Welcome to Competitive Innovations, our weekly feature for a number of game lines across the tabletop wargame space. Each week our army list and tactics experts canvass the top tournaments for their game of specialty, looking at the week’s top match-ups and how they played out on the tabletop to let you know what’s hot, what’s not, and what might be coming next as the competitive meta evolves year-round.

This week we’re going international and hitting up two smaller events. First stop is Winnipeg in Canada, and then Dublin in Ireland. As the new General’s Handbook hits the ground running we’re seeing a shocking diversity of lists with people trying out new experiments and compensating for old archtypes that don’t work anymore. So let’s forge on ahead!

Battered Bison The Third, Rise of The Herd!

45-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CA on June 28 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Noah Joseph – Kharadron Overlords
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Carson Whitlock – Ogor Mawtribes
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Thoughts

Poor Kharadron!

It’s impressive to make it to the finals, to be sure, but the Kharadron are naturally, the ranged faction and this season is not kind to that. Since Obscuring is a lot easier to exploit, there’s more terrain on the board and you can put obscuring on objectives, it puts armies that rely on ranged damage on the back foot. This is before we even get into the fact a solid majority of this army is Airships and therefore flying.

The Frigate can do some decent damage in combat, but otherwise that’s it. It’s certainly not going to stand up to an Ogor barrage. As a result it’s a total massacre in favor of the Ogors.

Result

Ogor Mawtribes Victory – 68 – 18

Carson Whitlock – Ogor Mawtribes – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Foot Ogors

Thoughts

Lots and Lots of meat. The Slaughtermaster and the Butcher buff the infantry units with Greasy Deluge and Blood Feast. The Gorgers, Ironguts and Gluttons are the focal point of the army, able to do a respectable amount of damage while also being able to take a beating due to their sheer wound count. Gnoblars function well as screens that can also tap units for Mortal Wounds whether or not they make a charge, which makes opponents second guess if charging in that moment is a great idea.

The Hunter and Ironblaster seem like odd outside choices, but they make an excellent counter to anyone foolish enough to bring Flying or Monsters into play, since they can’t hide from ranged fire and the hunter does some real solid damage against them.

John Zoshak – Lumineth Realm-Lords – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Herohammer

Thoughts

Well this is…different! A very herohammer list, lets break this down.

Severith probably needs no introduction, he’s fast, shoots for solid damage, and is very difficult to catch or shoot back at. While shooting is a lot weaker this season, his speed makes it so it’s very easy for him to catch anyone out in the open and even if he gets into combat, he can escape quite easily.

The Twins are an excellent fighting force, being able to play defensive or offensive as needed. If they kill a model they can teleport, allowing them to snag loose objectives. Light of Eltharion is a beefy beat stick. The fact you can summon him back once per game means you can be a bit more reckless with him than you might otherwise. The Enlightener passes out buffs to the heroes or the blade lords as needed, either increasing their speed or ignoring save modifiers. The Cathallar Compensates for the low model counter by reducing control of the enemy.

Order’s favorite Regiment of Renown Callis and Toll basically exist to gun down any manifestations that might try and block your way, they also get a deep strike so they can thief an objective as needed, too.

As expected the Bladelords exist to shield all these heroes with a 5+ ward. They’re also not at all bad in combat, as their Perfect Strikes can pick up most non infantry things easily by doing about 8 mortal wounds on average, or just go for the flurry on anything larger than that.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were:

• 3rd – James Haagsman – Stormcast Eternals: Iridan with infantry good stuff, including Reclusians and Longstrike Crossbows.
• 4th – Andrew Mate – Seraphon: The new SoG Carnosaur with Saurus Warriors, Aggradon Lancers and Kroxigors.
• 5th – Noah Joseph – Kharadron Overlords: See Showdown.
• 5th – Todd Meilleur – Ogor Mawtribes: Yep, two 5th places. Slaughtermaster and Butcher with Gnoblars, Gluttons and Ironguts.
• 7th – Joe Krier – Disciples of Tzeentch: Lord of Change with Heralds leading Kairic Acolytes, Horrors and Flamers.
• 8th – Dave Bonselaar – Skaven: Thanquol with a collection of Moulder and Skryre units.

Iron Gaels Gaming GT

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Dublin, Ireland on June 28 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Shane Forde – Daughters of Khaine
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vs.

Cian Doherty – Daughters of Khaine
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

It’s a bona fide Khainite Civil War! Morathi with her Spear Snakes and Khinerais, and Krethusa with her Witch Aelves and Shrines.

Krethusa has the advantage of numbers, both the number of witch aelves and their recursion, while Morathi isn’t too far behind with her more combat capable Blood Sisters and of course the Shadow Queen herself.

Under the new season’s shooting rules, Morathi has some new benefits. While her monster form isn’t protected by the obscuring rules, opponents will be bringing less shooting, which will make it easier for her to avoid getting pinged for 3 damage prematurely. Plus, Little Morathi can remain sheltered.

Regardless of the form Daughters of Khaine take, they generally follow a similar strategy at wanting to thread the needle of striking hard and fast, but being willing to wait for their later buffs to kick in if possible. So a lot of it is going to come down to who is going to be more bold with their charges and makes a few lucky early swings.

Krethusa reigns triumphant in the Khainite scuffle, but only by a little bit.

Result

Daughters of Khaine Victory – 61 – 59

Cian Doherty – Daughters of Khaine – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Aelf Daughters of Khaine

Thoughts

This leans in heavy on the Power of Prayer, which we really haven’t seen a ton of in Daughters, usually it’s a sideshow to the magical options. The star of the show is the Sacrament of Blood in the OG prayer lore, which lets a unit act as if it’s one further round in the Blood Rites, or just skip to round 5 if you roll good. It’s unlimited too, so theoretically it can be passed around.

The Slaughter Queen gives +1 to chant both for themselves and Krethusa for said Prayer. She also hands out a +1 to attack which is insanely powerful on a 20 person unit. Krethusa is a priest 2 in Scourge of Ghyran, but importantly she has recursion, which means all those reinforced Sisters of Slaughter and Witch Aelves can come back with 10 models. This lets the player be a bit more aggressive with them than they might be otherwise, since even if they come back at half strength they’re on a stronger Blood Rites buff to make up for it.

The Khinerai and Doom Warlocks make good outriders for grabbing stray objectives and screening out enemies.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd – Shane Forde – Daughters of Khaine: See Showdown.
• 3rd – Martin Clarke – Nighthaunt: Awlrach leading Bladegheists, Grimghast Reapers and Chainrasps with a new Black Coach.
• 4th – David McCarthy – Ossiarch Bonereapers: Katakros wizards and 2 squads of Archai.
• 5th – James Fitzsimons – Sons of Behemat: Kragnos, Brodd and Warstomper with Ironjawz pig RoR.

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