G’day Goonhammer readers! It’s the start of the year again, and that means it’s once again almost time for Clash of Kings Australia 2025! As a refresher or for those that don’t know, Clash Aus is Australia’s biggest Kings of War tournament. Held in the nation’s capital, it pulls in people from across the country (and the occasional Kiwi) for two days of Kings of War goodness, and this year it’s getting even bigger.
Mantic Mania
This year will see the start of what is essentially a Mantic Games Convention.
Saturday and Sunday will see Clash of Kings Aus run during the day, followed by casual games and demos of Mantic’s other properties, including Deadzone, Armada and Halo.
For the first time, Clash of Protocols will also be run, adding a one day Firefight event on the Monday. This whole event is now branded as Mantic Mania, and if any of that interests you, come along and check it out. Tickets can be found here. We’d love to see you there.
More importantly for today, you can check out the Kings of War pack here, but in summary, we are playing 2300 points, Blackjack scoring, Withdraw and Command Dice will be used, with 65 mins on the clock. There’s a very easy to max paint scoring system, just to encourage the use of painted minis and to have models that clearly represent what they are supposed to be. The big difference here is Mantic Mania points for having Mantic models in your army. These end up being quite significant, with 15 tournament points available for having at least 90% of your army be Mantic models. Even the 10 point jump between someone having 1 mantic mini vs 90% can make a big deal in final placings, so if you’re coming to win, you’ll need Mantic minis.
Return of the Nightstalkers
So what am I bringing this time? I brought Nightstalkers to Clash last year, then spent the rest of the year playing Twilight Kin to push to get into Masters. I’ve been there now, and I’m not putting the pressure on myself to try and make it again this year, so if it happens, it happens. And, frankly, I wasn’t having a lot of fun with the shooting focused list anymore. So, with the big changes to the Twilight Kin faction from the Clash of Kings balance update, the style of army I was playing became much less functional. Now the TK themselves are still a good faction, I just don’t have the models ready to go to bring them along. There’s a whole lot of infantry to paint, and I wasn’t doing that last year. Instead, I was pulling old NS sprues out of the cupboard, and getting them done.
Why Nightstalkers?
With the release of the new command dice system, a particular command caught my eye. “Run them down” gives Ferocious Charge for +1 to hit on a clean charge to Large Infantry, Large Cavalry, Chariot, Swarm, Infantry or Heavy Infantry unit that is not a Horde or Legion only.
Which is a bit of a mouthful, but it’s enough to say that Reapers, Tormentors, Dopplegangers, and Soul Flayers can all be made into killing machines. Since we’ll be using Commands at Clash, why not lean into it? And since I’ve been painting more and more Nightstalkers, why not try these new ones out on the table? Of note, my army is fully Mantic (of the units they actually make, sorry Portal of Despair), so I’ll get top Mantic Mania points.
The Tormenting Begins
Back in early December, our own Cytoplasm ran his first event, a one day, three game Christmas themed get together, (you can read about his experience running that soon), and it seemed like the perfect time to try a proof of concept version of the list.
So here’s the initial version:
3 x Dopplegangers Regiment 6 x Tormentors Troop 1 x Shadowhounds Regiment - Helm of the Drunken Ram 1 x Fiends Horde - Blessing of the Gods 1 x Mindscreech - Planar Apparition 1 x Portal of Despair 1 x Shade - Mournful Blade 1 x Horror - Bane Chant, Vicious Aura, White Command Dice 1 x Esenyshra
Since I’m focusing on us CD for Ferocious Charge, I’ve loaded up on units that can use it. It can sway Doppelganger combats so they don’t get stuck fighting chaff forever. I’ve got Tormentos hunting for flanks. Shadowhounds with the Helm are pretty good these days. Fiends are there to hit things front on. The Mindscreech (hopefully) Mindfogs chaff off early game, or injured units late, while it heals in the middle. The Portal is just there to add Inspiring to the list, it also makes a good blocker. The Shade gets to hunt other Individuals, the Horror supports everyone else, and Esenyshra is just too good to leave at home.
Over the day I played Dwarfs, Varangur and Basilea, all great games with great opponents, and I picked up some good lessons for refining the list. So have a read and get some ideas of your own.
