We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the July battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 434.6. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 434.6 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This chart shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Battle Formation Win Rates
This chart shows the win rates for Battle Formations that have seen 100 games or more at GT events.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
Battleplan Win Rates
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database.
This database is included in an additional article which is Patreon only and posted on the same day. These Patreon posts also include additional stats which aren’t available in the standard stats article, such as Faction v Faction stats.
Current Season: General’s Handbook 2026-27 Latest Battlescroll: September 23rd, 2026 Last Updated: September 26th, 2026
Introduction
Hello there, and welcome to the primer for the Slaves to Darkness in 4th edition Age of Sigmar. The purpose of this primer is to provide a quick reference for players new to the army in an easily digestible form. It also aims to collect the most current thoughts on how to succeed with the army at a competitive level.
Ranking System
This primer will be using the following ranking system for the army’s units, enhancements, and battle traits:
S – Armies without this option are sub-optimal. A must-have for competitive play.
A – A staple option. Competitive army lists should mainly be comprised of these choices.
B – A niche but useful option in the right contexts. Not every army will want to include it, but the ones that do love it.
C – An overshadowed and/or inefficient option. A better version of this option is present in the army, its effects are weak, or the points cost is not aligned with the benefit.
D – A bad option. Including this in your army list actively makes it worse and should be avoided whenever possible.
General Thoughts on the Army and Playstyle
Slaves to Darkness overall is an army that is capable of several distinct playstyles. The first one that comes to mind for most players is the elite brawler style embodied by the units with the Warriors of Chaos keyword. That list is well-armored, high-damage army that seeks to dominate its opponents in combat with its combination of strong damage profiles, formidable armor saves, and access to Wards. This list tends to have few regiments to try and control what player takes the first turn and often thrives on taking devastating double turns. Completing Battle Tactics is generally a secondary concern for that list, which limits its scoring potential.
The second playstyle is a screen-and-counter style largely focusing on Darkoath units. These units are cheap, plentiful, and have several abilities that let you benefit from your models or units dying. As the cherry on top, this army can have access to recursion to pick your units back up if they are destroyed. They also have some units that pack a pretty significant punch, despite being rather fragile. The combination of having lots of bodies on the table, recursion, and their ability to conjure up lots of mortal damage make the army quite good at grinding opponents out while featuring enough units to participate well in the scoring of primary objectives and Battle Tactics.
The third playstyle is a skill-intensive style focused on running lots of powerful Heroes (colloquially referred to as “Herohammer”). Lists using this style take advantage of the powerful abilities associated with units such as Archaon the Everchosen and Be’lakor, the Dark Master to control the battlefield while these Heroes pick off key targets. This list is usually good at completing Battle Tactics and highly mobile but can sometimes struggle to take and hold primary objectives across prolonged combats.
The combination of the playstyles described above is possible to an extent, but hits diminishing returns very quickly. You are generally better off picking one of the three playstyles above, then adding one or two pieces that you are fond of to complement it.
Battle Traits, Spell Lore, and Faction Terrain Discussion
Eye of the Gods/Dark Apotheosis
A very flavorful mechanic where you pick a Hero, have them perform certain tasks (fighting and taking enemy objectives), and are rewarded with ascension. Because the resulting Daemon Prince is a new unit, but it inherits all the enhancements of the previous unit, this is a cheeky way to fish for using once-per-game enhancements like Deathmonger twice in the same game. However, most of the Heroes that qualify for this ability are a bit on the fragile side, and the game actions the Battle Trait requires for ascension are inherently risky. Your chosen Hero will often die before ascending, and as such, I think it’s a C Battle Trait.
Pledge to Chaos
Getting to choose between a host of good buffs with point-and-click applications is a very strong effect. Unfortunately, being able to apply to only one unit at a time and on your Hero phase (as opposed to the start of the round) means you can potentially hit bottlenecks on wanting more units to be pledged than what you have the actual capacity to pledge. There are some workarounds, but overall I think the restrictions mean the ability is a B. As for the individual pledges, please see the ranking below.
The Khorne pledge is a no-questions-asked bonus to Attacks, which comes in very handy for an army like this, which by and large relies on killing your opponents’ units to progress its gameplan. As such, I think it’s worthy of an A ranking.
The Tzeentch pledge is one of this army’s main sources of movement tech. A short-range teleport that can be used after you move or run because of its Movement phase timing is a great way to have a Hero or cheap unit complete scoring plays on your behalf. Its only flaws are that you can only activate it with one unit at a time, and that choosing it incurs some opportunity cost with some of the other benefits on this list. Overall, I think it’s a B.
The Nurgle pledge is conditional, but quite strong. On its own, a 6+ Ward doesn’t do much, so its use case entirely depends on having units with a 6+ Ward that it can turn into a 5+ Ward, which is an incredible defensive benefit. There are currently enough examples of this on the roster that I think this ability is a B.
Last but not least, the Slaanesh pledge is also conditional. It hinges heavily on that units in Slaves to Darkness have enough output that dealing more damage via Khorne can be overkill. Instead, this offers a bonus toward making your charges, which isn’t always good, but it is quite good when it happens in the right circumstances. I give it a C, but it has a high potential upside.
Spell Lore
The in-faction spell lore (The Lore of the Damned) is a pretty good one. It has a handy Unlimited direct damage spell in Spite-Tongue Curse, but the real oomph lies in Daemonic Speed and Binding Damnation. Adding an extra dice to a charge and strikes-last effects are fantastic effects for a primarily melee combat army, with the only flaws being their short ranges. While that is enough of a weakness that I believe the lore clocks in at a B, it is still a spell lore I am happy to have access to.
Faction Terrain
The faction terrain for Slaves to Darkness is the Nexus Chaotica, and it’s mostly underwhelming. While it can offer a bonus to cast, it does so under very limiting and somewhat unreliable circumstances (need to be within combat range of the terrain and also roll 3+ on the ability to generate D6 points every Hero phase to pay for its effects). It can also provide some mortal damage on an objective if you accumulate enough points, but the cost for that effect is so high that you won’t see it during the contested portion of most games.
However, the Nexus is a bit better than it has been in the past thanks to some recent rules changes. It is a large terrain piece that occupies a good amount of physical space, and faction terrain that is not garrisoned can no longer be charged. Accordingly, you can generally position it such that it can potentially block part of your opponent’s approach until they remove it, and that is a potentially valuable effect. Overall, I think it’s a C-ranked terrain piece.
Battle Formations Tier List
This is an evaluation of where I believe the Battle Formations for this army stand in terms of competitive play.
S Tier
I do not consider any Battle Formations in this army to be in this tier at this time.
A Tier
Darkoath Horde – Recursion is a critical component of the Darkoath attrition playstyle, and this is how they obtain it. Do note that it requires a Darkoath Hero to access the revive and Darkoath units to be revived, so not every list may derive benefit from it. But for the ones that do, this is a must.
B Tier
Despoilers – Getting all of your units pledged during the early rounds is often a bottleneck faced by Slaves to Darkness players, and Despoilers helps make that a bit easier. Not only is the Daemon Prince that you bring to benefit from the Battle Trait automatically pledged at the start of the game, but he can also spread his pledge around to any interested units nearby at end of turn (so long as those units do not have an Ensorcelled Banner), saving you the trouble of pledging them in your Hero phase. This Battle Formation has some list construction hoops to jump through, but you get a very nice effect.
C Tier
Godswrath Warband – This Battle Formation offers what would be a strong benefit in many other armies, but it doesn’t really reflect mesh with the playstyle of Slaves to Darkness. Putting tokens on objectives you are contesting and having them pulse out mortal damage at the end of each of your turns is good in a vacuum, but that potential is only realized if there are enemies on those objectives for you to damage. That benefit would theoretically lend itself to Darkoath’s grindier playstyle, but Darkoath have a specialized Battle Formation that is more compelling to them. The Warriors of Chaos-heavy lists tend to do enough damage that a sprinkling of mortal damage at the end of your turn won’t change the outcomes of combat or objective control very often. The Herohammer lists tend to run it by default. A formation in search of a home.
D Tier
Legion of Chaos – All this Battle Formation offers is a control score buff in an army that generally does not win by engaging in control contests. I struggle to imagine any context in which this Battle Formation would actually be useful, or more appealing than Godswrath Warband.
Unit Tier List
This is an evaluation of where I believe units in this army stand in terms of competitive play. I will be noting the unit’s type(s) in its entry.
S Tier
I do not consider any units in this army to be in this tier at this time.
A Tier
Chaos Chosen (Infantry) – One of the game’s premier offensive infantry units, with a price tag to befit their status. Crit (mortal) and fighting twice makes this unit capable of taking down more or less anything, and it benefits greatly from buffs that you can provide it via enhancements or your Battle Traits.
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (Hero, Infantry) – A reasonably priced Wizard with an excellent ability. A 5+ Ward after successfully casting a spell is obviously excellent protection for whatever unit you place it on, and even a 6+ Ward for being unable to do so is useful, as it can combine with the Nurgle pledge to become a 5+ Ward anyway.
Chaos Warriors (Scourge of Aqshy) (Infantry) – While this unit does not scale well in multiples and depends on your hoarding Fury, the rewards for it are undeniably potent. A native Ward combines very favorably with the Nurgle pledge, and strikes-first when not charging is very powerful.
Daemon Prince (Hero, Infantry) – A solid warscroll with crit (mortal) and potential access to strikes first and a 5+ Ward, this unit meshes very well with some of the enhancements, and can help with getting your units pledged in the right Battle Formation. As such, this is one of your better Heroes and one that has crossover appeal in virtually all types of lists. It has diminishing returns in multiples, but you will rarely regret the first one you invest in.
Darkoath Chieftain (Hero, Infantry) – Darkoath need cheap Heroes for their Battle Formation and the Marauders’ ability to function, and this little guy fits the bill quite well. He also boosts the offensive capabilities of the Darkoath infantry troops while he’s at it. A staple in Darkoath-heavy lists.
Darkoath Marauders (Infantry) – The basic troops of the Darkoath heavy armies, these guys are a bit expensive for what their base profile is, but the combination of dealing mortals on death (when combined with a nearby Hero), access to other buffs between Heroes and Battle Traits, and their own Oath being fulfilled means you can cobble together enough damage for them to be a threat. These are the beating heart of Darkoath lists.
Darkoath Savagers (Infantry) – Cheap bodies with crit (mortal) that play nice with Darkoath buff Heroes and can even get themselves a 5+ Ward in certain circumstances. They are on the fragile side even with the Ward and they will want to get some buffs, but the sheer efficiency of their output is hard to beat.
Darkoath Wilderfiend (Beast) – A curious little beastie with a solid statline, this unit generates points from models (friendly or enemy) dying around it and then channels those points into useful effects. At its best in Darkoath lists due to their proclivity for dying in droves, but it is so efficiently priced that other types of lists also include them from time to time.
Gunnar Brand (Hero, Infantry) – While individually this Hero is not much to write home about, he comes as a package deal with another cheap Hero and a unit containing a Wizard for a very reasonable price. Having to be in his own regiment makes him less appealing for certain kinds of lists, but overall he’s very much worth the investment.
