While the list is mostly unchanged from previous iterations, in this infantry centric ogors army there’s one main difference, which is hard focusing on two kill tactics instead of including Restless Energy. The pack for this tournament gradually progressed from dense maps to spread maps, in which Restless Energy is difficult to score steps 2 and 3 (particularly on Creeping Corruption). Being forced to play a certain way just to score this tactic makes those battleplans more difficult. Instead, with only kill tactics, I was able to focus purely on combining primary objective scoring and positioning against my opponent. While it resulted in me only scoring two tactics in my harder matches, it still gave me the freedom to position for counterpunch as opposed to forcing me to position for tactics. In addition, it usually meant that I was able to be the underdog and have 5 CP for more counterplay in my opponent’s turn. This is very ideal for redeploying + burgerlusting closer to an opponent that’s choosing to be very far away. All in all, having more freedom to respond to your opponent’s plays is quite nice!
This last weekend Fabien Barbusse took Cities to first place at the Cherokee Open. This is the first time this battlescroll that we’ve seen a Cities list place in the top three of any event.
We asked Fabien how the list worked.
Cities of Sigmar Fearless Exemplars General’s Handbook 2025-26 Drops: 5 Spell Lore – Spells of the Collegiate Arcane Prayer Lore – Scriptures of Sigmar Manifestation Lore – Forbidden Power (20) Battle Tactic Cards: Intercept and Recover, Master the Paths
General’s Regiment Fusil-Major on Ogor Warhulk (150) • General • Brazier of Holy Flame (20) • Cosmopolitan Leader (20) Freeguild Cavaliers (300) • Reinforced Freeguild Command Corps (180) Freeguild Command Corps (180) Ironweld Great Cannon (110)
Regiment 1 Freeguild Marshal and Relic Envoy (100) • Heirloom Warhammer Freeguild Command Corps (180) Freeguild Command Corps (180)
Regiments of Renown Sky-Port Profiteers (350) Codewright Grundstok Thunderers • 2x Grundstok Mortar or Aethercannon Grundstok Thunderers • 2x Grundstok Mortar or Aethercannon
Fabien: Cities right now is not in a great place: the most powerful/effective build (SoG Cavaliers with Zenestra and Cannons) is subpar compared to other armies, and is frankly quite boring to play. That’s why I went with my list (and also because new Tzeentch was not out in time for Cherokee).
This list is fun to play, with a ton of tools but it has 2 mains weaknesses: lack of damage (especially against good armor) and high randomness (hello Command Corps). And the downside of having a ton of tools is that the decision tree is massive, so it’s easier to miss the optimal play, in which case the army will really struggle.
The list plays as a castle formed by the 4 units of Command Corps as screens, around the Fusil-Major, with the remaining heroes and cavaliers safe in the back. The goal is to win on primaries and eventually score enough tactics to win the game, but it’s usually small wins. The KO RoR brings the tools for the list to work: turning off wards (4 of my 5 games were against armies with army wide 5+ ward) and teleporting Command Corps then moving 3″ with the Advance in Formation order (it doesn’t have the MOVE keyword so it works after setup). Finally the Cavaliers are the only source of consistent damage in the list so they need to be protected until they can go into a valuable target.
Whelp, I somehow acquired a Golden Ticket for the Championships. It’s in Atlanta, which is great because it’s 15 minutes from my bed to the play area. The event is very large this year with almost 150 players for AoS and hundreds or thousands more for everything else (including the 40k Narrative event).
Credit: Games Workshop
The event is in the Hyatt in downtown Atlanta. The venue itself is clean, large, and with access to multiple other larger hotels (via tunnel in case of weather). It’s also connected to a passable food court for lunch. Overall it’s a good venue for any tournament really, but quite suitable for such a large one.
More importantly buckets of five beers are $20 and I took advantage of that on days one, two and four.
This is a Games Workshop official event, so the terrain is all GW terrain. The setup is all on GW and the TOs/Judges including official Games Workshop staff (and rules writers). This makes it unique in how rulings come down but also unique in how little arguing people (normally) have with TOs!
I appreciate getting the TOs to rule on “Sacred Rites” for Fyreslayers players: it does not give a magmic token! I don’t appreciate that they refused to elaborate on why that is, but so it goes.
Honestly, going into the third year it seems like they really got all the kinks out of thing. Other than a technical problem during the preview show, everything seemed to run quite smoothly on the surface.
A lot of the staff helping run the event are actually my Georgia Warband clubmates, and a lot of us have lent out models to various participants. I guess we also have a hand in making it run smoothly: shout out to my teammates!
This is also a great chance for me to see some old friends and acquaintances. Hell, I might make some new friends: a new opponent is just a friend you’ve not played yet.
My List
As per normal, I am running Fyreslayers. I’ve been running various lists over the past couple of months. I couldn’t settle on one so just went with one of the recent iterations, which I sort of regret, but it performed well enough.
I wish I had had more time to practice, but other than the event a bit beforehand, work and life has me up against the wall and I just can’t take the time I really should to get reps in. I’m basically hoping my nonstop play with only this army for years can carry me.
Regiment 3 Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (Scourge of Ghyran) (320) Droth-helm (10) Fiercely Competitive Thickened Scales Hearthguard Berzerkers with Flamestrike Poleaxes (120)
Faction Terrain Magmic Battleforge
Regiments of Renown Sky-Port Profiteers (320) Grundstok Thunderers 2x Grundstok Mortar or Aethercannon Grundstok Thunderers 2x Grundstok Mortar or Aethercannon 2x Aetheric Fumigator or Decksweeper Codewright
The list functions closer in playstyle to older infantry Fyreslayers lists than it does a full magmadroth pedal to the metal list — though it can do that some, too.
The Thunderers, Poleaxes, and Flameseekers not only all do some damage but add heavy screening, point capturing pressure, and just wounds to the list. Opponents always have to be aware that the Codewright can teleport anyone from himself to a flameseekers unit (9-models) around the map.
The Auric Runesmiter on Magmadroth adds heavy utility and defensive capability. The rampage is extremely good at adding pre-combat mortals on larger units which can thin their ranks before they swing. Further, the +1 wound (on a 3+) ability is useful and being priest (1) is extremely useful.
The Runefather and Runeson Magmadroths are, of course, the mobile hammers which skew it from an infantry list into a damage output game.
I took the Fiercely Competitive trait over the others, in retrospect I really would have liked Blood of the Berserker due to failing many MANY charges by 1, but on the other hand, Fiercely Competitive straight up wins me the mirror match against the other Fyreslayers player, so it wasn’t a BAD pick, just a situational one.
Thickened Scales and the Droth Helm continue to always pay dividends.
The list, at its core, isn’t about having maximum utility, objective holding, or damage, but a little of each. My hope is that makes it a good all-comers list.
The Tournament: Pod Play
I’ll note that the specifics on every game are sometimes misremembered or a bit fuzzy, so I’m doing my best to see through the haze of alcohol and brain cooking to remember everything in these sections.
(The deep recesses of the AoS area)
My big critique of this phase of the tournament is that they released the pods well-before the tournament but then shifted them around (due to drops I guess?). This caused a bit of confusion for many of us. Really, they should have just released lists but waited for pods to be shown the day-of. I felt like this maybe caused some inequality in list knowledge and expectation, but it didn’t overly affect me due to aforementioned lack of prep.
Day 1: Losing Game 1 is Relaxing
(Locked in)
Game 1: Loss Against Nighthaunt on Surge of Slaughter
My Game 1 opponent is David Demmel from Germany with a Pyregheists heavy list (like all NH players).
1990/2000 pts
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Grand Alliance Death | Nighthaunt | Quicksilver Gheists (40 Points)
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 3
Spell Lore - Lore of the Underworlds
Manifestation Lore - Infernal Sorceries
Battle Tactics Cards: Restless Energy and Scouting Force
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General's Regiment
Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief (300)
• General
Chainghasts (90)
Scourge of Ghyran Black Coach (300)
---
Regiment 1
Krulghast Cruciator (160)
• Brazier of Nagashizzar
• Ruler of the Spectral Hosts
Myrmourn Banshees (180)
• Reinforced
Pyregheists (150)
Pyregheists (150)
---
Regiment 2
Lord Vitriolic (120)
Chainrasps (200)
• Reinforced
Pyregheists (150)
Pyregheists (150)
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Faction Terrain
Nexus of Grief
David’s list is extremely good at accomplishing tactics and he can basically effortlessly get 4 of them with the other two being a bit harder, but not much. It also has one of the most points efficient units in the game in Pyregheists backed by Olynder being a very strong utility and damage piece that borders on unkillable without HEAVY mortal damage threat.
I know he can play the tactics game very well and so I play somewhat agressive into him. This works in turn 1 as he plays more passive, mostly screening and toe-touching objectives. I outscore him while eliminating his chainghasts.
But it falls apart in Round 2 when I fail nearly every single one of my very short short charges. I still do damage due to shooting, but it’s not enough. Further, I think my rune usage was poor here and that is the real thing that will haunt me.
This was a big misplay on my part and a valuable lesson: never ever consider charges guaranteed. I need to be much more cautious, especially around armies with such a strong hit back on damage output. I felt I had to play agressively into a shooting army, but I probably didn’t.
I think his positioning was okay but if I do make those charges I think I win the close game, but since I didn’t, his positioning seemed genius and his clap back kills my runefather droth as well as gaining him just an overall fantastic scoring and positioning turn.
From here on out I play the game of scrambling for points as my gameplan has gone awry and I do claw back but my lack of tactics adds up while he accomplishes them with ease and I end up losing a very close game while both of us have very few models left on the board.
