by Peter Atkinson
Ya know, I probably should have themed this month’s Challenge around De-Fucked Coherency for Units of Six Models, because that’s what seems to have sparked joy. But that’s all good, because fuck me, we get some good entries for these. Yet again we’ve got a real spread of lists to showcase, from seasoned, tourney-smashing legends of the game to new names and faces alike. We’re going to run down the podium in reverse order this week, starting with some Destruction favouritism Honourable Mentions and working up to your winner for August 2023, wrapping up with the September challenge which is one dedicated to the Order wankers.
As a reminder, this month’s Challenge was Conditional Battleline Meme Lists, with no generic Battleline allowed, so let’s see what you came up with.
Ready? Let’s go.
First Honourable Mention: Sandro Wanner, Maneaters
Eating mushrooms. Televised karaoke. Spending hours of your life watching big robots hit other big robots when you’re past Primary School age. There’s a few things in life with a pretty big following that I just don’t get. It’s not so much that I don’t like them myself – it’s that I don’t even get how anyone could like them. And yet lots of chumps people apparently do.
Add Maneaters to that list. I don’t like ’em – I’ve never liked ’em – but there’s a significant subset of Ogor players who love these things. And while they’re not my thing (at all), I was rapt to see the new book give you the option to make a Maneater General with Maneater Battleline, as a bit of fan service. It’s nice that it’s there for the Maneaters guys, and a neat little bit of design in the book.
– Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes
– Subfaction: Underguts
– Grand Strategy: Barren Icescape
LEADERS
Tyrant (150)
– General
– Command Traits: Ex-mercenary
– Artefacts of Power: Gruesome Trophy Rack
– Big Name: Deathcheater
Tyrant (150)
– Nullstone Adornments: Hand-carved Nullstone Icon
– Big Name: Deathcheater
BATTLELINE
Maneaters (300)
Maneaters (300)
Leadbelchers (160)
– Thunderfist
ARTILLERY
Ironblaster (200)
Ironblaster (200)
Ironblaster (200)
OTHER
Gnoblars (120)
Gnoblars (120)
Gorgers (80)
TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000
Over to you, Sandro:
I really love Maneaters! I hate that they’re not better. But hey, reinforced Maneaters now don’t have coherency issues. So here goes my pirate-themed-everyone-can-shoot-ogors list. I know, the Gorger can’t shoot and isn’t really piratey, but I often play against SBG with double reinforced skellies, so I reeeeally want that 9″ debuff!
Sander’s drafted a cool army which is bang on target for the assignment, but one that I unfortunately have to mark down for two reasons:
- You told me all about this cool, pirate-themed army but didn’t send in any photos. Come on now.
- A proper Meaneaters army should contain both Maneaters-keyworded units – it’s not hard, there’s only two! Especially when the one you’ve left out of your pirate army is an actual pirate.
Still, Sander has cooked up something pretty decent here, from extravagantly unpromising base materials. Good on ya Sander, now send us some photos of your army, we want to see it!
Second Honourable Mention: Kieran Harper, Ironjawz
THE Kieran Harper, fuck yeah! I’ve been a Kieran Harper Stan since early 1st Edition, when he had success with that whacky Mixed Destruction Battalion featuring some Black Orcs and a Giant. Real ones remember Kieran’s MegaBrutes build1 that he rode all the way to UK Masters, and I loved his regular slots on the Black Sun back in the day, flying the flag for Destro in general and Orruks in particular.
Kieran’s going full send with this refreshed take on his classic Maximum Effort list.
Maximum Effort: Pigs don’ mess wiv politikz2
Army Faction: Orruk Warclans
– Army Type: Ironjawz
– Army Subfaction: Bloodtoofs
– Grand Strategy: Waaagh!
– Triumphs: Inspired
LEADER 1 x Megaboss on Maw-krusha (450)*
– General
– Command Traits: Mighty Waaagh! Leader
– Boss Choppa and Rip-toof Fist
– Artefacts: Destroyer
– Mount Traits: Fast ’Un
1 x Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Nullstone Adornments: Hand-carved Nullstone Icon – Warbeats: Fixin’ Beat
1 x Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Nullstone Adornments: Polished Nullstone Pebble – Warbeats: Get ’Em Beat
1 x Orruk Warchanter (120)* – Warbeats: Killa Beat
BATTLELINE
6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)* – Gore-grunta Boss – Jagged Gore-hacka
6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)** – Gore-grunta Boss – Jagged Gore-hacka
6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)* – Gore-grunta Boss – Jagged Gore-hacka
3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)** – Gore-grunta Boss – Jagged Gore-hacka
CORE BATTALIONS:
*Warlord
**Ironjawz Fist
TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)
A little bit of nuance to point out for Bloodtoofs is that the pig move can be used to slam back into units and shut down Rally in the following hero phase. Experienced Megabosses will be well aware of that already, but it’s another little workaround for the priority roll that might help out an improving player.
Coherency for units of 6! Let’s fucking gooooo! I love the Fast Un – Destroyer Combo Maw Krusha build, I love the Trip Warchanters bedecked in glorious Nullstone, and I really love the wave after wave of raging bacon. If I was running this list myself I might chicken out and slap Weird Un on the Maw Krusha, to stop him getting punked by Merciless Blizzard; I might even give him the Nullstone Pebble too, for a 4+ 4++ magic ignore (it stacks).
