This is the top three AoS lists for the London Open that took place in the UK on the 15th and 16th of July. It involved 12 players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

Allegiance: Seraphon
– Constellation: Fangs of Sotek
– Grand Strategy: Spellcasting Savant
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Lord Kroak (410)*
Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140)*
Skink Starseer (150)*
– Spell: Speed of Huanchi
– Lore of Primal Frost: Merciless Blizzard
Slann Starmaster (275)**
– General
– Command Trait: Lord of Celestial Resonance
– Artefact: Spacefolder’s Stave
– Spell: Drain Magic
– Lore of Primal Frost: Hoarfrost

Battleline
10 x Skinks (90)**
– Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (90)**
– Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
5 x Saurus Guard (140)**
10 x Saurus Warriors (180)**
– Clubs
5 x Raptadon Chargers (150)**

Behemoths
Bastiladon with Ark of Sotek (180)**

Endless Spells & Invocations
Chronomantic Cogs (50)
Umbral Spellportal (80)
Malevolent Maelstrom (30)

Faction Terrain
Realmshaper Engine

Core Battalions
*Command Entourage – Magnificent
**Battle Regiment

Total: 1965 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 111
Drops: 4

Mo’s Fangs of Sotek here went all the way, beating some TOUGH lists en route, most notably KO, OBR and – what should be a really hard counter – Khorne.

Again, it’s the new dooble-forg archetype which drops the trog, since Arcane Vessel was nerfed, for…other stuff. In this case, mo Brings 5 Raptadons who can be sped up to super speed with the Speed of Huanchi spell on the Starseer, and in general are just a great trading piece, especially if they’re able to engage near an objective for the extra damage.

An Ark of Sotek is also a fantastic pick for Starborne, as it can be teleported onto an objective where it can sit, being hard to shift, until the star power and Kroak can rev up.

Interestingly, we see three endless spells: the maelstrom is quickly becoming a fan favourite due to how quickly Seraphon can power it up and send it off to explode – possible THROUGH the Spell Portal in this instance? And if not, it’s a cheap way to project at least one of Kroak’s MW spells. And Cogs, despite losing the casting re-roll, remains an excellent pick for Seraphon due to the extra ‘free’ cast, which still contributes to star points.

Big congrats to Mo on the challenging path to 5-0

Army Faction: Kharadron Overlords
– Army Subfaction: Barak-Zilfin
– Grand Strategy: Rule the Skies
– Triumphs: Inspired
– Stick To The Code (Amendments): Prosecute Wars With All Haste
– Stick To The Code (Artycles): Settle the Grudges
– Stick To The Code (Footnotes): Without Our Ships, We Are Naught

LEADER
1 x Arkanaut Admiral (140)*
– General
– Command Traits: Ex-Grundstok
– Artefacts: Celestium Burst-grenade
1 x Aether-Khemist (100)*
1 x Aetheric Navigator (100)*
– Nullstone Adornments: Pouch of Nulldust

BATTLELINE
1 x Arkanaut Frigate (300)*
– Heavy Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: Magnificent Omniscope
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)*
15 x Grundstok Thunderers (480)*
– 3 x Grundstok Mortar
– 3 x Aethercannon
– 3 x Aetheric Fumigator
– 3 x Decksweeper

BEHEMOTH
1 x Arkanaut Ironclad (500)*
– Great Sky Cannon
– Great Endrinworks: The Last Word
– The Admiral’s Flagship: The Admiral’s Flagship

OTHER
6 x Endrinriggers (240)*

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1950/2000)

Jeremy Veysseire: Hello fellow Whiskey & Sky Duardins, this is your Duardrazhal speaking, Jeremy Veysseire, about two fellow Duardin privateers who recently descended onto the field at the London Open 2023.

We will start with 2nd place finisher Joshua Jenkins, who stuck to an age-old tactic of the Kharandron, being a 1-drop army. It is still very strong, as we will explain later in his commentary. Joshua finished 2nd, while fellow privateer Philip Springall finished 3rd at the same event.

