Four events to cover this week, with a good mix of armies featured and some fun stuff to examine in more detail. I attended the Facehammer GT I’ll be covering a little further below, so look forward to that – spoiler alert, I came 11th, so you don’t have to hear me waffle on about my own list. Thank fuck.

Montreal GT

60-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Montréal, Québec, CA on September 16 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Limited Resources

Patrick East – Fangs of Sotek:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Loic Gosselin Delort – Barak-Mhornar:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

A rather interesting list here from Loic, who skips Thunderers entirely and instead focuses in on Endrinriggers. They haven’t got quite the shooting output of Thunderers, giving the army a distinctly more versatile feel that can utilise mobility and melee output in ways the Grundstok thunderers cannot. That will be to Loic’s advantage on Limited Resources, where the disappearing objectives and objective contesting rules reward an army that’s capable of diving deep into enemy territory, or jump halfway across the board to dip into objectives that you have not yet shut down for yourself.

Patrick on the other hand skips the Incarnate that has been so prevalent in recent builds, as well as the humble Skink warscroll in favour of more Saurus Guard and a heavy investment into celestial point generation. It’s a gambit that makes the list rather less impactful on the board during the early game, but also means that it can quickly snowball out of control if Patrick gets even a little bit of breathing room and the ability to generate two turns worth of summoning points uncontested.

Unfortunately, I think there are three things that go against Patrick here – firstly, the battleplan edge goes to the KO army, secondly he is up against a heavy shooting army with Nulldust, which can really disrupt the Celestial Point generation engine early game and make the investment in the long game redundant, and thirdly Loic is a one drop army, so can take first turn, hurtle up the board and shoot off all those Saurus Guard (and some characters with whatever output is left over) on the very first turn of the game.

Result

Barak-Mhornar Victory – 32 – 16

Loic Gosselin Delort – Barak-Mhornar – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

What if guns… but also… punch!?

Thoughts

Endrinriggers offer a lot of shooting output (the list runs 18 so that’s 54 rend 2 shots right there), but can also put out enough damage in melee to finish off weakened units and do the rather unheard of (for KO anyway…) manouvre of charging onto an objective with stuff on it and *checks notes* taking the objective from them in close quarters.

The 4+ rally means that the Riggers are surprisingly durable in shooting mirrors, as well as giving them a bit of insulation against mortal wound chip damage from enemy spellcasters. The army doesn’t have the bodies and defensive profile to sit on objectives and absorb charges from more dedicated combat armies, but in those situations the army falls back on it’s rather easy battle tactics and mobile shooting strategy.

It’s multiplicity is what gives the army just enough gas in the tank to go the distance in Montreal – well done Loic.

Anthony Brousseau – Reapers of Vengeance – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Cavalry bases for fun and profit

Thoughts

Flesh hounds are here to generate blood tithe and block out space with their luxurious cavalry bases, while the tanky cavalry bases (*ahem* Skullcrushers) smack into the enemy lines to pin and generally be a nuisance to deal with thanks to their innate 2+ save.

