This is the top three AoS lists for Loremaster #2 that took place in Canada on the 26th and 27th of July. It involved 34 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: Sylvaneth – Army Subfaction: Gnarlroot – Grand Strategy: Spellcasting Savant – Triumphs: Inspired – Seasons of War: The Dwindling
LEADER 1 x Drycha Hamadreth (320) – Spells: Verdant Blessing, Regrowth 1 x The Lady of Vines (250)* – Spells: Verdant Blessing, Verdurous Harmony 1 x Warsong Revenant (300)* – General – Command Traits: Spellsinger – Artefacts: The Vesperal Gem – Spells: Verdant Blessing, Treesong
BATTLELINE 10 x Dryads (100)* 10 x Dryads (100)* 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)* 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)*
BEHEMOTH 1 x Treelord (230)*
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Spiteswarm Hive (40)
TERRAIN 1 x Awakened Wyldwood (0)
OTHER 6 x Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatswords (440)*
CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)
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Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords – Subfaction: Legion of Blood – Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Vampire Lord (140)* – Lore of Primal Frost: Hoarfrost – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (400)* – Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (460) – Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference – Command Trait: doomed minions – Artefact: Amulet of Screams
UNITS 1 x Corpse Cart (80)* – Balefire Brazier 20 x Grave Guard (300)* – Wight Blades & Crypt Shields 60 x Deadwalker Zombies (360)* 10 x skeletons (100)* 10 x skeletons (100)*
Army Faction: Idoneth Deepkin – Army Subfaction: Ionrach – Grand Strategy: The Creeping Gloomtide – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Akhelian King (240)* – General – Command Traits: Unstoppable Fury – Bladed Polearm and Falchion – Artefacts: Potion of Hateful Frenzy – Mount Traits: Voidchill Darkness 1 x Isharann Tidecaster (140)* – Spells: Hoarfrost 1 x Volturnos (250)*
BATTLELINE 3 x Akhelian Ishlaen Guard (170)* – Lochian Prince – Standard Bearer – Musician 3 x Akhelian Ishlaen Guard (170)* – Lochian Prince – Standard Bearer – Musician 6 x Akhelian Morrsarr Guard (170)* – Standard Bearer – Lochian Prince – Musician 10 x Namarti Thralls (120)* – Icon Bearer 10 x Namarti Thralls (120)* – Icon Bearer
BEHEMOTH 1 x Akhelian Leviadon (430)*
CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: (1980/2000)
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Allegiance: Disciples of Tzeentch – Change Coven: Guild of Summoners – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADERS Be’Lakor, the Dark Master (340)** – Allies Kairos Fateweaver (440)* Ogroid Thaumaturge (170)** – Artefact: Timeslip Pendant – Lore of Fate: Shield of Fate – Lore of Primal Frost: Merciless Blizzard Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch (200)** – General – Command Trait: Arcane Sacrifice – Lore of Fate: Arcane Suggestion – Lore of Primal Frost: Hoarfrost
UNITS 10 x Chaos Chosen (480)* – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)* – 7 x Cursed Blade & Arcanite Shield – 3 x Cursed Glaives 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)* – 7 x Cursed Blade & Arcanite Shield – 3 x Cursed Glaives 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)* – 7 x Cursed Blade & Arcanite Shield – 3 x Cursed Glaives
This is the top three AoS lists for Champion of Black Oil 3 that took place in Czechia on the 15th and 16th of July. It involved 24 players vying to be champion.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Army Faction: Sylvaneth – Subfaction: Gnarlroot – Grand Strategy: Spellcasting Savant – Triumph: Bloodthirsty – Seasons of War: The Dwindling
LEADERS Treelord Ancient (330)* – Artefacts of Power: Luneth’s Lamp – Spells: Treesong, Verdant Blessing Drycha Hamadreth (320)** – Spells: Regrowth, Verdant Blessing Spirit of Durthu (350)** – Artefacts of Power: Greenwood Gladius Warsong Revenant (300)** – General – Command Traits: Spellsinger – Spells: Hoarfrost, Verdant Blessing Celestant-Prime (330)**
This list by Lukas Plagat shows a core combination you’ll be likely to see popping up often for Sylvaneth in Andtor. Gnarlroot for 3d6 + drop lowest casting/unbinding, Dwindling for a re-roll cast/dispel/unbind and a Warsong treesinger general with the Spellcasting Savant Grand Strategy who will sit in the corner and stay alive to achieve a GS with the sole condition of “keep your lynchpin alive”, you’re doing it anyway.
Lukas has gone for a min battleline approach, with the return of the double tree-rev unit to achieve battle tactics like surround and destroy, spreading to the sides easily. The meat (or veggies in the Sylvaneth case) of the list is found in the heroes though, the Warsong Revenenant creating mortal wound output while Durthu acts as the primary strike and fade unit, comprising a majority of the list’s damage. The Treelord Ancient creates a tree anywhere, allowing the warsong to be active from turn one, and adding an additional caster and solidly tanky objective holder. Drycha acts as supporting shooting and a back up objective holder and finally the allied tag team partner of the Celestant Prime sits in space until a key time comes to deal a whole bucketload of mortals in concert with the Sylvaneth casting and to add an additional fighting body/objective scorer. Very versatile listbuilding with damage, casting and battle tactic scoring capacity. Everything you’ll need on the new season.
One additional PS note in this list is the inclusion of Luneth’s lamp, a great anti-meta piece which allows better endless spell dispelling alongside some measure of counterplay with priests, incredibly well thought out inclusion by Lukas.
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Army Faction: Orruk Warclans – Army Type: Kruleboyz – Subfaction: Grinnin’ Blades – Grand Strategy: Waaagh!
LEADERS Gobsprakk (240) Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof (120) – General – Command Traits: Supa Sneaky – Artefacts of Power: Amulet of Destiny Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-grot (100)* – Spells: Choking Mist Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-grot (100)* – Spells: Sneaky Miasma Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast (290)** – Mount Traits: Fast ’Un Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast (290)***
The legend that is Pete Atkinson of Plastic Craic joins us again for some commentary this week on his favourite Grand Alliance – Destruction. Check out his site ya dogs!
From earliest Age of Sigmar, there have been two approaches to Battleline: build it up, or treat it as a tax. Some of the powerhouses of 1st Edition, notably Kunnin Rukk and Oops All Witch Aelves, were armies that were blessed with chaff that did their own heavy lifting, so instead of difficult list choices you had those bodies and wounds doing work for you. All killer, no filler.
As the game has developed, the net has been cast wider and wider for what a Battleline unit can be, culminating in the mighty Mega-Gargant; well Kruleboyz take us right back full circle to those hard choices. You can either lean into the Gutrippaz, which means tipping resources you can barely afford into reinforcing them and giving them the buffs (because 10 standalone Gutrippaz will do sweet FA); or you can take the bare minimum and use them grudgingly as an inefficient screen.
GW seems to have recognized what a burden Gutrippaz are on the army, by allowing you to check out of taking three units and using some Hobgrots instead, who are at least a cheap screen. You’re still stuck taking two of them though, and as GW steadfastly refuses to drop their points to something more befitting their chaff-tier stats, Kruleboyz have been left stuck in perpetual Bin status.
Anyway. New Handbook, new raft of points drops, new opportunities? Giga Chad Pavel certainly saw his opportunity for legendary Killaboss status, and grabbed it with both hands. Taking an unapologetic “screw that” approach to his Battleline, Pavel has taken the absolute minimum Gutrippaz tax, and leaned heavily into the good units instead.
There comes a point where the Gnashtoof Boss is just too cheap to ignore, and 120 points seems to be the tipping point for a lot of people – I’ve seen him burst into a lot of lists these last couple of weeks. 12 points per wound with good mobility, a 3+ base save and respectable output is great value, and his warscroll ability heavily limits Battleshock exposure in a world of splash mortals and Geminids.
But he’s not the star of the show. That, my friends, would be Gobby: finally doing the work that this magnificent model deserves. Mork Sez No is terrorizing magic armies right now, with Screamin’ Mandrakk and Primal Magic Dice combining to push through those 10+ unbinds and punch out the revenge mortals. Gobsprakk been an absolute victim for years, and he deserves his moment to shine.
There’s a neat symmetry to the rest of the list: two Shammies and two Crocs buffing two reinforced units of Dakka Boiz early game, and then the Crocs stepping up when it comes to crunch time. You can set up two little shooty castles early on, each protected by its own little escort of Gutrippaz, as the maxed-out ranged damage segues into the climactic Waaagh turn of combat. And boy do those Crocs feel good in combat.
The early energy in Orruk circles is mostly around cherry picking the handful of good Kruleboyz units into Big Waaagh, with a Wurrgog Prophet and the vastly-superior Ironjawz Battleline to anchor the list, but Pavel has showed us that there’s life in proper Kruleboyz armies too. Grinnin’ Blades gives you a pretty effective shield against a lot of magic output, so I’ll be interested to see if this list style has sustained success in the Andtor Handbook. But that’s a question for another day – today, we toast Pavel’s success. Na zdravi!
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Army Faction: Seraphon – Army Type: Starborne – Army Subfaction: Fangs of Sotek – Grand Strategy: Spellcasting Savant – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140)* 1 x Skink Starseer (150)* – Spells: Merciless Blizzard, Speed of Huanchi 1 x Slann Starmaster (275)* – General – Command Traits: Lord of Celestial Resonance – Artefacts: Spacefolder’s Stave – Spells: Comet’s Call, Hoarfrost 1 x Lord Kroak (410)**
BATTLELINE 5 x Saurus Guard (140)** – Saurus Guard Alpha – Icon Bearer – War-drummer 10 x Skinks (90)** – Skink Alpha – Boltspitter – Celestite Dagger and Star-buckler 10 x Skinks (90)** – Skink Alpha – Boltspitter and Moonstone Club 5 x Saurus Guard (140)** – Saurus Guard Alpha – Icon Bearer – War-drummer
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (50) 1 x Suffocating Gravetide (30)
Danny: Here we have a mostly archetypcal Starborne list, beaming directly onto the podium in these early days of the new season.
It’s got the dooble-forg and Starseer for mondo casting and star power points, allowing for tactical summoning to adapt to the board state. It’s got the Saurus Guard to bodyguard the fragile froggos, and some nice cheap skinks to, well, do stuff like standing on circles. It’s also got what is SO obviously going to become the meta-endless-spell, Geminids.
The final filth here is the inclusion of Gotrek, who does Gotrek things in a list/army that, otherwise, doesn’t have any real access to a proper anvil/hammer who can just yeet up the middle to screw with the opponent’s head. It’s a combo that makes sense, whether it’s in good taste or not…
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Army Faction: Orruk Warclans – Army Type: Big Waaagh! – Grand Strategy: Waaagh! – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADER 1 x Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90)* – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Spells: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork 1 x Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-grot (100)* – Artefacts: Mork’s Eye Pebble – Spells: Merciless Blizzard 1 x Orruk Warchanter (120)** – Warbeats: Get ’Em Beat 1 x Orruk Warchanter (120)** – Warbeats: Killa Beat 1 x Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof (120)** – Mount Traits: Fast ’Un 1 x Wurrgog Prophet (170)*** – Artefacts: Glowin’ Tattooz – Spells: Hoarfrost
BATTLELINE 10 x Orruk Brutes (280)*** – Brute Boss – Jagged Gore-hacka – Boss Choppa – 2 x Gore-choppa 5 x Orruk Ardboys (80)**** 5 x Orruk Ardboys (80)**** 5 x Orruk Ardboys (80)****
OTHER 6 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (240)** 3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)*** – 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
Aaron Newbom. If you’re an Orruk Warclans player, you know his name as the first player to achieve 5-0 with Kruleboyz. Recently he’s been been a bit of a Traitor and started playing those wet Aelves, but even so, he’s more than qualified to talk about the good old Orruks.