As you can guess it KO fans, Joshua is a Barak-Zilfin man and he went with the tried and true 2D6” Run, +1 to Wound versus 1 enemy unit for the game and a 2 Command Abilities on 1 friendly boat that phase. His army can be described as: “I have all of these Thunderers laying around and I am down a Soulscream Bridge this GHB”.

Joshua’s army is quite balanced in his selection and could ever be called a Highlander build. His primary display of force is in the 15 Thunderers riding into his Ironclad with the Arkanaut Admiral and Aetherkhemist providing them Speed, excellent firepower and efficient CP consumption through the Admiral being able to CP the Ironclad for free once per turn and the Thunderers as well. He has back-up shooting and melee threat in the form of the frigate, and 6 endrinriggers with Navigator for some recursion in the form of boat healing.

The biggest utility options available to him is his ability to disengage and skyhigh a boat if he chooses to in a phase, or being able to sky high and combat disembark from the Ironclad for maximum punch in a turn (for Khemist and Admiral rend). He also is 50 points down allowing him most games to have a free +1 to wound for any of his units for 1 phase (we all know it’s for the Thunderers’ second round of shooting after they Ssttled DAT GRUDGE!).

His first-round opponent was Obaid Bin-Nasir with his 2-drop Legion of Blood Nagash, VLoZD and zombies/skeleton spam on Power Flux. A 4-objective mission in which the bottom player gets to choose which pair of objectives is scoreable while Andtorian Locus can score a bonus point by scoring an active objective while also gaining a bonus point that turn if you killed any Wizard. Looking at this match up, Joshua has prio going into game turn 1 easily picking bottom of the turn so he can freely choose which objectives to activate while being out of harm’s way and forcing his opponent to face a potential double, picking Nagash for his Grudge and saving his +1 to wound for the VLoZD. While the LoB player can get no bonus points from Joshua, Joshua can get 2 and basically auto win his Grand strat by killing Nagash and VLoZD. I imagine that Nagash died on turn 2 with the VLoZD being unable to impact the game and dying the following turn. Clearly a win for Joshua.

His second-round opponent was Daniil Osudin with a 5-drop Hallowheart list that can be described as a wizard ecliptic personality including Bundo your favorite maritime Miyazaki character… oh wait that’s Ponyo. Your favorite mercenary Whale catching Mega gargant. They were playing on Nexus Collapse, a mission with 6 spread out objective, which is a mission that should not be too problematic with KO’s speed and ability to clear objectives unless of course he got railroaded by 10 Evocators that rode on a dead dude boat aka Lauchon. While not having any details on the game’s event, I can only imagine that he focused on killing Bundo turn 1 and had his Ironclad and most of the Thunderers into the Evocators. Rough times were had for the pirates of the sky as they thought Bundo was the Rum carrying caddy as they take a loss.

His third-round opponent was the experienced Max Soule with a 9 (HOLY) drop Disciples of Tzeentch list that is looking to generate Fate Dice and blow you up with some shooting and a reserve, fast melee unit in the shape of Enlightened on Disk on The Frigid Zephyr. A 3 center objective mission which should punish KO as turn 1 limit Line of Sight to only 12” while removing Fly from everything (and can continue in later turn) but sadly it also limits the reach of the Disk turn 1 if they can’t fly while the range limitation punishes Tzeentch more than teleporting KO. Overall, I can only assume that Joshua was able to remove the important threats to his army effectively early and able to remove his opponent’s ability to score in the second half. Another win for KO!

His fourth-round opponent was Krzysztof Zylawy with an 8 (HOLY) drop Blades of Khrone list that is heavy in Bloodthirster and Bloodletters on Towers in the Tundra. A thematic 2 objective mission in which you gain bonus points by controlling 1 of your opponent’s terrain features, super advantageous for a teleporting fast army like KO. Sadly, Krzysztof brought just about the same amount of death dealing flyers that weren’t loaded with a lot of Buzzsaws and aetherbullets. I can imagine that Krzysztof was unable to deliver his Bloodthirster effectively while Joshua had prime pickings of targets. I assumed he settled the grudge on the 20 Bloodletters to make sure they died ASAP removing a lot of scoring power from the list while just picking apart the poor Bloodthirsters in later turns. Another KO win.

