Two events to discuss this week, both featuring armies that have been mainstays in Competitive Innovations for weeks, so let’s take our medicine, give our blood and pay the blood tithe.

Vibes

Northern Wastes GT

43-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Prince George, British Columbia, CA on August 26 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – No Reward Without Risk

Conan Veitch – King’s Gitz
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Matthias Krushel – Bloodlords:
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Thoughts

The Khorne list has opted to go largely ‘all-in’ on the big bloodletter bomb, with a full quarter of his army devoted to that one unit of 30. There is (as there often is) a Bloodmaster with Halo of Blood for activation chaining shenanigans as well as (in some matchups a sort of shield he can put tucked into the ranks (coherency allowing) to create a situation where it’s impossible to charge the front of the bloodletter unit without letting the Bloodmaster strike-first and chaining a free activation from the bloodletters afterwards. Matthias has skipped Skarbrand and a more varied roster of hammers and has gone MSU Bloodreaver spam and support pieces to enhance the Bloodletters and the Bloodthirster, as well as Sigmar’s Starscream equivalent in Be’lakor. Bloodlords as a subfaction choice only leans yet further into that one hammer unit, so against the variety of threats Conan has those bloodletters will need to do a lot of Murderlust/hero phase fighting/fighting on opponents turn to get through it all.

Speaking of Conan, his list is lovely in that it’s decided to bring along the Spiderfang portion of the book, and he’s leaned particularly hard into the Spider venom aspect – with a number of ways between Venom of the Spider God (spell, adds 1), Totem of the Spider God (artefact, adds 1) & Supa-nasty Venom (Command trait, doubles) to enhance the damage output of the ‘roll a 6, vomit mortal wounds’ effect present on the fangs of the Arachnarok Spiders in their various flavours and the Spider riders. The Loonsmasha Fanatics are a personal favourite of mine that can help out in the activation wars thanks to their innate strikes-first ability, though they must be mindful to try not to get near a Monster until after the charge phase has come and gone, lest a lucky stomp squashes them mostly flat.

For the matchup itself, No Risk Without Reward definitely favours Khorne here, as they can deploy very aggressively with those bloodletters and take control of the center and the objectives are close enough that provided he takes care of his flanks he can score one/two/more pretty reasonably as well. I wanted to like the Gits chances more here, but while the damage output of the Spiders can spike quite high, they’re going to need to roll a lot of sixes to clear 30 Bloodletters, and I just don’t think the army has the damage output after one or two combat activations from that blob.

Result

Blades of Khorne Victory – 25 – 9

Matthias Krushel – Bloodlords – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Bloodletter bomb

Thoughts

We have seen a lot of Be’lakor as an ally for Khorne, which makes sense as both a means to address the opponent’s best unit for a turn or two, but also as a means of gaining access to Mystic Shield… which is still probably a top 5 spell in the entire game and everyone gains access to it.

The current pace of play competitively has required armies to be really very good in the combat phase and board control, and Khorne continues to leverage its strengths (out of phase mobility, activation wars supremacy, cheap chaff) to great success in the current landscape. Well done to Matthias for deftly crafting a list that is able to accomodate one unbeatable combat monster unit, while still having enough pieces around it to be multiple and unpredictable when it matters.

Nic Fortin – Null Myriad – 2nd Place

The List

The List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Null Myriad.. but not as you know it!

Thoughts

Its as if Nic wrote this list to surprise me, because with what looks at first to be the cookie cutter build (I see Null Myriad and scroll down and see Katakros and sigh), but has a bit more going on. Kainan and his reapers are an interesting pairing, as Kainan himself gets a bit of a momentum mechanic and a useful but extremely short range spell, and his unit of buddies act as a bodyguard which each count as 3 on objectives and do at least a reasonable job of slapping stuff around for their cost.

The other changeup is the inclusion of a Mortek Crawler, that can provide an (somewhat unreliable) way of bestowing the strike-last effect on an opponents unit until the end of the turn, from quite a distance. It’s quite expensive for its damage output but it can help the Necropolis Stalkers and Immortis Guard get multiple activations to butcher an opposing hammer before they can retaliate. It’s a bit of an odd duck set of changes but it goes to show that the core strength of the army lets you play around in the margins of list construction a bit and take some goofy stuff and still be able to put up a respectable finish – Nic technically went undefeated, going 4-0-1. Well done!

