Three tournaments to cover from this past weekend, with the Ironblaster Ogor list making it’s presence known with another impressive outing. That said, it looks like the optimum build hasn’t been found yet as there’s still a healthy amount of variety in approach. Elsewhere, we see signs that surgical precision ranged damage is very important in order to crack the top tables, with many lists packing an impressive amount of reach to disrupt their opponent’s castle.

DaBoyz GT 2022 Age of Sigmar

66-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in West Henrietta, New York, US on November 19 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Levan Sichinava – Beastclaw Raiders: Underguts Ironblasters
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vs.

Jiwan noah Singh – Gavespawn: Tzaangor on hoverboards
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Result

Gavespawn Victory – 35 – 10

Thoughts

So how do you beat four Ironblasters? Jiwan has opted to simply throw large quantities of bodies at the problem, as 30 Tzaangor hurtling towards your frontlines is a lot of wounds to punch through, especially when they can remove casualties from the front to get out of combat and rally back on a 4+ near the shrine. The Enlightened are obviously clutch here too for their mobility, and have just enough dudes in the unit to absorb some losses from Unleash Hell and still tie up several Ironblasters at a time and begin pecking to death the artillery.

That’s not a knock on Levan’s list of course: There’s a lot of dads on tour here who will have good matchups, it’s just that those Gluttons will die in droves to the Bounty Hunter Enlightened and there’s no Gnoblars here to help screen. It probably doesn’t help that the Khorne Daemon Prince will make getting into combat quite difficult for the Stonehorn (provided it has not been sniped to death at long range that is).

Jiwan noah Singh – Gavespawn – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Gavespawn Tzaangor

Thoughts

When Dragon Ogors were nerfed this was largely the pivot I think was expected by many (and alluded to in our coverage), as the Tzaangor warscrolls all take the BoC allegiance abilities very well (who doesn’t love rend?) and can put out a disgusting level of output that will trade well with most units in the game.

It also helps that the Enlightened aren’t Galletian Veterans, so they can take all the buffs you can handle (Wild Rampage for reroll wounds for example) and hurtle 19″ up the table to deliver pain to pretty much anything your opponent isn’t tucking into reserves or is deploying in far corners.

Brian Sayman – Bloodtoofs – 2nd Place

The List

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Archetype

30-50 Feral Hogs

Thoughts

Short of a high capacity assault rifle, there isn’t much that can stop such a wall of angry piggies. Internet jokes aside, I’ve long been of the opinion that the Ironjawz aggro piggy list is still just as good if not better than when the book first came out thanks to the addition of Bounty Hunters pushing their damage output through the stratosphere. I think the problem for Ironjawz has always just been it has some bad matchups as it’s a very movement dependent army that can’t attack your opponent in other phases well if their movement shenanigans are disrupted.

The Incarnate obviously helps here as it presents a threat your opponent straight up has to commit to killing early or they just won’t, which in turn gives the rest of the army a chance to get into combat and set up a good Ironjawz Waaagh to clear off as much of the board as they can.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 are as follows:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Carl Ong – Kharadron Overlords: Double Ironclad with Purple Sun has become somewhat of a go to for KO this season
• 4th – Garth Scannell – Fyreslayers: A rather unique take on FS – 70 Vulkite Berzerkers supported by 4 FS foot heroes, a Ghur Battlemage (charge bonuses) and Runepriest (+2 unbind and heal)
• 5th – Levan Sichinava – Ogor Mawtribes: See showdown
• 6th – Nate Trentanelli – Nighthaunt: Scarlet doom Bladegheists with the requisite support heroes, going a little lighter on BGR to afford some Hexwraiths and Chainrasps in a more MSU build
• 7th – Anthony Trentanelli – Gloomspite Gitz: Did you know you could fit Kragnos into a Gitz list and still have more than enough points left over to trot out 212 wounds of squigs (with support pieces)?
• 8th – David Klamm – Stormcast Eternals: An interesting mix of Stormdrakes, Fulminators and Gotrek himself

Lost Legion GT 2022

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Geelong, Victoria, AU on November 18 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Joel McGrath – Stormcast Eternals: Karazai and his buddies who keep him alive
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vs.

Patrick Neven – Ogor Mawtribes: Underguts Ironblasters
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Result

Ogor Mawtribes Victory – 11 – 9

Thoughts

So Joel has a fundamental matchup problem here – there are screens to prevent Karazai from getting to the Ironblasters, and that Gruesome Trophy Rack means all four Ironblasters are automatically getting +1 to hit against him as long as the tyrant is near them and alive.

