Heya folks – Ellarr here with a whopping 6 events this week to cover. As the tournament scene gets larger and we see more and more events hit that magical 28 player number and thus qualify for this article, we’re going to need to be a bit more thoughtful with what we do Showdowns for. The following 6 events are covered this week:

• London GT (76 Players)
• Michigan GT (72 Players)
• MOAB 2022 (44 Players)
• Fantasia Fanatic XLII (38 Players)
• Crucible X GT (36 Players)
• Duckstravagansa GT (31 Players)

With the bolded events receiving showdowns. I may adjust how I select showdowns to hone in on interesting matchups or on simpler the larger tournaments – not fully decided yet and would welcome feedback if you have a preference!

The London Grand Tournament AoS Singles

76-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on October 01 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Darren Watson – Daughters of Khaine: Zainthar Kai: Morathi and the bow s-*stops self*…and the Incarnate
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

James Lake – Soulblight Gravelords: Legion of Night: Grave Guard & Chaff
Army List - Click to Expand

Result

Daughters of Khaine: Zainthar Kai Victory – 18 – 2

Thoughts

Going to do something different this week – let’s identify the winner and then talk about why this was likely the case. What stands out the most here is how Darren has built his list to trade exceptionally well in melee matchups. Morathi obviously can’t die in a single round of combat so anything that engages her is likely to die on the crack back, and the same is true of Morathi as well. By choosing Zainthar Kai as his subfaction he also gains fight on death for the melee snakes thanks to Khaine’s Essence. So he has three melee hammers that at *worst* will destroy whatever kills them, and at best can do this repeatedly… thanks to Zealous Orator meaning they can rally on a 4+.

That’s not to say James’ list isn’t strong – it’s very good and does what SBGL does best: put a lot of bodies on the table and use a select few exceptional buffing pieces to make them into hyper efficient killers… the problem is it’s much ‘fairer’ in it’s approach than Darren’s list, and when it’s strength against strength I give the edge to the army that has unkillable nonsense and Bounty Hunters.

Darren Watson – Daughters of Khaine: Zainthar Kai – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Melee trade masterclass

Thoughts

Outside of what I said in the matchup, I think what’s most interesting is how little it cares about the ranged matchup. Why might that be? Well typically ranged armies absolutely hate dealing with Morathi anyway, and with an Incarnate added into the mix as well… oof. They won’t have time to easily kill the melee snakes or the Cauldron as they’ll be dealing with the immediate pressure in their face.

A cute little combo here is the Arcane Tome making the Cauldron a wizard, likely to allow it to pair with the Incarnate and get a much sought after +1 bonus to cast to make the Mindrazor spell a bit more consistently castable, what with it’s high CV of 8.

Hadrien Torrin – Maggotkin of Nurgle: Drowned Men – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Fly spam

Thoughts

I bloody well hope the battlescroll lightly encourages Nurgle to be doing something other than flies – the depth is there in the book, it’s just overshadowed by how stupidly efficient flies with a pre-game move are.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Stephen Follows – Kharadron Overlords: Double Ironclad Zilfin with a Rune of Petrification
• 4th – Jack Armstrong – Stormcast Eternals: Gardus Hallowed Knights that takes the minimum of Liberators for battle line and crams in 8 Stormdrake Guard
• 5th – Jorin Kamper – Seraphon: Fangs of Sotek summoning with a healthy dose of Salamanders and an Incarnate
• 6th – Phil Marshall – Slaves to Darkness: Phil Marshall and a Host of the Everchosen list – name a more iconic duo #4+inacup
• 7th – Michael Attali – Soulblight Gravelords: a Kastelai list with no VLOZD or Vhordrai… but instead *30* Blood Knights
• 8th – Chris Riley – Bonesplittaz: an Icebone list with *no* Big Stabbaz, instead leaning on a heavy cavalry theme and a Purple Sun (old version)

Michigan GT Age of Sigmar Championship

72-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lansing, MI, United States on October 01 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Bill Souza – Ossiarch Bonereapers: Petrifex Elite: Necropolis Stalkers in Petrifex headline
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Roger Barker – Beasts of Chaos: Gavespawn: Tzaangors in several different flavours
Army List - Click to Expand

Result

Ossiarch Bonereapers: Petrifex Elite Victory – 44 – 6

Thoughts

Well looking at this matchup on paper I actually would have favoured the Beasts of Chaos army here – Bloodslicked Ground from the Daemon Prince is a nightmare for most melee armies to deal with, and the Tzaangor Enlightened with Bounty Hunters have the damage output to really put the hurt to the Stalkers. So what may have happened?

