A light load this week with one big tournament and a little bonus coverage of a smaller tournament that only just missed the 28 player cutoff point. That said, the showdown this week may surprise you! It's two factions you'd expect, but not how you would typically expect!

The Big Bristol Brawl GT

42-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on December 03 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission -

Greg Shelton - Nighthaunt: Nagash and the boys

vs.

Andy Simms - Ogor Mawtribes: Kragnos and the large lads

Result

Nighthaunt Victory - 13 - 7

Thoughts

What a bizarre matchup. Nagash vs Kragnos in the finals! That's fun. Ultimately I think what tilts the matchup towards Greg is those Bladegheists charge mortals combined with Nagash dumping arcane bolts from his staff like it's an Uzi at point blank range into Kragnos. That's the problem with Kragnos really - he has that achilles heel of mortal wound output, and Nighthaunt with Nagash just so happen to be able to provide that in spades.

That said, the Stonehorns are more than capable of mulching through those Bladegheists, so the game may have remained close due to that particular mismatch. I imagine the round in which Kragnos died will have determined just how close this would have been.

Greg Shelton - Nighthaunt - 1st Place

Spirit Torment Credit: Fowler

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Scarlet Nagash? Is that a name? It's Bladegheists and Nagash leave me alone

Thoughts

I think there's not a ton of ground to cover with regards to the list as it's pretty basic - the Bladegheist shell is to give the list a second element on top of Nagash just doing Nagash things. I think it *is* worth looking at the field this list was against to see why it came out on top. From R1 to 5:

1. Soulblight Grave-lords
2. Nurgle
3. Sylvaneth
4. Nighthaunt
5. Ogor Mawtribes

Of those lists, only Sylvaneth had a significant ranged presence in 6 Kurnoth Bow Hunters. Nagash when able to do his thing unmolested by significant ranged firepower is an absolute menace, and Greg managed to navigate the field in such a way as to minimise bad matchups. That said, I'd sure as hell struggle to 5-0 with a Nagash list so all the credit in the world goes to him for crushing it with an off-meta list.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• Position - Player Name - Faction:
• 2nd - Alex Bruce - Fyreslayers: 5 Magmadroths Jeremy, 5? That's Insane.
• 3rd - Andy Simms - Ogor Mawtribes: See showdown
• 4th - David Jack - Nighthaunt: Bladegheist spam with double Spirit Torment and additional support
• 5th - Ethan Leach - Lumineth Realm-lords: Teclis, Avalenor and a whole bunch of Stoneguard in this Ymetrica beat down list
• 6th - Danny Salfield Wadeson - Daughters of Khaine: Morathi and the Melee Snakes (and 10 Bow Snakes)
• 7th - Thomas Holmes - Disciples of Tzeentch: A LoC/Incarnate build (no Kairos!) that goes for Kairics as battleline to squeeze in more spellcasting heroes

Leicester City GT

27-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, GB on December 03 2022. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings. As a 27 player event normally it would fall below minimum player requirements for this article but as we're a little light this week I'll give you some bonus coverage of the first place list.

Phil Marshall - Slaves to Darkness - 1st Place

Varanguard. Credit: SRM

[Expand title="Army list - click to expand"]

Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness - Damned Legion: Knights of the Empty Throne - Mortal Realm: Ghur - Grand Strategy: Show of Dominance - Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders Knights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 6 (560)* - General - Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield - Command Trait: Inescapable Doom - Artefact: Grasping Plate - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch Knights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 6 (560)** - Daemonforged Blade and Warpsteel Shield - Artefact: Corrupted Nullstone - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135)** - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch - Spell: Mask of Darkness Chaos Sorcerer Lord (135)** - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch - Spell: Mask of Darkness

Battleline 8 x Iron Golems (75)* - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch 8 x Iron Golems (75)* - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch 8 x Iron Golems (75)* - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch 8 x Iron Golems (75)* - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch

Units 1 x Mindstealer Sphiranx (95)*

Behemoths Chaos Warshrine (215)* - Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch - Prayer1: Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal

Core Battalions *Battle Regiment **Command Entourage - Magnificent

Additional Enhancements Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000 Reinforced Units: 0 / 4 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 124 Drops: 4[/expand]

Archetype

KOTET Varanguard

Thoughts

Phil Marshall posts his third 1st place in a tournament in 3 weeks with an extended farewell tour to the 2nd edition Slaves to Darkness book. How has he done it? Well how does a 1+ save rerolling 1s sound? Hellish? Yeah that's the idea. This army list excels at presenting a lot of very hard to kill bodies and grinding you down. Grasping plate + ability to once per game fight twice also means that one of the Varanguard units can activate and pile-in from 6" away and Inescapable Doom means anything tagged by them can't retreat... which is problematic if said trapped units can't do any meaningful damage to the Varanguard themselves.

It represents the best of what the previous version of Slaves to Darkness had to offer, and it's little surprise that the save stacking and rerolls are gone entirely from the new STD book when you consider how miserable this list may be for some armies in the game to deal with if they lack mortal wounds.

Wrap Up

That's it! Go on! Get cracking with your Christmas shopping! Don't you realise how close the holidays are! I'll check back in with you next week and make sure you haven't bloody procrastinated and forgotten all about it like I will.

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.