What ideally follows is a second wave of Skarbrand, who has had a little time to really rile himself up for not having fought in combat yet, rampaging through the pinned army like a sugar-high toddler left unattended in a Pinata shop. It’s a game plan and strategy that is rather straight forward, but surprisingly difficult to stop if you don’t have a substantial shooting element, as Nulldust and Khorne shenanigans generally insulate the army from taking much damage from spellcasting.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 all finished 4-1 and were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Vincent-Pierre Martineau – Legion of Blood: A list that harkens back to a simpler time, when Soulblight players just wanted to play with the cool heroes and hadn’t yet painted up the 140 Zombies they would later use to do permanent damage to their own back over the course of five round slogfests – Vhordrai, a VLOZD and Neferata in one list!
• 4th – Xavier Carpenter – Guild of Summoners: The last ride of the Incarnate chicken factory – Rupture Incarnate is here, with a few spellcasters and Horrors/Kairics to stand around on objectives firing spells off into the air
• 5th – Patrick East – Fangs of Sotek: See showdown
• 6th – Danick Gagne – Ravagers: Here’s a fun one – Ravagers means recycling Cultist units, and there’s a total of 80 Splintered Fang here (meaning a total of 120 over the course of the game), plus utility Cultists like Unmade to shut off Inspiring Presence and a unit of Chaos Knights for a mobile anvil that also opens up battle tactic options. This archetype has typically brought along Archaon for fight on death, but by skipping him Danick brings so many more chess pieces to throw at his opponent’s models
• 7th – Vincent Amyotte – Fangs of Sotek: A potent fangs of sotek summoning list with the Rupture Incarnate combo, that falls down the standings here due to a round 2 loss to Xavier’s Tzeentch which is an unfavorable matchup
• 8th – Frédérick Dubé – Legion of Night: In an act of foresight, Frederick runs a list that utilises a similar gameplan to the zombie spam lists we have seen a lot of lately, but diversifies by running zero zombies, a brick of 30 Skeletons (a unit I expect will largely replace zombies in this archetype), a 10 block of Black Knights with a Wight King on steed for charge mortals, and 20 Grave Guard to keep his opponent honest with an efficient hammer

Facehammer GT

58-player, 5-round Grand Tournament at Element Games in Stockport, England on September 15 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Stats & Ladders.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – No Reward Without Risk

Fabian Quinn – Jaws of Mork: Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Bradley Walsh – Legion of Night: Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Fabian’s back in one of my showdowns with what some might believe is a bit of a surprise in a Gloomspite Gitz squigs list. The Gitz continue to persist despite repeated heavy nerfs, because their toolset and gameplan has a very high skill ceiling which Fabian is more than capable of utilising. Squig Herd and Bounderz form the meat of this army that must go against the legions of undead.

Brad is running an army that you wouldn’t be surprised to see in the showdown in the Legion of Night, but in a rather unusual and exciting way. 21 Fell Bats have that all important Summonable keyword that means their ‘floor’ of power is very high due to everything we have come to fear about the highly potent Soulblight Gravelords battle traits, but what is their ceiling? Well, they are incredibly cheap for a 14″ flying skirmisher unit with innate retreat and charge, and with 3 attacks each, even an 80 point unit of 3 is putting out 9 damage 2 attacks. To add on to that, they heal based off damage done like Vampire Lords, and if they kill a model they gain +1 attacks for the rest of the battle… which is an ability that can trigger multiple times.

Both armies have plenty of bodies to contest the centre, and with this battleplan there is a huge amount at stake in controlling it. In my opinion, the player who concedes control of the middle is the player that will likely lose the battle due to the way the objectives are laid out – the player holding middle can much better act and react to what their opponent is doing, and it’s very difficult to hold more objectives than your opponent on a 5 objective battleplan without htat all important middle objective.

Anyway, Brad has the initial advantage in bodies thanks to the Zombies, as well as control of initial priority as he is a lower drop army. What Fabian has is an extremely high damage output army that is in the unusual position of being able to straight up lift whatever Brad has on the center board in a single combat phase.

It’s my belief that these two are rather evenly matched armies, in a battleplan that doesn’t necessarily favour one army over the other. That said, I give Fabian the slight edge here as his shrine recursion does mean that it cares much less about Brad’s recursion engine than others, and the face both armies can start so close together means that Brad’s strategy of pinning and holding is less effective here. I honestly think this one comes down to who controls the hero phase (edge Fabian), who controls priority (edge Brad) and the all important time element with so many things going on for both armies (edge Fabian as a more experienced tournament player). I was at the event myself and almost wish I wasn’t playing myself so I could have watched it, as I bet it was a barn burner.

I had a chat with Brad (he’s a club-mate of mine and a lovely man) after I wrote the above to check his notes: His strategy was to take first and try to pin Fabian in as best he could to maintain board control. On his turn one he scored max and killed a unit of Bounderz, with Fabian scoring only 4 on turn two, but his high damage hammers chewing through a substantial portion of his army. Going into battle round two, Brad won priority and took it, maxing out at 5 for the turn but failing his resurrection rolls, before Fabian took the bottom of two, scored 5 for a score of 10-9. From there, time constraints meant the rest of the game had to be abbreviated, with both players agreeing that Fabian was in a better position to take over once priority rolls had been worked out.

