Do Helsmiths belong in a series about diamonds in the rough – finding high-performing lists from underperforming factions?

Well they did when I started looking at them, but their performances have certainly rallied. This book got off to a rocky start, sandwiched inbetween various Destro armies at the bottom of the table:

But they’re risen steadily out of The Destruction Zone and into the fat middle:

What’s happened? Well the short¹ version is that most people worked through one the following two cycles:

Or alternatively:

If the first flowchart was you, congratulations, I hope you’re enjoying your DOK. But today we’ll be taking a look at where that second flowchart has brought this army.

We’re rolling over to a new GHB, but that doesn’t overly stress me given that Helsmiths are a combined-arms force that should give you a chance against most opposition and on most missions; and since they were in that fat middle, their points drops were handy rather than transformative. So let’s start with a look at the one unit you’ll see in pretty much every successful Chorfs list.

Why Is Urak Taar in Every List?

The Devs literally just took a Stonehorn and made it way better for essentially the same points. The similarities are remarkable, and where there are differences, they strongly favour Urak Taar because it’s an expensive new kit they really want you to buy nobody knows:

• The trademark Stonehorn Rampage that lets you trample through enemies and do damage after you charge is identical
• The main companion Horns and Hooves attack profile is identical to the Stonehorn’s Rock-hard Horns, right down to Charge (+1 Damage)
• The Stonehorn classic 5++ Ward is now situationally available to the Stonehorn via a Prayer and to Urak Taar via DPPs
• 340 points gets you a 3+ armour save and Level 2 wizard; Stonehorn has a lacklustre 4+ save, is not a Wizard at all and only 20 points cheaper at 320.

So it’s already a better Stonehorn, and then we have this ability that makes your whole army sing:

There’s a few cheeky tricks you can do with the timing of this, but one that jumps out is parking your DPPs on your Wizards first to get bonuses to cast / unbind, then after making use of that, shifting them onto an exposed objective-holder who wants the 5++ wards.

So he’s fast, tanky and can fight, can cast 2 spells (with access to casting bonuses) and does loads for your army, all tied up with an efficiently-costed bow. I’m not making a case for him to get nerfed here – when you look at the faction overall it’s not overperforming, so they don’t really need much in the way of tweaks. But we’re here to look at the shape of Helsmiths lists that are performing well, and we’re not doing that properly if we don’t acknowledge Urak Taar’s ominous silhouette bang in the centre. Take him in every list.

Now let’s take a detailed look at the AOR that is Helsmiths’ most common route to success.

Taar’s Grand Forgehost

Whose Grand What What? This AOR is open to pretty much the whole book outside of Cav, and you have to take Urak Taar which is no great hardship, since he’s an auto-include anyway. You also can’t take Hobgrots.

The main trait is that instead of having to pollute terrain to build up DPPs, you just sit back and watch the buffs come to you. You also get a 6++ ward on your warmachines (both Automota and Artillery) and recursion:

The troops come back in your movement phase so while they can’t move, you can still potentially charge them straight into the fray (or just drop in and start blasting).

The enhancements are fine, but nothing game changing. That blanket -1 to hit could be handy on any hero².

Since we’re taking Urak Taar (level 2 caster), we’d want access to some good spells, and the good news is that they are decent. Switching off Crits is cash money, and that spell to ignore the first pip of damage is a nice bit of fan service for those of us who remember the old FW Legion of Azgorh rules:

Of the prayers, I really like that first debuff prayer. That’s going to be important in an army that ramps up throughout the game as the Battle Trait comes online – you’ll need to slow your enemy down in a lot of games:

And that is really this army’s niche in the meta: there’s a trend amongst newer books towards Battle Traits that ramp up across the turns, and amongst them, the Forgehost is able to make an early impact through decent shooting options while they wait for their full abilities to come online. And they don’t even have to wait very long, because they’re somewhat front-loaded: extensive access to Crit 2 Hits from Round 2 is pretty spicy.

With good armour saves, recursion to replace early losses and debuffs to dictate the pace of the game, they’re well-placed for what the game asks of you right now in mid-life AOS4.

So let’s take a look at a few examples. First up, félicitations to Matt Achard who won this 40-player event in France in March:

Matt has gone really hard on three angles:

• Reinforced infantry blocks to hold objectives and return in units of 10
• Aerial bombardment from double Deathshriekers and reinforced Razers
• Multiple Dominators who enjoy that 6+ ward and can hold their own in a fight

We can see that the Ashen Elder (Priest) is the clear foot hero of choice. The battle tactics are all-rounders and this list will give you a fighting chance against most opponents on most missions. Bravo Matt!

