Happy Battlescroll month for all who celebrate! Several lists featured in today's article have been hit pretty hard with the nerf bat with the latest battlescroll, with perhaps the most notable changes being to the Pusgoyle spam list and the Incarnate of salt. Longtime readers will know I'm a huge Kruleboyz fan so I've been deep in the lab trying to find a swamp Orruk list capable of a 4-1, but I've stepped out of the dark cave to bring you some analysis.

US Open Kansas City: Age of Sigmar Grand Tournament

79-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Games Workshop, Kansas City, MO, United States on October 29 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission -

Gavin Grigar - Daughters of Khaine: Morathi and the Bow Snakes

vs.

Thomas Guan - Hagg Nar: Norathi and the Hordes

Result

Morathi Victory - 29 - 28

Thoughts

A very close match here that's tipped to Gavin only slightly. Both are exceptional players who have been winning American tournaments for quite some time, so it's not too surprising that these two optimised lists would struggle to put the other player away.

In a melee mirror like this I think Gavin has the slight edge due to the prominent shooting presence to pick apart the support pieces like the Gladiatrix that makes this list soar, as well as Morathi who we've discussed at length for what feels like years now - she loves these kinds of melee matchups because she can trade well (speaking of trades, Zainthar Kai also means the melee snakes are going to trade well).

So why wasn't it a blow out? Well activation shenanigans aplenty thanks to the Sisters of Slaughter help, as does the presence of simply more individual units to play the objective game a little better. It's two armies that are from the same book that represent two different paths to victory - Morathi is a 1 drop that aims to disassemble the opponent's army and score big late, whereas Norathi is a primary objective scoring focused list that flourishes better against damage check armies like Sons of Behemat, Nighthaunt and Nurgle.

Gavin Grigar - Daughters of Khaine - 1st Place

Credit: Dan Richardson

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Morathi and the Bow Snakes

Thoughts

I've covered this style of list at length in many previous editions of this series, so let's just agree to tip our collective hat to Gavin for another successful tournament win and move on with our lives shall we?

Two units of Heartrenders are useful for battle tactic scoring (Cruel Delight and Barge Through Enemy Lines) and gives this list a nice little wrinkle.

Emma Mangels - Maggotkin of Nurgle - 2nd Place

Rotmire Creed. Credit: Fowler. Picture Unrelated to the misery below

The List

Archetype

Things that make the metagame weep in despair

Thoughts

Emma is a tremendous player and let's not take away from her success here - a 5-0 at a major tournament is freaking hard to do regardless of the list. That said, Emma pointed out on twitter that this list has gone up about 300 points post battlescroll. That should tell you about all you need to know RE: the filth level of this list.

The Best of the Rest

There were a whole bunch of 4-1s so I'll be covering the top 8:

• Position - Player Name - Faction:
• 3rd - Thomas Guan - Daughters of Khaine: See Showdown
• 4th - Mrigank Jha - Stormcast Eternals: A lovely combined arms list that brings 2 units of Longstrikes, 2 Chariots, 2 units of Hammer Annihilators and a whole lotta support pieces that feels like the platonic ideal of an AOS army as GW envisioned
• 5th - Shaun Clarke - Stormcast Eternals: Shaun on the other hand chose Astral Templar violence, with 8 Stormdrakes and 15 Liberators with a Relictor and Castellant for buffing
• 6th - Joe Krier - Disciples of Tzeentch: Joe is back with a Hosts Arcanum list that has the typical magic powerhouse heroes, 6 Skyfires and Acolytes as battleline - the points saved on horrors allow Joe to squeeze in Cogs, Spellportal and the Burning Sigil
• 7th - El Miller - Sons of Behemat: Nu-SoB crack the top 8 with 3 Gatebreakers and an Incarnate
• 8th - Leo Rautonen - Stormcast Eternals: 6 Dragons and the Rain of Stars package for a billion mortal wounds (A Slann to cast Everblaze Comet and his Warscroll spell (Now FAQd so the Slann can't cast EC anymore) and Prime Time)

Shakespeare Invitational 2022

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on October 29 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission -

Baz Norman - Khailebron: Morathi and the Bow Snakes

vs.

Owen Jackson - Hammers of Sigmar: Rain of Stars

Result

Hammers of Sigmar Victory - 525 - 9

Thoughts

I can pretty easily see how this game went down. Owen can give turn 1 away and deploy so as not to present any viable target for any of Baz's threats, then on his turn destroy the Ironscale and begin applying AOE mortal wound pressure on multiple Daughters units at once to force battleshock tests and chip away at Morathi. If he got the double he'd run away with this effortlessly... if he doesn't, the Liberators and Stardrake can block out enough of the middle board to protect the Slann and Prime-Time while they do their horrible work.

Owen Jackson - Hammers of Sigmar - 1st Place

The Farstriders. Credit: SRM

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Rain of Stars

Thoughts

Castle armies hate this kind of list due to the combination of AOE mortal wounds (Slann's Warscroll spell, Everblaze Comet, Celestant-Prime's finger point) and leveraging the Horrorghast to force battleshock tests across the castle. Many popular and effective armies in the game right now focus on a castle style gameplan where they use support heroes to super-charge efficient units to complete their gameplan.

Basically, it's another kind of scalpel list that focuses less on what it needs to do to win and focuses more on what it needs to do to compromise their opponent's ability to win. A brick of 4 Fulminators and Liberators are just enough in terms of beef to go out and fight stuff to take primary objectives when supported by the Star Drake. I bet Owen's sock game was on point too.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position - Player Name - Faction:
• 2nd - Mathew Davies - Lumineth Realm-lords: Mathmallow realises the potential of Stoneguard spam with the new book - 35 Stoneguard, 2 Stone mages and Avalenor with some cheeky Tree Revs to help mitigate their mobility issues
• 3rd - Shanee Nistry - Lumineth Realm-Lords: Another Ymetrica list that shaves off 20 Stoneguard to improbably afford Teclis, Eltharion *AND* Avalenor for a chonky herohammer list
• 4th - Baz Norman - Daughters of Khaine: See showdown
• 5th - Greg Shelton - Stormcast Eternals: Balanced Stormcast with a Gardus Stormdrake list that squeezes in 3 Longstrikes and 10 Judicators

Wrap Up

We did it folks! The old filth is dead, let the new filth thrive. There's rumblings of a viable competitive Spider list for Gitz, Stormcast look like they have some interesting list-building options opened up and BoC got a light tap on the noggin that will likely not be enough to keep it from being over-represented in Competitive Innovations in the future - I hope I'm wrong! 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.