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Dale Johnson – Hagg Nar: An amusing list titled ‘Fuck Morathi’ which tells you a lot. It’s a bunch of Witch Aelves and 4 Avatars of Khaine and some Heart Renders plus an assortment of support pieces – I love it
• 4th – Erik Armstrong – Fangs of Sotek: Kroak/Slann/Trog combo with the usual support heroes and a full 3 endless spells and no Incarnate
• 5th – Michael McMullen – Greyfyrd: Fyreslayers! The newish Grimhold Exile makes an appearance in a list thats running 2 Grimwrath Berzerkers and a lot of angry foot combat heroes plus Vulkites
• 6th – Roma Toor – Hammers of Sigmar: Karazai with no bodyguards to protect him, instead 6 Evocators on Dracolines (sneaky good with new coherency imo), some Fulminators and Sequitors for battleline and some other odds and ends – nicely done Roma
• 7th – Daytond Obre – Bloodlords: Be’lakor plus bloodletters (50 of the fuckers), skipping a Bloodthirster entirely so he can fit in some Bloodcrushers and invocations for an added flex
• 8th – Conan Veitch – King’s Gitz: See showdown

Big Bristol Brawl Summer GT

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in , England, GB on August 26 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

David Towsey – Null Myriad:
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vs.

Greg Shelton – Legion of Night:
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Thoughts

Fucking hell, this isn’t what you want to see while drinking your morning coffee and trying to motivate yourself for the day ahead. This encapsulates the metagame quite well though as a showdown – it’s elite grindy combat supremacy in the Kata Cookie Cutter list vs the board control combat hell grindfest that is Nagash and as many zombies as you can fit before Warscroll Builder buckles and crashes.

The key thing here though is pretty simple – as long as Null Myriad is available to David it’s a tough deal for Nagash and the Merciless Blizzard Vampire Lord, because they’re blunting 87% of their magical offensive output and Zombies aren’t going to do much more than tickle a unit of 6 Stalkers, let alone Immortis Guard.

That said, Greg does have the considerable advantage in the board control department, so taking the first turn and setting up on the forward objectives and hoping to hold onto one/two/more long enough to build a substantial lead does give Greg outs. Worth noting this was a team LIT face-off in the showdown, so both players probably had a lot of fun playing their team-mate.

Result

Null Myriad victory – 11-9 (20-0 differential scoring)

David Towsey – Null Myriad- 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Kata Cookie Cutter

Thoughts

Dark Acolyte helps David score some an extra battle tactic in Magical Supremacy, through heavy magical resistance easily – as the first spell the hero casts is not able to be unbound provided it’s from the OBR spell lore. Gothizzard Cartouche helps the Immortis slap better.

Well done to David for an impressive finish with what might be the best army list in the game right now against the field.

Mike Pooley – Null Myriad – 2nd Place (4-0-1)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Arkhan Kata Cookie Cutter

Thoughts

Another Team Lit member with the Arkhan variant of the same core list. Less big boi troops included than usual, instead opting for a second unit of Deathriders for better objective play.

The Best of the Rest

3 more players went 4-1 and were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Greg Shelton – Legion of Night: See showdown
• 4th – Alan Joynes – Befouling Host: Now we’ve escaped the choking atmosphere of the podium we’re greeted by a fun little Glottkin list running triple Maggoth lords and 3 Beasts for battleline requirements – a bit mad but I love it
• 5th – Kacper Skibowski – Pretenders: A list that doesnt quite lean completely into Blissbarbs (only 33), and in fact doesn’t run any Slickblades at all – the army is aiming to dance around its opponent and infuriate them with a Keeper of Secrets in full wreck-face regalia, making Sigvald fight twice and even the Masque for some nasty support hero assassination attempts

Wrap Up

I would be a fool to suggest that the metagame is irrevocably broken, as the past few months have shown that there is still room for a number of armies to succeed… but we have definitely seen enough of a pattern by now that I feel comfortable saying that there’s a power disparity that seems somewhat significant between the top armies in the game and those below them. While I’ll stress that this is only my opinion and is prone to bias (sadly I have not replaced the imperfections of my flesh with the glory of the machine god), this is how I’d sum up the top 4:

1. Ossiarch Bonereapers – While they might struggle a little in some battleplans against certain opponents to score battle tactics, the army doesn’t really have a good counter outside of maybe a permanent level 3 Incarnate.
2. Soulblight Gravelords – the sheer breadth of armies that have succeeded in the last few months (Avengorii, Vyrkos, LoB, LoN all podiuming) has proven this book is strong, deep and will take a lot of attention from GW to bring it back down to earth in a way that won’t just cripple the army entirely.
3. Seraphon – I’m not talking about the book in general here, but Seraphon are best positioned to use the obscene Rupture Incarnate combo, in a way that presents your opponent a difficult challenge: Can you stop their summoning engine from taking over the battlefield, while simultaneously dealing with a level 3 Incarnate? It’s kinda rough!
4. Khorne – I think that this one is perhaps the one that’s most up for debate, as it has a variety of builds, approaches and players piloting it that can make the army very flexible but also hard to nail down in terms of balance. They have all the tools to deal with the metagame, but are somewhat helped by the lack of a true shooting counter for them in competitive play right now.

I’ll leave it to you guys in my social media mentions and in the comments to point out the flaws in my opinion, correct my assumptions and challenge my authority (of which I have none, this is entirely an opinion piece). Bring on the battlescroll! The game is so much fun to play right now, especially in the mid tables once you’ve fallen below some of the top lists, but it feels like its very close to a beautifully balanced brawl.