Legion of the First Prince Bloodletters (Infantry) – Legion doesn’t have many troop options, and this is by far the best infantry of the bunch. They are a big damage sponge with their health per model and Ward, pretty consistent volume damage, and recursion to top it all off. I believe any competitive Legion list should be absolutely swarming in these.
Singri Brand (Hero, Cavalry) – A cheap, fast Hero that comes with Gunnar Brand, she is a great piece for sitting on Places of Power, helping out with Battle Tactics, and being a nuisance on the flank. Very nice to have.
The Oathsworn Kin (Infantry) – Effectively a Wizard that lacks Hero protections but gets to have 9 health in exchange, it also features a half-decent combat profile and a nice spell. It is also the only Wizard with the Darkoath keyword on the current roster, which is a quite valuable thing.
B Tier
Abraxia, Spear of the Everchosen (Hero, Monster) – While her offensive profile can charitably be described as swingy, she is cheap, tough, and hits you back when you damage her. Not a bad package for the points.
Archaon the Everchosen (Hero, Monster) – A beast of a profile with some potent abilities, he has a points cost to match. This makes him difficult to squeeze into a list, as you are kind of obliged to build around him to justify your investment. He is the core of the Herohammer builds this army is capable of, and can be very potent if you play to his strengths, which are his mobility, durability, and the Eye of Sheerian’s offer of turn manipulation.
Be’lakor, the Dark Master (Hero, Monster) – Be’lakor has a lot of things going for him: his Dark Master ability can really put the clamps on an enemy gameplan, he makes your melee blobs much scarier to approach with his Deadly Trap ability, he is a double caster with one of the best debuff spells in the game, he is fast, and he has a strong control score. However, he is expensive, and his combat stats are below the standard expected of this army. You can be successful with him, but you generally have to run a big scary unit or two for him to hide behind, and some cheap fast units to make sure your list has enough board presence.
Chaos Furies (Infantry) – A nice and fast flying infantry unit with a handy ability to potentially pop out of combat and leave your opponents high and dry. They are a bit expensive for what their combat profile is, but their speed and retreat ability makes them useful for pressuring small Heroes and completing Battle Tactics.
Chaos Knights (Cavalry) – This is what I consider the best generalist unit in the army. It is good at damage (on the charge), it has good speed, good durability, and uses multiple pledges well. While some players try to reinforce them and use them as a charge-dependent hammer to knock things down, I think they are at their best as a flexible 5-man unit that can fill multiple roles.
Chaos Legionnaires (Infantry) – A cheap unit that you can use as fodder for screening and Battle Tactics that also has a useful anti-command effect. Generally worth the points, if you can find them.
Chaos Lord (Hero, Infantry) – A combat Hero with a decent profile that can supercharge one of your heavy armor infantry units with a chain fight +1 to wound. It also gets bonus points when fielded with Be’lakor, as the ability to tag in your troops interacts very favorably with Deadly Trap.
Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount (Cavalry, Hero) – A cheap cavalry Hero that can boost your armored cavalry units with a chain fight and +1 to wound. This bonus especially matters for Chaos Knights, as they rely on connecting with their hit and wound rolls to deal damage.
Chaos Warriors (Infantry) – The standard Chaos Warriors aren’t quite as exciting as their Scourge of Aqshy cousins, but still plenty playable. Cheap bodies on a 3+ save with lots of attacks that have crit (auto-wound) isn’t anything to turn one’s nose up at.
Darkoath Fellriders (Cavalry) – A fast, cheap cavalry unit to complete Battle Tactics, occupy faraway objectives, harass enemy chaff, and screen out enemy power units. Speaking of Battle Tactics, unless you’re going hard for Blazing Onslaught, I generally recommend fielding them with Fellrider Blades, as the Javelin’s average damage in both shooting and melee is quite poor.
Eternus, Blade of the First Prince (Cavalry, Hero) – A reasonable Hero body that offers command denial upside and the potential to revive if slain. The main thing holding him back is that the revival ability is rather unreliable.
Legion of the First Prince Bloodcrushers (Cavalry) – These fill a role in Legion lists that is similar to what Fellriders do in more conventional Slaves to Darkness lists, as they are reasonably priced utility cavalry that doesn’t excel at damage, but can nonetheless be useful for occupying objectives, completing Battle Tactics, and harassing weaker units.
Legion of the First Prince Fiends (Beast) – An interesting tech piece for Legion lists that can help your infantry blocks get a leg up in combat by slapping strikes-last on your opponent’s units.
Legion of the First Prince Flamers (Infantry) – An offensively efficient shooting unit for Legion lists, this unit facilitates their completion of certain Battle Tactics and provides a reasonable answer to chaff, especially if it’s infantry.
Legion of the First Prince Plaguebearers (Infantry) – While not as useful as Bloodletters in combat, sometimes you just want cheap, durable bodies to grab an objective or screen, and these fit the bill.
Legion of the First Prince Screamers of Tzeentch (Beast) – These mostly profile to be cheap and fast Battle Tactic units for Legion, and their large bases also make them reasonable as screens for smaller frontage units. Useful little piece.
Mindstealer Sphiranx (Monster) – An interesting tech piece, as strikes-last is a powerful debuff for an army that does most of its work in melee. Its major blind spot is that it’s not great into Monster-heavy armies, since it relies on beating your opponent’s Control characteristic to apply the debuff.
Raptoryx (Beast) – A cheap screen with reasonable speed while still being able to benefit from obscuring terrain, these are generally used to cover cavalry’s advance.
Varanguard (Cavalry) – One of the most potent cavalry hammers in the game, if not the most. Double fight on Rend 2 attacks with crit (mortal) and damage 3 on the charge is a terrifying prospect for most armies to face, and the only thing keeping them in check is just how elite they are, as each model costs about as much as a Hero (and has a comparable combat profile to one).
C Tier
Centaurion Marshal (Cavalry, Hero) – For most lists, this unit is a fringe pick, as its chain fight ability has relatively few targets and its stats compare unfavorably to some of the cavalry Heroes in this army. However, if you’re in Legion of the First Prince, you can consider this an A, as he’s probably the best generic Hero you have access to.
Chaos Chariot (War Machine) – It’s cheap, it’s reasonably fast, and it has a large base you can use to screen. Not a particularly exciting pick, as it does poor damage and isn’t especially durable for the points, but a functional one.
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (Cavalry, Hero) – While this unit does respectable damage and comes with a useful ability to boost charges, it is a bit on the expensive side for the chassis of damage and defense, and that makes ascending it a bit of a gamble.
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (Scourge of Aqshy) (Cavalry, Hero) – While not a bad unit, it is priced equivalently to a Daemon Prince, and the warscroll you are getting does not compare to the fully ascended Prince. Not a fan.
Darkoath Chieftain on Warsteed (Cavalry, Hero) – While he is cheap, fast, and can man Places of Power for you, he has an underwhelming combat profile and doesn’t provide a helpful effect for the rest of your Darkoath crew. Useful as a lone operator, but not much else.
Darkoath Warqueen (Hero, Infantry) – A cheap Hero with a Ward is a useful thing to have in a vacuum, but she gives you too many hoops to jump through to access her ability to support other Darkoath. Decently useful as a lone operator, but that’s about it.
Exalted Hero of Chaos (Hero, Infantry) – His extra output against Heroes and Monsters is cool and occasionally useful, but the lack of a delivery mechanism means that he’s mostly on Place of Power duty until a unit that he’s strong against wanders too close. Not very essential.
Gaunt Summoner (Hero, Infantry) – This is a reasonably priced double caster that brings his own Ward and has the best shooting profile in the army, but a lot of its value relative to other options is contained in its Silver Tower ability, and because you can’t pledge or cast Daemonic Speed on the unit contained within, that ability is simply not reliable enough for this unit to be a consistent optoin.
Legion of the First Prince Beasts of Nurgle(Beast) – Cheap creatures that can run interference for your main blocks, the inability to be revived and their poor control score hold them back relative to your other options.
Mutalith Vortex Beast (Monster) – A weird monster with some casino dice roll abilities, it generally needs a Tzeentch Wizard to be reliable in any way, and that’s one hoop too many if you ask me.
Ogroid Myrmidon (Hero, Infantry) – An individually potent combat Hero (especially against Monsters and/or when damaged) that provides an ever-important bonus to hit to Theridons via a chain fight. It also gets bonus points when fielded with Be’lakor, as the ability to tag in your troops interacts very favorably with Deadly Trap. However, its viability is largely tied to that of the Theridons he supports, and those are not in the best spot at the moment.
Ogroid Theridons (Infantry) – This is a punchy heavy infantry unit that offers additional upside against infantry, albeit at a lower save than the rest of the heavy armor crew and lacking the Warriors of Chaos keyword (which locks it out of accessing some buffs). I think it’s a reasonable unit, but it also compares poorly to some of the other high-damage options on the roster.
Slaughterbrute (Monster) – This unit sells you the fantasy of a melee bruiser that you can launch at your enemy with a 3D6 charge, but the reality is it only delivers on its promise if you form a buddy pair with a Centaurion Marshal. My impression on that combined package is that is a budget version of Chaos Knights with a Lord on Daemonic Mount.
D Tier
Chaos Spawn (Beast) – The only thing this unit has going for it is being cheap. Nothing else is good. Use it only if you can’t make room for something else.
Fomoroid Crusher (Monster) – A monster with a weak profile (control 2 being insult to injury) and an ability that doesn’t really matter that much. I can’t come up with a reason to bring him.
Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch (Cavalry, Hero) – While in a vacuum this isn’t a bad unit, being flying Cavalry makes it a lot more difficult to protect him from shooting, and his warscroll ability and spell are worse than the ones on the foot version. I would just take the foot version.
Gorebeast Chariot (War Machine) – This is just a weaker, more expensive version of the Chariot that doesn’t receive much in return. Avoid.
Legion of the First Prince Hellflayer (War Machine) – Bad profile on an awkward base that is difficult to move around. Pointless unit.
Enhancement Tier List
Slaves to Darkness have access to various categories of enhancements. An army list can only have one of each type of enhancement. When analyzing the enhancements below, the type of enhancement will be specified in the respective entry.
S Tier
The Dread Banner (Ensorcelled Banner) – Turning off commands within your combat range is an extremely potent ability that has both offensive (no All-Out Defense against your attacks) and defensive (no All-Out Attack or Power Through against your unit) applications, and it can also stop faction-specific commands as well. Barring some niche exceptions (like lists only composed of Heroes), I don’t really take a list seriously until I see The Dread Banner on a reinforced unit of infantry or cavalry.
A Tier
Brand of Apoplexy (Brand of the Dark Gods) – A damage boost for staying at maximum Fury has some opportunity cost (namely forsaking the use of Fight Through the Pain), but the payoff is more than worth it. At its best on a high-volume attacking unit like Chaos Warriors or Darkoath Marauders.
Darkflame Pendant (Artefact of Power) – Setting all incoming damage to 1 goes a long way toward making a Hero more survivable, and it has more of an impact the more durable that Hero is. I am of the opinion this is at its best on a Daemon Prince, though obviously any Hero can benefit from it.