Result

Gloomspite Gitz Victory – 27-19

Fabian Quinn – Jaws of Mork – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Souped-up Super Squigs

Thoughts

As a refresher for those who may have forgotten, the basic gameplan of this list revolves around leveraging the incredibly efficient Squig Herd with a Squigboss and buff pieces like Sneaky Snufflers and the Gobbapalooza to end up with a unit throwing 4-6 dice per model, with some combination of defensive buffs like a 5+ ward, and offensive buffs like extra rend, mortal wounds on 6s to hit. This same template of profiles can also be thrown onto Bounders, which are a less efficient but faster and harder hitting Squig keyword unit that can contribute charge mortal wounds for certain matchups, and receive commands, which sounds funny but is a very important thing to have when the bravery situation is as shockingly bad as it is in Gitz.

It’s for that reason Fabian has a very high triumph bid for the Indomitable triumph – which is one of the very few ways that he can keep those Squig Herd around once they start taking casualties. Fabian will want to, as the unit has a whopping 72 wounds to chew through, and with 6 Squig Herders can replenish up to 6d3 Squig models a turn – on average 20 wounds worth of fang filled rage on each of his Hero phases! Well done Fabs on a fantastic result.

Simon Weakley – Legion of Night – 2nd Place

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

Balanced arms Summonables

Thoughts

One of Team England’s newest stars was actually playing on the top table in round five and also went 5-0, narrowly missing out on 1st place due to the list grinding out closer victories compared to Fabian. Second place in a shark tank of an event with an unusual list is something to look at closer, so let’s dive in.

What’s different about this list relative to the typical LoN lists we’ve seen is that it doesn’t go quite as fanatical in it’s pursuit of Zombies standing on circles. Unbending Will means each one is counting as two on objectives however, so he still has much superior objective control relative to most opponents he will expect to face off against.

No Nagash means a lot of points to play around with, so Simon has Mannfred to act as a terrorising counter charge unit that can utilise Strikes-first to get an edge in the activation wars, as well as pump up the damage output potential of any nearby zombies thanks to Sword of Unholy Power granting them +1 attacks if Manny kills anything with his sword. Supplementing the Zombies damage potential even further is Hoarfrost and the Corpse Cart, meaning (if all goes well), the Zombies can be hitting on 2s and then triggering mortal wounds on wound rolls of a 6. Instead, he could make them fight in the hero phase if the situation dictates it, potentially both if he’s going second in the battle round and picks the Necromancer to receive the bonus spell cast.

In addition, two units of Askurgans provide the army access to strikes-last effects, as well as giving Simon bonus utility, as this decent all rounder unit also neuters monsters in combat thanks to Creed of the Beast making them -1 to hit and wound while within 1″ of them. Finally, an allied unit of Myrmourn Banshees provides cheap access to anti-magic defences. All this adds up to a list that isn’t as dominant in standing on circles as the traditional build, but one that has a much deeper bag of tricks for manipulating the combat phase, position of units on the board and controlling the flow of the game. Excellently done Simon.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Tom Mawdsley – Stomper Tribe: Yet another MAD club member, Tom has posted a second podium finish in two weeks after winning Carnage – this list is still taking advantage of the Braggit’s Bottle-snatchaz tech, but swaps out the Gatebreakers for Brodd, a Warstomper and a Kraken-eater for a very different feel
• 4th – Robert Hull – Legion of Blood: A man of many talents, the tSN Stats Centre’s own Rob goes the distance with 2 VLOZD, Neferata, a Vampire Lord and a slender battleline package of 40 Zombies, and 2*10 Dire Wolves. Who needs summonable units when you can play classic Vampire Counts style hero hammer. Love it
• 5th – James Elward – Befouling Host: A triple Maggoth lord list with the Glottkin, 3 Beasts of Nurgle and a Lord of Blights – cool to see another hero hammer list finish strong
• 6th – Alex Bruce – Null Myriad: We had to start seeing Dull Myriad sooner or later – this one the fairly standard Kata Cookie Cutter list with Arkhan meaning no Morghasts can fit
• 7th – Alex Tubb – Null Myriad: A third MAD member has infiltrated CI, Alex has posted up yet another 4-1 result with the Dull Myriad, this version rocking 2 Mortisan Boneshapers and 2 units of Morghast
• 8th – Andrew Hughes – Legion of Night: Sneaking into the top 8 is Nagash Zombies, led by Andrew who has had quite the tear on the tournament circuit with Nagash lately