Aaron Newbom: This is definitely a more mobile Big Waaagh list than you usually see, picking lots of small fights while plugging away with bolt Boyz and stacking up Waaagh until the brutes can close in and smash what’s left.
Having this many small mobile units let’s him play the mission really well and go very aggressive when he chooses too. An interesting build for sure.
These are the top AoS lists for Adepticon that took place in the USA on the 23rd and 24th of March. It involved 204 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.
There was some controversy around the scoring for Adepticon, so we decided as a team to focus on all those lists that went undefeated or were in a tournament winning position (4 wins from 4 after round 4).
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: Disciples of Tzeentch – Change Coven: Guild of Summoners – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Ogroid Thaumaturge (170)* – General – Command Trait: Arcane Sacrifice – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of Fate: Arcane Suggestion Lord of Change (400)* – Artefact: Nine-Eyed Tome – Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch (180)* – Lore of Fate: Glimpse of Future – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Magister (120)** – Lore of Fate: Shield of Fate
Battleline 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)** – 7x Cursed Blade & Arcanite Shield – 3x Cursed Glaives 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)** – 7x Cursed Blade & Arcanite Shield – 3x Cursed Glaives 10 x Tzaangors (180)** – 8x Pair of Savage Blade
Behemoths Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)** – Allies – Bound to Magister
Endless Spells & Invocations Umbral Spellportal (80) Purple Sun of Shyish (90) Burning Sigil of Tzeentch (60)
Kaleb returns with a variation on his LVO list. Kairos is replaced with a Lord of Change; the extra 40pts are then used to upgrade the Changecaster to a Curseling and to enable Kaleb to take Burning Sigil instead of Tome of Eyes to get the summoning train rolling. The list goes up from 2 drops to 4 drops to allow the Lord of Change to have a re-roll casts relic to practically guarantee that those casts will go off, most likely Umbral Spellportal and then the Warscroll spell for a consistent 6 mortal wounds or so a turn.
The reason that Umbral Spellportal is the key spell is so you can feed it to the Krondspine. How the combo works is that the Magister successfully casts their first spell and then uses the Destiny Dice to cast a second, with the double killing the Magister, sending the Incarnate wild. Spellportal can then be chucked out near the Krondspine’s charge target. Obviously another spell could be cast through it (or even move the Purple Sun through it) but the main job of the portal is for the Krondspine to be able to charge in and then Devour the endless spell to go up to level 3. It is a slight risk as it goes down a level if it fails, but Kaleb would just need to roll a 4 on 2D6 for it to be successful. With it more than likely being successful, the Krondspine is hanging around for a bit, no matter what it goes into.
If not more important than an indestructible Krondspine is that the Battle Tactics and Grand Strategy for Tzeentch are among the most straightforward to achieve, demonstrated by Kaleb scoring all 5 Battle Tactics every turn and Master of Destiny being arguably the easiest Grand Strategy in the game to complete.
One of those Battle Tactics, the Guild of Summoners specialises in: Call for Change, which is to summon a Lord of Change. Normally these would need 27 fate points, but in Guild of Summoners, the first Lord of Change is only 9 fate points and the first fate point is the auto-cast at the start of the game with Arcane Armies.
Congratulations on another superb showing from Mr Tzeentch himself and very much a trendsetter for several Tzeentch lists doing well in tournaments…
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Allegiance: Big Waaagh! – Grand Strategy: Waaagh! – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Wurrgog Prophet (170)** – Artefact: Glowin’ Tattooz – Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast (290)** – General – Command Trait: Egomaniak – Mount Trait: Fast ‘Un Orruk Warchanter (120)*** – Warbeat: Fixin’ Beat Orruk Megaboss (140)*** – Artefact: Gryph-feather Charm (Galletian Champion) – Aspect of the Champion: Stubborn as a Rhinox Gobsprakk, The Mouth of Mork (260)*** Skragrott, The Loonking (160)** – Allies
Battleline 5 x Orruk Ardboys (80)* 5 x Orruk Ardboys (80)* 5 x Orruk Ardboys (80)*
Other Units 3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)** – Jagged Gore-hackas 3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)*** 24 x Squig Herd (240)* – Allies – Reinforced x 1
Big Waagh is enjoying a kind of thematically Ghurish resurgence, due to their access to great GCs and the simple fact they can also now take some Gitz allies, who, as you may have heard, have enjoyed somewhat of a glow up.
Either way, a 5-0 Waagh is a thing to be celebrated, so let’s dive into how it got there. The compliment of heroes has a few interesting surprises – you have ol’ laser eyes with his 4+ ward, a Warchanter and Megaboss as standard, and Gobsprakk for his anti-magic tech – but we also see here a Snatchaboss. Even though he’ll only be buffing one unit of 3 Boltboyz, he’s a well rounded solo operator, and Rob has slapped Egomaniak on him – I wonder if some of the Ardboyz acted as a bodyguard, making him a relatively fast and very durable monster with MW spike potential.
Then there’s the newly much-more-expensive Skagrott. At 210, I wonder if Ron would still ally him in – but as it stood, he’s an insanely high value allied spellcaster with a nasty, long range MW spell.
The other allies on loan from Gitz are the Squid Herd – a super cheap way to gain access to a high volume of attacks and further mid-range MWs when they fail a battleshock test – although they also have a recursion mechanic, meaning if you don’t kill the whole unit, the pain train keeps on comin’.
Overall, it’s a fantastic hero-hammer Waagh that makes great use of their spicy new allies. The points don’t quite add up anymore, but the fact it took down high profile armies such as Ogors, NH, Slaves, and Gitz themselves speaks to the versatility of the list – and Rob’s prowess of course. The Orruk book as a whole might be a complete bin-fire, but Big Waagh clearly offers the best way to make like an Orruk and slap whatever manic, vaguely green muscle you can lay your hands on into a potent krump!
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Allegiance: Lumineth Realm-lords – Great Nation: Helon – Mortal Realm: Hysh – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Archmage Teclis and Celennar, Spirit of Hysh (700)* – General Scinari Cathallar (110)* – Lore of Hysh: Total Eclipse Scinari Loreseeker (160)* – Artefact: Tuskhelm (Galletian Champion) – Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon – Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Battleline 5 x Hurakan Windchargers (130)* 10 x Vanari Auralan Wardens (150)* – Lore of Hysh: Overwhelming Heat 20 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)* – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh – Reinforced x 1 10 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (150)* – Lore of Hysh: Overwhelming Heat 10 x Vanari Auralan Sentinels (150)* – Lore of Hysh: Speed of Hysh
I call this list archetype the ‘can’t wait for the next Battlescroll’! Lead designer Matt Rose has highlighted that Helon and Sentinels are in line for an adjustment, for what should by now be fairly obvious reasons.
Tell you what though, it’s quite fun seeing the Tuskhelm on the Loreseeker. Imagine him popping up wherever he wants pre-game, then yeeting himself into you with a flaming weapon like a less sneaky version of the Masque.
Otherwise, there’s not much to say – it’s Sentinels projecting extreme prejudice at range and up close, with Teclis doing Teclis things. The only thing of interest left about this kind of list is how hard it’s going to get hit by the nerf bat!
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Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes – Army Subfaction: Boulderhead – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Kragnos (720) 1 x Frostlord on Stonehorn (450)* – General – Command Traits: Voice of the Avalanche – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Mount Traits: Rockmane Elder – Spells: Flaming Weapon
BATTLELINE 1 x Stonehorn Beastriders (310)* – Blood Vulture 1 x Stonehorn Beastriders (310)* – Blood Vulture 2 x Mournfang Pack (170)* – Skalg – Culling Clubs and Hackers and Ironfist
TERRAIN 1 x Great Mawpot (0)
CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: (1960/2000)
Since the Ironblaster points hike, bar the very occasional Stonehorn heavy podium, Ogors have settled comfortably into a ‘top 5’ army, as though they have a nice big dinner early on and then get a bit too sleepy to bother chasing the absolute top spot.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course – we don’t want every faction to be Lumineth Slaanesh! Taking down three tanky melee armies, the shooty Ogors and a summoning heavy Tzeentch list for a 5-0 is a great result, either way.
So how did Tony do it? Well, he took Kragnos and a bunch of Stonehorns. The name of the day here is killing stuff on the charge – why risk having to roll attacks? Kragnos is capable of a OHKO of a big monster with the right roll of course, but probably the main thing he offers is a 3d6 charge aura. Given Stonehorns do mortals on a 4+ for dice equal to their unmodified charge roll – which a 3d6 is – you can start to see the appeal.
That’s about all there is to it. Like the Ogors themselves, it’s big and not very clever, but gets the job done.
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Army Faction: Sylvaneth – Subfaction: Gnarlroot – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Bloodthirsty – Seasons of War: The Burgeoning
LEADERS Spirit of Durthu (350) – General – Command Traits: Gnarled Warrior – Artefacts of Power: Greenwood Gladius The Lady of Vines (290) – Spells: Verdant Blessing Alarielle the Everqueen (820)* – Spells: Verdant Blessing
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Spiteswarm Hive (40) 1 x Chronomantic Cogs (70)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000
This list from Joey Trizenberg is so elite and character focused that it might be playable in Marvel Ultimate Crisis. The Lady of Vines and Alarielle’s summoning mechanics bulk out the wound count and utility this list needs with 30 dryads and a unit of tree revenants satisfying most of your objective-sitting needs. The reason such a limited selection of units can get away with this is that both Alarielle and Durthu demand answers, immediately, and can either murder or pin vast quantities of the opponent’s army, limiting their scoring options.
Durthu with the Gladius and Gnarled warrior is a brutal beatstick, and ethereal 3+ keeps him healthy over the game and the gladius makes him hit like a brick. Combine this with a 6+ ward and the number of wounds in this army gets a sneaky boost to keep it in the game. This said, the selection of the Burgeoning as the Season of war requires a 70 point investment in the form of Cogs to make the quantity of spellcasting in this list work, especially so, when you consider that Gnarlroot is being taken for 3d6 casting, messaging that Joey wants to ensure he’s spreading trees and getting up the very important LoV’s 5+ ward spell, which is rather inconsistent when raw-cast as a 7+ on 2d6.
Legitimate analysis aside, I’d pay good money to see this list smack around Sons of Behemat, that’d be a great table to watch. Great work Joey, a great achievement to get an uncommon 5-0 for sylvaneth, let alone with a list that is a major departure from what we usually see.
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Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes – Subfaction: Meatfist – Grand Strategy: The Day is Ours! – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Tyrant (150)* – Big Name: Brawlerguts Kragnos (720)* Icebrow Hunter (120)** – General – Command Traits: Touched by the Everwinter – Prayers: Keening Gale Tyrant (150)** – Artefacts of Power: Gryph-feather Charm – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master – Big Name: Brawlerguts Tyrant (150)** – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Flaming Weapon – Big Name: Brawlerguts
Continuing their recent hot-streak of great results is another 4-1 Alarielle finish! Oh how people bemoaned the Everqueen upon the book’s release – and in fairness, she takes a bit of figuring out, as her power doesn’t lie in her melee power but rather in her zoning and revival ability.
