It’s been a while since I did one of these, and well it’s been a bit since I got to go to events. Last year, I went to the first round of Games Workshop events, electing to check out the event in New Orleans. In summary: Had a great time, Games Workshop runs a great event and they’re absolutely worth checking out.

This year I debated going to either Chicago or Kansas City, Chicago won out because fellow Goonhammer team member Raffi lived close to the event and expressed interest in going. This was his first ever GT so if you want to see from the perspective of a fresh eyed newbie, check out his write up early next week!

The Venue

The event was held at the Hilton on South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I was not prepared for the size of this hotel, it is massive, taking up an entire city block and goes up over 20 stories. The Warhammer events were down in the basement, leaving a lot of room for the event itself. Unfortunately, the different rooms were cordoned off, and the Sigmar event was placed in a separate room from the 40k stuff and played alongside the kill team event and the 30k narrative. Pain in the ass to find at first but once we got that settled it was liberating in a way to be separated from the biggest game, and kept the noise down a bit.

My List

Anyone who has read my previous reports knows I’m an Ossiarch aficionado. It’s also probably not a big secret that they are not doing so hot. Well, tired of losing I decided to (temporarily, I promise) pivot to something better in the meta. After narrowing my options down I ultimately decided to settle on Daughters of Khaine. I tend to be an aggressive player, possibly too much but a pivot from Ossiarchs meant it seemed most logical to go from a grinder army to a glass cannon.

RagnarokAngel's Daughters of Khaine list - Click to Expand

Going to be honest with you, I knew what I was doing here was gross. The Shadow Queen and Krondspine were basically the bedrock of the list, it’s where I started with. The core of the strategy would be knowing I’d be packed with 2 monsters that could not be pulled on turn 1 (lots of bad memories of turn 1 shots from Lumineth) and then I’d work backwards from there.

For infantry, Blood Sisters seemed the most appealing. Blood Stalkers were not going to fit in a list that already dedicated 1080 points to 3 models but with the new tome, Sisters got a lot better. While a fully buffed up Witch Aelf unit can really hurt, Blood Sisters can do more damage without any buffs when compared to Witch Aelves. The Shadow Queen grants them +1 attacks and they fight on death, so while they were delicate, they’d still be a pain to fight in combat.

I needed one more Hero to bind the Krondspine to, and I figured I should find someone to cast Mindrazor. For the uninitiated, Mindrazor is the most important spell in the entire DOK arsenal: It gives -1 Rend but also +1 damage on the charge. The downside is it’s casting Value is 8 which is just on the edge of “more likely to fail than to succeed at casting”.  I waffled on either a Bloodwrack Medusa with the Shadowstone (For a total of +2 to cast with Krondy) or a Hag Queen with the Arcane Tome to settle for a +1 to casting but also chant Catechism of Murder. I decided on the former, and still am not sure if that was the right call but the Medusa’s extra unbind came in handy and was pretty decent in combat against weaker foes.

The choice of battalions was obvious. 1 Battle regiment, 1 drop. This ended up proving the right call, as two of my games were also 1 drop opponents. Much as I would have liked Bounty Hunters I didn’t have enough troops to go for a 3 drop.

So with that said I packed up my stuff, headed down to the event. Raff (who I remind you is at his first ever GT) shows me he’s been matched with Anthony Trentanelli. He knows that name, from me telling him and I give him a sympathetic “Ah I’m sorry man”. I open up BCP on my own phone to check my opponent, take a big swig of coffee and…

Round 1 – Gavin Griger (Seraphon) – Close to the Chest

Gavin's list - Click to Expand

…fuck.

So if you don’t know, Gavin is one of the best AOS players in the US. Founding member of Harambe’s Heroes and part of Team America at AOS Worlds in 2022 and the upcoming 2023. That’s what I get.

I’m going to be honest and spare you on this one though, this was a real quick match. I was, quite frankly, just in a bad match here. Even outside of Gavin being just a much better player than I am the mission was well suited to him. The long-ways deployment mean that my all melee, footslogging army needed to work their way up the field the hard way while his Seraphon got to play more passively. I tried to deploy in the corner, as far away from the shooting Bastiladons as possible and had him go first. This only made the problem worse, as he could safely relax in his corner while I tried in vain to walk up the field. I did with the roll off, but it was just too far to walk to make any ground.

I did try and melee his Bastiladons with the Krondspine and Shadow Queen but he had enough skink screens that it just wasn’t going to happen. By the time I had cleaned through the Skinks, my monsters were too weak to put up much of a fight against the Bastiladons and once they fell it was over pretty quick.

Gavin himself was an awesome dude. Very constructive, and let me know that the list was pretty solid and I didn’t make any egregious mistakes. Just a bad list match up in a bad mission that favored him. I very much doubt I had any chance of winning this but hey, I tried.

Loss – 15 – 30.

Round 2 – Airam Shaggy Cajina (Soulblight Gravelords) – In the Presence of Idols

Airam's list - Click to Expand

After picking myself up from that brutal match I saw my next match and boy that is an interesting list alright. That’s so many dogs and the lack of Grave Guard surprised me. I’d need to watch out for those Blood Knights but I think I had the damage output to brute force it.

Turn I packed everything up front, placing my Krondspine and Shadow Queen front and center to try and blunt some of the charges. I gave him the first turn and let have the charge. I probably should have put things a bit further back, but I figured I could work with what happened. He charged forth, and I managed to, as planned, blunt most of the charge. The Krondspine and one of the 10 snake units of Blood Sisters piled in and all but totally cleared out the Blood Knights, so that was problem 1 solved. The Wolves would need to be picked off over time. They may have terrible saves but the upside to a big pack of wounds like that is you hope your opponent only has so much damage in a turn.

