LVO Top 10 Army Lists

[Richelieu]

3 hours ago, Killax said:

Movement is certainly king, but more importantly is the context of movement with guarnteed first turns. The latter is an issue I still have with Battalions and something I'd rather not adress with cost decreases or increases but a whole re-written 'Battalion system', which might aswell thake a page from 40K's book of Stratagems generation...

I would disagree with the idea that going first+movement is the what is making these lists strong.  Look at the repeated showing of mixed order as an example.  In my opinion it is the ability to repeatedly bring your army's force to bear against important enemy targets that makes these lists strong.  In mixed order this is accomplished simply through large monsters with 14"+ movement rather than relying on battalion movement shenanigans. 

It's a major reason why skyfire spam lists do well despite being fairly one dimensional and a reason Changehost continues to do well.  Neither of those lists have any real need to go first because they can assault any part of your force, or easily reposition tarpits into the enemy while freeing up its own offensive units to deploy force at will.

[DantePQ]

Got to agree with Richelieu (great username BTW) some lists are just very strong against anything that you can throw at them. 

I used to get first turn against various DoT lists with my Sylvaneth (as I use one-drop builds) and it din't help me much as  I still lost more of those battle then I won. Ability to position your units where they need to be to crush your opponent is crucial and for example DoT really have it easy with their mobility and ranges. That's why they are so hard to play against as it's hard to put them in difficult postions.   

[Soulsmith]

6 hours ago, DantePQ said:

Got to agree with Richelieu (great username BTW) some lists are just very strong against anything that you can throw at them. 

I used to get first turn against various DoT lists with my Sylvaneth (as I use one-drop builds) and it din't help me much as  I still lost more of those battle then I won. Ability to position your units where they need to be to crush your opponent is crucial and for example DoT really have it easy with their mobility and ranges. That's why they are so hard to play against as it's hard to put them in difficult postions.   

Rock paper scissors almost, as I am never able to beat Sylvaneth with ironjawz unless for scenario reasons.

[Space Lizard]

Lol Kroaknado + Eternal Starhost was widely regarded as terrible for the longest time until I started placing well in tournaments with it. Now I've started to see them cropping up they still don't place very well though assuming because of the lack of experience with it.  I would definitely not call it a "gatekeeper" list. Kroaknado lists in general yes they usually run a shadowstrike starhost though which is a VERY different list.

 

[svnvaldez]

Guys you are missing the best part of LVO... This picture!

[svnvaldez]

Or maybe this one... who knows

[Killamike]

There was a larger event happening in Australia over the same weekend. Cancon. 

Top 3 were fulminators, maggotkin, and non kroak seraphon. Definitely still variety up the top end. 

[Requizen]

50 minutes ago, Killamike said:

There was a larger event happening in Australia over the same weekend. Cancon. 

Top 3 were fulminators, maggotkin, and non kroak seraphon. Definitely still variety up the top end. 

While that's true, LVO is considered to be one of the more cutthroat events even if it was ~10 less people. Not knocking the results of CanCon, but metas are very different in various parts of the world, and those seem much more like Johnny lists than Spike ones. There's a reason people were talking about Vanguard Wing and Changehost and not heavy cavalry and Shadowstrike. They can perform well but top players will always pick lists that can abuse the rules more than the ones that are just pretty good in general. Though the mixed order list in top 8 isn't a netlist, having played against it I can tell you it was designed to be extremely counter-meta and play objectives very hard, built around Changehost/VWing.

[Killax]

15 hours ago, Richelieu said:

I would disagree with the idea that going first+movement is the what is making these lists strong.  Look at the repeated showing of mixed order as an example.  In my opinion it is the ability to repeatedly bring your army's force to bear against important enemy targets that makes these lists strong.  In mixed order this is accomplished simply through large monsters with 14"+ movement rather than relying on battalion movement shenanigans. 

It's a major reason why skyfire spam lists do well despite being fairly one dimensional and a reason Changehost continues to do well.  Neither of those lists have any real need to go first because they can assault any part of your force, or easily reposition tarpits into the enemy while freeing up its own offensive units to deploy force at will.

The way I see it Order is the only GA that has multiple Allegiances that indeed do not care about speed that much because of Missle attacks and the outcome because of that stays the same. They have no real need because of how the Shooting phase works and a 'sniper-fiesta' has to not be able to kill your support system outright to have a chance.
For Chaos indeed Tzeentch can do this aswell and there can be a case made for Clan Skyre who technically can do this also but has much more difficult to obtain models.

