This past week saw the nerfhammer come for the Purple Sun of Shyish, though I expect many of these events were still using the old version due to the way list submission typically works. That said, there is another worrying trend that has gotten perhaps overlooked by the design studio (or is waiting for the next balance slate): The Incarnate.

It's a fun model and it's an effective one, and it's healthy in the sense that is can help lift up some weaker books into contention... but when only the most truly top tier lists even bother to skip it, it becomes a question of whether it's ultimately healthy when it can really skew matchups for linear, straight forward melee armies that lack the ranged output to trade effectively with the monstrosity.

Disclosure: I have played with the Incarnate and enjoyed it, and if I were going to a tournament next weekend it would be in my list. You really have to look for the filth to avoid not being presented with the question: "Would my list be better with a giant pile of animated bones made a manifestation of Ghur's Rage?"

Age Of Sigmar Matched Play Event

72-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on September 24 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission -

Marco D'Anna - Maggotkin of Nurgle: Drowned Men: Nurgle mixed Mortals

vs.

Toby Meadows - Maggotkin of Nurgle: Drowned Men: Nurgle Flies + Incarnate

Thoughts

Marco has done what many have started to do in light of the shift in armies towards 1 drop lists - stack Expert Conquerors in order to have a trump card in board control stalemates. This will serve him well against Toby's variant, as he lacks bodies to easily flip central objectives outside of 'kill whatever unit is contesting'.

That's not to say it's all doom and gloom - the Incarnate is a fantastic piece to blow through the smaller pieces most armies have, it's just that Marco isn't really presenting ideal targets for it. The Incarnate is a fantastic unit, but it's at it's best when it can blow through whatever unit it get's stuck into combat with so that it's difficult to tie down and strip levels from. Marco's list doesn't have many pieces that won't at least make a good show of trading damage back thanks to the nature of Disgustingly Resilient.

Toby establishes early board control well with his pre-game fly moves, the question is can he hold on long enough when the big brick of Blight Kings and the Maggoth lords come stumbling forward?

Result

Maggotkin of Nurgle: Drowned Men Victory - 21 - 20

Marco D'Anna - Maggotkin of Nurgle: Drowned Men - 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Nurgle Mixed Mortals

Thoughts

Maggoth lords are still great all rounders - they provide valuable monstrous rampages, they're tanky enough to survive all but the most dedicated hammers, and they work well as independent operators and synergistic pieces both. Nurgle can go for lower unit counts than many other armies for the simple reason that they don't really fall into the trap of support heroes that don't really *do* anything from a gameplay perspective by themselves.

This means Marco's list has just 7 units, all of which can work well independently of anything else that's in the army - there's something to be said for that level of versatility. Beyond that it's a lot of what we have already become intimately aware of since the Nurgle book's release: Flies are stupidly efficient and need a nerf, Lord of Affliction with Splithorn Helm and Overpowering Stench can be both insanely difficult to kill, as well as a nightmare to leave alive due to shutting down command abilities in a game where much of a unit's full potential is realised when issued orders.

Freddie Leggett - Beasts of Chaos: Gavespawn - 2nd Place

Dragon Ogors Credit: JoeK

The List

Archetype

Beastmen Grab Bag?

Thoughts

In what is indicative perhaps of how transformational the White Dwarf update was for almost every unit in the book, Freddie has opted to grab a sampling of pretty much everything. Why is the Cygor here? Well it's ludicrously cheap and can provide a monstrous rampage and maybe kill a wizard at some point - who cares it's 125 points!

Centigors provide extremely efficient screens on those lovely cavalry bases, Bestigors and the Drogors make for great Bounty Hunters... Ungors are cheap enough Expert Conquerors that you don't care when they get utterly destroyed by Bounty Hunters - they're cheap enough that anything your opponent sends against them was overkill anyway, and they provide value simply as objective flipping trading pieces. You trade extraneous points for victory points, and then summon more chaff later anyway.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8:

• Position - Player Name - Faction:
• 3rd - Mike Whitley - Stormcast Eternals: Dragons and Longstrikes - still an iconic combo
• 4th - Philip Springall - Lumineth Realm Lords: Go checkout the list - it's very cool. 35 Stoneguard, Avalenor, some Dawnriders and not a single Sentinel/Warden/Teclis in sight
• 5th - Phil Marshsll - Stormcast Eternals: Gardus' Brigade of Dragons getting a ward save and an Incarnate
• 6th - Toby Meadows - Nurgle: See Showdown
• 7th - Bogdan Terente - Nurgle: Rotcoven Endless Spells with daemonic forces making up his line troops
• 8th - Fabian Quinn - Cities of Sigmar: Hallowheart spellcasting brought up in power level with 4 Stormdrakes and an Incarnate

Flying Monkey Con 2022 - Age Of Sigmar

51-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Wichita, KS, US on September 24 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission -

Jeremy Lefebvre - Cities of Sigmar: Phoencium: Phoenix Guard board control

vs.

