I’ll be honest dear reader I wasn’t expecting to come to you today with a bunch of events still running the old GHB and no tournaments that were large enough to meet our criteria (28+ players) that were running the new season. While I could take us down the typical path of examining each of the showdowns and lists for the handful of events we’ve got to cover today… it seems rather against both my and your wishes. It strikes me that neither of us is particularly interested in looking too closely at the particulars of the matchup when the games were played under old points, an old battlescroll and an old GHB.

For that reason, today I’ll be bending our own rules a little bit to feature a 24 player tournament that *was* running the new GHB, while also taking a look at the top 3 lists for the other events. Sounds fair? Let’s go.

Renegades of the Realm

24-player, 5-round Tournament in England GB on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Tavi Gane – Koatl’s Claw: Army list - click to expand

vs

Peter Twigg – Reapers of Vengeance: Army list - click to expand

Thoughts

Tavi’s list is refreshingly different from what we’ve seen recently, as it takes advantage of the new coherency rules and anchors it’s list around six Kroxigor and six Aggradon Lancers in Coalesced to make them pretty damn tanky against elite units. Hoarfrost is here (presumably to buff up the Saurus’ rend capabilities) but it’s surprisingly minimalist on spellcasting for Seraphon, packing only 2 casts total. Vengeful Defender let’s the general slingshot 2 Saurus/Kroxigor units up the board in his hero phase with a free hero phase based move, which helps the mobility problems of the Saurus Warriors and Kroxigor. It’s a straight forward punch you in the mouth list that’s leveraging some units that got a good facelift in the battlescroll.

The cold bloods are going up against a familiar ‘core’ of a Khorne list (Unfettered BT, prayers out the wazoo), but brings a bunch of Flesh Hounds for a rather mobile list that can block out areas of the board with spaced out puppers. Lurking in the background ready to destroy things is Skarrbrand, who has no shortage of targets if he’s able to weather the artillery shots from the Bastiladons long enough to start lifting entire units by himself. This is a rough matchup for the Seraphon list that really wants to fight a few elite units rather than have to grind things out against a Khorne list that can really dictate meaningful engagements between Murderlust, Killer Instinct and just walls of cavalry bases.

Result – Blades of Khorne Victory – 15-5

1st Place – Peter Twigg – Reapers of Vengeance

Archetype

Board control/movement shenanigans

Thoughts

Not surprised to see Khorne keep on trucking after the mild nerfs they took in the battlescroll – the new season hasn’t affected them a great deal, and in many ways their anti magic tech is now more useful than ever when many armies are so incentivised to bring little dorky wizards to cash in on the Primal dice rush. Peter’s hit the ground running and has adapted a familiar feeling Khorne Daemons list that skips Bloodletters and runs the cheaper Flesh Hounds in order to afford Skarrbrand to give the list some real punch.

2nd Place – Dominic Stonebridge – Badsnatchers

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

Trogg smash

Thoughts

Dom proves that Gits ain’t dead yet despite the recent clipping of their wings with this rather interesting take on Gits in the new metagame. Gone is Skragrott and Sneaky Snufflers, and in comes Madcap Shamans at a rather attractive 70 points. Badsnatchers doesn’t stack with Primal Dice well but it is a nice way to save primal dice for unbinds or when you want to dump them all into Merciless Blizzard after teleporting them into range with the Gobbapalooza! Extremely gits, extremely fun, well done Dom.

3rd Place – Paul Bowden – Fangs of Sotek

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

Spellcasting Mortal Wounds

Thoughts

Pretty straight forward gameplan here by Paul – keep you at arms length with a series of meat shields (sorry excuse me, Skinks) and blow you up with Comet’s Call, Celestrial Deliverance and the Malevolent Maelstrom. It’s a strategy that will buckle and fold the moment it goes up against a Null Myriad OBR list and will struggle mightily against Khorne.. but if you don’t have anti magic tech, you better hope you have a good ward save.

The Best of the Rest

There was only one other player on 4-1 and that was Tavi Gane, so see the showdown for that one.

Kislev Grand Tournament

67-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Asti, Piemonte IT on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

1st Place – Roberto Callegari – Gloomspite Gitz:

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

Squigs gone wild

Thoughts

Farewell squig spam alpha strike lists that also grind you out very efficiently over five rounds, you had a great run. It’s fun to note that I don’t think there’s more than a few at most units in the list that DIDN’T go up in points with the battlescroll. Yes dear reader,  I did indeed paste the image directly into the article rather than painstakingly recreate it in Warscroll builder. I am not wasting some of my precious morning doing that nonsense, blame him for submitting an image to BCP.