Deathmonger (Heroic Trait) – You generally need a Hero with a pretty good combat profile for fighting twice to be relevant, but fortunately, this army has a few of those. Especially potent on a Daemon Prince, who can get strikes-first to potentially set up using these activations consecutively.
Rune of Murder (Artefact of Power) – Doubling your attacks once per game can turn one of your Heroes into a legitimate offensive threat. Best when combined with Deathmonger to have your Hero spit out a truly terrifying amount of attacks.
B Tier
Brand of the Unaligned (Brand of the Dark Gods) – Not only does this Brand allow you to swap out your pledge if there is a more applicable one on the bench (for example, switching to Tzeentch and teleporting onto objectives once all relevant combats have been concluded), it also accelerates your pledge schedule by letting you pledge the unit without using our Battle Trait. Its use is limited by the restriction against the unit that has your Ensorcelled Banner, but it’s a reasonable choice if your list is plagued by its pledge economy.
Radiance of Dark Glory (Heroic Trait) – A 12” healing bubble that is extra potent for healing your Monsters (which are generally very expensive Hero Monsters). While it requires a specific type of list to be useful, it can play a huge role in keeping your big investments upright.
The Banner of Rage (Ensorcelled Banner) – This banner comes with +1 Attacks (because it pledges the unit carrying it to Khorne) and +1 to wound. A straightforward boost to a unit’s combat ability, though one that is somewhat redundant with the benefits provided by a Chaos Lord tagging along with a unit.
The Banner of Screaming Flesh (Ensorcelled Banner) – While +1 Attacks on the charge is a potent buff, Slaves to Darkness has other ways to access it (notably the Khorne pledge), and the Slaanesh pledge isn’t the greatest in my opinion. However, there are enough ways to swap the Slaanesh pledge out that I am feeling better about this than in ages past.
C Tier
Aelfskin Scroll (Artefact of Power) – Getting to use an enemy spell has some interesting applications, but overall it’s just not something that will be consistently useful, and that makes it rank below other options that will be good every game.
Favored of the Pantheon (Heroic Trait) – While frontloading a Hero with 3 apotheosis points is nice if you’re fishing for ascension, I find this to be generally inferior to Deathmonger with most of the Heroes that have a realistic chance of ascending.
Infernal Puppet (Artefact of Power) – While this can be a great way to put the fear of the Dark Gods in a high power level caster like Teclis, or a fragile double caster, I find that the proportion of armies where this is relevant are in the minority.
The Blasted Standard (Ensorcelled Banner) – A potent Ward against shooting, but it compromises the unit’s offensive potential by locking you into the Tzeentch pledge, and shooting is not the boogeyman that it once was in Age of Sigmar, especially for reinforced units that will typically have a good save.
The Conqueror’s Crown (Artefact of Power) – A decent-sized control debuff, but only affecting infantry, and it’s generally not quite enough to let you steal objectives reliably unless you have this on a Daemon Prince or on a Hero that is exclusively prowling the flanks. You can do better.
The Eroding Icon (Ensorcelled Banner) – While turning off critical hits is a potent effect, it’s tied to the Nurgle pledge, which is a pledge that only a select few units in your army eligible to take an Ensorcelled Banner actually want to use (most notably Scourge of Aqshy Chaos Warriors). It also requires your opponent to have powerful effects on critical hits (though most do). Just one “if” too many for my taste.
D Tier
Brand of Unbreakable Bonds (Brand of the Dark Gods) – The ability to have a unit teleport to an objective once per game is potent in a vacuum, but the ability requiring it to be under your control at the time of the teleport meaningfully diminishes its utility. I don’t see the point to this one.
Realm-warper’s Twist Rune(Artefact of Power) – One would think that the ability to turn terrain pieces into obscuring for a turn or so would come in very handy to protect key units from shooting. However, the extremely short range limitation and the fact that it can damage the units benefiting from said obscuring means that it’s hard to see the use case.
Manifestation Tier List
This analysis evaluates the current options for manifestation lore for Slaves to Darkness. The entry will specify whether the manifestation lore is a generic lore available to all armies, or a faction lore only available to Slaves to Darkness.
S Tier
I do not consider any manifestation lores available to this army to be in this tier at this time.
A Tier
Forbidden Power (Generic Lore) – This lore does a great job of complementing our existing spell lore by offering a teleport + charge combo with Daemonic Speed and the Soulscream Bridge, and also offers quality screening and anti-teleport zoning with the aforementioned Bridge and the Shards of Valagharr. It costs 20 points, so it’s not for every list, but most lists casting 2 or more spells per phase should consider it.
B Tier
Aetherwrought Machineries (Generic Lore) – This lore offers a great space blocking spell in the Pendulum, an anti-Ward chip damage spell in the Quicksilver Swords, and Chronomantic Cogs can be both useful on offense (rerolling charges) or on defense (-1 to hit for Wizards, which can include the likes of Archaon or Be’lakor). Probably the best free generic spell lore, though there is some competition in that department.
Primal Energy (Generic Lore) – While this lore does cost points, it only costs 10, which is something many lists have to spare, and it offers healing for some of your powerful Hero Monsters, as well as a couple of decent offensive manifestations at manageable casting values to help you establish a board presence beyond what your unit count suggests. I’ve always thought it was a good Lore for this army.
Twilit Sorceries (Generic Lore) – A free spell lore that offers the potential to turn off command abilities in the Geminids, a range extender in the Spellportal, and a bit of shooting protection in the Palisade. Each of these is rather niche, but together they make for a rather decent manifestation lore.
C Tier
Morbid Conjuration (Generic Lore) – While this lore undeniably has some potent spells, it has 2 main problems. The first of those problems is that it costs 20 points, which isn’t a dealbreaker, but it is significant. The second problem is that the 2 money spells have a casting value of 8, which is a number your casters will struggle to hit consistently without both a Place of Power and the Nexus Chaotica providing bonuses to cast. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze here.
D Tier
Krondspine Incarnate (Generic Lore) – A free generic lore, this only has one spell, and one that is quite difficult to cast for this army’s Wizards (you need to get to a casting value of 8). I am not a fan.
Manifestations of Malevolence (Faction Lore) – This lore brings little to the table. The manifestations in it are very low-impact, and there’s no in-game reason to select it over Twilit Sorceries or Aetherwrought Machineries.
Battle Tactics Tier List
The current General’s Handbook gives you the ability to choose 2 of 6 Battle Tactic cards to define your secondary objectives. My thoughts on these cards and how they stack up for Slaves to Darkness are below.
S Tier
I do not consider any of the Battle Tactics available to this army to be in this tier at this time.
A Tier
Siege of Ashes – This Battle Tactic card is this army’s bread and butter. Walk up with your lads, get them into fights, counterattack whatever dared to fight you. Many of our rosters do this well, and that makes this a common pick.
B Tier
Burning for Vengeance – While the initial positioning requirement for the first tactic on this card is a bit annoying, the notion of picking a Hero and hunting it down is something that many Slaves to Darkness lists are well-suited to do. Pack some fast units that you don’t mind exposing to danger to fulfill the first tactic, and off you go.
Flanking Firestorm – This Battle Tactic card requires a bit of investment in fast expendable units that won’t necessarily be contributing to combat, which means not every list can run it. However, the ones that do will find that it’s relatively easy to score and doesn’t require interacting with your opponent that much.
C Tier
Blazing Onslaught – The initial requirement to do damage in 3 different phases is something this army can struggle with unless it specifically builds for it. If your list can pull it off, however, this tactic encourages a play pattern that you want, which is to get deep into enemy territory and take over.
Legend of the Parch – I think this Battle Tactic card is a trap for most builds of this army. Needing to have your opponent voluntarily engage with one of your units and survive so that you can hit them back hard and clear the attacker can be a tough ask. The one exception is the Herohammer build, which has a variety of units that can be useful for completing the requirements of this tactic.
D Tier
Smokescreen – This Battle Tactic card is also a trap in my opinion. Although there are configurations of Darkoath that could theoretically complete it, the play patterns it encourages are generally just worse for this army’s prospects than the rest of the cards.
Armies of Renown Discussion
Slaves to Darkness has access to a handful of Armies of Renown, which will be discussed below.
Legion of the First Prince
This Army of Renown is somewhat unique in that it adds a significant number of warscrolls that can only be used in it and alters the base playstyle of the army into something in between the Warriors of Chaos heavy hitting style and the Darkoath attrition style. It also opens up new utility for warscrolls such as the Centaurion Marshal and Eternus. I am also of the opinion that this is the best way to play Be’lakor, and overall I give it a B.
The Swords of Chaos
This Army of Renown is a very heavy skew list focusing on Abraxia, Archaon, and Varanguard. Its fortunes generally wax and wane depending on how many Varanguard you can stuff into the list. As of the time of this writing, it can field Archaon with 12 Varanguard or Abraxia with 18 Varanguard, which I believe are strong enough to make it tournament viable. Accordingly, I think it’s a B.
Tribes of the Snow Peaks
One of the worst Armies of Renown in the game, this trades away Darkoath’s recursion mechanic and access to pledges for a backloaded rewards system that triggers off the completion of the Oath abilities on your units’ warscrolls. Trouble is, many of those Oaths require you jumping through hoops to complete them, and sometimes in play patterns that aren’t necessarily in your best interest as a player. You should never be playing this Army of Renown in a competitive setting, and therefore it must be a D.
Regiments of Renown Tier List
Slaves to Darkness has access to quite a few Regiments of Renown. My analysis of these Regiments for competitive play is below and will include the unit composition of the Regiment of Renown.
S Tier
I do not consider any of the Regiments of Renown available to this army to be in this tier at this time.
A Tier
The Curse-Steel Battery (Daemonsmith, Deathshrieker Rocket Battery, Tormentor Bombard) – One of the big flaws of the Slaves to Darkness roster is that it lacks quality shooting options. This lets you have some, and brings in a cheap Wizard that can sit on Places of Power and summon manifestations. A strong choice.
The Exiled One (Skarbrand) – A reasonably priced Hero Monster that makes for a potent, if swingy, hammer that can execute long charges and is a terrifying counter-charge threat. One of the best Regiments this army has access to.
B Tier
Mist-Clad Revellers (Blissbarb Archers, Shardspeaker of Slaanesh) – A reasonably priced Regiment that brings some shooting to help complete Battle Tactics and thin down screens, as well as a cheap Wizard to sit on Places of Power and summon manifestations. It faces some competition from other Regiments that provide similar effects, but this is a reasonable pick.
Rogue Engine (Outlaw Cannonade Cogfort) – While this unit is quite slow and expensive, it provides a real shooting profile, albeit not an efficient one. However, what tips it over the scale into being interesting is its durability (25 health on a 3+ save is no joke) and its secondary buffs, such as shielding a unit from shooting and +1 to wound.
The Accursed Reflection (The Contorted Epitome, Slaanesh manifestations) – If you don’t mind upping your drop count, a cheap Wizard with good protection and access to manifestations from another army is an interesting option.
