Generally I believe that the “correct” way of constructing warband for tournament is to build around the battlepack, but as sometimes the battlepack consist of great variety of missions that are randomly drawed optimizing your list with specific battleplan related goals in mind is extremely difficult or near impossible. One of solutions for such situation is trying to counter the expected meta, but what if you don’t know what to expect – well then you need to try to do the impossible and counter everything at once. It is obviously impossible, but we will try to do it anyways.

Problems to solve

Lets start with listing popular and trending “meta staples”, but instead of trying to “counter” the whole lists let’s make our live easier and try to narrow down the main problems that need to be solved to compete with “meta-defining” archetypes. Of course if you know what to expect from your opposition then consider mostly the threats you know you will most probably face.

Trending threats that require answer during listbuilding (list is subjective and if there are other scary “challanges” coming from your playstyle or best opponents preferences then make sure to address them too):

• Brewgit (and Snirk)
• Powerful S6 monsters (buffed Gutlord, Chimera)
• T5 hordes (Dwarfs, Stormvermin, Mortek Guards etc.)
• T5+ elites (Thicc Boys, Gutlord etc.)
• KO gunline
• Grave Guard/Skeleton Warrior spam

Potential solutions

I want to start by saying that every situation may be approach in multiple different ways and my propositions here are very simple and not faction specific (outside of single examples) to make sure that as many factions as possible can try to implement them in their lists. Often faction specific tools are better than general ones so I encourage you to always look for solutions in faction specific abilities/fighters/strategies.

Brewgit & Snirk

Brewgit lacks defensive abilities and due to T3 and only 12 Wounds isn’t too difficult to remove, but there are 2 problems. Firstly it will have an older brother nearby and it won’t be a skinny, nerdy one. It will be the martial arts enthusiast with nasty attitude and potential to ruin your day (and he loves his little brother). The second problem is that if you won’t manage to remove Brewgit early (and there could be more than one, bastard has a twin brother in some lists) then most probably his powerful buff will lead to premature death of your key fighters and killing him in the middle of third round won’t help you much. This leaves you with two options: very mobile threats that can reach and kill Brewgit quickly (and ideally survive retaliation of his buddies) or shooting with significant range.

Snirk is a bit different as he isn’t a part of a combo with other fighters (unless in Kruleboyz), but similarly to Brewgit – its a very fragile body that if not handled early leads to a lot of problems. Because of this similarities the answers that would help resolve the problem of Brewgit work also for Snirk.

S6 Monstrosities (Chimera, Gutlord and others)

There aren’t any great ways of cleanly dealing with problems of this caliber. With T5 , 32 Wounds of Gutlord and T4, 45 Wounds of Chimera the situation is very simple – you either Net them or must be ready to take some powerful hits. Dealing with Tough elites (removing or neutralizing) is another point from this list so let’s focus on surviving here. The only way you can survive S6 blows with 5/10 damage is making sure it only hits on 5+ and pray for no critical hits. Outrunning them seams like potential solution but firstly – it probably won’t help you win the game and secondly its very difficult to outrun Gutlord (In one of my games I managed to sprint with my Gutlord for 17″ in first round of the game thanks to Waaagh! and On the Mawpath abilities) with his “regular” threat range of 9″ (that requires spending double) and its almost impossible to outrun Chimera that should be able to Drag&Maul every round. Long story short: Nets and T7 (if available).

T5 Hordes (Year of the Dwarf)

Fact that there is no faction that can field few midrange/elite fighters that can efficiently nullify numbers advantage of T5 hordes fast enough leaves you with 3 ways to approach such situation (I assume pure Rumble Pack tournament isn’t a scope of this article as I wrote in the opening). First is going around the problem with You Messin’ ability, second path is having a bit more fighters to lower the numbers gap and third path is investing in high Strength attacks to disarm the “Counter bomb”.

T5+ elites (Thicc Boys, Gutlord etc.)