But I agree with your statement, movement matters only for those who do not have a strong Shooting phase (or one at all). 

Also wanted to highlight that despite my pervious statement on Tzeentch (and still thinking that something should be altered about their Allegiance Ability) it's still very true to state that Order has done better overall at several events. It just seems that the LVO had more Tzeentch as Order in the top 10, which is nice but perhaps only highlights how rediculously strong Order is/was.

The FAQ impact will indeed alter quite some lists but because it specifically doesn't adress much for the Shooting phase 'issues' (barring Fyreslayers') I think we'll just see the competitive top still shift towards that and/or high movement/teleportation. 

Despite being a great Khorne fan I am aware that realistically speaking every list with the intention to win a tournament should have some form of ranged offense. Because the Shooting phase still is the strongest phase of the game barring nothing.

[Stevewren]

Well, Vanguard Wing has had its day now. It was a stupid exploitable build and deserved the clarification. The lack of staunch defender on the Libs now and the ability to snipe characters gone leaves it good, but not silly good (and unfun to play against) 

 The LVO meta certainly seems to have missed a trick with no KO or Fyreslayers being picked up by the top guys. Fyreslayers without the Vanguard Wing has just become more powerful as getting to the characters is even harder (unless you have a bunch of other gun wielding dwarfs...)

Martin Orlando came over to the UK for Heat 1 and I think he was surprised by the level of competitiveness in the event and the number of top tier lists. We had a good conversation at the start and again at the end and his evaluation versus expectation were very different. 

I'll make a bold prediction for the US gamers now. Up your game for Adepticon, cos the cream of UK players really are coming over this year.... 

?

[Killamike]

3 hours ago, Requizen said:

While that's true, LVO is considered to be one of the more cutthroat events even if it was ~10 less people. Not knocking the results of CanCon, but metas are very different in various parts of the world, and those seem much more like Johnny lists than Spike ones. There's a reason people were talking about Vanguard Wing and Changehost and not heavy cavalry and Shadowstrike. They can perform well but top players will always pick lists that can abuse the rules more than the ones that are just pretty good in general. Though the mixed order list in top 8 isn't a netlist, having played against it I can tell you it was designed to be extremely counter-meta and play objectives very hard, built around Changehost/VWing.

I was under the impression that this was the first time LVO had a large showing for Aos.

Anyway, under the 3 I mentioned was proliferated by tzeentch and vanguard wing. I was the guy playing the maggotkin and have played against vanguard wing more times than I can count including one of the high ranking UK players. It's almost a shame that people won't see how little vanguard does against -4 armour and -4 to hit. 

Meta does play a part, probably why EU always beat US at ETC every year.  

I hope this doesn't come of as offensive and I'm sure you didn't mean to belittle a whole countries ability to play the same game.  

[DantePQ]

12 hours ago, Soulsmith said:

Rock paper scissors almost, as I am never able to beat Sylvaneth with ironjawz unless for scenario reasons.

But it doesn't work that way as there is no rock to DoT scissors  

[stratigo]

6 hours ago, Requizen said:

While that's true, LVO is considered to be one of the more cutthroat events even if it was ~10 less people. Not knocking the results of CanCon, but metas are very different in various parts of the world, and those seem much more like Johnny lists than Spike ones. There's a reason people were talking about Vanguard Wing and Changehost and not heavy cavalry and Shadowstrike. They can perform well but top players will always pick lists that can abuse the rules more than the ones that are just pretty good in general. Though the mixed order list in top 8 isn't a netlist, having played against it I can tell you it was designed to be extremely counter-meta and play objectives very hard, built around Changehost/VWing.

 

The US AoS Meta seems to lag behind the euro one. People in UK tourneys have been building around the change host so much that the changehost is falling out of favor. Not the case here in the US.

 

5 hours ago, Killax said:

The way I see it Order is the only GA that has multiple Allegiances that indeed do not care about speed that much because of Missle attacks and the outcome because of that stays the same. They have no real need because of how the Shooting phase works and a 'sniper-fiesta' has to not be able to kill your support system outright to have a chance.
For Chaos indeed Tzeentch can do this aswell and there can be a case made for Clan Skyre who technically can do this also but has much more difficult to obtain models.

But I agree with your statement, movement matters only for those who do not have a strong Shooting phase (or one at all). 

Also wanted to highlight that despite my pervious statement on Tzeentch (and still thinking that something should be altered about their Allegiance Ability) it's still very true to state that Order has done better overall at several events. It just seems that the LVO had more Tzeentch as Order in the top 10, which is nice but perhaps only highlights how rediculously strong Order is/was.

