It’s a biggy this week, with what is almost sure to be the biggest event of the year hitting Las Vegas to give us a nice look at the ‘end-game’ of the Galletian Veteran metagame before we pivot to Galletian Champions and a whole new ballgame.

Las Vegas Open, Age Of Sigmar Champions Event

323-player, 8-round Supermajor in Las Vegas, NV US on January 27 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Please note that the event was using new GHB points but the previous GHB’s battlepack and missions, so this event is to be observed as more of a sunset last hurrah for the previous season. Farewell Bounty Hunters!

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Jiwan noah Singh – Beasts of Chaos:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Nicholas Walters – Ironjawz:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

There’s an interesting clash of styles here that’s worth highlighting – the Beasts of Chaos want to engage you on their terms, pulling casualties from the front in order to back out of combat and rally on a 4+ on the following turn before charging for a devastating counter attack. On the other hand, this Ironjawz list does not under any circumstances want to get bogged down in prolonged combat – they want to completely lift the unit they charge in order to trigger Smashin’ and Bashin’ as well as act as a sort of defensive ability by not being in a position to worry about the potential swing back from the unit in combat.

What disrupts this however is the Bloodtoofs subfaction ability, which let’s the Gore Gruntas perform a move or a charge if they fought that turn but are no longer within 3″ of any enemy units (this includes on your opponents turn). This let’s them effectively get extra charge mortals from their mounts as well as prevent this style of guerilla warfare by the Beastmen from being effective.

That said, there is a rather devastating endless spell that Jiwan has included that flips this matchup: The Wildfire Taurus. Cast on a 7 (and Jiwan can cast it once per game with a +3 modifier if he uses the Tzaangor Shaman’s Sorcerous Elixir ability), this giant spirit bull does mortals to units it passes over but more importantly it imparts the strikes-last effect to any units within 3″ of the model. As you can imagine, this immediately disrupts the chain of activations style the Ironjawz want to go for, and the Tzaangors (both foot and skateboard variants) are more than capable of lifting any of Nicholas’ units in one activation bar the Mawcrusha, who may require a combination of units to bring down. I suspect this may have been just the speed bump Jiwan needed to slow down the Ironjawz and leverage summoning to gain an edge on objectives as the game progressed.

Result

Beasts of Chaos Victory – 1 – 0

Jiwan noah Singh – Beasts of Chaos- 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Tzaangor hammer/anvils

Thoughts

When Dragon Ogors got nerfed, it took some time for the Beasts of Chaos playerbase to settle in on what the new normal was. In the end, Tzaangors of all flavours represented fantastic value due to their synergy with Gavespawn – if there’s a Chaos Spawn nearby, they can issue the Propagator of Devolution command to the unit to get +1 attacks on all their melee profiles, which would be 2 profiles on the basic Tzaangor and 3 for the Enlightened. Other buffs on this list allow a unit to gain reroll sounds or an additional +1 rend on top of what they’re getting from the Herdstone which results in the ability to turn any of their Tzeentch units into devastating mobile hammers capable of lifting most things.

The Beastlord himself is a bit of a cheap and cheerful hammer thanks to Blade of the Desecrator making him damage 3, and the summoning engine is there primarily to either bring on new hammer units if needed or chaff to hold objectives when necessary. It’s no surprise to see why a list like this would push Beasts of Chaos to the top of the metagame for over six months, and it’ll be interesting to see what the playerbase comes up with for the new book as their toolkit is significantly different this time around.

Nicholas Walters – Bloodtoofs – 2nd Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Bloodtoofs Aggro

Thoughts

Beyond what’s outlined in the showdown, it’s important to note what is *different* about this Ironjawz list as the faction has been on a bit of a downswing of late but a new approach has given them new life in the competitive metagame. First of all, there’s no Arcane Tome/Master of Magic combo for access to a teleport, as Nicholas has instead opted to give the Mawcrusha a 6+ ward and +1 to hit from Armour of Gork and Hulking Brute to increase the unit’s mortal wound output when it charges and present greater potential for it to super mario jump off one unit, squashing it and chaining Stomps using Destructive Bulk.

A humble Grot shaman ally provides access to extra command points over the course of the game and cheap access to Mystic Shield, and to add a little bit of extra oomph beyond just scores of pigs, there’s a foot Megaboss with Destroyer, which may be point for point one of the most efficient combat units in the game for one combat phase. For those unawares, it can use Destroyer once per game to get +3 damage on one of it’s melee profiles, meaning for one combat phase it’ll have 8 damage *5* attacks, or potentially even more if you’re able to get it fighting chaff for a few combat phases so it gets extra attacks from Strength from Victory. What is perhaps best about using Destroyer on the foot megaboss is that you can guarantee it’s damage, as Dead Fighty means if its destroyed before it’s had a chance to fight that phase, it gets to fight immediately before it’s removed from play, meaning it can be used as a disposable cruise missile outside of the activation plans for the turn and trade upwards (assumedly) in terms of points.

The Best of the Rest

Such a large event means a lot of 5-0s, as the entirity of the top 8 elimination bracket were undefeated, with a bonus 9th place also being 5-0 and sadly missing out on the top 8 due to tiebreakers, they were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Kaleb Walters – Tzeentch: Kairos the battle chicken leads an Incarnate and an array of Endless spells for the purposes of taking advantage of the Incarnate’s tankiness to get it’s summoning engine going. Notable in that it’s Guild of Summoners, foregoing it’s ability to summon chaff in order to get turbo discount Lord of Changes
• 4th – Gavin Grigar – Cities of Sigmar (Tempest’s Eye): A shooting list that stacks up on weight of dice shooting with 40 Crossbowmen, a Hurricanum for the purposes of a free +1 to hit for everyone and a total of 8 Tempestors to provide a potent melee unit to clear units off objectives.
• 5th – Cody Saults – Ironjawz: Another aggro pig list, this one going a little lighter on Gore-gruntas in order to afford a second Mawcrusha, and including a unit of Gitz shootas to have something to squat on backfield objectives.
• 6th – Rigolet Thibault – Beasts of Chaos: Another gavespawn list, this one scaling back it’s Tzeentch contingent considerably, instead opting for Dragon Ogors and an Incarnate.
• 7th – Nate Trentanelli – Nighthaunt: Nate is an absolute mad lad, bringing 10 Craventhrone Guard and a Black coach to one of the most competitive events of the year and cracking the top 8. It’s core threats are a number of MSU Hexwraith units and Reikenor to power out the Mortalis Terminexus, an efficient aoe mortal wound Endless Spell.
• 8th – Camaron A Hallford – Ogor Mawtribes: It’s Ogors, but not as you would expect – a total of four Stonehorns, supported by a Thundertusk, a Gnoblar screen and a Butcher. It’s a lot of durability and potent mobile offence.
• 9th – Yury Sichinava – Nighthaunt: Yury brought Scarlet doom Bladegheist Revenants, a still potent list even with it’s slight price hike in the last GHB.

Wrap Up

Will you miss the last GHB or are you excited for the changeup? Let us know in the comments below. I’ve felt really energised by the the new battlepack that represents an interesting incentive to use little foot dudes and a challenging set of battle tactics which should encourage more aggressive play.

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.