She’s backed up here by the standard Arch-Rev with Warsinger to make stuff speedy – make that extra-super speedy when also combined with the Spiteswarm Hive. It’s also nice to see a brace of Dryads as surprisingly effective screens – sure they turn into splinters once hit but, with -1 to hit and wound, the can be like reeds in a breeze…. and a reinforced blob of Seekers for doing Seeker things (namely pinning stuff at speed and just never, ever dying due to their abilities to heal themselves and bring their own models back automatically).
Overall, a nicely balanced list that gives Big Momma and her Fancy Beetle a good run out against a tough variety of opponents.
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Army Faction: Lumineth Realm-lords – Subfaction: Helon – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Archmage Teclis (700)* – Spells: Healing Zephyr Scinari Cathallar (110)* – General – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts of Power: Silver Wand – Spells: Total Eclipse – Aspects of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
BATTLELINE Hurakan Windchargers (130)* – Windspeaker Seneschal – Standard Bearer Hurakan Windchargers (130)* – Windspeaker Seneschal – Standard Bearer Hurakan Windchargers (130)* – Standard Bearer – Windspeaker Seneschal
OTHER Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)* – High Sentinel – Spells: Overwhelming Heat Vanari Auralan Sentinels (300)* – High Sentinel – Spells: Speed of Hysh
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Umbral Spellportal (80) 1 x Rune of Petrification (60) 1 x Emerald Lifeswarm (60)
TERRAIN 1 x Shrine Luminor (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000
More LRL! Funnily enough, this list has also opted for Helon, and who cares how many Sentinels. But they also go hard on WIndchargers! A cunning tactical ploy to have slightly fewer shots on slow bodies and slightly more shots on fast bodies. I’m sure the dilemma was agonising.
Since this tournament, and indeed my comments on the 3rd place list, Sentinels, Teclis, and Windchargers have gone up a few points. So lists like this will no longer be able to take quite so many endless spells! I’m sure the effect on their efficacy will be devastating.
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Army Faction: Disciples of Tzeentch – Army Subfaction: Guild of Summoners – Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Magister (120)* – Spells: Shield of Fate – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur 1 x Curseling (180)** – Spells: Glimpse the Future – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master 1 x Ogroid Thaumaturge (170)** – General – Command Traits: Arcane Sacrifice – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Arcane Suggestion 1 x Lord of Change (400)** – Staff of Tzeentch and Rod of Sorcery – Artefacts: Nine-Eyed Tome – Spells: Ghost-mist
BATTLELINE 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)* – Kairic Adept – Cursed Blade and Arcanite Shield – Scroll of the Dark Arts – Vulcharc – 3 x Cursed Glaive and Arcanite Shield 10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)* – Kairic Adept – Cursed Blade and Arcanite Shield – Scroll of the Dark Arts – Vulcharc – 3 x Cursed Glaive and Arcanite Shield 10 x Tzaangors (180)* – Twistbray – Icon Bearer – Brayhorn Blower – 2 x Tzaangor Mutant – Pair of Savage Blades
BEHEMOTH 1 x Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)*
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Umbral Spellportal (80) 1 x Burning Sigil Of Tzeentch (60) 1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (90)
Please read the review for Kaleb’s winning list and substitute the word ‘Kaleb’ for ‘Jonathan’! Seriously, I wasn’t kidding about Kaleb’s list being a trendsetter!
I should probably include a few more words on Jonathan’s path to 13th place so that Peter doesn’t get mad at me and assigns me 500 words on each variant of contrast paint. He did fantastically well to get to table 2 in Round 5 but then faced the Kryptonite of many Tzeentch lists: Kragnos and Stonehorns. With the ability to ignore so much magic AND the speed of Tony’s 4th placed list (see above) it was always going to be tricky. While having some monsters to eat would be handy for the Krondspine, Jonathan wouldn’t have been given the time to get the summoning going and so had to settle for a still very impressive 4-1 in the end.
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Army Faction: Ossiarch Bonereapers – Subfaction: Mortis Praetorians – Grand Strategy: Unrelenting Efficiency – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Arkhan the Black (340) Katakros (430)* Mortisan Soulreaper (100)* – Spells: Protection of Nagash – Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master Mortisan Soulreaper (100)* – General – Command Traits: Katakros’ Chosen – Artefacts of Power: Artificer’s Blade – Spells: Drain Vitality
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Nightmare Predator (40)
TERRAIN 1 x Bone-tithe Nexus (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000
A list reminiscent of classical pre-Stalkers as Battleline lists for Ossiarch Bonereapers. Obviously, this list was before the new battletome so a few things need to be considered. Katakros and Arkhan are the headliners, with Arkhan being one of the few legitimately good units in OBR with his +2 to casting and blazing fast speed. Katakros offers a ton of buffs from stealing a command point on a 4+, -1 to hit on an enemy unit, and giving +1 to hit and to saves for all units within 36″. Mortis Praetorians doesn’t see as much play as Petrifix Elite but if you’re going to run Katakros it’s about the same with his +1 to save aura, though you do lose the -1 Rend from Petrifix Elite. Rounding off the list is two Soulreapers, which while not very good allow him to slip in 2 Galetian Champions at 2000 points.
As for units this list doesnt really have much of a hammer. That’s clearly not the point though, with 60 Mortek Guard you can gum up the board pretty bad, 30 3+ Save, 6+ Ward wounds aren’t easy to cut through if you didn’t bring a Monster to roar them. While they may not hit nearly as hard as Stalkers, they’re not totally impotent either, and can usually win a grind out war over 2-3 turns of combat against nastier things. The Immortis guard are a workhorse unit to protect Arkhan from ranged fire, since an 11 wound 4+ Save Monster makes him a giant red bullseye for enemy fire.
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)**
As Peter put it the other day, Old Slaanesh (the previous Battletome) was in play. This is a popular “old list” right now. Slaanesh, like all aelves, has always been very difficult to balance, at the moment though they are a bit of a sleeper. Mobile with mad summoning, decent shooting and surprisingly durable with Revel in Pain.
Laron’s doubled down on the Epitome with Fuelled by Ghurish rage on top of Oil (+1 wound) and Flaming Weapon. Glutos, the mobile road block, is here with Sigvald to snipe out annoying Galletian Champions and the Enrapturess to make sure those casts go off. Beyond wards, bravery and damage spells, the army is packing all 3 Hedonite Endless Spells. Mortal wounds for everyone and a fight last as well. Mandatory Blissbarbs and the soon to be extinct Cockatrice (the monster keyword isn’t on the new scroll). The Cockatrice still has a place to generate DP and for their fast movement, letting them score early points.
And that’s the conundrum of facing the chaos aelves – target the Blissbarb, and apart from being stung, you’ll give them a lot of DP (summoning points). And as you kill them, they’ll get harder to kill. Worse, Glutos and the Epitome will be free to act. Target the heroes, and the Blissbarb will make you look like a porcupine. The old HoS book is a dps check. You need to deal with them fast enough that their summoning doesn’t matter. Preferably from range.
Laron took the list to 4-1 handily defeating several top armies (and Stormcast). Pretty amazing with a list that shouldn’t have a lot of surprises and was at the time running with a 47% win rate. That success should tell you how good the general was.
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Allegiance: Sylvaneth – Glade: Heartwood – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs:
Leaders Alarielle the Everqueen (820)* Arch-Revenant (120)* – General – Command Trait: Warsinger – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of the Deepwood: Verdurous Harmony
Units 10 x Dryads (100)* 10 x Dryads (100)* 3 x Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows (230)* 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)* 6 x Revenant Seekers (480)* – Reinforced x 1
Continuing the 4-1 with Alarielle trend – which I’m personally happy to see given Momma Nature is such a great model, is this Heartwood list that, well, pretty much follows the template.
Probably the most important synergy in overall playstyle here is the way the Seekers compliment what Alarielle can do. Beetle-bum is much more of a mixed phase zoning piece with her big’ ol….base and surprising speed, so you need something like the Seekers to be able to zoom in on smaller, more versatile bases, do a good amount of damage, and actually stay where they end up – something they’re willing to risk due to their built in healing, 5+ rally and ability to bring a model back. With Dryads and Tree Revs as annoying, teleporty objective grabbers and screens, and the 3 Greatbows doing plinky-plink damage at long range, this kind of list can be very difficult to actually navigate around. And of course, by the time you finally kill Alarielle, she’s liable to come back in later rounds when you no longer have the tools to take her off again.
Losing only to a Gnarlroot Sylvaneth semi-mirror, and taking down a good variety of other lists en route, this new list archetype (I’m calling it Beetle-Momma and the Seekers) clearly has legs/wings/roots…. I’ll leaf it there. Big up to Matthew!
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Allegiance: Idoneth Deepkin – Enclave: Mor’Phann – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Akhelian Thrallmaster (110)* Isharann Soulrender (120)* – Artefact: Rune of the Surging Gloomtide – Aspect of the Champion: Tunnel Master Akhelian King (250)* – General – Bladed Polearm – Command Trait: Unstoppable Fury – Mount Trait: Voidchill Darkness
Battleline 6 x Akhelian Morrsarr Guard (360)* – Reinforced x 1 6 x Akhelian Morrsarr Guard (360)* – Reinforced x 1 20 x Namarti Reavers (340)* – Reinforced x 1 10 x Namarti Reavers (170)* 20 x Namarti Thralls (260)* – Reinforced x 1
This list makes use of some of the best Idoneth units avaiable in the book, without relying on Lotann or the Leviadon. Two champs are there to support the Namarti units, both defensively and offensively, and the Artefact allows the Isharann character to summon a Gloomtide Shipwreck at the end of the first movement phase. This is particularly good with Tunnel Master, because the Soulrender can pop up anywhere on the board and drop a large piece of line of sight blocking impassable terrain.
The eels and king can work in tandem to deal a lot of damage. The eels can charge in first, eat the Unleash Hell while still getting their mortal wound bomb off, while the king can pop himself and possibly both eel squads into high tide, creating the possibility of an alpha strike against any enemy who may have deployed too aggressively.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for Shanghai Slaughter that took place in the China on 14th and 15 January. It involved 20 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Army Faction: Seraphon – Army Type: Coalesced – Subfaction: Thunder Lizard – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak
LEADERS Engine of the Gods (285)* – General – Command Traits: Prime Warbeast – Artefacts of Power: Fusil of Conflagration – Mount Traits: Beastmaster – Prayers: Curse Celestant-Prime (325)* Lord Kroak (450)* Skink Starpriest (130)* – Spells: Hand of Glory
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Umbral Spellportal (80)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000
Saurus units riding the crest of Seraphon power? Seraphon claiming number one with an Engine of the Gods and Kroak isn’t new. But Saurus Knights and Razordons in Thunder Lizard? It looks like Thunder Lizard was taken for double cosmic engine rolls and the Fusil of Conflagration. Thunder Lizard really boosts the power of an Engine and with Kroak can push out a lot of mortals. This is mostly a short range/melee army though, with the Engine’s 8” range working really well with the 9” range of curse. The Razordon’s bring 18” range (12D6 shots), but are most useful if the enemy gets close where they can both unleash hell and shoot at the end of the charge phase. Essentially, Seraphon Leadbelchers, you can’t leave them, but you can’t charge them.
