches and wipes out some vulkites, but that only powers up my army. He’s already behind and needs some big moves in round 3 to stage a comeback.
Instead, I take priority and my molten infernoth rolls doubles: this immediately kills both his manticores, one from full health, which was a very nice roll for me. Further, I finish off the remaining Chaos Warriors with some flamekeeper buffed vulkites. The game is basically over here, though he can still steal a couple tactics, there’s no way he can come back with no Chaos Warriors, Manticores, and one living Chosen.
Fyreslayers nab a major victory, 28 – 14.
Game 2 vs. Alexander Gonzalez, Soulblight Gravelords on The Prize of Gallet
Leaders Vampire Lord (140)*** – General – Command Trait: Pack Alpha – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate – Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions Radukar the Beast (310)*** Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night (400)*** – Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour – Lore of the Deathmages: Decrepify Cado Ezechiar, The Hollow King (140)*** – Spirit Gale – Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Battleline 10 x Dire Wolves (130)** 10 x Dire Wolves (130)** 20 x Deathrattle Skeletons (160)** – Reinforced x 1
Units 1 x Corpse Cart with Balefire Brazier (80)*** 20 x Grave Guard (280)* – Great Wight Blades – Reinforced x 1 1 x Vargskyr (110)* 1 x Vargskyr (110)*
Alex is energetic and fun. He’s a good dude who offers me a Corsairs die at the start of the match. That dice proceeds to roll 6’s like no other! I’ve decided to stop using it, fearing it’s actually weighted. He is the first of two Corsair team members I play against.
Alex’s SBGL is exactly the type of list I fear: BH heavy and has a big, fast, disruptive control piece in Manny. Further, I have no way to shoot him off the board, the infernoth and axes will have to do the work.
I once again set up terrain, doing it in a way to block off lanes. He gives me the top of 1. I place the Fyrewall to block off his units, but don’t really pay attention and leave some spots open for wolves which come back to haunt me later. It pays to be precise with this thing! I spread out to lock out grave summoning from my lines and objectives while he activates the center objective.
He pushes forward in the bottom of two and we just trade the center objective doing little damage to each other. Mannfred does hit my left side and kills 5 or 6 Vulkites, but takes a couple wounds from their fight-on-death. His flying skeletons (via levitate) are the real MVPs here.
I’ll take the bottom of round two and activate my home objective. He moves to contain me fully within my starting zone with wolves on my right and basically everything that isn’t graveguard on my left and center. The vulkites, with fight on death, fight first, and a little tank manages to hold the lines.. Further, my nulsidian icon completely nullifies his offensive spellcasting and the center. This is a huge deal as it will enable my runefather to maintain high damage. I proceed to push onto the center objective and wipe out nearly everything on it, including Cado. The molten infernoth comes down and, in one of the best rolls of my life – rolled doubles into a lot of 6’s for d3 mortal wounds per 6, DUMPSTERS Mannfred. With him gone the game is now back in my favor, I’d say.
As round three kicks in, he takes the bottom and activates his own objective. The wolves are still flanking right and I clear them with the magmadroth as well as some Vulkites. His army has mostly begun being tabled except for some wolves and the grave guard still in the graves.
However, in round 3 he gets a very long charge on his graveguard to not only get into a unit of Vulkites, but spread out across three units of Vulkites. This proves to be disastrous positioning for myself and he proceeds to kill them all with BH Graveguard. Still, I hold both side objectives going into four. But we are basically out of time. Both of us are playing slooooow armies and we don’t have time for another fourth round.
It’s a close game, we talk it out. We both will get our GS for certain. It’s hard to say who would win with the grave guard coming in like they did. I’m confident I can kill them, but its possible I don’t. As we can’t really agree – and indeed, it’s hard to even say what would happen! – and don’t have time to play it out, we just score what we know we can do (tactics and certain objectives). The result is a true draw! What a fantastic game.
