Category Archives: Barak Zilfin

Top Three AoS Lists for Spring Rubicon 2023 GT

This is the top three AoS lists for the Spring Rubicon 2023 GT that took place in Wisconsin, USA on the 29th and 30th of April. It involved 40 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament. The event was organised by The Die is Cast crew from Youtube.

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: Kharadron Overlords
– Sky Port: Barak Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: Rule the Skies
– Triumphs: Inspired
Kharadron Code
– Artycle: Settle The Grudges
– Amendment: Prosecute Wars With All Haste
– Footnote: There’s No Reward Without Risk

LEADERS

Arkanaut Admiral (125)*
– General
– Command Trait: Ex-Grundstok
– Artefact: Celestium Burst-grenade
– Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha
Aether-Khemist (80)*
Brokk Grungsson Lord-Magnate of Barak-Nar (220)*

BATTLELINE

15 x Grundstok Thunderers (405)*
– 3x Aetheric Fumigators
– 3x Decksweepers
– 3x Aethercannons
– 3x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 2
10 x Arkanaut Company (100)*
– 1x Light Skyhooks
Arkanaut Frigate (300)*
– Main Gun: Heavy Sky Cannon
– Frigate Regittings: Magnificent Omniscope

UNITS

3 x Endrinriggers (120)*
3 x Endrinriggers (120)*

BEHEMOTHS

Arkanaut Ironclad (500)*
– Main Gun: Great Sky Cannon
– Major Installation: The Last Word

CORE BATTALIONS

*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS 1970 / 2000

Today we have another Kharadron Overlords list, this time from Nicholas True who ran a very interesting Barak Zilfin list. A lot of the usual suspects are present here, with his Kharadron Code being +1 to wound, extra movement from runs, and a once per game 3d6 charge. Then we have our Admiral with Ex-Grundstock to make Thunderers battleline and a Celestium Burst-Grenade to turn off ward saves. There is also the requisite Thunderer buff machine we all know and love that goes by the name Aether-Khemist, who will be handing out -1 rend candy all game long. But the really interesting part of this hero lineup is a cheeky Brokk Grungsson Lord-Magnate of Barak-Nar, in a Barak-Zilfin list.
Brokk deserves special mention here because at first glance it looks off since his best ability, +1 to attack profiles in melee, only applies to Barak-Nar units. However, his Command the Fleet ability works just like the Admiral’s similar ability, but he can target up to three boats with this command which can really spread out the board. Kharadron Overlords lost its great positioning gameplay with the new Battletome, even if it kept its mobility, but Brokk’s command ability the army can overcome that and really take advantage of raw speed to get into position and still shoot. Unfortunately, the ability does not let the guys inside the boat shoot since the boat has already received the command it cannot use Combat Landing in the same movement phase. Combine all that utility with a powerful shooting and melee profile and Brokk can easily be an unexpected menace on the board especially in the mid-game when things tend to bog down.

The rest of the list is again what we would expect with a Battleline Frigate, an Arkanaut Company, and the monster nastiness of double reinforced Thunderers with Special Weapons. Woe be the opponent who thinks they can tank the output from this unit, especially when you add in the Khemist -1 to rend buff, and the Admirals once per game -1 rend ability. The sheer volume of rend -2/-4 ranged attacks will drop almost anything. Watch out, it slaps. Rounding out the troops are a couple of Endrinrigger squads to give a little frontline pressure and heal the boats.

Speaking of boats, Nicholas brought along an Ironclad to finish off his list with the curious addition of The Last Word which has been unpopular compared to the Battle Ram in other KO lists. This does create something of a deterrent if an opponent correctly assesses the Thunderers as the real threat in the list and if the boat properly backs them up it means in addition to eating an Unleash Hell from the Thunderers, there is also a Great Sky Cannon. An interesting choice that makes the idea of charging Thunderers even less appealing.

Nicholas brought a great list with some unexpected threats in an army that already excels at keeping opponents unbalanced and on the back foot. Outstanding job and well played.

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Army Faction: Blades of Khorne
– Subfaction: The Flayed
– Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours!
– Triumph: Indomitable

LEADERS

Bloodsecrator (110)*
– Artefact: The Crimson Plate
Dromm (180)*
– Prayers: Bloodbind, Curse
Realmgore Ritualist (100)*
– Prayers: Bronzed Flesh, Unholy Flames
Slaughterpriest (110)**
– Bloodbathed Axe
– Prayers: Blood Sacrifice, Bloodbind
– Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Skarr Bloodwrath (100)**
Slaughterpriest (110)**
– General
– Command Traits: High-priest of Khorne
– Bloodbathed Axe
– Prayers: Bronzed Flesh, Killer Instinct
– Aspects of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage

BATTLELINE

Blood Warriors (570)***
– Blood Champion
– Paired Goreaxes
– 3 x Icon Bearer
– 3 x Goreglaive
Claws of Karanak (100)***
Claws of Karanak (100)***

BEHEMOTH

Chaos Gargant (145)

ARTILLERY

Skull Cannon (140)

OTHER

Magore’s Fiends (120)*
Gorechosen of Dromm (180)**

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS

1 x Bleeding Icon (40)
1 x Wrath-Axe (70)

CORE BATTALIONS

*Warlord
**Warlord
***Galletian Veterans

TOTAL POINTS: 1995/2000

Amusingly losing only to another Khorne list, this is an interesting set up.

At first glance, it looks like a mad grab bag, but I think I see the logic. Claws of Karanak are obscenely useful pre-game movers for their points, and following on their heels is a triple reinforced unit of Blood Warriors, who I’m sure were hilarious to try and kill, all the while bouncing mortals back and putting out a non-trivial weight of attacks that could be buffed to rend 2 with Unholy Flames, and after activating – thanks to the Flayed sub-faction – capable of a 5 up ward.

Meanwhile, you have 4 priests, who’re the not-so-secret sauce to Khorne mortal lists. I mean, the entire Prayer lore is utterly banging, and with High-priest of Khorne on one of them, this list is praying out 5 (including the two excellent Invocations) per round.

The other tech on display is Skarr (who deep-strikes back alive on an 8+ when killed) for blood tithe farming, a Chaos Gargant who for the -1 save aura, who I imagine was kinda wrapped in Blood Warriors to make them really nasty to charge – and a skull cannon for a cheap way to pick off a few screens where necessary.

A really fun looking list, and I’m jealous of his Claws of Karanak, can’t buy those bastards for love nor money at the moment!

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Army Faction: Blades of Khorne
– Army Subfaction: Bloodlords
– Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours!

LEADER

1 x Bloodmaster (110)**
– Artefacts: Ar’gath, the King of Blades
– Prayers: Killer Instinct
– Aspects of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
1 x Bloodsecrator (110)**
– Artefacts: Banner of Blood
1 x Aspiring Deathbringer (80)**
1 x Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury (330)***
– General
– Command Traits: Embodiment of Wrath
1 x Bloodmaster (110)***
– Prayers: Blood Sacrifice
1 x Bloodmaster (110)***
– Artefacts: Halo of Blood
– Prayers: Unholy Flames

BATTLELINE

20 x Bloodletters (360)*
20 x Bloodletters (360)*
10 x Bloodletters (180)*
10 x Bloodletters (180)***

OTHER

5 x Garrek’s Reavers (70)**

CORE BATTALIONS:

*Galletian Veterans
**Warlord
***Warlord

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

A more traditional Khorne Daemon list here, following the ‘loads of bloodletters in Bloodlords for MWs on 5+ to hit, supported by Bloodmasters and Bloodthirsters’ which I’m henceforth going to call the ‘Bloody Blood Bloods‘ archetype.

There’s not a huge amount more to it than that – but of note is the Grand Strat – have more GCs alive than opponent at end – which should be fairly locked in with 5 of them and a large swathe of horny bastards running at you in the meantime.

Another bit of tech to note is the Halo of Blood on the Bloodmaster – this allows him to strike first, and with his war-scroll ability to allow a unit of Bloodletters to fight immediately after him, when positioned correctly can mean charging him/them is essentially suicide. Nasty stuff and took down some savage opponents for a great result.

Peter: Danny failed his challenge. He had to mention Blood 10 times in the comment. 9 = Not acceptable.

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Army Faction: Skaven
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty


LEADER

1 x Warpgnaw Verminlord (275)*
– General
– Command Traits: Devious Adversary
– Spells: Flaming Weapon
1 x Deathmaster (140)*
– Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master
1 x Verminlord Deceiver (420)**
– Artefacts: Shadow Magnet Trinket
– Spells: Flaming Weapon
1 x Slynk Skittershank (220)**
1 x Deathmaster (140)**


BATTLELINE

5 x Gutter Runners (100)**
5 x Gutter Runners (100)**
5 x Gutter Runners (100)**


OTHER

5 x Gutter Runners (100)*
5 x Gutter Runners (100)*
5 x Gutter Runners (100)*
5 x Gutter Runners (100)*
4 x Skittershank’s Clawpack (220)**
5 x Gutter Runners (100)**


CORE BATTALIONS:

*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment


TOTAL POINTS: (1995/2000
)

Brett: How do you describe this list? 8 Gutter Runner units, 8. Is this a secret Khorne list? No it’s Clan Eshin with poisoned weapons and a very rare Warpgnaw Verminlord (Forgeworld) – who also happens to be Eshin. That makes the Gutter Runners battleline, important to make this work. Teamed with the Deceiver this is a very nasty pair of hammers. Lots of Flaming Weapons to maximise their potential. Add a pair of Deathmasters and Slynk Skittershank, with his Clawpack (fights first) and there are so many threats. All with ranged and melee attacks and poison damage on 6s.

This list lets you be everywhere, you can easily hold objectives and most turns you will have a Battle Tactic available. With the Verminlord’s to capture your opponents attention or remove threats. The Deathmaster’s , Gutter Runners and Slynk all run and shoot making it easy to get with in 12″ for some throwing star magic. You’d expect this list to score very well, and it did, scoring better than the winners through to the last round. It’s weakness? Anything that can split fire and remove Gutter Runner’s quickly – like a shooting heavy army. KO’s combination of speed and shooting was too much in this case with both an Ironclad and Frigate with loads of Arkanauts. A great skew list but with Seraphon getting a new book it mightn’t be long lived.

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Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for Border War 2023

This is the top three AoS lists for Border War 2023 that took place in the Albury, Australia on the 29th and 30th of April. It involved 43 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.

Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.

If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?

Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.

The Top Three AoS Lists

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

Kharadron Code
Artycle: Settle The Grudges
– Amendment: Prosecute Wars With All Haste
– Footnote: There’s No Reward Without Risk

LEADERS
Arkanaut Admiral (125)*
General
– Command Trait: Stormcaller
– Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha
Aetheric Navigator (85)*
Artefact: Voidstone Orb
Endrinmaster with Endrinharness (90)*

BATTLELINE
9 x Endrinriggers (360)*
1x Grapnel Launchers
– Reinforced x 2
10 x Arkanaut Company (100)*
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
Arkanaut Frigate (300)*
Main Gun: Heavy Sky Cannon
10 x Grundstok Thunderers (270)*
2x Aetheric Fumigators
– 2x Decksweepers
– 2x Aethercannons
– 2x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 1

UNITS
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
Main Gun: Sky Cannon
– Gunhauler Modifications: Zonbarcorp ‘Debtsettler’ Spar Torpedo

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

CORE BATTALION
*Battle Regiment

Total: 2000 / 2000

Sometimes, it pays off to lean into the highlights of a new Battletome, and Luca Foerster’s Barak Zilfin Kharadron Overlords list does this perfectly. One of the biggest loses to Kharadron Overlords was the loss of Aethergold in the new book, which was often used for an on-demand +1 to wound, Luca offsets this by taking the new Settle The Grudges Artycle which gives all Kharadron Overlords units a static +1 to wound against a target chosen at the start of the game. Less versatile, for sure, but often more impactful when multiple units are needed to ensure that something is made dead.