Beau Syas - Gloomspite Gitz: Troggs troggs troggs troggs

Thoughts

If you're ever confused about the random presence of Flagellants - it's for a battle tactic: Sanctify is a confusingly easy battle tactic which requires you only move a Flagellant unit that's not near an objective wholly/partially within enemy territory onto an objective that *is* wholly/partially within enemy territory. Anyway, let's crack on.

Anyway let's make this one pretty simple - the Phoenixes project an aura of -1 to wound to enemy units within 9" for melee attacks. Those Trogg's will be hitting on 2's and rerolling 1's thanks to the Troggboss and Sloggoth respectively... but wounding on 4s is No Bueno when it comes to winning consistently in combat against such staunch anvils as Phoenix Guard - a 4+ Ward is a scary thing.

Result

Cities of Sigmar: Phoencium Victory - 24 - 12

Jeremy Lefebvre - Cities of Sigmar: Phoencium - 1st Place

Hexbane's Hunters. Credit: SRM

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Phoenix Guard Board Control

Thoughts

So Phoenicium is a underutilised city that is nevertheless quite spicy when leveraged appropriately with Phoenix Guard. Let's run down a few of the reasons:

• Access to fight on death for everything if it's near a phoenix
• +1 Wound on all phoenixes
• If a friendly unit has been destroyed earlier in the turn, +1 to hit/wound in melee for everything

That last one in particular is easily set up thanks to use of chaff like the Flagellants.. or Assassins. They can pop out of any of your infantry units (basically) at the beginning of the combat phase within 1" of a friendly unit... and that's it for rules explanation. That means they can help tie up a unit by just getting a friendly unit 3.9" away from a unit you want to tie up in combat, or have both assassins pop out clown car style of the first Phoenix Guard unit that gets into combat and present your opponent with a dilemma: Fight the Phoenix Guard and let the assassins do their work unmolested, or fight the assassin and easily kill them but turn the Guard into subsequent murder daemons now they're hitting/wounding on 2s.

Dalton Kahle - Disciples of Tzeentch - 2nd Place

Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch. That Gobbo

The List

Archetype

Endless spells Summoning

Thoughts

It's the old book so not too much worth dwelling on here: Double chicken for lots of summoning and spells, hiding behind an Incarnate long enough for the summoning engine to get going and the endless spells to wear down your opponent's hammers.

The Best of the Rest

The Top 8 is as follows:

• Position - Player Name - Faction:
• 3rd - Joe Krier - Lumineth: Fox and Sentinel spam dakka dakka dakka pew pew pew
• 4th - Scott Thompson - Sons of Behemat: One of each of the big guys and then 3 Gargants in Bounty Hunters
• 5th - Thomas Burgett - Skaventide: Stormfiends and sneaky gits - Gutter and Night Runners + Slynk's Stabby Shankers
• 6th - Beau Syas - Gloomspite Gitz: See Showdown
• 7th - James Tapia - Sylvaneth: Alarielle + Kurnoth in Heartwood (wait a second is that - it is! it's Spellsinger Warsong Revenant's music!)
• 8th - Daniel Pitt - Soulblight Gravelords: Mannfred and Radukar hit the road with their menagerie of undead chaff and 40 Grave Guard for synergistic and stylish beatdowns

Sparkle Party Death Match VII

36-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Seattle, WA, US on September 24 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission -

Robbie "Bear" Steinbring - Bonesplitterz: Drakkfoot: Big Stabba spam + Incarnate

vs.

Mason Knox - Beasts of Chaos: Allherd: Cockatrice spam with Be'lakor

Thoughts

What a bizarre matchup - with both sides bringing to battle a ton of bodies whose gameplan is simply to wear your opponent down through attrition. The Orruks sadly can't take advantage of shutting off wards as there's nothing to shut down here. That's not to say they won't have success killing - nothing that Mason has here boasts much of an armor save so even the humble Savage Orruk has a pretty reasonable chance of racking up a kill count here.

Then there's the Cockatrices - perhaps one of the oddest monsters in the game right now. A highly mobile, very fragile ranged Monster that can vomit d6 mortals on a 4+ to a unit at range. Stack up enough of them and you have a murder flock that will easily destroy high impact units like the Wurgogg Prophets and the Incarnate without exposing themselves to danger in the process. It's a bad matchup here as Mason has lots of chaff to hold up the hammer pieces from actually getting to the chickens and as a result, it strikes me as an uphill battle for them. It's a tough matchup because typically armies don't have access to high quality chaff and summoning *AND* potent ranged damage, usually only Seraphon is allowed that.