The Saurus Knights are usually left at home, they don’t accept buffs as well as Skinks but this army is playing heavily into their Predatory-Fighter (+1 attack for Jaws attacks) and Scaly Skin (-1 damage). And they aren’t GVs. Combined with additional damage on the charge and the potential mortals on 6s, the double unit is pretty scary. A big part of the list, though, is the Celestant Prime – arguable if he is worth the cost in Seraphon, but it worked here. His guaranteed charge and damage profile is effective at removing key pieces like MawCrushas, Durthu, or Warsong Revenant. With Kroak shutting down spells it’s not hard to see why Sylvaneth struggled, the same for Skaven. Neither do well with Mortals. Damage reduction limits some of the impact of Ironjawz and the limited rend, but large number of attacks counters Nighthaunt. The army still has Seraphon’s ability to score while countering a lot of the unique abilities of his opponents army. It’s a really well thought out counter list.
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Army Faction: Sylvaneth – Subfaction: Gnarlroot – Season: The Dwindling – Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Arch-Revenant (120)* – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Regrowth, Verdant Blessing Treelord Ancient (360)* – Spells: Treesong, Verdant Blessing Warsong Revenant (305)* – General – Command Traits: Spellsinger – Spells: Verdant Blessing, Verdurous Harmony
OTHER Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatswords (500)* Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows (230)*
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Vengeful Skullroot (60) 1 x Spiteswarm Hive (40) 1 x Gladewyrm (50)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1985/2000
Nikola here has brought a fairly standard Gnarlroot magic build here, with the Treelord Ancient and Warsong Rev combo for putting down a set of trees early doors with the Ancient for Warsong to use Spellsinger to cast his nasty AoE through.
It’s backed up by a compliment of reinforced Sword ‘Noth – a less popular choice than scythes because of their lesser rend – but a more balanced one overall, I think, due to their potential for MW output against targets who scoff at even 3 rend (such as Nighthaunt for example).
Happily for me, an endless spell enjoyer, the list packs all three Sylvaneth specific ones, and why not? They allo have fantastic utility and get be got off nicely in Gnarlroot with the ‘3d6 pick best 2’ to cast and re-roll from The Dwindling. Not only are they some of the best looking faction specific spells but they really do give the army a lot of options – horrorghast effects, healing, charge bonuses and more – love to see it!
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Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness – Army Type: Knights of the Empty Throne – Grand Strategy – Take what’s theirs
LEADERS Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135)* – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Demonic speed
Varanguard (290)** – General – Mark of Chaos: Khorne – Fellspear
BATTLELINE Varanguard (290)** – Mark of Chaos: Khorne – Ensorcelled Weapon Varanguard (290)** – Mark of Chaos: Khorne – Ensorcelled Weapon Splintered Fang (100)* The Unmade (80)* Corvus Cabal (80)* Corvus Cabal (80)*
BEHEMOTH Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)*
OTHER Ogroid Theridons (190)* – Mark of Chaos: Khorne – Great Axes
BATTALIONS Battle Regiment* Overlords of Chaos**
TOTAL POINTS: 2000/2000
Great to see a good run out with the new Slaves book! Although, less happy to see Spinedog – and do bear in mind that the new focus on foot heroes in the forthcoming season will likely mean a list such as this has to change in some big ways.
In the meantime though, it leans into the the obvious highlights of the new book – triple Varanguard in Khorne with lances for that sweet rend 3 charge in one unit, and two units of Ensorcelled Weapons for fast chaff/lower armour targets. With each unit able to fight twice, that’s potentially a lot of pressure coming at you early.
Andy also leans into a bevvy of tech cultists, which is a fantastic section of the new book. Splintered Fang for reliable MW output, The Unmade for running up and turning off Redeploy to help those Varanguard make their charges and not end up in no-man’s land, and double Corvus Cabal for deepstriking and scoring battle tactics. Note – in the new season we lose Barge – so one unit of Corvus for Desecrate is probably going to be the new jam.
It’s interesting that he’s packed in some Theridons – to be fair, they’re a cost effective if not at all durable counter-punch, so why not?
An interesting list that took down what I would imagine are some fairly green match ups, losing only to Nikola’s Sylvaneth, who are quickly proving to be a red matchup for the new chaos bois! Andy – be a hero and take 2nd place next time, without Spinedog! My commenting fingers are ready.
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Army Faction: Skaven – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumph: Indomitable
BATTLELINE Skryre Acolytes (75)* Skryre Acolytes (75)* Stormfiends (960)* – 3 x Windlaunchers and Clubbing Blows – 3 x Ratling Cannons and Clubbing Blows – 3 x Shock Gauntlets and Warpstone-laced Armour
OTHER Warp-Grinder (65)*
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Lauchon the Soulseeker (50) 1 x Soulscream Bridge (80)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1990/2000
Skaven is one of those armies that I love to see pop up in these lists. Much like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.
In this case, we get nearly half of the points of the list dumped into one 9-rat unit of Stormfiends with a weapon load-out that punishes at 24″, ruins days at 12″, and ruins lives within 3″. Combining their damage output with the additional wounds of Warpstone-laced Armor allows them to absorb the mortal wounds they will ultimately take when one of the two nearby Warlocks casts More-more-more Warp Power! Stormfiends absolutely love the ability to land those 9 Windlauncher shots at 3+/2+/-3/D3, 9D6 Ratling Cannons at 2+/2+/-1/1, and 12 Shock Gauntlets at 2+/2+/-1/2.
We also get to see two endless spells that will be standards for the new battletome. The bonuses to mobility brought into play by Lauchon and the Soulscream Bridge makes scoring first and second turn battle tactics easier, since it allows those foot heroes (who might normally have a hard time moving more than 9″ in a turn) to jump across the board to claim objectives. Thanquol’s casting bonus allows him to be a very expensive, but reliable taxi driver, with the ability to cast Skitterleap and one of the two endless spells in the same turn, throwing both of the Galletian champions wherever the they need to be.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Fantasia Fanatic XLII Tournament that took place in Sweden on the 1st and 2nd October. 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: Beasts of Chaos – Greatfray: Allherd – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs:
Leaders Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (155)** – General – Command Trait: Dominator – Artefact: Tanglehorn Familiars Great Bray-Shaman (100)** – Lore of the Twisted Wilds: Viletide Tzaangor Shaman of Beasts of Chaos (135)** – Artefact: Blade of the Desecrator – Lore of the Twisted Wilds: Tendrils of Atrophy
Battleline 6 x Dragon Ogors (250)** – 6x Draconic War glaives – Reinforced x 1 10 x Ungors (65) – Mauls & Half-Shields 10 x Ungors (65)*** – Mauls & Half-Shields 10 x Ungors (65)*** – Mauls & Half-Shields 10 x Ungors (65)*** – Mauls & Half-Shields
Units 20 x Tzaangors of Beasts of Chaos (350)* – 8x Savage Greatblade – 12x Savage Blade & Arcanite Shield – Reinforced x 1 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
Declan: As we do more and more Top Three lists for AoS, two things are starting to happen. We see similar armies and we start to see the same names… and Ronya is one of those names. Ronya has gone for a Tzaangor based Beasts of Chaos army, but this works in the same way as most Beats of Chaos armies. There’s massive rend from the Herdstone, and summoning from the Dragon Ogre Shaggoth hurting himself (and then healing). It’s been a great army since the White Dwarf update and remains good.
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Allegiance: Nighthaunt – Procession: Scarlet Doom – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leader Guardian of Souls (150)* – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of the Underworlds: Seal of Shyish – Bonded to Krondspine Krulghast Cruciator (150)*
Battleline Spirit Torment (115)* 20 x Bladegheist Revenants (350)** – Reinforced x 1 20 x Bladegheist Revenants (350)** – Reinforced x 1 5 x Hexwraiths (160)* 3 x Spirit Hosts (125)* 10 x Grimghast Reapers (160)**
Behemoth Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)* – Allies
Declan: Let’s be fair, Nighthaunt are good – they give debuffs on the charge (after retreating), and if you don’t kill whole units they come back – very quickly. And what would make them better? Anders has the answer with a Krondspire Incarnate. Yet another model in the army that is difficult to kill (in fact he is impossible), the Incarnate also discourages opponents using their Endless Spells – a double benefit.
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Allegiance: Sylvaneth – Glade: Gnarlroot – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
Leaders Alarielle the Everqueen (840)** Warsong Revenant (305)** – General – Command Trait: Spellsinger – Artefact: The Vesperal Gem – Lore of the Deepwood: Treesong Spirit of Durthu (370) – Artefact: Greenwood Gladius Arch-Revenant (120)**
Battleline 10 x Dryads (100)* 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)* 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)*
Endless Spells and Invocations Spiteswarm Hive (40)
Declan: Marcus was 4-0 going into the final game and lost to Ronya… not bad at all and thoroughly earning the third place. This Slyvaneth army is different to others I have seen, in that Alarielle is making an appearance. At 840 points Marcus did well to get value out of them and I have to be honest I’m not 100% sure how he did it. Sure Alarielle is good, but she’s also a point sink. I imagine there was a lot of teleporting through trees, charging and teleporting back (either with Durthu or Alarielle); but Marcus did well to concentrate on the Battle Tactics and grabbing the wins.
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Allegiance: Bonesplitterz – Warclan: Drakkfoot – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders Wurrgog Prophet (150)* – Artefact: Glowin’ Tattooz – Universal Spell Lore: Levitate Wurrgog Prophet (150)* – Artefact: Mork’s Boney Bitz – Lore of the Savage Beast: Glowy Green Tusks Wardokk (80)* – Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry Savage Big Boss (65)**** – General – Command Trait: Great Hunter
Battleline 10 x Savage Orruks (165)** – Chompas 10 x Savage Orruks (165)** – Chompas 10 x Savage Orruk Morboys (155)***
Units 5 x Savage Boarboy Maniaks (145)*** 5 x Savage Boarboy Maniaks (145)*** 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)* 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)**** 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)**** 2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)****
Behemoths Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)**** – Allies
Declan: Another 4-1 but this time it’s Bonesplitters. They have definitely overcome the initial doubters after the release of the Orruk Warclans book where some thought it was the third army behind Kruleboyz…! Bonesplitters are now fighting it out with Big Waaagh for 2nd place.
2 Wurgogg Prophets put up 12″ range bubbles that you have to brave to enter and the Krondspire Incarnate puts out even a larger one! Sure the Incarnate makes this army, but it’s available for everyone and helping even the top armies so no reason Bonesplitterz can’t benefit.
The thing that helps this army in the meta is Drakkfoot:
Games Workshop and Wahapedia
Ward rolls are common in the top armies – Nurgle and Nighthaunt spring to mind. And turning them off can make a big difference. However as is always the way with theory, Dennis avoided them all – oh well! He did very well to beat what was in front of him for a 4-1.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Hobart Hammer On Grand Tournament that took place in Tasmania, Australia on 1st and 2nd October. It involved 26 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Ethan: Bit of a fun one here. I was at this GT! I came second, first GT ever to boot! Let’s get into the lists and keep an eye out for the GT writeup soonish when I find some time to put thoughts to keyboard but in case that is delayed somewhat a massive shout-out to Mitch the TO and our venue of Good Games Hobart for getting AoS kicking in good old Tassie again!