The Coven of Thryx (Magister, Pink Horrors, Tzeentch manifestations) – A Wizard that comes with a useful screen and some interesting spells, namely the Tome of Eyes, which can give your in-faction Wizards a bonus to cast. It’s interesting.
Urrgar’s Maulerguts (Maulbeast Cavalry, Tyrant on Glutthorn) – Potentially interesting because of the strikes-last on the Tyrant on Glutthorn and the anti-charge effect on the Maulbeast Cavalry, but it poses a challenge to fit it in due to its very high points cost.
C Tier
Cogfort Raiders (Outlaw Conqueror Cogfort) – While putting something like Chosen and a Chaos Lord to have the Cogfort running out for big damage swings is tempting, the reality of the situation is that the Cogfort is slow, the infantry unit that goes inside cannot be reinforced, and both the infantry unit and the Hero need to hit 9” charges for it to do anything. Too unreliable for my taste.
Diseased Revellers (Beasts of Nurgle, Sloppity Bilepiper) – While this provides you with cheap units to run around doing Battle Tactics and other actions you don’t want your premium units doing, they’re not cheaper than your in-house options, nor are their stats any better. Not a fan.
Exile Scavengers (Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit, Grundstok Gunhauler, Skywardens) – The decision to run some of what are, in my view, the weaker units in the Kharadron Overlords Battletome isn’t garnering much support. I also don’t like that the units in this Regiment must start in deepstrike. A rather limited Regiment of Renown.
Krong the Club (Mancrusher Gargant) – While it is fun to put a random Gargant in a list, and its abilities are somewhat amusing, I don’t think the power level is there to consider this a truly competitive choice.
Mask of the Deceiver (Changeling) – A somewhat interesting Regiment in that it has some applications as a speedbump, but spending this amount of points and adding a drop for what will generally amount to be a throwaway unit is a bit high for my taste.
Nurgle’s Gift (Nurglings) – While popping out Nurglings from a unit of Marauders could potentially be a great way to tarpit an opponent, it is a bit unreliable. Nurglings, while relatively wound dense, also don’t really help you deal damage. A fun Regiment to take, but it doesn’t exactly cover any needs.
One-Eyed Grunnock (Warstomper Mega-Gargant) – Mega-Gargants are beefy but not getting all of their fun rampages and other in-faction damage effects means this is mostly a brick of meat, and you can do that better with something like Chaos Warriors.
Squires of the Everchosen (Morbheg Knights, Varghulf Courtier) – A couple of cheap, fast units to complete the Battle Tactics and sit on objectives with, but they are a bit lacking in combat compared to what Slaves to Darkness is capable of. I would say the rise of Darkoath made Regiments of Renown like this one feel much less necessary.
The Red Revelation (Bloodreavers, Skullreapers, Slaughterpriest) – For the most part, the troops in this Regiment of Renown are weaker versions of what Slaves to Darkness has on its own roster. The 5+ Ward prayer the Priest can chant is pretty nice; however, it’s a bit of a coin flip. I’m not a big fan.
The Scarlet Jury (Cryptguard, Grand Justice Gormayne, Royal Decapitator) – While Gormayne offers a potent cocktail of useful effects, 10 fragile infantry bodies with a chain-fighting book Hero render the Regiment of Renown a bit anemic in terms of board presence and damage output.
Volt-Klaw’s EnginecovenRatling Warpblaster, Warlock Galvaneer, Warpvolt Scourgers) – Another Regiment that provides access to some shooting. However, I am not a fan of the units you receive for this one, and therefore I rank it lower than some of its contemporaries.
D Tier
Phulgoth’s Shudderhood (Harbinger of Decay, Pusgoyle Bightlords, Putrid Blightkings) – Once upon a time, this was one of the premium Regiments of Renown for Slaves to Darkness. The Battletome changes to the warscrolls for the Putrid Blightkings and Pusgoyle Blightlords killed that dead. Now it’s just a sad reminder of what once was.
Seeker of the Dread Dirge (Ashen Elder, Dominator Engine with Bane Maces) – A Priest you can’t really use, and a slow low-damage war machine. I don’t see the use case for this.
Seekers of Silver(Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch, Magister on Disc of TzeentchTzeentch, Screamers of Tzeentch) – A bunch of fragile flying Wizards that you can’t protect It’s hadrd for me to conceive of a Regiment of Renown that would be worse for this army. Avoid like the plague.
Snerk’s Trogg-fer-Hire (Dankhold Troggoth, Loonboss) – The flavor on this Regiment of Renown is rather fun. The rules on the scrolls are weak enough that no one looking to play seriously should pick it.
The Pustules (Feculent Gnarlmaw, Plaguebearers, Spoilpox Scrivener) – The Plaguebearers are decent, but a Scrivener and a Gnarlmaw are far from helpful. I wouldn’t.
Recommended Unit Use Cases
This section will try to give a gist of how to best utilize the unit choices in this army.
Beasts
Chaos Spawn – Because this unit’s movement is unreliable, it’s generally best off being pledged to Tzeentch to stretch its range. This unit is generally in the role of Battle Tactic/objective grabber, which means your goal is to have them be annoying enough that your opponent actually wants to go after them.
Darkoath Wilderfiend – These guys tend to start the game behind your main blocks. Once they have gotten charged up to spit out their effects, you can consider closing to melee with them to pick opposing units off. While their save is weak, they have a decent amount of health, a 5+ Ward, and a reasonable combat profile, so they can mix it up a bit in combat. Further, the Darkoath Battle Formation allows you to pick one back up if it dies.
Legion of the First Prince Beasts of Nurgle – This is an expendable unit that you run up the board to interfere with your opponent’s positioning and perhaps help you complete a Battle Tactic or two in the process. Generally better near the center of the board, but running it up a flank where you expect units to struggle with clearing it is also an option.
Legion of the First Prince Fiends – This unit mostly sits behind one of your big combat blocks and tries to find opportune moments to slap on strikes-last and change the complexion of a combat. Beyond that, they are somewhat fast and can be reasonable at Battle Tactics, or harass enemy Wizards that stray too close to the frontline with their -1 to cast and unbind ability. 1 unit of 3 is typically sufficient.
Legion of the First Prince Screamers – These are cheap, fast units you can use to screen, nab uncovered objectives, or complete Battle Tactics. They are eminently expendable, so feel free to toss them in harm’s way if it gives you any advantage. I could see 2 packs of 3 in many lists.
Raptoryx – A cheap, reasonably fast unit with big bases, this is a great space-eater that can force an opponent to engage on your terms to get through a certain section of the board. It can also help you complete Battle Tactics in the process. You generally will run no more than 1 of these units.
Cavalry
Chaos Knights – My preferred use case for this unit is as a 5-man utility unit that is paired with a Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount. This affords them maximum flexibility in role. On the matter of pledges, Khorne is the dominant choice for an aggressively inclined Knight unit, but not all of them need the extra output. Slaanesh can help hit some long charges, and Tzeentch can help them cover ground or cycle out of combat.
Darkoath Fellriders – 5 of these are helpful as cheap units to complete Battle Tactics and grab objectives with, and when they are pledged to Khorne and have completed their Oath, they do enough damage to threaten chaff and low-save units. 1 or 2 units of 5 are generally what you see.
Legion of the First Prince Bloodcrushers – I would generally use these in 3s to run up flanks, complete Battle Tactics, generally be a nuisance, and possibly revive to do it all again. Their damage is rather poor, so even the fights that they win will take a while.
Varanguard – I generally prefer fielding these as a reinforced unit of 6 and using them as a primary hammer to batter your opponent’s quality units. However, it should be noted that there are lists that have used them in 3s to good effect. Either way, the use case is similar – screen for them, charge them into enemy units they want dead, and watch them get to work. Khorne is by far the preferred pledge for them, unless Slaanesh would ensure a critical charge you need.
Heroes
Abraxia, Spear of the Everchosen – While she makes for a good power pair with Varanguard thanks to her ability, I would also point out that she is a good solo operator thanks to her speed, durability, and relatively small base footprint. Her damage is pretty swingy, so try not to put her in situations where you need her to kill something, but if you need to tie up enemy units that don’t have massive output, she can be quite useful.
Archaon the Everchosen – The big man is a massive part of your gameplan, as you would expect from such an expensive centerpiece model. Maximizing the Eye of Sheerian typically involves using it early to determine whether your army will be in a defensive posture or setting up for a preordained double turn. The model himself is typically is used as a surgical strike piece that can take over an objective or threaten a key unit, then Power Through back to an advantageous position.
Be’lakor, the Dark Master – Be’lakor is at his best when he is safely behind Archaon or a giant blob of combat infantry, and free to ply his debuffs and combat tricks trade. Dark Master can mitigate the consequences of aggressive forward positioning, especially if your opponent manages to get a double turn. You generally don’t want to expose him to large combat units, but his speed and control score makes him very good at sniping Heroes and lightly defended objectives.
Centaurion Marshal – The main use case for this unit is to form a power pair with a Slaughterbrute in standard lists, or a unit of Bloodletters in Legion of the First Prince lists, and power them up in combat. It’s also a decently durable Hero to carry Heroic Traits and artefacts. You usually will want 1, and no more.
Chaos Lord – This unit can offer a bit of extra oomph in castle-style lists where you expect your opponent to come to you, particularly if those lists have Be’lakor. You likely won’t get to spend a pledge on this, but if you do, Tzeentch to give it late-game movement utility is likely the play. Most normal lists will only need 1.
Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount – This unit forms a power pair with a unit of Chaos Knights or Varanguard to help them tackle bigger targets. It also makes a decent home for offensive enhancements and has some potential as an Eye of the Gods Hero. Pledging it likely only happens in the late game, and if so, Tzeentch for extra mobility is typically the move. I would generally field 1 for every cavalry unit I wanted to run.
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak – While this unit ostensibly wants to be paired with heavy infantry like Chosen, and doing so enables you to get maximum value out of it, its combat profile is good enough to be played as a standalone piece that can carry offensive enhancements and push for Dark Apotheosis. A Khorne pledge would help push that goal, but you generally will not get to pledge this unit before it ascends or dies trying. Only 1 can carry the offensive enhancements, so you will only field 1.
Chaos Lord on Karkadrak (Scourge of Aqshy) – This unit could theoretically boost the effectiveness of your Companion profiles, but the only one of those that matters are the horses on Varanguard. Its more likely use case is as a standalone piece that can carry offensive enhancements and push for Dark Apotheosis. A Khorne pledge would help push that goal, but you generally will not get to pledge this unit before it ascends or dies trying. Only 1 can carry the offensive enhancements, so you will only field 1.
Chaos Sorcerer Lord – This unit typically runs along behind a reinforced combat unit, preferably a hammer like Chosen or Varanguard, and tries to apply the Ward as often as possible. With a bit of luck, it might be able to sit on a Place of Power at the same time to do a bit of double duty. A late-game Tzeentch pledge for some cheeky mobility is also very helpful. You will very rarely run more than 1 of these.