Well first of all, Bill outdrops and can control early game priority, an important tool to either be hyper aggressive early on, or just control double turn opportunities. He has the ability to throw out Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws at very long range thanks to Arkhan’s command ability, which can threaten the support heroes who are largely of limited movement and thus susceptible to heavy damage rolls from the pacman from Ghur.

He could also use Curse of Years and/or Arcane Bolt with Mortal Contract to stack up ranged mortals on the DP. Once it’s dead… or if Bill simply focused wherever the DP wasn’t, I can see how the sheer output of the Stalkers and their GV and Expert Conqueror status could ensure primary objective control and thus get ahead in scoring. The one thing we can’t discount here is Bill’s mastery of the game – he’s a staple on the tournament circuit in America and a mainstay of their international team for a reason.

Bill Souza – Ossiarch Bonereapers: Petrifex Elite – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Petrifex Elite good stuff

Thoughts

9 Stalkers with the right buffs can put out up to 9 rend 4 damage 3 attacks, and 30 rend 3 damage 2 attacks – that’s a lot of very high quality damage that will laugh at most armies humble attempts to save stack and protect their elite units. Bill Souza brought two of these absolute death stars.

Are they susceptible to Bounty Hunters? Yes… but Bounty Hunters are on the downswing as many lists cut it out to try and gain the edge in drops, or explore Expert Conquerors to improve their board control. OBR are as susceptible to heavy shooting as they’ve ever been, but against other melee armies OBR are more than capable of tussling with the best of them.

Michael Caldwell – Soulblight Gravelords: Legion of Blood – 2nd Place

d

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Bravery bomb!

Thoughts

This is a fun one – Horrorghast shuts off Inspiring Presence meaning lots of potentially failed battleshock tests… which will add 2D3 to the number of models that flee if they’re near both a Vampire unit AND the Horrorghast. That plus the bravery penalties from Reanimated Horrors means it won’t take much to make even high bravery units fall apart and flee completely.

Beyond that, it’s a fairly standard summons and synergies good stuff list for SBGL – but the Bravery element gives it a nice bit of spice.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were on 4-1, they were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Roger Barker – Beasts of Chaos: See showdown
• 4th – Thomas Guan – Cities of Sigmar: Hallowheart Endless spells that is held together by Stormdrake Guard and an Incarnate
• 5th – Barton Kennelly – Cities of Sigmar: Another Hallowheart list, this time leaning on 30 Irondrakes and a Bridge to shunt them forward, and 10 Protectors to… protect them
• 6th – Chris Thiel – Idoneth Deepkin: Mor’Phann Namarti spam with a Turtle
• 7th – Brandon Harvey – Maggotkin of Nurgle: Double Maggoth lord with some Flies and 20 Rotmire Creed
• 8th – Jarrad Barrick – Fyreslayers: 3 Magmadroths headline this Lofnir list that also brings a number of support heroes and 10 Hearthguard Berzerkers

AOS @ MOAB: 2022

44-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Sylvania, NSW, AU on September 30 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Joel Graham – Idoneth Deepkin: Ionrach:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Blake Mclachlan – Blades of Khorne: Reapers of Vengeance:
Army List - Click to Expand

Result

Idoneth Deepkin: Ionrach Victory – 45 – 9

Thoughts

Incarnate vs Incarnate.. hoo boy.

So I think it’s pretty easy to see why the Idoneth list won here. Longrange shooting and mobility is the stuff that Bloodthirsters absolutely hate, especially Skarbrand. Joel has enough to bring down whichever big dude is most threatening in the moment, and whatever he can’t shoot down he can nuke with 6 Morsarr in a glorious charge.

Khorne absolutely hates fight first effects, so that Akhelian King was likely a nightmare, creating a combat situation in turns one and two where one or two bloodthirsters are lifted before they can react, and his shooting elements bringing down a third… it’s a rough uphill struggle.