Well bottom of Round 1 was a complete disaster. I moved much of my army in the center and took that no problem, but I had chosen Against All Odds as a battle tactic with the Krondspine figuring, surely, it could wipe out a unit of Dire Wolves as it moved to the top left objective

It did not do that. In fact, 2 remained, with expert conquerors it meant I didn’t take that point and ended round 1 with only 1 point. I would need to make it up.

Round 2 he won the roll off and killed a unit of Sisters in the middle so I played Eye for an Eye and killed a unit of Wolves. While I got my battle tactic, I still only had one objective. It wasn’t looking good.

Round 3 things turned around, I had begun to thin the wolves enough he send his stronger stuff in, and tried to fight the Shadow Queen with the Coven Throne and the the Throne got pasted. After that was slowly dismantling his army and making up for points. By Round 5 I had him tabled and pulled ahead. I was so exhausted by the end but I did it.

Result: Win 23-16

Round 3 – Dennis Mathes (Big WAAAGH!) – Won’t Back Down

Dennis's List list - Click to Expand

Kragnos AND Krondspine? This was like a Destruction mirror to mine and I was facing punishment for my hubris.

Good news is unlike Gavin, this was a lengthwise deployment where there would not be ranged attacked ruining my day. So I deployed everything as far back as I could and let him come to me.

This ended up working out quite well, on the Northern side of the field, he initiated combat with Kragnos into some Blood Sisters (who were of course quickly removed, though they did survive 2 turns, you go girls). He then threw his Krondspine into mine, which I felt was a mistake on his part. He likely hoped to negate the two, but while they both took each other down a level his Krondspine whiffed on the second round of combat and mine oblitered his, leaving mine around.

On the other side of the field, I rolled hot on Morathi’s black Horror of Ulgu and Shadow Queen’s laser eyes, dealing 11 damage into the Megaboss before charging in with 10 Blood Sisters and finishing it off before it could even attack. From then on, it was just a matter of cleaning up the infantry and playing keep away from Kragnos for the rest of the game. There were simply too many objectives to be everywhere at once.

Result: Win 26-18

Round 4 – Victor Szafranski (Maggotkin of Nurgle) – The Realmstone Cache

Victor's list - Click to Expand

Going into day 2 I felt pretty good so far. Other than Gavin I was winning my matched and felt my momentum was going well. I saw Victor’s list and got a little worried, even in this season Pusgoyle Spam is…It’s a lot. We both were one drop so we rolled off, I put down first and shielded my important stuff with sisters. I let him go first and hoped for the best.

He pushed up and dropped his deep strikes, and then I saw some of the worst charge rolls I’ve seen in my life. Only one unit of 2 flies got it, the Blood Sisters weathered it and dispatched them in kind, which means he failed his first battle tactic. It was looking good, I went, took the center point and tried to be selective in removing units  without pulling too much in. I think I played this part a bit too cautiously because it instead meant Victor could push forward and get me into a grind out fight, which you never want to do with Nurgle.

We traded blows back and forth and grinded each other out. I think the match was over round 3 when he won the roll off and while I managed to remove everything on the field but his general, his contagion points removed everything. Which left him with 2 turns to make up the major point losses he took in the first 3 rounds by summoning some Nurglings to steal a point and get a narrow win. Brutal, but Victor was a good sport and even bought me a beer. Considering I managed to hold out in a grind out against Nurgle spam, I can’t be too mad. I should have just been more aggressive.

Result: Loss 11-14

Round 5 – Matt Griffin (Sylvaneth) – The Silksteel Nests

Matt's list - Click to Expand

Raff actually fought Matt earlier in the GT, and I wasn’t looking forward to this match because the teleportation favors Sylvaneth heavily. This was my second match where my opponent had one drop so I was thankful I also got it. I won the roll off, put mine down as far back as possible and let him put his stuff down. I, of course, gave it to him first.

I think Matt played far too cautiously, he deployed his stuff really far back when he should have tried to hit me and box me in early. He took some plink shots early on against my sisters, but they rallied back easily enough with the 4+ Rally. Morathi didn’t even take any damage until the top of round 2, when I charged her in. None of my units ever completely got wiped, but to Matts credit he stayed persistant the whole match and stuck to battle tactics that didn’t require killing my stuff. So ultimately the score ended quite a bit closer than it might have otherwise, despite Alarielle being the only unit left (and that was after I killed her once). Solid way to end it.

Result: Win 29-24

Overall Thoughts and Future List Considerations

I really liked how this went. I didnt get to practice with the list at al because I was furiously painting the models up to the night before (my own lack of self motivation being the culprit here). The list is crude but it does a lot of damage and almost everything in the list is risky to get into combat with, whether it be the impossible to kill in one turn Krondspine and Shadow Queen or fight on death Blood Sisters.

I’ve done 3-2s before, it’s not exactly remarkable, but considering how easy this felt I’m proud of the progress compared to Ossiarch 3-2 and feeling like fighting for my life. Gavin is quite frankly, just a far more skilled player than I could ever be and my fight with Victor was so damn close that just a slight change could have won me the game instead. I feel good about this list going forward.

Changes I will make depend on how soon (and how badly) the krondspine gets nerfed. It’s coming and we all know it so I’m prepared for that. I’ll likely drop the Purple Sun and Krondspine for 2 Heartrenders for that “cant fail it” Battle tactic and the Cauldron of Blood to make the Blood Sisters more effective.

I’ll probably be dropping the Purple Sun either way, it’s still good despite the nerf but I only got it off once this tournament, and it’s difficult to manuever in a way that its -1 to save doesn’t hurt you, too. I’ll probably replace it with Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws for better chances at mortal wounds.

My next GT isn’t until December, Everwinter in my local area of Boston. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there!