Daemon Prince – This unit’s role typically depends on its kit. A Prince with the Darkflame Pendant is going to beeline toward a target that won’t be able to shake it off very easily and lock it down. Conversely, a Prince with the Rune of Murder is going to hunt down a unit (particularly a Hero) that is vulnerable to the once-per-game burst of damage it can put out. What will be true regardless of kit, however, is that Nurgle is the best pledge for the unit, and that he will be hovering near your infantry units for protection before it is time to strike. This arrangement is also helpful for Despoilers and/or Siege of Ashes. I generally advise running 1, as the enhancements are a large part of what makes it appealing.
Darkoath Chieftain – This unit is the bread-and-butter Hero for Darkoath lists. Darkoath needs Heroes to be around for Marauders to deal mortals on death and to revive destroyed units. Chieftains fit that bill nicely because they are cheap and give your troops a boost on offense. Pledging them will rarely happen, but Tzeentch for movement shenanigans if the move if you can spare the pledge. You will generally want multiples of these, with 2-3 being the norm.
Darkoath Chieftain on Warsteed – A utility Hero that offers more speed and durability than the rest of the Darkoath crew. Its effect on Fellriders isn’t particularly helpful in my opinion, but you can generally wring some use out of a Hero that moves 12” and has access to the Tzeentch pledge for even more movement by sitting it on a Place of Power. You don’t need more than 1.
Darkoath Warqueen – The Warqueen is generally going to be marching up the board to get her buffs online, with units of infantry to benefit from them in tow. The best pledge for her is likely Tzeentch to help her movement game, and you only need 1.
Eternus, Blade of the First Prince – This guy is mostly an annoying piece you can put on a flank to harass weaker units or hold up a strong push from your opponent for a round or two, then potentially get up to do it again. His command denial ability can sometimes provide value, but is generally too unreliable to be part of your gameplan.
Gaunt Summoner – This unit is a bit of a free-ranging piece in that it wants to hide a unit in the Silver Tower during deployment, use its movement combined with the Tzeentch pledge teleport to move up the board, then deliver its payload. It can also help score Battle Tactics with that teleport and with its handy shooting profile. Just make sure you protect him properly during deployment.
Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch – A fast-moving delivery mechanism for the unit in the Silver Tower, albeit one that generally wants to stick close to your troops to get Guarded Hero. I think the risk is greater than the reward for this one, but if you wanted to field him, I think that having 1 and hiding him as far back as possible during deployment describes the use case well.
Gunnar Brand – Gunnar is generally going to spend his time near a Place of Power boosting your Fury level. Once you have maxed out on that, you may elect to keep him there so you can keep it topped up, or you might have him roam around to help with Battle Tactics. Despite what his “double attacks against Heroes” ability would have you believe, he isn’t much of a fighter, so you want to avoid combat against all but the weakest of units.
Ogroid Myrmidon – The Myrmidon forms a power-pair with Ogroid Theridons in melee, as he provides them with the ever-important +1 to hit. It also has some applications as a lone monster hunter, especially with the right offensive enhancements. Pledging the Myrmidon is not high on most folks’ priority list, but Khorne for another attack and Tzeentch for late-game movement are probably the go-to choices. I wouldn’t field more than 1 of these, but I could also see a build where running a couple is actualy helpful.
Singri Brand – Singri’s job is to hang out by Places of Power, chip in for the completion of Battle Tactics, and then make a nuisance of herself by getting in the way of your enemy. She also counts as a Darkoath Hero, which can come in handy if you’re running a mixed list that’s light on those and you need Heroes to enable Darkoath Horde or Darkoath Marauders.
Infantry
Chaos Chosen – This is your bread-and-butter combat infantry. In most lists, they are the second wave that follows your screens and anvils to beat enemy units down with their strong damage output. I highly favor pledging them to Khorne, but Nurgle is a reasonable second choice if your Sorcerer failed to cast a spell and it is critical for you to commit to a combat on that turn. As a unit with fight twice, you generally want to set them up into a tough combat where you need both fights to clear that unit, or set up for a charge that can let you clear one unit, activate fight twice, and then go try to clear another while not letting them hit you first. 1 reinforced unit with the Dread Banner is the quintessential way to play them, though some players have had success with 2 reinforced units.
Chaos Furies – These are some of the best objective grabbers and Battle Tactics units this army has access to, and you will press them into service to that effect in your games. I am a fan of the Nurgle pledge with this unit, as moving its native Ward to a 5+ gives them tangibly better odds of survival. I could see going up to 2 units of 6.
Chaos Legionnaires – A cheap, expendable infantry unit with a potentially useful ability, these will generally accompany your main combat blocks to the center as a screen that can take a charge, while potentially occupying an objective and/or help complete a Battle Tactic in the process of getting in position. Pledging them to Tzeentch to help them move up the board faster would be my go-to in the rare event this unit go pledged. 1 or 2 units of 8 seem like the way to go.
Chaos Warriors – This unit offers a cheap source of health with a 3+ save, and can generally be used to improve your board presence and grant you the ability to control objectives aggressively and dare your opponent to come take them from you. I believe multiple units are the way to go here (in 10s or 20s, as points allow). The best pledge for them in my opinion is actually Khorne, as the extra attacks on an objective combined with the extra attacks from that pledge make them daunting to approach.
Chaos Warriors (Scourge of Aqshy) – This is this army’s premier anvil infantry unit. Play a reinforced unit, pledge it to Nurgle, walk it up to the center of the board, and take control of the game. I also recommend giving them the Brand of Apoplexy for more bite in melee. You will generally want to charge up your Fury level and keep it high to gain the benefits of the Brand and their own warscroll abilities.
Darkoath Marauders – In Darkoath lists, these guys are your bread-and-butter infantry. You set them up to take hits, to charge in and deal damage, and generally play your game through them. You’ll generally want to pledge them Khorne to make their counterpunching more effective, though Slaanesh to make hitting an 8+ on the charge and fulfilling your Oath is also a consideration.
Darkoath Savagers – These guys are typically a counterpunching unit. You hide them behind your main lines, pair them with a Darkoath Chieftain (if you have one) and pledge them to Khorne. Savagers’ attack volume combined with the crit (mortal) ability on their weapons make them very punchy for their points, and their low cost means that many lists can afford to run a brick of 20. Darkoath-centric lists may even want 2 of them.
Legion of the First Prince Bloodletters – This is the main combat unit for Legion of the First Prince lists, and as such it should be near Be’lakor (to provide the bodyguard Ward and be in range of the Bestow Favour ability) and the Centaurion Marshal (for the chain-fight). Multiple units of 20 are the order of the day, with 40-60 total Bloodletters being the norm.
Legion of the First Prince Flamers – This warscroll heavily incentivizes bringing a single unit of 6, and I believe that you should follow that incentive. They are very useful for thinning down large units and threatening screens. Just make sure you don’t expose them to much melee, because they will basically melt on contact.
Legion of the First Prince Plaguebearers – I believe these units do their best work in 10s as speedbumps and annoyances your opponent has to get through to clear out objectives or get into your other units, with the potential of being revived to do it again. They are a bit slow, so positioning them as far forward as possible when deploying is important.
Ogroid Theridons – This unit is generally just a secondary combat missile. You can either send 3 of them early to soften enemies up before bringing your primary combat units to bear, or save a block of them as a counterpuncher to mop up whatever survives engagement with your first wave. In either case, Khorne is the pledge you want to be on, with some consideration for Slaanesh if you need to hit long charges.
The Oathsworn Kin – I would treat the Kin similarly to how you would treat most other Wizards: keep them behind your combat troops but in range of their spells, and only venture out when you don’t think they’ll be cut down immediately. Unfortunately for the Kin, they are not a Hero, so they do not get to hang out near a Place of Power to good effect. However, they can still contribute to Battle Tactics, provided they are a safe distance from the enemy.
Monsters
Fomoroid Crusher – You likely won’t be fielding this unit, but if you do, it wants to hang around near terrain and in range of combats without actually joining in them, and sprinkle some mortals around. You likely won’t get to pledge this unit, but Tzeentch to put it in positions to succeed sounds the most useful.
Mindstealer Sphiranx – In matchups against infantry and cavalry-centric armies, this unit sits behind your main combat blocks to dissuade your opponent from trying their luck with a charge. In monster-heavy matchups where its effect is unlikely to go off, it becomes a fast objective grabber. I find Tzeentch to be the most useful pledge for this unit, though it is rather low on the pledge priority order.
Mutalith Vortex Beast – The unreliability of its ability in the absence of a Tzeentch Wizard means that it basically is funneled into being a power pair with said Wizard, and will hang around the fringes of combat to apply its effects.
Slaughterbrute – This guy forms a power pair with a Centaurion Marshal. I would not field it without the Marshal, and I would have them traveling together as much as possible, including when charging into combat.
War Machines
Chaos Chariot – Lists that include these generally run 1 and do so as a cheap throwaway unit that can run up the board and help screen or include Battle Tactics before it (usually) dies. Those types of units are a luxury in this army, and this is one of those options. You likely won’t get to pledge this unit, but if you do, I see the utility of Slaanesh or Tzeentch being helpful.
Gorebeast Chariot – This unit is rarely played, but when it is played, you generally see 1 as a cheap throwaway unit that can run up the board and help screen or include Battle Tactics before it (usually) dies. Its ability when using Power Through will rarely come up, as that command ability is very much in demand and not something you would generally use with something this expendable. You likely won’t get to pledge this unit, but if you do, I see the utility of Slaanesh or Tzeentch being helpful.
Legion of the First Prince Hellflayer – I don’t think you should play this, but if you do, put it on a flank so it that avoids your opponent’s beefy units and can leverage its speed to get whatever value it can.
Sample Army Lists
This section provides sample lists that players can use as a baseline for creating their own lists, or to run at competitive events. The lists in this section have all been tested in competitive environments, and many of them have strong competitive results (which is hereby defined as 4 or more wins in a 5-round Age of Sigmar tournament, or 6 or more wins in an 8-round tournament).
