Two events this week, dear reader – the first pre-battlescroll and the second using the updated rules. Some fun little lists to be found in the top 8 and a mix of the classic and the new in the showdowns.

The Slambo GT – A Texas Masters Event

64-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in San Antonio, TX, US on November 05 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. Note that this event was played with what looks like pre-battlescroll points.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Gavin Grigar – Seraphon: Thunder Lizard goodstuff
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Benjamin Richardson – Lumineth Realm-Lords: Syar Mixed Arms
Army List - Click to Expand

Result

Seraphon Victory – 29 – 12

Thoughts

One of the best players in North America playing one of the best armies in the game, before any recent nerfs had hit them – not terribly surprising! Benjamin is running an interesting Lumineth list because of how traditional it is, as there’s no significant skew towards any one strategy. He has a good ranged firebase from the Sentinels as well as plenty of bodies from the Wardens, supported by the Lord-Regent and the Cathallar with Sevireth to act as a wildcard threat.

The issue in this matchup as far as I’m concerned is that Kroak has the spellcasting potency to shut down a large portion of the Lumineth spellcasting by himself, and from there the army is a lot less reliably damaging outside of Sevireth. That Horrorghast would have been an absolute nightmare to deal with as well, forcing battleshocks on an army that doesn’t have fantastic bravery to begin with.

Gavin Grigar – Thunder Lizard Seraphon – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Thunder Lizard goodstuff

Thoughts

This list got 115 points more expensive post battlescroll between all the nerfs it took. There’s not much new to say here that hasn’t been covered numerous times in the past – Thunder Lizards have a flexible shell of the EOTG/Priest/Bastiladon + Slann configuration that there’s different packages that can be brought in based on preference. It’ll be interesting to see how these lists perform when forced to drop 1 unit from the army. I suspect they’ll be fine, but perhaps a little less consistent.

The Best of the Rest

The Top 8 were all on 4-1 or better:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Matt Robisch – Sylvaneth: Heartwood Kurnoth (6 bows 6 scythes) with 3 Seekers, Drycha and some Gossamids making an appearance
• 3rd – Thomas Guan – Cities of Sigmar: This Hallowheart list is mad – 4 Stormdrake and Bundo, 3 units of MSU Flagellants supported by Arcane Collegiate heroes including a Celestial Hurricanum
• 4th – Christopher Schelling – Daughters of Khaine: It’s your standard Morathi and the Bow Snakes list
• 5th – Zach Kennedy – Fyreslayers: 30 Hearthguard Berzerkers and 2 Magmadroths is the sort of pure meatgrinder wall some lists will flat out struggle to stop
• 6th – Ryan Rutherford – Sons of Behemath: 3 Gatebreakers and an Incarnate
• 7th – Benjamin Richardson – Lumineth Realm-lords: See showdown
• 8th – Steven de la Garza – Slaanesh: A fun little list running 20 Twinsouls and 2 Fomoroid Crushers to blow up terrain in his deployment to trigger a bunch of depravity generation for summoning – spicy

Ragnarok AoS GT

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on November 05 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Ryan Agius – Hosts Arcanum: Daemonic Summoning
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Luke Skelton – Drowned Men: Post nerf flies
Army List - Click to Expand

Result

Draw – 12 – 12

Thoughts

Ryan wants to put down a lot of summoned bodies onto the board over the course of the game, and his list construction does it’s best to maximise it while still carrying *some* amount of bodies to protect his chickens. The extra bodies in this case either come from the Burning Sigil of Tzeentch (which starts the game on the board thanks to their allegiance abilities) pinging his own units and potentially even his opponent’s, but also from the allegiance ability summoning. What’s notable here is what that does to the Nurgle’s gameplan – they want to breach that inner castle as quickly as possible to compromise it’s summoning (and because the list is extremely top heavy – take out the Chickens and the whole thing crumbles). Any extra Chaos Spawn running around clogging up lanes just makes it that much more difficult, forcing a primary scoring focus from Luke than he might otherwise prefer.

That said, Luke’s a one drop army and can seize control of the points early through Drowned Men’s pregame move and get an early edge on board control. The Blightkings don’t have to worry about any Bounty Hunters in this matchup and will happily devour Horrors with their mass of attacks and incidental mortal wound output. I suspect the reason that this ultimately came down to a draw is that Ryan doesn’t have the damage output to get through the amount of durable bodies that Luke has, and Luke was unable to meaningfully compromise the Tzeentch summoning recursion bonanza.

In the end, Ryan won on overall tournament points, but this one was on a knife edge!

Ryan Agius – Hosts Arcanum – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Hosts Arcanum Summoning

Thoughts

So we talked about how it generates bodies through the Burning Sigil, but that’s not the only bit of optimisation towards summoning taking place here. Arcane Tome is present for another chance at a Fate Point (every successful spell = a Fate Point); but warscroll selection also contributes: The Fluxmaster’s warscroll spell generates additional incidental FP based off the damage it does. The Kairos/LoC combo fire off spells at a rapid rate per turn to help the engine and then there’s the Curseling: Cult Demagogue as it’s command trait means any double to cast is automatically successful, cannot be unbound and generates 2 FP instead of 1. Why is this important? Well not only does it give a good outlet for low numbered Fate Dice, but it helps guarantee important spells like Arcane Suggestion as well as the potent Endless Spells he’s brought along. The list lives and dies by it’s spells, so any means to increase it’s reliability and flexibility (through guaranteed casts and the Spellportal respectively) is a big value add.

The Best of the Rest

Other than Luke on 4-0-1, there were 4 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Luke Skelton – Drowned Men: See Showdown
• 3rd – Alexander Theophanous – Skaventide: A mixed list with no Stormfiends, instead bringing a mix of Eshin and Masterclan bodies supported by 2 Verminlords, Thanquol and endless spells
• 4th – Tom Bell – Flesh-Eater Courts: A Crypt Ghoul FEC list! Yes there’s several Royal Monsters here making up the majority of the points but this Morgaunt list does not care for Horrors/Flayers!
• 5th – Callum McDougall – Sylvaneth: Opting for just 1 hero (Spellsinger Warsong Revenant), Callum invests the points in 6 Bow Kurnoth, 6 Scythe Kurnoth and 6 Revenant Seekers
• 6th – Dominic Stonebridge – Gloomspite Gitz: Troggs troggs troggs! 12 Rockgut, 6 Fellwater, an allied Mirebrute + Sloggoth from Kruleboyz and there’s still points left over for endless spells, a giant spider and some additional support

Wrap Up

That’s it! I’ve got War in the Heartlands this weekend to look forward to – one of England’s biggest AOS events. I’m taking Kruleboyz because I’m a sicko (yes, hahaha! yessss!) so follow along on social media if you want to see how I get on. Next week there should be a healthy dose of post-battlescroll chicanery to dig into. Until next time!

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.