Fighters listed in heading above can’t be ignored and are difficult to avoid due to either huge threat range in case of single dragon/titan fighters or the fact that the problematic fighters are in few places at once (in case of thicc boys cardio). Strength 5 seams less impressive after our playerbase figured out that Toughness is now the cheapest characteristic and slowly Strength 6 starts to seam like a necessity for fighters that want to join prestigious “dragon/titan club” (there is more and more of T6 fighters at top tables). Very high Strength and nets will only increase in value going forward and are probably the most effective solutions.

KO shooting

There is no fighter in the game that can feel safe in range of Aethercannons buffed by Fight for Profit extra attacks. There are three quite obvious solutions. First solution is the most direct one – if the problem has T4 and 12 wounds then throw a mobile Hammer at it and even if the cannon wielding dwarf won’t die it will be forced to disengage to continue shooting. The second solution is a “partial” answer – you can cut half of damage by going after the Fight for Profit hero (ideally also engaging Thunderers in the process), especially when its Company Captain (T3, 16 Wounds). The last proposal that makes facing Aethercannons less scary is investing in high Toughness (6+).

Soulblight hordes

The problem with SBGL hordes is that point for point they outfight most chaff in the game and despite very low movement because of combination of Shambling Horde, Movement buffing allies and Resurrection they can reach key areas quite easily. Thankfully Grave Guards are easy to kill due to T3, but as they will most likely have activation advantage you may bo forced to approach unactivated Grave Guards and in case your attacks fail you will eat two attacks with DPA4 value of 5. 10 expected damage in retaliation is a scary perspective especially when objective mission require you to make proactive moves to counter being severely outnumbered. There are fighters that can point for point win fights with Grave Guards (like for example Ardobyz with Big Choppas) and they are always great to have (as they are most likely some of the best fighters in faction), but they are rare and most factions need different approach. As always – potential solution for high Strength opponents is even more Toughness. The other option is trying to deny them as many actions as possible – bodyblocking narrow paths and utilizing 2″ range (that is also a way of not getting 2 attacks back when approaching unactivated GG) is a way. Skeleton Warriors are a bit different and rely on critical hits to deal damage so high Toughness isn’t as great against them, but if you can handle Grave Guards then similar approach should also be able to deal with Skeletons. If you expect to face SBGL then I also suggest to build more numerous lists so the numbers difference is easier to deal with.

Summary

All the “solutions” above may sound a bit like a bad joke. How the hell could anyone include in his list Mobile Damage Dealers, Toughness value 7, Strength 6, Nets and also high number of bodies? It’s obviously impossible but looking for abilities and fighters that will help you reach some of this goals is a great start. Lets narrow this list to more “achievable” targets – lets build lists with at least 8 bodies (9 if possible), with access to Strength 6 and some ability to deal with most of listed problems. High Toughness will also be something we are looking for as Toughness is now one of the cheapest characteristics.

Order

When we want high Strength and high Toughness the most obvious direction is Stormcast Eternals, so lets start with them. One of the strongest abilities in game is Coordinated Strike so let’s try to build around the proven idea. This ability let use use bonus actions on up to three other fighters and as we want Strength 6 lets make Calthia Xandire (for the ability) and 3 Annihilators (145 point ones) our core. The list already looks like it is going to look like Thiccboys Cardio, but we want 8+ bodies and ideally a way to make our Annihilators both faster and tougher (I already mentioned that ideally we want T7), thankfully we can get all of that with single ability of Kixi-Taka and his buddies will help us get some decent shooting, high mobility and most important – numbers. The list we end with is:

Calthia Xandire

3x Annihilator with Grandhammer

Kixi-Taka

Otapatl

Tok

Xepic

We managed to get a “relatively numerous” Stormcast force with very powerful frontline and mobile backline that can fish for crits from distance. Most of the list can be deciphered from the name “Starblood Thiccboys”, so let’s call it this way.