List 1 – Prince/Sorcerer Brawler
Prince/Sorcerer Brawler 2000/2000 pts Slaves to Darkness Despoilers General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 2 Wounds: 141 Spell Lore – Lore of the Damned Manifestation Lore – Aetherwrought Machineries
Battle Tactic Cards: Burning for Vengeance, Siege of Ashes
General’s Regiment Daemon Prince (230) – General – Trophy Rack – Pledged to Nurgle – Rune of Murder – Deathmonger Chaos Knights (240) Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount (130) Chaos Warriors (Scourge of Aqshy) (400) – Reinforced – Brand of Apoplexy (10)
Regiment 1 Chaos Sorcerer Lord (120) Chaos Chosen (500) – Reinforced – The Dread Banner Chaos Knights (240) Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount (130)
Faction Terrain Nexus Chaotica
Created with Sigdex: sigdex.io App Version: 24.0.3-dev Server Version: 3.1.9 Data Version: v50
List 2 – Darkoath, Daemon Prince, and Guns
Darkoath, Daemon Prince, and Guns 2000/2000 pts Slaves to Darkness Darkoath Horde General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 5 Wounds: 168 Spell Lore – Lore of the Damned Manifestation Lore – Primal Energy (10)
Battle Tactic Cards: Burning for Vengeance, Flanking Firestorm
General’s Regiment Gunnar Brand (180) – General Singri Brand The Oathsworn Kin Darkoath Savagers (180) – Reinforced – Brand of Apoplexy (10)
Regiment 1 Daemon Prince (230) – Wings – Pledged to Nurgle – Darkflame Pendant – Deathmonger
Regiment 3 Gunnar Brand (180) – General Singri Brand The Oathsworn Kin Darkoath Marauders (160) – Reinforced – The Dread Banner
Faction Terrain Nexus Chaotica
Created with Sigdex: sigdex.io App Version: 24.0.3-dev Server Version: 3.1.9 Data Version: v50
List 6 – Herohammer
Herohammer 2000/2000 pts Slaves to Darkness Godswrath Warband General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 5 Wounds: 73 Spell Lore – Lore of the Damned Manifestation Lore – Primal Energy (10)
Battle Tactic Cards: Burning for Vengeance, Siege of Ashes
General’s Regiment Archaon, the Everchosen (780) – General
Regiment 1 Be’lakor, the Dark Master (450)
Regiment 2 Daemon Prince (230) – Trophy Rack – Pledged to Nurgle – Rune of Murder – Deathmonger
Regiment 3 Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount (130)
Faction Terrain Nexus Chaotica
Regiments of Renown The Exiled One (400) Skarbrand
Created with Sigdex: sigdex.io App Version: 24.0.3-dev Server Version: 3.1.9 Data Version: v50
List 7 – Be’lakor Daemon Hordes
Be’lakor Daemon Hordes 1950/2000 pts Slaves to Darkness | Legion of the First Prince Army of Renown General’s Handbook 2026-27 Drops: 2 Wounds: 151 Spell Lore – Spell Lore: Legion of the First Prince Manifestation Lore – Forbidden Power (20)
Battle Tactic Cards: Blazing Onslaught, Siege of Ashes
General’s Regiment Be’lakor, the Dark Master (450) – General Legion of the First Prince Bloodcrushers (300) – Reinforced Legion of the First Prince Bloodletters (340) – Reinforced Legion of the First Prince Bloodletters (340) – Reinforced Legion of the First Prince Flamers of Tzeentch (240) – Reinforced
Regiment 1 Eternus, Blade of the First Prince (160) Chaos Furies (100)
Faction Terrain Nexus Chaotica
Created with Sigdex: sigdex.io App Version: 24.0.3-dev Server Version: 3.1.9 Data Version: v50
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
This week’s update adds another six events, 257 tournament runs and 1,260 individual player game records to the July Battlescroll data.
That additional evidence has produced movement at both ends of the table. Some of our thoughts around last weeks data have been strengthened, while one faction in particular now looks very different.
Faction Dashboard Analysis
The Ogors have arrived
Last week, Ogor Mawtribes had a 38% Observed Win Rate. But we know that was based on only 89 games from 19 players, leaving a large amount of uncertainty around the result.
One week later, and the picture has changed, a lot. Ogors now have 194 games from 40 players and an Observed Win Rate of 47%. Their confidence interval has narrowed to 40–54%, while their Skill-Adjusted Win Rate is also 47%.
This doesn’t mean that Ogors are sudddenly perfectly balanced. The is and will remain one of the smaller in the dataset until the next Battlescroll, and a nine-percentage-point movement in one week showsy why we need to be cautious with early samples.
What it does show is that last week’s 38% was not enough to support a firm conclusion.
Their tournament conversion has improved as well. Thirteen per cent of Ogor runs have now reached four wins, with another 35% finishing on three. Their zero-or-one-win share has fallen from 48% last week to 33%.
The early disaster has become something much closer to an ordinary faction result.
Gloomspite’s decline is becoming harder to ignore
Gloomspite Gitz remain at 45% across the complete Battlescroll, but the overall figure hides a more worrying trend.
Their latest 200 games have produced only a 38% Win Rate. Which is now 13.5 percentage points below their opening 200 game sample. That’s the largest negative movement in recent form on the dashboard.
Player strength doesn’t provide much of an explanation. Gloomspite players had a 49% baseline expectation, while the Skill-Adjusted Faction Win Rate only rises to 46%.
Their GT results are similar. Only 13% of Gloomspite players have reached four wins, while 31% have ended with either zero or one.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to treat their recent decline as ordinary noise.
Three factions are gaining momentum
At the other end of the table, three factions are now showing improvement.
Disciples of Tzeentch have the largest positive change. Their latest 200 games have reached 55%, which is 6.8 percentage points above their opening sample.
But, Tzeentch also have one of the strongest player populations in the game. 35% of their players are rated at 500+ WoElo, and their individual match-ups were predicted to win 54% of their games. Once we adjust for that, their Skill-Adjusted Faction Win Rate falls to 49%.
The recent Tzeentch surge is real in that those games were won. But how much of it is faction strength and how much is the players skills?
Sylvaneth’s latest 200 games have reached 55%, an improvement of 4.8 percentage points. Their players were only expected to win 49% of their games, and their adjusted estimate remains at 53%, so the Faction does seem to have an affect on the players results.
Daughters of Khaine have also improved, with their latest sample reaching 57%, 4.5 points above their opening 200. Their stronger player population accounts for some of that performance, bringing their overall result from 55% observed to 53% adjusted.
Fyreslayers remain the faction to watch
Fyreslayers now have the highest Observed Win Rate on the dashboard at 58%.
That result still comes from a reasonably small amount of games, leaving a 51–64% confidence interval. But, even so, the player adjustment doesn’t bring the win rate down too much.
Their players had a 51% expectation to win, and their Skill-Adjusted Faction Win Rate stays at 54%. This is the highest adjusted estimate on the faction table.
This is the biggest difference between Fyreslayers and Hedonites of Slaanesh.
Hedonites have a 57% Observed Win Rate, but their players have the highest average WoElo in the game at 480.5 and were expected to win 55% of their games. Their adjusted estimate falls to 52%.
Both are winning plenty of games. But currently it seems that more of the Fyreslayers result remains after accounting for the players involved.
Cities stay strong, but their performance is steadier
Cities of Sigmar now have the largest high-performing sample: 830 games from 166 players.
Their Win Rate remains at 56%, with 28% of their players reaching at least four wins. Their last 200 games sit at 54%, only one percentage point below their opening sample, so no drop in performance.
After accounting for their skilled player population, their adjusted estimate is 54%.
Formation Analysis
Zealous Hordes continues to carry Cities
Zealous Hordes carrys on as the leading formation, with a 60% Observed Win Rate across 332 games.
Its players are strong, and their average WoElo is 480.8 and their players were expected to win 52% of their games. Even after adjusting for that, the formation stays at a 57% adjusted estimate.
Compared to the other Cities formations:
Zealous Hordes: 60% observed, 57% adjusted
Stalwart Guardians: 51% observed, 51% adjusted
Swift Reinforcements: 50% observed, 50% adjusted
The faction’s performance is not spread evenly. Zealous Hordes is doing the heavy lifting.
Its 4+ Win Rate has dropped from 31% to 29%.
Other formations worth watching
Aelementor Guardians stays near the top of the table at 60% observed across 144 games. Their adjusted estimate has fallen to 54%, meaning that perhaps that player strength is possibly behind their results.
Lords of the Clan stands out for the opposite reason. It has a 55% Observed Win Rate, but its players were only expected to win 47% of their matches. Its adjusted estimate remains at 56%.
This shows a good example of a formation performing better than we expected from the previous results of the players using it.
At the bottom, Fleshmeld Menagerie has fallen to 38% observed across 133 games. Its adjusted result improves to 45%, the formation continues to struggle.
Squigalanche is the same at 42% observed and 44% adjusted across 203 games.
Popularity Analysis
Population Matters
The population charts shows why you shouldn’t just take the raw win rates at face value.
Tzeentch have 35% of their players rated at 500 WoElo or above. Daughters of Khaine have 36%, while Cities have 26%.
At the bottom, 60% of Kharadron Overlords players are rated below 400. The same is for 56% of Skaven players and 55% of both Gloomspite Gitz and Helsmiths of Hashut players.
Strong factions may attract strong players. Experienced players may swap towards particular playstyles. Also, repeatedly playing an underperforming army may itself drag down a player’s WoElo.
The adjustment is not intended to reveal a faction’s “true” win rate. It just asks how the faction performed compared with what we would have expected from the previous performance of the players involved?
As the Ogor results show this week, that, and the sample behind it, can make a big difference.
Win Analysis
What records are players walking away with?
Hedonites still lead the table, with 29% of players reaching four or more wins. Cities follow on 28%, Daughters of Khaine on 27%, and Disciples of Tzeentch on 26%.
Soulblight Gravelords are also quietly converting well. 25% of their players reach four wins, with another 25% finishing on three.
Stormcast Eternals remain near the bottom. Only 10% of their 180 players have reached four wins, while 31% have ended with either none or one.
The most important change, is Ogor Mawtribes. Last week, none of their players had reached four wins. That figure has now gone up to 13%,
Accounting for Player Strength
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database.
This database is included in an additional article which is Patreon only and posted on the same day. These Patreon posts also include additional stats which aren’t available in the standard stats article, such as Faction v Faction stats.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
There are a few changes this week, so I should probably explain myself first!
Firstly, we no longer have the traditional win-rate chart. This has been replaced by the new Faction Meta Dashboard.
The reason is to move away from treating win rates as the sacred word when it comes to balance. I’ve been saying for a while now that win rates only scrape the surface. They’re useful, but we need to dig deeper to understand how those figures are being produced.
With that in mind, the Dashboard now shows the number of players and games behind each faction’s win rate, which we’re now calling the Observed Win Rate. Next to that, you’ll see the percentage of GT runs which resulted in four or more wins across the first five rounds of events.
On either side of the Observed Win Rate are two columns marked Lower and Upper. These represent the 95% confidence interval around that result. In simple terms, they’re the range within which we think the faction’s underlying win rate is likely to sit. Factions with fewer recorded games will have a much wider range, while those with hundreds of games will give us more confidence.
Recent Form
You’ll also see a new Recent Form section. We’re comparing a faction’s most recent 200 games with its opening 200 games of the current Battlescroll. To avoid overlapping samples, we only make this comparison once a faction has recorded more than 400 games.
This gives us another way of looking at the meta. Rather than asking “How has this faction performed across the whole Battlescroll?”, we can ask “Is it still performing that way now?”
That’s already producing some interesting results, which we’ll come to later.
Skill-Adjusted Win Rates
Last, we come to probably the most interesting part of the Dashboard, for me at least. The Skill-Adjusted Analysis attempts to separate faction performance from the skill and experience of the players using it.
Using WoElo, we can estimate how likely each player was to win each individual game based solely on the WoElo of themselves and their opponent. At this stage, we’re deliberately ignoring which factions either player brought.
Take Hedonites of Slaanesh as an example. Their players have an average WoElo of 480.9, and based on the individual match-ups those players encountered during this battlescroll, we would have expected them to win approximately 55% of their games even before looking at anything to do with Factions, Formations or lists.