Result

Beasts of Chaos: Allherd Victory - 16 - 4

Mason Knox - Beasts of Chaos: Allherd - 1st Place

Ungors - Credit: RichyP

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Cockatrice spam

Thoughts

Dragon Ogors are perhaps one of the best units in the game right now for their cost - a highly mobile, highly effective melee hammer unit that's cheap enough that it trades well with whatever else it might be fighting - it's 5 wounds so it dodges Bounty Hunters... and you can summon more of them throughout the game. Oh and if you keep one alive you can retreat it and rally back on a 4+ near the Herdstone. We talked about the Cockatrices before but it's funny how brutal these two work together to present a nightmare of efficiency for your opponent.

Speaking of Nightmares, if you have a ranged hammer capable of picking apart the Cockatrices - Be'lakor can shut the unit down for a turn to help ensure that the Cocks get to strike first and strike hard.

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position - Player Name - Faction:
• 2nd - Chris LaMoy - Soulblight Gravelords: Vyrkos Dynasty: Herohammer to the nth degree here - Manny/Radukar the Beast/Vhordrai/Belladama/Necromancer.
• 3rd - Robbie "Bear" Steinbring - Bonesplitterz: See Showdown
• 4th - Dale Johnson - Daughters of Khaine: 4 Avatars of Khaine! What a neat little skew list that buffs them up with a Cauldron and supports them with a Celestant Prime
• 5th - Stark Pister - Stormcast Eternals: Gardus ward dudes with a mix of chariots, Fulminators and *15* Boltstorm Judicators for a hefty ranged punch

Epic Level Showdown - An Age Of Sigmar Grand Tournament

35-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Duluth, GA, US on September 24 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission -

Jon Anderson - Idoneth Deepkin: Mor'phann: Thrall deathstar!

vs.

Tobias Kempf - Maggotkin of Nurgle: Drowned Men: Fly spam

Thoughts

Oh this is a spicy one - Mor'Phann means that Soulrender can put back 6 models into a Namarti unit at the end of each combat phase, giving them the unusual (for Aelves) ability to grind out protracted combats: Especially notable here against a Nurgle list that lacks Bounty Hunters but still wants to grind out wins through smashing into their opponent's lines early on and not letting them really play the game.

Be'lakor acts as a countermeasure here though, as if Tobias wanted to he could time the use of Dark Master for when he plans on engaging the giant blob of Thralls and hopefully bring them down through overwhelming force before they can get their sealegs under them. The LoA after all could hand out nearby to shut off Inspiring Presence and cause a significant battleshock test that could overwhelm even the model recursion the Soulrender could provide.

The game largely pivots on that moment - the Incarnate is not at it's best here but can buy time for the reavers to spread out and bring down weakened fly units and try and take back board control after the early going, and the Murder King will largely serve one of the large units of 4 their own ass for dinner with a good combat phase. The question is - will the pivotal fly/thrall combat create a crumbling situation for the fishes, or a major breaking point for the forces of the Grandfather?

Result

Maggotkin of Nurgle: Drowned Men Victory - 520 - 20

Tobias Kempf - Maggotkin of Nurgle: Drowned Men - 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Flies

Thoughts

The flyspam is in effect

The Best of the Rest

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

• Position - Player Name - Faction:
• 2nd - Jon Anderson - Idoneth Deepkin: Mor'phann: See Showdown
• 3rd - Emma Mangels - Slaves to Darkness: KOTET means a nightmare anvil of Varanguard - the Incarnate was in effect
• 4th - Robert Colt - Skaventide: Thanquol + Deceiver with the requisite Clanrat wall, opting to skip Stormfiends for some cheaper Rat Ogors with a Master Moulder and Jezzails/Endless spells with the points saved
• 5th - Jason Sanders - Kharadron Overlords: Single Ironclad Zilfin with a Purple Sun in a bottle - the Incarnate was in effect
• 6th - Josh Bennett - Daughters of Khaine: Another Norathi list - using the points saved for 50 total Witch Aelves and 20 total melee Snakes, supplemented with a Cauldron, miscellaneous support heroes and some Heartrenders.

Wrap Up

Tzeentch are here with a shakeup to the metagame - dare people lean so heavily on Endless Spells when Kairos can steal them? Will fragile ranged damage builds be so confident in themselves when the new and improved Skyfires hit the top tables? Will GW finally nerf the Incarnate and Pusgoyles? This tired writer certainly hopes so.

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.