David’s a strong player and I think once he saw where the pieces landed in Round 2 he knew as long as he didn’t make any mistakes it was game over for me going into Round 3.
Great opponent and a good close game. I think I played poorly into the battleplan, not helped by the underdog mechanic being useless against Nighthaunt.
I learned some real lessons here on being more meticulous and less gambling-prone and I credit David with out playing me for the lessons here.
Game 2: Win Against Seraphon on Lifecycle.
I am now fully relaxing heading into my game 2. With the weight of winning off my shoulders I can play to my strengths but not stress. It’s probably a character flaw of mine that I play better when winning a tournament is out of my reach. Technically I have a chance at top 16, but it’s now not fully in my own hands so I don’t stress it hard.
This game is against Erik Armstrong from Canada playing Seraphon.
Your list scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could include the Sky-Port Profiteers, they didn’t stop to think if they should 2000/2000 pts
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Grand Alliance Order | Seraphon | Eternal Starhost
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 3
Spell Lore - Lore of Celestial Manipulation (20 Points)
Manifestation Lore - Aetherwrought Machineries
Battle Tactics Cards: Restless Energy and Wrathful Cycles
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General's Regiment
Skink Starpriest (110)
• General
• Coatl Familiar
• Child of the Stars
Raptadon Chargers (260)
• Reinforced
Ripperdactyl Riders (220)
• Reinforced
---
Regiment 1
Sunblood Pack (150)
Kroxigor (200)
Kroxigor (200)
Kroxigor Warspawned (420)
• Reinforced
---
Regiment 2
Saurus Astrolith Bearer (120)
Saurus Warriors (150)
Saurus Warriors (150)
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Faction Terrain
Realmshaper Engine
I’m pretty comforted going into this matchup as I recently played almost this identical list so I’m quite familiar with it.
Erik is chill and quite competent in his deployment which tells me he’s a strong player. No wishy washy play here, he’s got a plan!
I deploy conservatively with knowledge I can double move if need be and that he basically can BARELY get one unit into me turn 1 if he gets the run/charge spell off so I’m not worried about an alphastrike.
In round 1 I basically toe touch the objectives with some throwaway units and ping some damage on his dudes. I do push the right side a bit harder with infantry and keep my middle hammers waiting for him to make a move while my other droth pushes harder on the left side.
This drags some of his units to deal with the threat on one side. He uses Saurus to screen the Kroxigors waiting for a nice opening. But he also used the -1 rend asterism so he can’t really step out of his own territory without great risk to himself, so the screen can’t be too far forward and he can’t walk into the middle of the map without getting blasted.
With this setup I can safely give the turn away in round 2 and be perfectly safe or take it and wipe him out pretty hard.
He gets the turn, he can’t do a ton and pings some of my units, but with the strikes first rune he knows he has to play safe. Sadly for him on the bottom of two I kill basically all the screens, especially his Ripperdactyls, and ping some other stuff.
I get the double and basically end the game right there by tabling anything of actual note he has. Some decent charges up the center ensure this.
Erik takes the loss like a true champion but apparently has places to be so sadly I missed my shot at buying him a beer.
I go out with some people and we grab some okonomiyaki, that’s some good food. The power of knowing the area, I guess.
Day 2: Opponent Game Win % is an Exciting Tie Breaker
Going into Day 2 I’m, again, fairly chill. What I am not excited about is the insanely early start time of 8:30 A.M. Bonkers, GW, bonkers. Humans were not designed for such hours!
Game 3: Win Against Gloomspite Gitz on Cyclic Shifts
(Shown: my confusion over Boingrot’s being so undercosted)
This game is against Ricky Fischer from the US on Gitz. I’ve played Ricky a couple years prior at Nashcon, actually and we had a good game then. Ricky always brings the HEAT when it comes to hobbying and he absolutely crushes me in that contest — a beautiful army from a beautiful man.
(Oh yea, I got btfo on hobbying)
2025 WCW 1990/2000 pts
Gloomspite Gitz
Squigalanche
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 2
Spell Lore - Lore of the Clammy Dank
Manifestation Lore - Dank Manifestations
Battle Tactic Cards: Intercept and Recover, Restless Energy
General's Regiment
Skragrott, the Loonking (200)
• General
Doom Diver Catapult (160)
Gobbapalooza (150)
Rockgut Troggoths (360)
• Reinforced
Rockgut Troggoths (360)
• Reinforced
Regiment 1
Squigboss with Gnasha-Squig (120)
• Fight Another Day
• Leering Gitshield
Boingrot Bounderz (220)
• Reinforced
Boingrot Bounderz (220)
• Reinforced
Squig Herd (200)
• Reinforced
Faction Terrain
Bad Moon Loonshrine
His list lacks chariots, which is great for me, but has lots of boingrots, which is less great for me. The doomdiver may also pose issues, though it’s far more swingy.
Still, I have high damage output and enough ranged power to at least force his positioning to be off if he wants obscuring of any kind and if he wants good positioning he’ll have to take the licks.
The story of this game is basically that Troggs do not form a good screen if they can’t have a ward. He has to screen his actual fast hammers and units from my very fast droths, but once the Troggs lose their ward even the breath attacks are clearing them.
He makes good use of his moon buffs and spells to keep me at bay a bit and play the objectives. In Round 1 we both play conservatively, but in round 2 I push the right side super hard forcing his hand on his turn to come deal with me. He forgets I have the fight first rune and pushes a bit too hard setting me up for some big turns.
Still, with some nice charges and positioning he kills a unit of thunderers, wounds some poleaxes, and puts wounds on a magmadroth. Sadly for him it’s the smiterdroth who can do lots of mortal wounds to large units before combat causing him to fail on the closing out the droth.
He pulls back on the left side and consolidates for a countercharge, but this does sacrifice his Loonshrine, so no recursion can save him here. I’m basically fighting him in his territory at this point and the game is gonna be lost on points even if he can finish clearing out my magmadroths.
But he doesn’t and I get to play whack-a-mole on his final dudes.
A good game, but I think the droth pre-combat damage + ranged pressure was too high for his list on this map.
Ricky is a great opponent and I know he won awards later for hobbying at the very least.
Game 4: Win Against Stormcast Eternals on Roiling Roots
(How the hell do you show a panoramic image on this thing?)
This game is against Joss Wheeler from the US on SCE.
From the top rope its sigmar with a steel chair. 2000/2000 pts
Stormcast Eternals
Thunderhead Host
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 2
Battle Tactic Cards: Intercept and Recover, Master The Paths
General's Regiment
Yndrasta, the Celestial Spear (290)
• General
Aetherwings (80)
Annihilators with Meteoric Grandhammers (180)
Vanguard-Palladors with Starstrike Javelins (240)
Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (200)
Regiment 1
Lord-Imperatant (110)
• Banner of Sigmar
• Shock and Awe
Annihilators with Meteoric Grandhammers (360)
• Reinforced
Annihilators with Meteoric Grandhammers (360)
• Reinforced
Gardus Steel Soul (160)
Faction Terrain
Stormreach Portal (20 Points)
I read Joss’ list and felt doom wash over me. This list is VERY good against mine. Longstrikes aren’t going to kill a magmadroth (probably) but those wounds add up. The grandhammers can definitely kill a magmadroth though, easily.
Then there’s Yndrasta, the hardest hard counter to Magmadroths. Her spear toss alone SLAPS.
I know I have to do two things: play a very SPREAD game, abuse the 9″ bubbles, and second is push HARD if I see an opening to get as many points as possible, especially if I have the fight first rune up. I probably also have to pray to the dice gods for him failing some charge rolls (which he later does).
Joss wisely takes the top of 1 and bum rushes my front line to pin me in on the left/center. I pop the 5+ ward rune and he sees that my screening would have him killing some infantry and then dying horribly to magmadroths so he doesn’t drop his big boys.
He pins me with the palladors and Yndrasta pushes my right side, killing a hero and taking objective, getting him a solid lead.
I know better than to directly fight Yndrasta with a droth if I don’t have to, instead opting to shoot her a lot and strip her ward. Which I do, putting some damage on her. I finish off the Palladors and hold my line, we get to go to round 2.
Going into round 2 he has the top and I hit the fight first rune. This disuades him from dropping (too risky and no great openings) and he pulls Yndrasta WAAAAY back to safety and rallying her back up.
On my turn I push further up and clear more of screens/units on the board and spread waaaay out in fear of his drops still out there.
I get initiative into round 3 and RUSH his Lord-Imperatant killing it. This is HUGE for me. My flameseekers threaten the left side now and are chasing his longstrikes and his remaining objective.
He has a combeback chance if he can free the longstrikes, but he can’t. In one of the worst dice rolls he could get, his Gardus fails to do a single point of damage to some Flameseekers who in-turn kill the longstrikes. Further he fails all of his drop charges.
He gets the double into four but it’s too little too late, Yndrasta is JUST NOW getting back into the fight maybe and he needs some lengthy charges just to get onto two objectives, let alone take multiple.
The game is basically over on points and I go to 3-1. I view the standings and see: yep I’m WAAAAAY low on tie breaks (opponent game win % is the first one) so that ship has sailed and I have no shot at a shadow round. Let’s drink!
The Games: Bracket Play
After the pod play everyone is separated into brackets. The brackets are the top 16, then all 3-win players, all 2-win, and so on. I am in the “3-win players bracket.”
Day 3: Migraines Suck; If I Could Drop I Would Have
This day sucks terribly for me, not due to losses, I don’t care about that. I randomly get terrible migraines maybe three or four times a year. Whelp, I got nice timing on that.