Joel Graham – Idoneth Deepkin: Ionrach – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Ionrach Combined Arms

Thoughts

There’s not a ton of meat on this list – very few overall bodies would typically worry me. That said, the Incarnate is the sort of band aid lists like this love, as it’s a giant piece of nonsense that can’t be lifted turn one and can hold stuff in combat long enough for round three to come along and the murder king and his cavalry entourage to take care of things.

The Aspect of the Sea is a great functional tank piece that will struggle to kill anything by itself, but is tanky enough to survive reasonable combat situations and can benefit a lot by tag-teaming with the Ghur bag of bones. Debuffing saves with Tsunami of Terror to make the rend 2 and 3 attacks from the Incarnate that much deadlier.

Terence Voller – Sons of Behemat – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Gatebreakers and an Incarnate

Thoughts

It’s probably my favourite and the best overall SoB army from this book (which is about to be replaced) – 3 Gatebreakers typically didn’t leave enough points for a fourth Mega Gargant, which is a problem considering Gatebreakers are by far the best of them from a pure output perspective. Enter the Incarnate and blah blah blah nerf the Incarnate please I’m dying GW.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Tom Oliver – Nurgle: Let’s do the fly spam agaaaaaain, let’s do the fly spam agaaaaaain. It’s just a LoA to the left, and then a Maggoth to the right. Put some flies in your list, you bring a few Blightkings in tight
• 4th – Austin Cranfield – Big Waaagh: A mix of Orruk Warclans’ best units – Ironjawz melee, Kruleboyz shooting and a Bonesplittaz Wurrgog
• 5th – Jake Gunning – Flesh-eater Courts: frequently stand outside the Incarnate’s bedroom window at night singing love ballads and holding up a boom box – Crypt Horrors provide backing vocals
• 6th – Sean Haigh – Nurgle: This summoning list skips mortals almost altogether – lots of Beasts of Nurgle, 9 Plague Drones and 20 Rotmire Creed headline
• 7th – Blake Mclachlan – Khorne: See showdown

Fantasia Fanatic XLII AoS

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Västerbottens län, SE on October 01 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Marcus Persson – Sylvaneth: Gnarlroot:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Ronya Andersson – Beasts of Chaos: Allherd:
Army List - Click to Expand

Result

Beasts of Chaos: Allherd Victory – 17 – 3

Thoughts

Ronya has gone for a fairly standard BoC build here, with a lot of quality bodies and a significant mobility component as well. This was key against Marcus’ list, where it ideally wants to keep opponent’s at arms length and only expose the Durthu/Alarielle to combat and pick and choose lopsided fights to really leverage Strike and Fade. Marcus has gone all in on the hero hammer and has good hit and run tools with them and the Tree Revenants.

The problem then is simply that a list like this with no Kurnoth on the board is that units like the Tzaangor Enlightened can hurtle up the board 19″ (thanks to Infuse with Bestial Vigor) and really put immediate pressure on the Warsong Revenant and the Tree Revenants. Alarielle is of course fantastic and will happily smash through a unit a turn… but BoC lists excel at drip feeding quality chaff units and still having plenty left over to crack through to the Tree army’s innards.

Ronya Andersson – Beasts of Chaos: Allherd – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Tzaangors

Thoughts

Not too much that isn’t standard here – Ravening Direflock acts as a budget Horrorghast that has the best bit (shutting off Rally/Inspiring Presence) and is a steal at 30 points. Shaggoth to cut itself and get summoning points over the course of the game, random mix of chaff that become real threats round 3, and a ton of Arcanite Beastmen who love Bounty Hunter and the enhanced rend afforded to them from the Herdstone more than the Chaos Gods themselves.