Death

Strength 6 is very rare in this grand alliance, high Toughness is even more difficult to find outside of OBR, but as previously – let’s stick to proven concepts – Grave Guards. Let’s start with the leader and there is only one fighter that meets our criteria – Necromancer Deintalos. To have a bit more of Strength 6 let’s add one of the newest addition to Death heroes – Askurgan Exemplar. As we are going with only one resurrector and lack mobility let’s add Dire Wolf (his reaction may help Deintalos survive longer) and FEC ally that can make our Grave Guards super fast. Let’s fill the list with Grave Guards (preferably from Sons of Velmorn to resurrect them with full health) and we end up with:

Deintalos

Askurgan Exemplar

Crypt Ghast

Dire Wolf

4x Grave Guard

Marshal Faulk Velmorn

Thain forth-and-last

The list above has a lot of damage and access to abilities that can greatly boost mobility. It is really more on a paper side Toughness wise, but it is compensated with a lot of bodies and ability to resurrect. It can also capitalize on occasional high value quad with Vanhel’s Danse Macabre.

Chaos

The list of threats consist of few dangerous fighters that are difficult to lift because of very high Toughness and there is a faction that have access to powerful triples that can inflict significant damage while ignoring Toughness value of the target and also can decrease the Toughness in small area with other ability. I’m obviously speaking about Horns of Hashut triples: “Engulfing Flames of Dark Artifice” and “Ash Bomb”. As most bespoke faction we don’t have much mobility here so let’s invest in some mobile tanky damage dealer that can complement our powerful triples with a very powerful double – famous Varanguard. Because the points don’t want to cooperate we will need another ally and as we already have option to decrease Toughness in the area lets go with Bloodreaper from Khorne Deamons. If we already are using less popular faction we can as well all in on that in allying fighter from even less popular faction. This kind of list basically write itself as we are forced to take the bespoke leader, we take two Demolishers with Flamehurlers for redundancy, Varanguard with blade and as many Shatterers we can fit. Sadly, the points don’t want to fit and we are left with either 25 unused points, need 80 points fighter or have to upgrade two Shatterers to something that cost 135 points and this is why we end up with Bloodreaper

Ruinator Alpha

Varanguard with Blade

Bloodreaper

2x Demolisher with Flamehurler

3x Shatterer

We ended up with ”only” 8 fighters (this faction really like a lot of Shatterers) but the combination of Varanguard and Engulfing Flames gives nice power projection to reach key targets from distance. Shatterers and Bloodreaper aren’t too tanky but under the cover of Ash Bomb they should outperform most opposition. List seam to lack access to Strength 6, but to get there the Varanguard need to charge into the Ash Bomb area. As with the previous list the “Toughness goals” are not met here, but the defensive qualities of Ash Bomb and Varanguard tanking the biggest threat together with 2” reach of Shatterers are some ways of boosting survivability.

Destruction

When writing competitive destruction lists I feel there are only 4 main ways to go:

• Build around the power of Ardboyz/You messin and go Ironjawz
• Go Ogors to have 2+ of their titans and spend “ally slots” on support like brewgits/nets
• Build around Kruleboyz reaction with a lot of numbers
• Go Gitz to focus on their abilities and having Zarbag Gitz and Gobbapalooza in faction

As we want access to S6 lets go the first route. Start with the cheapest of S6 destruction titans – Megaboss. Lets add to that 2 Brutes for redundancy with You messin’ and ability to reach S6 with “Duff Up Da Big Thing”. Finish the list with 2 Gobbapalooza allies (Net/+3 Attacks) and Ardboyz with Big Choppas. We end up with a lot of numbers, a lot of damage and high survivability (169 wounds) despite not reaching the highest Toughness values:

Megaboss

Brute with Gore-Choppa

Brute with pair of Brute Choppas

Brewgit/Boggleye

Brewgit/Boggleye

4x Ardboy with Big Choppa