by the Plastic Craic team – intro by Peter Atkinson

Long-term readers will know we like to open these List Reviews with a roast of whatever shit tip we’re visiting this time, but I won’t bang on about Geelong’s status as the Rust Belt of Victoria, not least because there’s actual gun play in and around Corio most weekends and that’s a bear you don’t want to poke.

So the TLDR is that you’d need a really good reason to visit Geelong, and a weekend on the piss with the boys is most definitely a good reason. Half the Plastic Craic writing team will be in attendance, as well as a bunch of our Patrons, and the legendary Saturday Night Barbecue at Clarkey’s place is a highlight of the Australian AOS calendar. Now this time around I’m not going to make any promises I can’t keep as regards vomiting in the flowerbed, because when you put me in a shed and tell me to start drinking, you live with the consequences.

As always, our list review format brings you the selected highlights rather than trudging through every list in detail: We present two lists from each GA, representing the best and coolest tech on display. So let’s get into it.

Chaos, by Pat Nevan

Ah the Lost Legion GT, one of my favorite events and not just because I happened to win it once. There were a few dramas of the tedious workplace sitcom romance “Will they / Won’t they” variety as regards running the event this year, but they eventually settled on the first weekend in December, which is a good place to round out the Victorian AOS calendar. The event is in its fourth year and the Geelong boys have got the whole venue/tables/terrain thing well and truly sorted. I’m attending this one and, time permitting, I’ll be doing an event writeup afterwards, so I’ll save the shit-talking about Geelong for that article. In any case the old port city is becoming a much nicer place as gentrification inevitably drives the native flannel-clad deadshits towards cheaper real estate and less pushback from the general public when they take their drugs in shopping center toilets.

As an added bonus, Jarrad Coots, the nicest man in Warhammer, is TOing again this year. For some reason games tend to run a lot longer than normal at Geelong events and watching Coots work himself into a nervous frenzy trying to politely urge on the late finishers is one of the highlights of the event. If you finish your game early on Day 2, head down to the top tables and enjoy the show. Or better yet, run over time yourself for the full experience.

Reading the lists I can’t help but feel a touch of pride at the Victorian AOS scene. We may not have the numbers but by God we have enough mean-spirited cuntiness to match anybody. The lists themselves serve as a brilliant snapshot of where AOS 4 is at six months into the new edition. Reinforced elite units, low drops and the sort of creativity associated with the Henry Ford production line.

You can have any sort of Stormcast list you like, as long as it’s Dragons

The Chaos lists themselves are a fairly mixed bag of filthmongering and fun projects. I was expecting more Ratling Guns but I guess the cost of living crisis is real and not many people can afford to splash out on six 100 dollar kits that are going to be nerfed in the next patch. All the Choas Gods are represented except Tzeentch, presumably because all the Tzeentch players are busy with Dragons and Longstrikes.

Special shoutout to the Clarks. Justin Clark for displaying Epic Tier contempt for AOS lore by running Archaon and Be’lakor in the same list. Michael Clarke for making a welcome return to AOS with a Slaanesh list. “Clarkie” took a bit of a sabbatical this year but has made it back to his hometown in time for Christmas, like many a Hallmark movie character before him.

Power Pick: Kieren Coates, Skaven

New stuff 1970/2000 pts
Grand Alliance Chaos | Skaven | Warpcog Convocation
Drops: 2
Spell Lore – Lore of Ruin
Manifestation Lore – Forbidden Power

General’s Regiment
Thanquol on Boneripper (360)
• General
Clanrats (150)
Clanrats (150)
Doom-Flayers (260)
• Reinforced
Night Runners (130)

Regiment 1
Arch-Warlock (170)
• Warpstone Charm
• Scurry Away
Clanrats (150)
Ratling Gun (300)
• Reinforced
Ratling Gun (300)
• Reinforced
Faction Terrain
Gnawhole

To those as don’t know him Kieren is the chief Skaven player of the Australian AOS scene. King Rat runs nothing but Skaven through thick and thin and does very well with them. This list is the latest tweak for 4th Ed and it looks like he has gotten a few new units in. The obligatory Ratling Guns are there because you would be a fool not to hand out about 50x Rend 1 saves every shooting phase. With an Arch Warlock for free Covering Fire, and Thanquol there to teleport around and stop you using All Out Defence to save yourself.