Luca starts things off with a classic Admiral taking Stormcaller and Leadership of the Alpha. Stormcaller allows for the rerolling of dice from the Navigator’s Read the Winds ability, which I will talk about in a moment. He follows that up with an Endrinmaster with Endrinharness, which pays the tax of allowing Endrinriggers to be battleline. Lastly, for heroes, he has taken a Navigator who gets an unbind/dispel and is carrying a Voidstone Orb, which is a once per game Artefact that will auto-unbind a spell. A powerful deterrent against trying to snipe heroes with spells or setting up crippling -1 to hit/wound auras. However, the real power of the Navigator is its Read the Winds ability, which allows it to roll six dice and then choose an effect. It can choose to either pick an enemy unit for each “one” it rolls to deal d3 mortal wounds and half movement until its next hero phase or for each “six” pick a friendly Boat and immediately normal move it D3+3 inches. The extra movement is great, but the real value is crippling fast enemy units, and combined with the reroll from the Admiral’s Stormcaller ability it can flat out win games by crippling the opponent’s ability to advance up the board to contest objectives or complete battle tactics. Sometimes, the best way to win is to not allow your opponent to play, and I especially feel for the poor Sons of Behemat player who ran afoul of this.

Moving onto his troop selection, Luca has taken a sample of the Kharadron mainstays. He has a double reinforced unit of Endrinriggers, which brings a bucket of rend -2 to the game both at range and in melee. They can also heal the boats, but that is just a bonus. The native rend -2 is the real benefit here. Next up, we have a common theme within Kharadron in this edition, the extremely efficient reinforced Thunderers with Special Weapons. They bring a massive amount of firepower at shotgun range, but back that up with a native 3+ save, 20 wounds, debuffs, and even mortal wounds in melee. They are a classic, “Move Me” objective holder with just enough range that they can not be ignored. A unit of Arkanauts rounds out the troop selection.

To finish off the list, Luca brought one of each of the Kharadron boats. An Ironclad toting around the Battle Ram to combo with the once per game 3d6 charge from his Footnote, a battleline Frigate courtesy of Barak Zilfin, and a cheeky Gunhauler to give the larger boats a 6+ ward save and a fast mover to cap objectives later in the game. He packages all of this into a one-drop Battle Regiment at an even 2000 points.

This is a classic list that can do well at range and in melee. It presents a difficult challenge for opponents as the Battletome Battle Tactics allow it to avoid interaction but greatly punishes opponents who spread out to score their own. Combined with Luca’s outstanding play, I pity the poor souls who had to face it.

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Allegiance: Ogor Mawtribes
Mawtribe: Boulderhead
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

LEADERS
Frostlord on Stonehorn (450)
Artefact: Vial of Manticore Venom (Universal Artefact)
– Mount Trait: Rockmane Elder
Frostlord on Thundertusk (400)
Mount Trait: Matriarch
Huskard on Thundertusk (330)*
Blood Vulture
– Mount Trait: Rimefrost Hide
– Prayer: Keening Gale
Icebrow Hunter (120)*
General
– Command Trait: Touched by the Everwinter
– Prayer: Pulverising Hailstorm
– Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha

BATTLELINE
6 x Mournfang Pack (510)*
Gargant Hackers
– Reinforced x 2
2 x Frost Sabres (80)*
2 x Frost Sabres (80)*

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 99
Drops: 3

We’ve an absolute legend joining our team for the top three comments this week.

Peter Atkinson (AKA Plastic Craic) has recently made a return with a revamped website and a crack team of top AoS gamers to help him!


Peter Atkinson: Thanks for having me on gents – long time listener, first time caller.

“It’s gotta be Little Lisa Simpson, Springfield’s answer to a question NOBODY ASKED!”

– Ned Flanders

Well he’s pulled one out of the bag here, hasn’t he? The Thundertusk answers the question nobody asked, namely “how can I do chip damage to a chaff unit in the shooting phase?”. The whole point of shooting is that you get to pick where the damage goes, but the limitations around where (and how much) the Thundertusk can apply its output are usually seen as crippling in the hands of most players.

Well, up steps The Mayor to show he’s not most players.

The Factory-standard Frostlord is of course present, with the Manticore Venom artefact being a slightly unorthodox pick, but all Stonehorns will take consistency of output where they can get it. I like it. In fact, I might just copy it.

Then Mat goes off script with the double Tusks: one as a Frostlord for the 3+ save and at least some kind of melee output, and the other packing the 5++ ward Trait. Coupled with the Boulderhead extra wounds and neg -1 to wound on the big lad, Mat has layered up the durability buffs in this army, but he’s done the same with his charge bonuses too. Both Frostlords add stacking +1s to charge in an aura, and the 3rd Mount Trait does the same (for Thundertusks only), so they’re all supporting each other to charge at +2” or +3”. It won’t boost the charge mortals, but it can blow the game wide open with some unexpected long bombs.

And how about those Mournfang? He has the prayer for extra movement on them, so with dual Frosties nearby and their native plus 1” to charge, they’re often gonna be zipping around at +3” to move and +3” to charge. This unit is a ride-on lawnmower, and your army is the mole poking its head out of the ground.

They give zero fucks about overwatch too, so with all their charge mortals added in, KO might not be as scary as you think; and speaking of KO, those Thunderers make a prime target for Thundertusk shooting. You don’t want the pricks rallying back, but bringing them into combat means they can’t use Rally anyway.

In fact, expensive combat units with good saves are where Thundertusks want to be generally, and there’s a lot of that in the meta right now; so if they will ever have a time to shine this is it. They won’t go too badly into Khorne’s Mighty Skullcrushers for example, with a double-tap putting enough mortals into them that a decent charge or two could clean them up without even worrying about that stupid 0+ save. OBR springs to mind too.

In practice though, I think I’d use the Thundertusks just as often to bludgeon through a support hero. 2 mortals, another 2 mortals, Blood Vulture, bam. That’s a 5-wound hero gone. The chances of spiking off a 6-wound hero are not trivial, and across two turns of shooting it’s very likely they’re toast. Efficient sniping? No, but sometime’s a Tyrant’s gotta do what a Tyrant’s gotta do. And something like a Krulghast or Death Frenzy can just switch off your win condition, so efficiency goes out the window at that point and you just do what you have to.

The kitty cats are an ace in the hole, popping up to secure Desecrate and then (because they can’t be shot in cover) usually forcing a far-more-expensive combat unit to hit reverse gear and clear them up. They’re not half bad at soaking up a mortal-wound overwatch too.

I know Mat has owned this army for aeons but it rarely sees the tabletop in competitive play. So I’ll be honest, I looked at this list and thought Mat was bringing a palette-cleanser pick for his hometown GT, so he could relax into his games with no pressure.

Well the more you look at it, the better it gets. It’s surprisingly strong into a couple of dominant new books and you write it off at your peril. Strutting onto the podium with such a unique list is a great achievement – well done mate.

If you found this write-up informative, check out our site over at Plastic Craic where we’re smashing out regular, high-quality Age of Sigmar coverage. See you there.

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Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
Damned Legion: Knights of the Empty Throne
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADERS
Archaon the Everchosen (860)*
The Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)*
General
– Command Trait: Master of Magic
– Artefact: Chaos Familiar
– Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
– The Lore of the Damned: Daemonic Speed
– Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120)*
Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
– The Lore of the Damned: Chaotic Conduit

BATTLELINE
6 x Varanguard (580)*
5x Fellspear
– 1x Daemonforged Blade
– Mark of Chaos: Khorne
– Reinforced x 1
9 x Corvus Cabal (80)*
Mark of Chaos: Undivided
5 x Chaos Knights (220)*
Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch
– Ensorcelled Banner: The Blasted Standard

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 89
Drops: 1

Ok folks, we’ve reached the Slaves sass threshold. What that means is we’ve now seen enough good results, with similar-enough lists, in a short enough time period, that I get to be a little bitch about them.

So what we have here is lots of the two good units in the book (cavalry) in the sub-faction that makes cavalry able to run and charge, with Archaon slapped on top for good measure. Archaon does offer a lot of tactical flexibility thanks to his picking a mark before deployment and not in the list building stage, and even though he’s always been frustratingly easy to kill and frustratingly bad at killing when I’ve run him, when he inevitably gets the Nurgle mark he’s definitely an annoying man-mountain that can stomp an objective while the 6 Varanguard do their thing.

I’ve also spotted that the Chaos Knights have been marked Tzeentch so that they can be yoinked around a bit by the Tzeentch Sorceror Lord. I wonder if that ever actually went off? At least it’s new!

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Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
Stormhost: Hammers of Sigmar (Scions of the Storm)
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADERS
Karazai, The Scarred (550)*
Lord-Castellant (160)*
Artefact: Gryph-feather Charm (Galletian Champion)
Lord-Relictor (150)*
General
– Command Trait: High Priest
– Prayer: Translocation
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master

BATTLELINE
4 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (480)*
Reinforced x 1
5 x Liberators (120)*
Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield
10 x Vanquishers (220)*
Reinforced x 1

UNITS
6 x Praetors (280)*
Reinforced x 1

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

ADDITIONAL ENHANCEMENTS
Holy Command: Call for Aid

Total: 1960 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 104
Drops: 1

Joel’s a really knowledgeable Stormcast Player and has been running a version of this list for most of the edition. You can check out the development of the list and how it plays on his channel Measured Gaming. Some of the most entertaining Battle Reps you’ll watch, but I warn you, it’s very definitely NSFW.

The concept is simple, go first and jam Karazai into something. He is either going to be a wrecking ball or serve as a fantastic distraction (you can’t let him run around). There are still 2 Galetian Champions for battle tactics, the Lord Castellant is one of the strongest here, with a 5+ ward to make him harder to shift. Scions of the Storm lets you get him where you want him if you keep him off the board. There is the choice of either the Vanquishers or the Fulminators to accompany him. 7 Units, only half are allowed in the storm chamber, giving a few options. The Praetors are along to provide their bodyguard to Karazai. Staying close to Karazai is the trick though.

The Praetors are probably a surprise for anyone who hasn’t played against them. With 3 attacks and 2 damage, they have solid output, especially into 4+ and 5+ saves. If your army relies on a big block of something or a couple of models, Karazai is your worst nightmare. Most of the lists Joel faced suffered from that issue or would struggle to affect Karazai as MSU (Bladegheists). If you have a lot of threats and enough units though, you can overwhelm this list and score where they aren’t. I’ll let Kieron cover how the Skaven list worked against Karazai. I’m predicting disposable clan rats helped clog up the works.

If you have the chance it’s worth watching how Joel plays this list, it’s fun if nothing else. He’s also one of the few people that seem to be perfectly fine with the standard Liberator.

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Final Tournament Placings

Path To Glory Battle Report (Kharadron v Kruleboyz)

You may have seen both Ian’s post and my own in the last couple of weeks showing our Path to Glory armies for the campaign we’re running at Woe Towers.

With our armies set, I challenged Ian to a quick game at our local gaming club (shout out to Battlefield Hobbies).

Gollok’s Plan (Kruleboyz)

Da plan is ded simple, right! All we’z gotta do iz shoot dat big boat ov derz outta da sky. Den we goes and stikk da rest of da stunties before dey noes wot ‘it ’em, right! – Gollok Spleenchewa

I’m not going to lie. Seeing where Kharadron sits in the stats, I was dreading going up against the list Ian had in mind. With an Aether-Khemist, Arknonaut Company, Endrinriggers, and a frigging Frigate, my hopes are pinned on removing the Frigate early game and hoping that my army isn’t too badly damaged to then mop the rest of the Dwarfs up. Luckily, I do have a killbow, which could be ideal for taking on a multi wound model such as the Frigate.

