So how’d they go? We caught up with the people behind our list selections for Sydney Slaughter, to follow up on how they went at the event, whether they enjoyed running their army and what they would change for next time. Pat absolutely nailed it with his two Chaos selections playing off for the win on Table 1, Round 5 and it was Terence who scooped the Golden Ticket, so let’s hand over the mic and see what they’ve got to say about it.

Ready? Let’s go.

Chaos Power Pick: Matthew Campbell, Blades of Khorne

As always Slaughter was a highlight of the year and for me was mostly about trialling the new Khorne book (as I’d only fit in 1 practice game before the tournament). Despite this, I was still reasonably confident that the new book would be able to compete and I definitely wasn’t disappointed. 

Overall, I was really pleased with how the list performed with a nice mix of speed, combat damage and staying power, which the Daemons from the last book were definitely missing. My favourite unit from the list was definitely the Bloodcrushers, which are the type of mobile anvil unit Khorne have been missing. In each game I was able to throw them forward early game with the Killing Frenzy prayer and either hold my opponents in their deployment zone, hold something in place for a subsequent Bloodletter charge or keep them back to counter punch when my enemy came forward.

I ended up playing against a relatively narrow range of armies having played Soulblight, Slannesh (twice) and Tzeentch (twice). Every one of the games was very competitive and all of my opponents were absolute gents, as is always the case at Slaughter. I won my first 4 games and ended up playing Terence (the eventual winner) in Round 5; unfortunately I knew going in that I probably didn’t have the tools to beat the feared 88 Blissbarb list, so I prioritised battle tactics and although I lost the game, I went 5/5 for BTs (Khorne have a range of great and super achievable battle tactics, helping me achieve 24/25 over the weekend).

In the end I finished 4th which I was super happy with, considering my lack of preparation games. I’m a massive fan of the new Khorne book, which feels very technical and am already planning a few lists for future events (currently have some Mortals on my painting station). Just wanted to take the chance to thank all 5 of my opponents, who were all awesome, ensuring that I had 5 great games. Thanks to Chris, James and all the volunteers who continue to put on one of the best tournaments on the circuit and I wanted to wish Terence the best of luck in America: the Golden Ticket couldn’t have gone to a more deserving winner. Already looking forward to Slaughter 2024 🙌

Chaos Coolest Arm: Terence Voller, Hedonites of Slaanesh

I had a great time at Sydney Slaughter – every opponent was fantastic, the venue was great and the TO’s even better. Can’t praise the Mortally Wounded lads enough. My list was designed to be an Alpha/ control list and it did its job very well; with the new GHB coming out I will have to reassess it I am sure, so it’s a bit hard to talk about what I would change with no time left in this GHB to worry about it. The meta is crazy right now with all the new books. Eventually it will settle down and with the GHB going back to yearly, we might even miss these crazy days.

The stand-out moment of the tournament was round 4 vs Blake and his Khorne: we are teammates but I live 2 hours away from them, so don’t get to practice vs them. It was Prize of Gallet so mid/late game is where the points are at, and I figured there’s no harm in letting him go first so I get to pick which objectives activate. It was the same idea turn 2 when I won priority: I figured my objective is better than his, after measuring the distance from his Bloodletters and figuring at best 1 could charge. Of course I did not account for him rolling two 6s for his Blood Tithe moves, resulting in him needing an 8” charge and an 11” charge on 3d6 after all his movement shenanigans. I felt my heart sink as I knew it was the end if he made it in with 40; 20 I could hurt enough with Unleash Hell, but 40 is a death sentence. He goes for his 3d6 charge, fails, reroll fails. Goes for his 8” charge fails again. I proceed to kill 39 Bloodletters then double turn him, wiping his entire army off the board. The blood flowed in excess.

Death Power Pick Steven Nuttall, Soulblight Gravelords

I had a blast. The Slaughter was awesome! It was my first time there and one of the best GTs I have been to. All of my match ups were really fun and managed to come out with 3 wins and 2 losses. My losses were to the best in Chaos and best in Death players respectively, so good to know I was smashed by the cream of the crop lol. 

I am very new to Soulblight and spent most of the time leading up to the GT getting them painted, which I managed in just under a month. This didn’t leave a lot of time for practice games but despite a lot of play errors, I think the list is just really strong on its own, as you can probably tell by the 6 other SBGL lists with the exact same sub faction and hero/ artefact set up. 

