It’s quite funny to see how wildly different each week’s showdowns are – it’s a sign of a (definitely) unsettled metagame and a (potentially) quite healthy one. You could have told me I’d be writing about the sheer brutality of raw shooting output, unkillable death star melee units or grinding board control lists suffocating the metagame at the beginning of the week and I’d believe all three. Wild.

Ironweld

57-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Wakefield, MA United States on May 27 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Samuel Gould – Beasts of Chaos: Allherd:
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vs.

Anthony Lawrence – Pretenders Host:
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Thoughts

Samuel’s inclusion of Be’lakor is sensible for an army that really wants to control and dictate engagements in the first two rounds, but it might not be at it’s best against this Slaanesh list that has a lot of dispersed threats which diminishes the effectiveness of the Dark Master rule that every chaos general takes him for.

Beasts of Chaos armies that lean on Bulgors and Gors are reliant on one thing – applying pressure and cracking the castle early on in the game. One of the ways to combat this effectively is with effective screening, ideally with multiple layers – Anthony has managed this with 3 different screening units (the Daemonettes, Furies and Ungors), meaning he can sit back and respond to the charge afterwards with the bulk of his meaningful army in tact.

Result

Pretenders Host Victory – 33 – 21

Anthony Lawrence – Pretenders Host – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Pretenders shooting castle

Thoughts

Slaanesh has been on the cusp of greatness since the book’s release, but largely overlooked for more overtly powerful and sexier options. That said, the book has quite a bit of depth in it’s options and this list utilises some of it’s best assets:

1. A strong and efficient shooting package: 650 points for 33 Archers and 5 Blissbarb Seekers for A LOT of ranged output
2. Pretenders subfaction: Crown of Dark Secrets is amazing if your opponent has one super combat unit – it’s attacks characteristics of it’s melee weapons becomes 1 if it’s within 6″ of the bearer. Player picks which unit it’s applied to after deployment
3. Contorted Epitome: One of the most versatile and powerful Galletian Champions in the game right now, 190 points gets you a two cast wizard that moves 12″, has 7 wounds and can shut off command abilities and retreats within 3″ of it. A 2+ ward against mortals also means that it’s very difficult to actually kill outside of tagging it in combat or Galletian Sharpshooters

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Derrek Perham – Legion of Blood (4-0-1): Double Ethereal big things with 10 Blood Knights, 50 Skeletons and a Corpse Cart as it’s core
• 3rd – Nate Trentanelli – Nighthaunt: A mad emerald host list that’s running 20 Craventhrone Guard and 30 Hexwraiths to just focus damage output against a few units at a time
• 4th – Corey Begley – Nighthaunt: Another emerald host list that instead wants to teleport 50 Grimghast Reapers around with Awlrach to apply pressure
• 5th – Anthony Trentanelli – Slaves to Darkness: A fairly standard Cabalists build – Bridge, 10 Chosen, 6 Varanguard, 10 Nurgle Chaos Knights
• 6th – Samuel Gould – Beasts of Chaos: See showdown
• 7th – Thomas Ling – Soulblight Gravelords: Tom’s gone full competitive narrative with this cursed city themed Vyrkos list – 100 Zombies and a Corpse Cart, 20 Grave Guard and the who’s who of Vyrkos: Radukar, Belladama, Torgillius, Gorslav etc…
• 8th – Sam Morgan – Soulblight Gravelords: A wildly different build then what we’ve seen from Soulblight previously – 80 Zombies in Kastelai, with prince Vhordrai and 32 Trueblades… with an allied Lord Executioner!

Motor City Mayhem

37-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Michigan, United States on May 27 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Michael Rausch – Ossiarch Bonereapers:
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vs.

Nick Carr – Flesheater Courts:
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Thoughts

The FEC list wants to win the game through board control – it has a command ability to recycle dead Ghouls units on a 4+, putting back the entire unit on a board edge, more than 9″ away from enemy units. This plus the summoning to bring different pieces into play depending on need give it a distinctly different feel from most other FEC lists that want to put as much POWER on the board as possible and overwhelm their opponent with feeding frenzy.

Up against it is a counter charge orientated Mortis Praetorians list. It’s got the standard Immortis Guard/Katakros core that I expect will define OBR for quite some time to come, but then a LOT of Deathriders that can do charge mortals and clog up the board, becoming a nuisance to actually move forward (especially as they can charge in their opponent’s charge phase with one unit).

Ultimately I suspect this matchup came down to a footprint issue – the FEC army is a large swarm that can if it’s not careful get caught behind it’s own allies, which Michael can take advantage of by moving up FAST and funnelling the ghouls into narrow spaces and punishing them with Diversionary Tactics from the general, subtracting 3″ from enemy charge rolls within 12″ of the bearer.

Result

Ossiarch Bonereapers Victory – 48 – 21

Michael Rausch – Ossiarch Bonereapers – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Cavalry charges – Bretonnia anyone?