Army Faction: Orruk Warclans
Army Type: Kruleboyz
– Subfaction: Grinnin’ Blades

LEADERS
Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof (Gollok Spleenchewa) (130)*
General
– Command Traits: Slippery Skumbag
– Artefacts of Power: Eye-biter Ash
– Mount Traits: Fast ’Un

BATTLELINE
Gutrippaz (Gollok’s Rippaz) (150)*
Gutrippa Banner Bearer
– Gutrippa Drummer
– Gutrippa Boss
– Wicked Stikka
Hobgrot Slittaz (Gollok’s Grots) (80)*
Scrap Totem Bearer
– Noise-maker
– Hobgrot Boss

ARTILLERY
Beast-skewer Killbow (Gollok’s Killbow) (100)*

OTHER
Man-skewer Boltboyz (Gollok’s Skewers) (120)*
Boltboy Boss

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 580/1000

Glory Points: 5
Quest: Tornado of Destruction
Territory
Settlement

Khreld’s Strategy

Buck up, lads! My bones are tingling which means only one thing, a prize to be won! And all there is between us and the loot to be recovered is a rabble of greenskins. Lets pump them full of metal and grab our prize. Though we may need to wash the smell off it before we trade it in… – Khreld Thundergust

Going in to my first proper game of Sigmar I will admit I did not have high hopes. Peter is an experienced player who knows his army and has an idea of mine, whereas I am completely new and barely know my own. I know the Killbow needs to be avoided by my Frigate, and taken out quick, but otherwise I will just be seeing what works and what doesn’t.

Army Faction: Kharadron Overlords
– Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin

LEADERS
Aether-Khemist (Khreld Thundergust) (80)*
General
– Command Traits: Cunning Fleetmaster
– Artefacts of Power: Celestium Burst-Grenade

BATTLELINE
Arkanaut Company (Stoutstock’s Company) (100)*
Company Captain
– Aethermatic Volleygun
– Light Skyhook
– Skypike
Arkanaut Frigate (The Crafty Dispute) (300)*
Heavy Sky Cannon
– Magnificent Omniscope

OTHER
Endrineers (Keelborne’s Riggers) (120)*
Mizzenmaster
Grapnel Launcher

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 600/1000

Glory Points: 5
Quest: Negotiate Endrin-Contract
Territory
Forgotten Mine

Battleplan and Deployment

The Table with Deployment areas (Blue Kharadron, Red Kruleboyz)

We decided to play a standard battle plan, rolled on the tables in Season 2 to get Battle lines Drawn. So we would need to claim each table quarter. Ian had only four units to do so, but things weren’t much better for me with five!

Being a sneaky Orruk, I used all the tools in my arsenal and broke out the Dirty Tricks. With the recent Battlescroll update, I’m able to choose two of these. The first I chose Noisy Racket, which meant that the Kharadron would be -1 to wound against my units in the first battle round (which we promptly forgot!). I then chose Disappearin’ Act and rolled well to delay both the Endringriggers and the Arkonaut Company. This left just the Frigate and the Endrinmaster on the table. Ian, having the choice of priority elected to give me the first turn.

Kruleboyz Turn 1

Battle Tactic: Desecrate their Lands (Woods in centre)

Having the first turn, I moved and ran the hobgrots to secure the tactical woods in the centre of the table and also put them inside the lower left table quarter. The Rippaz followed them and took up position on the hill behind them while Gollok ran off up the right flank to secure that table quarter. Everything else I left still as a statue as they got ready to unleash all they had at the frigate. I got so excited about shooting my killbow at the frigate and carrying out Gollok’s genius plan, only for Ian to use Cunning Fleetmaster to move his Frigate to the other side of the hill, and out of reach! With his Aether-Khemist hiding out of sight of my Skewers, there wasn’t much else I could do this turn as Ian’s cleverness of giving the first turn to me became apparent.

Points
Kruleboyz:
5
Kharadron: 0

Kharadron Turn 1

Battle Tactic: Opening Salvo

Ian, confident in his shooting (and why wouldn’t he be?), chose Opening Salvo as his battle tactic, meaning all he had to do was destroy one of my units in the shooting phase. He moved his frigate back across the hill near to the Hobgrots in the centre, along with his Aether-Khemist, once this had moved he bought on the other units I’d delayed through Disappearin’ Act and set them up around his Aether-Khemist.

Starting with the Khemist, he generated eight shots against the poor defenceless Grots in the centre. Luckily for me these all whiffed spectacularly (You’ll notice a trend emerge soon-Ian). He chose to shoot everything he had on the frigate at the grots as well, but unlucky rolls saw only four of the Hobgrots lifted from the table. The Arkanauts and Endrinriggers kill a further 2, meaning unfortunately for Ian, he was unable to achieve his battle tactic that turn.

With revenge against both his dice and the plucky Hobgrots in mind, the frigate charged into them killing three of them. This left just one alive, which thanks to Inspiring Presence decided to stick around.

Points
Kruleboys:
5
Kharadron: 2

Kharadron Turn 2

Battle Tactic: Desecrate their Lands (Centre Woods)

Winning the priority and electing to go first this turn meant that Ian had the double, and the Kruleboyz were in serious trouble. Only needing to remove a single hobgrot, Ian wisely decided to try desecrate their lands and take the centre terrain feature away from my plucky hobgrot.

The Endrinriggers moved across the right to try and get into range of the Kruleboyz missile units while the Arkonauts moved to the south side of the northern hill and within range of the woods for the tactic.

Thinking it through, Ian designated three units for the target of his frigates attacks. The carbines at the hobgrot, the cannon at the Killbow and the skyhook at the Skewers. It didn’t take much to remove the Hobgrot and Ian knew his carbines on the frigate should be enough to do so, which they were. The poor hobgrot was transformed into a red mist giving Ian the objective. The cannon also did its job and left the Killbow as a mound of broken orruk and wood where it had previously sat. All eyes turned to the skewers, Ian rolled for the skyhook and…. missed! (Again…-Ian) However, it wasn’t over yet, the Endrinriggers and a few Arkonauts were still in range! Unfortunately Ian’s bad luck with his rolls returned and was only able to remove a single skewer and cause a wound on another.

With his forces having decimated mine with its shooting, Ian confidently charged his frigate into the Gutrippaz on the hill. Killing two of the Orruks and wounding another. The Gutrippaz replied in kind and with no less than 4 sixes on the to hit rolls, along with the other attacks the frigate suffered a mighty 10 wounds from the Rippaz. More was yet to come as we went into Kruleboyz turn 2.

Points
Kruleboyz:
5
Kharadron: 7

Kruleboyz Turn 2

Battle Tactic: An Eye for an Eye

Seeing my opportunity, I chose the tactic, an eye for an eye, with the hope that the Gutrippaz would finish off the frigate in combat that turn.

Before that though, I gave Gollok ‘His Finest Hour’ and used his mount trait Fast ‘Un to move him in the hero phase towards the juicy looking Endrinriggers, Arkonauts and Khemist. The movement phase saw him almost on top of the Endrinriggers, while the remainder of my skewers shuffled around to take a bead on the Endrinriggers and fish for those mortal wounds.

The shooting phase did not disappoint as the Skewers did enough damage to completely destroy the Endrinrigger unit. I chose to ignore the frigate, figuring that the Gutrippaz should have enough in their pocket to down it.

With the path to the Khemist and Arkonauts opened up Gollok let out a whoop of excitement as he and his doggo charged into Khemist and the surrounding Arkonauts. Using Unleash Hell, the Arkonauts managed to score 3 wounds on Gollok. Having the choice of first unit to fight, I didn’t want to risk the frigate killing enough Gutrippaz that meant I wouldn’t do enough damage back so I chose to go with these first. It was a formality as the 5 wounds were easy enough for the Gutrippaz to get through. The Khemist attacked Gollok but was unable to land a hit before his savage hound tore into the Khemist and left him for dead. The Arkonauts did what they could but were unable to get through the Gnashtoof’s tough hide.

Points
Kruleboyz: 10
Kharadron: 7

At this point Ian conceded the game, with little options left to him and only the Arkanaut company on the table any threat to the Kruleboyz had been removed.

Kruleboyz – Post Battle Thoughts and Sequence

Part of me feels very bad for Ian, this was his first proper game of Age of Sigmar and with the Kharadron Overlords only for it to end at the bottom of turn 2.

Going into turn 2 after Ian’s clever ruse in the the first turn I thought the writing was on the wall for the Orruks. I envisioned Ian shooting me from distance I tried to close with him, this was compounded when he removed the killbow and a skewer, I was lucky to have two left. He then chose to charge the frigate, and this was what turned the tide. With the venom-encrusted weapons, Kruleboyz don’t care too much about your armour saves and this showed why. With 10 wounds in thee first round of combat and then finishing it off in the second it was easy meat for the boyz. If Ian had put his Arkonaut Company inside it however, it would have been entirely different!

I gained a total of 9 glory points from the game and 3 quest points. Meaning next time I can attempt to try and do the Tornado of Destruction battleplan. After their performance against the frigate it only seemed right to give the Gutrippaz the favoured warriors and the additional D6 renown, and this tipped them up into Veterans. I decided to give them the veteran ability Backstabbaz which will allow them to immediately fight after another unit in my army does so inthe fight phase. They did however have 1 casualty point, which would mean I’m starting the next game with only nine of them on the table potentially. All my other casualty rolls went well, apart from the Hobgrots wo suffered two. Deciding to keep the Well Spring I rolled for on the territory table and with 3 glory points remaining, I used these to purchase a Swampcalla Shaman for my small force.

GOLLOK’S SWAMPCRAWLERZ
Army Faction: Orruk Warclans
Army Type: Kruleboyz
– Subfaction: Grinnin’ Blades
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof (Gollok Spleenchewa) (130)*
General
– 16 Renown
– Command Traits: Slippery Skumbag
– Artefacts of Power: Eye-biter Ash
– Mount Traits: Fast ’Un
Swampcalla Shaman (Grulb Da Mad) (100)*
– Spell: Choking Mist

BATTLELINE
Gutrippaz (Gollok’s Rippaz) (150)*
– Gutrippa Banner Bearer
– Gutrippa Drummer
– Gutrippa Boss
– Wicked Stikk
– 6 Renown
– Veteran Ability: Backstabbers
– 1 Causalty Point
Hobgrot Slittaz (Gollok’s Grots) (80)*
Scrap Totem Bearer
– Noise-maker
– Hobgrot Boss
– 2 Casualty Points

ARTILLERY
Beast-skewer Killbow (Gollok’s Killbow) (100)*

OTHER
Man-skewer Boltboyz (Gollok’s Skewers) (120)*
– Boltboy Boss
– 1 Renown

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 680/1000

Glory Points: 0

Quest: Tornado of Destruction
Quest Points: 3

Stronghold Territory (Gollok’s Pad)
Settlement (Quagmire)
– Wellspring (Grulb’s Digz)

Kharadron – Post Battle Thoughts and Sequence

Well, that could have gone better. Yes, my rolls were against me in that first (and some of the second) shooting phase but that is all part of the game! I can pinpoint exactly where I went wrong, charging that Frigate in! I played with too much agression when, having the mobility, I could have out maneuvered Peter’s Orruks and pulled him out of position. Even used the Fly High command and repositioned my Frigate behind Peter’s weaker units. So, to sum up my learnings – use more commands, try putting my Company into the Frigate for a bigger impact (and better positioning), and don’t charge the unit that deals a lot of mortal wounds!

I gained 5 Glory Points from the game. I had to make casualty rolls for my Endrinriggers and my Aether-Khemist. The Aether-khemist I rolled a 1, which is death! Now that is a little harsh so I spent a Glory Point on a re-roll and ended up with no-effect. The Endrinriggers initially took a casualty point but I spent another Glory Point to reroll this (there are only three of them!) and got no effect. The Frigate rolled against the damage table from the Kharadron Battletome and also got no effect. Where were these good rolls during the game!