The most challenging game was the mirror match with Bob Van Emmerick in Round 5. With a very tired and hungover head he showed me what an experienced Soulblight player can really get out of the list. One of the coolest moments was when he hit a long bomb charge with some Zombies out of the grave on turn 1, to bog down my 15 Black Knights. After combat there were 6 left at the start of my turn holding my Knights in place. I managed to cast Curse of Exsanguination for the first time ever with the VLOZD, and proceeded to kill them all one by one, rerolling the mortal wound and Bob missing the ward save every time, freeing up my Knights to move and charge later in the turn. Didn’t win me the game but very fun interaction. 

I’m pretty happy with how my list performed overall; I think it’s hard to go wrong with SBGL at the moment, which shows in the majority of the lists at the GT finishing in the top 25. This is the first time I have built one list, played it and been happy with it and felt no need to change anything. I would like to experiment with a few variations but will wait until the next GHB comes out as I imagine there are going to be points changes. I don’t think there will be any major nerfs coming up as GW only changes warscroll text as a last resort, but I do think there will be a major point hike. I think Summonable units are going to go up across the board as a way to reduce the overall power of the army, so I am going to wait for that before I invest in anything else. 

Hopefully Black Knights fly under the radar as it seems like surprisingly few lists are running them, possibly because of stock shortages and the age of the models? The 15 block is kind of the hallmark of my list and I LOVE playing with them. It’s such a flexible unit: they can be devastating in some situations, act as an anvil, control the board, just so many applications. I’m not super happy with how I played them in a lot of situations over the GT, but I think with a bit more practice I can get a lot more interesting use out of them. 

Check out Steve’s awesome hobby Instagram @the_drunk_bard

Death Coolest List: Craig Anderson, Ossiarch Bonereapers 

My entire Ossiarch Bonereapers army has been converted into a more Tomb King-y look. I’m sure I’m not the first person to do it. As I’ve researched ideas, I’ve seen units and characters done, but I don’t think I’ve seen another whole army yet.

The rough fluff I’ve had for the army is that at the climax of The War of Light and Death, a diminished and separated force of Ossiarchs were leading some Lumineth towards a realm gate to Chamon in a fighting retreat. The Ossiarchs were in the gate when Teclis shone the light of Hysh across the realms undoing the Necroquake, which had the side effect of repairing and unjumbling some of the souls used to make up the Ossiarchs, regaining lost memories and personalities removed to make ideal Bonereapers.
The most prominent of these styled himself “The Endless King” Ikanamunra, for he has lived, died and returned to life more than most. Since that time he has been rebuilding his Legion with the combined experience from leading armies (albeit unsuccessfully) from Khemrian times and the strength of their new Ossiarch constructions.

Ikanamunra has been the main King in a couple of narrative campaigns, both as a Tomb King and an Ossiarch Bonereaper. He always gets killed off and the entire army wiped out, so of course he has to stick around.

In my list, you would have seen that I didn’t just name my characters but I also have one of my Immortis Guard named, “Imset the Aegis” who was my Anvil of Apotheosis hero from Slaughter in 2021 (though I did swap out his spear for an axe).

List wise, there were a couple of things that stood out to me. The only Galletian Champion I had was my general the Boneshaper. They’re not really someone I can have reach out and grab objectives and get secondaries because they’re the heart of the army. It’s a slow death without them. Fuelled by Ghurish Rage didn’t really come up much, and I was lucky it didn’t also get blocked by the Immortis Guard as noted in the last article. Either they weren’t attacked at all or were very overwhelmingly attacked.
Every game since the book came out I have been running Crematorians but I swapped to Mortis Praetorians two games before list sub, and I missed it in all but two of my games. The counter charge is really strong and it gave my opponents more to thing about. In fact, I played Slaves to Darkness in rounds 2, 3 and 4 and every time my opponents picked the battle tactic to make 3 charges, I would block by simply charging the unit about to charge before they did.

I think next time I would try and fit the Crawler back into my list: people are sleeping on the 3+ to make a unit strike last.

A cheeky little shout out as well to my round 2 game against Ethan Johns who was running Everchosen S2D with Archaon, Warriors and Chosen. Not only did Archaon get Slayer of Kings off on Katakros with three 6s (which was the first time Ethan had rolled it, and I know he’s been running Archaon for a while) but in the next turn Archaon, on 1-3 wounds, would turn around and roll yet another three 6s with the Slayer of Kings on the Boneshaper who was hoping to get a cheeky “This One’s Mine”. The Boneshaper is here in the middle of all the Warriors, alive because of Fuelled by Ghurish Rage: 

Destruction Power Pick: James Halligan, Ogor Mawtribes 

Having tried 2x and 4x Mournfang at a few tournaments, and been disappointed with how squishy they are into anything with rend, it was ordained by the Great Maw: time to go full monstertrucks.

