We’ve got a long weekend coming up for the King’s Birthday (suck on it Poms), and if you’re an Age of Sigmar player here in Australia, King’s Birthday weekend means Sydney Slaughter weekend.  Ran like a well-oiled machine by the Mortally Wounded team, Slaughter is known for its unorthodox event packs, with Chris even writing his own custom Battleplans in previous years. 

They’ve gone for something a little more straight down the line this year, on the basis that 6-monthly GH cycles already bring enough turmoil, which is fair comment.  So there’s nothing especially wild you need to know about while we run you through the lists.   

Sydney Slaughter is a pretty big deal over here: 

• There’s an expenses-paid Golden Ticket for the winner 
• Forgeworld trophies are on offer 
• Slaughter also hosts the standalone, independently-judged Mortal Blade hobby competition 
• Players can enter the gaming side, the hobby side or both  

Warhammer Royalty in Attendance

Did you know that in Australia, we used to have our own special edition of White Dwarf back in the day?  Well there’s a fella called Tero Kanko who wrote for Aussie WD who will be in attendance, and I’ve picked up the vibe on socials that he finds it a bit cringe when people go on about it.

So whatever you do, don’t go up to Tero and ask him if he’s the guy from White Dwarf.  Here’s a photo from an old issue to help you avoid approaching him (don’t show him it); and if you play against Tero, for the love of Gork, please don’t call him Tero Kanko from White Dwarf the whole time.  Definitely not.

Anyway. We’ll see north of 70 players heading to NSW this weekend, and who wants to read through that many lists?  Nobody, that’s who.  You can see the full lists here:

Click to access Sydney-Slaughter-2023-List-Document-1.pdf

But the Plastic Craic team has done the legwork for you in our trademark format, picking out the strongest and coolest lists in every Grand Alliance. 

Ready?  Let’s go. 

Chaos

by Patrick Neven

It’s a funny old world. Once upon a time, lists reviews would throw up all sorts of freaky “These must be the only models they own – must be a hobby project” kind of entries. These days the overall standard of competitive play has risen and list writing has become fairly dull alongside it. Nowhere is this more apparent then the Chaos grand alliance. Four Khorne lists, all with the same general and same overall strategy, one without Skarbrand. (It’s not a criticism. I’d be taking the exact same thing.)

With that obligatory whinge about the good old days out of the road the Chaos lists for Slaughter are strong overall. With a few big names from the amongst the old and young turks of competitive Australian AOS I won’t be surprised to see a few of these lists on the podium. It’s especially good to see Ash McEwen in action with something other than his tired old Sons of Behemat. Hopefully he can start taking competitive play seriously again.

Power Pick: Matthew Campbell, Blades of Khorne

I went for the Blades of Khorne list without Skarbrand, largely because I have a lot of faith in the skills of its operator. Matt Campbell has been a winner with Khorne over the last two battletomes, and I don’t see that changing with the current accursed book. His list is pretty standard stuff for the current battletome which doesn’t reward varying from Bloodletters or mortal tarpit. Prayer enhancement, ward turny offy Whip Thirster as standard. Swapping out Skarbrand for Bloodcrushers is a good choice. They’re a solid tarpit unit with some decent charge mortals and output from the riders on the charge. I always like to see a list lean into its subfaction. The Bloodlords are built for charging Bloodletters, so take all the Bloodletters and charge with them.

The current Khorne strat revolves around manoeuvring real close and, ha ha!, moving 1d6 inches with blood tithe at the end of the hero phase and locking your opponent down. Board Control for the Board Control god. Matt’s list can do that but he has more options for old fashioned Khornate aggression at his disposal. He has given every unit Killer Instinct as a base Prayer, which indicates the intention for good old-fashioned charging. Unholy Flames for extra rend on the Bloodcrushers improves the output of their mounts as well. Not taking Blood Sacrifice is an unusual choice, but Matt knows what he is doing. I won’t be surprised to see him win with this one.