As for reknown, the Company gained 1 for surviving and the Frigate gained 2 as my nominated MVP which was a no-brainer. After all this I decided to add some Thunderers to my roster for 4 glory points, just to give me some more options and more boots on the ground.

Army Faction: Kharadron Overlords
– Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin

LEADERS
Aether-Khemist (Khreld Thundergust) (80)*
General
– Command Traits: Cunning Fleetmaster
– Artefacts of Power: Celestium Burst-Grenade

BATTLELINE
Arkanaut Company (Stoutstock’s Company) (100)*
Company Captain
– Aethermatic Volleygun
– Light Skyhook
– Skypike
Arkanaut Frigate (The Crafty Dispute) (300)*
Heavy Sky Cannon
– Magnificent Omniscope

OTHER
Endrineers (Keelborne’s Riggers) (120)*
Mizzenmaster
Grapnel Launcher
Grundstock Thunderers (Steelbeard’s Gunners) (135)*
Gunnery Sergeant
Honour Bearer
Aethercannon
Grundstock Mortar

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 735/1000

Glory Points: 4
Quest: Negotiate Endrin-Contract
Territory
Forgotten Mine

Next

Dave and Ed have a game planned within the next couple of weeks. Then, the four of us will be meeting up for our second round of battles at the end of the month.

Top Three AoS Lists for the London Open

This is the top three AoS lists for the London Open that took place in the UK on the 14th and 15th of April. It involved 23 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: Kharadron Overlords
Sky Port: Barak Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours!
– Triumphs: Inspired

Kharadron Code
Artycle: Honour Is Everything
– Amendment: Trust to Your Guns
– Footnote: Without Our Ships We Are Naught

Leaders
Arkanaut Admiral (125)*
General
– Command Trait: Ex-Grundstok
Aether-Khemist (80)*
– Artefact: Spell in a Bottle
– Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha
Aether-Khemist (80)*

Battleline
15 x Grundstok Thunderers (405)*
– 3x Aetheric Fumigators
– 3x Decksweepers
– 3x Aethercannons
– 3x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 2
10 x Grundstok Thunderers (270)*
– 2x Aetheric Fumigators
– 2x Decksweepers
– 2x Aethercannons
– 2x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Arkanaut Company (100)*
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
Arkanaut Frigate (300)*
– Main Gun: Heavy Sky Cannon
– Frigate Regittings: Magnificent Omniscope

Units
3 x Endrinriggers (120)*
– 1x Grapnel Launchers

Behemoths
Arkanaut Ironclad (500)*
– Main Gun: Great Sky Cannon
– Major Installation: The Last Word

Endless Spells & Invocations
Soulscream Bridge (0)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1960 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 117
Drops: 1

Russell Taylor: My list is designed around the ability to have one big turn so when I decide it’s the time to go which is usually turn 1 but can be delayed then I can devastate state my opponent’s army.

The key to this is being able to move my ships and get the thunderers out afterwards this is why I have included the soulscream bridge because it allows me to disembark the units inside the ironclad after bridging them meaning I can apply the extra rend from the khemist to my thunderers and also meaning that my 12 inch range guns are also in better range, I took the footnote that allows two commands to be given to a ship so I can fly high my frigate and disembark using two command abilities mirroring the use of the soulscream bridge. The admiral allows me to give another additional rend once per game which can also be used without disembarking if I don’t need to stack all the rend at once.

The combination of these tactics mean I can deploy in the corner out of range of my opponent and then strike with easy killing priority targets and then clearing up in the next few turns.

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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
– Triumphs: Inspired
– Holy Command: Call for Aid

LEADER
1 x Knight-Zephyros (100)*
– General
– Command Traits: Master of Magic
– Artefacts: Arcane Tome
– Aspect of the Champion: Stubborn as a Rhinox
1 x Aventis Firestrike (270)*
Spells: Thundershock

BATTLELINE
4 x Dracothian Guard Tempestors (440)*
4 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (480)*
5 x Drakespawn Knights (110)*
Standard Bearer
– Hornblower
– Dread Knight
10 x Judicators with Boltstorm Crossbows (380)*
2 x Thunderbolt Crossbow
5 x Sequitors (120)*
Sequitor-Prime
– Stormsmite Greatmace (Sequitor-Prime)
– 2 x Stormsmite Greatmace

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Everblaze Comet (90)

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)

Dan Sidders: The One with the Goat
The list is built with 3 things in mind: it needed to be 1 drop because of the battle pack, it needed to unlock some tome tactics & I wanted it to be a combined arms force that had melee & ranged damage.

The fulminators are battleline in Hammers of Sigmar and delete anything they hit but need a delivery mechanism. That’s where the Drakespawn Knights come in. 10 wounds on a 3+ save for 110 points on cavalry bases. Turned sideways they can screen enough ground to cover a block of 4 large dracoth bases. They also have 10” move the same as the Fulminators so can move up at speed and maintain the screen. They unlock the Pioneers of the Realm battle tactic to contest enemy home objectives with a Cities unit which I completed in 3/5 games. There’s no requirement to control the objective and often one lone survivor would just sneak in during the late game to score the points.

I wanted to get away from the Wildform, Translocate option I had been running because i was throwing the Fulminators forward too early and recently I’ve been trying to slow my gameplay down slightly to force myself to make better decisions.

The shooting hammer came from 10 Crossbow Judicators who have the Rapid Fire rule giving them exploding hits, which when buffed to hit on 2’s provides the highest output shooting available to Stormcast into anything but a 2+ save. It also provides 10 models to stand on an objective and fills a battleline slot. The downside being that they only have 18” range; so I needed something to screen them in order to deepstrike within range.

So my third battleline slot was filled with 4 Tempestors who, like the Judicators have crossbows with exploding hits and the benefit of some rend and mortal wound breath attacks. These guys were deployed out of scions 9” away from my opponents front line – the Judicators sat behind. Lots and lots of shots poured into the enemy. The Tempestors could then risk a charge or simply stand there – the unleash hell they put out is like getting a free fight first! Averaging 10 wounds into any target without a ward. With 24 wounds on a 3+ they generally took up my opponents attention for a couple of turns while the fulminators closed in.

The utility pieces in the list were provided by the heroes; the Zephyros innately teleports and counts as 10 on objectives with Stubborn as a Rhinox but always started the game right on the back line. The comet has 36” range so can be deployed outside of unbind range turn 1 due to the Arcane Tome. The Goat, Aventis Firestrike who dropped to 270 points in the recent battlescroll gives me a 2 cast wizard allowing for a mystic shield and Thunderstrike for a -1 to wound aura within 18” boosting the survivability of the fairly elite force. The fact that he’s a 14” flying monster means he can get into the action to supply a well placed roar and also shift from deployment up behind the shooting units to hand out +1 to hit which solves the need for AOA on both units to maximise the damage potential.

The MVP’s were the 5 sequitors who were a second screen for deployment and an objective holder in the early game. Activating their 5+ ward helped to make them stubborn when needed and then when they went down I used Call for aid to resurrect them further up the field and hunt a hero for the No Challenge too Great tome tactic using their exploding 6’s to hit. Perfect now there are lots of Galetian champions running around!

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Allegiance: Lumineth Realm-lords
Great Nation: Helon
– Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Archmage Teclis and Celennar, Spirit of Hysh (720)
General
Scinari Cathallar (120)
Artefact: Silver Wand
– Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master

Battleline
5 x Hurakan Windchargers (140)
10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)*
– Spell1: Lore of Hysh: Overwhelming Heat
20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (320)*
Spell1: Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh
– Reinforced x 1

Units
20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (320)*
Spell1: Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh
– Reinforced x 1

Endless Spells & Invocations
Horrorghast (70)
Umbral Spellportal (80)
Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (70)

Core Battalions
*Galletian Sharpshooters

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 81
Drops: 6

Mo Ashraf:It’s a fairly standard Teclis castle build with 2×20 sentinels doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The changes to the standard list were taking only one unit of Windchargers and also taking Gnashing Jaws/Horrorghast as endless spells.

The biggest change is that I took sharpshooters on the sentinels, which meant I wasn’t a 1 drop and instead a 6 drop. Throughout the event, I was out dropped by everyone bar 1 player, so didn’t get the choice often to choose 1st or 2nd. I realised this was a mistake though, and in the future, I will go for the 1 drop as the one game I lost could have potentially been avoided if I chose to make them go first.

The extra endless spell meant that one of the book battle tactics of having 2 endless spells on the field was fairly easy to achieve, especially in the late game when opponent wizards were killed off. But the lack of extra units of windchargers/screen meant that the army did feel fairly small.

The list starts really starts to excel later turns of the game when it can start moving up out of the castle to score more objectives, so early game is about killing from a distance as much as possible.

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Allegiance: Fyreslayers
Lodge: Greyfyrd
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Master of the Forge
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Gotrek Gurnisson (480)
Allies
Auric Runefather (120)*
General
– Command Trait: Leader of the Duardrazhal
– Artefact: Axe of Grimnir
Auric Runeson (80)**
Ancestral War-axe
Auric Runemaster (130)**
– Artefact: Volatile Brazier
– Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal
Auric Flamekeeper (90)**
Artefact: Gryph-feather Charm (Galletian Champion)
Grimwrath Berzerker (110)***
Artefact: Draught of Magmalt Ale
– Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage

Battleline
10 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (300)*
Poleaxes
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (300)**
Poleaxes
– Reinforced x 1
20 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (320)***
Reinforced x 1

Endless Spells & Invocations
Molten Infernoth (40)

Core Battalions
*Galletian Command
**Warlord
***Galletian Veterans

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 480 / 400
Wounds: 116
Drops: 9

Kevin Lathers: A rare Gotrek list hits the upper ranks of a GT. Gotrek seems like a natural fit for Fyreslayers: he’s a duardin, they’re a duardin, etc. But he doesn’t really provide much FS don’t already have, such as the ability to kill things in the combat phase. So it’s uncommon to see him.

This list leans hard into him with the Runefather taking Leader of the Daurdrazhal, a CT which allows Gotrek to benefit from the Fyreslayers’ runes (most importantly the movement rune).

He also has a natural buddy in the Grimwrath Berserker, who is basically a mini-me for Gotrek. Between the two of them there’s basically nothing in the game that can stand up to them in the combat phase.

The rest of the list is two units of HGB, brick walls to both screen and hold objectives and Vulkite Berserkers, another objective holder and infantry with a little more mobility. These are supported by a flamekeeper to add a little utility and/or damage to them depending on the situation.

What’s conspicuously missing from the list is a Battlesmith, so this army will be without 4+ Rally, a 5+ ward once per game, and the very helpful Nulsidian Icon which can block offensive/endless spells on a 4+ (almost needed vs. Tzeentch, Seraphon, or LRL). Instead, this list is going to really rely on the 4+ wards from the HGB and Gotrek’s ability to soak up damage as a distraction carnifex.

Oh, and the Molten Infernoth, which does the thing it always does: knock MWs into anything and everything for 40 points.

Overall, this list will take some skilled piloting, but if done right the infantry can hold objectives while Gotrek and Mini-Gotrek clean the board of pests.