This list is almost a carbon copy of Hazel’s list from the Wales GT. I changed the prayer on the Husky from Pulverising Hailstorm to Keening Gale as I was worried about battle tactics turn 1, and wanted a 17″ yeet for Desecrate as an option. This was probably a mistake as in most games I was 1 or 2 wounds short on killing a foot hero turn 1. The real MVPs in the list are the Vultures: 4/5 mortals a whack is pretty brutal and is almost a direct counter to Morathi in my opinion. The list performed better than expected to be honest, and I will be running it again at Salt Smash 2. 

This is how it all went in summary:

Game 1: Tero (Did you know he was a writer for White Dwarf?) Kanko and his Ironjawz. Win.

Game 2: Sylvaneth. Win.

Game 3: Blake and his Khorne. Heavy loss.

Game 4: Gloomspite (Troggs). Win in game, not on differential.

Game 5: Morathi and the bow/fighty snakes. Win.

Everyone I played was an amazing opponent. Win.

If you want more info or have any questions you can get me on insta, the Age of Salt discord or Coach’s discord, all as the “bogan of sigmar”.

Destruction Coolest List: Lucy Moore, Ogor Mawtribes 

It was a thrill to see I got the coolest pick for Destruction, certainly took the pressure off winning games! Love and Wargames is the current club name my partner and I are taking. I called the list “Bruce and the Deadly Dadbods” as Kragnos is green and purple, like the Hulk.

Sydney Slaughter was a brilliant tournament: the venue and the setup was great, with room to play without bumping each other and it was an awesome group of people to play with. Chris, Dan and James did a brilliant job of TO’ing. This weekend was the most fun I have had playing AOS since I started in April 2022. My Meatfist list was made with the encouragement and support of Stuart ‘Irongutsman’ as part of the Onwards AOS coaching program. I really wanted to take the Bloodpelt Hunter and he recommended the Tyrants with Brawlerguts. Through playtesting I changed from Battle Regiment to Warlord to gain the Flask of Stonehorn blood on my tunnel master Tyrant. 

My first game was against Nick and his Troggs, I knew what I was up against and was expecting a tough match but the Skuttletide endless spell was a surprise and did much more damage to my units than expected. By the end of Round 1, the Skuttletide had taken down half a unit of Gluttons, 2 Ironguts and mortally wounded my Tyrant. Trying and failing to dispel the Skuttletide twice cost me Heroic actions, putting me behind and not able to catch up. It was a really fun game but I didn’t follow my own plan and fought on the enemy base rather than in the centre, and was tabled at the top of round 4. 

Game 2 was hilariously fun, trying to stay out of range of Bruce’s Skaven shooting and not charging early enough. Not winning a priority roll at all, I was forced to take the full impact of the rat ogres. Kragnos successfully destroyed the Hellpit Abomination only for Bruce to roll a 6 and “It’s Alive,” keeping me out of reach of Thanquol for a final opportunity to fight. Bruce’s Skaven hit hard and my army was tabled at the top of turn 4 again! Laughed hard and died hard! 

Game 3, always the hardest late in the day, was a win against Alex’s City of Sigmar. My Ironguts were ferocious and hit twice, but didn’t have the opportunity to Strike at the Opening and Lead by Example. The Bloodpelt Hunter’s extra movement put him in a position to charge at just the right time. Kragnos’ 3xD6 charges for everyone helped me get over the line, finally getting a priority and the double turn at the top of turn 4, taking out the Celestial Hurricanum and General on Griffin for the win. 

I arrived on Sunday determined to charge early and not hang back as I had against the Skaven in game 2. I was paired with the lovely Ethan P and his Stormcast army in game 4. Ethan took turn 1 and sent his unit of dragons, Fulminators, and his tunnel-mastering sorcerer on to the one activated objective.

