Welcome back to another week of Age of Sigmar events coverage! It was an exciting weekend, with two GT-sized events and preorders going up for the two newest 3.0 Battletomes – Idoneth Deepkin and Fyreslayers. While it’ll be another two weeks before those books make an impact on the meta, this week we get another view at how the Beasts of Chaos Tome Celestial is shaking things up.

Norsehammer Open 2022

A two-day, five-round event held in Rogaland, Norway. You can find lists for this event in Best Coast Pairings. 

Ole Vatland – Seraphon – First Place

Player's List - Click to expand

Notable Features

• A total of six Salamanders for an alarming amount of punch.
• A lighter hero package, with only a Slann, Skink Priest and EOTG.
• A total of forty skinks to hunker down on objectives.

Why it’s Interesting

I’ll be honest with you dear reader – it’s not particularly interesting. Thunder Lizards have matured to the point where we’re seeing the same core appear in all of these successful list, typically consisting of:

• Skink Priest, Slann/Kroak, EOTG
• Some amount of skinks and a Bastiladon
• A whole bunch of points to play around with any permutation of Salamanders, Chameleon Skinks, Stegadons and/or more Bastiladons.

I’ve written about all of these permutations over the past few weeks, and I’ll likely only highlight unusual takes on these lists so as not to waste your time and mine. Deal? deal.

Danny Elvestad – Ironjawz – Second Place

Player's List - Click to expand

Notable Features

• A one drop take on Bloodtoofs to try and get an edge on the big bad low drop lists that would naturally prey on them.
• Ironskull’s Boyz provide a cheap screen that won’t give up broken ranks.
• Units of six Gore-gruntas say ‘whatever’ to potential Coherency problems.

Why it’s Interesting

Typically, these sort of lists run may small units of Gore Gruntas (up to 15) with one or two Maw-Krushas, but Danny has gone with a mixed approach, as a unit of 10 Ardboyz and Ironskull’s Boyz can present a bit of a screen and/or back board presence while the cavalry do their terrible work.

Larger units of Gore Gruntas make sense at the moment as the game trends towards larger, punchier units (like Stormdrake Guard, Fulminators and… Gore Grunta units). Having the ability to reliably kill big stuff on the charge is likely worth the trade off of one or two Boars not being able to attack in the combat phase.

The Rest of the Best

5 more players finished on 4-1, which we’ll cover below:

• 3rd – Lasse Kalberg– Daughters of Khaine: Khailebron Morathi and the Bow Snakes (25).
• 4th – Benjamin Flodda – Soulblight Gravelords: A Mannfred led Legion of Night list that utilises Black Knights as screens for the core of Zombies, Grave guard, and Radukar the Beast.
• 5th – Geir Veldeld – Idoneth Deepkin: Eight sharks lead the Fuethan charge, with support from an Aspect of the Storm (note this is old book and old warscrolls for Reavers/Sharks).
• 6th – Jan Høvik – Stormcast Eternals: 6 Longstrikes, 10 Boltstorm Judicators and 2 Knight Judicators headline this shooty Stormcast list.
• 7th – Idar Moss – Maggotkin of Nurgle: A summoning Befouling Host list with 30 Plaguebearers, 5 Blightkings and a GUO forming the core.

GGMaitland Age of Sigmar GT

A two-day, five-round event held in Maitland, Australia. You can find lists for this event in Best Coast Pairings. 

Ashley McEwan – Sons of Behemat – First Place

Player's List - Click to expand

Notable Features

• Purple Sun of Shyish! As voted for on twitter.
• A balanced approach to Gargants, bringing one of each of the big guys.

Why it’s Interesting

Ashley could have taken a third Mancrusher here by cutting the Purple Sun, but opts to forego it, instead taking a fun little endless spell and guaranteeing himself the all important +1 to wound triumph for key combats. In fact, he values that +1 to wound so much, he’s taken the Vial of Manticore Venom to ensure that the damage dealer Gargant – the Gatebreaker, is always wounding on 2s with the all important flail. 10 Rend 3 damage 3 attacks are extremely potent, and anything to minimize their variance is especially valued with Gargant armies, who are prone to a few poor dice rolls ruining their game plans.

As Ashley is in taker tribe, all of the Gargants count as even more models for purposes of objective control, which is typically how Gargants end up winning events anyway – superior objective play to their opponent. Well done Ashley!

Matthew Campbell – Cities of Sigmar – Second Place

Player's List - Click to expand

Notable Features

• A Tempest Eye army that manages to use all the cities intended flavour units!
• Pistoliers provide some mobile skirmishing units, supplemented by long range support from the versatile Gunhaulers.
• A pair of griffins and the Concussors provide the melee punch to achieve battle tactics.

Why it’s Interesting

Honestly, what isn’t interesting about this list? Losing only to the eventual first place winner Ashley above, this is a thematic and extremely interesting list that highlights the depths yet untapped in the Cities of Sigmar battletome.

Matthew has mobility out the ass, with everything moving fairly rapidly and benefiting from cover first turn thanks to Alert and Forewarned – especially useful for the Concussors who can benefit from both that and +2 to charges thanks to the Battlemage on Griffon’s Wildform spell.

Speaking of Griffons, Matt was probably benefiting from the new mount trait released with the recent Tome Celestial, Soaring Guardian, which is likely not listed on the list output here as it hasn’t been added to Warscroll Builder yet. For those not in the know, the first time the model is slain, on a 2+ it is not slain, all remaining wounds are negated, it can be setup again anywhere on the board outside of 9″ of enemy units and it heals D3 wounds. Suffice to say, that is a pretty enticing ability to have on a Freeguild General, who can now effectively act as a budget battering ram that can res, relocate and regroup to take a second swing at things later in the game.

Other than the melee punch, Pistoliers and Gunhaulers form the meat and potatoes of the list, providing a withering amount of firepower that won’t exactly impress from a raw output perspective – but that isn’t even that important as long as it’s all being delivered into key targets to help achieve battle tactics. This is a very interesting list, good job Matthew!

The Rest of the Best

6 more players finished on 4-1, rounding out the top 8:

• 3rd – Joel Graham – Big Waaagh: Joel brings an interesting monster mash BW list, packing Kragnos, Gobsprakk and a Maw-Krusha into the list, supported by a lazer eyes Wurrgog Prophet, a Warchanter to buff up the cabbage and minimum sized ardboyz units for battleline.
• 4th – Jacob Strachan – Lumineth Realm Lords: Two foxes, 40 sentinels and a Loreseeker headline a typical shooty LRL list we’ve seen flourish over the last year.
• 5th – Kyle Liefting – Seraphon: A fangs of Sotek list rocking Kroak, an EOTG, many skinks and some salamanders.
• 6th – Haydn Wright – Seraphon: Standard fare Thunder Lizard list that uses its flex points to bring a Skink Chief on Stegadon to go alongside the usual suspects.
• 7th – Bob Van Emmerik – Soulblight Gravelords: A Vyrkos list that brings Radukar, Mannfred and a Vengorian Lord alongside the typical support Necro + Vampire Lord. Some skeletons, zombies and a unit of Blood Knights form the meat of the army.
• 8th – Damian Newsome – Lumineth Realm Lords: Damian takes a similar shooting list to Jacob, but goes light on sentinels and wardens to afford Gotrek!

Wrapping Things Up

The long awaited impact of Beasts of Chaos is still largely up in the air, but with new Battletomes for Idoneth and Fyreslayers on the horizon things stand to shake up significantly as more and more factions get updated for third edition proper. Tune in next week for more tournament list analysis.

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