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Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for Quest of Champions – Heat 2

This is the top three AoS lists for the Quest of Champions that took place in the UK on the 1st and 2nd of April. It involved 38 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: Kharadron Overlords
Sky Port: Barak Zilfin
– Mortal Realm: Chamon
– Grand Strategy: Rule the Skies
– Triumphs: Inspired

Kharadron Code
– Artycle: Settle The Grudges
– Amendment: Prosecute Wars With All Haste
– Footnote: There’s No Reward Without Risk

Leaders
Aether-Khemist (80)*
Arkanaut Admiral (125)*
General
– Command Trait: Ex-Grundstok
– Artefact: Celestium Burst-grenade
– Aspect of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha
Brokk Grungsson Lord-Magnate of Barak-Nar (220)*

Battleline
10 x Arkanaut Company (100)*
x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
15 x Grundstok Thunderers (405)*
– 3x Aetheric Fumigators
– 3x Decksweepers
– 3x Aethercannons
– 3x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 2
Arkanaut Frigate (300)*
– Main Gun: Heavy Sky Cannon
– Frigate Regittings: Magnificent Omniscope

Units
3 x Endrinriggers (120)*
3 x Endrinriggers (120)*

Behemoths
Arkanaut Ironclad (500)*
– Main Gun: Great Sky Cannon
– Major Installation: The Last Word

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 106
Drops: 1

Fabian Quinn: List theory and design – The list was actually played the weekend before by Tom Mawdsley at the Justice Series GT at Just Play Games. When I saw some of Toms games on Twitter and saw how much fun he was having I immediately wanted to play the list. I have played KO before in a few tournaments so had a general grasp on the army but not with the new book.

The list and interactions – This type of list really wants to be one drop to decide who is going first due to how fragile the list can be and how close some of the deployments are. Zilfin allows the Frigate to become battleline helping to have two behemoths in a one drop list.

Heroes
Arkanaut Admiral – An absolute all star giving out +1 rend to a non Skyvessel, a free command ability to his flagship and the Thunderers every turn.
Aether Khemist – Handing out +1 to rend to a Skyfarer unit every turn helps getting through armour, especially if used injunction with the Admirals Grudgebreaker rounds (+1 rend) units in the army can get up to 4 rend!
Brokk Grungsson – He’s sooooooo much fun and adds a little combat punch to the list to help finish off units that may have been left after some bad rolls.

Units
Frigate + Endrinriggers -15 wounds on a 3+ save with the healing of the riggers is amazing, especially with the +2” to move (from the second free Endrinwork, thanks Zilfin!) meaning placing Brokk in here adds a close combat threat that has not been seen in KO before. When your opponent hears the words I’m declaring a charge they often have to do a double take!

Thunderers – These guys are amazing to kick out of a boat and point at your opponents biggest baddest unit especially with +2 rend!

Ironclad – Still good to help protect and transport the Thunderers plus heroes. The Ironclad in this list is also a great defensive piece to disrupt your opponents charges with the great Endrinwork ”The Last Word” and Supremacy mine!

Overall the list was very fun to use and it really does reward great deployment and positional play. I would definitely say its a double edged sword where poor rolls, deployment and placement can lead to losing very easily.

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Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
– Stormhost: Astral Templars (Stormkeep)
– Mortal Realm: Ghyran
– Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours!
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADERS
Karazai, The Scarred (550)*
General
Knight-Vexillor (120)*
Meteoric Standard
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Knight-Vexillor (120)**
Meteoric Standard
– Artefact: Arcane Tome
Spell: Celestial Blades
Knight-Vexillor (120)**
Meteoric Standard
Knight-Vexillor (120)**
Meteoric Standard
Celestant-Prime, Hammer of Sigmar (330)**

UNITS
5 x Vindictors (130)**
5 x Vanguard-Hunters (110)**
Boltstorm Pistols and Shock Handaxes
5 x Vanguard-Hunters (110)**
Boltstorm Pistols and Shock Handaxes
6 x Praetors (280)*

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL: 1990/2000

Brett: Hero hammer combined with some Vexillor madness for ranged Mortal Wounds. That doesn’t show how carefully this list has been crafted – Astral Templars has become the choice of Stormhost with the new books bringing monsters back on to the table. Vindictors for home plate and Vanguard Hunters to get out there and take exposed objectives. This is a Stormkeep so there is not air assault element, that inbuilt teleport is especially useful. You can back up the Tunnel Master easily. With ranged and melee attacks their output isn’t great but they have access to Unleash Hell and can prevent a Vexillor being sniped. The 4 Vexillors are all handy 6 wound Galletion Champions opening the new battle tactics to this list.

Hammers though, this list has them – Karazai is effective but needs protection and has it with the Praetors. 6 is unusual but will take a lot of punishment and can dish it out as well (19 attacks hitting on 3s). The biggest issue is keeping up with Karazai. And from Turn 2 or 3 the Prime is going to enter, auto charge and delete something. Stormcast are normally pretty worn down by Turn 3 normally so this is a really powerful way to preserve some offensive force. A very strong showing with a faction that isn’t seen as that competitive, drawing with Gitz is a very solid result. It says a lot that such a small army could hold Gitz back in their current state and with the pre data slate rally. Karazai is great anti-horde.

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Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh
Army Type: Pretenders
– Grand Strategy: Glutton for Depravity
– Triumph: Indomitable

LEADERS
Contorted Epitome (190)*
Spells: Born of Damnation
– Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Sigvald (205)*
The Masque (140)
Keeper of Secrets (400)*
General
– Command Traits: Strength of Godhood
– Shining Aegis
– Artefacts of Power: The Crown of Dark Secrets
– Spells: Flaming Weapon

BATTLELINE
Blissbarb Archers (150)*
– High Tempter
Blissbarb Archers (150)*
– High Tempter
Blissbarb Archers (150)*
High Tempter

OTHER
Blissbarb Seekers (200)*
High Tempter
Slickblade Seekers (400)*
Hunter-Seeker

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1985/2000

Phil Marshall: Slaanesh Pretenders – How did it work?

I decided to run a fairly balanced list that could perform a role in each phase of the game. Pretenders sub faction jumped out to me off the bat as a faction that was very strong due to the command point mechanics that I took advantage of. In Pretenders you receive 3 command points instead of 1 if your general is alive. This combined with the strength of godhood command trait is a super strong combo as one part of this allows you to issue the same command 3 times in a phase for the use of 1 command point which is a super strong mechanic which is what the list was built around. The other aspect of the command trait is that it gives the general plus 1 rend and plus 1 damage when it issues a command till end of the turn, which can make my general slightly obnoxious at potentially rend 4 and 7 damage. The artefact that I feel will be the most common is the crown of dark secrets due to the ability to potentially shut down the best hammer in your opponenets army. You pick a unit at the start of the game and if they are within 6” of your general they count as only having 1 attack. Helps when your general is a keeper of secrets, so maximising the rang of this.

How did the list play then? I myself am quite an aggressive player and I chose to play this list as an aggressive castle, pushing down the board. The Masque works really well for this with the mechanic to set up in your opponents territory 3” away from units to pressure people who out drop you taking the turn to mitigate them taking the early double against you before you have enough depravity to make your units more survivable. The other way of using it is to capitalise on deployment errors and taking off key pieces of having a good target to start the depravity train as you are wanting to get to the 36 depravity as quickly as possible to give the army the 5+ ward. In all my games the masque was my turn 1 depravity generator, popping finest hour, avoiding monsters means that it was consistently 9 attacks 2s&2s rend 1 (or 2) damage 2. Then the rest of the army was making the most of impassable terrain and setting up a tight screen of the blissbarbs and utilising the generals ability to auto 6 run all 3 units to get the maximum range out of the, all out attacking all three in the shooting phase to be 2s & 3s and in some instance triple unleash hell! The Blissbarb seekers really compliment the Blissbarb archers and are looking to do some chip damage to the main shooting targets and the unit that you are looking to gain depravity from the Euphoric Killers trait in the combat phase. Blissbarbs split firing is also great at handing out temptation dice to also try and gain more depravity or do additional damage if they decline. Its looking to pressure the table turn 1 and assert an aggressive position on the board. The Blissbarbs with the 63 shots have most likely cleared the screens in the 1st turn and the army is well positioned to unpack with a double going into turn 2. With the Speed of the Keeper and the Slickblades you are in a great position to get where you need to be and take off key pieces in the corresponding turns. The list has two great targets for the Keeper with the once per game double fight in either the Slickblades or Sigvald (depending how big his charge is). With the Epitome’s warscroll spell giving plus 1 to wound against D3 units and the ability to shut off command abilities within 3 its looking to follow those combat pieces as it essentially makes the Slickblades potentially rend 4 with the Blissbarb Seekers and the ability to shut off of all out defence. The Slickblades then become 31 (or 41) attacks 2s 2s either rend 2/3/4 depending on what you have been able to accomplish in the turn so far. With the 2” reach and potential fight twice you could have already generated the 24+ depravity so that on the second swing you are doing MWs on 6s to hit as well. There is some serious damage that can come out of this unit. Sigvald is a great hunter of units as well, due to the strike first mechanic, with getting attacks equal to the charges it is great when you role high, a lot of the time I was, this meant that I could have a great option again in the double fight as he strikes first and then the strike last is countered out and normal sequencing resumes so he would activate twice before my opponent and allowing no ward saves. Highlight was charging an unwounded Thanqoul, lifting him, piling in to an unwounded Verminlord and lifting him as well. Siggy did me proud on my way to a 4-1. The list was great at striking in waves and generating the depravity needed to summon a keeper in 4 of my 5 games.

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Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
Damned Legion: Legion of the First Prince
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

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

Battleline
9 x Corvus Cabal (80)*
5 x Chaos Marauder Horsemen (105)*
Flails
– Mark of Chaos: Khorne
10 x Chaos Knights (460)*
Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
Reinforced x 1

Units
10 x Chaos Chosen (480)*
Mark of Chaos: Undivided
– Ensorcelled Banner: The Dread Banner
– Reinforced x 1

Behemoths
Chaos Warshrine (185)*
Mark of Chaos: Slaanesh
– Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal

Endless Spells & Invocations
Soulscream Bridge (80)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 115
Drops: 1

Brett: Slaves to Darkness is currently the most played faction in AoS, Legion of the First Prince, though, isn’t being taken as often as some others. So it’s refreshing to see a very different list with a mix of units seen often and some less common ones (including BeLakor himself). Chaos Maruader Horseman and the Warshrine make a return with the more common Chaos Knights (and the OP Mark of Nurgle – how do you kill these things), Corvus Cabal and Chosen. Everything fits into a Battle Regiment to try and control priority. With 2 Chaos Sorceror Lords and Belakor, the Soulscream Bridge is a good investment to overcome the slow movement of the Chosen.

Mobile and tanky are a hard list to play against, particularly if it goes first and those chosen get to fight twice. But equally, avoid the knights and hit those Chosen hard, and this army will struggle (it’s relatively easy to take down an unbuffed Chosen unit). That’s why the Battle Regiment is such an important choice. With so few units and so few Galletian Champions, there is play to denying them battle tactics if you don’t think you can grind them down. The knights can move extremely long distances, making it harder to avoid them, though. Losing only to a Hedonites list that could both tie them up and doesn’t mind losing models (depravity baby) as well as archers (see Phil’s write up above for how he dealt with this list and the low drops). Taking both Kharadron and Gitz is fantastic. The shorter range on Kharadron and Deamonic Speed probably played into that result.

The steamroller that is Gitz doesn’t dominate the Nurgle Knights as well as they do other mounted units. And buffed Chosen on the charge with fight twice can clear a lot of chaff. 6th is a very commendable result, particularly with a unique list.

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Final Tournament Placings

Woehammer Path to Glory Campaign – Ian

As a currently casual 40k player I have always been interested in playing Age of Sigmar, especially the narrative based Path to Glory campaign. On joining the Woehammer team I saw an opportunity and prodded some of the others until they ‘volunteered’.

Now having the excuse to build a Sigmar army I had the difficult task of choosing a faction. I narrowed my shortlist down until I remembered my original entry point to Warhammer Fantasy way back when – Dwarves.