I happened to get one the night before and got maybe 2 hours of sleep on top of the daylong incredible headache that medicine just couldn’t shake. Any other tournament and I would be dropping, but I can’t do this here.
Due to this, I really don’t remember a lot about this day — it’s basically a blur — and I’m sure I show my opponents some uninspired play and behavior. Thankfully reviewing opponents lists and battleplans somewhat jogged at least a little memory.
Game 5: Loss Against Nighthaunt on Passing Seasons
(it’s me, dying, and David, hopefully not dying)
This game is against David Demmel (again) with Nighthaunt. The list is the same as above. He actually went to the “shadow round” for a chance at top 16, but sadly fell just short.
Again, I don’t remember a ton but I lost to the same list twice so I believe it went roughly the same way. I do recall the end though: I misplayed very badly taking some units off my back objective compounded with him making a fantastic roll to drag his banshess over and grab my back objective which gave him the points needed to win.
I could make a comeback but only with a super long bomb charge with my droth and some hot rolling, which didn’t happen ending the game. David takes the game by 5 in part due to my error at the end.
David’s really nice and a good opponent. I was glad that if anyone would beat me it would be a skilled player and nice guy.
Game 6: Loss Against Lumineth Realmlords on Grasp of Thrones
This game is against Jos Chang from the US on LRL.
Can someone send me Jarod Brown’s discord info? He keeps making sweet LRL lists and I need to know the secret sauce.
My discord username is josbert
1970/2000 pts
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Grand Alliance Order | Lumineth Realm-lords | Scinari Council (10 Points)
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 3
Spell Lore - Lore of Hysh
Manifestation Lore - Manifestations of Hysh
Battle Tactics Cards: Restless Energy and Scouting Force
-----
General's Regiment
Ellania and Ellathor, Eclipsian Warsages (290)
• General
Alarith Stoneguard (120)
Scourge of Ghyran The Light of Eltharion (270)
Vanari Auralan Wardens (280)
• Reinforced
Ydrilan Riverblades (160)
---
Regiment 1
Scinari Enlightener (200)
• Silver Wand
• Flawless Commander
Vanari Auralan Wardens (140)
Ydrilan Riverblades (160)
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Regiments of Renown
Sky-Port Profiteers (320)
Codewright
Grundstok Thunderers
Grundstok Thunderers
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Faction Terrain
Shrine Luminor (20)
I really like Jos but I really hate Lumineth. I am full doomer going into this game and you know what they say: if you don’t believe you will win then you won’t. That addage holds true here.
I don’t really recall the exact details but Jos played a great game. Very technical using obscuring and his heroes to full advantage as well as the Riverblades.
My Runefather got stuck on a single objective the WHOLE GAME. A huge mistake on my part to let him stay on that objective and get trapped. I should have played more passively and taken the objective in turn 2, then brought the sondroth to middle.
Just huge positioning errors on my part let the game get away from me right at the end for Jos to take it by 2 points.
Some great play from Jos here and a lesson in, as always, how awful LRL can be to play against, haha. But also in not giving up when you know you’re coming back.
I wish I could remember more specifics, but I was super checked out.
Some friends want Hattie B’s and I oblige despite not feeling well. Give the people what they want.
Day 4: Healthy and Get a Mirror Match
I got home around 10 p.m. the night before and immediately fell asleep clear through until 8:30 where I had to rush to the venue (dice roll at 9, allegedly). I feel great now, shaking off the headache and having plenty of sleep, I’m ready to rock ‘n’ roll.
Game 7: Win Against Fyreslayers on Creeping Corruption
(How many people does it take to move a model? Chris is finding out!)
This game is against David Sulava from Australia on Fyreslayers. Hell yea, my fellow Fyreslayer!
Scoville 9000 2000/2000 pts
Fyreslayers
Scales of Vulcatrix (10 Points)
General's Handbook 2025-26
Drops: 5
Prayer Lore - Vulkyn Gifts
Manifestation Lore - Magmic Invocations
Battle Tactic Cards: Intercept and Recover, Restless Energy
General's Regiment
Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (320)
• General
• Blood of the Berzerker
Scourge of Ghyran Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)
Regiment 1
Scourge of Ghyran Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (330)
• Droth-helm - (10) Points
Regiment 2
Scourge of Ghyran Auric Runeson on Magmadroth (320)
• Incandescent Blaze
Regiment 3
Auric Runemaster (180)
Hearthguard Berzerkers with Berzerker Broadaxes (240)
• Reinforced
Regiment 4
Auric Runesmiter on Magmadroth (280)
Faction Terrain
Magmic Battleforge
I’ve played the FS mirror match a few times now. I also know this list he is running very well and realize I have the hard counter to David’s list: Flameseekers and Fiercely competitive.
He gives me the top of 1, I basically scoot around and faff about. I position such that if he does the same I can push on the next turn. I do teleport a unit to toe-touch his back objective and take it from him for a quick 10 instead of 8 points turn — I know he didnt deploy on it for a reason, likely to bait someone for his Runefather to get in combat with and grab an easy Restless 1, but I don’t mind as that drags one of his precious magmadroths way away from the fighting.
He takes the initiative and pushes hard into me, but with my fight first rune up he can’t do too terribly much on charge. But his shooting is potent and he nearly kills a flameseeker unit as well as my runefather droth. He charges the flameseekers to take my right back objective, but fails to kill them due to damage reduction. He also kills my teleported Thunderers, no big deal.
I win the priority and he uses the fight first rune. This is what I’ve been waiting for! I was actually fearful he’d use the 5+ ward/+1 save rune which would let him tank me and hit back. I put heavy shooting into his droth helm runeson, damaging it, then charge everything to the right and center.
With fiercely competitive, even though he has strikes first, I do, too. I easily dispatch his +1 hit aura magmadroth. This nerfs his other droths damage, though he still finishes off my runefather. My Runesmiter droth finishes off his second runeson droth and my flameseekers put the other one on notice with it being nearly dead and stuck in combat with them.
That’s game and he concedes. Even if he gets the turn all he can do is kill some flameseekers basically (maybe) and then Ill immediately kill everything but a remaining runefather who is way out of position.
A fast game, maybe 45 minutes, and I’m off to go drink! David is a really great guy and I’m glad I got to play him even if it was a shorter game.
Game 8: Win Against Seraphon on Bountiful Equinox
(Gonna be honest, the smell wasn’t great)
This game was against Thomas Burgett from the US on Seraphon. I now realize I was not ready to rock ‘n’ roll. It turns out 8 games in four days is a lot of AoS and I’m pretty done with the ordeal. I make this quite clear to Tom and that I’ll be probably full-sending if I see an opening.
I’d met Tom a couple years ago when I lent him a grouping of all the Annihalators we could scrounge together in the Atlanta area. He’s a cool guy and I’m glad he’s back!
His list is way way more agressive than Erik’s, wow. I know those Raptadons can basically cross the board on turn 1 if they want.
With that in mind I… deploy agressively, let’s get this shit over with! He gives me the top but has screened heavily so there’s no real point in doing much. I move my guys slightly forward and screen.
He pushes hard on the right, kills a Codewright and loses the unreinforced Chargers for the trouble. It gets him a solid lead though and takes my teleporting piece off the board.
I win the priority into round 2, give it to him, and hit 5+ ward. He basically pushes his screens up a bit and puts some light damage down.
I get my turn and just send it, killing all his screens and powering through off an endless spell to take one of his objectives putting me up on points.
He gets the top of 3 and I hit fight first. He has to do something though because if he does nothing I’m killing everything on my turn, if he does something I.. might kill everything.
He chooses to try to kill my runeson on magmadroth, fails, and we shake hands. He knows on my turn I’m clearing the Korxigor, the raptadons, and basically everything I can off the board then we would have a priority that would no longer matter.
I finish the tournament 3-1 and 2-2 for a total of 5-3 and ranked 32. Not bad, but not amazing. I blame poor play on day 1 for missing my shot at the top 16, but I think I wouldn’t have done well anyway with the migraine on day 3, so maybe it was for the best.
The End or: How I Stopped Fearing and Learned to Love My Brain Being Cooked
I live close enough I bounce home for a shower and a snack before I head back for the award ceremony with my wife. My brain is now thoroughly fried and I exist in a state of unconciousness functioning solely on instinct, an instinct to drive too fast around Atlanta roads!
I missed top Fyreslayer for the event, which went to Philip Springall and his very cool list and a beautifully painted army — I’m quite happy with this as he’s nice and his list is far more interesting/different than mine! I love unique FS lists.
Philip’s list is here. A flamekeeper? What a chad.
Regiments of Renown Sky-Port Profiteers (320) Codewright Grundstok Thunderers
2 Grundstok Mortar or Aethercannon Grundstok Thunderers
* 2 Grundstok Mortar or Aethercannon
Faction Terrain Magmic Battleforge
I did, however, get top Fyreslayers in ITC and thought we would get an award for that as we have in previous years. They even mention it at the beginning of the award show but then just didn’t give one out, oh well. I was happy to cheer for all the winners!
WIth the event over I am more than happy to not play Age of Sigmar for a bit with my next event just being a charity event a bit away. I think my brain is cooked.
Will it come back to Atlanta next year? The venue seems perfect for it and few airports are as well connected as Atlanta’s.
That said, the Europeans seemed REALLY REALLY not keen on traveling such long distances so I suspect it will go to Europe (any other continent is probably just not even a consideration). If they do move it, I hope the new venue has buckets of beer for $20!
(Hell yea, Mexico wins team spirit! I hope my brother from the south can make it to Europe!)