Alex is a super great guy, when my molten infernoth rolled that bonkers roll he kept whatever salt he may have had inside, which is better than I would have done! Great dude and lady luck paid off his sportsmanship with a dope charge later. He was also a fantastic general and I think he outplayed me for the most part. It was only by luck and vulkite power that I kept that game so tight.
Fyreslayers draw with SBGL.
Game 3 vs. Cam Reid, Flesh-Eater Courts on Silk-Steel Nests
Opponent’s List
Army Faction: Flesh-eater Courts – Army Subfaction: Blisterskin – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Abhorrant Archregent (240)** – Spells: Spectral Host 1 x Crypt Infernal Courtier (130)** 1 x Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (450)** – General – Command Traits: Hellish Orator – Artefacts: Eye of Hysh – Mount Traits: Gruesome Bite – Spells: Deranged Transformation
BATTLELINE 9 x Crypt Flayers (540)* 10 x Crypt Ghouls (80)** 10 x Crypt Ghouls (80)** 10 x Crypt Ghouls (80)**
TERRAIN 1 x Charnel Throne (0)
OTHER 5 x Blood Knights (200)* – Kastellan 5 x Blood Knights (200)*
Cam’s list is an interesting one. Cam seems like a fun guy so I know this will be a fun match, which proves to be true! His list has three BH which will prove to be trouble for me as even the horses do 2 wounds. It’s also a list type I’ve never seen out of FEC and I’m not quite certain how it works to my own detriment.
The Molten Infernoth did so much in the last game but would do nearly nothing in this one, often rolling no mortal wounds at all. I guess luck comes and goes.
Cam lets me set up the terrain and I do what I always do: block lanes that a large base wants to be in. I set up defensively knowing he has speed and hoping if he does take first to bait him into bad positions.
Instead, he takes the bottom and I set up the usual castle with the battlesmith ward. He moves forward in the bottom and we both just get two points plus tactic. He gives me the top of two, sadly, and I push further up on the right to begin threatening those objectives. I accomplish little. Meanwhile on his turn he hits my left side HARD and wipes out my shield vulkites which take a few Flayers with them. He’s now a point ahead on VP.
I take the top of three and punish him for his aggressiveness. My magmadroth kills his general terrorgheist. I also kill a few Flayers and push the center and right to threaten his home objectives. Sadly, his Flayers double activate (didn’t know they could) and kill my magmadroth as well as most of my vulkites on that side, though on death they do kill his courtier.
On his turn the blood knights wipe out the vulkites threatening his objectives, taking some wounds in return. The decisive moment comes here though. He charges my line of foot heroes on the lower left. This allows me to combat-charge my vulkites that are behind the heroes into the flayers and pump their damage as well as activate their fight first. They kill the flayers down to one remaining.
He takes the top of four and retreats the flayers as well as brings up blood knights to wipe out more vulkites. On my turn I’m pushing back on the left and center while the right side has stalemated. But by auto-running a flamekeeper with the movement rune I take a center objective though. Movement rune once again being clutch late game. Funny, I used it and almost forgot to add the movement (2” is important!).
I win the priority roll into five which allows me to take more objectives and gain more tactics. At this point there’s no way for him to outcap me on anything and he has to choose between objectives or tactics. My final vulkite unit which has been sitting holding the bottom right the entire game is Expert Conquerors ensuring his blood knights can’t auto-run to cap any objectives.
Another nail-biter against a death army. Cam played a great game. I feel like my ignorance of his army definitely hurt me here and I should have deployed more heavily to counter the flayers.
Fyreslayers nab a major victory, 27-26, a one point win.
Day 2: My Brain Has Finally Stopped Functioning
I head into day 2 after a night of drinking, eating, not-sleeping, and spending too much money.
Game 4 vs. Seth Monegue, Nurgle on Realmstone Cache
Opponent’s List
Army Faction: Maggotkin of Nurgle – Grand Strategy: Spread Rampant Disease – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Gutrot Spume (170)* Lord of Blights (150)* Lord of Blights (150)* – General – Command Traits: Overpowering Stench – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Plague Squall
I’m confident going into this game against Seth. Fyreslayers generally don’t have issues with damage and there’s only one center objective to kill things on for two rounds. Seth’s cordial and we both seem burnt out from the previous day. Math becomes arduous for us both.
