An article stuffed with lists and tournaments this week friends, with a whopping *EIGHT* events from all over the world to surprise us and uhhh, not surprise us. I’ve taken the liberty of skipping over a few mirror showdowns as they don’t offer much in the way of interesting discussion. Enough preamble, let’s dive in.

Nashcon Age of Sigmar GT 2023

104-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Nashville, TN US on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Please note that this was a two list format where both players choose with of the two lists they will use at the table for each round.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission – Nexus Collapse

Fabien Barbusse – Blades of Khorne:
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vs.

Brad College – Bonesplitterz:
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Thoughts

Bonesplitterz randomly showing up in the showdown of one of the bigger events in recent weeks, in a time period where it feels like almost everyone has just completely forgotten that the faction even exists is a pleasant surprise. Wurgogg’s are sneakily actually quite good Andtorian Locii, even if you sometimes give up spellcasting for the stare, simply because they have a healthy 7 wounds, are a two cast wizard and even come with a ward save.

As for the lists that Brad brought, a dual list format gives him some nice flexibility in that he can bring Drakkfoot for situations where his opponent benefits from ward saves on key units, and Bonegrinz for extra damage output from the Arrowboys in other situations. Why even consider Arrowboys in the first place? Well consider that in the US at least, there’s an awful lot of Soulblight lists running around with low save hordes. In those situations, being able to bring stuff down through weight of dice is beneficial, especially so outside of melee range. There are fewer shooting armies than you might expect in general in the metagame at the moment, which makes what shooting armies remain more potent. Does that make them great damage dealers? Not really, but they’re also fairly cheap bags of wounds that can pre-game move to establish board control and you have the once per game board wide Waaagh for a 4++ ward in the combat phase to weather your opponent’s melee assault long enough to get Wurgoggs into position and hope for some big mortal wound explosions.

Oh right, this is a matchup isn’t it. I think we both know how this ends. That said, all the credit in the world to Brad for showing that there’s life in those old bones yet.

Result

Blades of Khorne Victory – 32 – 11

Fabien Barbusse – Blades of Khorne – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Skarrbrand and his amazing friends

Thoughts

The first thing you will notice is that Fabien just submitted the same list twice, which saves us a bit of work. The bulk of the list is devoted to setting up activation chains: The Bloodmaster with Halo of Blood gets strikes-fist and can chain an activation to a big block of 20 Bloodletters, then follow up with Skarrbrand for a tremendous one-two-three punch (or chain it to the second bloodmaster for four activations).

Theddra and the Godsworn Hunt is a cheeky little inclusion you wouldn’t expect in Khorne – Theddra can potentially be a 2 cast wizard when she casts on a 10+, though primal dice can’t help there sadly. Her warscroll spell is somewhat useful for enfeebling an enemy unit, but Theddra and her bodyguard primarily exist for battle tactic access, two blood tithe points and to get killed to enable the Slaughter of Sorcery GS.

Thomas Guan – Soulblight Gravelords – 2nd Place

The List

The List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Zombies

Thoughts

Thomas piling up the top finishes here with his zombies. There’s not a ton of difference between the two lists beyond how low he can push the drops, with 6 Fell Bats and some Vyrkos subbing in for a Necromancer, 20 Zombies and a Maelstrom in the lower drop list.

It’s board control, it’s a lot of ward saves, it’s a nightmare in a combat meta to deal with.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Jason Matley – Drowned Men (5-0): Just one list – Glottkin with a mix of Daemons and 4 Pusgoyles in Drowned Men
• 4th – Anthony Trentanelli – Hollowmourne: Both lists revolve around large units of Crypt Horrors and Archregents to summon additional gribblies
• 5th – Frederick Schmidt – Harvestboon: Lots of bug cavalry (12!) with minor tweaks to spells depending on list
• 6th – Barton Kennelly – Goretide: Mortals with large Blood Warrior anvils in both lists, leaning on Skarbrand for the big damage.
• 7th – Michael Schlegelmilch – Hammers of Sigmar: 6 Dracothian guard and then 10 separate units of 3 Castigators feature in both lists with minimal other units (just some Gryph-Hounds). Wild.
• 8th – Thomas Guererri – Null Myriad: Fairly typical Immortis/Katakros/Arkhan builds. One of the 2 lists drops Arkhan for more Guard.

Warhammer World Golden Ticket: Age Of Sigmar Event

58-player, 6-round Grand Tournament at Warhammer World in Nottingham, England GB on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

martin feingold – Ossiarch Bonereapers:
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vs.

