We’ve not shut down for summer holidays yet friends! Four events to cover, with a whole lot of Chaos to discuss.

Sydney Slaughter 2023

71-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Padstow, NSW AU on June 09 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. These jerks uploaded images instead of text for their list, so if there’s information missing from the lists below, it’s because the image they uploaded had that information cropped out! Get it together aussies! Note I’m featuring the two lists that are 5-0 in my more detailed breakdown, even though the second 5-0 player finished 3rd overall due to how the tournament was scored.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Matthew Campbell – Bloodlords:
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vs.

Terence Voller – Pretenders Host:
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Thoughts

Kicking this week off with a grudge match between two rival chaos gods, nice. Matthew has some nasty tricks that this list can use to help disassemble the Slaanesh castle, starting with Bloodbind – this prayer pulls an enemy unit within 16″ of the Bloodthirster 8″ towards him, and he can reposition in the hero phase with Killer Instinct to throw the BT forward, bloodbind a unit of archers forward and then shuffle back and let the bloodletter blobs descend upon the out of position blissbarbs like a swarm of piranhas.

Or this would be the case if it wasn’t for ol’ Be’lakor, who can really fuck with this gameplan with Dark Master to essentially shut off this tactic on a 3+ for a turn. As the player with priority Terence can either get aggressive with his eye watering 88 blissbarb archers and protect the potential double with Be’lakor, or sit right back and minimise what Matthew is able to do turn one and if he gets the double can really cripple the Khorne army with a barrage of high quality shooting. It’s a skewed list and if the battleplan lines up just right with the opponent this will be a bloodbath.

Result

Pretenders Host Victory – 25 – 5

Terence Voller – Pretenders Host – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Blissbarbs spam

Thoughts

There aren’t that many to be honest, as it’s a fairly linear game plan. A one drop with Be’lakor lets you have maximum flexibility in most deployment situations, and the cheeky Great Bray Shaman is here almost entirely as a tunnel master GC for battle tactics and to cast levitate on the Blissbarb seekers so they can deploy behind the blissbarbs and jump forward to help the army unpack efficiently.

So what’s the strength of the army? 180 shots a turn hitting on 2s, wounding on 3s with either rend 1 or 2 depending on whether or not the Blissbarb seekers wound the target/(s) the army is looking to blow off the table. 30″ threat range.

Ben Spinetti – Barak-Urbaz – 3rd Place (5-0)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Guerilla Warfare

Thoughts

What an interesting take on KO, that have largely ignored Thunderers and Ironclads in favour of a variety of threats that give it some tactical flexibility. The Thunderers (plus one character.. possibly the Bomblets Endrinmaster) ride in the Gunhauler and act as a roaming gunship that can pick on individual heroes or lay down Suppressive Fire on the opponent’s biggest threat. The Skywardens ride in the Frigate for a ship that’s capable in both melee and at range alongside the Admiral, the second Endrinmaster and I suppose the Khemist. Then the Navigator and the Codewright hang out in the back with the Arkanauts to generate CP and debuff. The Endrinriggers try to escort the Frigate as best they can? There’s a lot of moving pieces here.

Anyway, the list has a lot of shooting that’s spread out across a large number of units, and it has a few select melee threats that it can leverage to contest objectives when the time comes. More surgical than KO lists I’ve seen recently, and one I find quite interesting to pick apart!

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Mitch Bugg – Jaws of Mork: A mix of Squig Herd, Hoppers and Bounders with the support pieces we come to expect from Squig lists
• 4th – Bob Van Emmerik – Legion of Blood: The standard core LoB build of Neferata, VLOZD and 20 Grave Guard, but this list cuts the Blood Knights and takes a variety of extra summonable goodies
• 5th – Matthew Campbell – Bloodlords: See showdown
• 6th – Thomas Oliver – Blessed Sons: Double Maggoth lord with the standard asshole LoA loadout, with the main forces being a variety of mortals and daemons – 4 Pusgoyles, some Plaguebearers, some Rotmire Creed and a cheeky unit of Corvus Cabal for scoring Desecrate and far off objectives
• 7th – Ashley McEwan – Guild of Summoners: This KFC summoning list has a bit of everything – a Thaumaturge, some Skyfires AND Enlightened on discs, some Horrors, Tzaangor AND Kairic Acolytes… it’s all just interchangeable spellcasting stuff that wants to dump a big ol’ Chicken on turns 1, 2 and 3

Summer Of Sigmar 2 AOS GT

44-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Tempe, AZ United States on June 10 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Jeremy Lefebvre – Hedonites of Slaanesh:
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vs.

