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.
Just 2 events this week folks, but one is a massive Supermajor in Germany with almost 200 players. The switch ups in a post Nighthaunt and Lumineth world are still happening and there’s some real surprises in here, I promise you.
Raccoon Rumble 2024: Age of Sigmar
192-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Hof, BY, Germany on November 08 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.
The Showdown
Alexander Spörl – Disciples of Tzeentch
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vs.
Dario Grohmann – Ossiarch Bonereapers
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Thoughts
Gotta say on paper I would assume that the Disciples of Tzeentch have this. Ossiarchs tend to struggle with armies with lots of ranged attacks as they lack a lot of their own ranged options and often get stuck in extended fights that they want to grind out. The goal to winning with Ossiarchs here is holding objectives, and playing aggressively with Deathriders. Given all these Deathriders, you can see the play.
Deathriders do play out pretty well here, they can hop over infantry on the charge, doing mortal wounds in the process and if they get really lucky on the charge, possibly hit the Lords of Change hiding behind all those demons.
Ossiarchs get a surprisingly solid victory.
Result
Ossiarch Bonereapers Victory – 41 – 29
Dario Grohmann – Ossiarch Bonereapers – 1st Place
The List
See Showdown
Archetype
Deathriders
Thoughts
Really, the list here is quite simple. Katakros is the main pillar of the army with his versatile abilities. He makes sure that with his 18″ Relentless Discipline Aura, then all the Deathriders units will benefit from it. He also hands out +1 to save to them all, and +3 to objective control which helps more than you’d think.
The Deathriders themselves are the bread and Butter, if they charge they do some solid damage, the 4+ to wound is less impressive but Katakros can use the Bludgeon relentless discipline to give them that crucial +1 to wound. Then they do 31 Damage 2 attacks, enough to run over a lot of units in the game. So the whole game plan is time it so the Deathriders get the charge in, and pick up anything they can. If they don’t kill the unit, they can power through to prepare for a charge next round.
The Soulmason supports the list both as a carrier for enhancements and the honestly solid OBR spell lore and endless spells. His warscroll spell also grants first strike, very helpful if you want to charge in with 2 deathriders units.
The Mortek Guard and Teratic Cohort are both filler but the Mortek Guard give a much needed screen to keep the deathriders from being charged, and the Cohort are the only form of Deep Strike in the army, so they can be helpful for picking up unattended objectives or attacking vulnerable heroes from behind.
Dominik Ceyhun – Disciples of Tzeentch – 2nd Place (Undefeated)
The List
Army List - Click to Expand
Archetype
Birds
Thoughts
Foot Tzaangors have gotten a bit of a bad rap, though they’re not irredeemably bad. They reward a more aggressive playstyle, pushing up into opponent’s lands to get Exploding crits. They also have a lot of wounds, which can make them annoying to get through. They’re fine, but if you need an anvil you usually go with horrors, especially in Tzeentch which rewards hanging back and flinging spells.
This goes for the more aggressive sytyle with a ton of of on foot tzaangors, and Skyfires to pelt the enemy from behind. The shaman is a neccesary support piece, granting run and charge to the tzaangors and some recursion to further cement their status as frustrating chaff.
Kairos remains because, well, he’s really good. You don’t wanna leave without him.
The Best of the Rest
There were 13 more players on 5-1 or better records. They were:
- 3rd – Patrick Rieser – Slaves to Darkness (5-0-1): Slaves to Darkness good stuff.
- 4th – Matthias Brinkert – Nighthaunt: Nighthaunt good stuff.
- 5th – Andreas Hölter – Gloomspite Gitz: Troggs and Squigs.
- 6th – Locky Reid – Skaven: Ninja Gunline.
- 7th – Alexander Spörl – Disciples of Tzeentch: See showdown.
- 8th – knut vedeld – Ossiarch Bonereapers: Katakros and Deathriders.
- 9th – Tristan Paffenholz – Soulblight Gravelords: Mannfred and Necromancer with wolves, black knights and skeletons.
- 10th – Robert Krauzick – Disciples of Tzeentch: 2 Lords of Change with horrors and flamers.
- 11th – Tom Mölders – Disciples of Tzeentch: Daemon menagerie.
- 12th – Andreas Schwarz – Lumineth Realm-lords: Teclis and the Hurakan special.
- 13th – Lars Stork – Blades of Khorne: A collection of about every mortal unit in the book.
- 14th – Jonas Meinecke – Stormcast Eternals: Krondys and Stormcast good stuff.
- 15th – David Demmel – Beasts of Chaos: Dragon Ogors and all the -gors.
AoS Feast of Blades ’24”
32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Bremerton, WA, United States on November 09 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.
The Showdown
Mission – Border War
Matt Beasley – Skaventide
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vs.
ALEXANDER Gonzalez – Nighthaunt
Army List - Click to Expand
HOLD ON TO YOUR BOOTY IT’S ABOUT TO GET SPOOKYThoughts
Ah Nighthaunt, there you are! After a couple weeks on hiatus the old boss is here with the new boss, the Skaven Gunline.
The Ratling guns are, naturally, going to present a bit of a challenge for Nighthaunt which lack almost all ranged attack options. The Skaven player is sure to keep these well defended as well, so it will be crucial to be able to leverage their Flying to get into the right targets as soon as possible.
That said, the Warpseer may have been just the tool for job here as it both includes a rampage to inflict Strike-Last and a spell that cuts down charges by one dice. While most Skaven players run the Deceiver, this turned out to be exactly the necessary Verminlord.
Both armies are very mobile, Skaven through their Gnawholes and Nighthaunt through Awlrach (and their general flight) so a lot is going to come down to outmaneuvering the other.
In the end the Skaven get a narrow victory.
Result
Skaventide Victory – 34 – 30
Matt Beasley – Skaventide – 1st Place
The List
See Showdown
Archetype
Big Rat Gunline
Thoughts
This is more or less the schematic of the current Skaven meta as it stands. The Ratling guns under Warpcog Convocation are extremely powerful, with a reinforced unit firing 18D6 shots at 4+/3+ (with an additional Rend if you get lucky on the battle trait). They’re also difficult to pick up from a distance, as they’re untargetable when near clan Rats.
Thanquol is arguably the best Caster in the army, and he can scrap too, so he’s a popular include. For the Verminlord, Deceivers are usually more popular for their ability to ping pong over chaff and do mortal wounds on crits, but the Warpseer really isn’t a bad choice either as its rampage to cause a Strike Last on a 4+ and their spell to reduce charge dice is very useful utility. They’re not bad in combat either.
Plague Monks and Nightrunners round out this list as chaff. Plague Monks are good for dealing with high save individuals as they can explode on death, while Night Runners can sneak past ranged attacks, being untargetable near terrain.
The Best of the Rest
There were 4 more players on 4-1 records. They were:
- 2nd – Carson Whitlock – Slaves to Darkness: Be’lakor with Chosen and Varanguard. Surprise Mutalith Vortex Beast!
- 3rd – Mason Knox – Beasts of Chaos: Bring in the Bestigors!
- 4th – ALEXANDER Gonzalez – Nighthaunt: See Showdown.
- 5th – Alexander Frias – Blades of Khorne: Skarbrand and Bloodthirster with various chaff.
Wrap Up
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