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: Daughters of Khaine – Temple: Hagg Nar – Mortal Realm: Ulgu – Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Morathi-Khaine (340)* – Lore of Shadows: Mindrazor – Lore of Shadows: Shroud of Despair The Shadow Queen (340)* High Gladiatrix (90)* – General – Command Trait: Zealous Orator – Artefact: Crown of Woe – Incamate Bond
Battleline 20 x Witch Aelves (230)** – Pairs of Sacrificial Knives – Reinforced x 1 10 x Witch Aelves (115)*** – Sacrificial Knives and Blade Bucklers 10 x Witch Aelves (115)*** – Sacrificial Knives and Blade Bucklers
Units 10 x Doomfire Warlocks (290)** – Spell1: Universal Spell Lore: Levitate – Spell2: Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon – Reinforced x 1
Behemoths Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400) – Allies
Endless Spells & Invocations Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
Ethan: Congratulations to Luke Stone of Cinderfall gaming (check him out on YouTube) on his first GT victory. He achieved this with a DoK list which seems to be the new and improved iteration of Morathi and her pesky bow snakes, along with a Spinedog. This list presents you with lasting problems to which many armies don’t have an answer. Both Morathi and the Spinedog are fighting and murdering things for the first 2 battle rounds under ideal conditions, even more if you don’t have units to handle them and weather the storm. Backing this spine up, a high gladiatrix and 40 witch aelves sit as a mobile block ready to delete anything which makes it past the front lines. One block of 20 is in Bounty hunters, adding to their powers of deletion while the other two MSU units are in Expert Conquerors adding to this army’s prodigious scoring capabilities.
An interesting piece of tech for this list is the inclusion of the 10 Doomfire Warlocks, creating an additional hypermobile threat to assist either Morathi or the Spinedog or to create pressure in the parts of the field that they can’t cover. Add in a Purple Sun and the Doomfires running near your lines becomes rather ominous as you’re forced to deal with them or play hero roulette for the turn (We played this GT under old Purple Sun rules but the statement remains true!). The one critique I hold for the list is it puts a great deal of points into a limited number of models so anything with the capacity to go wide (a rarity in the current meta) or to pin it, rather than vice versa can present it with some difficult questions to answer. That aside, Luke performed admirably throughout the tournament, only losing in the fifth round and only dropping a single battle tactic over the course of the entire event!
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Allegiance: Sylvaneth – Glade: Gnarlroot – Season of War: The Dwindling – Mortal Realm: Ghyran – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Warsong Revenant (305) – General – Command Trait: Spellsinger – Lore of the Deepwood: The Dwellers Below Treelord Ancient (360) – Lore of the Deepwood Treesong Arch-Revenant (120)” – Artefact: Arcane Tome – Lore of the Deepwood: Verdurous Harmony
UNITS 10 x Dryads (100)* 5x Tree-Revenants (110)* 5x Tree-Revenants (110)* 6x Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatswords (500)* 3x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (240)* – Alles
Ethan: This list is a masterpiece of tasteful design, whoever made it must be both a savant of the game and incredibly good looking to boot…
I’ve been informed that I should stick to writing the articles from here forward so, full disclosure, this is my list! This list runs Gnarlroot for the 3d6 casting once per turn, usually invested into the Warsong bomb to maximise Mortal Wound output. Combined with The Dwindling for re-rolls and the intrinsic +1 to cast of the Warsong Revenant and you have a considerable backline ranged threat active from turn 1. The TLA acts as an enabling piece for this, placing a single tree anywhere on the field and acting as a decent combat beat stick. Throw in a Vengeful Skullroot and there are very few support heroes surviving the first turn as the endless spell is cast from the summoned tree, right into the midst of the enemy army. Horrorghast provides the army a means of evening the wound differential Sylvaneth often suffers from, acting as a great anti-horde tool over a wide area in combination with the warsong bomb and creating great threat against reinforced elite units.
The only other spicy aspects of the list are the Kurnoth Swords as a 6-block, unusual in its difference from the usual scythe block found in Sylvaneth lists. Swords hold the unique advantage of being more effective after taking 5 wounds (even surpassing 6 scythes in damage output) and being significantly more damaging without supporting pieces, lessening the need to play a terrifying game of chicken with the Archrevenant and avoiding the antisynergy present in the allegiance abilities’ limitation of a single unit strike and fading per turn. In review, and especially against Nighthaunt (Sorry Steve) this worked as planned and provided a durable and dangerous mortal wound output into the broadest possible variety of units. The other tech piece is allied Longstrikes. We all know what Longstrikes do. I refuse to pay 230 points for mediocre shooting on a 15 wound chassis (Get in the bin, Kurnoth Bows). They help force battleshock tests and ensure if the opponent had any hope of using any of their heroes, it’s snuffed out. This list also went 4-1 (no 5-0s in the event!), dropping game 4 to a 10-Protector Hammer of Sigmar list.
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Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals – Stormhost: Hallowed Knights (Scions of the Storm) – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Grand Strategy: Demonstration of Strength – Triumphs: Inspired
LEADERS Gardus Steel Soul (150)* Lord-Relictor (145) – General – Command Trait: Master of Magic – Artefact: Arcane Tome – Spell: Celestial Blades – Prayer: Translocation
UNITS 5 x Liberators (115)* – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield – 1x Grandweapons 5 x Liberators (115)* – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield – 1 x Grandweapons 5x Liberators (115)* – Heavens-wrought Weapon and Shield – 1 x Grandweapons 4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)* – Drakerider’s Warblade 4 x Stormdrake Guard (680)* – Drakerider’s Lance
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
ADDITIONAL ENHANCEMENTS Holy Command: Call for Aid
Ethan: In third, this Hallowed Knights list from Kaine presents the opponent with two massive threats (1st and 3rd sharing a theme there) in the form of two blocks of 4 x Stormdrake Guard. Call to aid and MSU liberators provide battleline requirements and durable deck-chair sitters at a point premium while Gardus and the standard Lord-Relictor set-up provide durability and mobility in equal parts. Much like Luke’s List, Kaine’s list asks the opponent a key question of “Can you deal with 36 wounds of Mortal Wound outputting, 3+ armour save, 5+ ward save, flying cavalry counting as 5 each on objectives?”. If the answer is no, congratulations you’re not playing Big Stabbas. With the exception of the Spinedog (which I think Kaine managed to dodge in this GT) treating them like a sectioned-up protein bar, dragons haven’t lost any of the power they once enjoyed, even if they have lost automatic 3” charges the moment your opponent puts down their dice. This creates brilliant pressure all game long and a strong primary-scoring advantage which most armies will struggle to match.
Gardus is an interesting tech-piece here, adding to the Dragons’ and Liberators’ durability massively with the 5+ ward but obligating the use of the Hallowed Knights subfaction, which is often overlooked compared to other Stormcast offerings. The list does suffer when it comes across something which can either kill the dragons quickly or withstand the storm of damage they put out but with a lack of both present in this tournament Kaine was able to execute consistently with his two big-threat units to carry himself to a 4-1, only losing to Sylvaneth in round 2.
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Allegiance: Skaven – Grand Strategy: Arch-corruptors of the Mortal Realms – Triumphs:
LEADERS Thanquol on Boneripper (415)* – 4 Warpfire Projectors – Lore of Ruin: Death Frenzy Warlock Bombardier (115)* – Artefact: Esoteric Warp Resonator – Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: More-more-more Warp Power! Plague Priest (100)** – General – Command Trait: High Priest – Noxious Prayers: Rabid-rabid Plague Priest (100)** – Noxious Prayers: Filth-int Plague Priest (100)** – Universal Prayer Scripture: Guidance
UNITS 20 x Clanrats (100)** – Rusty Blade – 2x Standard Bearers – 2x Standard Bell Ringers 20 x Clanrats (100)** – Rusty Blade – 2x Standard Bearers – 2x Standard Bell Ringers 6 x Stormfiends (640)* – 2x Windlaunchers – 2x Rating Cannons – 2x Doomflayer Gauntlets 20 x Plague Monks (180)* – Foetid Blades – 2x Standard Bearers – 2x Plague Harbingers
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS Warp Lightning Vortex (80) Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
Ethan: Freddie Berryman: Our local protagonist and rat-man enthusiast was the favourite for many of our locals. A Skaven Savant, Freddy utilizes a wide variety of army-specific strategies in this list, with the Grand Strategy “Arch-Corruptors of the Mortal Realms” providing an alternative to many of the swingier options available in the current GHB. This only requires any three of Thanquol and the three Plague Priests to survive until the end of the game.
Freddy has gone wide with his list, investing for the full Pestilens package, including Great Plagues while dipping his toe into Masterclan and Skyre for perks for their respective units. Thanquol forms the backbone of the list with a massive +3 casting bonus baseline ensuring dominance in spellcasting while the 4 Warpfire Projectors, properly screened, create a strong deterrent for anyone thinking of quickly lifting a unit of Clanrats. Thanquol has the ability to issue the same command twice so, positioned properly alongside the Stormfiends, any army without the chaff requires to eat the unleash hell will have a miserable time cracking open the Skaven Castle.
Outside of this, the Plague Monks – buffed to the nines by the Plague Priests and Death Frenzy – are one of the punchiest units in the entire game. Kragnos? Archaon? 20 rats with little swords and more attacks than can be reliably attributed to the entire united states military. Were you previously against dice-rolling apps? You won’t be after spending 10 minutes watching your opponent obliterate your favourite unit through the sheer power of “eventually you will roll enough 1s to die”. Safe to say, if your opponent has a scary looking unit, you can point Plague Monks at it and assume its death is imminent.
One of the more interesting aspects of Freddie’s list is taking a compact Skyre package of Bombadier and 6 Stormfiends, allowing the projection of a powerful shooting threat to “encourage” opponents to approach the castle. Throw in Warp Lightning Vortex and Purple Sun and you’ve got a truly terrifying list.
Freddy finished Best in Chaos with a respectable 3-2, falling to both 4th and 5th place. Having played every Orruk army at the event I can only feel for his Clanrats, who must feel like they’ve been hit by a car or at a minimum, a stiff breeze.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Smite Club Open AoS 2022 that took place in Mesa, Arizona on the 10th and 11th of September. It involved 47 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
If you like what we’re doing, why not join our Patreon and help keep it going?
Also if there’s a one day or two day tournament you’d like us to cover drop us a comment on this post and we’ll have a look at it for you.
The Top Three AoS Lists
Army Faction: Cities of Sigmar – Army Type: Hallowheart – Grand Strategy: Mighty Beachhead
LEADER 1 x Battlemage on Griffon (255)* – Mount Traits: Soaring Guardian – Spells: Crystal Aegis, Elemental Cyclone, Warding Brand – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur1 x Freeguild General (100)* – General – Artefacts: Arcane Tome – Spells: Ignite Weapons, Sear Wounds, Warding Brand 1 x Battlemage (100)* – General’s Adjutant – Spells: Ignite Weapons, Sear Wounds, Warding Brand
BATTLELINE 20 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (200)* – Marksman – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Piper 10 x Freeguild Guard (85)* – General’s Retinue – Sergeant – Standard Bearer – Drummer – Freeguild Sword and Shield 20 x Freeguild Crossbowmen (200)* – Marksman – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Piper
BEHEMOTH 1 x Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)*
ENDLESS SPELL 1 x Soulscream Bridge (80) 1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70) 1 x Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws (60)
OTHER 10 x Protectors (450)* – Protector-Prime
CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)
Brett: Demonstrating how open things are we have a Cities list taking a big event that doesn’t lean on Stormdrakes. And answers the question “Where are all of the SCE paladins and why are they always on backorder”. Hallowheart, the mystical city, giving a 5+ magical ward, +1 to cast, and an extra spell to wizards. The list has 3 mage HQs, Krondspine and 210 pts of endless spells to take advantage.. Purple Sun for +1 rend (that’s the effect of -1 to saves) and a 16% per turn to eat something, Ravenak’s for it’s mortal wounds and Soulscream Bridge for teleports. The BM on Griffon is a Ghur mage, I assume the other Battlemage is as well. This means the the Griffon can cast Mystic Shield and Wildform before moving 15″ with +2 to the charge.