A Score to Settle

41-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lynbrook, VIC, Australia on September 15 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Joel Graham – Big WAAAGH!:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Kieren Coates – Skaven:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Phew, took me a second to blow the dust off my Skaven knowledge to get my head around what’s going on here as Kieren has gone deep in the bag of tricks. As far as I can tell, the list construction is done in such a way as to hit 3 Masterclan heroes such that the army unlocks Always Three Clawsteps Ahead. What this then allows him to do is to essentially get a second ‘reroll’ on the attempted charge by 15 Plague Censer Bearers coming out of deep strike reserves using the Warp-grinder. The list is all about these PCBs in fact, with 25 total that can put out a truly hideous amount of damage… the problem is they’re fragile as shit.

To help this, Death Frenzy & Dreaded Death Frenzy help in that if either spells go off it means the PCB can fight even when they die, making combat activations by your opponent a potentially deadly affair. We have the standard Verminlord Warbringer as a result, who is pretty choppy in combat thanks to Devious Adversary, then a bunch of stuff that’s essentially here to sit on objectives or enable the absurd damage of the PCB to be brought to bear.

Going up against it is Joel Graham rocking the Big Waaagh, an army I love that has shot into prominence following some attention from high profile players like Joel and a string of top finishes, aided by their shiny new battle tactics. Joel has a rather unusual list that goes surprisingly light on Ironjawz units, he’s banking on the power and potency of a six man unit of Gore Gruntas to be his melee punch, supplemented by the spellcasting and ranged firepower the Boltboyz can unleash.

In this matchup, being able to reposition Gobsprakk pre-game using Supa Sneaky to shut down turn one enemy spellcasting, as well as the ability to screen off a good portion of his army using the Shootas meant that Kieren had a bit of an uphill battle to climb here. Indeed, there are a lot of MSU Ardboys units here to sit around and clog up charge lanes, resulting in an inner core of the castle that it likely proved too difficult for the Skaventide to penetrate.

Result

Big WAAAGH! Victory – 15 – 5

Joel Graham – Big WAAAGH! – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Kruleboyz BW

Thoughts

By only taking one Warchanter and going light on battleline (3*80 point Ardboy idiots), Joel has been able to afford a respectable Kruleboyz package that really changes how the list plays. Supa Sneaky combined with Gobsprakk & 6 Boltboyz can give the army flexibility in deployment to either threaten units with the idea of 6 Boltboyz shuffling up the board pre-game to take out a key unit, or Gobsprakk getting just in range to be able to unbind any spells your opponent might consider and thus shut off Magical Dominance as a battle tactic on the first turn.

There’s multiple dudes who can throw out Merciless Blizzard, plus the Wurgogg himself can punish invasions into the castle with a deadly stare. There is a Sludgeraker here to make the Boltboyz even deadlier, but is no slouch himself in combat either, giving the army just enough melee potency to keep your opponent honest. It’s a well designed list that sadly now must go back to the drawing board after Orruk Warclans players were forced to bid a fond farewell to 5 man Ardboy units and the ludicrously flexible listbuilding that came along with it. Anyway, nice one Joel.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – James Hallam – Null Myriad: Katakros Cookie Cutter build which skips Morghasts to be able to afford Arkhan
• 3rd – Kieren Coates – Skaven: See showdown
• 4th – Michael Clarke – Big Waaagh!: Going one step further than Joel, Michael has cut Gobsprakk & 20 Shootas from a list that’s largely the same, but in doing so can afford a sneaky second Shaman and 6 more Boltboyz for a very potent ranged army
• 5th – Patrick Neven – Vyrkos Dynasty: A total of 160 Zombies with 2 Corpse carts and a bunch of Cursed City luminaries – better stand on those circles!
• 6th – Rick Brown – Reapers of Vengeance: A mix of humans and daemons, bringing 20 Bloodletters, a Bloodmaster, Skarbrand and a Bloodthirster supplemented by minimal mortal bags of wounds