Thoughts

It’s a fun all-in archetype that can really mess up your opponent if they’re reliant on the combat phase to take control of the board. Once in each of your opponent’s turns one of your units can charge if they’re within 12″ of an enemy unit that just made a charge move – this means you can cut off charge lanes if they’ve sequenced incorrectly, turn a 1v1 situation into a 2v1 situation, or steal an objective off your opponent. It’s a devastatingly potent ability that will require your opponent to really think and plan ahead in their movement phase lest they give you the ability to crush their plans for the turn. The army doesn’t have particularly high damage output, but it can wear the opponent down with charge mortals and it will excel in the mid-to-late game as the unit replenishment from Katakros makes it difficult for your opponent to actually kill units once their best hammers have been whittled down.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 2nd – Nick Carr – Flesheater Courts: See showdown
• 3rd – Nicholas True – Kharadron Overlords: It’s the 30 Thunderers Bridge/Ironclad list you either absolutely hate, play an army that can ignore it’s gimmick or are playing yourself!
• 4th – Jeff Campbell-Crawley – Sylvaneth: Oakenbrow treelords with no less than 5 of the big fellas, with Drycha and other support pieces to help them make charges
• 5th – Jack Cawood – Slaanesh: A one drop pretenders list that goes for the standard Blissbarb shell, with it’s flex points going into a keeper of secrets and 30 Daemonettes
• 6th – Jake Myers – Flesheater Courts: 18 Crypt Flayers want to kick your f’in teeth in
• 7th – Christian Wear – Gloomspite Gitz: Our first gobbo list of the week! It’s running a mix of Squigs, 6 Fellwaters and 2 (!) allied Wurgogg Prophets – he likes to roll the dice apparently

The Bay Area Open 2023 Age of Sigmar Championships

49-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Burlingame, CA United States on May 27 2023. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Matt Nguyen – Darkwalkers:
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vs.

Benjamin Hosking – Slaves to Darkness:
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Thoughts

Result

Slaves to Darkness Victory – 515 – 19

Benjamin Hosking – Slaves to Darkness – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Benjamin – “I want you to sell me every one of your Cultists”

FLGS Owner – “What do you mean, every one?”

Benjamin –

Thoughts

Another top tournament performance for a list that demands a lot of hobbying from the player, but the rewards are enticing. Point for point, Splintered Fang are one of the most effective combat units in the game, giving you high points-per-wound efficiency, plentiful mortal wound output and even a built in unit replenishment mechanic for the low low cost of 100 points.

In Ravagers, you can even bring half the unit back when they’re finally destroyed, giving this Chaos list a distinctly Death-like feel in how it plays. It’s -1 to be wounded across all the Cultist units thanks to them gaining the Nurgle keyword from Idolator Lord – just about it’s main weakness is that it doesn’t have fantastic tools for dealing with overwhelming firepower outside of effective screening from the Untamed Beasts and Corvus Cabal units.

Noe Aquino – Fyreslayers – 2nd Place

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Flamekeeper Vulkites

Thoughts

It’s the same archetype we’ve seen a lot of this season, with the variation here being the inclusion of the Doomseeker and Grimwrath Berzerker. Both are capable of punching far harder than their price point suggests, with the main drawbacks of them being that they’re a little bit slow and they don’t really contribute much in terms of objective play that Vulkites wouldn’t do better.

That said, this archetype will continue to thrive in the current GHB and is even set up better than some other armies to weather the incoming Seraphon storm thanks to the Nulsidian Icon. What remains to be seen is what happens to the humble Fyreslayers when the next season comes along and some/all of the benefits they enjoy are gone.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 were:

• Position – Player Name – Faction:
• 3rd – Christopher Schelling – Gloomspite Gitz: 21 Rockgut Troggs, 3 Fellwaters and a Gobbapalooza in King’s Gitz for a slow but brutally efficient combat army
• 4th – Matt Nguyen – Beasts of Chaos: See Showdown
• 5th – Collin Venables – Khorne: It’s a lot of Khorne mortals in MSU, leaning on 3 Invocations and it’s Blood tithe generation for it’s damage output
• 6th – Mathew Hunt – Ossiarch Bonereapers: A Petrifex Elite list (I assume the tournament wasn’t using the latest FAQ) boasting 12 Immortis Guard, Katakros *AND* Arkhan, with Deathriders and a Boneshaper for battle tactics
• 7th – Eugine Averine – Gloomspite Gitz: A blend of Squig Herd and Boingrot Bounderz, with the full range of buff pieces and some Stabbas for screening/objective control
• 8th – Brian Downey – Kharadron Overlords: Only 10 Thunderers here and no Bridge – Brian’s using the points on a Frigate, a Gunhauler and 9 Endrinriggers instead

Wrap Up

That’s it! Within a week or two we’ll start seeing our new Seraphon overlords, with I suspect a new GHB looming somewhere off in the horizon, ready to completely crush our understanding of what’s good and what’s chaff. See you next week!