Now Dwarves, in their original Warhammer Fantasy format, don’t quite exist in the new Age of Sigmar setting. There are elements of them in the Cities of Sigmar faction but, seeing as this faction appears to be getting a major refresh, I didn’t want to risk buying an army to find the units become defunct. This left me with the choice between Fyreslayers and Kharadron Overlords. Out of these the Kharadron Overlords sold themselves with their very dwarvish tendencies (aethergold obsession, codes of honour, grudges) and big ships. Who doesn’t love a giant airship?

Yes, it helps that the Kharadron Overlords have just had a new codex Battletome released. It also has not passed my attention that they are performing especially well. These were not the main motivators behind my choice and, honestly, if they are overpowered currently all it will do is balance out with my lack of talent. So at best I may just scrape a couple of wins.

Khreld Thundergust

My warlord, an Aether-Khemist by trade, Khreld has worked for many aspiring captains over the years and now feels his talents warrant a higher cut of profit than anyone is willing to give. This left him with only one option, talk his way onto a skyvessel to call his own.

As I intend to have a fairly airship-heavy fleet it made Barak-Zilfin the obvious choice of subfaction – giving me more access to Great Endrinworks later down the line and allowing me to run Frigates as Battleline in my army. This also led me to give Khreld the Cunning Fleetmaster command trait so I can reposition my precious skyvessels to catch the enemy offguard. I have also given Khreld the Celestium Burst-grenade to maximise the damage of my mortal wounds.

Khreld Thundergust

The Crafty Dispute (Arkanaut Frigate)

Yes, I have taken the stupid brave choice to put a 300 point frigate in a 600 point army. Obviously I couldn’t have a Kharadron army without a skyvessel (they are gorgeous models) and Khreld needed a ship to start out on, so here we are!

Armed with a Heavy Skycannon, giving me more utility, the purpose of my frigate will be to disrupt the enemy battleline using bombs and firepower whilst, with 15 wounds and a 3+ save, drawing as much enemy fire as possible away from my other units.

Keelborne’s Endrinriggers

Led by a Mizzenmaster, Gryn Keelborne, the Endrinriggers will be providing repairs to The Crafty Dispute mid-battle whilst acting as fire support. I have forced Gryn to keep a Rapid-fire Rivet Gun to maximise the additonal attack he will get with the Aethermatic Saw. I have also decided against the volleygun on my second Endrinrigger as I feel the addional 3″ range and an average addition of three quarters of a wound per shooting phase is outdone by the -2 rend of the Rivet Gun. I may regret it but we shall see!

I have however chosen to give the third Endrinrigger the Grapnel Launcher. I love the idea of them just yoinking themselves away from an enemy charge. I can see the Skyhook being useful later in the campaign when more monsters appear but I think the battlefield movement will be key early on, especially as I only have four units total!

Stoutstock’s Company

Last, but definitely not least (apart from maybe in their cut of the profits) is the Arkanaut Company led by their Captain, Malkunn Stoutstock, wielding an Aetherflare Pistol. This time I will be maximising my weapon choices by taking an Aethermatic Volley Gun and Light Skyhook. The addional shots of the Volley Gun and the -2 rend and extra possible damage of the Skyhook seem like no-brainers to me. I will also be positioning them near my Aether-Khemist to the additional -1 Rend should have a nice impact. They will also have one Arkanaut armed with a Skypike just to give a little more danger in the inevitable melees.

The Stubborn Prospectors

And so, after some deliberation, The Stubborn Prospectors of Barak-Zilfin were born. At 600 points exactly it will be an interesting start to the campaign as I find out how much of a handicap forcing that frigate in will be. They will be organised in a Battle Regiment, as that is the only battalion I could see that would allow my array of units.

First Quest

The starting endeavour for my Stubborn Prospectors will be to earn The Crafty Dispute it’s own Great Endrinwork. I have opted tow rok towards Prudency Chutes as I inted to use the frigate as a transport later in the campaign. Assuming it survives that long…(of course it will, I’m not worried…)

As for collecting and painting my starting force – in true Kharadron Overlords fashion Khreld is having to hire his starting force. I will work on procuring forces of my own but, as I am sure my fellow hobbyists can sympathise with, time and money are both against me. On the plus side, Khreld himself is built, painted and ready for action!

Top Three AoS Lists for Guts & Glory Club Tournament

This is the top three AoS lists for the Guts & Glory Club Tournament that took place in the USA on the 11th and 12th of March. It involved 48 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: Ossiarch Bonereapers
Legion: Petrifex Elite
– Mortal Realm: Ghyran
– Grand Strategy: Unrelenting Efficiency
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Liege-Kavalos (160)*
General
– Command Trait: Mighty Archaeossian
Mortisan Boneshaper (110)*
Artefact: Godbone Armour
– Lore of Mortisans: Drain Vitality
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Mortisan Soulmason (120)*
– Lore of Mortisans: Arcane Command

Battleline
10 x Mortek Guard (140)*
Nadirite Blade and Shield
– 1x Soulcleaver Greatblades
10 x Mortek Guard (140)*
Nadirite Blade and Shield
– 1x Soulcleaver Greatblades
5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)*
Nadirite Blade and Shield

Units
6 x Necropolis Stalkers (340)**
2x Dread Falchions
– Reinforced x 1
6 x Necropolis Stalkers (340)**
2x Dread Falchions
– Reinforced x 1

Artillery
Mortek Crawler (200)*
Mortek Crawler (200)

Endless Spells & Invocations
Bone-tithe Shrieker (50)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Galletian Veterans

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 125
Drops: 4

You may be aware of our recent collaboration with Stormkeep and presenting out stats on YouTube. We’ll Mrigank of Stormkeep fame has managed an impressive 5-0, but not with Stormcast as you’d expect, but Bonereapers! I’ll let Mrigank explain the list.

Mrigank Jha: So pivoting away from the traditional Arkhan Magic + Infantry based lists , this list doesn’t focus on hordes of Mortek Guard. Roar makes them vulnerable and the meta has too many ranged horde killers (Ogors, Skaven, Stormcast, LRL). So, keeping the 2×6 stalkers for Blenders, this list goes towards Catapults. All out Defence and Armor may make it seem weak, but the special ammo is what is important. Ogors, LRL, and Gitz, the three big bad, are fairly low bravery, and Gitz in particular, has small wound heroes. Being able to wreck a giant Grot unit or Squigherd unit. Taking out Gnoblars entirely the same way is amazing. Sniping a Sentinel Captain to turn off empower, and in case of a Slaves to Darkness matchup, sniping an Ensorcelled Banner is amazing.
Stalkers are amazing with Mystic shield and re roll saves on defence or additional rend and damage on offence (can increase rend even further with Bludgeon)
So, for my matches, I mainly did that. Use catapults at key targets, and push Mortek guard out early as Stalker screens. Stalkers to counterattack. Necromantic Mastery (heroic action) with Bone Tithe Shrieker to add 1 to hit rolls and stop Inspiring Presence and Rally. In instances of where your opponent leaves a GC out in the open, the special ammo can help you snipe it on a lucky roll. You can also use this one to break coherency in entire units strung out as screens

I faced LRL, Ogors, Anvilgard Cites, Skaven and Gitz. The Catapult range and threat meant they often chose to target it instead of my other threats , the ones that take objectives and its fairly difficult to kill catapults with 12 W 4+ save and reducing a rend.
I used the Kavalos as a fast threat, objective taker, Mortek guard as screens / first line of defense, and stalkers to get into the thick of it.

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Allegiance: Slaanesh
Host: Lurid Haze Invaders Host (Host of Chaos)
– Mortal Realm: Ulgu
– Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
The Contorted Epitome (240)*
General
– Command Trait: Feverish Anticipation
– Artefact: Oil of Exultation
– Host Option: General
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
– Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (210)*
Host Option: General
Glutos Orscollion, Lord of Gluttony (440)*
Lore of Pain and Pleasure: Battle Rapture
Infernal Enrapturess, Herald of Slaanesh (120)*
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Lore of Slaanesh: Born of Damnation

Battleline
22 x Blissbarb Archers (280)**
Reinforced x 1
11 x Blissbarb Archers (140)**
11 x Blissbarb Archers (140)**

Other
1 x Cockatrice (105)*
1 x Cockatrice (105)*

Endless Spells and Invocations
Mesmerising Mirror (60)
Wheels of Excruciation (80)
Dreadful Visage (70)

Core Battalions
*Warlord
**Galletian Sharpshooters

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 96
Drops: 9

Old book HoS take the podium! With a new book around the corner east to forget, this is just a current, often nerfed, HoS list. It has all of the stars, Sigvald, Epitome, and Glutos, with a lot of Blissbarb. Blissbarb are as much the heart of the list as the heroes, ok archery and a fantastic source of Depravity Points (DP). The Epitome build is very tanky (for HoS) with an extra wound and one of the new Ghurish enhancements – Fuelled by Ghurish Rage (once per battle 3+ ward). Add in the Flaming Weapon, and it’s still a very dangerous unit.

Back to the DP – Hedonites are really a summoning army, everything is fragile (not Glutos), just now they can use Revel in Pain as well while they have the points. You’re forced into an unenviable choice of removing units (Generating DP) or heroes (and being shot) – very hedonistic. With the Cockatrice to act as blockers, objective getters and generally be pains it’s a very annoying army that can react to most situations. The list even has 2 ways to snipe out Galletian Champions – Galletian Sharpshooters for all of the Blissbarb and Mesmering Mirror, swingy but if it goes off…. Both of the other spells do mortal wounds as well based on 6 dice. Dreadful Visage is very effective against screens etc, if it does damage it reduces Bravery by 1. Orcs hate it.

That combination of threats was very effective. Laron’s opponents had limited or no shooting, that shooting was frequently shorter ranged. Combined with effective heroes and the mortal wound output it’s hard to counter unless played just right. That Epitome is a thing of nightmares….

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Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords
Sky Port: Barak Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Aether-Khemist (90)**
General
– Command Trait: Collector
– Artefact: Spell in a Bottle
Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit (160)**
– Artefact: Staff of Ocular Optimisation
– Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Arkanaut Admiral (140)**
Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Gotrek Gurnisson (480)

Battleline
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)*
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)*
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)**
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns

Units
10 x Grundstok Thunderers (260)*
2x Aetheric Fumigators
– 2x Decksweepers
– 2x Aethercannons
– 1x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 1

Behemoths
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)
– Main Gun: Great Volley Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: The Last Word

Endless Spells & Invocations
Warp Lightning Vortex (80)

Core Battalions
*Galletian Sharpshooters
**Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Artefact
Artefact

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 95
Drops: 9

One last hurrah for the old book, this time around we’re lucky enough to have Carl’s comments on hid list

Carl Stokes: This was the final ride of the Warp Lightning Vortex in KO and I was determined to send it off with a bang!
I’ve always felt that KO struggle into high tempo combat heavy armies that can either shrug off the heaps of rend -1 shooting I can bring to bear and/or close the gap in one turn to crack open my boats.

Enter Gotrek.

He completely changes the way opponents have to think about KO. The things I used to be very concerned about (Kragnos, Varanguard, Mawkrushas) are now the armies I feel extremely favored into. Gotrek forces combat armies to forfeit the alpha strike into my boat bunker and allow me to seize the initiative and dictate the flow of the game.

With old KO rules, this also meant that forcing me to go first just allowed me to perfectly lob a WLV into my opponent’s backfield and then hide the Ironclad behind a layer of 10 Thunderers and a Khemist who would guarantee my opponent was at -1 to hit in close combat. And of course, should they fail to kill the Thunderers and Khemist, a very angry dwarf was right around the corner…

The best part is how easily this list transitions to the new book! Not only is this archetype alive and well, but because the warp lightning vortex becomes a free soulscream bridge and a few characters are easily swapped around, I can add 5 more new and improved Thunderers (that rally on a 4+) to the list and make it a one-drop. I’m always trying to spread the Gospel of Gotrek and I think the new KO tome will really demonstrate his utility in the faction.