Or the other mage could do the same on the protectors before they stepped on the Bridge to move 24″ for a 7+ charge roll. The learned spells include improved magical ward (4+, Crystal Aegis), MW (Elemental Cyclone), Warding Brand (MW following a hit on a 4+), Ignite Weapons (+1 to wound, includes ranged weapons), and D3 heal with Searing Wounds. The protectors, Krondspine and the Griffon can act as hammers supported by the Crossbows. The Crossbows get an extra attack (2 total) so long as they are more than 3″ from opponents and more than 10 models. That gives 2 units with 20+ attacks potentially wounding on 2s. Challenging.
5/0 against pretty strong lists including Ironjawz, Sylvaneth and Beasts of Chaos. The list has a lot of options centred around a castle with 2 heroes and a lot of archers. Charging into that is hard work but Thomas (who was playing Bonesplitterz last time we saw him) also took down a 30 Sentinel Lumineth list as well.
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Army Faction: Flesh-eater Courts – Grand Court Delusion: Feast Day – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Abhorrant Archregent (245)* – Artefacts of Power: The Dermal Robe – Spells: Spectral Host – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (445)* – Mount Traits: Gruesome Bite – Spells: Blood Feast Crypt Haunter Courtier (110)* – General – Command Traits: Dark Acolyte
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
TERRAIN 1 x Charnel Throne (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment **Bounty Hunters
TOTAL POINTS: 1990/2000
Brett: In second we have another uncommon faction who received a bit of a boost recently. Fairly horrific combination of two large blocks of Crypt Horrors combined with Krondspine and the Purple Sun. FEC don’t ignore rend like Nighthaunt so the Purple Sun affects them but with their heals, wound count and regeneration it’s just not that bad. Keep the Abhorrents away, particularly if it goes wild. Potentially you are looking at a very nasty castle, at least early game. The Archregent applies D3 attacks to the larger unit of Horrors (from the Carnal Throne, the Terrorgheist grants them a 5+ ward (they have 6+), on the Throne he can summon for free as well. They reroll all hits within 18″ of an Abhorrent. Dark Acolyte grants the Haunter Courtier the wizard ability and they know the Abhorrent Ghoul Kings Black Hunger giving another attack (or buffing a second unit).
Crypt Horrors with up to 6 attacks (Ferocious Hunger) with 2 wounds normally and 3 wounds on sixes (or 4 and 3 against Galletian Veterans). No rend but weight of dice counts even into 2+ saves. The block of 9 with 4 wounds, 5+ save and 5 or 6+ ward takes serious effort to shift. And they can be returned. The Terrorgheist has rerolls to Fanged Maw, it can receive additional attacks and of course Fanged Maw does 6 MW on 6s. The Terrorgheist can also receive run and charge (on top of 14″ move) from Spectral Host (up to 3 units can receive fly or if they have fly, run and charge). That’s before summoning. Both the Abhorrents can summon a unit of Galletian Veterans anywhere on the board.
Very hard to screen against and almost automatic Against the Odds, Desecrate their Lands and Barge through their lands. This is a list that can surprise people and is difficult to counter, unless you have good shooting. That said he lost his first round and recovered well to go 4/1 to the Sylvaneth list with little shooting sitting just below in 3rd.
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Army Faction: Sylvaneth – Subfaction: Gnarlroot – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Warsong Revenant (305)** – General – Command Traits: Spellsinger – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Treesong, Verdant Blessing Treelord Ancient (360)** – Spells: Verdant Blessing, Verdurous Harmony
OTHER Spiterider Lancers (420)* – Spiterider Scion – 2 x Spiterider Standard Bearer – 2 x Spiterider Hornblower Revenant Seekers (235)* Gossamid Archers (220)**
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Spiteswarm Hive (40) 1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
TERRAIN 1 x Awakened Wyldwood (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Bounty Hunters **Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1970/2000
Brett: interesting Sylvaneth list with all of the new stuff (or a lot of it anyway). 4 spells Verdurous Harmony (returns models to Tree Revenants) and Treesong (+1 Rend within 9” of a wyldwood). The Warsong has Spellsinger to extend casting range (a Wyldwood becomes a spell portal). Works really well for Unleash Swarm of Spities. This is really dangerous, you want to avoid grouping up and stay away from trees. List tech wise we have 2 endless spells, because the Purple Sun is mandatory.
Otherwise Spiteswarm Lancers for mobile damage, they strike first and can heal making it a little bit tougher. Gossamer Archers to do your opponent’s head (fade when charged), Revenant Seekers to return models (including Lancers). And finally Tree Revenants for opportunist attacks, teleporting and fire and fade. The last are among the most effective scoring units at the moment. No really big threats (the Treelord hits hard though) this list is about control and scoring. Hard to come to grips with and able to wear you down in attritional warfare (flavourful or frustrating). Differential type scoring was its only weakness, because it does rely on a longer game.
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Army Faction: Orruk Warclans – Army Type: Kruleboyz – Subfaction: Big Yellers – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Breaka-boss on Mirebrute Troggoth (180)* Killaboss on Corpse-rippa Vulcha (240)** – General – Command Traits: Supa Sneaky – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Mount Traits: Fast ’Un – Spells: Nasty Hex – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur
BATTLELINE Man-skewer Boltboyz (360)** – Boltboy Boss Man-skewer Boltboyz (360)** – Boltboy Boss Man-skewer Boltboyz (120)**
Brett: Kruleboyz 4th, that’s an awesome effort with one of the weakest if not weakest faction right now. Since they appeared as the poster boys of the new edition they’ve struggled to make a serious impression on their own (they are crucial to the success of Big Waagh). How did he do it? You look at it and think it’s a skew list but it really isn’t, this is a balanced list with hard hitting HQs bearing the brunt of combat, ranged battleline and some of the cheapest screens around. The Hobgrots are not even GVs, his opponents are going to have to kill them the old fashioned way (and they will). Killaboss on Gorpse-rippa Vulcha loaded with Fast’Un, Arcane Tome so there is one wizard and Supa Sneaky for a redeploy. Nasty Hex to turn off wards.
The list is looking to work at range and try to stop someone charging (or using endless spells) with Krondspine, he makes it really hard to get to particularly the bigger Boltboyz units. With their extra range they outrange almost all archers (Sentinels, Raptors and Kurnoth excepted). If you do charge one Unleash hell is going to be fun. With Covered in Mud they may also be invisible so hard to shoot. Gambling that the opponent can’t charge in multiple places (so only one unit uses Unleash hell). The Breaka Boss can pick off things or stop pressure on a flank and the Killaboss offers a lot of mobility particularly mid late game (I think you want to avoid a wild Krondspine too early so your opponent doesn’t send it into your archers).
It’s a different take and great to see hobgrots have a use (bullet shields, awesome), have you painted yours?
Another tournament, and week, throwing up unusual winners. The diversity in winners is amazing and puts AoS in a really great place for interesting games and tournaments. It’s genuinely exciting to see what’s going to win next week, other than Nurgle, there will always be Nurgle.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Summer of Sigmar Grand Tournament that took place in Tempe, Arizona, USA on the 6th and 7th of August. It involved 16 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament. This was their inagural event and they have a venue that can handle quite a few more. Lets hope we see it grow in coming years.
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: Daughters of Khaine – Subfaction: Zainthar Kai – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Morathi-Khaine (680)* The Shadow Queen (680)* Bloodwrack Medusa (130)* – General – Command Traits: Zealous Orator – Artefacts of Power: Shadow Stone – Spells: Mindrazor
Brett: Another army eschewing the archers for the stabby queens reflecting the new battletome. 5 Blood Sister units including a double reinforced group of bounty hunter murder elves, fun. Rounding out the list the Bloodwrack Medusa is the General and Khinerai Heartrender for mobile threat. Ultimately this is a 6 drop list, a reasonable chance that they won’t decide first turn.
The high drops is a facet of having the Blood Sisters split between Bounty Hunters and Expert Conquerors. It’s not clear if the event allowed book traits (which the Khinerai play into really well) or just GHB however the list provides coverage for any outcome. Zainthar Kar is required to make the Blood Sisters battle line and the opportunity for 35 Blood Sisters. Mind Razor and Shadow Stone (+1 to casting) to try to get an additional -1 rend. Ignoring effects from Blood Rites (like +1 to wound) those 15 Blood sisters can expect 38 hits (exploding 6s) and 24 wounds – 48 into Galletian Veterans. With 2 wounds, 5+ save and 6+ (can be 5+) ward you have to devote real resources to shifting blood sisters. Zainthar Kar gives them fight on death, removing the large unit without shooting would be dicey.
Shadow Queen/Morathi are another hard nut, 3 spells across the 6 known to DoK. Those spells read like some of the best across multiple books including increased rend, rebuffs and a teleport. The Melisa only has one cast but 2 dispels. Enough to cause issues for a magic army. And it looks like that’s what’s happened with the army taking all flavours of elf and some star crossed lizards to take the event 5/0
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Army Faction: Slaves to Darkness – Army Type: Ravagers – Grand Strategy: Take Whats Theirs – Triumph: Indomitable
LEADERS Chaos Lord (120)*** – General – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Command Traits: Eternal Vendetta – Reaperblade and Daemonbound Steel – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Whispers of Chaos Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135)*** – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Command Traits: Bolstered by Hate – Spells: Mask of Darkness Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135)*** – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Command Traits: Master of Magic – Artefacts of Power: Blasphemous Cuirass – Spells: Mask of Darkness – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur
BATTLELINE Untamed Beasts (70) – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch Chaos Knights (170)* – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Standard Bearer – Hornblower – Doom Knight – Cursed Lance and Chaos Runeshield Chaos Knights (170)* – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Standard Bearer – Hornblower – Doom Knight – Cursed Lance and Chaos Runeshield Chaos Warriors (400)** – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Aspiring Champion – Chaos Hand Weapon and Chaos Runeshield – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Hornblower Chaos Warriors (400)** – Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch – Aspiring Champion – Chaos Hand Weapon and Chaos Runeshield – 2 x Standard Bearer – 2 x Hornblower
Brett: Good to see a Slaves to Darkness army make the podium in a 2 day event particularly as Ravagers. No Archeon, Be’Lakor or even a manticore just Lords, Sorcerors and even a Chaos Warriors. Effective here with a 4/0/1 result, the only loss being to the winner.