Feel free to comment if you have any specific questions about the event. This is just a brief rundown of games, after all.
As well as being one of the best and most well-known Skaven players in the world, Keegan runs his own YouTube channel where he looks at competitive Age of Sigmar.
Peter: Welcome to our first Chat with the Champs.
I’m pleased to welcome Keegan Graves to talk all things Skaven (and more).
I’ll start, shall I? This question is on behalf of Scott, who asks what thoughts you have on creating a fun narrative list that’s not meant to be competitive, he’s looking for tips for the NOVA narrative event later this month.
Keegan: I mean, when people think of “fun” for skaven, they usually think clans skryre. I think the bombardier is a good place to start. He’s not good, but he’s a lot of fun when his rocket does 12 damage. Start with a bombardier and a couple doomwheels with the pit tinkerer heroic trait to make them funny. Honestly, I think a lot of stuff in Skaven is fun, so I’m probably going to be competitively biased with my answer, haha
I would say Bombardier, a few doomwheels, a warp lightning cannon. Lots of clanrats, a verminlord deceiver to teleport around and stab people, and maybe a HPA (Hell Pit Abomination).
It’s a good mix and will make for great moments in the game.
Matt_the_Rat: How many clan rats do you own?
Keegan: I haven’t counted in a few years, at least 160, I think? 160ish Clanrats and 80 Plague Monks, I believe.
Peter: What’s your opinion on the current balance of the game?
Keegan: I would say the game is actually relatively balanced right now. The gap between the best and worst armies isnt huge, and I still think the worst armies can still do well at GTs.
The best armies in the game are probably Cities, Nighthaunt, and Daughters. and the Khorne AoR is super overpowered and needs to be nerfed.
Archi: Best competitively you mean? Because what about Stormcastand Ossiarch Bonereapers?
Keegan: Ossiarch are B tier at best. They are struggling a bit imo.
Privileged: Sylvaneth, cos I like pain?
Keegan: Better than Stormcast and OBR in my opinion. They actually have some gas and Warsong is VERY good in this current meta. Ward removal/ward stripping is so strong right not.
Matt_The_Rat: What do you consider are Skaven’s best and worst matchups in the current meta?
Keegan: Highly highly depends on the list you’re running, but I will talk from the perspective of the list I’m currently running. 40 monks, soggy bell, furnace, 6 rogors, 6 ratlings, and 2 soggy terrors. We do well into most of the top tier armies at the moment because of the furnace. Cities can be tricky for my list in particular though. Kruleboyz with kragnos specifially can also be hard. As for easy matchups with that list: Fyreslayers and Nurgle get absolutely slaughtered by it. It’s hilariously one sided.
Carson W: Why did you abandon Ogors?
Keegan: Foot ogors are stronger than BCR, and I dont have a lot of painted foot ogors. Also Skaven requires less brainpower because I have so much practice with them.
Archi: I was thinking of buying the Daughters of Khaine spearhead JUST because of the snakes.
Keegan: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but snakes are not that good haha.
It’s all Witch Aelves right now.
Privileged: DoK will get a nerf soon most likely. Buy with caution imo.
Keegan: I could see it. Honestly what made them so strong imo is the nerfs to shooting and introduction of obscuring. DoK’s biggest counter had always been guns.
Oli.Oli: What units do you think are going to get points increases next battlescroll?
Keegan: For Skaven? For us I think we see Soggy terro and soggy bell go up almost certainly. Deceiver may go up, though I don’t think he needs to. Flayers may get a small bump. I honestly think not much else needs to go up. Our book was way WAY over-costed at launch and I think most of it is FINALLY getting where it needs to be.
Seracrooce: Cutest opponent you’ve ever played?
Keegan: Jeez thats a hard one. Probably one of my regional friends. His name is Obed and he plays KO. He wears a chefs outfit and chefs hat and rolls his dice into a frying pan. He also has way too much fun with the game
Jakovasaur: Is Soulblight strong?
Keegan: Probably top 10 armies in the game? Barrow knights are very very good.
Seracrooce: What would win, Alarielle and Bownoths or Slaanesh monster mash?
Keegan: They are both absolute losers, the real winners are those who decided not to play either of those armies.
In all seriousness probably slaanesh monster mash? Slaanesh can close the distance very very quickly, and any of them can easily kill anything in sylvaneth that they touch also -1 to hit the big guys hurts sylvaneth’s output a lot. It’s not an easy win tho prolly a close game.
Privileged: How do the new skaven play for you? Are they competitive or meh overall? Several new unit/models release have seemed lackluster?
Keegan: They are extremely competitive, they are probably top 6 armies in the game? They are very counter meta.
They handily beat DoK and Nighthaunt, have an even matchup into cities, and even have play into the khorne AoR. They also don’t lose to very much. They are great at scoring tactics and keeping in the game until the end.
In order to keep up with skaven you need speed, high single target damage, decent board presence, unbinds, and it helps to have anti ward tech and recursion
Oli.Oli: What is ur least favourite matchup for skaven rn?
Keegan: It’s 100% the khorne AoR but that feels like a cop out answer. I think cities is probably the most frustrating? They have so much that is good against you and its extremely mentally taxing to play.
I played cannon cities twice in a row day 2 of the last GT I went to. I was DEAD by the end
Privileged: And SoG Zenestra is OP
Tbh she’s not THAT bad. I’ve found you can actually counterplay cities by just ignoring her. Her mortal wound blast isn’t that good into the furnace and bell because they have wards and heal a lot and we have the bodies to just run at cities and overwhelm them.
The more annoying part of cities to me is the command corp, they require way too much effort to kill and exra command point spend ability they have is so incredibly annoying to play against
Peter: What do you think to this GHB?
Keegan: Honestly, this is the best GHB we’ve gotten in years. It completely eclipses every GHB from 3rd edition, and a lot of the 2nd ed ones too.
It’s fun, flavorful, and adds interesting mechanics. It makes terrain actually matter, it made battle tactics actually fun and interesting rather than just a checklist.
A huge issue I had with third ed is that every time it got to the start of a players turn the game just ground to a halt while they looked through cards and tried to decide what to do. The GHB fixed that entirely. So hats off to GW for the best update yet haha.
Peter: When’s your next tournament?
Keegan: So I’m actually on the fence right now. I am signed up and was planning to go to flying monkey.
However, Borderlands 4 launches on the Friday night before the event and I am a fiend for that series, so I’m in quite the dilemma.
But other than (maybe)monkey, I’ll be at vault wars, Oklahoma open, World Championships of Warhammer in Atlanta, and US Masters in Seattle
Oli.Oli: What team are you for Masters?
Keegan: I’m on Great Plains. Which is essentially players from: Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. But North America is roughly divided into 10 regions, and each region puts forth a team to represent them each region also has their own methods for determining what players are on their team
Privileged: Is it best to join a team if being competitive at those levels? What’s the benefit?
Keegan: Well, I recommend joining a club first so you can practice a lot and get to know your locals.
Rhinoceruption: What is the worst chaos god and why is it the subpar horned rat?
Keegan: The worst chaos god is Slaanesh because he’s lame and stupid.
Oli.Oli: When are you going to upload again on the YouTube?
Keegan: When my schedule opens up and I have time to record and edit videos. Probably not for a while because I’m going back to school this fall. I’m try and make a few videos when I can tho.
Privileged: What do you anticipate pros and cons for Helms of Hashut? What could ruin their release? GW doesn’t have a great track record with dwarves
Keegan: I don’t think anything will ruin their release unless their rules are absolutely horrid.
I think the army will be fun to paint and fun to play, but I can anticipate them being extremely unfun to play against. Rend 3 shooting and 30″ range artillery doesn’t sound like something most players are going to be overjoyed to fight haha
Privileged: Like what do you think? I love the preview of the HoH
Keegan: Oh I’m fully on board. I love dwarves and I love chaos. I’ve been waiting for a dwarf army that appeals to me. I don’t love berserker dwarves or steam punk. But plate armor with axes and spears and artillery? Sign me up!
Archi: What are your thoughts on spearhead gamemode, is it balanced if so/not why
Keegan: Honestly I haven’t played a single game of spearhead in my life man. I do not like skirmish games haha. I like big armies and lots of things to do.
I played a single game of warcry and said, “this isnt for me”
I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s legitimately fun and well made and I’m glad to hear it.
Derek.H: Can you explain how you approach games on a macro level? A lot of time I get to my movement phase and am unsure of what the hell I’m trying to do setting up subsequent turns.
Keegan: So I tend to play very reactively, and make sure all my plays build towards some form of grand strategy. I identify key targets in my opponents army and I want to eliminate them in the first 2-3 battle rounds. All while setting up for scoring in turns 4 and 5.
I make sure to always plan that my opponent will double turn me, and I always plan for my opponents abilities to go off. Then basically I react from there.
With movement specifically, I want to make sure I’m staying in my buff zones for future turns and always planning to be safe when I get charged by my opponent.
Boggy: Why are Skaven the best army in the game and why do all the other armies look like a cheap copy of them?
Keegan: Because the great horned rat is the best god, and everything else pales in his greatness.
Archi: It always seems like I have less on the battlefield then my opponent and most of my losses come from me being overwhelmed (I don’t just play skaven but I do play them).
Keegan: Well sometimes you may have less units than them, it all depends on what your playing and what the jobs of the unit you’re bringing are
With skaven, I know I will have 2-4 screens, and their job is to block my opponents hammers from getting into my juicy stuff so I can counter charge and kill their stuff.