The FAQ impact will indeed alter quite some lists but because it specifically doesn't adress much for the Shooting phase 'issues' (barring Fyreslayers') I think we'll just see the competitive top still shift towards that and/or high movement/teleportation. 

Despite being a great Khorne fan I am aware that realistically speaking every list with the intention to win a tournament should have some form of ranged offense. Because the Shooting phase still is the strongest phase of the game barring nothing.

Movement is as important for shooting as everything else in the game. Movement dictates your concentration of fire, and the space between yourself, your chaff (if you have any) and the enemy.

[Killax]

2 hours ago, DantePQ said:

But it doesn't work that way as their is no rock to DoT scissors  

Yeah game state is pretty much still Paper, Scissors and Paperscissors.

Paper would be the armies who focus on the Combat phase.
Scissors would be armies who used to focus on the Shooting phase. (GH2016 fiesta)
Paperscissors are the armies who are Tier 1 and indeed have aspects of both Paper and Scissors to dominate.

There is no rock, Death and Destruction could become either but in order to implement a rock indeed something somewhere should suddenly be able to interact with the Shooting phase....

Now we do have models interacting with it, that new Order Herald is a great example. But wether or not shooting twice with your Order Warmachines is a great interaction or not completely depends on if your playing Order or not  

[Requizen]

2 hours ago, Killamike said:

 

I hope this doesn't come of as offensive and I'm sure you didn't mean to belittle a whole countries ability to play the same game.  

Of course not, I'm sorry if it came off that way. I have just been told similar things about the 40k meta from some of my Aussie friends elsewhere and know that a lot of the ITC top placers would ****** their heads at lists like these. But then again, it will come down to skill of players and how well they know matchups, which probably is what makes them champions and me not even in the top 10 =D

5 minutes ago, stratigo said:

 

The US AoS Meta seems to lag behind the euro one. People in UK tourneys have been building around the change host so much that the changehost is falling out of favor. Not the case here in the US. 

What kind of UK lists, other than mass Fyreslayers (which was seen at LVO a fair amount as well)? I followed the UK masters pretty closely and the Changehost losses didn't seem to be to counterbuilds but rather good opponents and bad dice. Unless I was totally misunderstanding, which is possible as well. 

[KnightFire]

6 minutes ago, Requizen said:

Of course not, I'm sorry if it came off that way. I have just been told similar things about the 40k meta from some of my Aussie friends elsewhere and know that a lot of the ITC top placers would ****** their heads at lists like these. But then again, it will come down to skill of players and how well they know matchups, which probably is what makes them champions and me not even in the top 10 =D

What kind of UK lists, other than mass Fyreslayers (which was seen at LVO a fair amount as well)? I followed the UK masters pretty closely and the Changehost losses didn't seem to be to counterbuilds but rather good opponents and bad dice. Unless I was totally misunderstanding, which is possible as well. 

Clown car is very strong vs changehost, as are other 1-drop alpha strike lists. Byron's mixed order phoenix list also does well against it.

 

Up until the FAQ yesterday, the main competitive lists around the top tables in the UK are:

Vanguard wing - low skill cap and very effective. Allows low and mid tier players to beat players above their level, but not as popular with top tier players.

Changehost -  has a high skill cap, allows high tier players to play very well, but is less ueful to lower tier players

Clown car - in between the two above in terms of skill needed to play it, very much an alpha strike list, and suffers from the same issues that double kunnin rukk does (its boring to play and boring to play against).

Skyfires - not as strong as it was, and people just counter it by bringing lots of LoS blocking scenery.

[sal4m4nd3r]

3 hours ago, Killamike said:

I was under the impression that this was the first time LVO had a large showing for Aos.

Anyway, under the 3 I mentioned was proliferated by tzeentch and vanguard wing. I was the guy playing the maggotkin and have played against vanguard wing more times than I can count including one of the high ranking UK players. It's almost a shame that people won't see how little vanguard does against -4 armour and -4 to hit. 

Meta does play a part, probably why EU always beat US at ETC every year.  

I hope this doesn't come of as offensive and I'm sure you didn't mean to belittle a whole countries ability to play the same game.  

Very excited to see nurgle lists bubbling to the top.  I came in 8th at NOVA when GHB16 rules were still in effect. Can I ask what your list was for this tourney?

