AOS Worlds was this past week, meaning this global teams event had brought the planet’s best players (provided they could make the trip) to Amsterdam for a 3 day long mega tournament to see which country came out on top. This year it was Denmark coming first, France second and England third – well done to all involved! In a surge of activity this week, we have no less than four events to get through so let’s get started.

ARMED FORCES DAY 6 AoS

49-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lockport, Illinois US on June 03 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Jake Cachey Muhr – Null Myriad:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Jon Oetting – Blades of Khorne: Skullfiend Tribe:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

The Khorne list is presenting it’s damage in two main forms: Skarrbrand going off with mortal wounds, or weight of dice with rend 1 attacks from either the Skullreapers or the Blood Warriors. This gives it versatility against a great number of threats, but it can be a bit tricky against armies capable of presenting both a reasonable ward save and high armour saves. Enter the OBR, who between Katakros and their 4+ ward against mortal wounds command ability, can engage them in combat and actually grind it out… provided they can kill Skarrbrand.

Therein lies the problem really – the Khorne list rather relies on Skarrbrand to actually kill an OBR unit in one round of combat before it can replenish it’s models, and once Skarrbrand is dead (and he will die…), it’s an uphill struggle from there.

Result

Null Myriad Victory – 60 – 0

Jake Cachey Muhr – Null Myriad – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Katakros castle

Thoughts

The archetype of ‘Immortis Guard with Katakros (optionally also Arkhan)’ is a solid and flexible core to OBR lists competitively it would seem, with flex points either going all in on Stalkers, Mortek Guard (+ Harvester) or Deathriders. In this case, Jake has opted for a few Archai to give the army access to shutting off command abilities guaranteed as well as a bit of extra mobility.

It’s strength is that it’s capable of taking objectives and absorbing charges without being outright destroyed, then Arkhan and Katakros can replenish the unit and flip the game on it’s head from there. Few armies are capable of competiting with OBR in terms of outright grindiness.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were all 4-1 and were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Pajama Pants – Barak-Zilfin: Standard 15 Thunderers and an Ironclad, with two extra Frigates to give it mobile firepower
• 3rd – Jake Bentrup – Mortis Praetorians: A similar OBR list to above, cutting Arkhan for Zandtos and going a little heavier on Deathriders to take advantage of the counter-charge ability of MP
• 4th – Jon Oetting – Skullfiend Tribe: See showdown
• 5th – Austin Thimesch – Grinnin’ Blades: What do you know – Kruleboyz! 30 Gutrippaz, 18 Boltboyz and 3 Shamans make up the core of this high damage output list
• 6th – Joey Triezenberg – Harvestborn: An Alarielle + trees list, lots of dryads, the lord of vines herself and even a Spirit of Durthu
• 7th – Nicholas True – Barak Urbaz: 30 Thunderers with a Bridge and Ironclad
• 8th – William Stanford – Gavespawn: Gavespawn can only mean one thing – 18 Morghurite Chaos Spawn with just a single Shaman – it uses those spare points on a Ghorgon and some Ungor Raiders

Quest of Champions Heat 3

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England GB on June 03 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Daniel Scott – Barak-Urbaz:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Peter Twigg – Blades of Khorne:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

In this list I bet Daniel really wishes he had Galletian Sharpshooters – as it is, the only thing those 30 Thunderers can shoot are the bricks of Blood Warriors who will laugh it off, or the Bloodthirster who can deploy far enough back that it will be difficult to actually kill it through the 5+ ward it would enjoy. It’s a bad matchup because as soon as that opening volley is unleashed, the counter attack (with use of Murderlust) will mean those Thunderers will get quickly hacked down through sheer weight of dice after bypassing Unleash Hell.

Result

Blades of Khorne Victory – 23 – 16

Peter Twigg – Blades of Khorne – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Walls of steel

Thoughts

Those Blood Warriors with a Bloodsecrator are so freaking tough man – 380 points for 40 wounds on a 3+ save, rallying on a 4+. Similar to OBR it wants to grind you to dust in combat, with a bit of mobility shenanigans with Murderlust to establish board control and gain an advantage through primary scoring as well. It might struggle a little bit against other attrition based armies that are capable of better replenishment, but rather importantly it’s got a strong gameplan against enemy shooting armies and it will laugh at armies that need to rely on spells to enact their gameplan.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 all went 4-1 and were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Rory Carter – Bloodlords: Lots of Bloodletters and 3 Bloodmasters plus a Skullthrone to really beat the shit out of people
• 3rd – Gary Percival – Reapers of Vengeance: A third Khorne build that’s very different from 1st and 2nd, this one is all about the bloodthirsters – 2 of them + Skarrbrand
• 4th – Daniel Scott – Barak Urbaz: See showdown
• 5th – Mike Stewart – Vostarg: Mike’s keeping it real with his Fyreslayers list still grinding out the great results – 80 Vulkite Berzerkers (!!!) with 3 Flamekeepers#
• 6th – Matt Pardoe – Skullfiend Tribe: Yet another Khorne list in the top 8 – pretty much identical to Peter Twigg’s
• 7th – Thomas Wainwright – Legion of Blood: the nerfs to LoB have not stopped Neferata, with Tom bringing the same style of list that saw success previously (VLOZD, Nef, 10 Blood Knights, rest summoning stuff)
• 8th – Farran Key – Legion of Blood: Uhhh.. much the same as Thomas, but running less skeletons in order to squeeze in 20 Grave Guard