Thomas Guan – Idoneth Deepkin:
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Thoughts

Huh! Idoneth in a showdown! It’s been a while. I had to go dig out my book so I could remember their enhancements and such it’s been so long since they’ve been relevant. So this list’s game plan is to hold the enemy at arms length and whittle them down with the sea critters shooting alongside the Reavers, then crash on them like a wave turn 3 when everything is fights first. The Eidolon tries to stack -save on something with Tsunami of Terror if he wants to get frisky with his Eidolons in combat that turn, and otherwise is just pinging damage at range and making sure Horrorghast is down and debuffing the opponent.

Jeremy’s list is altogether a lot more varied, as it presents an army that somehow has even more mobility than the opposing Idoneth list thanks to the Godseekers pre-round movement, access to 3d6 charges and just general SPEED found across many Slaanesh warscrolls. It’s packing a variety of threats between the Keeper of Secrets (with a charge mortals package), Sigvald, The Masque, 5 Slickblades and 5 Twinsouls, with a tight but effective shooting package in the 22 archers and the Blissbarb seekers.

Ultimately, I think the difference here is that Slaanesh have the tools to basically invalidate the keepaway gameplan of Idoneth thanks to their fantastic mobility, and a lot of these Idoneth units simply don’t have significant enough toughness to weather any kind of early pressure (outside of the Turtle that can be ignored until needed).

Result

Hedonites of Slaanesh Victory – 27 – 7

Jeremy Lefebvre – Hedonites of Slaanesh – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Everything everywhere all at once

Thoughts

This list is capable of putting the following in your deployment zone turn one:

• Keeper of Secrets, thanks to it’s naturally high 14″ movement and access to 3d6″ charges
• Sigvald, who Jeremy can dump his d3 pre-round d6″ moves into to help him waddle up the board for a surprisingly fast little deviant
• The Masque, who can post-deployment redeploy anywhere on the board outside of 3″ of the opponent
• Slickblade Seekers who have native run and charge and 14″ movement
• Lord of Pain, or at least one of them anyway as they have tunnel master

That is a LOT of pressure that this list can apply if it wants to, but similarly this sort of mobility can be used to spread out and then collapse in on weak flanks or pivotal control points. It’s one of the strengths of Godseekers over Pretenders is that sort of flexibility in movement

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Mason Knox – Legion of Blood (4-0-1): Neferata, Spirit Gale VL, an ethereal VLOZD and then MSU Black Knights spam for chip mortals on the charge
• 3rd – Ramon Silva – Legion of Blood (4-0-1): Neferata, Spirit Gale VL, an ethereal VLOZD and then SOME MSU Black Knights supplemented by Grave Guard
• 4th – Aaron Newbom – Nautilar (4-1): Another Idoneth list! This one focused on eels with an allied Fleetmaster for a cheap GC and a Frostheart Phoenix to give the army a little more toughness
• 5th – Jed Spears – Vostarg (4-1): Vulkites and Flamekeepers – name a more iconic duo
• 6th – Shane Lambert – Guild of Summoners (4-1): Nobody does chicken like T & Z – this list actually starts with Kairos on the board and is subsequently super light on units

No Holds Barred

37-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Alexandra Hills, QLD Australia on June 09 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Quinn Gorlick – Thunder Lizard:
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vs.

Aaron Gensch – Disciples of Tzeentch:
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Thoughts

Looks like old book Seraphon were getting taken out for one last ride here, with an Incarnate for a fresh coat of paint! I’m not going to really spend any time on the Seraphon list here as not only is it not prudent to discuss the competitive merits of a now invalidated book, but it’s also an archetype that’s been covered to death months ago.