This game proves to be a quick one. Seth takes the top of one in order to prevent me locking him off the objective with a Fyrewall. A wise move considering which army he is playing. He pushes onto the center objective with two units of 10 blightkings, the other two units of five being off board at the moment. I push forward and simply take the center objective and knock a few wounds off some Blight Kings. I keep my walls up so he can’t deep strike into anything important.
Both Nurgle players I had as opponents made the same mistake: counting their blight kings as two on objectives even when they are four wounds each (the bonus wound spell not being on them at that time or on a different unit). I didn’t know they only should count as one until after the tournament. This forced me to commit too many models in both games against them, but it’s not a huge deal.
I gave him the top of two and he pushed into my lines. Between a 5+ ward, fight on death, and a gigantic molten infernoth blocking a huge lane, he doesn’t get much done. He hangs some wounds on the magmadroth and kills some vulkites which fight on death to kill a couple blightkings and push wounds onto a hero.
On the bottom of two I pop my flamekeeper buff, my Runefather +1 attack buff, the rend rune, and basically anything and everything else I have ready. This juices my army so massively that I kill all the remaining blightkings, I believe there were 18 or so on the board, and his general. Four damage swing Vulkites (BH + flamekeeper buffs) with four swings each is potent.
The game is basically over here. I’ve lost a unit of vulkites and he’s lost his general and both of his main blight king units. We talk it out and go grab a drink!
Fyreslayers win a major victory, 26-16.
Game 5 vs. Matthew Barker, Nurgle on Nidus Paths
Opponents List
Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle – Subfaction: Blessed Sons – Mortal Realm: Ghyran – Grand Strategy: Tend the Garden – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders The Glottkin (650)* – Lore of Malignance: Rancid Visitations Lord of Afflictions (230)* – General – Command Trait: Overpowering Stench – Artefact: The Splithorn Helm
Battleline 10 x Putrid Blightkings (500)* – Reinforced x 1 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (250)* 10 x Rotmire Creed (130)* 10 x Rotmire Creed (130)*
Matt’s probably my most enjoyable opponent of the tournament. He’s a great dude and the second member of Corsairs that I play against. We both are clearly running on very tired hamsters at this point and will make frequent mistakes throughout the game. A couple of funny ones are me forgetting to even put my forge down and him choosing a tactic that can’t be accomplished (I let him pick a different one in like the charge phase and he lets me put the forge down when I notice something like round 3). Mostly the game is just a fun one at this point.
That said, Matt is probably the most skilled of any of my opponents (no disrespect to any of the others). While I usually find Nurgle an easy match for Fyreslayers, this one will prove difficult. It turns into a real chess match and Matt knows his army well. He also does not commit any of the mistakes the previous Nurgle opponent makes. He is crafty and knowledgeable, and this makes the game truly fun.
I place terrain and set the middle up with two large pieces exactly 6” apart to help block movement in the entire center of the board.
He gives me the top of round 1. I drop a Fyrewall to block the entire center of these terrain pieces ensuring his Glottkin and blightkings have to go around. I push hard to the top left, leaving one vulkite in the rear to block the nurglings. I also bring over some shield vulkites on the right to hold the objective.
In the bottom of 1 he brings his flying units left along with his rotmire and Glottkin. His blightkings go right but won’t be able to affect too much yet. On the left the attack kills some vulkites but doesnt take objective due to the 5+ ward basically. Positioning here is weird for us both as the table has a gigantic dip in it making our models fall over.
At this point my brain is fried and I don’t recall the exact order of how things go down. But I can summarize by location.
On the upper-left: his Glottkin is a true thorn in my side and I can’t retreat and rally Vulkites because he’ll movement-phase charge. This means I have to sacrifice any units already in combat. Still, my magmadroth and the vulkites in the area, combined with flamekeeper kill everything but the Glottkin at first, and eventually do take down the Glottkin. His Rottmire hangs onto the objective a bit longer than I’d like but will fold.