Coolest Army – Terrence Voller – Hedonites of Slaanesh

Writing Slaanesh list is something of an art form. You need to carefully balance speed, resilience, ranged output and to take at least one solid melee option for early game depravity generation. Or you can forget all that fine-tuned crap and spam 80 Blissbarbs like a true servant of the Lord of Excess. With 160 shots in a one drop, it’s time to fight in the shade. Terry has well and truly nailed his colours to the mast with this list. You might be thinking well at least he can summon on to plug gaps in his list in later turns. Nope, his grand strat can only be achieved if he doesn’t summon anything at all. I’d be interested to know if Terry is hedging his bets with any kind of summoning pool at all.

For a simple list there’s a bit going on here. Thanks to Pretenders the Lord of Pain can tripple spam All Out Attack which, combined with the plus one to hit and wound ability of his Lord of Pain, puts him on plus 2’s across the board. More than enough to counter the inevitable debuffs and give him a very useful hell. Throw in a couple of shots from his only unit of Blissbarb Seekers for additional rend, and he can bring a hellacious amount of pain. My guess is Belakor is their to cripple any shooting one drops that get the drop on him.

Will it do better than a balanced list? Will it stand up if your opponent makes it into melee? How will it perform against deepstriking armies? Will Terry get sick of rolling 160 shots a turn? Who knows? Terry thrashed me quite handily with a Varanguard list at Masters that would have been a good chance at winning Slaughter. Hats off to him for taking a punt on something different. I’ll be interested to see how he goes.

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Death

by Calvin Rarie

I would like to go on the record that this GHB is fun, and I was honestly fine with having 8 books in 6 months get released, but I am very excited for GW to get on with the next GHB to shake some of these Death lists up with points changes. Or, you know, RELEASE THE FLESH-EATER COURTS TOME, DAMMIT.

That said, there’s some real spice in these lists, and of course we’ve got to start with one of the boogeymen in the meta.

Power Pick Steven Nuttall, Soulblight Gravelords

You know what I love? Cavalry. You know what I love more than cavalry? Cavalry that does MWs.  Black Knights are a sleeper pick for me in Soulblight Gravelords–mostly because putting them together is an exercise of patience, determination, and a fundamental understanding that sometimes the sculptors at GW hate you.

In Legion of Blood–which is a subfaction that only really cares about Vampires–you get to take Black Knights as Battleline, allowing you to go all-in on a block of 15x.  Now, normally coherency for such a unit is tough to ensure you get all your attacks in, but you’re not taking Black Knights for attacks. Oh no my friend, you’re taking them because when they successfully charge you get to pick an enemy unit within 1″ and roll two dice for each model in the unit, and any 5+s are a MW.  But if you make that charge while wholly within 12″ of the Wight King on Skeletal Steed, then that unit of Black Knights are doing MWs on 4+s instead.  In a block of 15x, that’s an average of FIFTEEN MORTAL WOUNDS on the charge. 

Spirit of Durthu? Dead.

Arkanaut Frigate? Dead.

Be’Lakor? Dead.

Skarbrand? Almost dead and really pissed off now, and just one extra 4+ away from dying outright.

Oh and the best part is that both the Knights and the Wight King are Summonable, so if they die they can both come back. It’s fun times.

The rest of the list is your pretty standard Soulblight load-out with Neferata giving something Ethereal, and the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon carrying an Ethereal Artefact as well.  The Doomed Minions Command Trait–pick D3 enemy units that aren’t HEROES or MONSTERS and all melee weapons in your army hit those on unmodified 2+s while within 3″ of the general–is actually somewhat useful even without 3+ VLoZDs to buff up, since it actually makes Black Knights hit reliable to hopefully plink off that last wound from Skarbrand before he grinds them all to dust. (RIP Zombie Dragons hitting on 2+, good fucking riddance).

One of the neat tricks with this list too if you put the Wight King into the Grave and have him pop out near a Gravesite, and the Black Knights are wholly within 12″ of the Gravesite at the start of your turn, you can bring back two dead Black Knights instead of one.

