Two events this week, with one very large event in War in the Heartlands and another more intimate affair across the pond in the US. I went along to WitH and had a great time, finishing 3-2 and 23rd overall – I won’t bore you with the details of my own performance beyond stating that the field was incredibly competitive with most of the countries best players in attendance. I highly recommend you check out the lists on BCP in more detail as there’s so many interesting lists to dissect. Perhaps more interestingly, Small Town Throwdown was using the new Ogor book, so we can see a sneak peak of our future… Ironblasters go brrrr.

War in the Heartlands

102-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Leicester, England, GB on November 12 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Close to the Chest

Marc Brookes – Maggotkin of Nurgle Blessed Sons: Rotmire Creed herohammer
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Greg Shelton – Stormcast Eternals Hallowed Knights: Gardus dragons
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Result

Blessed Sons Victory – 23 – 22

Thoughts

What do precision damage armies like Greg’s typically hate? Enduring resilience. As you can see from the final score this was a hotly contested game that came right down to the wire, so let’s take a look at why. Gardus has been an interesting trend in dragon lists of late, as it helps the Dragons stick around longer for protracted engagements (like say Nurgle forces). The Castellant can give them +1 save, so even before all out defence they’re rocking a 2+ save, 5+ ward. Gardus typically is airdropped in to provide the aura when the Stormcast player knows where the engagement will start, neatly resolving an issue that Stormdrakes sometimes had – what to do when they bounce off of something from the initial charge.

As for Marc’s list, it’s an interesting and refreshing take on Nurgle, as it goes the herohammer route many Nurgle players explored when the book first came out and before mass Pusgoyles took all the oxygen out of listbuilding conversations. What’s different here is that it utilises the new(ish) Rotmire Creed to act as a cheap and cheerful battleline solution that provides disease spreading utility as well as objective capturing prowess through Expert Conquerors like other cheap alternatives like the Beasts of Nurgle could not replicate. Greg can certainly wittle them down with the Judicators, but can he do that *AND* deal with all 3 Maggoth lords and a GUO? It’s a tall ask when he has precious few real resources to commit to engagements on multiple fronts. I suspect that may have been the edge.

Marc Brookes – Blessed Sons – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Rotmire Herohammer

Thoughts

Ultimately the problem that the original herohammer Nurgle lists had from early 3rd was simply that they didn’t really have flexible backline objective holders that did stuff, as Plaguebearers certainly exist but don’t provide very good proactive play opportunities. The Rotmire help lift the damage output of the army a smidge, do so for cheaper than Plaguebearers and can even ride shotgun with Gutrot Spume for a cheeky deepstrike objective cap made more infuriating by their Expert Conqueror’s status.

Those points saved means that Marc was able to bring all 3 Maggoth lords, a GUO and Gutrot as mentioned above. That’s a lot of very durable monsters that are more than capable of winning combat’s almost single handedly. Most armies tend to bleed points away to precious support pieces that they use to buff up a certain number of units to efficient levels in order to win combats. It’s not unreasonable to say that the enduring strength of Nurgle armies in 3rd edition has been that their pieces are rock solid as stand alone pieces – there’s no fat to trim here, there’s only a number of very strong independent operators that makes taking a Nurgle army out of the game very difficult indeed.

Dan Bradshaw – Lumineth Realm-Lords – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Helon castle shooting

Thoughts

I played against this list! Dan kicked my ass with this wonderfully devilish concoction that can apply pressure from a safe distance and has plenty of mobility to engage on objectives before primary scoring gets away from him. Where is the reach coming from? Well let’s set aside the obvious Sentinels, as the Windchargers are fantastic skirmishing units that get +1 attack at close range with their bows thanks to the subfaction, and can move fast enough to cap objectives turn one or rapidly flank with speed of hysh to harass backlines.

Beyond the basic firebase, the army also possesses the Rune of Petrification (often cast by the Cathallar automatically through Deep Thinkers after being teleported by Teclis using Transporting Vortex. Teclis himself will cast Umbral Spellportal and then push Storm of Searing White Light through it. Those two spells combined dished out an appalling amount of aoe damage to my fragile Kruleboyz castle, and it would likewise have wrecked shop against any synergy based army thanks to it’s consistency – all aspects of that process are automatic, with Teclis’ spells being cast on a 10 and the Cathallar’s on a 9.