On the bottom-right: His blightkings fail a charge and can’t take the objective from my EC shield vulkites. They then make a charge and wipe out the vulkites. But by this point a bounty hunter group of vulkites makes its way there and nearly wipes out the blightkings. The remaining shield vulkites give enough wounds to hold the objective.
On the bottom-left: He never gets a chance to threaten this objective and I teleport in round four a unit of vulkites from here across the board.
On the top-right: The vulkites I’ve teleported here will take this objective in round four or round 5. There’s not a lot he can do to stop this as the rotmire he ran back to stop this can’t hold out if they do get charged and can’t out-cap the vulkites.
We talk it out and just due to objective holding power I take the win. A fantastic match! Not my closest, but probably the most fun.
Fyreslayers win a major victory, 25-19.
Conclusion
Some great games, some great players, and overall a fantastic experience for my first LVO. While I missed the 5-0, I went into this event with no expectations and would be happy with a positive finish. So ending 12th place with a 4-0-1 record had me thrilled. I nearly brought Lofnir, feeling it may have performed better, but it’s hard to argue with results.
The list itself ran great and while it was difficult to pilot, showed the true power of Vulkite Berserkers. If there’s one major downside, it’s how it makes you and opponents feel. I explained the flamekeeper before every single game. But when you use a combat round charge or fight on death with them, the opponents always feel like you have gotcha’d them. In fact, a lot of once per game abilities in FS feel that way and it’s difficult to talk about them all as there are so many.
The molten infernoth proves once again to be worth its weight in ur-gold. Killing Mannfred on its own was probably one of my favorite Fyreslayer moments.
The shield Vulkites proved to be a perfect inclusion. They were able to tank and hold objectives where axes could not. While axes can throw damage out on death, sometimes you just need to hold an objective with models, not with damage.
Expert Conquerors was critical to the list’s success and is/was probably the most underrated part of this entire GHB. Its loss going into the new season means this list loses a ton of power, even without BH still around.
Will I go to LVO again? Probably, but I hope it’s not in the Rio.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Scottish Lasters that took place in Scotland on the 21st and 22nd of January. It involved 26 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: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Hammers of Sigmar (Scions of the Storm) – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Knight-Vexillor (120)* – General – Meteoric Standard – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Spell: Celestial Blades Knight-Incantor (120)* – Spell: Azyrite Halo Lord-Commander Bastian Carthalos (300)*
Battleline 2 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (240)* 2 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (240)* 4 x Dracothian Guard Tempestors (440)* – Reinforced x 1 5 x Judicators with Skybolt Bows (200)*
Units 2 x Stormdrake Guard (340)* – Drakerider’s Lance
Another Stormcast with unusual choices, it’s good to see more diversity and a few different heroes. Knight Vexillor is being discussed in Discord a lot lately, but mostly for his teleport potential (Pendant of the Stormbringer). Here he’s been equipped with the Metoric Standard and also provides Celestial Blade support. The Standard gives a once a game Comets Call. Azurite Halo isn’t commonly seen, but on a 6 to save it inflicts a Mortal Wound (MW). Then there is Bastian, a great model with amazing abilities but slow movement. Otherwise, the list is very mobile with Drakes and Draconiths (12” and 10” movement, respectively). Tempestors are seeing a revival just now, short range, but they offer a lot of shots and are pretty tough to boot. Their mounts still have -2 rend 2 damage attacks. And the pairs of Fulminators and Storm Drakes for Mobil threat generation and scoring.
And there you have it, a lot of mobile small threats able to apply pressure centred on Bastian with a large hammer unit that can also perform as an anvil. Ranged MW for chip damage and multiple small units to charge, blunting the effectiveness of Unleash Hell. The icing on the cake is the Judicators, only 10 shots, but the ability to double shoot makes a sizeable difference. JJ scored well throughout and weathered everything thrown at home, proving again that mobility and flexibility are a winning combination.