[stratigo]

21 minutes ago, Requizen said:

Of course not, I'm sorry if it came off that way. I have just been told similar things about the 40k meta from some of my Aussie friends elsewhere and know that a lot of the ITC top placers would ****** their heads at lists like these. But then again, it will come down to skill of players and how well they know matchups, which probably is what makes them champions and me not even in the top 10 =D

What kind of UK lists, other than mass Fyreslayers (which was seen at LVO a fair amount as well)? I followed the UK masters pretty closely and the Changehost losses didn't seem to be to counterbuilds but rather good opponents and bad dice. Unless I was totally misunderstanding, which is possible as well. 

The ITC does dictate a lot of what lists you'd make for it. Base, from the book, 40k and ITC do call for different lists.

 

As for lists that deal well with Changehost? Movement shenanigans mixed with strong shooting. Kharadrons, for example, have a very strong matchup against a changehost.

[Jamopower]

From the Woolly mammoth's review below, it seems that the LVOs AoS tournament also had quite a different take on the scenarios and scoring from the UK tournaments.

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Stevewren said:

Up your game for Adepticon

I just can't wrap my head around AoS even being a tournament game, let alone the mindset it takes to be ok with,  as someone else put it,  "abusing" the system in pursuit of a win.  Winning at chess,  or even Monopoly? Sure.  AoS? I'm not sure there is enough fairness in the game to be able to take pride in "winning" it at a tournament,  especially if the player has to be abusive. 

My gf and I will be in the team tournament at Adepticon, but we know it's a far less serious affair and have no illusions about it being competitive or expecting to win.

 

Edit: To be clear,  I'm not blaming those who abuse the game for doing so at a tournament. The times allow it and the tournament is there,  so go for it.  I'm saying that since the game is not suitable for this sort of event,  the winning doesn't mean as much as other,  more tightly balanced/fair, competitions.

[Keldaur]

@Sleboda It's not a binary switch, worth or not worth it. It just happens to people who enjoy multiple aspects of the hobby to also be competitive so they want to add value to their hobby experience. Noone around will say that winning an AoS tournament is even slightly similar or requires the same dedication than chess, but you don't need to be on the same level to enjoy it or consider it worthy of your time. For some reason, people tend to think that playing against or with abusive lists is unfun when the definition of what is fun is purely subjective. 

TLDR: What is worth or meaningful is up to the individual to decide. If this sort of events exists and have this following is because there are enough people who find it meaningful enough for them to be passionate about it. You don't need to understand it.

[Sleboda]

I hear ya, and FWIW, I played in several WFB tournaments, and even won a few.  I almost always took the best list I possibly could for my chosen army, though I never did get an army specifically to be able to have what ppl considered the Top Army. I do think going out and buying the netlist that is #1 (according to popular opinion) is a step removed from just enjoying AoS and a step toward just caring about abusing a system, though.

If we are enjoying tournaments as a layer of the hobby,  but buying wins at the expense of playing with the armies we actually like the rest of the time, then I think we are in a bad place.

On a related note, I'm super glad that Shadespire is around.  Now that's a tournament game. I'm playing that at Adepticon. Maybe some of the people who get their enjoyment from "abusing" AoS will migrate over to that game.  That would be cool. 

[JamesT]

This is James, the guy who got 2nd at LVO. Maybe I can shed some light on the strength of Changehost and difference in meta between US and UK?

 

Changehost gets it's strength from the same way Vanguard Wing does: Movement options that are too many to count. Each turn I can swap my LoC into spell range, congo-line my pink horrors, get more models onto objectives, etc. In my list, I also had 30 tzaangors. These guys were beasts, and gave me some real board presence. My Gaunt summoner could Mystic Shield/Shield of Fate them turn 1, and I'd run them towards the enemy with a 4+ rerollable save and a shield save. Could even put IP on them too. They shored up the weakness of Changehost which tends to be: If you get close to me I start to die very quickly. The tzaangors are good at providing a buffer and rapidly moving across the table to take objectives and wipe out units. 

 

While the US and UK meta are different, I don't think it is safe to assume that we here in the states are trying to pull ourselves up to the UK meta. Sometimes they find a list that makes it across the pond, and sometimes we return the favor. Maybe @Countmoore could provide some insight as well, but I feel that the US has a pretty solid meta. 

 

I think one fix to Tzeentch could be you may only expend one Destiny dice per phase. That would greatly help to limit the number of guarantees the army gets. 

 

As for the Fyreslayers: I counted 4 hordes of angry dwarves there. They fared well, but against a skilled player who shuts down the board to their tunneling their effectiveness isn't as good. I have no doubt they can wreck most local tournaments, but at events as large as LVO with the skill that's there, there will be plenty of opponents who know exactly how to deploy and move to counter the tunneling. 

