We are truly into the thick of it now with all three events this week featuring the new GHB and the impact is felt throughout many of the lists you’ll see in today’s article – more Galletian Champions, more infantry and everything that comes along with it.

Columbus Brewhammer ’23

39-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lewis Center, Ohio US on February 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Ours for the Taking

Jeff Campbell-Crawley – Oakenbrow: Ents march to war
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vs.

Jon Anderson – Helon: Shooty castle
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Thoughts

I think there’s something deeply mean about pitting a list as cool as oops all Treelords against a honed, rugged killer that is the current incarnation of Helon Lumineth. It’s all well and good being able to present a number of high save monsters that can make stuff fight last, lock down pile ins and generally wreak havoc… but Aelves don’t care. This Lumineth list is built to just sit back, shoot/spell you off the objectives and lurch forward to get ahead on primary scoring the moment your pre-corpse starts to slow down in it’s incessant twitching. Probably doesn’t help that it might be a tough task to protect his Galletian Champions from that much damage in order to score the bonus points on this mission.

Result

Helon Victory – 35 – 15

Jon Anderson – Helon – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Mortal Wounds

Thoughts

All roads lead back to aelf nonsense. While not the standard build we’ve started to see over the past few weeks (no Rune of Petrification, instead opting for Jaws), the gameplan is largely the same – it wants to roll 5s and 6s to hit with its 60 sentinels to apply 20 mortal wounds at range roughly a turn, and then stack on Teclis’ warscroll spell through the spell portal to add more aoe Mortal wounds on top of that. Jon has added a neat little combo to this list that is also worth discussing: The Interaction between Shards of Valagharr, Overwhelming Heat and Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws. Jaws does mortal wounds based off of the difference between the movement characteristic of the affected unit and 3d6. Jon aims to cast Shards and Heat on the unit he intends to hit with Jaws to halve it’s movement characteristic twice. A 4″ movement unit would become 1″, or a 12″ move unit would become 3″. As you can imagine, this sends the damage potential of Jaws very high, as well as crippling the affected unit’s ability to escape from the combo or indeed make any real meaningful moves at all on the board.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Jeff Campbell-Crawley – Oakenbrow: See Showdown
• 3rd – Nicholas True – Stormcast Eternals: A blend of the old and the new here – 5 Stormdrake Guard represent the old, with a Knight Vexillor as a concession to the new Galletian Champion focused metagame and 10 Protectors to help hold center objectives
• 4th – Austin Thimesch – Fyreslayers: 3 Magmadroths lead the way, with still plenty of points to have 4 Galletian Champions and 15 Hearthguard Berzerkers to protect them
• 5th – Jack Cawood – Slaves to Darkness: A high drop Cabalists lists packing 6 Spellcasts, 10 Chosen, 20 Chaos Warriors and the ability to apply Curse on a chump unit of choice to make those Warriors capable of impressive damage
• 6th – Gutbard Realmkicker – Ironjawz: Boasting an impressive nickname, Gutbard has brought 15 Pigs, a Mawcrusha, 10 Brutes and some attitude
• 7th – Roberto Campos-Mcdonald – Slaves to Darkness: The more typical Cabalists list we’ve seen pioneered by one Phil Marshall, this 1 drop lists wants to Soulscream Bridge 3 impressive hammers into your face – 6 Varanguard, 10 Chosen and 10 Chaos Knights

Quest of Champions Heat 1

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England GB on February 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Nidus Paths

Peter Twigg – Sylvaneth: Bugs Life
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vs.

Rory Carter – Underguts: Dad gunline
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Thoughts

Deployment does the trees no favours here, as those Ironblasters can be nestled quite far back behind several rows of Gnoblars, leading to a situation where Peter has to commit rather than play the hit and run style he would typically like to. Rory has dealt with the price hikes to Ironblasters/Gnoblars by cutting the Frost lord and playing a more skirmish guerilla warfare style list… giving the trees a taste of their own medicine.

Result

Underguts Victory – 26 – 20

Rory Carter – Underguts – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Wot if Ogors played like Aelves

Thoughts

The Mournfang Packs act as a good answer in the shooting mirror, as they’re tough to even deal damage to thanks to Linebreakers making them tougher to wound with shooting and almost entirely neutralising Unleash hell. Their mobility also helps them present respectable scoring opportunities on the primary objectives, while the Gnoblars try to stay alive *just* long enough to let the Ironblasters table their opponent.