The Doomflayers are a recent edition and pack some very cheap melee wallop for those occasions when he can’t be bothered taking 3 turns to table his opponent with shooting. The unit of Night Runners are another addition to the list. I’m pretty sure they are there to pre-deploy and give a bubble to avoid obliteration by double piling-in Karenguard, but Kieren may have other uses for them.

The biggest weakness of this list is probably its time factor. Nothing in this list works quickly. Ratling Guns roll a metric fuck ton of dice in every turn of the game and Skaven themselves are a time sink of an army with recursion, extra movement, activity in every phase and a whole bunch of opportunities for decision paralysis. Lost Legion GT has mandatory chess clocks on the top tables Day 2 and Kieren may face a bit of time pressure against some carefree Schmuck with 6 Longstrikes and a couple of dragons.

Breaking News: Apparently the Kiss of Death strikes again, and Kieran was a late drop from the event. Ah well. It’s still a powerful list, and any other rat-fanciers would do well to take note.

Coolest Army: Nathan Thompson, Beasts of Chaos

Beasts of Chaos | Marauding Brayherd
Drops: 2
Spell Lore – Lore of the Twisted Wilds
Manifestation Lore – Bestial Manifestations

General’s Regiment
Great Bray-Shaman (120)
• General
• Brayblast Trumpet
Bestigors (400)
• Reinforced
Bestigors (400)
• Reinforced
Bestigors (400)
• Reinforced

Regiment 1
Great Bray-Shaman (120)
• Death-grip
Bestigors (400)
• Reinforced
Ungors (80)
Ungors (80)
Faction Terrain
Herdstone

This is a bit of an interesting one¹. Nathan is one of Australia’s top players and enjoying a rare patch of form with a string of recent wins and podiums. He’s never been afraid to take risks and I thought it was awesome that he would chance his arm on a bunch of losers like the BOC². When I mentioned this to the Craichouse editorial staff I was roundly mocked. The group consensus was that 80 Bestigors is just a netlist and anyone running it is a filth mongering flog. This seemed a little bit harsh to me, and I put it down to jealousy and the general negativity of people who have been in the competitive hobby for a long time without the results to back it up.

I like this list. Four blocks of reasonably hard hitting, reasonably armored troops with some recursion from the Shaman with the Brayblast trumpet. I’ve always said Bestigors were the Best Gors and they finally have some half-decent rules. The Battle Formation lets you change one charge dice into a 4 so without me doing any math, they have a pretty good chance of hitting a charge from ambush as well. The BOC spell lores and manifestations are full of debuffs and activation wars crap, so you have a good chance of getting off a string of unanswered attacks. Add in a couple of Ungor units for screens and battle tactics and you are in business.

Despite the naysayers I’d consider this to be a professional’s army that requires proper handling to perform well. 160 wounds seems like a lot but it won’t trouble some of the mega output in AOS 4. Play this army right and you’ll roll over an opponent from multiple angles in the sort of classic BOC swamping that they have rarely been able to pull off. Play it wrong, and your repopping Shaman gets taken out early, while your unwieldy Bestigor blobs flounder around like drunken toddlers before being slaughtered by better armies. I’m thinking Nathan will play it right.

Destruction, by Peter Atkinson

Power Pick and Coolest List: Feltch Oldaker, Brodd’s Stomp

Anyone rocking Sons of Behemat these days must have tackle like a Gatebreaker’s leg, and King Brodd’s Stomp puts that extra bit of zing in the salsa.  I had the pleasure of wiping the floor with playing against Fletch and his Megas at Bush Bash recently, and it was a seriously fun game.  Fletcher went on and posted up a 3-0 at a highly competitive one-dayer in Melbourne last weekend, so he obviously learnt a lot from the pasting I gave him:

The Enhancements are what they are in this AOR, but the list structure Fletcher has crafted allows for an “extra” floating Baby Gargant in addition to the factory-standard “four big things”.  With this build, the damage is there if you can roll hot, and Mortal Damage shooting is about as rare in AOS4 as an Ironjawz podium.  So that’s fun. Something a bit different, it’ll look sweet on the table and Fletcher has clearly been getting a good tune out of it so far.  Good luck mate.