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Allegiance: Daughters of Khaine – Temple: Zainthar Kai – Grand Strategy: Bloodthirsty Zealots – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Bloodwrack Medusa (140)* – General – Command Trait: Zealous Orator – Artefact: Shadow Stone – Lore of Shadows: Mindrazor Morathi-Khaine (350)* The Shadow Queen (350)*
UNITS 10 x Witch Aelves (120)* – Sacrificial Knives and Blade Bucklers 10 x Witch Aelves (120)* – Sacrificial Knives and Blade Bucklers 15 x Blood Sisters (450)* 15 x Blood Sisters (450)*
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL: 1980/2000
It’s Morathi and the Stab Sneks in a Zainthar Kai ‘pins and needles’ configuration – guaranteed to stab you even on death! Double the stabs, double the fun.
In all seriousness, it’s at least interesting in the sense that it’s using new points, so we can see a slight squeeze on bonus units such as Khinerai. This list is still going to rip, and tear – 30 Blood Sisters just asks the rather rude question to each opponent of ‘do you prefer an unkillable giant snake or 13 ish MWs per activation’. The question is whether sheer glass-cannon power (the whole army is on a 5+ bar the Morathis) can make up for lesser board control in the meantime?
Losing to the movement and strike/fade shenanigans of Sylvaneth suggests no, to some extent. Beating down on Seraphon, OBR, and Soulblight makes sense – although it’s interesting that Alastair was able to get the win against KO, who are typically able to just utterly neuter the stab-threat with early shooting. My guess based on my own games is that he was able to use Shadow Queen – and potentially Morathi with Steed of Shadows to make her super fast and more importantly fly – to tag the big boats and shut down their game. Certain KO builds are less vulnerable to this but in general, when tagged by a flying unit they lose a lot of their abilities – being one drop, I’d love to have seen whether Alastair dared the KO to come close and used the Witch Aelves to screen best they can, or whether he took first to capitalise on the KO player not deploying quite far away enough.
Either way, gratz on the new points win against some touch matchups.
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Allegiance: Disciples of Tzeentch – Change Coven: Eternal Conflaguration – Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Kairos Fateweaver (440)* Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch (180)* – General – Command Trait: Cult Demagogue – Lore of Fate: Arcane Suggestion – Lore of Fate: Shield of Fate Fatemaster (140)* – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of Fate: Glimpse of Future – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate
Battleline 20 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (500)** – Reinforced x 1 10 x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (250)** 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)** 6 x Tzaangor Enlightened (180)* – Reinforced x 1
Endless Spells Burning Sigil of Tzeentch (60) Tome of Eyes (40) Soulscream Bridge (80)
Craig’s list of 30 Pink Horrors and support is something I think we’re more likely to see in the new GHB without Bounty Hunters around to split those daemons fast enough to stay on top, but Craig gave them a final run-out with Expert Conquerors and was able to dodge Bounty Hunters in all but one of his matchups (that he still won!). What makes Pinks with Expert Conquerors such a challenge is that the situation on objectives just gets worse the first 20 wounds you do, with the unit going from counting as 60 on an objective to a maximum of 120! It is only at the point of the 81st wound, after killing the 21st Brimstone Horror, that the unit holds an objective less securely than when it started. So, do you bother early game? If you don’t, you might never get through it, but if you do, then you might not be scoring. This is exactly the dilemma that seems to have outfoxed all opponents until the ultimate winner, JJ, essentially passed the DPS check with Fulminators and Dragons at his disposal.