Their Observed Win Rate was 58%. Once we account for that player-strength advantage, our current Skill-Adjusted Faction Win Rate estimate is 52%.
That doesn’t mean Hedonites really have a 52% win rate. The 58% is what actually happened. Instead, the adjusted figure is our attempt to answer a slightly different:
How much of that performance comes from the faction, rather than the players using it?
Battle Formations
We’ve also introduced a dedicated Battle Formation Meta Table.
This works in the same way as the Faction Dashboard, showing the number of players and games recorded for each formation, its usage within the faction, 4+ win finishes, Observed Win Rate and the 95% confidence interval around that result.
We then apply the same player-skill analysis to produce a Skill-Adjusted Formation Win Rate.
I think this is important because a faction sitting comfortably at 50% doesn’t mean every way of building that army is balanced. One formation might be outperforming while another struggles, with the two averaging out into what could be seen as a healthy faction result.
The Charts
We’ve retained our two player population charts, showing the number and percentage of players within each WoElo bracket. These provide some useful context for the Dashboard by showing just how differently the player populations of each faction are distributed.
We’ve also kept the Fabien Chart, showing what percentage of players finished their GT runs with 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4+ wins. Averages are useful, but sometimes it’s much more informative to see what actually happened to the people who took an army to an event.
Finally, we have one new chart, Observed vs Skill-Adjusted Faction Win Rate. Blue represents the Observed Win Rate and orange represents our estimate after taking into account player WoElo.
The line between them is where some of the interesting stories in the data live. If a faction moves substantially down after adjustment, we have evidence that a strong player population may be helping its results. If it moves upwards, its players may actually be underperforming.
And with all that explanation out of the way, we can finally get onto what the numbers are actually telling us this week…
Faction Dashboard Analysis
With the boring explanations out of the way, let’s get into the good stuff.
Hedonites of Slaanesh
Hedonites are sitting pretty with 58%, but there’s more being that. Hedonites have the highest Observed Win Rate in the game, and that 58% comes out of 350 games. That would be where most people stop, they’re three percentage points above the traditional 45-55% window, and 30% of their completed GT runs have resulted in four or more wins, which is also the highest in our data.
But Hedonites players also have an average WoElo of 480.9, the highest of any faction. Looking at the individual opponents they’ve faced, we’d have expected these players to win around 55% of their games based on their ratings alone. Their skill-adjusted estimate falls from 58% to 52% which is the largest downward adjustment on the table.
It doesn’t mean Hedonites are a 52% faction, or that there’s nothin to worry about. But what it tells us is that Hedonites raw results are going with a very strong player population.
Fyreslayers
Fyreslayers are 57% from 223 games. But unlike Hedonites, adjusting for the player strength doesn’t make that performance disappear.
Fyreslayers players have averaged out at 448.2 WoElo, with their match-ups giving them a player-skill baseline of roughly 51%, this has meant their skill-adjusted win rate remains at around 54%.
So we have two factions with similar headline results:
Hedonites: 58% falling to 52% adjusted Fyreslayers: 57% falling to 54% adjusted
It would arguably mean that the Fyreslayers are the more interesting faction to watch. But, Fyreslayers only have 223 games recorded which means the confidence interval is quite wide at between 51-64%.
They’re also having 21% of their players achieve 4+ wins compared to Hedonites 30%.
Cities of Sigmar
Cities have 720 games from 145 players on record, with an Observed Win Rate of 56%. Their confidence interval is narrower at 53-60%, and 29% of their players reach four or more wins.
Cities opening 200 games had an Observed Win Rate of 58% which has fallen to 54% across the most recent 200 games.
Their WoElo is good, averaging at 454.1, but even taking that into account their skill-adjusted win rate is still 55%. But there’s even more behind this when we get to the Formation dashboard.
Daughters of Khaine
Their overall Observed Win Rate is 56%, but their most recent 200 games have reached 58%, up 4.8 percentage points compared with their opening 200.
Their average WoElo is a tough 465.8 and their expected player performance was around 52%, which brings their adjusted down to 53%.
Gloomspite Gitz
At the other end of the table we have the Gitz. They’ve won 45% of their 519 games this battlescroll, and their latest 200 games is sitting at just 38%. Unlike some of the other factions, player strength doesn’t seem to explain this one. Gitz players have an average WoElo of 404.0 and a player-skill baseline of 49%. Our adjusted win rate only goes up to 47%.
Something has changed recently, it could be anything between the players, builds, match-ups or simply the wider meta adapting to Gitz.
Ogor Mawtribes
The new Ogor Mawtribes have been getting a lot of attention recently and have an awful lookin 38% Observed Win Rate. But that is only based on 89 games across 19 players, Their confidence interval is a massive 28-48%, and their skill-adjusted estimates climbs to 44%.
This does suggest the Ogors performance could be partly down to the skill and experience of the players using faction. But we don’t have enough data yet.
Formation Analysis
Lumineth Realm-lords
Aelementor Guardians are leading the way. Sitting with a whopping 61% Observed Win Rate across 124 games and 35% of their players achieving four wins or more.
Player strength accounts for some of that with Aelementor players having an average WoElo of 474.9 with a player baseline of 52%. But even taking this into account, the formation still has an adjusted win rate of 55%.
Cities of Sigmar
Cities’ Zealous Hordes are more of a concern. With 284 games from 59 players. It has a 60% Observed Win Rate and a 31% 4+ success rate. Their average WoElo is 473.6 and after taking in the player skill, we would still expect Zealous Hordes to hit around 57%. Compare that to the other formations:
Formation
Observed Win Rate
Adjusted Win Rate
Zealous Hordes
60%
57%
Stalwart Guardians
53%
51%
Swift Reinforcements
48%
50%
Zealous Hordes seems to be doing the heavy lifting in the Cities Observed Win Rate.
Hedonites of Slaanesh
With Hedonites, Depraved Carnival are used in 75% of their games. They have 58% across 261 games, which is pretty much the same as the Hedonites overall figures.
But again, their player base is strong at 483.2, and their players were expected to win 54% of the time regardless of faction. Their estimated win rate falls to 53%.
Sylvaneth
Sylvaneth have two Formations that are giving us some interest. The Faction overall has 53%, but their Formation Lords of the Clan has 56% over its 241 games and an adjusted win rate of 56%. Their players have a modest WoElo of 413.9 and an expected win rate regardless of Factions at 47%. Meanwhile Glade Defenders sits at 51% observed and 51% adjusted across 319 games.
Interesting because Lords of the Clan isn’t producing good results because of a high skill player base. Its players are outperforming what we’d expect from their ratings.
Blades of Khorne
Khorne aren’t particularly alarming at 50% Observed and 53% Adjusted. But Murderhost is currently at 52% Observed and 54% Adjusted, while Khornate Legion sits at 51% and 52%. Northing scary there.
But what’s interesting is that both improve after player adjustment. Murderhost players have a baseline expectation of only 46% yet won 52% of their games.
Kharadron Overlords
The Endrineers Guild Expeditionary Force makes a jump from 44% observed to 50% adjusted. Their average WoElo is just 351.6 which is incredibly low.
I’m not claiming they secretly balanced, but its difficult to look at the 44% without looking at who’s piloting the army in those games.
Popularity Analysis
Disciples of Tzeentch have one of the strongest populations in the game, around 34% of their players are rated 500+ WoElo, including 6% above 700. Daughters of Khaine aren’t far behind, with 38% at 500+.
That helps put some of their results into context. Both factions are performing well, but they’re also attracting considerably stronger-than-average players.
At the opposite end sit factions such as Kharadron Overlords, where around 60% of players are below 400 WoElo, and only around 9% are currently above 500.
Skaven and Gloomspite also have particularly large sub-400 populations at 56% apiece.
This doesn’t tell us why. It could be that those factions attract less experienced players, that experienced players have moved away from them, or as was raised in our Discord this week, that repeatedly playing a struggling army may itself suppress a player’s WoElo.
That’s something we’re going to look at, and not pretend we’ve already got the answer.
Win Analysis
This remains one of my favourite charts because it translates abstract win rates into something much more tangible. If I take this faction to a GT, what sorts of records are people actually coming home with?
At the top, 30% of Hedonites runs reach four or more wins, followed closely by Cities at 29% and Daughters of Khaine at 27%.
But the rest matters too. For Hedonites, another 32% finish on three wins. That means roughly six in ten Hedonites GT runs are currently finishing with at least three wins from the five rounds we’re measuring. Compare that with Stormcast Eternals. Only 10% reach four wins, while 31% finish 3-2, 27% finish 2-3, 19% manage one win and 12% go winless.
And then there are Ogors. None of the 19 recorded Ogor players have yet reached four wins, while 48% finished with either zero or one win. The sample is tiny, as we’ve already discussed, but that’s still rather grim.
Accounting for Player Strength
This helps us see more clearly what I’ve been talking about this week. When we account for players strength some factions barely move at all while others move massively.
Hedonites fall from 58% to 52%, and Daughters from 56% to 53%. At the opposite end we can see that Kharadron rise 46% to 50% and Ogors go from 38% to 44%.
This is not intended to show any “real” win rate. WoElo and faction performance aren’t independent. A player repeatedly winning with a strong army will increase their WoElo, and someone sticking with an underperforming faction could see theirs fall. But we’ll look into refining this as we get more data.
Think of this as answering: “How did this faction perform compared with what we’d have expected from the previous performance of the players involved?”
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database.
This database is included in an additional article which is Patreon only and posted on the same day. These Patreon posts also include additional stats which aren’t available in the standard stats article, such as Faction v Faction stats.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the July battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 411.1. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 411.1 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This chart shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Battle Formation Win Rates
This chart shows the win rates for Battle Formations that have seen 100 games or more at GT events.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
Battleplan Win Rates
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database.
This database is included in an additional article which is Patreon only and posted on the same day. These Patreon posts also include additional stats which aren’t available in the standard stats article, such as Faction v Faction stats.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the July battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 411.1. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 411.1 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This chart shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Battle Formation Win Rates
This chart shows the win rates for Battle Formations that have seen 100 games or more at GT events.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
Battleplan Win Rates
This is not yet updated, and shows data from 26th July only.
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database.
This database is included in an additional article which is Patreon only and posted on the same day. These Patreon posts also include additional stats which aren’t available in the standard stats article, such as Faction v Faction stats.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet.
Factions by Average Elo
I’ve included this one to show the rankings of factions by their average Elo.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the July battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 411.1. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 411.1 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This chart shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Battle Formation Win Rates
This chart shows the win rates for Battle Formations that have seen 100 games or more at GT events.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
The above is an aim to show how easy factions are to pilot for players. In this case I’ve narrowed the population down to players with an Elo between 200 and 400. What follows is then the % of those players to win in the first round. This continues, showing what % of players won in round 1 and round 2 in the next column. This continues to show how deep developing players are progressing into tournaments undefeated using that faction.
Bear in mind that although we have no tournament history on record for these players, they may be skilled outside of tournaments before their first recorded instance in the Woehammer database.
