Welcome back for another Competitive Innovations! This week is just one event, featuring a surprising showdown that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, with two off-meta lists! In addition, I’ll be featuring a 4-1 list that is also delightfully different from the typical meta we’ve seen. Let’s get to it.

Dazmaul Wargaming Tournament 2023

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England GB on March 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

James Lake – Soulblight Gravelords: Vyrkos Zombies
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Tom WH Bell – Big WAAAGH!: Left & Right Hand of Gork & Mork
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

I love Tom’s list as a Big Waaagh fan myself, primarily for the little narrative of the list. We have two of the premiere figures in the Orruk Warclans vying to outdo the other while a band of Ironjawz watch. That said, the list is still at it’s core very traditionally Big Waaagh. We have a 4+ Ward Wurgogg to project a 12″ supreme threat, the tunnelling Megaboss for opportunistic attacks (though notably no Destroyer on him, instead a 5+ ward), and a core of Ardboyz and Brutes.

The question was simply did the army have the damage output to keep up with 120 Zombies? The answer is a little better than you might think. There’s still fundamentally the issue of being a combat army against a unit that excels at just slowly wearing down anything they can get their hands on, but Big Waaagh have high enough damage output that they could realistically lift these problematic units if they can focus on one unit at a time.

Result

Vyrkos Dynasty Victory – 622 – 21

James Lake – Vyrkos Dynasty – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Buffed up Zombies

Thoughts

What are the buffs? Well Radukar can create a 18″ aura of +1 attack for friendly Soulblight units provided he charged this turn, and the Vampire Lord can issue a +1 attack command to a unit too. Finally, the Necromancer can use the Danse Macabre spell to let one summonable unit fight twice.

To put all this together, if everything went to plan one unit of Zombies could throw out 120 attacks, doing mortal wounds on 6s. Let’s assume that the Zombies miss every other attack and it’s just the mortal wounds – that’s still on average 20 MW. If the unit has Danse Macabre cast on it, they can pile in another 6″ and do another 20 MW. It’s a potent combo that means this objective controlling tarpit can also just surprise people and lift very expensive units off the board.

That said, this style of list has always had it’s issues – primarily that the combo can be disrupted by shooting armies killing the support heroes, which the current season’s Galletian Champion rules certainly help with. James’ list still has other layers to it though, as the Grave Guard serve as a cheap and efficient hammer unit he can keep in the graves and pop out to threaten his opponent’s unit best suited to deal with this puzzle, as they themselves can put out a respectable amount of damage with very little setup. Finally, a Zombie Dragon is there for a cheap source of Monstrous Rampages and the Corpse Cart helps make your opponent’s premiere hammer units like Boingrot Bounderz slightly less efficient at killing stuff.

Toby Thomas – Flesh Eater Courts – 2nd Place (4-1)

The List

Army Faction: Flesh-eater Courts
– Army Subfaction: Hollowmourne
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER

1 x Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (450)
– Spells: Flaming Weapon

1 x Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist (450)*
– General
– Command Traits: Grave Robber
– Artefacts: Corpsefane Gauntlet
– Mount Traits: Gruesome Bite
– Spells: Spectral Host

1 x Abhorrant Archregent (240)*
– Artefacts: The Dermal Robe
– Spells: Deranged Transformation
– Aspects of the Champion: Tunnel Master

1 x Abhorrant Ghoul King (170)*
– Spells: Blood Feast

1 x Varghulf Courtier (160)*

BATTLELINE

10 x Crypt Ghouls (80)**

6 x Crypt Horrors (220)**

6 x Crypt Horrors (220)**

TERRAIN

1 x Charnel Throne (0)

CORE BATTALIONS:

*Command Entourage
– Magnificent

**Galletian Veterans

TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)

Archetype

Hollowmourne Summoning

Thoughts

FEC has enjoyed a renaissance as it’s book grows older and older, as it’s combination of activation shenanigans, board control and summoning has given it the flexibility to stand the test of time, as well as it’s now increasingly rare rerolls it enjoys that other factions have since lost.

This list is all about stacking extra attacks (if both Black Hunger and Ferocious Hunger are successfully cast) on a unit or two and them fighting twice with them thanks to Feeding Frenzy. The targets can vary depending on the need. The Vhargulf Courtier for example acts as a mobile cruise missile, to be sent after heroes or large units both in order to trade upwards in points value without offering too much for your opponent to kill on the counterattack. Alternatively, the Crypt Horrors will absolutely obliterate any lightly armoured unit if given the same buffs through sheer weight of dice.

Beyond that, the Terrorgheists will summon reinforcements based on need – in some matchups it may just be Ghouls to sit on points and hold objectives, whereas in other more aggressive games it might be Horrors or another Courtier. Has your opponent got low bravery units? They’ll instead summon Crypt Flayers, whose ranged attack excels against them.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Simon Rooke – Gloomspite Gitz: A Jaws of Mork Squig Herd list leveraging Grinkrak for fight on death and the usual suite off buff pieces (Snufflers, Gobbapalooza, Squig Boss, Sloggoth)
• 4th – Seb Ducker – Beasts of Chaos: An Allherd list that wants to leverage the potency of Ungor Raiders – 30 of them firing from off board with Sharpshooters to take out key support pieces, with the key threat being 6 Bullgors or 20 Bestigors appearing 7″ away from the enemy anywhere on the board
• 5th – Tom WH Bell – Big Waaagh: See Showdown

Wrap Up

Short one this week, but it looks like there’s going to a few notable events this week including the Justice Series I’ll be attending myself! See you next time.

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