On an aside, be prepared to see WAY more Skeletons in the future over Zombies. At only 85 points for 10, that 20x block in Steven’s list can be downright infuriating to finish off, and with Zombies almost guaranteed to get a points hike then the bone boys are the way of the future.

Good luck Steven!

Coolest List: Craig Anderson, Ossiarch Bonereapers 

I’m a simple man–I see named units and I get real happy.

Mortis Praetorians is my personal favorite subfaction in the OBR book, letting the army really take advantage of both the GLUT of command points you have available each Battle Round and getting units in combat faster through the Counter-Charge Ability from the subfaction:

Fun fact: did you know that Morghast Harbingers turn off the ability to receive or issue commands for enemy units within 3″ of them?  Looks like no one is Unleashing Hell with 88x Blissbarb Archers now!

Speaking of Counter-Charging, you also have the big man on campus Arch-Kavalos Zandtos making an appearance! He’s got it all–Warmaster, +1 Damage on the charge, a +1 to wound bubble Command Ability, and even impact hits and a 6″ pile-in when he charges!  You don’t see too much of him right now, but I think people are starting to pick up just how nuts this bad boy can be in the right situations.

The rest of the list is fairly standard OBR stuff:

• Ol’ Katakaros–or Special K as I call him–giving out a 24″ +1 to hit and Save Bubble;
• Necropolis Stalkers zooming around the battlefield chopping things to pieces;
• A Mortisan Boneshaper with the Artisan’s Key artefact letting him use his revive ability twice a turn
• The Show of Superiority Command Trait taxing your opponent’s Command Points–basically, when an opponent tries to use a command ability, you roll a dice and on a 5+ they have to spend 2 instead of 1 command point.

I do want to give a word of warning here about this list. Craig’s chosen the Survivor’s Instinct Grand Strategy, which is basically keep your Galletian Champion General alive and contesting an objective wholly outside your territory by the end of the game.  Now, Craig’s given his Boneshaper General the Fuelled by Ghurish Rage unique enhancement, which lets you negate the wound that would slay the Boneshaper on a 3+, heal it D3 wounds, and negate all remaining wounds to be allocated. In case you’re not aware, because this is an ability that negates wounds before they are allocated, the 3+ is a ward roll.

This is important because Craig has taken Immortis Guard, which have a pretty sweet bodyguard rule:

Did you catch it?  The Immortis Guard’s ability here happens INSTEAD OF ward rolls, and it is not a “may” ability either.  That means if you get unlucky with your 2+s, and the Mortisan Boneshaper takes a lethal amount of wounds, he can’t make the 3+ ward roll from Fuelled By Ghurish Rage to stay alive. Just a heads up.

Good luck, Craig!

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Destruction

by Peter Atkinson

Power Pick: James Halligan, Ogor Mawtribes 

Two Thundertusks are mos def a thing right now.  I’ve recently written a guest piece for Woehammer on The Mayor’s excellent podium at Border War, and I know that Hazel over in the UK has had sustained success with a list very much like the one we see here: 

While Mat’s list crafted together diverse units with complementary tech, what we’re looking at here is a blunt instrument.  Very blunt.  Knock-your-teeth-down-your-throat-with-a-hammer blunt.  And I think I’m in love. 

I’m still salty that Beastriders aren’t Elite – I mean, don’t they know what Elite means?  So James has made the smart choice and ploughed his Command Trait into Voice of the Avalanche, allowing his General to issue Command Abilities boardwide and getting us (almost) back to where we should have started, with the ‘Riders able to receive CAs.  I fully support this tech because I know how much it would spin me out to fail a short charge with no reroll – yeah screw that, I’m taking Voice every time in this list paradigm. 

The remainder of the Heroes loadout is pretty vanilla: 

• 5++ ward on the Tuskard and -1 to wound on Mr Frosty, because of course 
• Arcane Tome for Mystic Shield  
• Keening Gale as his prayer for +3” movement, because it’s a movement game 

Extra defense and extra movement – sounds pretty good to me.   