Skaven is very much a counter charge army. Not like the command ability. I mean in the sense that we like to tie things up with clanrats, then hit em with buffed up rat ogors. Then in their turn you 3 clawsteps a screen back up to protect your rat ogors
It’s definitely easy to feel overwhelmed, just remember its fine for your screens to get charged and die, just protect your hammers and make sure you hit them back hard
HahaMustard: First off congrats with the recent record boss, you are killin it! To someone trying to improve at AoS, what would you say is a “game changer” to playing at a high level, that newer or intermediate players don’t do in their games (sorry for the awkward wording)
Keegan: I would say the 3 main things that I had to learn to actually start being good are as follows:
How to deploy correctly – Screens in front, double layered into hyper aggressive melee armies. Always make your opponent go first if you can.
How to stop myself from overextending – Never take a double turn unless you’re 110% sure you will hard cripple your opponent. Never leave the protection of your buff auras and spell range. Always make sure you have a screen or durable unit to protect your squishy units with. Don’t be greedy at the cost of winning the game. It’s better to make safe plays that pay off than risky plays that lose you the game.
How to have strong mental – Do not let bad dice get to you. It’s a dice game, you will fail 2+ rolls, and charges, and your units will whiff. A good philosophy is assume everything your opponent attempts will be successful, and assume your units will do less damage than average. It’s better to overkill than to underkill. Additionally, always assume you will lose priority. Plan around bad things happening and have back up plans for everything.
derek.h: How do you avoid getting overwhelmed when you have a double turn looming? Double layering screens isn’t really viable in this economy
Keegan: I generally rarely put myself in situations where I am going to get double turned. There are so many downsides to taking a double turn these days anyway, and the biggest one is that you can get doubled back. However, if I know I’m going to get doubled, you basically HAVE to double layer your screens if you’re playing skaven. We are too fragile to survive a double turn from an army like slaves or stormcast unless we feed them screens for 2 turns. Saving a command point for strikes last in their turn can help a lot, as well as utilizing triple redeploy and the terrain to create choke points.
Tweakedsynth: How do you handle armies like SBGL that can score real well without ever fighting you?
Keegan: I take the fight to them. Barrow knights and blood knights do actual zero damage off the charge, so charge them and tie them up. You don’t need to kill them, just dont let them get where they want to go. The heroes aren’t horribly durable if they cant heal so try and one shot them. Kill their terrain as it lets them summon onto the objectives. Target their scoring units like vamp lords and vargheists.
Another thing is look at what tactics they have and try and deny them. A lot of SBGL players run scout, so just shoot off all their scouts. If you make them panic when they realize they wont score anything by not interacting, you can make them rush into combat and make mistakes
Skaven is one of those lucky armies that can run good shooting, and still also score well. So we can play non-interactive and score well if we need to as well
Tweakedsynth: I think I need to put ratlings back in my lists. I’ve been running bell, deceiver, 2 terrors, 6 rogors, 4 flayers, and 40 clan rats mostly. I also keep trying to make skreech, deceiver, and deathmaster work but can’t find a version I like and Bell probably too good to ignore.
Keegan: I would also say don’t be afraid to be aggressive with your deceiver. He’s good at surviving for a reason
I usually throw him on a flank alone and have him harass and hunt heroes and treasure units and if he gets charges he just fucks off.
Bogarl: Do you have any recommendations for new players to more elite focused armies (obr in my case)?
Keegan: With an army like OBR, you have to rely on the durabilty of your troops. You also very much need to fight on your terms because you can get split up and focused down if you let your opponent dictate the pacing of the game. Katakros + any of your 3+ save troops is a great combo. Immortis guard are super durable when buffed up. Stalkers too. You have to play into the durability of your troops real hard.
Matt_The_Rat: What’s your opinion on the 13+ Deathbringer list in Singles?
Keegan: If your opponent has any sort of AoE mortal wounds you’re absolutely cooked. If they have crit mortals you’re absolutely cooked. If they rely on a low number of attacks that hit on 2s or 3s and they aren’t OC 90000, it’s really really really good.
Legitimately
Thank you to Keegan for spending the time and chatting with us all on Discord. We’ve other chats coming up soon if you want to take part. Just join our friendly Discord Server.
Peter Holland: Which battletome in 3rd was the best in your opinion and which the worst? And why?
Keegan Graves: In terms of quality, I think the worst is definitely Ogors. An argument could be made for overall for them, too. Their book is so boring, and the army is meh. The book is 90% copy-paste.
Roland Rivera: I don’t think most of the 2023 books qualify because they were overcooked on power level.
Hanna Leppänen: Best: Nurgle. They got a huge glowup in style and faction fantasy that speaks with the rules.
Worst: Slaanesh. The faction fantasy is ok, but inner balance and playstyle are really bad/annoying.
Noel Fundora: One of the best has been FEC. They nailed the rules in a thematic sense. More importantly, the book has a good variety of play styles, even with such few warscrolls.
Roland Rivera: I’m biased… but it might be Slaves to Darkness. They had to get points cuts to keep up with the 2023 absurdity, but overall, I think it was a really good and interesting book.
Keegan: Best: S2D. The book was a huge flavor win and had a pretty solid internal balance.
Worst: Ogors. The book was 90% copy paste with horrid internal balance, and it was unimaginative.
Roland: Ogors has some competition in the bottom bracket, IMO.
Keegan: Winrate aside, it’s easily the worst designed book imo.
Roland: Deepkin is still “pick whatever unit scroll you like and spam the daylights out of it”
Vladislav Turusov: Gits and Seraphon are candidates for the worst. Gits released completely broken and underpriced. Seraphons just create tons of negative play experience.
Best i would say Khorne(i’m sure you are not surprised). The book is not very strong at first glance, but it doesn’t have broken units, but it does generate a lot of tactical possibilities due to allegiance abilities.
Roland: Khorne is a contender for best book because of the strong internal balance and interesting play for sure.
Keegan: I could also agree with this.
Roland: I just couldn’t overlook how it made a bunch of other armies get points cuts 😄
Blood Warriors at 190 are the reason Chaos Warriors are 180.
Keegan: S2D and khorne, I think, are close for me for best designed book.
If Daemon Princes had a better warscroll on launch, I would say the S2D book was close to perfect.
Randal Brasher: Ogors was the best Battletome. They nailed a nice moderate rules army that allows for multiple viable archetypes and play styles.
Furthermore, looking at the FAQ/Errata, it’s a single page. Which shows how well written and balanced the base rules of the army are.
Honorable mention: Khorne. Fairly well balanced with interesting mechanics. It’s fun to play and play against. Flips the script on how an army can move in the game without resorting to teleports.
Worst book? OBR, massively and needlessly complex ruleset that decided to throw out core rule systems in favor of recreating the wheel. It is impossible to balance in its current incarnation and easily solved due to just spamming the best unit.
Honorable mention: KO, narrowed an already narrow army into a single gimmick, score battle tactics. It is boring and unfun for both the player and opponent.
Vladislav: The nomination for the most boring book goes to the sons of Behemat(i do not count King Brod’s Stomp).
Roland:Ogors is solid power wise, but you’ll have a hard time convincing me that’s the best designed book. It’s the 2e book with a few QOL fixes. I think it’s on the lower end from the design POV tbh.
We have this completely unnecessary rule to make Gutbusters count as 2 when they could have just been 5 Wounds base. Mournfang matrix-dodge their way out of benefiting from most of their allegiance abilities. They still haven’t figured out Thundertusks, and they whiffed badly on maneaters.
Randal: If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. The internal balance of the book is great outside of Thundertusks and associated units.
Roland: But it was broken, and they only fixed part of it.
Vladislav: The book played either from ironblaster spam or from mammoth spam. Plus, Tyrant spam if we count Kragnos.
Roland: There’s a mixed arms Gutbusters list now, but that’s a recent development.
Keegan: I think this is where we disagree. The second edition book was also very bad. GW, make a good BCR unit besides stonehorn, please. Thundertusks have been completely useless for forever, and everything else is pretty bad. Gluttons need depth badly. They just don’t have options.
Colin Klären: Best book: Nurgle. Fun to play and the lore is represented in their rules. Internal balance is great since the book came out. Great job from Gw!
Honorable mention: Khorne! In terms of power and internal balance, great. It’s also fun to play as I can imagine and definitely interesting to play against.
Worst book: Little bit surprised that no one has said Daughters of Khaine yet. Internal balance is awful. Like the ogor book, 90% copy and paste from the second edition and the only mentionable list to play at a high competitive level is Morathi and the bow snakes since the start of the second edition book 😂🤷🏽♂️
Honorable mention: I have to mention Ogors, too, of course. All the 4+ to hit units.. just awful, and I really thought they would change it before the book came out, but nooo 😅.
Luiz Medoza: Uhm, good and interesting question…
I have no clear winner, but here are my two cents
1st Khorne… Has a great internal balance, in units and synergies, even in a season specialized in wizards. The option to summon or use customized enhancements is a great aid and has a big value. Besides, the chance to base your list in Daemons or Mortals is strong.
2nd. Cities… Quite flavored and diverse factions are strong, wide, and effective versus any other faction. The order system is heavy bc helps in strategic decisions even in your opponent’s turn.
Vladislav: The Daughters book is so bad that everyone just forgot about it.
Roland: It’s true, lol
Carson Whitlock: Best book: Khorne. They’ve oddly created one of the techiest and most control focused books in the game, and gave it right to the god of mindless violence. It’s got a ton of super interesting tools, and it plays very differently from so many other books (in a good way). If two experienced players are in a match where khorne is present, it’s much more akin to a game of chess.