The Rest of the Destro Lists

I gave Fletch the rare double-crown here because there’s precious little else on display from Team Green; only four lists total, including my own.  Gigi has entered an undeniably competitive Rockguts list, but I’m well past the point of handing out any laurels to Rockgut lists.  It has a couple of tough units to stand on circles, it has some Spiders to stand on board edges, and so on.

Joshua Bek has a solid Kruleboyz list and I love chatting Orruks with him at events.  But he’s yet to post up a really good result so if I nominated Josh as Power Pick, I’d really just be playing favourites.  I also can’t fathom why you’d run Hobgrots in a 1990 point list when you could just switch out one of those units for three more Boltboyz, so maybe he can explain his thinking on the day over a Furphy or two.

And that just leaves my own Kragnos x Squig Herd.  It moves fast, it hits hard and it collapses comically when anything else hits it first.  It gives you exciting and memorable games, but it’s not getting me a podium.

Only four Destro lists at the event is a piss-weak effort, but I can see why. Rockguts represent a tedious stats check. All those years of shabby treatment have finally beaten down the Ironjawz crowd. Listbuilding in general is feeling pretty stale right now, and we’re desperately crying out for an injection of Green Energy.  But just if you were starting to feel a bit flat…..Praise Mork for the Doomdiver! That Gitmob wave can’t come quickly enough.

Order, by Calvin Rarie

Power Pick: Angus Thomson, Stormcast

SCE are just hot right now, and Angus is definitely looking to keep the momentum going after Sigmar’s Finest took down the World Championships of Warhammer this past weekend. What, exactly, makes SCE such a great army? A few reasons:

1. A base 3+ save across the army means that Rend 1 is at worst a coinflip, and Rend 2 still gives the SCE player a 33% chance at any given point to make their saves. Wanna know how good it is to stat check your opponent? Custodes in 40K did just that³, because sometimes you just run hot and your opponent can’t do anything about it.
2. Screenhammer is dead unless you’re Tzeentch or Skaven, and even then your ability to keep your opponent from getting to you is expressed essentially in your ability to stage your army. Meanwhile, units like Prosecutors who can move, then shoot and punch a hole in a unit, and then 3d6 charge through it means that 280 point sacrificial unit has real potential to trade WAY up in value.
3. SCE has essentially all the tools in the world. Recursion? Got it, even if once per game. Teleporting? The tele-port-a-potty has you covered. 5+ ward? Praetors and the “Ruination Chamber matters” subfaction means Karazai and that big brick of Reclusians aren’t going anywhere.
4. Longstrikes are ridiculous. This will come up again shortly.

Stormcast is just a generically great pick right now, and I genuinely believe that the army is going to get the bad touch and soon. In the meantime, if you’ve got ’em, play ’em, because they are both great and an absolute blast to play as well!

Power Pick (Dis)honorable Mention: Gene Mills

Gene, if you’re reading this, you owe your opponents a beer in each of your shooting phases⁴. Maybe two. Jesus Christ.

Coolest List: Hakan Sjolin, Seraphon

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this: Seraphon’s transition to a “beer-drinking” army has been among the biggest positive changes from the previous Edition. Gone are the days of non-interactive waves of celestial deliverance. Gone are the days of infinitely recurring units of Raptadon Chargers smashing into your lines from 7″ away. Gone are the days of boardwide D6 mortal wounds that you literally could not counter or do anything about.

Instead, the army is MUCH more fair, and that’s for the better. AoS 4.0 still has quite a few kinks to work out, but by and large armies are far more interactive than they were before. The most interesting games happen either at the tippy-top of the meta–go check out the World Championships coverage to see examples of this–or firmly in the mid-tables where some of the most fun games of AoS can be found. It’s in this latter case that Seraphon finds itself, which is a fine place to be! You’re likely not winning GTs without some INTENSE luck going your way, but with Seraphon you’re guaranteed to have fun in basically any game you play.

And for me, at least, there’s nothing more fun than blocks of elite, monstrous infantry slugging it out on circles and few do it better than reinforced units of Kroxigor Warspawned which Håkan happens to have two of! This is a list that loves missions with centerfield objectives, slugging it out as the opponent tries desperately to kill Kroxigors before they beat their enemies to death. Even on missions with 6 or more objectives Håkan has the deepstriking Hunters of Huanchi and the Saviours of Cinderfall, the best ROR in the game at really anchoring an entire flank by themselves.