What this all means is that Dan can deliver precision damage at long range while only really exposing the Windchargers and the Cathallar to any retaliation. In our game, Dan waited until my castle had firmly cracked before he started fully committing Teclis and the rest of his forces to act as mop up.

The Best of the Rest

Huge event, bigly huge. Let’s summarize the top 8:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Daniel Arnold – Stormcast Eternals (5-0): Gardus went to war with 9 Stormdrakes, some tree revs and a Horrorghast
• 4th – Simon W – Nighthaunt (4-0-1): Hexwraith spam supported by 20 Expert Conquerors Dreadscythe Harridans and some Spirit hosts to keep the minimal hero support alive
• 5th – Jack Armstrong – Stormcast Eternals (4-1): Gardus went to war with 8 Stormdrakes and some MSU Vanquishers and a Lord-Castellant
• 6th – Phil Marshall – Slaves to Darkness (old book) (4-1): A KOTET list that holds objectives with many cultist Iron Golems, and wins the game through buffing 12 Varanguard to high heaven such that they are unkillable demons
• 7th – Greg Shelton – Stormcast Eternals (4-1): See Showdown
• 8th – Mike Stewart – Seraphon (4-1): Thunder lizards good stuff is not dead!

Small Town Throwdown: The NOOGvember Hoedown!

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Fountain Valley, CA, US on November 12 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Gregory Brewer – Bloodtoofs: Pig spam
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vs.

Thomas Guan – Underguts: 4 Ironblasters
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Result

Underguts Victory – 25 – 9

Thoughts

Oh god I think I’ma throw up. As discussed in my Ogors review, Ironblasters are pretty damn strong, and Thomas Guan has wasted no time in putting together a truly impressive list that has an appalling amount of ranged damage output, while still having enough screening to protect them long enough to reduce his opponent to a smouldering heap.

Ironjawz are strong! Pigs are a nightmare to deal with for many armies, but all those Pigs would be triggering mortal wounds to themselves from the Gnoblars the moment they got close, and that danger close range is precisely where all those Ironblasters and Leadbelchers could open up with high levels of high rend multi damage shooting that pigs just have no answer for.

Thomas Guan – Underguts – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

All of the guns

Thoughts

The Gruesome Trophy Rack acts as a flat +1 to hit for all those guns if they’re targetting Heros or Monsters – remind me again what the most important parts to many armies are? Blubbergrub Stench acts as a force multiplier spell here too, as it let’s the Rhinox Ironblasters temporarily act as Monsters for the purposes of charging or contesting objectives… that means mortal wounds on 4s when they charge and counting as 10 on objectives. It’s a nasty little trick that can let the artillery swap from defensive shooting to fast paced chariot warfare when the opponent is sufficiently weakened.

There’s a Frostlord on Stonehorn here too for the purposes of a sticky combat piece to facetank the opponent’s army and just generally be a nuisance, but the real stars of the show here are the Ironblasters. The Leadbelchers are here primarily because they are battleline that play well into the game plan of the Ironblasters, but they’re more a necessary evil than I think a key piece of the gameplan for Thomas.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Ian McAleese – Ogor Mawtribes: 3 Ironblasters gunline that uses the points saved to bring 20 more Gnoblars and swap out one unit of Leadbelchers for some Ironguts
• 3rd – Alec Jerome – Maggotkin of Nurgle: Pusgoyle spam supported by Be’lakor, a LoA and Orghotts
• 4th – Taran Birk – Blades of Khorne: classic Bloodthirster bomb list with some Mighty Skullcrushers along for extra mortal wound chip damage
• 5th – Samuel Valdez – Ogor Mawtribes: 4 Ironblasters gunline where Sam presumably didn’t have any Leadbelchers or Gnoblars handy, so he ran 8 Mournfang Cavalry as his battleline instead
• 6th – Chris Daugherty – Idoneth Deepkin: Mixed arms Nautilar that uses 40 Reavers to act as a ranged castle from which 6 Morsarr, a murderking and the turtle can lash out from on turn 3

Wrap Up

There you have it! The Battlescroll and recent tome releases have seen a bit of a revamp in what we see at the top tables, with a little less fly spam and some new filth to take it’s place. I expect that we may see the metagame pivot somewhat if Ironblaster spam becomes a real thing with legs, as many armies may be pushed out of the metagame altogether if they don’t have a blank for mass rend 2 shooting (or rend 3 at long range).