Aaron has a good amount of bodies including 20 Pinks to provide board coverage and screens long enough for the spell engine to get going… and against Seraphon he’s also getting incidental extra summoning points from the opposing Slann.

Result

Disciples of Tzeentch Victory – 13 – 7

Aaron Gensch – Disciples of Tzeentch – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Chicken Factory

Thoughts

So why is this list good? Well it has good battle tactics (including an automatic one in ‘summon a lord of change this turn’), an automatic grand strategy (have at least a total of 9 on your destiny dice at end of game, easy if you conserve some and/or have destiny dice generation in the list) and a fairly straight forward game plan. It wants to clog up the board with it’s initial bodies, and whereas the opponent’s list gets weaker as the game goes on and it loses hammer units to wear and tear, this list actually gets stronger as it puts down Lord of Change after Lord of Change into play.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on X-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Zenith Mills-Shorter – Legion of Blood: Zenith really went for it and spoiled himself with his list – Neferata, a VLOZD… and ANOTHER VLOZD
• 3rd – Gavin Woodrow – Jaws of Mork: 72 Squig Herd with 10 Bounderz as a initial hammer supported by 2 Squig Bosses and the standard Squig buff package minus the Skragrott – a concession to points increases in the last battlescroll

Clash of Swords 2023

34-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Wales GB on June 10 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Aaron Boyhan – Ossiarch Bonereapers:
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vs.

Joseph Mcgough – Guild of Summoners:
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Thoughts

So fun fact about Null Myriad – it’s not just a flat 2+ spell ignore, as the unit has to be wholly within 9″ of either Arkhan or a Mortisan keyword unit. At first you would look at the 2+ spell ignore and go “oof, big uphill struggle for the Tzeentch army here”, but consider how unlikely it is that Aaron is going to be able to keep his army tucked in to that narrow bubble of a small base unit like the Mortisan all game. That’s not to say it won’t be impactful, but ultimately if your subfaction ability is a 9″ bubble around one dude, you can at least play around it by forcing the enemy to spread out onto multiple objectives and picking off units not protected by the bubble with all those lovely long range Tzeentch spells.

Result

Guild of Summoners Victory – 12 – 8

Joseph Mcgough – Guild of Summoners – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Chicken Factory

Thoughts

So the Curseling can help generate extra summoning points as if it successfully unbinds an opponent’s spell it can then immediately cast a CV 4 spell that basically does nothing but really who cares you just want another chicken GIVE ME CHICKEN MORE CHICKENS.

Ahem, sorry about that. The army presents 20 Pink Horrors as a forward wall of 100 wounds for your opponent to chew through and it peppers them with spells from afar – outside of the Curseling there’s nothing that particularly separates this from previous lists discussed beyond skipping out on a dedicated hammer unit in favour of more bulk for primary scoring purposes and some Screamers as a budget mobility unit to cap far off points.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Alex Tubb – Null Myriad: The standard Katakros, Mortisan and Immortis Guard core, but this list (from fellow club-mate, hello Tubb!) opts for 2 units of 3 Stalkers to give the list a bit more diversity in threats, as well as 2 Boneshapers for better Null Myriad coverage
• 3rd – Aaron Boyhan – Null Myriad: The same core as above but a full 12 Immortis Guard, no 2nd Boneshaper and instead another unit of Deathriders
• 4th – Rowan Kemeys – Hosts Duplicitous: Not a chicken factory! This list has two units of Horrors that it can recycle one unit of once per battle on a 4+, and an Incarnate for those sweet Endless Spell farming opportunities

Wrap Up

Looks like we have a new GHB coming within the next month, so there’s a bit of a last sprint for events to use these Galletian Champion rules before we move on to something decidedly more arcane. It’s going to be interesting to see how this shuffles the tiers of armies, as Tzeentch already look strong and could potentially do lots of good stuff with all these new arcane goodies. Then there’s anti magic factions like Khorne and Null Myriad OBR, who may see greater prominence than they already do if they’re able to weather said storms of arcane energy. Then there’s armies like KO and Gitz who have fallen off a little bit in prominence, do they slide down to the fat middle in light of these changes? I can’t wait to see more of what’s in store for next season and see how this all shakes out.