Determined to stop him in his tracks I charged them with a unit of Gluttons, my Ironguts, and my tunnel-master Tyrant, but both Kragnos and the other Tyrant missed their charges. I successfully finished off the sorcerer, the dragons and after a ferocious second fight with the Ironguts left him with 1 Fulminator. Unfortunately, I forgot to drink my Flask of Stonehorn Blood and dropped the battle tactic (Cunning Maneouvre) when his dragons finished off the Tyrant in the first combat. We continued in the bloodbath and I got super excited at the bottom of round 2 when I realised I could get Boil their Blood (for the first time) by Kragnos taking down the second unit of Dragons next to the Mawpot; however, the dragon successfully Smashed to Rubble the Mawpot, and my second battle tactic was dropped!

Winning the priority in turn 3 gave me the double turn and an opportunity to charge his Lord Celestant on Stardrake. Kragnos was on 14/18 wounds so I knew succeeding in this charge would give me a chance to heal Kragnos up and maybe finish off his army in turn 4. Kragnos’ Rampaging Destruction, often doing 15-36 mortal wounds rolled 1 & 5 (thankfully not a 7) doing 5 wounds to the Stradrake, allowing him to survive the charge, Unleash Hell and destroy Kragnos in response. It was a nail-biting game that on paper looked like a smashing but the game felt much more exciting, Ethan was victorious 21-2 with 5 battle tactics and his grand strategy. A brilliantly fun game, even with the loss. 

My final game of the weekend was against Ethan J’s Slaves to Darkness. Archeon was just too much for me and the Chosen were well manoeuvered to charge Kragnos and take him down in the second fight of the combat in turn 3. This left a single Tyrant the opportunity to Tunnel Master and hide in the corner of his territory until the end of the game. Although keeping that last unit alive gave me the opportunity for a couple more battle tactics, Ethan won the game with a convincing 27-9. 

I have had so much fun playing the list: you can’t beat the 3x D6 charges and the fear on your opponent’s face when Kragnos hits the table. Taking the Galletian Command battalion did not pay off and I didn’t survive any fight long enough to pull off the Ironguts’ 3 fights in the turn. With a more tactical player who was able to keep the Tyrant within range at all times, there may have been the opportunity for better use of the Ironguts. Having the Lookout Gnoblar banners on the Gluttons (-1 to be wounded) was useful against the few shooting units I came up against, but Kragnos didn’t come up against any spells to ignore. The Bloodpelt Hunter whiffed a few missile attacks even with the Deadly Aim Command Trait, but his extra movement helped out with extra trampling charges in every game. I was not lucky with priority rolls, only winning 5 times for the whole weekend! 

Although I ended the weekend with a 1 – 4, I left really happy. This list gave me super fun games every time that finished with time to spare, giving me the opportunity to hang out and meet people. I had an awesome weekend of gaming. 

Order Power Pick: Adrien Kent, Stormcast Eternals

Firstly, I would like to thank Chris, James and all the people who helped make this amazing event at Sydney Slaughter happen this year. Thank you to Peter and the Plastic Craic crew for allowing me to give my two cents on the list I ran and my experiences at Sydney Slaughter for what it is worth. Although my win rate or lack thereof does not really reflect the fun you can have with this list, I will attempt to give a brief overview of how I went and what I would keep or change moving forward. A big thank you to my opponents on the day who were all great to play against, and finally a huge shout out to D3 Mortal Wounds, the best club and bunch of friends a hobbyist could ask for, making the event that much sweeter to attend.

The plan was to create an army that had the ability to deny deepstriking units, create layers of mobile screens, castle up and shrink if it had to, and then project outward for a final counterpunch whilst utilising teleportation to maintain ranged damage. The army did perform as it should over the five games: I played and I fought hard in each. However, I felt I was a little outmatched both in terms of lists and player skill by my opponents as my experience with Age of Sigmar is still in its infancy.

The Drakespawn Knights were the secret sauce for their screening mobility. They can move and reform their line in almost any way you wish, giving the rest of the army time to counter. I would create multiple layers protecting the Longstrikes so they could do what they do best. The main failing over the weekend was my hesitation to release the trigger on the counterpunch from the Fulminators, which I am sure my opponents would agree never really did anything threatening in any of the games.

So, where was the fun? Well, it was making five new friends and hanging out with a bunch of amazing people in the coolest way possible, playing Warhammer! The lists I fought against were Ogor Monster Trucks, Khorne, Seraphon, Cabalists and Knights of the Empty Throne. Through all these tough match ups there were three little Stormcast heroes standing defiantly, often holding the middle of the board against the oncoming hoards of Chaos and star lizards alike. The Vexillors were amazing, not just for their power projection to wipe out small heroes, but apparently their ability to hold combats for far longer than they have any right to. This was my favourite gaming highlight over the weekend, creating some very cinematic moments for sure. Special mention goes to the Longstrikes who almost bagged themselves a Be’lakor first turn leaving him on 2 wounds!