Texas Master’s GT

33-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Waco, TX US on June 03 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Marcus Miller – Legion of Blood:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Ryan Rutherford – Legion of Blood:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

It’s 10 Blood Knights + 20 Graveguard vs 40 Grave Guard + Necromancer effectively, as the rest of the army is pretty much identical. I imagine Ryan (40 GG) got the edge here as the Grave Guard can pretty effectively butcher the Blood Knights, but it’s real close.

Result

Legion of Blood Victory – 16 – 4

Ryan Rutherford – Legion of Blood – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Ethereal monsters

Thoughts

Really isn’t that much to say that I haven’t covered in the past few weeks, beyond pointing out that even with the significant nerfs the list took in their FAQ update (losing the ability to improve the saves of Neferata’s ethereal targeted, pre-game redeploy having to obey standard deployment rules), it still has the tools to go toe-to-toe with the metagames best armies and find results. That’s a testament to its ability to be versatile, mobile and hard hitting to play the objectives as well as just alpha strike if it needs to.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Matt Taylor – Petrifex Elite: Arkhan, Katakros, bunch of Immortis + Stalkers, season to taste
• 3rd – Marcus Miller – Legion of Blood: See showdown
• 4th – Marco Hernandez – Jaws of Mork: Squigs still got game! mix of both herd and bounderz, with Gobbapalooza, Grinkrak AND Sneaky Snufflers to buff em
• 5th – Bryan Lofton – Bloodlords: Bloodlords means Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers, with Skarrbrand and a Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury to give the army a bit of extra mobility

2023 AoS Bugeater GT

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Omaha, NE US on June 03 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Keegan Graves – Skaven :
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Eric Wilson – Vyrkos Dynasty:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

I looked at who won this (Skaven) and was genuinely surprised because on paper I didn’t see how an older book like this would keep up with the supercharged nonsense of the recent battletomes. That said, a Devious Adversary Warbringer with the Warpstone Charm is a very hardhitting unit, putting out (if Flaming Weapon is successful) a total of 12 rend 3 damage 3 attacks, hitting and wounding on a 2+.

That’s not particularly needed against this Vyrkos list that mainly relies on chaff… but Thanquol is a fantastic chaff clearer so maybe there is something to what happened in this matchup. Skaven!

Result

Victory – 22 – 13

Keegan Graves – Skaven – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Skaven nonsense?

Thoughts

Doomwheels! A unit I had to go and read the warscroll for because I literally forgot what they even do. Imagine Squigs but only counting as 2 on an objective and being far less survivable or damaging… yikes. They’re cool as hell though.

This list is realistically succeeding based on two things: The Clan rats clogging up the board and scoring primary objectives, and the Warbringer + Thanquol going full beast mode and clearing the opponent’s hammers through their own combat prowess and the QSS and WLV endless spells.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Raymond Lane – Droning Guard: Nurgle keeps on chugging along with reasonable success, this list a mix of Maggoth lords and Rotmire, supported by some Plague Drones and Plaguebearers
• 3rd – Cole Knutson – Legion of Blood: No Neferata! Noferata? Anyway, the points are invested in a Wight King, a mounted Wightking, 10 Black Knights and a whole bunch of other summoned stuff
• 4th – Travis Boysen – Legion of the First Prince: Belakor? Okay this started off sensible.. Archaon!? What the hell, where’s the actual meat of this army? Oh it’s 18 Corvus Cabal, 10 Chaos Warriors and 5 allied Blissbarb seekers… what a bizarre and compelling hodge podge of stuff
• 5th – Eric Wilson – Vyrkos Dynasty: See showdown

Wrap Up

It looks like things have largely settled in the metagame for the moment thanks to releases slowing down (though one has to wonder if Seraphon will surge into prominence shortly), with what’s standing out the most as a surprise is the downturn in Gitz success. Other combat armies like Soulblight, OBR and Khorne have been able to create lists that can weather the Squiggy storm and knock them down to the midtables (or if shooty KO, blow them off the board). Is that surprising to you? I certainly had a hard time imagining it a month ago.