But that’s why I’m a coward and Kieran’s a legend. Destroyer or GTFO.
1 15 Brutes, unit champ as General, automatic Inspiring Presence, automatic Bellowing Tyrant. You remember the drill. You might even remember getting drilled by it.
2 Ardboyz on the street just kickin’ to the licks
List of the Month: Dave Kerr, Stormcast
I reckon most armies have got a dumb build that everyone player of that faction has thought about at some point, and sometimes they do go on to have their moment in the sun. The Gits players had their 5 minutes of 30 Hoppers being top-tables competitive, but the KO players are still waiting for the day when footslogging Arkanaut spam is ready to shine; meanwhile in Queensland, Dave’s ready to pounce with the goodest boys in the mortal realms.
I’ve seen people kick around the idea of fighting and running away with Gryph Hounds before, but the lists have always been dogshit and they never actually make it to the table. But Dave’s cooked up a storm here, with the planets aligning to give his puppybirds the tech and the backup to do some serious work. If anyone can make it work, it’s The Master, and he’s already been playing (and winning) games with this list.
MARCH OF THE FLIGHTLESS BIRDS
Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
– Stormhost: Astral Templars (Scions of the Storm)
– Grand Strategy: Draconith Defiance
– Triumphs: Indomitable
Leaders
Krondys, Son of Dracothion (520)*
– Spell: Celestial Blades
Knight-Incantor (120)*
– Lore of Primal Frost: Hoarfrost
Knight-Relictor (100)**
– General
– Command Trait: High Priest
– Artefact: Obsidian Amulet
– Prayer: Bless Weapons
Knight-Incantor (120)*
– Lore of Primal Frost: Merciless Blizzard
Battleline
3 x Vanguard-Palladors (190)**
– Boltstorm Pistols and Shock Handaxes
3 x Vanguard-Palladors (190)*
– Boltstorm Pistols and Shock Handaxes
3 x Vanguard-Palladors (190)*
– Boltstorm Pistols and Shock Handaxes
Units
12 x Gryph-Hounds (180)*
– Reinforced x 1
12 x Gryph-Hounds (180)*
– Reinforced x 1
12 x Gryph-Hounds (180)*
– Reinforced x 1
Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Wizard-Finders of Andtor
Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 152
Drops: 3
Dave’s summation of the list:
The premise is to cast Celestial Blades for +1 wound on a pack of bird dogs, also giving them Blessed Weapons for exploding 6s. This puts them on 49 attacks at 2/3s rend -3 (or rend -4 with Krondys stripping armour), exploding, and they retreat after fighting.
If anyone deepstrikes, then they have the chance of taking about 1 damage from the Palladors’ shooting. Palis seems alright for scoring and some Battle Tactics. It’s a meme, but it could be amazing as you don’t really need to cast spells at enemies – it’s all buffing upside. Mage for +2 charge.
Where could you take it next? SCE might be ready for another wave of points drops at the next balance patch, which would probably be reinvested into upgrading the Knight-Relictor into a Lord-Relictor, and Dave’s already started experimenting with Domintan’s Stormcoven for Activation Wars fuckery.
Relentless creativity from that man right there – he’ll just keep finding new ways to beat ya.
September Listbuilding Challenge: Diver-City of Sigmar
Plenty’s been said and written about the racial keywords in the new book, but you can probably drop about 90% of it into one of the following two buckets:
- Humans get way more stuff than other groups, which is either problematic or fine depending on who you ask
- Blind panic about slapping infinite rend on an Aelf unit
What I want you to do this month is prove to me that there’s life beyond the Johanns. There’s a fuck ton of fun you can have with Duardin, and Aelves, and universal options too. So let’s see your Not-more-than-50%-Human lists.
This is your challenge for September:
- I want your Cities of Sigmar lists
- The maximum amount of points you can spend on units with the Human keyword is 1000
- You are welcome to spend less: heavily-themed Aelven or Duardin lists are welcome, as are truly mixed lists
What we’ll probably do is print one of each (Aelf themed, Duardin themed and melting pot). Unless the Aelf and Duardin lists you send in all turn out to be shit, proving my thesis to be incorrect, in which case we’ll quietly sweep it under the carpet and only print the 50% human stuff.
So hang on, are we just pretending Human Gunlines aren’t a thing?
Urgh, Order wankers. Honestly. I had to create a burner email address for these challenges, just to keep all the inevitable dick pics out of my actual inbox, but you lot keep sending me Order gunlines instead which is frankly far worse. No one person’s eyes should have to see the things I’ve seen.
But don’t worry, all the NPCs can also participate. The zero-skill gunlines will no doubt be popular until they get (under-) nerfed (because Order), so they can have a whole separate category in this month’s Challenge, which like the many life sentences of Harold Shipman will run concurrently:
- Still Cities of Sigmar lists
- The tightest, filthiest gunline you can cook up
We will only be printing one of these – no runners up, no honourable mentions. So if you’re having a crack at this category, make sure the list is fucking razor sharp. There are 5-0s waiting to happen with this build, so show me how you’re getting there.
How to enter
Email me at PlasticCraicAOS@outlook.com, or jump into my DMs on the page’s Twitter.
Have a good weekend, nerds – see you on the other side.
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