If I were to change anything outside of this GHB or the next one I would change the Vexillors to Stormdrake Guard, the Liberators to Vanquishers and with the extra points upgrade the Knight Relictor to a Lord. This change would give you a more reliable teleport and a second fast-moving combat threat, helping to take the focus off the Fulminators and spread the damage around so you can be more aggressive with your charges. However, the next GHB is focused on wizards and the Drakespawn Knights may or may not survive in the new Cities of Sigmar Battletome, so for now I am unsure how this list will work moving forwards. Still, it has been a lot of fun to use and hopefully the list or a similar variant will be usable moving forwards into the next GHB.

Once again, I just want to say what an amazing time I had at Sydney Slaughter this year. The whole event on and off the tables was a real pleasure. If you’re interested in tournament play or just looking for a chance to make five friends then this event is the one to go to. Also, there were push ups!

Order Coolest List: Keith Lawson, Lumineth Realmlords

Well, this was my 1^st Sydney Slaughter event and what an event it was!  I’ve only been in the hobby for just over 12 months. After giving Rugby away I needed something else to fill in my time. I was introduced to the Guys in CrutchHammer, and I’ve never looked back.

Shout out to the team that ran Sydney Slaughter, which was by far my most enjoyable event I’ve been to.

Game 1 – Austin Cranfield – Big WAAAGH!! Won 18-12

Game was really tight game: going into Round 5, Austin was up by 1 point. I had Avalenor make a 11” Charge, getting into his back line, knocking his General on the head and finishing off a unit of 5 Orruk Ardboys to stop him getting his Grand Strategy. Great player even after losing his 1^st game, Austin still went on to 4-1 so big credit to him.

Game 2 – Brent Koppel – Ogor Mawtribes Won 21-9

Being able to take 1^st turn, dropping my Loreseeker in 3” away and auto-casting the Jaw – then halving their movement – I was able to kill 2 Stonehorns across 5 rounds. Moving my whole army to the middle, I was able to lock down the middle objective and my Loreseeker used Tunnel Master to drop down on the other objective. Again, great game, just meet in the middle and smack each other around.

Game 3 – Alex Bathgate -Slaanesh Lost 27-3

Well my 1^st game I’ve had against Slaanesh and what a bloodbath it was! Alex was a great opponent, top fella, but I knew it was going to be an uphill battle with the Blissbarb Archers. I was able to start the game hiding behind a massive piece of terrain but sooner or later I had to pop my head out, and as soon as I come from behind the wall he made me pay for it.

Game 4 – Kyle Liefting – SoulBlight Gravelords Lost 27-3

Well, this was probably the hardest match up for the weekend; I didn’t know to much about the army going into it. I knew they were good, but not this good (they need a nerf). From the get-go I was making mistakes with my movement, not playing to objectives and making silly decisions. I guess the biggest mistake was leaving Avelanor open and a unit of 10 Black Knights plus the Wight King on Skeletal Steed made an 11” charge. Kyle rolled 20 dice and dealt 15 mortal wounds, killing Avalenor then the Zombie Dragon, and making light work of my Stone Guard in the middle.

Game 5 – James Landis – Slaves to Darkness Lost 26-4

Again, great game with James. Going into the match I think I was a little overconfident: I’ve played Slaves a few times, but that came back to bite me in ass when he had his Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore up to Rend -4, going to town on my army as I only ignore Rend -2. I failed too many battle tactics also.

While it’s fair to say that Ymetrica aren’t a super competitive army to run at tournaments, it’s going to play well into some armies and some battleplans.

If I could change anything to make it more competitive, I could throw in 100 sentinels but I’m not that guy. I was there to meet new people drink plenty of beers and have a great time – and it did not disappoint, that’s for sure.

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BAM! Well that’s a great wrap-up to a great event. Our boy @seanzor will be running an article on the Mortal Blade painting competition which ran in parallel to Slaughter, so keep an eye out for that; and we’ll also be catching up with winner and runner up of Best Sport at the event, for a feature on how to be a great opponent. Sydney Slaughter is a celebration of all aspects of the hobby, and we’re here to do the same.

Have a good weekend, nerds – see you on the other side.

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