Taking Tzeentch as the chaos mark increases resilience with reroll 1s on saves and a 5+ ward against spells. On a 20 strong block of Chaos Warriors (in Eternal Conquerers) that’s a real problem to shift. While in a unit > 10 they have a 3+ save and a 5+ ward (half ward – it’s only against Mortal Wounds) with the shields. That’s 120 effective wounds (Rend 0). Their weaknesses is movement at 5” unless Mask of Darkness is available on a Chaos Sorcerer and both do. They are helped on the run and charge by the Hornblower. The Knights are hammers, they want to charge using their 10″ mobility. They to have +1 to run and charge from the Hornblowers.
The Chaos Lord is a combat hero with reroll wound rolls (and reroll hits against Order) and has a MW spell in leui of a ranged weapon. Lastly there is Krondspine. He’s fast moving and capable of deleting things quickly. Bold move, he costs enough to limit your choices in either troops or heros, Tyler choose to take weaker heroes. Ravagers was a good choice allowing additional traits. After that this list is all about getting those blocks of Warriors onto objectives and keeping them there by using the Knights. Krondspine is about taking down a deathstar or important hero.
Looking his path through the event, the StD list would struggle to deal enough damage to the Warriors, as would most of the other lists. The mobility of the DoK army we just looked at combined with DoK book Battle Tactics (which you can’t interact with well) obviously caused the army to struggle but otherwise this is a really well thought out approach and well deserved result.
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Army Faction: Sylvaneth – Subfaction: Gnarlroot – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Warsong Revenant (305)** – General – Command Traits: Spellsinger – Spells: Verdant Blessing, Verdurous Harmony Treelord Ancient (360)** – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Treesong, Verdant Blessing
OTHER Revenant Seekers (235)* – Seeker Banner Bearer – Seeker Hornblower – Revenant Soulwarden Spiterider Lancers (420)* – Spiterider Scion – 2 x Spiterider Standard Bearer – 2 x Spiterider Hornblower Gossamid Archers (220)** – Flitwing Scion
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Spiteswarm Hive (40) 1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
CORE BATTALIONS *Bounty Hunters **Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1970/2000
Brett: An interesting variation of Sylvaneth and a brave move to take all of the new units. With, it has to be said, the Purple Sun. The mobility of Tree-Revenants with the 3 overgrown terrain pieces from the start of the battle, makes them one of if not the best unit in the army at the moment. They are amazing at securing Battle Tactics.
This army has all of the new Sylvaneth units from the Revenant Seekers to Spiterider Lancers and Gossamid Archers. I haven’t seen an army with all of them before and like most of us don’t have a lot of experience with them. The Seekers and Lancers provide a lot of mobility outside of teleports which is something Sylvaneth struggle with a bit. They offer some quality attacks, without buffs I worry about the amount of damage they do but it’s reasonable. The ability to return a model of the Seekers is great in this army – the Lancers and everything else have 5 wounds or less and can be returned. Return 2 Spiteriders in a game and you’ve almost recovered the cost.
The Gossamids are a frustrating unit, they are vunerable to shooting with only a 12″ range. They need to be hidden which doesn’t make sense given their anti combat role (retreat when charged). But they have a role where you teleport them to an objective (or near one) that has a thin force on it. You can even open an objective to a Tree Revenant by pulling a combat unit away. That’s not to forget the Treelord Ancient and Wargsong. With the Arcane Tome they have 4 spells, both are deicated to Awakended Wyldwoods (expect at least another per turn) and then buffing the impact of the woods. As Gnarlwood they also get improved casting near Wyldwoods. Another interesting army from this event.
One of the interesting impacts of this approach is its hard for an army like Ironjawz to identify an alpha strike target. Even if they get the Warsong it’s not going to put you on the back foot too much. Other than the winner’s evil Blood Sister’s list he was unbeaten through the event taking both combat and shooting armies.
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Army Faction: Legion of the First Prince – Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance – Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS Kairos Fateweaver (435) – Spells: The Master’s Command Be’lakor (360)* – Spells: The Master’s Command The Contorted Epitome (245)* – General – Command Traits: Ruinous Aura – Artefacts of Power: Fourfold Blade – Spells: Flaming Weapon, The Master’s Command – Bonding: Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS 1 x Umbral Spellportal (70) 1 x Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1990/2000
Brett: I grabbed this one just because we aren’t seeing a lot of Legion of the First Prince armies right now. This is a very interesting take including some heavy hitters (Belakor and Fateweaver) with Krondspine rather than another Deamon Prince/Greater Deamon. I’m a fan of the Contorted Epitome, love to see it in the army. Mobile, lots of casting and so dangerous in combat.
Fateweaver brings a lot, 3 casts, auto dispell of 1 endless spell and the ability to change dice for casting, unbinding or dispell rolls. That’s before gift of change. Plaguebearers are a good choice for objectives, Bloodletters are cheap but fragile. If they charge or are teleported though they can mess up some archers. Belakor and the Krondspine don’t need an introduction nor does the Purple Sun. The Umbral Spellportal is an autotake in a Tzeetch army or if Fateweaver is in the army.
This, to me, is a really fun army. A few small troop units and 4 big, fun models with lots of abilities to toy with your opponent. He lost his last 3 rounds but I bet they were still fun. Hitting a Bastilidon with Belakor and Fateweaver sounds like fun to me, the same about putting an Epitome into small heroes from any factions.
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the GT ŁÓDŹ 2 that took place in Poland on 6th and 7th August. It involved 70 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.
As well as that, we’re holding out own GT in England in May next year. Why don’t you join us and meet the crew?
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)*** – General – Command Trait: Unravelling Aura – Artefact: Mutating Gnarlblade – Lore of Dark Storms: Sundering Blades Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (155)** + inkarnacja – Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact) – Lore of Dark Storms: Hailstorm Doombull (110)*** Doombull (110)***
Battleline 9 x Dragon Ogors (375)* – 2x Paired Ancient Weapons – 6x Draconic War glaives – Reinforced x 2 6 x Dragon Ogors (250)* – 3x Paired Ancient Weapons – 3x Draconic War glaives – Reinforced x 1 6 x Dragon Ogors (250)* – 3x Paired Ancient Weapons – 3x Draconic War glaives – Reinforced x 1
Other 1 x Chaos Spawn (55)** 1 x Chaos Spawn (55)**
Behemoth Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)** – Allies
Brett: The newly rejuvenated (Tome Celestial) Beasts of Chaos going 5 and 0 in a major again. Peter has anyone had a 5/0 Kruleboyz recently? (Nope – Peter) Dragon Ogres are one of the stronger units in the battletome, and need Dragon Ogre Shaggoths to make them battleline. Combining their wounds/number of attacks with the increasing Rend available from the Herdstone makes them a dangerous opponent for pretty much anything. With Gnashing Jaws and Krondspine there is a lot of board coverage for a low model count army. The Herdstone isn’t listed and he’s taken Sundering Blades (-1 rend for a unit) but surely you have to take the Herdstone (it’s no cost of course).
Gavespawn is an interesting Greatfray which makes having mulitple heroes a good idea (they return as a Chaos Spawn on a 2+) and a command ability for an extra attack. The mandatory command trait gives an additional unbind and the mandatory artefact (Mutating Gnarlblade) does damage to the bearer on a hit roll of 1. It also adds 2 damage, on a Shaggoth that’s a 5 damage weapon. Command Entourage is used here to gain an addtional artefact for Arcane Tome, giving the whole army 3 casts and 4 unbinds. Hailstorm halves an opposing units movement (including charges) to limit movement and charging sheningans. Combine the reduced movement with Gnashing Jaws you can easily see 10MW a turn out of Jaws if you aim at slow moving units (5″ and less)
The Shaggoth’s are very useful leaders with casting, healing (not spell dependent) and being reasonably tanky with decent attacks. The weapons mix on the Dragon Ogres is interesting, almost ensuring split firing? As one damage weapons they are a natural to be included in Bounty Hunters. The Chaos Spawn are a favourite unit of mine in Slaves or Beasts. 2D6 movement and 2D6 attacks mean that they are often underestimated but they are great at grabbing objectives and are surprising difficult to remove.
The Doombulls are another different choice in a Dragon Ogre army but they have a decent attack profile and 8 wounds with MW on 6s. Charge them in early with the hope they do some decent damage, your opponent is going to have to take them seriously and devote real resources to killing them. And they come back 83% of the time. Serious distraction for 2 or 3 rounds. Solid example of army building to take advantage of solid warscrolls and army abilities. A deserving winner with a strong and fun army.
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Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle – Subfaction: Drowned Men – Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Be’Lakor, the Dark Master (360) – Allies Bloab Rotspawned (300)* – Lore of Malignance: Gift of Disease Lord of Afflictions (210)* – General – Command Trait: Overpowering Stench – Artefact: The Splithorn Helm
Battleline 4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)* – Reinforced x 1 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)* 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)** 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)**
Brett: An increasingly common army from Maggotkin, Lord of Affliction with Blightlords, as General so they are battleline twice (since Drowned Men lets them be battleline). Be’Lakor and Bloab to lend weight and casting to the army. This style of army has the advantage of avoiding Galletian Veterans to blunt Bounty Hunters with good mobility and very high resiliance. It forces your opponent to counter you and lets you spread or concentrate depending on the mission. Everythng except the Bloab can fly and he brings the flies.
Be’Lakor can work as an independent hammer but better is arguably better if supported by one or two of the smaller Blightlord units. That lets him control an entire flank and dare your opponent into an aggresive play to try to remove him. The Blightlords add mortals through disease points. Alternatively you can castle the lot and snipe objectives with the Blightlords. Be’Lakor can’t be too isolated since he represents half of the casts/unbinds of the army. Mariusz has taken advantage of the high bravery of chaos units to pick Bloodthirsty for a free charge reroll.
Bounty Hunters on 2 of the Blightlord units including the reinforced one, solid choice almost doubling their damage situationally. I’m expecting to see a move back to the lower drop battalions in coming weeks, it already looks like there is movement that way with so many armies avoiding Galletian Veterans. The army scored exceptionally well through the weekend coming second with only 3 vicotories (but no losses). The army had draws against a Maggotkin army with a Great Unclean One and large block of Plaguebringers, the other was a Bonesplitterz triple Wurgog/Big Stabba army. The damage output of this army might be a little low, particularly if Be’Lakor is destroied early and these armies play into that.
This is a very good army which plays into missions well. Taking it to second in a strong crowd is an amazing effort.
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Allegiance: Sylvaneth – Glade: Gnarlroot – Mortal Realm: Ghyran – The Dwindling – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumphs: Inspired
Battlemage (100)* – Mortal Realm: Ghur – Allies Alarielle the Everqueen (840)** – All spells Spirit of Durthu (370)* – Artefact: Greenwood Gladius (Guardian Sword) Warsong Revenant (305)* – General – Command Trait: Spellsinger – Artefact: Arcane Tome – Lore of the Deepwood: Treesong
UNITS 10 x Dryads (100)** – Branch Nymph 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)** – FCG – Enchanted Blades 5 x Tree-Revenants (110)** – FCG – Enchanted Blades
Brett: Hero hammer Sylvaneth with the those 3. You really don’t want a piece of any of them although I believe there is a thought that Durthu hasn’t benefitted from the new battletome. And there is a sneaky Battlemage of Ghur. This is a strong move giving you a decent chance of a 7″ charge for a teleporting unit. I’ll let you work out the details but it’s a great way to move some revenants into danger close quickly.