Nicolas Tassone – Zaitrec:
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Thoughts

Some spicy lists here – Teclis is back in the showdown section after some time off, leading a list that abandons Sentinels entirely in favour of Dawnriders, who are quite cheap for their output now and do quite well into a combat/horde metagame thanks to their extra attacks against low wound models (Zombies/Ghouls notably). Eltharion has made a bit of a splash in competitive play since AoS worlds where the Danes made good use of him, and he’s been creeping into lists ever since as a fairly punchy and difficult to deal with pseudo-Gotrek that comes in considerably cheaper.

In the other corner we have a fairly standard Bonereapers shell with some new tweaks – Crematorians being the subfaction of choice being perhaps most notable. In a world where every OBR player is Null Myriad, having something to break the mirror open can help, with some choosing Petrifex Legion but Martin opting for mortal wound splash back when his models die in combat. Quite spicy, though the list is about as concise as it gets – only 6 total units! That all being said, the Lumineth list is hardly abundant in it’s unit count either, and in the clash of these two elite forces I favour the one that can largely ignore Lunar Eclipse and just obliterate those Dawnrider units pretty quickly.

Result

Ossiarch Bonereapers Victory – 26 – 26

Martin Feingold – Ossiarch Bonereapers – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Immortis Guard

Thoughts

About as skewed a list as you can get in OBR – Martin wants to make it as difficult as possible for you to kill any of his units through the use of bodyguards, large unit sizes and his plentiful model replenishment. If you kill any one of his units its a crippling blow that the army will really struggle to bounce back from. The risk here is what the army does when the battleplan calls for spreading out resources across many objectives spread far apart… but good fucking luck beating it if the mission calls for a mash in the middle.

James Lake – Vyrkos Dynasty – 2nd Place (5-1)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Summonable Anvils

Thoughts

It’s death everywhere in Age of Sigmar right now, with this army presenting a distinctly different challenge to OBR – lots and lots of wounds that are low quality, but make high quality attacks far worse because the more rend/damage a profile tends to have, the fewer dice said unit is rolling. Let’s take a fairly standard hammer unit as an example: Chaos Knights. They’re high rend and damage and are pretty good at smacking around Immortis Guard/Deathriders, two common units in Ossiarch builds. Those Knights are going to have their rend basically wasted against Zombies/Wolves/Grave Guard, and get subsequently torn apart by weight of dice and unit replenishment.

This Vyrkos build skips Torgillius and has just one source of the 5+ ward, and it leans a little less heavily on Zombies, bringing along a ton of Grave Guard for some efficient hammers and Dire Wolves for a significant speed element which can help it control space a little easier than Zombies would.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 all went 5-1 and were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Nicolas Tassone – Zaitrec: See showdown
• 4th – Mike Stewart – Fangs of Sotek: Serafun + Incarnate in the hands of of one of England’s best players falters only against Nicolas’ Teclis list (makes sense, Teclis is sneaky amazing against Seraphon). For everyone else? Kroak + Slann + Incarnate with Rupture is a nightmare
• 5th – Baz Norman Jr – Underguts: Another competitive powerhouse, Baz brings 4 Ironblasters back into prominence in a big way, with Mournfang as decently cheap Battleline and the priest Frostlord on Stonehorn loadout for a versatile threat
• 6th – Brent Evans – Barak Urbaz: Ironclad, 15 Thunderers and the typical buff pieces, with Gotrek along to fill the void previously occupied by 10-15 more Thunderers before their nerf
• 7th – Krzysztof Zylawy – Reapers of Vengeance: Light on bodies but heavy in thirst for blood – Skarbrand, a Boomthirster and then the Unfettered Fury BT to support them
• 8th – James Linford – Guild of Summoners: Chicken factory that skips running Kairos or an initial Lord of Change in order to fit in a screen of Ungors and 6 Enlightened on Discs for a melee hammer to push stuff off points (and shut down command use, handy tech against OBR)

Gateway Open 2023 Age of Sigmar

46-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Collinsville, IL US on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Null Myriad (Mrigank Jha) vs Null Myriad (Alex Cotter)

Mrigank Jha – Null Myriad – 1st Place

The List

Mrigank's List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Big Infantry

Thoughts

Skipped the Showdown for this one as I’m not sure anyone is keen to watch me attempt to make a mirror exciting, but this list is notable in that it skips Katakros entirely – something I would have thought as blasphemous considering how much he offers the army.

That said, his absence means its possible to essentially bring two extra units, which gives the army a distinctly different feel as it can spread out, run endless spells and just generally have significantly more flexibility in list construction. I think we should keep an eye on this development and see if it’s a one week wonder or whether other players can replicate this success at other events.

