I'm sorry I lied, there are no Squigs in this Competitive Innovations article this we- COME BACK! There's still cool shit like battle chickens! That's cool right? One event this week as we hurtle into the holiday season, soon destined to lose track of our painting backlog in a bleary haze of merriment.

Weekend Warlords 6

44-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Milano, Lombardia, Italy on December 17 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission -

Vincenzo Nacca - Sons of Behemat Stomper Tribe: Stomp stomp stomp CRUSH crush

Army List - Click to Expand

- Army Faction: Sons of Behemat - Army Type: Stomper Tribe - Grand Strategy: Make the Land Tremble! - Triumph: Inspired LEADERS Warstomper (450)* - General - Command Traits: Monstrously Tough - Artefacts of Power: Club of the First Oak Warstomper (450)* - Artefacts of Power: Glowy Shield of Protectiness Warstomper (450)* BATTLELINE Mancrusher Mob (450)** - Bullstomper Mancrusher Gargant (150)** CORE BATTALIONS *Bosses of the Stomp - Magnificent

**Bounty Hunters TOTAL POINTS: 1950/2000 Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App

vs.

Filippo Bonalda - Tzeentch Guild of Summoners: Sicko chicken summoning cult

Army List - Click to Expand

Army Faction: Disciples of Tzeentch - Army Subfaction: Guild of Summoners - Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny - Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER

1 x Curseling (180)* - General - Command Traits: Arcane Sacrifice - Artefacts: Arcane Tome - Spells: Bolt of Tzeentch, Arcane Suggestion

1 x Changecaster (140)* - Artefacts: The Eternal Shroud - Spells: Bolt of Tzeentch, Tzeentch's Firestorm

1 x Fatemaster (145)*

1 x Magister (120)** - Spells: Shield of Fate, Glimpse the Future

1 x Be'lakor (360)**

1 x Great Bray-Shaman (100)** - Spells: Ghost-mist, Levitate

BATTLELINE

10 x Horrors of Tzeentch (Pink) (250)*** - Pink Horror Icon Bearer - Pink Horror Hornblower - Iridescent Horror - Split and Split Again

10 x Horrors of Tzeentch (Pink) (250)*** - Pink Horror Hornblower - Pink Horror Icon Bearer - Iridescent Horror - Split and Split Again

10 x Horrors of Tzeentch (Pink) (250)*** - Iridescent Horror - Pink Horror Icon Bearer - Pink Horror Hornblower - Split and Split Again

ENDLESS SPELL

1 x Burning Sigil Of Tzeentch (50)

1 x Chronomantic Cogs (70)

1 x Umbral Spellportal (80)

CORE BATTALIONS:

*Command Entourage - Magnificent

**Command Entourage - Magnificent

***Expert Conquerors

TOTAL POINTS: (1995/2000)

Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App

Result

Guild of Summoners Victory - 11 - 9

Thoughts

The Giants here *do* have the damage to clear hordes between the Boulderclub rule for the big guys and the subfaction bonus for the Mancrushers... the problem is simply that they have no real means to stop the spellcasting engine of Tzeentch outside of Heroic Willpower and getting lucky with flung boulders in the shooting phase.

So how is this a bad outcome? Well the first Chicken gets summoned at a discount 9 summoning points and really supercharges the armies spellcasting prowess. Between Arcane Suggestion and Pink Fire of Tzeentch they can apply a -2 debuff to a Gargant's armor saves and simply bring them down through weight of dice which is what I expect was a large contributor to the Tzeentch list's success. When one army can't meaningfully interact with the other person's army before grinding through 150 wounds of Horrors that creates an inherent inbalance.

Filippo Bonalda - Guild of Summoners - 3rd Place

Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch. That Gobbo

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Chicken summoning

Thoughts

Wait what, third? Yeah... BCP has the above as the showdown between the two top armies at the top of round four and Filippo was the only 5-0... which likely means soft score shenanigans.

Tzeentch has been quietly successful at tournaments lately, as this isn't the first time they've snuck onto the podium with some kind of control list. With fewer megacasters running around with the diminishment in popularity of Thanquol, Kroak etc there is room for a full spellcasting build to really flourish. The number of debuffs and buffs is astronomical and the hero phase agonisingly long, but it adds up to making even the humble horror something to fear when your unit is effectively fighting with both arms tied behind it's back and a bucket on it's head.

The Best of the Rest

The 4-1 players were:

Position - Player Name - Faction:
1st - Luca Onorati - Maggotkin of Nurgle Drowned Men: I thought about doing a write up for this but why bother? It's fly spam with Maggoth lords.
2nd - Leonardo Ravioli - Blades of Khorne: A mortal based list with many priests buffing the new Slaves to Darkness knights - 10 of them in this case, as well as 40 (!) Blood Warriors.
4th - Vincenzo Nacca - See showdown

Wrap Up

I don't believe there will be a Competitive Innovations article next week on account of it being Christmas... though I wouldn't put it past some people putting together some HolidayHammer, that sounds cool as hell. See you in two weeks!

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.