Worst book: OBR. From being at the top of the recursion meta, to the top of the anti magic meta, and still existing as a very solid melee castle, GW has had to adjust them constantly and they still don’t feel quite right. On top of this, them essentially playing with everybody else’s toys ability-wise is frustrating, albeit the lore supports it. Nice army-wide retreat and charge, Nighthaunt. I’ll take that! Army wide spell shrug, khorne? Yoink! Hmm, impact mortals? Don’t mind if I do!
… I’m only a little bit salty about it.
Jeremy Lefebvre: The best book should have the most build variety and player expression, which Khorne does not have. No ward blood thrister is in every winning list. SCE has the most variation, but maybe that is due to the vast number of scrolls.
Worse book is seraphon. Nothing is even close. one side is STILL unplayable, the other is a giant NPE mess
Peter: Personally, I find the Orruk Warclans to be the worst. It was a bad idea from the get-go, an almost impossible task to balance four factions within one book. Whatever they do to one always affects BW and vice versa.
Lodivicus: I had Seraphon as my worst (internal balance issues and no real way to separate Coalesced and Starborne for balancing)… with OBR really really close to taking it (pretty much for the reasons Carson described).
I went with Khorne as my best (even tho I think we’ll see them as the ‘big winners’ of this battlescroll period, I think their internal balance is among the best and they should be a benchmark in how books should be written in respects to that).
No one wants to watch their favorite models sit out an edition (looking at you Engine of the Gods) because they were either too good last edition or GW has decided that they couldn’t get them closer to balanced to the other options. So, internal balance is very important to me.
Brett Martin: For me it’s between that and Stormcast – neither book really led the way into the edition, and power crept so badly. The SCE book is just dull. But I loath the Seraphon tome for the same lack of flavour (separation between Starbourne and Coalesced).
Best: Nurgle, such an amazing change in their overall play and solid balance from the early days (still had a clear, most powerful sub faction, unfortunately).
Ben Hall: Not sure on worst, but from my completely unbiased opinion, Slaves is one of the best tomes – it has several good and unique subfactions, plenty of models that have valid usage (lets just not talk about demon princes) and good defined playstyles (sure we see varanguard a lot but theres plenty of castle counterpunch lists and warband lists that do very well competitively and narratively) as well as sitting at a very balanced win rate for the entirety of its release, was never broken nor underpowered, and very sick looking models all across the board. Very simple to play at an entry level so people can pick them up fairly easily, with a high skill ceiling for advanced play.
Madigan Mason: I think I would put Nighthaunt on the bottom? While it’s having power issues rn, I think it has…a lot of internal design flaws. The fact that it’s a “your turn” army makes it hard to play, but I think that’s…. allowed to be part of its identity. However, it has really bad internal issues? It has only four subfactions, three of them which just inherently encourage spam. All its basic troop units are fairly interchangeable and have no specific role – you just take the one for your subfaction. It also has abysmal command traits and awkward battle tactics, and half its units are just completely unplayable?
Top…hm. I feel like there’s a few I’d like to nominate, but they all fall short a bit? khorne is a really cool book with well designed abilities and a wide variety of options, but imo it doesn’t actually feel particularly “khorne.” OBR has pretty good internal balance post-scroll, lots of build options, and plays super flavorfully, but imo has too many one-off ‘silver bullets’ to counter its weaknesses like carrion or aura slaves maybe? they’ve for a bunch of neat playstyles and options, all thematic and cool? they have a little bit of a bloat issue, tho. I wish they’d move a few of the warbands out (give like, slaanesh the unmade and tzeentch the cypher lords y’know).
Peter: We also asked the members of our Discord to vote on their best and worst battletomes:
Peter Holland: What changes would you all like to see made for Age of Sigmar in 4th Edition this year?
Aida Paul: Terrain. As in actual rules for terrain.
Peter: Obscuring? 😉
Aida: Don’t vex me this morning 😜 Terrain is by far the weakest part of aos, it’s a leaflet of absolute mess and the onoly reason it functions is because tons of TOs made up a lot of rules and schemas, limits, common sense applications.
Tavendale (No Rerolls): The rules are tokenistic at best.
Peter: Does anyone use the mystic terrain rules?
Aida: outside of the uk, everyone. This and playing defender wrong are the main UK quirks with AoS (by rules defender FULLY sets up the terrain, and yes, can do it unfairly, that’s the point).
in the UK mystic is… Sometimes, you can not really say no if someone wants to play them at an event, but rarely people do.
The funny thing with them is that people who do not play them go “oh they do nothing, well, maybe arcane…” and then you talk them through the rest and find that almost all have impact on games 😜
Noel Fundora: A more impactful mysterious terrain table would go nicely with proper terrain rules (please make climbing and spidermaning go away).
Hanna Leppänen: More focus on objectives of the scenario instead of BT/GS.
Patrick German: 4+ rallies can burn in hell. They could change nothing else, and I would be happy if 4+ went away.
Carson Whitlock: Generalization of common abilities. i.e Bodyguard, impact mortals, buffs/debuffs, deep strike/reserves.
If you’re very in the know on the current rules of the game it isn’t so much of an issue, but when your opponent is not and you’re at a loud tournament, god help you.
Also (assuming we can pick two things!), melee weapon reach being determined in inches. 99% of the time, somebody is hovering a widget 4 inches above a bunch of models at an angle and goes, “Looks like it’s in to me dude”. Just make it determined by the base touching an enemy base and use ranks as a measurement over inches.
2022-2023 Events: 8 Game Wins: 32 Game Losses: 8 Win Rate: 80.0%
Joshua Bennett(JB): First off, I want to thank you for taking the time to chat with us and our readers. Has the feeling of winning the largest AOS event (Las Vegas Open) in the world worn off yet?
Jiwan Noah Singh (JNS): No problem, I’m a chatty guy. LVO really was quite something, not going to downplay how fun that was. But I had an itch to play some warhammer like 5-6 days after I got back. Sometimes, I look at the photos of everyone storming the stage during the ITC awards when I need a little serotonin boost
JB: I bet that was an insane experience. especially with your club behind you for support. Tough crowd is really amazing. The love and support you have for each other, not to mention the energy you guys bring to events. Do you think that is one of the things that keeps bringing you back?
JNS: I love Tough Crowd, and it was super special this year getting the team award. We also have other clubs we are super close with, Harumbes, Wicked Dicey, Georgia Warband, and a bunch of others. Having my wife come for the first time was great too, she got to see this part of my life that is so important to me. Having an amazing club and friends for sure is part of it, but I loved going to events even without knowing anyone. I met a lot of my close friends in the hobby now by just showing up to my first LVO, knowing nobody with three screaming bells, a gong and edible warpspark tokens.
I think even if you know nobody, you should rock up and make them know you
JB: That’s amazing, and let me take a moment to point out you are an amazing human being and make everyone feel welcome and an absolute joy to be around. How long have you been into the competitive world.
JNS: Lots of amazing people in this hobby. It’s so good. I started playing Aos in a shed in my yard in Key West during first edition, but most games didn’t end, and we got distracted or did stuff like try fireball objectives. I went to a couple of tournaments pre Covid but not really with any specific expectations, and they were really fun. Over Covid I started playing on tts, and the community and access to talking to people really helped me (I’m a classic extrovert and was kinda losing my mind up on a mountain in Vermont) The group I stumbled into happened to be competitive and it eventually led to being coach of the 2021 worlds team. I think I just got in a routine of playing aos constantly and became a competitive player out of that.
I would say I try to be competitively social, but I really enjoy figuring out puzzles in games and how to put myself in a position to win.
JB: which you do very well. being a coach to the worlds team had to be so much fun.
JNS: Yeah it was great, that year was Milan, which was a super fun place to roll around with a crew of warhammer players. Worlds and teams are such a fun part of warhammer, I highly suggest people participate in team events.
JB: I have seen team event pick up popularity in the states do you think that’s the future of AOS competition
JNS: I think gt play is great, I have loved that more premier events are swapping to top 8. There is something really fun about getting space to watch the top tables duke it out while you hang with the people you met. I think teams is a great second thing to expand though. There is room for both in my imagined future and I think it sounds fantastic.
JB: Speaking of the top 8 what advice would you give readers that want to get to that level?
JNS: I think the only real advice I have to get better is to play more and play clean and to lose more to great players.
JB: you have gone from AOS worlds coach to LVO winner what can we expect from you next
JNS: Lol I don’t know, I love playing AoS and am going to try to get to some new areas I haven’t played in yet. I like finding new lists and metas and seeing what they have going on in those places, that’s really what motivated me to keep doing this.
Although I am on the team this year again and will be playing in Amsterdam which will be a blast.
So I guess that’s next?
JB: Noah thank you so much for your time and good luck at worlds. I look forward to seeing you on the tables.
Joshua Bennett, Daughters of Khaine supremo, has joined our team and set about interviewing the top players from around the world! Having been to many of the top tournaments in the USA, Joshua has amassed a tonne of connections in that time.
Events in 22-23 Pitched Battles (Season 1 and 2): 10 Game Wins: 43.5 (Draws counting as 0.5 wins and 0.5 losses) Game Losses: 6.5 Win Rate: 87.0% Woehammer Ranking Points: 928.4 North America Woehammer Ranking: 2nd Worldwide Woehammer Ranking: 2nd
Events (Sorted by Woehammer Ranking Points):
Event
Faction
Wins
Losses
Ranking Points
Las Vegas Open 2023
CoS
5
0
264.6
Nova Open
Ser
5
0
228.8
US Open Kansas City
DoK
5
0
223.8
Old Town Throwdown Summer Smash
Ser
5
0
211.2
The Slambo GT
Ser
5
0
193.6
Harambe’s Heroes and Goldmine Games Rumble in the Jungle
DoK
5
0
186.5
Everwinter GT
DoK
4
1
181.4
US Open Chicago
Ser
4
1
169.0
Sooper Seekret Kastell Chon
GG
2.5
2.5
147.1
The Lone Star Grand Tournament
S2D
3
2
146.2
General Speaking
Joshua Bennett (JB): Hey buddy, first, I wanna say thank you so much for taking time out of your day and chatting with us. I guess we should start off with asking how long have you been wargaming?