His final opponent is our next KO player, Philip on this article, I will cover that game last!

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

Kharadron Code
– Artycle: Master The Skies
– Artycle: Settle the grudges
– Amendment: Trust your guns
– Footnote: There’s No Reward Without Risk

Leaders
Arkanaut Admiral (140)*
– General
– Nullstone Adornement: Hand carved nullstone icon
Aetheric Navigator (100)**
– Artefact: Voidstone Orb
Brokk Grungsson Lord-Magnate of Barak-Nar (220)**

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

Units
6 x Endrinriggers (240)**
– Reinforced x 1

Behemoths
Arkanaut Frigate (300)*
– Main Gun: Heavy Sky Cannon
Arkanaut Frigate (300)**
– Main Gun: Heavy Sky Cannon

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Battle Regiment

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 101
Drops: 2

Jeremy Veysseire: Philip Springall’s KO list is what happens when you collected way too many start collecting boxes. His two-drop army is a Barak-Urbaz fleet, and I do mean FLEET as it consists of 2 Frigates, 4 Gunhaulers, 6 endrinriggers, an Admiral, a Navigator and Brokk who seems to have lost his way to his Skyport and is just borrowing Barak Urbaz’s own fleet.

For those who don’t know where the Battleline units are, they are the Gunhaulers as they are Battleline for Barak Urbaz. He also gains 2 Artycles in which he chose +2” to move to all his many boats, +1 to wound against 1 enemy unit for the game, reroll 1 hit roll per shooting phase and a once per game 3d6” charge. The artycles make a lot of sense with 4 Drill Cannons in the Gunhaulers as any unmodified hit of 5 or 6 results is a flat 3 MW, thus the reroll gets most of its value there. The 3D6 Charge is to enable his ability to bring his Admiral, Brokk and 6 Endrinrigger from 1 Frigate into what he needs consistently. Man, Philip was so confident that he didn’t even take a Command Trait in his army. Ballsy. I would say that this list takes the A in creativity, uniqueness and AIRBORNE.

His first-round opponent was Toby Resnick with an 11-drop Jawz of Mork with a TON, literal metric TON of Squigs on Power Flux. A 4-objective mission in which the bottom player gets to choose which pair of objectives are scoreable, while Andtorian Locus can score a bonus point by scoring an active objective. You also gain a bonus point that turn if you killed any wizards. While Toby had 1 Andtorian Locus, I doubt he had much choice into which objectives he got to pick to activate. No matter how many models you are, if you can’t score points. Impressive Ballsy Springall as he takes a win for this round against a match up, I feel many KO players don’t necessarily want.

His second-round opponent was Mo Ashraf (the event winner) with a 4-drop Fangs of Sotek that spells “Kroak/Skink is back baby!” on Nexus Collapse, a mission with 6 spread out objectives. Sadly, while I do not have any details on the game, it looks like Philip took a loss in that mission. I would surmise that Mo rolled more MW than the Drill Cannons and got to bring on a lot more points to score in the second half of the game than Philip. A loss to KO.

His third-round opponent was William Matthews with a 5-drop Skaven list with dual Verminlord and a lot of Gutterrunner/Clanrats with 1 Hellpit on The Frigid Zephyr. A 3 center objective mission that I feel once again should be a KO problematic map. But Ballsy Springall managed to “blow” out this rodent’s nest with a 20-0. I can surmise that the Skaven bodies were dropping too fast to retain board presence while the KO turn up “Blasting to Smithereens” to a new level. This is probably a story of how KO Battle Tactics are superior to Skaven Battle Tactics as well.