It’s worth noting the neat little adjustments made for the new season – 2 Bloodpelt Hunters make fantastic Galletian Champions thanks to their ability to move in the opponent’s movement phase and thus keep them out of danger from melee (while their ability to disappear in Cover protecting them from ranged threats).

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Samuel Kimbley – Tzeentch: A flexible combination of mortals and Daemons that throws in a cheeky unit of Corvus Cabal as a useful Desecrate scoring ally
• 3rd – Peter Dixon – Ogor Mawtribes: Boulderhead means beasties, with 3 Stonehorns representing the bulk of this more melee focused Ogors list
• 4th – Joe Jackson – Lumineth Realm-Lords: A more unusual Ymetrica list than I’ve seen recently – there’s still a lot of Stone Guard here, but by skipping on Teclis Joe can afford 3 units of MSU Sentinel to add another element to his gameplan
• 5th – Freddie Leggett – Cities of Sigmar: The world’s maddest lad gets another 4-1 with scraps of units others ignore, this time with 12 Palladors and some Sisters of the Watch

Bloodshed in the Shires

80-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in High Wycombe, England GB on February 04 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Nidus Paths

Jack Armstrong – Lumineth Realm-Lords: Helon mortal wounds
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vs.

Phillip Springall – Lumineth Realm-Lords: Ymetrica Stone Guard
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Thoughts

The showdown between styles of Lumineth here with the now infamous Helon Sentinels build versus the other hot flavour of High Elf – Ymetrica Stone Guard. Unfortunately, one side has Teclis to act as the fun police and shut down Phillip’s buffs and the ability to concentrate damage into one unit at a time. It’s melee vs shooting and unfortunately for cow-aficionados  the Stone Guard list isn’t well equipped well to deal with that style of matchup, it’s much better in the melee vs melee combat fest.

Result

Lumineth Realm-Lords (Helon) Victory – 18-2

Jack Armstrong – Helon Lumineth Realm-Lords – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Helon Mortal Wounds

Thoughts

This is what I suspect will become the template for successful tournament Lumineth lists for a while to come – it’s got reach, damage output and *just* enough objective play that it won’t fall too far behind on primary scoring. If it’s got an achilles heel it’s that it might struggle against hyper aggressive lists that are capable of bypassing Unleash Hell such that they can try and crack the castle before Teclis can get his 5+ ward up, as well as a lack of Galletian Champions. This style of list definitely feels like counters will be developed to it, but for now it may be one of the lists to beat in the metagame.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were as follows:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Ben Curry – Slaves to Darkness (4-0-1): Big bad Archaon, 9 Varanguard and an Gaunt Summoner in a flavourful and cool as f smash list
• 3rd – Phil Marshall – Slaves to Darkness: Phil’s Cabalists list from LVO that was mentioned a bit further upstream returns here: 6 Varanguard, 10 Nurgle Knights and 10 Undivided Chosen feature
• 4th – Lewis Swan – Ogor Mawtribes: Kragnos, 3 Tyrants, 18 Gluttons, nuff said
• 5th – Phillip Springall – Lumineth Realm-Lords: See showdown
• 6th – Adam Hall – Slaves to Darkness: Exact same list as Ben Curry’s, to similar success
• 7th – Dominic Stonebridge – Fyreslayers: Herohammer ho! A full six heroes with 5 GC, protected by 20 HG Berzerkers and 20 Vulkites
• 8th – Matthew Gouldesbrough – Sylvaneth: An Alarielle list that wants her to feature as the front line, supported by 6 Bow Hunters, a Knight-Judicator and other skirmishers

Wrap Up

We might start to see new Gits and Beasts next week, depending on how permissive TOs are feeling – listbuilding has been reinvigorated by the new season and there’s definitely still optimisations to be made so it’s going to be interesting to see how the metagame adapts in the face of the landscape shifting so much.

Ellarr also has his own Youtube channel to cover other aspects of competitive Age of Sigmar which you can find here. If you have any questions or comments leave one down below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.