This is a cool list, and I hope Håkan has fun playing it!

Death, by Zachary Rockman

So I’m writing the Death section? But I am an Order Wanker at this event?

Power Pick: James Hallam, OBR

10 Deathriders and 10 MORE Deathriders.

I have NEVER seen such absolute genius in a list. Katakros is a an absolutely wild pick and is so under-estimated.

OBR are pretty cooked at the moment, have some decent save stacking and wards on top. So it’s gonna do the thing and bully a lot of armies off the board. Some lists (mine included) just do not have a great answer to this list and will struggle. The retreat and charge on a cavalry unit that hits that hard is just brutal, and paired with the Anti-Charge +1 rend they can mince your own units in your own turn.  It’s a classic case of “My rules are just better than yours”.

Katakros is pretty punchy, dishing out +1 save to up to 3 units (including himself), plus he has a 5+ CP deny, adds 3 to the control scores of friendly units and increases the range of OBR’s Relentless Discipline.

The Deathriders throw a bunch of dice at damage 2 on the charge – plus they can fly over screens and pack 30 wounds. The Soulmason is a 2 cast wizard, with a unique spell to give Strike First to a unit for a turn. Remember what I said about these guys killing you on your own turn?

“OBR strike again” is basically what’s happening here.

I do think this list has a bit of a blunder as the Immortis Guard are not in the General’s regiment – so he can’t give Katakros Bodyguard, which would make this army even tankier. However, it might not matter for some games – that’s how cooked strong OBR are right now.

Best of luck to James – I hope your army gets nerfed.

Coolest List: Joel Graham, FEC

In my previous list review I said FEC suck… and I stick by it. In fact Joel taking 700 points of SBGL kinda confirms it. Yet this list still manages to pack in all the good stuff of FEC:

• Ushoran – basically an auto include in this army.
• Some Morbheg Knights to move fast, hit okay, and have flexibility via retreat and charge.
• Crypt Horrors to throw a bunch of dice at damage 2.
• The Varghulf Courtier is a really cool piece – that end of turn retreat ability can give some super unique movement shenanigans. He’s now a Priest and boosts the Rally rolls of friendly units.

Weaknesses? Well there isn’t a lot of heavy rend in this list – so it feels like it could get stuck on 3+ saves. Additionally Ushoran can be such a liability when the opponent has any decent shooting.

The really interesting part of this army is the 700 points invested in another one. The Regiment of Renown gives a hero phase ability to teleport anywhere outside of 6″ (while giving the unit +1 attack) – which is pretty hard to zone out. Those Graveguard can just set up 6″ away then step in to obliterate a key piece with 31 attacks at Crit Mortal.

The Regiment even has 2 x 3 units of Fellbats for scoring points and for giving that FEC castle some extra board presence. Their spell can do a bunch of MW to castled up armies too…

… but the main juice of this Regiment is Manfred, a 2-cast wizard with his own Warscroll chip mortal damage spell. He has an okay profile averaging about 10 damage into a 4+ save and can gain Strike First on a 3+ when he charges⁵. The main juice here is the ability to redeploy a SBGL unit into combat to try and pin units:

Joel is an absolute fiend at the game and one of the strongest players in Australia, so if anyone can dominate with an experimental list, it’s him.  Good luck!

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So that’s a wrap! We’ve done a couple of list reviews recently so we’ll put the format on ice for a little while now. Speaking of which – Clarkey, please get a bottle of champagne on ice ready for Saturday night at your place. Plus a mop and a bucket of sand 👍.

Cover image: The fine city of Geelong. It really doesn’t look like that when you’re there though. This is pretty much a Tinder profile picture for the city tbh.

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1. No it isn’t. ~Pete ↩︎
2. Is this bloke for real? This is perhaps the most prominent netlist in the current game, rattling out a series of 5-0s over the last month, and Pat calls in “interesting” and “taking a risk”? I talk to Pat all the time and I legit still can’t figure out whether he’s clueless or trolling – welcome to The Pat Zone, I guess. ~Pete ↩︎
3. There’s also the small fact that is was in the hands of an actual World Champion. ↩︎
4. Love the list name though! ↩︎
5. He can also dish out extra attacks to the Graveguard, but there’s too many hoops to jump through to really build a strategy around it. ↩︎