His fourth-round opponent was George Seymour with a 1-drop OBR army that is “Peak Dad Energy” as I like to call it. A limited set of models that want to police the meta between 2+ ignore spells and -1 to hit and wound against shooting aura. It’s all about reminding these young bucks who the real Bone Daddy is. Sadly, they were playing on Towers in the Tundra which can really punish a slower aura focused army such as OBR as their ability to spread and push board pressure without sacrificing units is limited. Additionally, Ballsy Springall has a high potential of MW out that really apply pressure to the Immortis Guard tankyness. If at any point the General is targetable and dies, the firepower of the army really turns up. Another impressive win for our favorite Command Traitless Admiral.

His final opponent, the match du jour, the battle to resolve who is the penultimate Privateer at the London GT, between Joshua and Philip. It can be surmised as the following as the mission probably did not matter. Joshua shot first. FIN

Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar
– City: Hallowheart
– Grand Strategy: Control the Nexus
– Triumphs: –

Leaders
Lord-Arcanum (140)**
– City Role: General’s Adjutant
– Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Hoarfrost
– Lore of Primal Frost: Merciless Blizzard
Bundo Whalebiter (460)
– Allies
Battlemage (100)**
– Mortal Realm: Hysh
– Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Sear Wounds
– Lore of Whitefire: Warding Brand
Battlemage on Griffon (240)*
– Hallowheart 2nd Spell: crystal aegis
– Mount Trait: Soaring Guardian
– Lore of Whitefire: sear wounds
Nomad Prince (110)**
– General
– Command Trait: Veteran of the Blazing Crusade
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)

Battleline
5 x Wild Riders (120)*
10 x Dreadspears (90)*
5 x Sisters of the Thorn (130)*
– Hallowheart 2nd Spell: Ignite Weapons
– Lore of Whitefire: Warding Brand

Units
10 x Evocators (440)*
– 10x Grandstaves
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Flagellants (80)*
– City Role: Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models)

Endless Spells & Invocations
Aethervoid Pendulum (30)
Lauchon the Soulseeker (50)
Malevolent Maelstrom (30)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Andtorian Acolytes

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 440 / 400
Wounds: 134
Drops: 5

Codrin: Daniil Osudin’s Hallowheart list is an interesting one as it doesn’t follow the castle build but instead it puts accent on mobile pieces, giving the army the possibility for a more adaptable playstyle.

The Kraken Eater mercenary is the anvil of the army on which using the Warding Brand spell is very efficient. Having a 35 wounds monster locking in battle enemy units that will not want to stay in combat with him because of the reflected mortal wounds, is a great way to shape the battlefield.

The other and probably most important unit of the list, are the evocators. These stormcasts count as a wizard if there’s at least two models in the unit, and if we pair them with the hoarfrost spell for extra rend, give them plus 1 to wound from their warscroll spell or Ignite Weapons from another wizard, and embark them onto Lauchon the Soulseeker we are getting a very fast and deadly unit.
Their stats would presume 41 attacks, potentially hitting on 2+ wounding on 2’s and with rend 2 or 3. After they finish their attacks they immediately roll 20 dice and each 4+ is a mortal wound.

The list is surely taking advantage of the primal magic dice adding them to the advantages that Hallowheart already has in casting magic. And speaking of which the Battlemage on Griffon is yet another key piece that will take wounds to buff casting rolls and provide with its big footprint a generous aura of enemy spell ignors on a 4+. This is also a Ghur mage and can cast Wildform, giving a +2 to charges on either the Kraken Eater or the Evocators.

The Lord Arcanum is a nice to have, but in this list his value increases because he becomes a double cast wizard. He is loaded with Hoarfrost and the scary Merciless Blizzard spells, and given all the pluses to cast this list has the reliability is very big on getting them off.

To sum it up, we have a big anvil, a lightning fast deadly hammer and a lot of mobile pieces that buff and and dish out mortal wounds, what’s not to love at this list!?

Final Tournament Placings