by Peter Atkinson

There must still be some poor old bloke somewhere called Adolf, whose mum gave him that name way back before Hitler took power in Germany, and he’s been stuck with it his whole life. You couldn’t share that name with one of history’s greatest monsters – you’d have to change it, wouldn’t you?

The thing is branding matters, and when people see “Battle Regiment” they start yawning. Understandably so – it has been the dominant format across the life of 3rd Edition, warped the game as the GHB Battalions need to be super strong to compete with it, and even crushed the life out of Darren Watson’s excellent List Diaries.

But the bold people who stepped up this month and submitted their lists implicitly understood what this particular Challenge was about. Sometimes we’ll be going all-out for the most competitive lists possible, but this time they all tried to do something interesting, and cool, and I salute them for that. Let’s see what we’ve got.

Winner: Dirk Specht, Hedonites of Slaanesh

Allegiance: Slaanesh
– Host: Pretenders
– Grand Strategy: Defend What’s Ours
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Sigvald, Prince of Slaanesh (205)*
Lord of Pain (135)*
– General
– Command Trait: Strength of Goodhood
– Artefact: The Crown of Dark Secrets
– Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Shardspeaker of Slaanesh (125)*
– Lore of the Magnificent: Phantasmagoria
– bounded to Incarnate

Battleline
10 x Myrmidesh Painbringers (290)*
– Reinforced x 1
22 x Blissbarb Archers (300)*
– Reinforced x 1
11 x Blissbarb Archers (150)*

Units
9 x Corvus Cabal (80)*
5 x Slickblade Seekers (200)*

Behemoths
Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (480)*
– Allies

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1965 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 480 / 400
Wounds: 98
Drops: 1

Pat Neven writes: This list is an interesting choice. Currently the more competitive choice would 88+ Blissbarbs in a one drop but this seems a bit more interesting to play and a bit less likely to get your car tyres slashed. Take the first turn and thirty Blissbarbs is enough to bring some pain with a few Slickblades to go and round up some Depravity.

Sigvald, 10 Painbringers and a Krondspine give you some melee chops. I guess you are tying up as many units as possible with the Krondspine’s no retreat so you can shoot them off with the Blissbarbs. Unlike pure Blissbarb spam you have some melee punch available to generate a bit of combat phase Depravity. Painbringers aren’t world beaters on paper but 3 attacks each on 2’s and 2’s can generate a few Depravity in the early combat phases.

Sigvald is there to look awesome, draw fire and give you a gambler’s chance of really making a mess of something important. Ignoring ward saves is a powerful ability against the right target. The Lord of Pain with Strength of Godhood has real potential if you can get the Crown of Dark Secrets onto a sufficently juicy target. Ideally you lock something important in combat with the Krondspine, reduce its attacks to 1 with the Crown of Dark Secrets and go out to the carpark to check your tyres while your opponent flails around in impotent rage.

Corvus Cabal are a good include for any Chaos army. With KO being up and about I tend to favor Untamed Beasts and their pregame move to make a deployment pocket, but reserve troops are always value and being invisible in cover is useful.

The Shardspeaker’s best days are probably ahead of him in the new GHB but its a decent unit. With the GC rules you could stand him next to the Corvus Cabal while they were in cover making him impossible to target with non-Sharpshooter ranged attacks. One to remember if those rules ever return in some form.

It’s interesting that a Krondspine has gone from all-powerful omniprescent menace to intriguing bit of list tech in a year. They’re still pretty good and a solid option for the list building challenge. I might have gone with a Slaanesh STD Warshrine just so I could use the 3d6 inch charge prayer on Sigvald. It might not be a better option but the thought of getting 18 attacks on Sigvald would sustain me through some dark hours. Then again I’ve always been a nut for Warshrines.

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Honourable Mentions

A few of the other interesting lists we saw this month were:

• Aaron McHours with his Hammers of Sigmar gunline. Battleline Judis, Ballista in the artillery slot and the connoisseur’s double-bill of Gardus and a Tauralon up top. Chef’s kiss.
• Jayden Andrea’s Kraggy ‘n’ Skraggy Big Waaagh for maximum rule of cool.
• Mick Newman’s Battleline Zombie Dragons, guest-starring Lauka Vai and a Mortis Engine

Love your work, gentlemen.

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My contribution to the genre

I love putting One-Eyed Grunnock in my lists right now, and I think he anchors a Squig spam list quite nicely:

Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
– Gittish Horde: Jaws of Mork
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders
Squigboss with Gnasha-squig (100)*
– General
– Command Trait: The Clammy Hand
– Artefact: Gryph-feather Charm (Galletian Champion)
– Aspect of the Champion: Fuelled by Ghurish Rage
Grinkrak The Great (190)*
One-Eyed Grunnock (420)*
– Allies

Battleline
36 x Squig Herd (390)*
– Reinforced x 2
36 x Squig Herd (390)*
– Reinforced x 2
20 x Moonclan Shootas (125)*

Units
6 x Grinkrak’s Looncourt (0)*
6 x Sneaky Snufflers (130)*

Behemoths
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (200)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1945 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 420 / 400
Wounds: 247
Drops: 1

The fun part with Gloomspite is picking what goes in the Behemoth slot, and I’ve indulged myself with a Skitterstrand here. I reckon this list could be pretty competitive under the old GHB, and maybe adaptable to the new GHB too, which brings me onto the challenge for July.

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July Listbuilding Challenge: Endless Acolytes

We will, of course, lean into the new GHB for this one. What I’m asking for this month is your Endless Acolytes lists, to double down on the magic theme:

• Your list must contain an Andtorian Acolytes Battalion
• That Battalion must utilise all three slots
• Your list must also contain three Endless Spells

So there ya go! Show me what you’re cooking up – and congratulations to Dirk, you are welcome to set a future Challenge if you so wish.

Send me those lists in the comments, over on Twitter or you can email: PlasticCraicAOS@outlook.com

Can’t wait to see ’em.

Credit for the cover image to Games Workshop

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