2nd Place – Federico Azzali – Blades of Khorne:

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

Walls of Steel

Thoughts

It’s really difficult to actually kill these Blood warrior or Skullcrusher units unless you have great mortal wound output – this list won’t excite in the damage department but it will transition into the new GHB (with a few tweaks) largely intact.

Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were 4-0-1 or better and were:

• Position – Player – Army:
• 3rd – Luca Quinale – Skaven: Lot’s of Clanrats and Ratling guns, with the main damage threats being Thanquol & a Verminlord Warbringer
• 4th – Alessandro Naldi – Soulblight Gravelords: A Vyrkos list with a unique twist – he’s buffing up Graveguard & Skeletons instead of Zombies for a more elite feel
• 5th – Alessandro Lorusso – Soulblight Gravelords: LoB Neferata, VLOZD and the usual trappings
• 6th – Andrea Alfano – Hedonites of Slaanesh: Pretenders blissbarbs with 10 Slickblade Seekers and a KoS
• 7th – Marco Vago – Soulblight Gravelords: Near identical to club mate Naldi, just swapping out a brick of skeletons for more Blood Knights
• 8th – Vittorio Canzani – Hedonites of Slaanesh: Near identical to Alfano’s list, but running a Lord of Pain over the Masque

Onslaught 2023

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Scotland GB on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. 

1st Place – Benjamin Savva – Soulblight Gravelords (4-0-1):

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

NAGASH

Thoughts

NAGASH IS COMING FOR YOUR SOULS! Really happy to see the big man here, who essentially just buffs the shit out of the very efficient (pre-battlescroll) Soulblight units and mostly needs to win the game himself because he’s half your freaking army. Well done Ben!

2nd Place – JJ Cropley – Soulblight Gravelords (4-0-1):

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

What if… no Neferata?

Thoughts

As it turns out if you don’t bother with Neferata you can fit an absolutely disgusting amount of Zombies in the list. I can see LoB lists post nerf going down this route as there’s suddenly a lot of points to play more of a board control style list. Not sure about Zombies now they’ve been heavily nerfed, but they’re still one of the most efficient battleline units in the game so don’t sleep on em!

Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 all went 4-1:

• Position – Player – Army:
• 3rd – William Cruickshanks – Vyrkos Dynasty: 160 Zombies (seriously did anyone at this event want to finish on time?)
• 4th – Andy Currie – Befouling Host: A Glottkin list that wants to control space with 4 Beasts of Nurgle and smash you with 4 Pusgoyles
• 5th – Alastair Maxwell – Null Myriad: An interesting take on the Katakros/Arkhan build that skips Immortis altogether for more Endless spells
• 6th – Riccardo Zanetti – Boulderhead: A double Stonehorn, Mournfang heavy list that harkens back to the beginning of the year with 2 Ironblasters
• 7th – Reece Fraser – Oakenbrow: Treelords and Drycha with the obligatory allied Ghur Battlemage
• 8th – Leigh Martin – Bloodlords: Bloodlords means a whole bunch of Bloodletters and Bloodmasters, with a cheeky unit of Unmade to shut off redeploy and inspiring presence

Salt City GT

33-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Syracuse, NY US on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

1st Place – Anthony Trentanelli – Flesheater Courts:

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

Flying bats

Thoughts

A list that will basically be unrecognisable now that the Flayer and Ghoul warscrolls have been rewritten, Anthony slides into 1st place with them and can enjoy the new and improved Ghoul warscroll, though will likely replace the Flayers now they don’t really do much damage anymore (likely replace them with Horrors).

Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1:

• Position – Player – Army:
• 2nd – Sean O’Shaughnessy – Pretenders Host: Sean opts to skip the powerful strength of godhood command trait so he can make Glutos his general, making it extremely difficult to shut off the very powerful subfaction traits (the rest of the list is largely standard Blissbarbs+Slickblades combo)
• 3rd – Madigan Mason – Mortis Praetorians: Standard Katakros/Arkhan/Mortisan with Immortis shell, running light on Immortis in order to afford a Crawler for access to Strikes-last
• 4th – Devin Courtman – Legion of Night: Mannfred makes an appearance, leading a tricksy bullshit list that packs Askurgans and 40 Grave Guard
• 5th – Connor Irwin – Kastelai Dynasty: Kastelai means a lot of vampires – Vhordrai, a Vampire Lord, a Vengorian Lord, 10 BLood Knights and 20 Askurgans
• 6th – Zachary McComb – Oakenbrow: Despite the subfaction, only 3 Treelords and an Ancient, still managing to squeeze in a Spellsinger Warsong and some Tree Revs for battle tactics