Gavin Grigar (GG): Thanks for having me! I started wargaming around 2003 as a kid with 40k and then lost interest when I got to high school, which is probably similar to a lot of folks. Picked it up again in 2017 after I realized it was ok to be a nerd and then started playing Age of Sigmar in 2019 because it was what my friends were playing. Haven’t looked back since.
JB: You were last seasons number 1 ITC player with a few number 1s in multiple factions, you’re also representingteam USA in the AOS worlds event. Has it always been competitive play for you?
GG: Yea, I think I’ve always had a thing. Basketball, football (Peter: You mean Gridiron? That sport wherey, and Halo 3 growing up, then League of Legends for a while and now wargaming. This is probably the most invested I’ve been in a thing, though. The camaraderie of the community makes it easy to keep coming back.
JB: You boys in Texas have a pretty big community, and when we met, you and others from that community were very welcoming. Do you think that’s what makes you enjoy AOS more than the other hobbies you have done
GG: Thanks dude, you Georgia fellas are alright too, I guess. Yea, no matter what the game state is, the community consistently makes it a blast to travel and hang out.
JB: What do you think is an important step in becoming a competitive player? What advice would you give somebody wanting to play at that next level
GG: The most consistent thing I’ve noticed in other players that consistently do well is an obsession with the game. There are so many moving parts in AoS, and those parts are constantly changing, so it takes an obsessive person to learn and relearn the game as it evolves. Surrounding yourself with other great players and consistent practice also helps a ton.
JB: I know you’re getting ready for worlds, I would assume you’re getting to practice against some of the best. How much does that shift your focus while still playing in events?
GG: Practice for worlds has priority, and as it gets closer, I’ve scaled back my travel to focus on it. When I do get out to events lately, it’s been experimental things, and I’ve tried to start enjoying the hangout more(Tried being the keyword). After Worlds, I’ll probably readjust goals.
JB: Speaking of goals, did you plan on dominating the best in faction class, or was it more playing what was fun
GG: One of the things I wanted to do better at this year was focusing on a few factions, as in 2021, I felt like I had played too many (11 or 12, I believe). Daughters of Khaine have always been my favorite faction, and Seraphon has mechanics that I really enjoy the playstyle of (Yes, they are also strong). I missed out on best Gitz, though…
JB: Can we expect a repeat this season?
GG: In approach to army choice, I think so, yea, I have less time to allocate to the AoS this year and will be more selective of when I travel. As far as ITC, there are a ton of really talented people gunning for placements. I look forward to seeing everybody at upcoming GTs and competing, though!
JB: Gavin, thank you so much for your time. I just have one last question for you. What advice could you give to our readers that are just starting out in the hoppy
GG: If you’re already thinking about tournaments, my advice is just go and see what it’s like. The community is fantastic and very welcoming. Once you go, you can really decide what it is that you want from Aos, and there is plenty more available than just the competitive aspect. If competitive is your thing, find other like-minded people and enjoy the ride. Thanks for having me!
JB: It was our pleasure, and I look forward to seeing how the season shapes out for you. Good luck at Worlds, and I’ll see you on the tables!
It’s been a while since I last published a General Speaking, but I think you’ll agree it was worth the wait. I was lucky enough to speak to Daughters of Khaine supremo Joshua Bennett!
We’re also doubly lucky because Josh recently agreed to join the team and feed us some comments for the Daughters of Khaine lists that pop up, as well as doing his own interviews with other big name players around the world.
Joshua with his first place award from the Outlaw Open
Josh – The Stats
Events in 22-23 Pitched Battles (Season 1 and 2): 6 Game Wins: 21.5 (Draws counting as 0.5 wins and 0.5 losses) Game Losses: 7.5 Win Rate: 74.1% Woehammer Ranking Points: 688.4 North America Woehammer Ranking: 36th Worldwide Woehammer Ranking: 65th
Events (Sorted by Woehammer Ranking Points):
Event
Faction
Wins
Losses
Ranking Points
The Outlaw Open
DoK
5
0
205.15
Las Vegas Open 2023
BoC
4.5
0.5
184.86
Epic Level Showdown
DoK
4
1
164.12
Nashcon GT 2022
DoK
3
2
134.28
Mighty Meeple AoS GT
DoK
3
1
111.9
Nova Open
DoK
2
3
96.98
General Speaking
Peter: Thank you for agreeing to the interview! I guess we should start by asking how long you’ve been into wargaming?
Joshua: Hi thank you for having me. I would say that i have been into wargaming for about two years now. was always a video game kinda guy and my little brother begged and begged me to come out and try AOS. I finally went out to a local gaming store in the area, I tried it out and fell in love with it. And me being the type of person that doesn’t just dip my toes into something, I dove all the way into the hobby. I started out just like everyone else, finding an army that I thought looked really cool and getting my butt kicked a lot. Then I started off with local RTT’s and just wanted more.
Peter: So has it been the Daughters of Khaine for you since you started or have you been lured by other factions as well?
Joshua: No actually, I started with Flesh eaters. I really loved the look of them when I first saw them. Turnouts when I started playing them it was the time of the big smash bat . I had so much fun with them. Then I started playing in local RTT’s and actually getting to see different armies. I started to then play Nurgle because I thought they were awesome. I was super excited because I had a really good list that was destroying the local meta. I was going to go to LVO that year with my one drop 55 blight king list…. Covid said no lol…. then the GHB came out and I couldn’t play my blight king list anymore, so I picked up the Daughters because Morathi looked amazing. Turns out I was pretty good with them..
Peter: Pretty good! You’re being modest! Will you be sticking with them for the new GHB?
Joshua: It all depends. For a team format i think DOK is still very strong. But for the GT standpoint i think it looses some of its punch. I have been playing around with Beast of Chaos and then the Dinos. I guess we shall see what we look like after the books.
Joshua’s Daughters of Khaine
Peter: Do you have any lists in mind for the new season? A better question would be, how do you approach list building? Do you focus around units you like or do you look at units that can achieve certain strategies for you? Or perhaps something else?
Joshua: Right not i am working with beast of chaos and dinos. waiting till their new books come out. As far as list building i build a list with the idea of of does best to counter most the current meta. You can build a list to beat everything but if you build a list to counter most then your just hoping for a good dodge of the list that are horrible matchups. When i build list i am not building a 5-0 list because those just don’t exist . 5-0 list are 4-1 list with really good matchups. I go into the event with the knowledge that if i get paired against this list i loose, or really have to outplay my opponent. I also try to design list that do well with most of the missions because they play a big part in the game as well.
Peter: I believe you’re lucky enough to be in the same club as some of the top players in the US? How much do you all discuss the game, tactics and events? Are there any fun rivalries?
Joshua: Yeah we are lucky to have some very top notch players in the club. If you ask my fiancé i discuss the game way to much! hahahaha. We theory craft and list craft everyday, but no so much for us but for the newer players we have in the club. We have a lot of players that are not into the tournament scene as much as other and that want to be competitive. Our club is focused on growing the scene so the more experienced players take a lot of time with coaching games and walk throughs of list. Our goal is for everyone that wants to be at a competitive level can be and we help them achieve their goal. So we put a lot of effort into that then whatever time is let we work on our list for the next event.
Peter: I’ve asked this to a few players now, but what’s your key to maintaining focus over a tournament weekend?
Joshua: Well for me it’s not hard.. I’m a combat vet so I almost hyper focus on anything I do as it is. This game is actually a way I clear my head and it calms me down. People thought I was crazy when I did a invitational,gt and a rtt all in the same weekend….
Peter: What would your best piece of advice be for someone looking to start in AoS competitively
Joshua: First and foremost, this is a game meant to entertain us. If your not having fun no matter what the outcome then we aren’t doing it right. Secondly just know competitive play is as much about knowing your army (while that’s important). It’s also knowing your opponent’s army. Having the basic idea of what’s coming at you so you can counter.
Peter: You have a high ITC ranking, how much do you take note of various player Rankings and what benefit (if any) do you believe they add to the competitive scene?
Joshua: Itc is really cool. At first i was fixated on it. I wanted to be the top for my faction and was for awhile. But once i started to get to know the top players its started not to matter anymore, and the games became less pressure and more about having fun. but it does spark some very friendly rivalries between friends.
Peter: Joshua thank you so much for you time and agreeing to speak to us. All the best for the coming season!
Events: 7 Wins: 31.5* Losses: 5.5* Win Rate: 85.1% Current World Woehammer Ranking: 6th Current UK & Ireland WoehammerRanking: 1st
*In our Woehammer stats we count all draws as 0.5 wins and losses
Phil, thank you for talking to me and firstly a massive congratulations on your Age of Sigmar (Best Overall) win! That seemed pretty wild, heading out to the US to compete in a such a prestigious competition! How did you find it?