 

Lastly, in case anyone was wondering what my matchups were:

 

1: Narrative SCE list. Guy was the best sportsman I've ever played against though! -W

2: Ironjawz with Weirdfist. I locked down his spells, blew up his big unit, and made the Tzaangors chew through 17 ard boyz in a turn.  -W

3: Vanguard Wing. My deployment was flawless on the front end with double layers of models, but I left a whole region of open space in my backfield like an idiot. He killed a bunch, but I played the mission well. I made a critical charge on the last turn that gave me the W

4: Kroaknado. Hard match for me. I locked down his army with a turn 1 charge from tzaangors and starting scoring points, and by the time he had broken out of the wrap, I had enough points to get the win. -W

5: Vanguard Wing. Played against Andrew who won the event. I made a horrible mistake one turn where I could've killed the prosecutors but didn't send enough spells their way. He then teleported around my big bird and killed him. I'm an idiot. -L

6: Fyreslayers. I moved and ran almost everything to shut down his tunneling, and killed about 15 or so dudes on the board with spells. Burned one of his objectives thanks to changeling swap(scorched earth). He made a mistake targetting brimstones before blues so I split brimstones in the unt to get a guy within 3" of a 30man mob, tying them down from charging, and failed a 5" charge with a reroll. He conceded because it wasn't really possible for him to win after that. W

7: Maggotkin. My changeling was 9.2" away from my gaunt summoner so not Infernal flames turn 1, but I killed about 70 rats still thanks to Tzaangors. Starstrike fell well for both of us, and it came down to if my LoC could kill 2 monks with his staff in melee. Got 1 hit, rolled a 1. I had Aura of Mutability and rerolled it, getting a 4. -W

 

Total record was 6-1. Hats off to Andrew who won the event. He played his army extremely well and noted every one of his mistakes. Nothing slipped past him!

 

My opponents were all excellent sportsmen. The first vanguard wing player was from the UK and an absolute gentleman the whole game, the fyreslayers guy was super cool even though the game wasn't going well for him, everyone was great!

 

[SlaaneshCultist]

Hey, this is Mike, I was that 10th place Khorne player, and also won "Best Renaissance" (what once would have been known as Overall, soft scores and battle points combined). If you watched my twitch please excuse the several tactical mistakes I made and don't judge my overall abilities on it, it was game 7 and I was exhausted and filled with way too much Vegas buffet food and alcohol. Side note: 7 games is too many games. Especially in Vegas.

I played:

1- Vanguard Wing

2- Non-Kunnin Ruk Bonesplitterz

3 - Ironjaws

4 - Skyre

5 - Kroaknado

6 - Changehost

7 - Fyreslayers

I went 5-2 and my two losses came to the Bonesplitterz and the Changehost.

With the Bonesplitterz I was simply caught off guard by several units I hadn't seen before, plus there was a bit of a communication barrier between my opponent and I. Not his fault by any means, but it made the game more difficult, and meant we didn't get to the end of the game, which is a big disadvantage to my army.

It was my first game against the Changehost, and I think I played it fairly well. If either the change or the clarification to the Changeling's rules had happened I would have won that game. I did mention during the game, when I read that rule, that I thought the capitalization in Move under the Puckish Misdirection rule meant that it halved the move characteristic, not the results of die rolls, pile-ins, etc. Turns out I was right according to the most recent FAQ!  Tony stated that the capitalization didn't matter, and as I'm not super competitive and had had already lost one game I decided it wasn't worth arguing. That being said, hats off to Tony Moore for being a gentleman to play against.

Finally, and with apologies to my opponent, Khorne, played decently, shuts down Kroaknado entirely. First turn auto dispel from the Rune. If you get initiative you should have enough blood tithe every turn from there on out to auto-dispel, if not you hope the reroll from the Bloodsecrator forces him to fail his cast on the vortex (36" is a LONG way). Kroak never got up on his tornado in our game. Probably one of my top two opponents of the weekend though. He took what must have been a very frustrating hero phase every turn exceptionally well and was a delight to play against.

All in all I had a blast at LVO, and would definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about coming next year.

[ReverendDangles]

Congrats to everyone at LVO, but especially @SlaaneshCultist. As a fellow Bloodbound enthusiast, I was super excited to see them in the top 10.

I think we could see a different spread of top armies at Adepticon. Last year Balewinds were not allowed. If it's the same this year, then Kroaknado won't be a thing and the Gaunt Summoner will be more manageable. Just my thoughts.