Jake Cachey Muhr – Null Myriad – 2nd Place (5-0)

The List

Jake's list - click to expand

Archetype

Cookie cutter Katakros

Thoughts

Ahhh there we are, back to the familiar. I literally don’t have anything new to say about this list, we’ve seen it’s like for several months now and it’s still dominant.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 3-2-0 or 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Laron Roberts – Pretenders Host: Blissbarbs for battleline, 10 Slickblades, some Bliss Seekers and Glutos for some tanky punch
• 4th – Alex Cotter – Null Myriad: Cookie Cutter Katakros
• 5th – Austin Thimesch – Grinnin’ Blades: Kruleboyz!! Yeaaaaah! Austin crushes it with 40 Gutrippaz, 12 Boltboyz and Gobsprakk/Sludgeraker + support pieces. Are they finally half decent?
• 6th – Jake Bentrup – Koatl’s Claw (3-2-0): Technically undefeated, Jake smashed people in the face with 12 Aggradons and a Carnosaur – hell yeah Jake!
• 7th – Daniel Patterson – Host of the Everchosen: A fun little mix of plated goodness – 6 Varanguard and 5 Chaos Knights act as the frontline, with 10 Chosen, Be’lakor and Eternus (!) joining the party

Tempest 2023

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Scotland GB on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Null Myriad (Josh Lowe) vs Null Myriad (Alastair Maxwell)

Josh Lowe – Null Myriad – 1st Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Cookie Cutter Katakros

Thoughts

When you’ve made your standard list of Kata/Arkhan/Boneshaper plus 6 Immortis and 2 units of Deathriders, the final choice is simple: Do you want Necropolis Stalkers, Morghast Harbingers or Morghast Archai? Then choose your command trait from like four exceptional choices and your artefact from Artisan’s Key for more replenishment or Gothizzar Cartouche for more melee punch.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Alastair Maxwell – Null Myriad: Alastair avoids running Immortis Guard entirely, opting instead for Stalkers, and skips the Morghast for a Soulreaper and the Aethervoid Pendulum and Nightmare Predator
• 3rd – JJ Cropley – Legion of Night: Mannfred and a Morbheg’s Claw Vampire Lord for cheeky teleport Blizzards, then 80 Zombies, 20 Dire Wolves and 20 Grave Guard plus other support pieces
• 4th – Alasdair Robertson – Barak Urbaz: 15 Thunderers in an Ironclad, with 6 Endrinriggers and 2 Gunhaulers forming the other ‘main’ pieces outside of the heroes
• 5th – Reece Fraser – Gnarlroot: Tree herohammer (Treerohammer?) with Alarielle, a Warsong Revenant and Spirit of Durthu making up 3 quarters of the army by themselves – MSU Tree revs for battleline and Skaeth’s Wild Hunt for a potent spell in Might of Kurnoth
• 6th – Lewis Watson – Bloodtoofs: Ironjawz have been largely in the shadow of Big Waaagh since the battlescroll, but they did quietly receive some significant boosts thanks to the coherency changes – Lewis has 18 Pigs (2*6, 2*3) and a Maw-Krusha to overwhelm his opponent quickly in a devastating charge – powerful stuff that lost out only to Alastair and his tough as hell OBR
• 7th – Stu West – Celestial Vindicators: Rupture Incarnate turns up in an unexpected place, with Stu combining this powerful combo with 6 Fulminators and a Lord-Arcanum on Tauralon (though strangely he didn’t leave himself enough points for an endless spell)
• 8th – Rafal Kolban – Koatl’s Claw: More Coalesced punch led by Lord Kroak himself (plus an Astrolith and 5 Saurus Guard because of course). 12 angry Aggradons with spears and 20 Saurus Warriors which are quietly one of the most impressively tough anvils in the game

CCBB2023 – Age Of Sigmar Championship

38-player, 6-round Grand Tournament in Ottawa, ON CA on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Oh my Grimnir, again with the mirror!?

Mortis Praetorians (Kevin Monzerol) vs Null Myriad (Yury Sichinava)

Yury Sichinava – Ossiarch Bonereapers – 1st Place

The List

Yury's List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Cookie Cutter Katakros

Thoughts

Okay it’s not quite the same list as before – there’s no Arkhan and those points have been spread around on some Stalkers and more Immortis as opposed to Morghasts and Deathriders.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1-1 or better records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Etienne Tremblay-Guérin – Oakenbrow (5-1): 3 Treelords protected with the Lady of Vines and supported by the Warsong Revenant and a TLA, plus a Spirit of Durthu with the Gladius for choppy choppy
• 3rd – Peter Longarini – Legion of Night (5-1): Mannfred, Morbheg’s Claw Vampire Lord with Blizzard, 40 Graveguard and a mix of other summonable chaff
• 4th – Carl Ong – Harvestboon (4-1-1): 12 Revenant Seekers and Gotrek make an impressive multi-wave assault that can quickly overwhelm

Notorious GT III

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Lower Hutt, Wellington NZ on August 18 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Ryan Lynn-Watts – Legion of Night:
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vs.