5 Alarm GT

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Sparwood, BC, Canada on September 16 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Note that apparently the latest rules were in affect but not points, so adjust your estimation of Blizzard etc accordingly.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Daytond Obre – Bloodlords:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Calvin Osterdal – Barak-Nar:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Daytond is all about the Bloodletters here, with a total of 50 of them putting out a lot of mortal wounds on the turn that they charge, with most elements of the list serving to either supplement and improve the Bloodletters, or enable the army to be multiple in how it can deal with opposing threats. Be’lakor makes an appearance as a dude who casts mystic shield and shuts down Calvin’s flagship for a turn or two, with the eventual goal being to chase down the duardin and chain together a series of combat activations that leaves the hyper capitalists a smouldering ruin.

Flipping over to Calvin’s side & I’ll be honest I look at this KO list and see a lot of jank. I love jank, I run jank all the time, but it can get you into trouble when you come up against an optimised and more reliable opposing army. Calvin has brought Brokk as a pseudo-frigate that can also grant an extra melee attack to all those Admirals & the random assortment of bubble boys he’s brought along for the ride. The Celestant Prime gives him some pinpoint mortal wound damage and a pocket Hammer to smash opposing toys with, but the problem with this matchup is that Daytond doesn’t really have to present anything that won’t happily absorb the Celestant Prime’s attacks before sending the Stormcast poster boy back to Azyr. Rough matchup.

Result

Blades of Khorne Victory – 519 – 15

Daytond Obre – Blades of Khorne – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Be’lakor Bloodletters

Thoughts

It’s mean, lean and clean – Daytond has Bloodletters, and he’s going to use them. Bloodbind/Killer Instinct to move his own units and pull enemy units in order to get them into combat as soon as possible. Embodiment of Wrath helps push the replenishment abilities of the Blood throne even further, whereas the artefacts Ar’gath & Halo of Blood make them more potent in combat, with the former shutting off ward saves for enemy units within 3″ of the former and the latter allowing Daytond to chain together a sequence of Halo Bloodmaster (Strikes First) -> 30 Bloodletters -> Bloodmaster (Ar’gath) -> 20 Bloodletters or something similar. Skulls are thus acquired.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Patrick Hudson – Knights of the Empty Throne: A good old fashioned cavalry list, running a pair of Chaos Sorceror Lords, some Corvus Cabal for screens/battle tactic ease and then 10 Knights & a total of 12 Varanguard
• 3rd – Calvin Osterdal – Barak-Nar: See showdown
• 4th – Matthew Hopkins – Legion of Blood: Neferata, an ethereal VLOZD and then a whole bunch of Summonables plus summonable support
• 5th – Nic Fortin – Quakefray: A dude who is after my own heart with 3 Cygor as his battleline, who then spoils it by running 50 Ungor Raiders & their nonsensical off board shooting to kill the good vibes. I kid, it’s a cool list
• 6th – Cole Winsor – Legion of Night: Nagash plus a total of only 20 Zombies, with a mix of the other summonables, some Myrmourn Banshees and King Morlak Velmorn & his Sons

Wrap Up

I don’t have anything meaningful to say here so you can click close tab if you want, or stick around for a quick personal shoutout.

This one goes out to local AoS club MAD, of which I am a member, for one simple reason. There were 6 of us wearing MAD club jerseys that weekend, and all 6 received at least 1 sportsmanship vote, as well as Tom Mawsdley coming away with Best Sportsmanship from the event. It was great to be surrounded by people who play the game the right way, and I’m proud of all of us for that.