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.

As we roll into December, things are going to start to slow down a bit. With the Holidays coming, a lot of events drop off, so be prepared for some off weeks. This is one of those, but on the plus side, we’re going to two places where we don’t usually get to see CI go. The events are smaller, but this week we’re headed to Australia and Spain.

Lost Legion GT

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in North Shore, VIC, Australia on November 29 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Nathan Thompson – Beasts of Chaos
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Zak Rockman – Sylvaneth
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

It looks like if Beasts of Chaos are leaving the Mortal Realms in roughly seven months they’re not going to go down quietly. The Bestigor list is a lot of meat to cut through and even the strongest armies have difficulty doing 40 wounds necessary to take down just one of these guys.

Sylvaneth will need to use their ranged attacks and time their attacks right to win on objectives. As Alarielle, Belthanos and Kurnoth hunters are high damage pieces they can wreck things if they can appear and attack at the right time, but this is simply a lot of enemies to chew through and they can’t quite do it.

Result

Beasts of Chaos Victory – 46 – 30

Nathan Thompson – Beasts of Chaos – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Bestigors are the Best of…gors

Thoughts

We’ve seen this list in the last two CIs and it’s not slowing down. In summary, Bestigors punch really well above their weight class at 3 attacks per model and 2 hit crits (on 5+s if your opponent tries to mitigate it with AOD). This list runs so many and at two wounds a piece and a 4+ Save it’s hard to put enough of them down in time to win the game.

The Bray Shaman hands out Run and Charge, while also casting some excellent debuffs and forced movement on the enemy, so they get to pick their targets largely on their terms. It’s just a solid list with so many models that most armies don’t have an answer to.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd – Patrick Neven – Blades of Khorne: Mortals with big blocks of Skullreapers and Mighty Skullcrushers.
• 3rd – Zak Rockman – Sylvaneth: See Showdown.
• 4th – Bradleigh Bateman – Stormcast Eternals: Karazai and Stormcast good stuff.
• 5th – Håkan Sjölin – Seraphon: Slann with Kroxigors and Raptadon Chargers.
• Honorary Mention (4-0-2) – 6th – William Knight – Sylvaneth: Belthanos and Alarielle with Kurnoth Hunters and Spiterider Lances.

GT Bilbao III AoS 2024 – Circuito Nacional DKHM

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Bilbo, Euskadi, Spain on November 30 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Jesus De La Peña Fernandez – Stormcast Eternals
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Javi Fernández – Ossiarch Bonereapers
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

This is a surprise outcome. Stormcast led by Karazai is one of the more brutal lists out there right now, that is very difficult to overcome, especially if Karazai gets in first (And even if you don’t, it still sucks).

The Ossiarch list isn’t bad, far from. Kavalos and Deathriders and Archai are both some of the best stuff in the army, but they really need to make sure they get their charge in at the right time so do maximum damage, or else they’re stuck. If that happens, each loss hurts.

So for the Ossiarch Player to dismantle each part of this list carefully takes very careful strategy, and yet they came out ahead.

Result

Ossiarch Bonereapers Victory – 11 – 9

Javi Fernández – Ossiarch Bonereapers – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Katakros with Cavalry and Angels

Thoughts

Ossiarch Bonereapers are one of the more versatile armies right now, with a very high percentage of the units being viable. However, all that stuff is expensive, so you gotta pick and choose.

As usual, Katakros is the center of the list, being a mobile command center to hand out potent buffs to all his friends. The soulmason casts powerful buffs like the all important Empower Nadirite Weapons and Soul-Guide for first strike. The Kavalos Deathriders are incredibly powerful on the charge, while Archai are incredibly resiliant whether they get the charge or are charged. All in all a powerful but low model list.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1 (or better) records. They were:

• 2nd – Pedromancer Lechado – Disciples of Tzeentch: Kairos and Lord of Change with Daemon good stuff.
• 3rd – Jesus De La Peña Fernandez – Stormcast Eternals: See Showdown.
• 4th – Jose A Fra – Stormcast Eternals: Karazai and Krondys tag team with Praetors, Vigilors and Vanguard Raptors.
• 5th – Sergio Yustos – Slaves to Darkness: Be’lakor with S2D good stuff.
• 6th – Alejandro Martínez – Sylvaneth: Belthanos, Alarielle and a Spirit of Durthu with Kurnoths, Tree-Revenants and Gossamids.

Wrap Up

Well that’s it for this week folks. As I said, not a ton but it’s interesting to see how some other countries metas are shaking out. Turns out Beasts are in ascendancy all over the world as they prepare for their final call, can even GW stop their rampage?

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