The Best of the Rest

No other players on 5-0, the 4-1s were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Anders Gustavsson – Nighthaunt: Bladegheist spam and an Incarnate
• 3rd – Marcus Persson – Sylvaneth: See showdown
• 4th – Martin Selberg – Idoneth Deepkin: Ionrach Eels and a Murder King/Aspect of Sea
• 5th – Marcus Hagberg – Seraphon: Fangs of Sotek Salamanders with an Incarnate
• 6th – Alexis Herbeck – Stormcast Eternals: Mix of Fulminators, Longstrikes and Stormdrake Guard
• 7th – Dennis Brännvall – Bonesplittaz: Big Stabbas, double Wurgogg and an Incarnate
• 8th – Theodor Persson – Soulblight Gravelords: A Vyrkos list that brings both the heads of the family and no splashing of other legion’s special characters, instead opting for a Vengorian Lord

Crucible X – Age Of Sigmar Grand Tournament

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Orlando, FL, US on October 01 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Zachary Shinn – Skaventide – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Skryre & Verminus, together at last

Thoughts

It’s a fun and unique take on a Skaventide list because it foregoes Stormfiends entirely and also opts not to take the Verminlord everyone expects (the Deceiver). Instead, the Warbringer comes along and can be a truly monstrous beatdown machine, as if it fights before it’s opponent it can put out a truly heinous number of attacks out thanks to Devious Adversary (in this case, a total of 14 rend 2 attacks that are either damage 2 or 3). By taking the Warpstone Charm he reduces the save of enemy units by 1 for being in combat with it, making those attacks effectively rend 3. It’s a tasty little package that trades out the mobility and tricksiness of the Deceiver for raw output.

Beyond that, Thanquol makes an appearance as he’s a godamn bargain for his price, and rather than Stormfiends what we have here is 3 Warp Lightning Cannons. While not as tough as Stormfiends, they provide good utility as pure mortal wound firehoses, a useful thing to have in a metagame swarming with ghosts, high save units and Nurgle.

Lastly, those 20 Stormvermin? Oh yeah they give a 2+ bodyguard save for the Warbringer, can fight on death if given Dreaded Death Frenzy, and can receive the Warbringer’s CA to be hitting and wounding on 2s. Not bad for rats.

Jonathan Weretka – Sylvaneth: Gnarlroot – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Gnarlroot spell bombin’

Thoughts

Kurnoth Scythes with Wildform granted by the allied battle mage are a menace, especially so with Bounty Hunters. Especially especially so if those Seekers are nearby to replenish a model each turn, and though the spell isn’t listed on the Warsong Revenant (Verdant Blessing is a freebie), we assume it was the revive spell to add more model replenishment to one of the game’s premiere hammer and anvil combo units.

The Treelord is a fantastic little piece that hasn’t seen as much play as it should – it has access to a Monstrous Rampage that can make a unit fight last, and if it hits a model with any of it’s melee attacks they are unable to make a pile in move later in the phase – a devastatingly potent effect if you’ve ever played against a Sloppity Bilepiper before.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Nicholas Petrosky – Ironjawz: Double Mawcrusha Pig spam, a classic made even better with Bounty Hunters
• 4th – Benjamin Fults – Nighthaunt: Bladegheist spam in Scarlet Doom
• 5th – Cody Saults – Ironjawz: Single Mawcrusha with even more Pig spam
• 6th – Douglas Klem – Stormcast Eternals: Mixed Paladin force, leaning on Protectors and Annhiliators (Grandhammer flavour)

Duckstravaganza AoS GT

31-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Tables and Towers, Westminster, MD, US on October 01 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Michael Vagenos – Bonesplitterz: Drakkfoot – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Big Stabbaz go brrrr

Thoughts

Big Stabbaz go brrrr… a lot

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Emma Mangels – Skaventide: Thanquol & 9 Stormfiends
• 3rd – Jeremy Hauck – Sons of Behemat: Double Gatebreaker double Warstomper
• 4th – James O’Brien – Cities of Sigmar: Spellcasting Hallowheart with an Incarnate, 3 Scourgerunner Chariots and a Celestant prime
• 5th – Jacob Brandon – Skaventide: A mix of everything here – 2 Verminlords, 15 Gutter Runners, lots of Jezzails and even a Plague Priest

Wrap Up

Hope you enjoyed this week’s roundup – a fair amount of interesting innovation here, even if the Incarnate looms large over many successful lists. Looks like we’ve got a tidal wave of Battletomes coming out over the next month or so, and a Battlescroll too! See you on the tables.

Ellarr also has his own Youtube channel to cover other aspects of competitive Age of Sigmar which you can find here. If you have any questions or comments leave one down below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.