Doesn’t really matter how many ward saves or bodyguards you bring when they can dump 40 rend 2 damage 2 shots into you that will force roughly 23 save rolls. A turn.

Patrick Neven – Ogor Mawtribes – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Underguts Ironblasters

Thoughts

This is the shell for Ironblasters I expect will see long term success. The Firebelly gives you some ranged protection in the shooting mirror, the Slaughtermaster let’s you setup a Blubbergrub Stench charge turn if you get the spell off to throw out a bunch of mortals from the Ironblasters, and there’s still enough combat pieces here in the Gutbusters to keep your opponent honest.

The one thing it’s missing is a Stonehorn or Thundertusk, but as with many third edition armies it’s simply hard to have the points to fit everything in; and when you can blow your opponent off the board suddenly the case for a giant monster with a 3+/5++ isn’t as compelling as it used to be.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Luca Foerster – Kharadron Overlords: Double Ironclad with a Flarepistol for that one big alpha turn
• 3rd – Joel McGrath – Stormcast Eternals: See showdown
• 4th – Sam Morgan – Seraphon: The listbuilding mad man from down under brought nearly 30 total dudes riding Ripperdactyls and piloted it to a 4-1
• 5th – William Knight – Soulblight Gravelords: This Legion of Blood list opts for a light touch on summoned chaff in order to afford 2 units of Blood Knights, a VLoZD and Big Drogg himself

Renegade Wargaming – Renegade Open – Age Of Sigmar GT

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Minneapolis, MN, US on November 19 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Joe Krier – Disciples of Tzeentch: Kairic Endless Spells
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vs.

Cloyd Dowling – Stormcast Eternals: Rain of Stars
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Result

Hosts Arcanum Victory – 27 – 16

Thoughts

Interesting matchup here as this aoe mortal wound bomb sort of list that Cloyd is bringing here would typically love a matchup with a bunch of fragile support heroes that keep the whole engine of the army going. A key factor in Joe’s impressive victory here is Hosts Arcanum, which can shut down Everblaze Comet turn 1 and give him some room to operate and get himself setup to kill the Slann through a spellportal in a later turn.

Joe has just enough chaff here to screen out the Prime from getting to anything juicy right away, and his summoning meant he could play the grindy game better than Cloyd can, as his army relies on a very strong initial punch which typically doesn’t have many opportunities to interact with it – not so here!

Joe Krier – Hosts Arcanum – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Pew pew mortals (in both senses of the phrase!)

Thoughts

An impressive take on Tzeentch, as it foregoes daemons almost entirely in favour of Kairic Acolytes. Said Acolytes had a small but notable change since their original incarnations, as they now are Wizards who can cast Gestalt Sorcery, a rather underwhelming spell that simply gives their mediocre shooting attack a pip of rend, but that’s not what’s important here – as a spell it generates a summoning point. Tzeentch love to have a good base of wizards in their list because each successful spell contributes to summoning more forces onto the board, so Kairics give a cost effective source of this as well as a not insignificant amount of chip damage and utility.

The Magister on Disc is perhaps the other noteworthy bit of tech here, as it opts for Arcane Sacrifice instead of Cult Demagogue for it’s command trait. This CT lets the user ping a mortal wound to a friendly unit in order to extend the range of the Magister’s spells by 9″. This is a huge amount when you consider it pushes 18″ spells like Arcane Suggestion up to 27″ range, or perhaps more notably the Burning Sigil of Tzeentch.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Patrick Ottolino – Lumineth Realm-Lords: Stoneguard spam that just about squeezes in Teclis AND Avalenor to give the army another dimension
• 3rd – Cloyd Dowling – Stormcast Eternals: See Showdown
• 4th – Dave Bonselaar – Kruleboyz: Hey it’s my boys! This Big Yellerz list brings 18 Boltboyz and can squeeze in Gobsprakk himself with the points discounts
• 5th – Derek Sebesta – Disciples of Tzeentch: A Hosts Arcanum list with a mix of Daemons, Mortals and Goat bois

Wrap Up

It’s going to be interesting to see if the rise of Ironblasters sparks a shift in listbuilding approach or indeed army selection. It’s not (I think) a stretch to say that certain armies that play a linear aggressive melee gameplan may have trouble making their presence felt in the face of that much ranged punch. The Nighthaunt perhaps are an exception here thanks to Ethereal, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we see an uptick in their usage in response. Until next time.