Now, let’s take a moment to appreciate the hero sniping in this build.  We’ve got a total of FIVE Blood Vultures here, each pinging out 1 MW on a 2+, anywhere on the board.  It’s an ability rather than a missile weapon, so you’ve got a decent chance of popping off a hero each turn (GC or not), and across two turns they’re stuffed.  This is critical when we’re talking about an army that can be brutally crippled by the likes of Death Frenzy or a Krulghast Cruciator, and it’s another big reason why Ogors keep hitting the podium while Ironjawz flounder.  

Oh, you brought screens?  Who cares, the Frostlord will just tap-dance across them.  The Tuskard’s own Monstrous Rampage is lower profile, but still bloody useful in an army where you have up to six Rampages every turn: combo charge a unit with multiple Beastriders, make it fight last and then just fucking dogpile them.  BAM! And it’s not like there’s a shortage of other Monsters to deliver the likes of Roar and Stomp as well. It’s all pure upside.

The Torrbad Battalion doubles down on James’s theme of Beastriders Actually Being Allowed To Use Command Abilities, still coming in at a meaningful 3-drop to at least beat the likes of Sharpshooters. The Grand Strategy is also my own preferred choice – it’s not automatic, but it’s a rebadged Take What’s Theirs, and at least it has the added bonus of irritating your opponent if they have to look it up before the event. 

And let’s finish off back where we started: those Thundertusks.  What puts them in a decent spot is that high-armour troops are very much in vogue, and that’s where TTs are at their least inefficient.  

Thunderers?  BANG.  

Immortis Guard?  BANG.  

Mighty Skullcrushers?  Fucking BANG. 

If you can snipe a named character, that’s awesome, but even if not you will enjoy bludgeoning a bunch of mortals into those pricks, then slamming in a bunch more on the charge.  Save creep is meat and drink to Ogors, and James is ready to lap it up like a true Glutton.  Good luck mate. 

Coolest List: Lucy Moore, Ogor Mawtribes 

Double the Ogors for triple the fun.  I’d be way happier running either of these lists than anything green this weekend, and Lucy’s list is an absolute banger: 

How much cool stuff can you fit into one list?  And not just because I suspect it was named after one of the greatest works in the Western literary canon. The headline is those Meatfist charge mortals: thanks to their Brawlerguts Big Names, the Tyrants are slamming in their trademark Ogor charge mortals for every 3+, while all the other Mawtribes units do it on a 4+.  And with Kraggy in the list, that’s multiplied across three charge dice instead of the regulation two.  When Hungry, your minis will barrel across the board, accelerate when they crash into your enemy’s lines, sprint right out the other side and embed themselves in the far wall. 

In case you didn’t know, the Bloodpelt Hunter is addictively good fun: sliding around the tabletop, stealing objectives and denying Battle Tactics.  I’ve never quite had the courage to take his bespoke CT and get him hitting on 2s, but leaning into the madness is exactly why I love this list. 

BAM! But we’re just getting started.  Lucy has also grabbed the Galletian Command Battalion, which is officially Not A Thing.  Competitively, we as a community have tended to value lower drops ahead of Hero Phase activations, but this list embraces the opportunity with zero fucks given. 

Credit: Games Workshop

In a perfect storm, the Ironguts can triple-activate in one turn: once in the Hero Phase and twice in combat. 

Ironguts are a glass hammer, so you won’t always find yourself in a position to use this.  Often they’ll either smash what they’re in combat with, or get smashed themselves, depending mostly on who swung first.  But don’t sleep on the chance to punch your way out of a tarpit: Ironguts can get bogged down by big blocks of troops, and across the course of a 5-round event you’ll probably have two opportunities to blast your way out of combat early, charge into the fresh meat and upend the equation. 