The Good
Tormentors. They jump all over the place, they have just about every special rule you’d want. With their speed, Nimble and Fly, they really make your opponent think. Man they are fun to use, which is lucky, or I’d be out of ideas. 6 Troops seems to be the right amount as well. Enough to keep your opponent thinking, but there do need to be some other threats as well.
Shadowhounds are just solid. WIth the Helm and a clean charge, they hit quite well. If they won’t, they can reposition easily. They’re harder than the look to take off. They require some babysitting to keep out of terrain, but having a bunch of fast, Nimble, Flying units certainly helps guide charges.
The Mindscreech does its job perfectly. Just roll ok to waver a chaff piece with Mindfog and your opponent’s whole plan can be ruined. Heal and Radiance of Life keeps everything in the game, which is especially handy for keeping those Tormentors about. 5 wounds and a waver? Nope, back to full health.
Esenyshra remains too good not to have. She’s fast, hits hard, has utility with Dread and her Enthrall spell. A great piece.
The Bad
Three Doppelganger units is too many. While I did get to pull off the dream, and get a fully buffed unit into a Dwarf Shieldbreaker Horde (25 attacks, hitting on 2+, wounding on 2+, re-rolling ones. Dwarfs deleted). They also just got stuck fighting Strider units in terrain, or having to charge something mediocre and not contributing.
The Shade. The wanna be Esenyshra. I want it to be good so bad, but unfortunately it is too expensive and too fragile. Good opponents won’t let you get a charge into their individuals, and it ended up just being an expensive shooting disruption piece for me. It’s not even good enough to guarantee grounding a dragon
The Ugly
Ahh, Fiends, I still don’t know how I feel about them. They just end up eating all your opponents shooting, and when/if they hit, they always disappoint me. But they are such cool models, and, if you’re shooting Fiends, you aren’t shooting Tormentors.
The Portal of Despair. I don’t like the way it just got Very Inspiring, it messes up the theme of the NS not having any “normal” Inspiring units, but it is so powerful for this style of this that it’s in anyway.
The Horror felt underwhelming. It doesn’t contribute unless it’s casting Bane Chant. Sometimes it can’t run for the Aura and cast in the same turn, and given it is a support piece, it depends on how the rest of the list is structured.
The Commitment
So, with a few extra games under my belt, I’m 99% sure I am committing to the following:
1 x Scarecrows Regiment 1 x Scarecrows Horde 6 x Tormentors Troop 1 x Phantom Troop 1 x Butcher Horde 1 x Shadowhounds Regiment - Helm of the Drunken Ram 1 x Mindscreech - Planar Apparition 1 x Terror 1 x Portal of Despair 1 x Banshee - Command Blue, Zephyr Crown 1 x Esenyshra
There are some pretty big differences from where I started out, but the main overall change is now there are actually some anvils in the list. The easiest way to get flanks is to not let your opponent reform, that means being able to survive a charge. Scarecrows (in the horde), Butchers, the Terror and the Portal require a real effort to break in a turn, actually allowing an opportunity to get a flank. There’s actually some chaff that’s fine to be thrown away now as well. And once again Windblast is back in the list, I just couldn’t help myself. Joking aside, the ability to disrupt an opponent’s line and open space was something really lacking in the initial version of the list, Esenyshra is much more likely to be off problem solving than sticking in the middle of the line disrupting. It’s also very handy for playing the scenario.
I’ve also gone for the Blue command dice, which should guarantee getting all the orders I want.
As for weakness, I don’t want to see a boatload of shooting, but Tormentors can sit behind the Hounds and Scarecrows and still charge over if needed. Hopefully Stealthy and the healing keeps them going until the lines meet.
Lots of high defence is the other bit of bother. Only the Butchers and Shadowhounds can really do the work into that, and the Hounds are situational for that. Lots of Crushing 1 helps, and I should have the speed advantage into any defence 6 spam lists. Regardless, it’ll be a fun time.
So, there you go, there’s a little behind the scenes of how I’ve put the list design together and how it all (hopefully) works.
Once again we hope to see you at Mantic Mania, whether or not you play Kings of War. Ticket sales are closing soon, so if you are on the fence, grab them quick.
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