The support casters help buff that big unit up, with the Curseling knowing an extra spell via the Warlord battalion so it can cast Arcane Suggestion for -1 to hit and -1 to wound on the unit most likely to hit the Horrors and then Shield of Fate for a 5+ ward save on them too. The command trait Cult Demagogue is also there, making any cast on a double not only successful and worth two fate points instead of one, but also unable to be unbound. Low Destiny Dice are perfect for this roll, with double 2s or 3s getting the casting value 8 spell Arcane Suggestion off. Kairos will then give you a Destiny Dice back each hero phase and the Fatemaster, who also gives +1 to wound to all Disciples of Tzeentch units wholly within 9”, can cast Glimpse the Future to gain an additional Destiny Dice. Throw in Tome of Eyes for re-rolls, probably on the Curseling, and the key buffs the Pinks need to hang around are very likely to be in place.
Another cool little bit of tech that Craig has included is 6 Tzaangor Enlightened on foot. These hit as hard as their cavalry mounted beast-kin, but are half the price. Included in the list as well is the Soulscream Bridge, probably cast by Kairos, which can get these elites where they need to be, able to make a 9” charge with the Destiny Dice. While some sacrifices have to be made to get this combo off (no Cogs or Portal in the list), the Enlightened can be almost as mobile as the ones on disc for 100pts less – 100pts this army needs elsewhere.
All in all a fantastic result for Craig, spending 4/5 games on the top two tables and just slightly being edged out in the end.
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Allegiance: Fyreslayers – Lodge: Greyfyrd – Mortal Realm: Ulgu – Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Auric Flamekeeper (90)* Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (360)* – General – Command Trait: Blood of the Berzerker – Artefact: Master Rune of Unbreakable Resolve – Magmadroth Trait: Coal-heart Ancient Auric Runemaster (130)* – Artefact: Volatile Brazier – Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal Battlesmith (150)** – Artefact: Nulsidian Icon Auric Runesmiter on Magmadroth (330)** – Runic Iron – Magmadroth Trait: Flame-scale Youngblood – Prayer: Wrath of Vulcatrix
Battleline 10 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (300)** – Poleaxes – Reinforced x 1 10 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (300)** – Broadaxes – Reinforced x 1 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)** 10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)**
Many heroes make light work, at least with Fyreslayers. It is possibly one of the factions that will really take to Galletian Champions and the added mobility from Tunnel Master. Mobility is, of course, their biggest weakness, with most moving only 4″. Magmadroths help (16″), but Fyreslayers units remain pretty close for all of that overlapping buff goodness. Greyfyrd gives 2 extra artefacts, and each hero an extra wound. Sean’s answer to the mobility issue is to make the foot heroes hard as nails and let them buff +heal the infantry (Prayer: heal and 4+ Rally from the Battlesmith) and mitigate incoming spell damage resulting in a solid anvil that hits back. Then he has the Magmadroths tooled for war, the Runefather fights twice (once per battle), and has a 3+ ward (again once per battle). Funny if you trigger both on the same combat phase, normally Turn 2 or 3, to remove a big threat – hits once, weathers the incoming damage on the ward, and then destroys his target. The Magmadroth reduces incoming damage by 1. This is a tanky build.
The Runesmiter is more of a glass cannon, designed to charge, use Stomp as its monstorous rampage for extra damage, and can fight on its top row with a prayer (Wrath) The Berzerkers are nasty in combination with the Flamekeeper, especially the Poleaxe equipped unit. 2 Mortal Wounds on every 6, and they can be made to fight on death or give an extra attack. It’s a nasty combination to watch for. Really, you want to stay away and make them come to you to try to split up the heroes and the units. You really don’t want them to get into and hold the centre or a key objective because they’ll be very hard to move. With the Magmadroths to pin your screens and that hard centre, it can take serious work or magic/shooting to deal with a list like this. And your archers are likely to have to deal with MW from Zhaggron.
The second round draw is interesting, 2 very slow armies, one with range and the other with Cavalry – in the end, a high scoring draw, it makes me wonder how much fighting there was. The loss was to the winner, and we’ve covered that. That list has multiple units that would take down the elements in this list (Fulminators, Drakes).