Sam Smith – Fangs of Sotek:
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Thoughts

Sam’s got the original Starborne archetype in play here with the Troglodon to extend the reach of Kroak’s bad touch spells to effectively the whole board when used with a heroic action (though obviously only one spell at a time since the nerf). There’s a ton of spellcasts here, 12 of them if my maths are right, with the Slann getting double Celestial Points for successful points that’s potentially 15 CP just from spellcasting assuming nothing is unbound. The point here is, it’s a lot of summoning.

Going up against it is a ton of bodies that start on the board and can also replenish, and Mannfred can cause a lot of trouble for those Seraphon screens thanks to his ability to charge on the opponent’s turn instead of redeploying (not to mention the counter charge ability from Legion of Night further complicating matters). The Skeletons can replenish themselves at the start of each combat phase as well, making it an anvil that even the Seraphon mortal wound output may struggle to finish off.

The key for Sam is to maintain multiple layers of screens and try to kill Mannfred as soon as possible, then leverage his better late game engine to score big late game, though he’ll need to try and keep up on primary scoring in the early game which may be difficult. Ryan has to take advantage of superior board control early to try and limit where lizards can teleport to, and hold onto the primary objectives. If he can get Mannfred into the inner castle largely in one piece, one good combat phase and a little luck might be enough to end things quickly.

Result

Legion of Night Victory – 16 – 4

Ryan Lynn-Watts – Legion of Night – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Mannfred and summonable hordes

Thoughts

A Mortis Engine is a surprising and interesting inclusion here. We’ll start with the downsides to running one first: its 210 points for a fairly fragile shooting platform that will do little more than sneeze if caught out in combat. That said, this thing is pretty useful as it can potentially do d3 mortal wounds to each enemy unit within 16″ (on a 4+ dice roll each time) in the shooting phase, and it has a pseudo Maelstrom ability that powers up as Ryan casts spells and once per battle can unleash the stored energy to each enemy unit within 6″, doing mortal wounds equal to the number of reliquary counters (maximum six). It also adds D3 to the number of models/wounds restored from Deathly Invocation, making all the summons in this list that much tougher to finish off.

It’s a quirky unit that is a huge liability if your opponent has significant shooting, but the lack of shooting armies in the UK metagame at the moment makes this a fun support piece that can really ruin certain armies that castle up and rely on support heroes.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Alexander Sinclair – Hagg Nar: Morathi, 15 Combat Snakes and a Krondspine – can you deal with two unkillable monsters and double tapping snakes?
• 3rd – James Page – Guild of Summoners: Chicken Factory with no initial chicken, instead bringing the Rupture Incarnate combo and 20 Tzaangors
• 4th – Dan Hughes – Null Myriad: Cookie Cutter Katakros with no Arkhan and 12 Immortis Guard
• 5th – Jess Lee – Null Myriad: Cookie Cutter Katakros with Arkhan

Salt Lake Open 2023 – AoS Championships

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Salt Lake City, UT US on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Patrick Hudson – Slaves to Darkness:
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vs.

Jarod Brown – Zaitrec:
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Thoughts

It’s a lot of aggressive cavalry on Patrick’s side, and a surprising amount of bodies and swords on Jarod’s. The Lumineth list brings along some potent Unique characters in Eltharion (which we’ve touched on earlier), the Twins (a fairly cheap and tanky two cast wizard that can hit very hard the later the game goes on) and Sevireth. Yes the big fox has resurfaced after disappearing following a series of significant nerfs, and is still a pain in the ass for your opponent to deal with.

Anyway, matchup specific stuff of note here is that the Bladelords may struggle to deal significant damage to the Chaos Knights and Varanguard thanks to their ward save against mortals, so plan B is leveraging Hoarfrost to give them some much needed rend. Plan C? Eltharion goes off and smashes them.

Patrick has to worry about getting his cavalry bogged down by Eltharion or corner charged by multiple units to stretch out the cavalry and make them unable to pile in well to maximise attacks. Command point usage is another potential pitfall if Total Eclipse isn’t unbound. I give the edge to the STD list here just to how many double activating Varanguard he has.