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Allegiance: Flesh-eater Courts – Check Header
Grand Court: Blisterskin
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Abhorrant Archregent (240)
Universal Spell Lore: Levitate
Abhorrant Archregent (240)
General
– Command Trait: Hellish Orator
– Artefact: The Dermal Robe
– Lore of Madness: Spectral Host
Abhorrant Ghoul King (170)*
– Lore of Madness: Deranged Transformation
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (450)*
– Artefact: Eye of Hysh
– Mount Trait: Gruesome Bite
– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Varghulf Courtier (160)*
Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master

Battleline
9 x Crypt Flayers (540)**
Reinforced x 2
10 x Crypt Ghouls (80)**
10 x Crypt Ghouls (80)*

Core Battalions
*Warlord
**Galletian Veterans

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1960 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 98
Drops: 8

FEC is a statistical anamoly – both Metawatch and TSN have them as a 50%+ faction, we have them at about 43% win rate. Who’s right? Well we don’t write about them that often so there aren’t that many podiums in the events we cover. But that could just be the low player representation.

Anyway the list, this is the “list” or the most common way we see FEC. A double reinforced Crypt Flayer unit with 2 x Crypt Ghoul screens, Terrorgheist, Archregents and Ghoul Kings. This gives the widest range of spells and summoning. It can summon, during the battle, up to another 9 Crypt Flayers and 20 serfs – this is really a 2660 point list. That’s key to beating them – don’t commit too early, force your opponent to bring most of their units onto the table so you don’t face an overwhelming force in Turn 2 or 3. Not taking Chronomatic Cogs is an interesting choice.

FEC really needs to get their buffs off (adding up to 4 attacks and a 5+ ward) so Cogs is almost mandatory. Only losing to Fyreslayers though is a testament to what the faction is capable of. Roll well and the Flayers are terrifying, very hard to kill and rally really well. In the matchups here they’ve taken down almost everything including Varanguard. With the new book announced it’s likely we’ll see more interest in the faction and enjoy those damn Flayers.

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for CaptainCon 2023

This is the top three AoS lists for CaptainCon that took place in the USA on the 4th and 5th of February. It involved 17 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.

As mentioned earlier this week, this tournament has less than 20 players. Therefore, we won’t add any comments onto this past, and I’ll save our commentators’ brain power for the bigger events.

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: Kharadron Overlords
Army Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Endrinmaster with Endrinharness (80)
1 x Arkanaut Admiral (140)*
Aspects of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha
1 x Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit (160)*
Artefacts: Staff of Ocular Optimisation
1 x Aether-Khemist (90)*
General
– Command Traits: Collector
– Artefacts: Spell in a Bottle
1 x Aetheric Navigator (100)**
– Artefacts: Svaregg-Stein ‘Illuminator’ Flarepistol

BATTLELINE
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)**
Company Captain
– Light Skyhook and Gun Butt
– Skypike
– Aethermatic Volley Gun and Gun Butt
– Volley Pistol
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)**
Company Captain
– Light Skyhook and Gun Butt
– Skypike
– Aethermatic Volley Gun and Gun Butt
– Volley Pistol
1 x Arkanaut Frigate (240)**
Heavy Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Malefic Skymines

BEHEMOTH
1 x Arkanaut Ironclad (490)**
Great Volley Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: The Last Word

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (90)

OTHER
10 x Grundstok Thunderers (260)*
Honour Bearer
– Gunnery Sergeant
– Grundstok Mortar
– Double-barrelled Aethershot Rifle
– Gun Butt and Drillbill
– 2 x Aethercannon
– 2 x Aetheric Fumigator
– 2 x Decksweeper
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (160)**
Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Zonbarcorp ‘Debtsettler’ Spar Torpedo

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Warlord
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)

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Army Faction: Lumineth Realm-lords
Army Subfaction: Helon
– Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Archmage Teclis (700)*
General
1 x Scinari Cathallar (110)*
Artefacts: Silver Wand
– Spells: Total Eclipse
– Aspects of the Champion: Leadership of the Alpha
1 x Scinari Loreseeker (160)*
Spells: Overwhelming Heat

BATTLELINE
20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)*
High Sentinel
– Spells: Overwhelming Heat
5 x Hurakan Windchargers (130)*
Windspeaker Seneschal
– Standard Bearer
10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)*
High Warden
– Spells: Speed of Hysh

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Umbral Spellportal (80)
1 x Rune of Petrification (60)

TERRAIN
1 x Shrine Luminor (0)

OTHER
20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)*
High Sentinel
– Spells: Speed of Hysh

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)

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Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes
Subfaction: Meatfist
– Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours!
– Triumph: Bloodthirsty

LEADERS
Kragnos (720)
Tyrant (150)*
– Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Flaming Weapon
– Big Name: Brawlerguts
Tyrant (150)*
Artefacts of Power: Gryph-feather Charm
– Big Name: Brawlerguts
Tyrant (150)*
Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master
– Big Name: Brawlerguts
Tyrant (150)**
General
– Command Traits: Killer Reputation
– Big Name: Deathcheater , Brawlerguts

BATTLELINE
Leadbelchers (170)**
Thunderfist
Leadbelchers (170)**
Thunderfist
Leadbelchers (170)**
Thunderfist

OTHER
Gnoblars (120)**

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Lauchon the Soulseeker (50)

TERRAIN
1 x Great Mawpot (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000

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Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords
Army Type: Legion of Night
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Necromancer (130)*
Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome
– Spells: Fading Vigour, Invigorating Aura
Vampire Lord (140)*
Spells: Amethystine Pinions, Invigorating Aura
– Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master
Wight King (90)*
General
– Command Traits: Above Suspicion
Mannfred Von Carstein (400)**
Spells: Invigorating Aura, Overwhelming Dread

BATTLELINE
Grave Guard (280)*
Seneschal
– Standard Bearer
– Great Wight Blade
Grave Guard (140)*
Seneschal
– Standard Bearer
– Hornblower
– Great Wight Blade
Dire Wolves (130)*
Grave Guard (140)**
Seneschal
– Standard Bearer
– Hornblower
– Great Wight Blade

OTHER
Black Knights (100)*
Myrmourn Banshees (100)**
Blood Knights (200)**
Fell Bats (70)**

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Chronomantic Cogs (70)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1990/2000

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for DaBoyz GT 2022

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for DaBoyz GT 2022 that took place in Texas, USA on 19th and 23th November. It involved 66 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: Beasts of Chaos
Greatfray: Gavespawn
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (155)***
Artefact: Tanglehorn Familiars
– Lore of Dark Storms: Hailstorm
Tzaangor Shaman of Beasts of Chaos (135)***
General
– Command Trait: Unravelling Aura
– Lore of the Twisted Wilds: Wild Rampage
Great Bray-Shaman (100)***
Lore of the Twisted Wilds: Savage Dominion
Slaves to Darkness Daemon Prince (210)
Axe
– Mark of Chaos: Khorne
– Allies

Battleline
30 x Tzaangors of Beasts of Chaos (525)**
6x Pair of Savage Blade
– 12x Savage Greatblade
– 12x Savage Blade & Arcanite Shield
– Reinforced x 2
10 x Gors (70)**
Gor-Blades & Beastshields
10 x Gors (70)***
Gor-Blades & Beastshields

Units
6 x Tzaangor Enlightened on Disc of Beasts of Chaos (360)*
Reinforced x 1
6 x Tzaangor Enlightened on Disc of Beasts of Chaos (360)*
Reinforced x 1

Core Battalions
*Bounty Hunters
**Expert Conquerors
***Warlord

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 210 / 400
Wounds: 157
Drops: 9

Danny: BoC stands for ‘Best of Chaos’ right now. The book as it stands is kluged, retro-fitted and duct-taped together, in a failed attempt to keep its leathery, behooved insides from spilling out all over the winners podium. Peek inside and you’ll find a sludgey morass of keywords, a bunch of new rules sellotaped in and the ability to use the new versions of some other chaos scrolls and the ‘old’ (well, in between…) versions of other stuff like blood-slick ground Khorne Daemon Prince to halve charges/run rolls.

GW are onto a good thing with 3e books and I’m sure the new BoC book will sort this mess out – because it turns out ‘keep the points the same, but give everything +2 rend and a 4+ rally, along with use of the best melee warscrolls from the new Tzeentch book’ kinda makes for a good army – despite the recent points ‘hikes’.

This list takes the usual stuff – a Shaggoth for cheap casting and a platform for the ‘tanglehorn Familiars’ which literally just stops an enemy wizard within 12″ from casting…anything… and access to the Hailstorm spell to halve the move/run/charge rolls of an enemy unit within 21″. Bet you didn’t realise even their lore was broken.

2x 6 Enlightened on Discs on loan from the shiny new Tzeentch portal because apparently everything with a beak and hooves has to stick together? A giant blob of 30 Tzaangors on hoof form a big, buffable blob and summons in god knows what else at a rate of knots.

Nothing in this game is an auto-win and it’s entirely possible to rupture your hamstrings while leaning over a table to push this many models around so congrats to Jiwan for staying standing and getting the 5-0.

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Army Faction: Orruk Warclans
Army Type: Ironjawz
– Army Subfaction: Bloodtoofs
– Grand Strategy: Waaagh!
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90)
Spells: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork, Foot of Gork
1 x Megaboss on Maw-krusha (480)**
General
– Command Traits: Touched By The Waaagh!
– Boss Choppa and Rip-toof Fist
– Artefacts: Arcane Tome
– Mount Traits: Fast ’Un
– Spells: Bash ’Em Ladz, Flaming Weapon
– Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur
1 x Orruk Warchanter (115)**
1 x Orruk Warchanter (115)**

BATTLELINE
6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (340)*
Gore-grunta Boss
– Jagged Gore-hacka
3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)*
Gore-grunta Boss
– Jagged Gore-hacka
3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)*
Gore-grunta Boss
– Jagged Gore-hacka

BEHEMOTH
1 x Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x The Burning Head (20)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Bounty Hunters
**Command Entourage – Magnificent

TOTAL POINTS: (1980/2000)

Edit: We’ve edited the below and removed the reference to the Krondspine being a source of 3d6 charges. Danny was thinking of Kragnos at the time…. he really wants one….

Danny: Ironjawz have definitely struggled this season, due to a one dimensional playstyle and, frankly, their book having been seriously powercrept. However, they can still pile on a whole load of pressure and if you’re not prepared for it, they can start a chain reaction of activations that can end games fast if you can’t tank it.

One of their weaknesses is getting into position – something the Spinedog obviously helps with. The fact it can lock down multiple units also potentially allows the gore-gruntas to choose more favourable engagements and gives them something to chuck into targets that would ordinarily blunt their charges, or of course preventing scary stuff cleaning up the pigs that IJ rely on to do everything.

You don’t have a huge degree of flexibility in a pig-heavy list (which is all IJ can realistically field in this Season) so let’s look at the Maw-krusha, the one thing with tactical choices. Brian has opted for Touched by the Waagh and Arcane Tome combo, giving him the ability to do d3 MWs to a nearby unit (enemy or friendly) and get the same value as a bonus to cast – in this case the +1 to wound spell and flaming weapon (thanks to the magnificent from command entourage) for extra damage when necessary. Of course with Spinedog bonded, he can potentially be up to a +4 to cast!

Spinedog occupies a weird niche atm and may still be controversial, but if it has a home in any army it’s Orruks atm, thematically and in terms of shoring up their weaknesses. And going 5-0 with IJ these days is definitely an accomplishment. It would be great if they didn’t have to rely on the Spinedog to do it, but in the meantime – big gratz to Brian!