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the SoCal Masters Grand Tournament that took place in Texas, USA on 7th and 8th January. It involved 10 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: Beasts of Chaos – Army Subfaction: Allherd – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Indomitable
LEADER 1 x Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (155)** – Spells: Hailstorm, Sundering Blades 1 x Tzaangor Shaman (135)** – General – Command Traits: Dominator – Artefacts: Blade of the Desecrator – Spells: Vicious Stranglethorns, Wild Rampage 1 x Grashrak Fellhoof (150)** – Spells: Savage Dominion, Wild Rampage
BATTLELINE 10 x Ungors (65)*** – Brayhorn – Banner Bearer – Ungor Blade and Half-shield 10 x Ungors (65)*** – Banner Bearer – Brayhorn – Ungor Blade and Half-shield 30 x Tzaangors (525)*** – Twistbray – 2 x Icon Bearer – 2 x Brayhorn Blower – 4 x Tzaangor Mutant
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Wildfire Taurus (70) 1 x Ravening Direflock (30)
OTHER 6 x Tzaangor Enlightened on Discs of Tzeentch (360)* 6 x Tzaangor Enlightened on Discs of Tzeentch (360)* 1 x Tuskgor Chariots (65)* 5 x Grashrak’s Despoilers (150)**
Danny: Beasts of Chaos are finally running scared….of their new book. Because it contains at least the possibility of them being balanced.
In the meantime, you have something like this. In case you’re unfamiliar with how BoC work, let’s just say they do everything, with loads of bodies that punch above their weight (thanks to the Herdstone which gives rend that stacks by battle round and a 4+ rally emanating in an increasingly large aura by battle round) coming in from board edges when you least want them to.
For those who are experienced in such matters, let’s look to the innovations in this list. Well, it takes Grashrak Fellhoof and his merry band of Despoilers for a spin, on loan from Underworlds – who allows Brayherd units (i.e. most of the stuff in the list) to get…+3 to their movement…and a tasty spell for d3 mortals and +1 to hit for all units into that target. In true BoC fashion, that would probably be good value enough on its own but the 5 Despoilers in tow act as a bodyguard/ablative wounds too.
Beyond the usual ‘borrowing’ of the best stuff from the new Tzeentch book, the list also includes a token Tuskgor chariot. You don’t see those every day! But for 65 pts it’s a 10″ move, 6 wound on a 4+ piece with minor chip damage – but it’s 65 pts and moves 10″, who cares what else it does. The things BoC have access to for under 75 pts never ceases to amaze me.
Wishlist from the new book: change everything. Yes the models are old and ugly but their rules don’t need to match.
Of course – kudos to the general, as no army can win without skill. And there’s a lot to remember with BoC.
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Gregory Brewer 3/0/2
Army Faction: Orruk Warclans – Army Type: Ironjawz – Subfaction: Bloodtoofs – Grand Strategy: Waaagh! – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90) – Spells: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork Megaboss on Maw-krusha (480)* – General – Boss Choppa and Rip-toof Fist – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Mount Traits: Fast ’Un – Spells: Bash ’Em Ladz – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur Orruk Warchanter (115)* Orruk Warchanter (115)*
Brett: Two things Ironjawz don’t love; huge screens (that they don’t clear on the first attempt) and lots of rend. Beasts bring both. Greg bounced back from a first round loss to the eventual winner before losing again in the 4th round to Kruleboyz (KB). Mortal wounds can be an issue for Ironjawz and 21 Boltboyz in 2 x 9 and a 3 man create some problems. Greg’s tried to increase damage output by taking Bash ’em ladz (+1 to wound rolls) but it’s not reliable with the high casting value. This list trys uses the Mawcrusha and 6 Goregruntas as the dynamic damage combination with the Krondspine as a 3rd threat/pining piece. Unfortunately, screens and MW shooting is a tough ask for a melee army. With poisons and MW those Boltboyz are removing a pig or two with Unleash Hell.