Battleplan Win Rates
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database below which now includes warscroll win rates and lists.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet. Er… Kruleboyz?
Factions by Average Elo
I’ve included this one to show the rankings of factions by their average Elo. As mentioned in the last section, Daughters have the highest average Elo of all the factions currently which goes a long way to contributing to that 62% win rate.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the July battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 409.1. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 409.1 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This chart shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Battle Formation Win Rates
This chart shows the win rates for Battle Formations that have seen 100 games or more at GT events.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
The above is an aim to show how easy factions are to pilot for players. In this case I’ve narrowed the population down to players with an Elo between 200 and 400. What follows is then the % of those players to win in the first round. This continues, showing what % of players won in round 1 and round 2 in the next column. This continues to show how deep developing players are progressing into tournaments undefeated using that faction.
Bear in mind that although we have no tournament history on record for these players, they may be skilled outside of tournaments before their first recorded instance in the Woehammer database.
Battleplan Win Rates
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database below which now includes warscroll win rates and lists.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet. Er… Kruleboyz?
Factions by Average Elo
I’ve included this one to show the rankings of factions by their average Elo. As mentioned in the last section, Daughters have the highest average Elo of all the factions currently which goes a long way to contributing to that 62% win rate.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the July battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 403.6. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 403.6 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This is a new one this week, and will be temporary for now until the new GHB is released.
Essentially this shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
The above is an aim to show how easy factions are to pilot for players. In this case I’ve narrowed the population down to players with an Elo between 200 and 400. What follows is then the % of those players to win in the first round. This continues, showing what % of players won in round 1 and round 2 in the next column. This continues to show how deep developing players are progressing into tournaments undefeated using that faction.
Bear in mind that although we have no tournament history on record for these players, they may be skilled outside of tournaments before their first recorded instance in the Woehammer database.
Battleplan Win Rates
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database below which now includes warscroll win rates and lists.
We’ve updated the method of calculating the Elo ratings into our Age of Sigmar stats, this includes an attempt to reflect both the tournament strength and the faction strength.
All of the results in this article are taken from Best Coast Pairings, , Ecksen, ChampionshipHub, Milarki, Mini Headquarters, Tabletop Herald and Longshanks. They include GT (Two day events) or GT+ (6 or more rounds) only.
For patrons, you’ll be able to download and play with the database as well (which includes all the lists and stats for all the factions).
As always, if you’re struggling to read a chart, you should be able to right click and then either view or download the image.
Tournaments Included (Using December Battlescroll)
2026 Bugeater AoS GT
2026 South China Spring Champion
A Big Beast Summer
Aetherforce Age of Sigmar GT
Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament
Age of Sigmar GT
Age of Sigmar: NZ Masters 2026
Age of Sigmar: Warhammer Dallas Open
Age of Sigmar: Warhammer Open Maastricht
Age of Sigmar: Warhammer Open UK Games Expo, Birmingham
Akron Brew Brawl – Summer AoS GT
Alberta Classic
AoS Madrid Championship 2026
AOS Onslaught 2026
AoS Worlds 2026 Singles
Atlantic City Open 2026
Baden Bash
Bastion Grand Tournament – Juin
Battle for GreenHollow: Age of Sigmar
Bay Area Open 2026
Black Gate: The Godking’s Gauntlet
Brawla in Valhalla GT
Cabinhammer AoS GT 2026
Catch this Smoke – Marathon GT
Circle City Slaughter
Clowns Requiem II 2026 AoS GT Vietnam
ColtonCon
CTC 2026 Age of Sigmar Championship Open
Dala Stompen 5
Dwellers Below GT
Easter Smash!
End Times is (re)coming [AOS]
Exploding Dice AoS GT 2026
Fal-Con 2026: Fly Harder AoS Edition
False Alarm 2026
Fantasia Fanatic XLIX Age of Sigmar
Field of Slaughter 26 GT 1
First Founding 2 Day Event – Chaos Uprising
Foolcon 2026
German Super Major 2026 AoS
Giga-Bites Grand Tournament
Golden Potato Cup 4
Golden Ticket Guarida del Goblin
Gopher Midwest Mayhem Age of Sigmar GT
Grand Clash Skaune IV
Grand Tournoi AOS – Grand Clash 2026
GT de l’Arène de Crussif
GT AOS SOLO – GHURNADO – Hérault Quest
GT du bout du monde Brest 2026
GT Made in Hell’saciens
GT solo AoS Clermont Ferrand
GT Solo AoS Mootland Clan
HawgHammer Age of Sigmar Gt 2026 @ AdventureCon
II High Tide AoS Mallorca
III GT AoS Individual Sevilla
III PUÑO DE SIGMAR
Iron Brawl 2026
K/Qota S9 E12 !!!Ironman!!!
Katago AOS Kollision
Leipzig Major AoS 2026
Łódzka Strefa Starcia II Edycja – Macki Wojny GT (Master)
Ludomaniacs 1v1 Aos
Masakr na Vysočině
Masters of Ghyran 2
May Offensive
Mercia Madness V
Midwest Conquest 2026 Age of Sigmar
Mountain West Classic Grand Tournament ’26 – Age of Sigmar
Nidaros Grand Tournament 2026
Paris GT AOS Golden
PubHammer Open 6
Realms 6: An Age of Sigmar Event
Realms 7: An Age of Sigmar Event
Realms 8: An Age of Sigmar Event
Realms 9: An Age of Sigmar Event
Realmshift Series 2026 – Chapter 1
River City Rumble 2026
Road to Freak Wars 26 – Final IV CN
Rocky Mountain Open 2026
ShireCon Age of Sigmar 2026
Sigmar Summerfest ’26 GT
Sigmar Summit @Warpfire Minis: May 16th-17th
SoPac AoS GT
Southcon: A New Wind
Split Personality – Competitive
Storm of Corruption II
Summer Con Age of Sigmar GT
Summertime Madness AoS GT
Swedish Championship GHB 25-26
Sydney Slaughter 2026
Sylvan Skirmish GT 2026
Tax Man Cometh III
Tennessee Elite Open AoS
The April Annihilation
The Big Thaw
The Last Hunt Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament 2026
The Richmond Open
The War Dome AoS
Toast 3ème édition
Tournoi AOS Egide x Lyon War Club pour Octogone!
Trash Clash in the Bluegrass
Trash Panda GT
ValleyCon 2026
Västkust Mästerskapen
VTGT
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Edmonton Open 2026
Warhammer AoS Thailand Grand Tournament Summer 2026
I’ve added in a colour code to show the rough age of the rules the faction is using.
As always, these are global stats from various sources around the internet. Daughters are currently dominating, but we do have to note that they have an exceptionally high average Elo suggesting that a lot of top players are using them.
Factions by Average Elo
I’ve included this one to show the rankings of factions by their average Elo. As mentioned in the last section, Daughters have the highest average Elo of all the factions currently which goes a long way to contributing to that 62% win rate.
GT Win Rates Over the Last 60 Days
We’ve passed the 60 day mark since the first events of the battlescroll dropped. These win rates would more likely show the effect of players adjusting to the competitive lists of armies as the Battle scroll progresses.
Estimated Win Rates if the Player Skill Levels were Equal
What I’m trying to do here is work out what the win rates would be if the skill levels of all the players were the same (Yes, I realise this is nearly impossible to calculate – But I’m playing around here).
How it works is by calculating the average Elo of all the players that have had matches since the April battlescroll dropped. This worked out as 435.5. I then calculated how much difference there was between a factions average Elo shown in our original win rate graph to this overall average. The difference between these two figures was then turned into a percentage difference over/under the 435.5 elo. I then increased or decreased their win rate by this percentage (But this isn’t as simple as deducting or adding the percentage different to the win rate – you have to work out for instance what 4% may be of say 53% and then apply that. For Example – 10% of 40% is 4%)
Win Rates by Release Date
This is a new one this week, and will be temporary for now until the new GHB is released.
Essentially this shows the win rates for all the battletomes released within certain periods of time (every 6 months since 4th edition release).
This should show whether Battletomes are generally stronger the later they are released into the edition. As we can see they all fall within the 45-55% win area, though the battletomes released in the last 6 months are a little stronger than the other cohorts.
Battle Formation Win Rates
The above shows the win rates for all Battle Formations that been played in 100 GT games or more.
Faction Popularity (Broken Down by Player Elo Rating)
This is perhaps the most interesting chart to me personally. Here you can see the spread of the player skill levels for each faction according to our Elo rating system (updated each week in line with the Age of Sigmar stats).
The dark blue shows the really elite players of 700+ Elo. Interestingly, they don’t seem to give a damn about which faction is performing well in the meta and rely on their own skill (as they should!). Neither to 600-699 rated players. Where we start to see the swell in players possibly chasing the factions with more favourable rules is in players rated less than 600 Elo.
To make it a bit easier to see the effect of higher skilled players, I’ve added the below chart this week which breaks down each factions player base as a percentage.
Elite and Rookie Players by Faction
The blue section shows the percentage of a factions players which have an Elo rating of 500 or greater. While the Orange shows the number of new players to the faction where they have yet to attend a tournament (based on our database history).
The Fabien Chart
Fabien Barbusse is a top player in the AoS scene and a member of the Woehammer Discord who is one of many who points out any mistakes in the charts before we publish them. He stated he felt the most valuable chart would be a version of the one above, which shows the % of 4+ win results in a 5 game event compared to the other results.
% of Players with a Positive GT Result
Ideally you would want 50% of the players having a positive results for a truly balanced game system.
Consecutive Wins
This chart shows firstly the % of players with a negative result from 5 games at GT’s or GT+ in purple for each faction.
Dark blue shows the percentage of players who achieved 5 wins from 5 in the first five rounds of a GT or GT+.
Orange shows the players who achieved four wins from the first four rounds of a GT or GT+ but were unable to achieve the full house and lost their round 5 match.
Green shows the players who achieved three wins from three wins but were unable to win in their fourth round match.
Light blue shows all other players aside from those shown in the first three categories, who were able to achieve a positive result at a GT or GT+ i.e. 3 or more wins.
The above is an aim to show how easy factions are to pilot for players. In this case I’ve narrowed the population down to players with an Elo between 200 and 400. What follows is then the % of those players to win in the first round. This continues, showing what % of players won in round 1 and round 2 in the next column. This continues to show how deep developing players are progressing into tournaments undefeated using that faction.
Bear in mind that although we have no tournament history on record for these players, they may be skilled outside of tournaments before their first recorded instance in the Woehammer database.
Battleplan Win Rates
This one could be useful for TO’s who are looking to run tournaments in the near future. If you’re hoping to curtail a few of the higher powered factions, you could perhaps look to use battleplans where those factions aren’t as dominant.
PlasticCraic mentioned the popularity of Battleplans earlier this week on his discord. So thought I’d include this.
Past Battlescroll Win Rates
Woehammer Database
To download out Age of Sigmar stats database, click on the button below.
For those of you who are counted among our legendary Patreons, you can view the full stats and download the stats database below which now includes warscroll win rates and lists.