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Army Faction: Kharadron Overlords
Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: Spend Shares to Make Shares
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Aether-Khemist (90)*
General
– Command Traits: Collector
– Artefacts of Power: Staff of Ocular Optimisation
Arkanaut Admiral (125)*
Aetheric Navigator (85)*
Aether-Khemist (90)**
Artefacts of Power: Spell in a Bottle

BATTLELINE
Arkanaut Company (90)*
Arkanaut Company (90)*
Arkanaut Company (90)**

BEHEMOTH
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)*
Great Volley Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: The Last Word
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)**
Great Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Zonbarcorp ‘Dealbreaker’ Battle Ram

OTHER
Grundstok Thunderers (270)**

ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (90)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000

Randal: Carl is at it again with another strong Kharadron Overlords list. This one tosses Gotrek to the side in favor of taking a second Ironclad. Also gone is the Flare-Pistol, a casualty of being a double Battle Regiment, but the list gains a Volley Cannon and two very important Great Endrinworks in the Zonbarcorp ‘Dealbreaker’ Battle Ram and The Last Word.

These two powerful mount traits add a level of resiliency to big wiffs from the dice, allowing the two boats to claw back into a game when something goes wrong. The Last Word allows the powerful Volley Cannon to fire at the end of the opponent’s Charge Phase if a unit ends their charge within 3” of that Ironclad making a scary Unleash Hell absolutely devastating, especially to big chaff units. The Ram, roll dice equal to the charge roll with mortal wounds on a 4+, serves as a risky backup plan if a shooting phase does not go well to finish off a unit giving the army a small amount of mortal wounds which the army overwise lacks.

This list is less of an alpha-strike list as his previous list was and more of a control and positioning army. It wants to play cagey, determining when and where engagements happen, and controlling the flow of the game. The big downside is that it is still weak to mortal wounds and has almost no mortal wound output itself. It is still a solid list but is going to require an experienced and knowledgeable pilot as mistakes are going to be harshly punished.

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Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
Option: Gloomspite Gitz
– Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance
– Triumphs:

Leaders
Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig (110)*
General
– Moon-cutta
– Command Trait: The Clammy Hand
Madcap Shaman (80)*
Artefact: Moonface Mommet
– Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork
Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)*

Battleline
20 x Shootas (120)*
20 x Shootas (120)*
36 x Squig Herd (420)**
Reinforced x 2
24 x Squig Herd (280)**
Reinforced x 1

Units
6 x Sneaky Snufflers (75)*
6 x Sneaky Snufflers (75)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Expert Conquerors

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 212
Drops: 3

Declan: 4-1… with Gitz. Well done to Anthony for a cracking result. Obviously the key to the army is Kragnos for his ability to charge most monsters off the board, give 3D6 charges to the squig herd (and himself) and generally cause a distraction. But the tech here is the Squig Herds and Sneaky Snufflers. With Expert Conquerors they each count as 3 on objectives (that’s 108 for the full 36 herd). They also rally on a 4+ so that’s where a lot of command points are going.

Then add in the Snufflers for +1 attack for each squig and they are not just an anvil with loads of wounds – they can be a hammer too. I was surprised that they (squig herd) went down in points in November, but definitely worth taking now!

Final Tournament Placings

Top Three AoS Lists for the Lost Legion GT

This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Lost Legion GT that took place in Australia on 19th and 20th November. It involved 32 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.

Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.

If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?

Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.

The Top Three AoS Lists

Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes
Subfaction: Underguts
– Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak

LEADERS
Tyrant (150)*
General
– Command Traits: Killer Reputation
– Artefacts of Power: Gruesome Trophy Rack
– Big Name: Fateseeker, Brawlerguts
Slaughtermaster (135)*
Spells: Blubbergrub Stench
Firebelly (130)**
Spells: Billowing Ash

BATTLELINE
Ogor Gluttons (265)*
Bellower
– Tribal Banner Bearer with Lookout Gnoblar
– Paired Ogor Clubs or Bluntblades
Ironguts (270)*
Bellower
– Gutlord
– Rune Maw Bearer
Leadbelchers (170)*
Thunderfist

ARTILLERY
Ironblaster (170)
Ironblaster (170)
Ironblaster (170)*
Ironblaster (170)**

OTHER
Gnoblars (100)**
Groinbiter
Gnoblars (100)**
Groinbiter

TERRAIN
1 x Great Mawpot (0)

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000

Declan: I don’t know if the tournament allowed the new book, but Patrick is well prepared for it if they didn’t. 4 Ironblasters never really appeared in the UK meta, but was reasonably common in the US and has appeared in Australia. It’s a great example of how the tournament scenes are different in each country.

Why is everyone talking about Ironblasters….? Well more consistent damage is coming and the Hailshot is getting very good! Expect to see similar lists to this once the book is fully allowed at tournaments.

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Army Faction: Kharadron Overlords
Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Aether-Khemist (90)*
General
– Command Traits: Collector
– Artefacts of Power: Staff of Ocular Optimisation
Aetheric Navigator (85)*
Artefacts of Power: Svaregg-Stein ‘Illuminator’ Flarepistol
Arkanaut Admiral (125)**

BATTLELINE
Arkanaut Company (90)*
Company Captain
– Light Skyhook and Gun Butt
– Skypike
– Aethermatic Volley Gun and Gun Butt
– Volley Pistol
Arkanaut Company (90)*
Company Captain
– Light Skyhook and Gun Butt
– Skypike
– Aethermatic Volley Gun and Gun Butt
– Volley Pistol
Arkanaut Company (90)**
Company Captain
– Light Skyhook and Gun Butt
– Skypike
– Aethermatic Volley Gun and Gun Butt
– Volley Pistol

BEHEMOTH
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)**
Great Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: The Last Word
Arkanaut Ironclad (490)*
Great Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Zonbarcorp ‘Dealbreaker’ Battle Ram

OTHER
Grundstok Thunderers (270)*
Grundstok Mortar
– 2 x Honour Bearer
– 2 x Aethercannon
– 2 x Aetheric Fumigator
– 2 x Decksweeper
Grundstok Gunhauler (155)**
Drill Cannon

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1975/2000

Randal: There are two primary archetypes of Kharadron Overlords that have been successful this season. There is the Full Fleet list with four or more boats, and the Double Ironclad with an Anvil lists which have also seen a lot of success like this wonderful list from Luca Foerster.

Luca took this list in a slightly different direction from the typical double ironclad lists we have seen in the past, by foregoing the Krondspine or Gotrek anvil choices and instead taking a reinforced unit of Grundstok Thunderers with Special Weapons. This is extra spicy since it gives the unit an enormous amount of firepower but has limited range with most of the weapons limited to 12” or less. This list gets around that restriction by being in Zilfin which gets a hero phase move for one of the Ironclads allowing the Thunderers to jump out and pummel the enemy’s frontline. The usual suspects for heroes and battleline accompany the two heavy boats, but there is a surprise Grundstok Gunhauler which provides a little extra extra for the two big boats in the form of a 6+ ward if it is nearby.

Another surprise here is that Luca has foregone using Spell in a Bottle which is a mainstay for Kharadron Alpha-Strike lists. This is likely a concession to stay in Zilfin and still get a Navigator instead of the common double Khemist builds that we usually see.

There is not much out that wants to play against this, but the lack of mortal wounds output or Purple Sun means that after the Flarepistol and Admiral’s Special Ammunition are used there isn’t much punch left to deal with a good save army that managed to survive the opening
barrage.

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Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
Stormhost: Hallowed Knights (Stormkeep)
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Gardus Steel Soul (150)**
Karazai, The Scarred (550)**
Lord-Relictor (145)**
General
– Command Trait: High Priest
– Artefact: Mirrorshield
– Prayer: Translocation
Lord-Castellant (155)**
Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
– Spell: Celestial Blades

Battleline
5 x Liberators (115)
Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield
5 x Liberators (115)
Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield
10 x Vanquishers (220)*
Reinforced x 1

Units
2 x Dracothian Guard Fulminators (230)*
6 x Praetors (290)*
Reinforced x 1

Core Battalions
*Bounty Hunters
**Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Holy Command: Call for Aid
Artefact

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 108
Drops: 9

Brett: Joel is a member of Measured Gaming (as is Pat who took first) who loves Liberators and Stormstrike Chariots (he has a battle report on youtube with 5 in a single game – against Pat). Very experienced SCE general who has been developing this list since Karazai came out. This army is about Karazai and trying to get him into battle while within range of the Praetors or Gardus (bodyguard and ward don’t stack). The Praetors, as Bounty Hunters, they are capable damage dealers, just a bit slow, with 19 attacks at Rend -1 and 2(3) Damage. The army has a few more surprises, Fulminators are efficient even in pairs and with a 5+ ward if near Gardus, hard to shift. Bounty Hunters can really help them if they are caught in combat, against GV anyway.

Vanquishers are good anti horde (3 attacks against 5 models and 4 attacks against 10 or more) all with Rend -1. The Castellan isn’t the general but still included for utility with his Lantern ability (improved saves or mortal wounds). Teamed with the Vanquishers he can make them as robust Vindicators (3+ save) while they have a much better damage profile. Hallowed Knights grants fight on death to the Liberators and Vanquishers (Redeemers). The same units benefit the most from the army being Watchful Guardians (Stormkeep). They get the benefit of Eternal Conquerors without the battalion (except they only count as 3 models on home objectives before round 3) and when successfully charged while on an objective they do mortal wounds to the attacker.

With the Relictor’s translocate and Liberators counting as 3 models you can sometimes steal an objective in Turn 4 with a unit that is hard to shift and has really strong objective control. The army has a really balanced approach with a solid mix of resilience and damage ultimately finishing only 4 points behind Luca (2nd) who he beat in the 1st round. Ultimately he lost to Pat with the revitalised Ogors and their amazing Ironblasters.

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Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords
Lineage: Legion of Blood
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Vampiric Conquerors
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (435)*
General
– Deathlance
– Command Trait: Aristocracy of Blood
– Artefact: Soulbound Garments
– Expertise: Martial
– Mount Trait: Foetid Miasma
– Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Belladamma Volga, First of the Vyrkos (200)*
Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Big Drogg Fort-Kicka (525)
Allies

Battleline
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)*
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (80)*
10 x Dire Wolves (135)*

Units
5 x Blood Knights (195)**
5 x Blood Knights (195)**
3 x Fell Bats (75)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (60)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Bounty Hunters

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 525 / 400
Wounds: 137
Drops: 4

Danny: This list harks back to a brief period around the turn of editions where zombie spam + Big Drogg was a tournament winning Soulblight list. William has ditched the zombies like everyone else while Bounty Hunters is a thing (and here’s to it dying off soon) but kept Big Drogg – and why not? The guy is a source of rend 2 that Soulblight traditionally lack, and, well, he’s a gargant. They’re fast, soak up serious punishment and dish it out in turn – leaing your msu Deathrattle, speedy wolves and Fell Bats (LOVE seeing them) and the tankier 2 units of Blood Knights to head out and score.

It’s an interesting HQ selection too – Belladamma is a great buff piece but not usually taken these days, however for 200 pts she’s relatively cheap, speedy, and can cast a spell on a 6 for a 12″ aura of exploding 6s – which can help Blood Knights hit much more reliably. With her built in +1, she’s also a good Jaws caddy and being able to use the wolves as bodyguards ups her survivabillity.

Topping things off you have the always-reliable Lord on Zombie Dragon, who in Legion of Blood gains a built in horrorghast effect, and gains +1 attack on his Deathlance with Martial Expertise, while Soulbound Garments for +1 save gets him on a 2+ as standard before anything like AoD, Finest Hour – etc – making him SUPER tanky.

The one thing this list doesn’t have is access to good MWs outside of jaws, which may explain the loss to Stormcast – presumably they were able to tank the VLoZD, out-compete William on objectives and strike down Big Drogg with the usual SCE hammers. Still, a great result for an unusual list – I’m loving seeing the variation and the resurgence of top 5 SBGL lists these days after a slow start to the season!

Final Tournament Placings