Next up, the legendary “Vradi” scored a podium at this 32-player event in Spain, also in March:

A similar mix of units and again we see an Ashen Elder. Vradi has also taken double Dominator Engines with Bane Maces: they’re a great little unit that can operate independently without drawing on a lot of your army’s buffs and other resources, and even better here in the AOR where they all get a 6++ Ward.

And finally, Walker Snapp punched out a strong 4-1 at Adepticon, winning his first 4 games to rep the Short Kings on top tables on the biggest of stages:

Again we see consistent support for the Deathshrieker and Ashen Elder, as well as taking Bane Maces on the Dominator Engines. Walker prefers the Hashutite Spears on his foot Chorfs here but overall both weapon choices have seen success. And while I prefer the Bane Maces on the Dommy Engines myself, it’s good to see the Immolation Cannons getting a bit of love for their dedicated Crowd Control role, underlining that there’s barely a bad choice in the book.

Other recent competitive 4-1s with the AOR include Dylan Ives Boynton at the 46-player Rocky Mountain Open in May, and a series of solid results for Alexandre St-Pierre in Canada, but I think we can close out the Grand Forgehost rundown by soaking up the genius and insanity of Alex Gonzalez’s Dommy Spam list, that punched out a magnificent 4-1 at the 41-player Catch This Smoke GT in California a few weeks ago:

FUCK. YES.

Almost everything in this list has that 6++ ward (Urak Taar himself, brilliantly, is a Warmachine). I’d been wondering myself what an MSU Dommy list would look like, and Mr Gonzalez has already done all the work. I love these kinds of lists where basically every unit is a threat: it can be really hard to play against, when you can’t just deal with a couple of obvious hammers and relax. (Big) hats off you for making it work.

In Conclusion

So what units should be on the shortlist for a Grand Forgehost list? As we established early on, Urak Taar is an auto-include. He’s literally required for the AOR, but you’ll see he’s in pretty much every HOH Allegiance list anyway. The Ashen Elder is likewise in basically every list, which makes sense for access to that strong Prayer Lore alongside Urak Taar’s strong magic. You’re also going to want at least one Dominator Engine with Bane Maces and Deathshrieker Rocket Battery, and quite possibly more than one of each³.The Dominator Engines even got a handy 10-point drop in the latest update (as did Cohort with Spears). Beyond that most options have some gas and it’s just pick your favourite flavour.

How are you winning games? Helsmiths are a combined arms faction that wins primarily by killing stuff (rather than tanking and / or running up the score). There’s no real shortcut to success – you do need to be a good player to do well with Helsmiths, because a lot of it will hinge on your knowledge of your opponent’s army and their capabilities, so you know what to prioritise for removal. What I’d suggest doing if you’re unsure is at the start of the game, ask your opponent what access they have to Strike First and if that’s tied to specific units, make those the first things you shoot off. Or if they’re only Strike First on the charge, you can play around that too (and watch out for the countercharge). That’ll go a long way to making sure you get the upper hand in the trading game and avoid the feels-bad of walking into a trap and losing a good unit on your own turn.

If I was starting this army myself I’d want a couple of 20-blocks of foot troops that you can recycle into 10s, because it’s a bit more forgiving of mistakes – most likely including a reinforced unit of 10 Razers, noting that the Crit 2 Hits battle trait does apply to shooting too.

In terms of Battle Tactics, Master the Paths and Restless Energy are ever-popular, which makes sense since you have the reach to kill a Hero (including in combat via the Stonehorn Rampage). This army is probably better at fighting than tanking, so of the new batch, I’ll probably shortlist Blazing Onslaught and Legend of the Parch while we’re figuring out the new world order. Helsmiths don’t have their own Manifestations so you’ll see a good spread of the universal options being taken – I’d actually consider the Krondspine if I didn’t have any points to spare, since you have a low number of casts but access to casting bonuses. It’s a bit off-Broadway currently and not present in any of these lists, but I’ll just park it there as an option to consider.

Anyway. I’ll leave you with that for today – there’s a real spread of Battle Formations that are doing well within Helsmiths allegiance, but we’ll circle back to that in Part Two, because this article is already long enough:

What’s Winning: Helsmiths of Hashut Part Two

Congrats to everyone who’s been doing well with this army, and if you’re rolling dice this weekend: give ’em hell.

Credit for cover image to Games Workshop

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1. Baddum Tiss. ↩︎
2. Thank you to phoenicean on reddit for pointing out that you can’t take the generic Taurus in the AOR! ↩︎
3. Maybe even like 7 Dominator Engines if you’ve got balls like King Kong. ↩︎