After some busy weeks, things are gonna slow down a bit with 2 smaller GTs, one in Washington, US and one in Ontario, Canada. The meta continues to shift as people experiment with what their army can do post-warscroll and some of the list choices this week may surprise you!

Sparkle Party Death Match X

48-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Seattle, WA, US on March 09 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Mission – Limited Resources

Matthew Kangiser – Seraphon:
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vs.

Mason Knox – Flesh-Eater Courts:
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Thoughts

On its face, Starborne Seraphon should have a real advantage here. Limited Resources is a mission that favors those who can be mobile, trying not to stay in one place too long while your opponent gets stuck in and runs out of places to capture.

Now that said, the Flesh Eater Courts are no slouches at mobility. A knight-heavy list has a lot of options for dashing across the board, and with recursion they have options to deliberately allow their opponent to destroy a unit in order to hand it back to them and speed up the draining process.

In the end, the Flesh Eater Courts absolutely decimated.

Result

Morgaunt Grand Court Victory – 518 – 6

Mason Knox – Flesh-eater Courts (Morgaunt) – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Herohammer FEC

Thoughts

Morgaunt gives a Noble Deed point to each Hero that is capturing an objective at the end of a turn, so why not go ham and run six? Units get +1 attack when wholly within a Hero with six noble deeds, and Courtiers can spend one to revive dead Knight models while Abhorrents can bring back half sized units that were wiped out. So in short, it lets you kill faster and make it more of a grind to be killed.

Morbheg Knights are quite fast and hit hard, while the Beastflayers can shut down enemy Monsters trying to Roar, which is one of the few things that can really ruin your day. Rounding it off a huge block of Cryptguard can bog the enemy down forever with a 5+ ward (plus 5+ Ward for any unlucky heroes getting slapped) while also shutting off commands. In short, your opponent just really will not want to deal with 30 of these guys.

Alexander Gonzalez – Blades of Khorne (Reapers of Vengeance) – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

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Archetype

Khorne good stuff

Thoughts

For once, a list with the restraint to only bring one Bloodthirster and no Skarbrand. That said, there still aren’t real surprises here. It’s a nice grab bag of very solid heroes and infantry with multiple priests to hand out buffs like candy and a Bloodsecrator to make your infantry fight better, with the solid hammers being Wrathmongers, Blood Warriors, Bloodletters and the Bloodthirster.

Flesh Hounds and Furies round off the list as disposable screens and objective grabbers, plus blood tithe farms.

The Best of the Rest

There were 7 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 3rd – Michael Tunes – Ossiarch Bonereapers (Mortis Praetorians): Arkhan with the Sternieste Garrison accompanying, along with the staples of Immortis Guard, Morghast and Kavalos.
• 4th – Alexander Frias – Blades of Khorne (Reapers of Vengeance): Triple bloodthirsters with minimal chaff.
• 5th – Stark Pister – Seraphon (Fangs of Sotek): The usual dual-Slann hero retinue with a mix of every battleline and Raptadon Chargers.
• 6th – Matthew Kangiser – Seraphon (Dracothian’s Tail): See showdown.
• 7th – Joseph Tsai – Nighthaunt (Emerald Host): A grab bag of different heroes, mixing the most popular good stuff with some real dark horses.
• 8th – Cloyd Dowling – Stormcast Eternals (Hammers of Sigmar): Ionus, Gotrek and Neave Blacktalon lead a mix of the standard cache of Stormcast like the Knight-Incantor and Vindictors.
• 9th – Chris LaMoy – Gloomspite Gitz (King’s Gitz): Squig and Fanatic mixed list.

XPG Age Of Sigmar GT

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Mississauga, ON, CA on March 09 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Mission – Power Flux

Jean-François Normand – Disciples of Tzeentch:
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vs.

Jordan Duncan – Sylvaneth:
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Thoughts

With the mission being Power Flux, I’d want to give this one to Tzeentch due to the list. The list has multiple Andtorian Locus, which gives them extra points just for sitting on the objective, if they can control priority they can sit on the North-South objectives and score an extra point each turn while the Sylvaneth player only has one.

However, Sylvaneth can force Tzeentch to spread out, something they really don’t want to do. If the objectives go East-West, then they can easily grab up objectives and retreat to maintain ahead. Fight and Fade also gives ample opportunity to pick off the paper-thin infantry walling up the casters before being able to charge in for the kill on later turns, wracking up bonus points for killing Wizards.

This fight is close with Sylvaneth pulling off a very narrow victory.

Result

Heartwood Victory – 25 – 26

Jordan Duncan – Heartwood – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Sylvaneth big boys

Thoughts

Belthanos has become a favorite for Sylvaneth and it’s not hard to see why. He grants a huge amount of flexibility with run and charge and retreat and charge, both things that melee Sylvaneth lists crave. Spirit of Durthu and Drycha are both the big hammers that offer not-so-negligible shooting attacks and the Warsong Revenant gives very important buffs and reliable casting.

The interesting inclusion here is the Namarti Reavers, which offer some pretty good chaff clearing fire, something Sylvaneth are often not great at when Kurnoth Hunters simply don’t get that many shots.

The Best of the Rest

There were 4 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd – Jake Seguin – Flesh-eater Courts (Hollowmourne): A nice mashup of 2 Archregents, 2 Heralds, Beastflayers, and Crypt Horrors.
• 3rd – Jean-François Normand – Disciples of Tzeentch (Guild of Summoners): See showdown.
• 4th – Ridge Hanna – Skaven: A healthy mix of Grey Seers, Lord Screech, Pestilen Censure Bearers, Rat Ogors and a Hell Pit Abomination
• 5th – Yury Sichinava – Nighthaunt (The Scarlet Doom): Bladegheist spam

Wrap Up

The meta continues to shape in interesting ways post-Battlescroll and with the full launch of the Flesh-Eater courts. We see FEC and Blades of Khorne dominating a lot, but few showdowns are ever the same.

A slower week this time, but not for long! Next week is the Rocky Mountain Open and then the week after that is Adepticon, one of the largest tournaments in the world.