The power of the list is concentrated in the heros, and mostly Aliarelle, with the Tome they have 6 casts and unbinds available. Alarielle is almost half the army and the real trick to playing this army is knowing when to commit her. She is vunerable if she is focused by your opponent (and they can get to her) and while you can return her to the battle, that’s not reliable before Turn 3or even 4. Loose her on Turn 1 and it’s going to be very hard. On top of her spell casting though she has your highest quality attacks as well so when to throw her into combat is a mini game in itself.
Durthu offers early turn combat strength if you want and can help screen Aliarelle. The Greenwood Gladius awards D3 extra attacks, potentially near a Awakened Wood Durthu will have 7, 6 damage -2 rend attacks. He can also whiff terriably. The Warsong Revenant is also decent at combat, can use a mortal wound spell and buffs bravery of Tree Revenants or Dryads making her clutch at times. Surprisely survivable with a 4+ ward. Tree Revenants with the extra wound are a reasonable battleline unit but they melt to ranged attacks or mortal wounds. With only a 5+ save and bravery of 6 they really need support to shine.
A defensive army the new battletome makes them much more viable. The new terrain rules help their fire and fade shenanigans and make them much more flexible and mobile. Aliarelle is a high risk strategy which worked well here, his one loss was against a mobile Lumineth list with Teclis, otherwise a strong weekend.
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Army Type: Kruleboyz – Subfaction: Grinnin’ Blades – Grand Strategy: Waaagh! – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Killaboss on Corpse-rippa Vulcha (240)* – Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome – Spells: Flaming Weapon Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast (315)* – General – Command Traits: Egomaniak – Artefacts of Power: Mork’s Eye Pebble – Mount Traits: Fast ’Un Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-grot (105)* – Spells: Nasty Hex Murknob with Belcha-banna (95)* Swampboss Skumdrekk (320)***
Brett: Peter chooses the focus list and Peter plays Kruleboyz. Surprise another Kruleboyz list. The army focuses on their best warscrolls, their heroes and the Boltboyz. Choosing Grinning Blades is a good move with this many Boltboyz, they aren’t battleline so aren’t Galletian Veterans. They don’t have good saves so the extra damage will clear them really quickly. Grinning Blades also means they aren’t visible more than 12″ away. As we’ve seen with Idoneth this is surprisely powerful, ranged units need to get within the threat range of the melee units.
Unfortunately both the battleline (Gutrippaz) and Boltboyz are really very soft with 5+ and 6+ saves. They melt under pressure, with only one Swampcalla it’s likely that only the reinforced Boltboyz had poison most of the time. Boltboyz need special mention – they do MW on 6s so you want to use Hasty Shot when you can. But you need to move (it can be 1″) and be within 12″ of the enemy. That means they are very exposed. Aimed shot is only available if they don’t move. If they are caught out of position or without screens they are very vunerable. And finally their small unit size (3) limits the effectiveness of Unleash Hell.
The heroes in this army are the major source of combat capability. They mix reasonable quality attacks with interesting wars roll abilities. From being able spam commands to mortal wounds from their slime to snatch and grab there are a lot of things to track. Unfortunately this increases their cost. The snatchaboss or swampboss have a decent chance of one shotting small heroes. Still 14 wounds with a 4+ may struggle in sustained combat. In the end they fail the dps check which is known as the Sons of Behemet. All of this adds to an underperforming faction, unfortunately they are among the lowest on current stats. Going 3/0/2 is a great performance in a 70 strong field.
Final Tournament Placings
For the full tournament placings visit tabletop.to
This is the Top Three AoS Lists for the Peace Through Dakka AoS GT that took place in Delaware, USA on 30th and 31st July. It involved 16 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5 game tournament. As a smaller tournament we expect to see some different armies perform well, this time we have two destruction armies in the top 10 as well as some of the more popular recent books.
Before I jump into the Top Three AoS Lists, I wanted to remind everyone of our friendly Discord server where you can join in the conversation with the Woehammer crew and suggest articles or series for the website.
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The Top Three AoS Lists
Allegiance: Maggotkin of Nurgle – Subfaction: Drowned Men – Grand Strategy: Blessed Desecration – Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders Bloab Rotspawned (300)* – Lore of Malignance: Magnificent Buboes Festus the Leechlord (150)* – Lore of Malignance: Gift of Disease Lord of Afflictions (210)* – General – Command Trait: Overpowering Stench – Artefact: The Splithorn Helm
Battleline 4 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (440)* – Reinforced x 1 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)* 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)* 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)* 2 x Pusgoyle Blightlords (220)*
Brett: An army we have been seeing a lot lately, Blightlords paired with a Lord of Afflictions. In this case teamed with casting heroes all wrapped in a Battle Regiment for a chance at first turn (EDIT or more importantly decide who goes first). Their resilience is the key here, with a pair having 16 wounds and taking (an average) of 36 -1 rend, 1 damage attacks to chew through. Because they aren’t Galletian Veterans Bounty Hunters don’t work so the basic attack infantry of a lot of armies aren’t going to kill a unit of 2 in a turn. And they’ll heal with the Festus potentially increasing that a bit further.
With the Drowned Men pregame move they can be within charge range very quickly for additional mortal wounds (MW). That’s without considering the larger unit of 4 or the Lord of Afflictions. He is more useful at the back to begin with so he can take Blightlords into the sky and redeploy them (EDIT not that anyone does). The Bloab is the better option in this army for pushing forward, his Daemon-Flies and Windspeaker Bells need to be close to the opponent to impact.
A couple of useful spells, Magnificant Buboes to debuff a hero and Gift of Disease for extra disease points. This means they also have dispells and their ward gives some protection from spell damage.
Are Blightlords becoming a defacto DPS check? I certainly think if you are going into a tournament you should be sure you can drop a unit of 2 easily. Looking at Emma’s run it looks like most of the armies would fail that test. That makes it much harder to play the game around objectives and achieving battle tactics because you need to commit real resources to dealing with them
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Army Faction: Sylvaneth – Subfaction: Gnarlroot – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Alarielle the Everqueen (840)* Warsong Revenant (305)* – General – Artefact: Arcane Tome – Spell: The Dweller’s Below
BATTLELINE Dryads (100)* Tree Revenants (110)* Tree Revenants (110)*
OTHER Spiterider Lancers (420)*
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS Spiteswarm Hive (40) Purple Sun of Shyish (70)
CORE BATTALIONS *Battle Regiment
TOTAL POINTS: 1995/2000
Brett: New book and a new look with Spiterider Lancers instead of Kurnoth to support Alarielle. Not a lot of bodies in this army, it is very heavily reliant on Alarielle and the Warsong Revenant. Unfortuately you can’t afford to commit Alarielle too early, she returns on a 6+ with you adding the round number so losing her before the 3rd round is a huge risk. 2 wizards with 7 casts in the list covering a broad range of spells and the ubiquitous Purple Sun as well. The Gnarlroot grove helps get Purple Sun out with it’s 3D6 and discard the lowest near an awakened wyldwood or overgrown feature.
The army is struggling for damage with the Spitelancers, even reinforced, only really offering 29 damage 1 attacks. You can boost that with Bounty Hunters but into a lot of things (Blightlords, Fulminators or Stormdrakes) your mileage may disappoint. They are very durable, if they kill a model they can heal all wounds at the end of their turn. That’s twice a round, chip damage isn’t enough to end them. Alarielle can summon additional units, it’s not clear which Alex took but they would be clutch. The movement tricks that Sylvaneth are known for here would play their part in making Battle Tactics happen. Throughout the event the army scored well. The list for the army is deceptive only showing a damage spell for the Warsong. However Alairelle knows the whole lore and will return models or heal every turn.
As always there are lots of synergies particularly in concert with the trees/terrain. I feel you really want to control priority with this army, mostly to go second Turn 1 and play for the double reasonably often. That allows your army to get closer to you so you can operate near the woods for fight and fade, get spells up for Mortal wounds. And preserve Alairelle. Getting the double is a huge advantage here because you can commit her to combat knowing that if you need to bring here back it’s on Turn 3 with a 50/50 chance. I think this play style of drawing you in, hurting you with small bites all the way and then really damaging attacks deep in the forest is thematic as anything. It suits a very good player though and takes practice so well done Alex.
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Army Faction: Ironjawz – Subfaction: Bloodtoofs – Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Orruk Megaboss (140) Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (480) – Boss Choppa and Rip-tooth Fist Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (480)* – Boss Choppa and Rip-tooth Fist – General – Command Trait: Mega Bossy – Artefact: Destroyer – Mount Trait: Fast ‘Un Orruk Warchanter (115)* Orruk Warchanter (115)*
Brett: Double Maw-Krusha list that’s been around since the start of 3rd edition with two notable changes. One is the extra Megaboss sitting like a cherry on top and the other is the battalions. Early on the with the Double Maw-Krusha, warlords were preferred to give extra artefacts to the 2nd Krusha. This army has gone with the battle regiment for priority control side stepping the debate between Tough ‘Un or Weird ‘Un on the 2nd Krusha for durability.
Otherwise a Megaboss and 5 Brutes to control the home, nasty for anything trying to teleport although they are a slow moving block. 9 Gore-gruntas including a nasty block of 6 with the shorter range weapons, that might create some issues and two Warchanters, probably with Fix ’em and Get ’em beats. The biggest alpha strike list in AoS? The General moving up to 36″ and done properly the other Maw moving 24″. Unit of pigs with a 3D6 charge set up in first turn? Always a lot of muscle getting close fast that forces you to set up very carefully.
Ray’s only loss was to 2nd place after beating another Sylvaneth list in the second round. The first army is a Kurnoth centred tree terror list as compared to Alex’s Aliarelle’s spell slingers. I feel like the Purple Sun might have eaten something important. In any case deploying Aliarelle out of the Maw-Krusha’s reach. The other armies (Cities and SCE) may have struggled in the face of all of that damage. Nice work Ray.
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Army Faction: Gloomspite Gitz – Subfaction: Glogg’s Megamob – Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs – Triumph: Inspired
LEADERS Dankhold Troggboss (240) – General – Command Traits: Shepherd of Idiotic Destruction – Artefacts of Power: Aetherquartz-studded Hide Kragnos (720)
BATTLELINE Rockgut Troggoths (435)* Rockgut Troggoths (435)* Stabbas (150)* – Bad Moon Icon Bearer – Gong Basher – Pokin’ Spear and Moon Shield – Barbed Net
TERRAIN 1 x Bad Moon Loonshrine (0)
CORE BATTALIONS *Bounty Hunters
TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000
Brett: Kragnos and friends? Does Kragnos have friends or just terrified/fascinated followers? Is this a Gloomspite alpha strike?
Whatever’s happening this army is getting into your personal space as quickly as possible and hugging you. Which you might find uncomfortable. There isn’t a lot of subtlety, the Dankhold makes the Rockgut battle line and grants a re-roll before smacking you in the face. Or whiffing – that’s the joy of Gloomspite, mad damage with bad saves and explosions. Double reinforced Rockgut units to take maximum advantage of their ability to return units (on a 4+ return a Troggoth unit at 1/2 strength). Lastly all of the troops are in Bounty Hunters just to hurt a little more.
A lot of fun but not without risk. Jakob’s 3rd round was an opponent that took No Place for the Weak making those battleline’s a primary target. With a reasonable amount of shooting that’s a problem. But this is Gitz, it’s about silly fun and not grinding out wins. The best part of this army is the way it’s going to hit you and either explode or explode you and it’s going to be a fun ride. There’s no overthinking things apart from where that moon is. 3/2 with an army like that is a very solid effort.