Result

Lumineth Realm-Lords Victory – 526 – 6

Jarod Brown – Zaitrec – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Special snowflake Uniques

Thoughts

A genuine surprise that might be a reflection of lack of knowledge when it comes to this particular brand of Lumineth as it’s fairly new to things. Bladelords have great game into the chaff units running around, and their Perfect Strike ability gives them outs to deal with tough to crack units without significant ward saves too.

It also benefits from being able to leverage Overwhelming Heat with Jaws for potentially high mortal wound spike to a unit, twinstones let the army build up enough charges to help power out a key spell like Eclipse/Hoarfrost/Blizzard as necessary, and finally Gravetide gives this rather elite army more tools to deal with undead hordes. It’s an interesting and technical list that suits Lumineth well – good job Jarod!

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Russ Tanner – Jaws of Mork: Lots of Boingrot Bounderz and Squig Herd with Grinkrak’s & Gobbapalooza as support (plus a sneaky Skitterstrand Arachnarok for flank pressure)
• 3rd – Aaron Dayley – Vyrkos Dynasty: Little less summonable chaff than you might expect, as those points have been invested in Radukar the Beast, Cado and a VLoZD
• 4th – Zac Boyd – Droning Guard: Lots of Plague Drones and Plaguebearers, likely trying to summon on Sloppity to shut off pile-ins and control space
• 5th – Will Reeves – Barak-zon: Zon means lots of balloon boys in Frigates for mobile melee punch
• 6th – Patrick Hudson – Slaves to Darkness: See Showdown
• 7th – Ryan Burwell – Knights of the Empty Throne: An aggro cavalry list running a Karkadrak for activation chaining and One-eyed Grunnock for the -1 hit aura from Shake the Earth and Terror to shut down inspiring presence

Emerald City Open III

30-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Bremerton, WA US on August 19 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Carson Whitlock – Ogor Mawtribes: Meatfist:
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vs.

ALEXANDER Gonzalez – Reapers of Vengeance:
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Thoughts

A fairly even matchup on paper – those Ogors can easily blow through much of the Khorne forces with ease, but may struggle to crack the Blood Warriors… and Murderlust plus that -1 to hit aura from the Unfettered Fury BT can make for some problematic combat phases.

The Bloodletter bomb with the Halo of Blood Bloodmaster (blood blood blood) can also chain a strikes-first activation into a devastating assault from the Bloodletter bomb, especially when kept replenished with the Blood Throne. That said, the Ironblaster can threaten to deal devastating damage to many of these soft and squishy units, and the Gnoblars can be an absolute pain to deal with thanks to their traps.

I suspect the pivotal units here are the Frostlord (who represents something that can anchor the army and survive where many of these squishy ogor units wouldn’t) and the Bloodletters (who represent the only significant hammer the army has). Losing these key units would be devastating for the respective army.

Result

Reapers of Vengeance Victory – 18 – 10

Alexander Gonzalez – Reapers of Vengeance – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Bloodletter Bomb

Thoughts

It’s not quite as all in on Bloodletters as previous builds have gone, with only one unit of them and a mix of cheaper mortals for additional blood tithe generation and a slightly tougher anchor in the Blood Warriors, but this trade off gives the list a bit of versatility and those BT points from the random chaff dying can create some truly momentum shattering bottom of turn -> top of following turn combat activations. Khorne perhaps more-so than many armies in the game right now are so much better on the table than they look on paper, as their tools excel at creating problems for the opponent and the ability to punish poor movement and positioning. Well done Alexander!

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Matthias Krushel – Bloodlords: Be’lakor and MSU Bloodreaver spam to help protect 30 Bloodletters in one massive bomb
• 3rd – Carson Whitlock – Meatfist: See showdown
• 4th – Matt Beasley – Guild of Summoners: Chicken factory summoning list with Kairos, a few foot dorks and MSU Kairic Acolytes to cast spells and the Incarnate Rupture combo
• 5th – John Zoshak – Null Myriad: Cookie Cutter Katakros using the last 220 points on 5 more Deathriders and Soulstealer Carrion

Wrap Up

The challenge of going 4-1 or better at tournaments is quite difficult at the moment, thanks to two polarising styles of Death army in Soulblight and OBR needing different answers that is difficult for any one army to address. That’s not even touching on the Incarnate Rupture problem and it’s strain on armies in a different direction. Armies like KO or other oddball lists can thrive simply by attacking the metagame from a different direction that causes many of these armies trying to ‘tool up’ to address these problems to falter against the unexpected.

This article series will continue to heavily feature warscrolls like Immortis Guard, Zombies and some kind of Mortarch. What’s interesting is the stuff on the periphery that is able to rise above these difficult challenges and perform at the highest level. This week is a good example of that.