Crossroads Carnage 1

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Indianapolis, IN United States on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

1st Place – Corey O’Keefe – Ravagers:

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

Recycling cultists to help care for our Mortal Realms <3

Thoughts

Pretty simple strategy here: Take a very efficient combat warscroll in the Splintered Fang, make them fight on death using Archaon, and then bring back each unit that’s destroyed at half strength on a board edge using the subfaction rules. Slaanesh marking an Idolator lord general means those Splintered Fang have access to run and charge in order to help close the gap quickly before too much stuff gets destroyed by ranged armies. A great army concept that’s largely gone unnoticed because of the intense hobby requirements to paint up that many Splintered Fang.

Best of the Rest

There were 4 more players on 4-1 records:

• Position – Player – Army:
• 2nd – Will Loy – Mortis Praetorians: Immortis Spam Katakros – a total of 12 in this list for a very focused hammer list
• 3rd – Nicholas True – Barak-Urbaz: You’d be surprised at seeing only 15 Thunderers in this Ironclad list, until you notice the Gotrek and it all clicks into place
• 4th – Michael Rausch – Mortis Praetorians: No Stalkers and only 3 Immortis, instead running some unusual stuff in a Liege-Kavalos, Mir Kainan and 30 Mortek Guard!
• 5th – Daniel Grego – Koatl’s Claw: A Coalesced list with 20 Saurus Warriors and 6 Aggradons that is one of the last to take advantage of pre-faq Kroak/Troglodon shenanigans for some devastating mortal wound punch at range (which recently got squashed in FAQs)

Mile High Open

29-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Westminster, CO United States on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

1st Place – Jeremy Lefebvre – Godseekers Host:

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

The Need for Speed

Thoughts

While not as popular, Godseekers is very potent for its ability to let units move at the beginning of each battle round, which is powerful not only because it allows you get very aggressive when you need to be, but can be used defensively as well to put some extra distance between you and them. It’s a fairly standard looking list, but the Keeper of Secrets trades out Strength of Godhood for 3D6 charges and Ogor monster charges for access to some great mortal wound output.

Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1:

• Position – Player – Army:
• 2nd – Derick Senter – Helon: No Teclis! Instead, a Knight-Vexillor, a Knight-Heraldor and a Lord-Relictor
• 3rd – Gene Murphy – Legion of Blood: Neferata/VLoZD, skipping out on Blood Knights for 20 Black Knights for cheap board control to focus in on hero hammer
• 4th – Shannon O’Connell – Flesh-eater Courts: 18 Crypt Flayers say farewell to their old warscroll with one last 4-1
• 5th – Colin Somersall – Oakenbrow: A third treelord list in one week goes 4-1! A sleeper list bubbling under the surface
• 6th – Michael Ballard – Mortis Praetorians: Katakros and 6 Immortis, but leaning into MP with a Zandtos and a bunch of Deathriders for opponent’s turn charge mortal shenanigans

At Least WE Tried AoS GT

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Speyer, Rheinland-Pfalz DE on July 08 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

1st Place – Sascha Bittighofer – Barak-Urbaz:

The List

Army list - click to expand

Archetype

Thunderers

Thoughts

Rest in peace Thunderer spam, back to the depths of hell with you! That said, I have my own personal biases and will earnestly say Well done to Sascha for piloting this potent (if risky) gameplan to a 5-0 finish.

Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records:

• Position – Player – Army:
• 2nd – Hunor Kovacs – Null Myriad: Katakros/Arkhan/Immortis spam
• 3rd – Colin Klären – Winterleaf: Focuses his list around ‘Colin’ the Everqueen and a Spirit of Durthu with Greenwood Gladius for extra choppiness
• 4th – Stylianos Mamagkakis – Reapers of Vengeance: No Unfettered Fury? No problem! Just push Skarrbrand, a Boomthirster and 6 Varanguard down your opponent’s throat

Wrap-up

Well I certainly wasn’t expecting to cover so many events on what I expected to be a down week. Hopefully we reset to all GHB 2023/24 all the time starting next week so we can dig into the new metagame – congratulations to all the players for their performance this past weekend, and I hope to see your names grace tournament top 8s again soon!