Welcome to Competitive Innovations, our weekly feature for a number of game lines across the tabletop wargame space. Each week our army list and tactics experts canvass the top tournaments for their game of specialty, looking at the week’s top match-ups and how they played out on the tabletop to let you know what’s hot, what’s not, and what might be coming next as the competitive meta evolves year-round.

After the massive last week we have a much smaller CI this week. Just two events, one in the US and one in Finland.

Free State Age of Sigmar Mid-Summer GT

28-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Holton, KS, US on July 26 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Luke Springett - Cities of Sigmar

vs.

Carson Serzyski - Lumineth Realm-Lords

Thoughts

Both these armies have a slew of movement tricks that will allow them to try and out position each other on the board, though the Cities of Sigmar arguably have a lot more to work with. The Lumineth are more likely to want to bait you into attacking them and then punishing you for the mistake, while Cities of Sigmar play a denial game. This means that it's not terribly likely the Cities player will charge in

Result

Cities of Sigmar Victory - 79 - 26

Luke Springett - Cities of Sigmar - 1st Place

Pontifex Zenestra, Credit: Conner Tolbert

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Freeguilders

Thoughts

We've seen a sharp increase in the freeguild centered list since Scourge of Ghyran came out. A major reason for this is the new warscroll for Pontifex Zenestra. Her new Modal warscroll prayer is extremely powerful in the hands of a human centric list as she can block enemy units from ending within 5" of your army, or teleport three back to her side, which can be clutch if your Cavaliers get stuck in somewhere and need to go. The fact she also can just immediately banish a manifestion or do up to 6 mortals to a wizard or priest within 18" also cannot go understated.

The Cavalier are the primary hammers of the list, they're just really solid Cavalry. Freeguild Command Corps can hand out commands to 2 units instead of 1, most importantly Covering Fire and Redeploy. And thanks to Zenestra it's a lot easier to reposition them into an advantageous position. The Great Cannons function mostly as area denial, as they have a huge base and can shoot some solid damage if they remain in position (especially thanks to the War Hulk calling their shots). Rounding things off is trusty Callis and Toll who are excellent at dispatching manifestions and wizards, and can deep strike where needed.

The Best of the Rest

There were N more players on X-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Keegan Graves - Skaventide: SoG Screaming Bell and deceiver with 3 Brood Terrors, Doom-flayers and clan rats.
• 3rd - Carson Serzyski - Lumineth Realm-lords: See Showdown.
• 4th - Jason Burau - Skaventide: Again a SOG Screaming Bell and Deceiver with 3 brood terrors, but a few Rat Ogors instead of Clanrats.
• 5th - Matt Kahle - Nighthaunt: Kurdross and Guardian of Souls with a coach and lots of Banshees

Age of Ropecon 2025

26-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Helsinki, Finland on July 26 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Mission - Creeping Corruption

Kalle M - Ogor Mawtribes

vs.

Anttu - - Daughters of Khaine

Thoughts

Frankly this is a slaughter out of the gate. Huge props to the Beastclaw player for making it to the champs slot though, that is no easy feat in the current meta.

Unfortunately, Daughters are holding all the cards here. They have far more mobility than the Stonehorns do, and units to spare. A lot of it is going to come down to either the Daughters of Khaine getting an early charge, or being able to create enough of a speed bump that the Stonehorns get stuck and can be picked up after by reinforcements.

Once the Stonehorns move up, the shadowstalkers can nick the backline objectives while the Witch Aelves wreck shop.

Result

Daughters of Khaine Victory - 78 - 37

Anttu - Daughters of Khaine - 1st Place

Krethusa the Croneseer by Craig "MasterSlowPoke" Sniffen

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Krethusa with Aelves

Thoughts

Krethusa has helped breathe life into the Daughters of Khaine both by giving them a solid priest to run and adding recursion to an army that is notoriously delicate. Being a Priest (2) is also a huge boon with the new prayer lore that came with Scourge of Ghyran, as it has a nice slew of offensive buffs (+1 to wound), defensive (-1 to be wounded) and utility (Free 6" move). That's not even including Krethusa's own warscroll prayer which had some great buffs of its own.

So the entire gameplan is to buff up the Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter with the 3 heroes present and send them in to destroy anything, hopefully destroying the enemy unit before they can kick back. Shadowstalkers can fight in a pinch and receive the same buffs, but their utility largely lies in being able to teleport for free, meaning objectives are never safe if the opponent moves off of them.

The Best of the Rest

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

• 2nd - Ben Murphy - Soulblight Gravelords: Prince Vhordrai with Blood Knights and Barrow Knights.
• 3rd - Leo Rautonen - Nighthaunt: Guardian of Souls and Awlrach with Mymourn Banshees and Hexwraiths.
• 4th - Kalle M - Ogor Mawtribes: See Showdown.
• 5th - Jaakko Pönni - Stormcast Eternals: Prosecutors, Annihilators and Reclusians with Callis and Toll

Wrap Up

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