Thanks! It was all pretty surreal to be perfectly honest with you, there wasn’t much communication that there was a way for any of us in the UK for qualifying for the US Open so it came as a massive surprise when I got the email come through. To be invited is one thing, but to be informed that Games Workshop were covering my flights and accommodation was equally unexpected. The resort that they hired out in Santa Ana Albuquerque was simply amazing, the views, the amenities were all second to none. With that being said I wasn’t there to soak in the joys of what the resort had to offer and I certainly didn’t help myself by having to play 7 games of Warhammer in 2 days! I really enjoyed the structure of the event with the 2 loss knockout system, meaning you were still in with a chance of taking out the event until you suffered your second loss. What was interesting was the rankings were done on ITC seedings, in the UK we don’t really follow the ITC so I was the lowest ranked seed in my category. This meant my game 1 I had to play against the number 1 ranked seed in my category which was Team Americas Matt Beasley. We had a great game which I ended up losing by 1VP, which meant if I was to win the event I would need to win all of my remaining games. As a result on the Saturday I was now scheduled to play 8.00am to midnight. Thankfully, I managed to get the wins required in my remaining 3 games to see me through to the Sunday and a rematch with Matt in the morning. I managed to take out the rematch winning by 7Vps. This led me to taking on the legendary Scooter Walters who was still unbeaten meaning I had to take him out twice in a row. Game 1 I managed a big win in Realmstone Cache (26-2), we then played a much more even scenario in the Nidus Paths and we had a great game of warhammer which could have closer resembled a chess game. The game ended 28-20 to me, meaning I was crowned Best Overall for 2022 which is a pretty cool achievement to do considering I didn’t start playing competitively until September last year. It was also amazing to meet all the other AoS players that were at the event that I have been following and interacting with on Twitter and was great to put names and faces and build better relationships with these people in the hobby. Finally, a massive shout out to Mike and Zach who put the event on deserve massive credit for the way the event was organised and ran. We all got some call memorabilia to remember our trip. As they said during the event, it doesn’t matter how we did, we had already won by being invited (obviously I didn’t spend 27 hours traveling not to go out there without the intent of bringing it home). They have great plans to expand this in future years so hopefully we will see more people from the UK heading over and making sure the crown remains in British hands. Fingers crossed I will manage to qualify to either retain it myself or try and take out best general.
Where Phil ‘slummed’ it
Wow, that’s incredible! You never know, you may be doing this every year!
Seven games over two days is a tough shout. We heard from Jeremy Veysseire on his methods for maintaining focus over a gaming weekend, but what are your methods. How do you keep yourself mentally focused on what you need to do?
I am quite different to most wargamers, I don’t drink any alcohol at events (boring I know), I like to feel very fresh each day and keep myself hydrated. I always tend to find, I like to get to the event nice and early, being the first player to the table and get it all set up. I don’t like the feeling of being rushed so I do all these little things to alleviate that prior to the game. The next things is whilst playing is that I try to only focus on the elements of the game that I can control, you have to take the dice out of it. By focusing on you and your game, it will allow you to think a few turns ahead and have a game plan for when priority either goes your way or against you. I think the most important thing I have learnt which I believe to be the biggest by-product of my consistency on the table top is the ability to know your opponents army as well as your own or at least have a very clear understanding of how that army likes to play and what they need to do to win, I have been very fortunate to play at a lot of top tables over the last 15 months and learnt a lot about a lot of armies from top tier players. This all helps with the pre game focus for me, it helps give me a clear mind set and plan of action that I need to execute.
There’s a rumour among the Woehammer team that you’re an accountant? Do you use your spreadsheet skills and organisation from this in Age of Sigmar, and how do you approach list building?
Haha yes, the rumours are true. If you don’t find me at a Warhammer table you will most likely find me in excel. This season I took the time to make myself a tracker for age of sigmar, I played a lot of games last year and wish I had kept a record of how many. With that being said, I have managed to play 134 games this year, with 120 wins, 12 losses and 2 draws. Whilst its nice to be able to breakdown what I have played against and the scenarios I have played, it doesn’t really offer much benefit from a singles point of view as there is so much variety at a singles event from potential scenarios and match ups. However, for teams Warhammer it enables me to provide an informed opinion based on personal statistics when completing the matrix for match ups and scenarios. For example I know based on playing realmstone cache 9 times this year, with 5 of those at events I have a 100% win rate in this scenario with an average differential of 20VPs with my Slaves to Darkness. On the flip side of this, I know based on my statistics that I have a 0% win rate against Sylvaneth in Close to the Chest and Silksteel nests, this allows us to know that these scenarios aren’t great for me, even if I believe the list to be beatable as they can win by just playing the primary better than I can. I love pivot tables I so use these and pivot graphs to slice and dice my data in a far more readable format, otherwise its just a sheet of data. There are some things I want to add to this next year, including a small synopsis of what the bulk of the list was, any key take aways from the game (things I thought were strong in opponents army, where I won the game and where I lost the game).
I also use excel in my list building to work out damage out put against units with varying saves and probabilities of getting plays off etc. With this information it allows me to build lists that I deem to be strong and then test them on the table top to make sure that they suit the way I play and that I feel the output is mirrored to what the numbers tell me.
One of Phil’s spreadsheets
So using spreadsheets and analysing the damage outputs, is this the main way you construct your lists?
Yeah, I essentially use it after I have worked out what models I want to use and then work out the ROI essentially. Then there are other factors such as movement etc that need to factored in afterwards. I dont tend to use models that I dont like, as an example, I never used marauders despite actaully making the list better, with an 83% chance of casting mask of darkness with master of magic and a 99% liklihood of sucessfully charging gave the list a much bigger threat turn 1. However, despite the numbers stating this unit was better for the way in which I like to play, I refused to paint the models as I didnt like them and I also felt that Varanguard benefited my playstyle more than the maraduers.
That’s awesome, I suspect you and I could talk spreadsheets for hours, so probably best to move on haha.
A lot of other players have spoken to have mentioned how practice is a key factor to success. Has there been a certain point after so many games where you thought ‘I’ve got this sorted now and I feel pretty confident’?
Obviously the best way to learn the minutia of the way in which you and your army like to play is by getting a lot of reps in with it and that’s the thing i would most likely put down to my success on the tabletop over the last 12 months. I got to the point probably after 3/4 months of playing Archaon religiously that I didn’t feel I need to practice with him anymore at club etc. I played an obscene amount of games and tournaments with him and was extremely consistent with the way in which I deployed, counter deployed and the plays I had against both good and bad match ups. This then allowed me to play with other armies during the week and learn how they like to be played which ultimately gave me a much better understanding when playing against them at events. Despite playing lots of varying armies, I was still taking Archaon to events and being very consistent with my results with him.
I feel that despite not having played with Archaon since LGT, I could pick up my list, go to an event tomorrow and would feel I could play it to a level where I have a chance of taking out the event.
Looking forward to the end of the year and new year, what are your plans AoS wise? Will you be sticking with the Slaves for now or do you fancy playing any other factions?
I’ve got a very busy year planned already to be honest with you! Starting off with going to LVO in January which I’m super excited for and can’t wait to meet all the Americans, Canadians and other nationalities of people I interact with on Twitter a lot. After that I have two tournaments a month in the build up to worlds which im buzzing to be representing England for.
The plan is to play as much slaves to darkness as possible. It’s my happy place, where I call home in this wonderful world. I have lots of lists that I’m wanting to get on the table top from both a teams and singles perspective. There are so many options in the new book which I think will keep playing with the fresh and exciting! My mates may not think so when I continuously run my next idea of filth into them for testing.
With all this being said, I have little interest in playing the old book now, so for a lot of events I need the new book to come out and a FAQ for the book to be legal for competitive play. If events don’t allow the new book I think I might have some fun and play some FEC gristlegore or maybe 11 dragons.
Our own Randal Brasher states the other day that he though all the top 3 lists at the Leicester GT would get beaten 10 times put of 10 by the Ogor 4x Ironblaster list.
Have you had to face them yet, and if you haven’t, how would you go about beating them?
The Ogre Iron Blaster list is a great list now that will be sure to shake things up. The KOTET list I ran at Leicester I would back to beat it to be honest, but I would need to make 1 change and go into a 2 drop. Would still look to give turn 1 away, hide my key pieces with terrain from the long range shooting of the ironblasters. I am then looking to save stake 1 unit and get all the rerolls up. Depending on mission this would either be the general if I can realistically get into grots turn 1 or if I am relying on teleporting it will be my other unit. Once there and the very real threat of VG in their deployement, turn priority can go 1 of 2 ways – I would look to give away as I know with plus 4 to save re-rolling 1s the chances of taking any damage is minimal, not likely to kill a single varanguard. If I have the turn, with finest hour, warshrine potential buff I belive the maths states that being on a 3+ re-rolling 1s against 40 shots at rend 2 damage 2 and the other option of 8 shots at rend 3 damage d3+3 I am looking at taking 10 damage, so 9 with ward from warshrine. Which kills 1 varanguard. Most Blasters tend to be lobbied together and with a double fight I would expect two blasters to be gone as a minimum.
With all this being said, its a much different story for the new slaves to darkness due to the save stacking. However, there are some tricks if shooting really becomes the meta. We have the Tzeentch banner which gives a 4+ ward against shooting to a unit, whoch for me would be a unit of 10 knights. You still play for the double and look to outdrop. 10 Knights will clear the gnoblar screens and have decent reliability with getting into combat. with demonic speed allowing to charge 3d6 changing the lowest dice to a 4, that combined with leviatate, you could bypass the screen in its entirety and just lift a chunk of ironblasters. Be interesting to see how common the list is in the UK and its something I am wanting to play test against as much as possible.
Great stuff Phil, thank you for your time and agreeing to speak to us again. Hopefully we’ll meet at some point in the future