Let’s be honest, there are still plenty of bad matchups about; there’s no shortage of stuff that can lift Kraggalicious off the table, leaving a gaping hole in the heart of your army.  But Lucy’s managed to work a whole bunch of cool and unique aspects into the Kraggy-Meatfist template, and this army will be an absolute blast to play with and against.  You love to see it. 

Order

By Theo Kik-Jansen

When going through the Order lists it really struck me how few cookie cutter meta lists were in there. There was that Fyreslayer list by Dan Wheatley that stuck out, and the Sylvaneth list by Harry Moore. But the Teclis bombs and Thunderer spam is wholly absent from the event. Living the dream!

Power Pick: Adrien Kent, Stormcast Eternals

“You know whats fun? Spamming Mortal Wounds on people! You know what’s better? Doing it loads of times!”. That was probably what was going through Adrian’s mind when writing his list. And the list delivers D3 MW explosions in spades!

BAM! BAM! BAM! Those Vexillors are dropping bombs from the heavens, delivering Sigmar’s vengance directly onto your fucking skull. Vexillors completely bypass the GC targetting rule, so I hope you’re not too attached to all the support pieces in your army; it’s the connoisseur’s choice for Order arseholery right now. AOE mortals are also great for triggering multiple Battleshock tests turn 1, and you can’t IP ’em all, so watch those Gits flee off the nearest board edge and keep on running.

By this stage, we all know exactly what 4 Fulminators prowling around can do, and Concussors bring more ranged MWs because Adrien didn’t really have much of that. Stormcast can famously be slow once they’re down, but leaning into the Cavalry side (including the interesting Drakespawn Knights Allies) should help with that, along with High Priest to get Translocation firing.

All wrapped up in a 2-drop double Battle Reg, this army is ready to go out and win a lot of games.

Coolest List: Do I have to pick one?

Peter Atkinson writes: In case you couldn’t tell from the random insertion of BAM!s and gradual ramp up in the the sledging of Order wankers, I had to step in and pick this one up from Theo. All I really know about these armies is that Coolest Order List is generally on par with Most Hygienic 40K Player or Best Sports at a Magic the Gathering event.

While the volume of Order lists at any event can seem intimidating to review, it’s pretty easy to narrow down: flick rapidly past KO, Lumineth, DOK, all the Stormcast lists with 4 Fulminators and some Vanguard Raptors and anything else that has give me the bad touch, and we’re down to a tiny handful of serious contenders.

Hang on a minute, rewind. Is that a cool Lumineth list? I think it might be.

Coolest List: Keith Lawson, Lumineth Realmlords

Just to show that the sun can shine in winter, Keith is rocking the sexy half of the Lumineth book. I think we can all see why the cows ‘n’ hammers side gets muscled out by banging off your opponent from a safe distance, but it’s not that bad and most armies would be glad to put the bovines on the table.

Capital A puts you at neg 1 to hit on top of all the rend fuckery from Team Ymetrica, as well as slamming down extra attacks on the Hammer Bros with his bespoke CA. With 16 wounds on a 3+ save to back up the aforementioned rend ignorery, he’s a tough guy to deal with before we even mention the frankly rude Damage 5 on that big hammer.

For all the shit I enjoy giving them, there are a few Order armies that have caught my attention over the years, and this is one of them. The Stoneguard are obviously not amazing at holding objectives, but nor will your units be once they’ve been ground down through Ymetrica’s attrition game. I’m afraid that those 96 wounds will disappear pretty quickly in some games when the MWs starting banging into them (especially when the situational Fortitude ability is not in play), but Keith knew that when he brought the list, and this army will look fucking baller on the table.

CrutchHammer are legends and he’s even left the Cathallar Fun Police at home, so Keith gets my vote with enthusiasm. Give ’em hell mate.

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So there you have it! Those are our takes on the strongest and most interesting lists at Sydney Slaughter 2023, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on how they all track at the event. James and Chris know how to put on a show, so to the 72 legends in attendance I hope you all have an awesome weekend, and know that we’re jelly AF.

See you on the other side.

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