Other than his 2 losses though Ironjawz punished his opponents. Krondspine works great in the list either pining something important or distracting attacks from the Mawcrusha. 6 Gore gruntas have likewise proven to be a good foil to the Mawcrusha either supporting a push on one flank or allowing board wide pressure. Teleporting ardboyz is another effective distraction opportunity. Everyone knows the alpha strike but the inclusion of Krondspine and the larger Goregrunta unit give more subtlety and give options. It’s a matter of choice whether you take the Shaman for the teleport or not, it’s a very effective distraction/scoring mechanism.
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Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Hallowed Knights (Scions of the Storm) – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Gardus Steel Soul (150)* Lord-Castellant (155)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Spell: Celestial Blades
Battleline 5 x Vanquishers (110)* 5 x Vanquishers (110)* 5 x Vanquishers (110)*
Units 4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)** – Drakerider’s Warblade – Reinforced x 1 4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)** – Drakerider’s Warblade – Reinforced x 1
Brett: If there is one thing Stormcast have in spades, other than dragons, it’s Battleline units. Vanquishers are seeing some more use but usually a single unit, taking 3 is a bit of a risk but worth it if there are horde armies around. Drop one onto an unprotected objective and even if your opponent removes them they will attack on death, they have the Thunderstrike keyword as well give their Blaze of Glory an extra dice. Easier to shift with only a 4+ but damaging to deal with. No holy command is shown but if it was Call to Aid (likely) then that dead unit is going to return (only once per battle). Otherwise we have Gardus for a 5+ ward within 12″ and the Lord Castellant (who we’ll probably be seeing even more often as a Galletian Champion). Generally he’d put both buffs (+1 to save and +1 to wound) on a unit before it was sent into harms way.
Still there are issues, the Drakes have a lot of wounds but are hard to give cover from shooting, they can easily get out of buff range, redeploy can ruin charges and with high rend they will wilt. Evan recovered from 2 losses in the opening rounds, losing to a SCE list with a lot of shooting and Krondys (with Thudershock to wreck those charges and leave you exposed to the shooting). The second loss was to Maggotkin, damage output is a continuing issue for SCE and you don’t really want to be near them very long or the mortals pile up. Solid mobile list very reflective of where SCE is right now.
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Army Faction: Fyreslayers – Subfaction: Lofnir – Grand Strategy: Masters of the Forge – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Auric Runemaster (125)* – General – Command Traits: Avatar of Vulcatrix – Artefacts of Power: Volatile Brazier – Prayers: Heal Auric Runesmiter (135)* – Runic Iron – Prayers: Prayer Of Ash Celestial Hurricanum with Celestial Battlemage (290)*
BATTLELINE Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)* – Ancestral War-axe – Mount Traits: Coal-heart Ancient Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)* – Ancestral War-axe – Mount Traits: Flame-scale Youngblood Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)* – Ancestral War-axe – Mount Traits: Lava-tongue Adult Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (170)* – Karl – Hornblower of Grimnir Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (170)* – Karl – Hornblower of Grimnir
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Runic Fyrewall (40) 1 x Horrorghast (40) 1 x Molten Infernoth (40)
TERRAIN 1 x Magmic Battleforge (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1970/2000
Alice: There’s really only two ways to build Fyreslayers: Berzerker spam and Magmadroth Spam, but it comes with the territory of having a limited number of models.
That said…this one is interesting. Lofnir lets you bring Magmadroths as battleline, and juices them up to boot with extra wounds and mount traits. They’re a solid work horse monster that can do some solid damage output and horde clearing, a task Fyreslayers frequently struggle with. The Runesmiter and Runemaster support the army with powerful prayers, including the important Infernoth for Mortal Wound output and the Fyrewall to protect important units and objectives. Also key, the Runesmiter can tunnel a Magmadroth in 9″ away from the enemy, with bonuses to charge thanks to a supercharged rune granted through the army’s Heroic Action.
The Celestial Hurricanum is an interesting ally, it helps cover two of the Fyreslayer’s biggest weaknesses: Lack of Wizards and Ranged Mortal Wounds. A solid choice for artillery support. Rounding it off it can cast the Horrorghast, a powerful way to clear out a few extra models from large hordes by blocking Inspiring Presence.
