Kixi-Taka, The Diviner Paladin with Starsoul Mace Company Captain
Hammer
Paladin with Starsoul Mace Otapatl Xepic
Tips, Tricks & Tactics
Early Game Plan: With Swift as the Wind gone (movement buff lost with CoS refresh) order warbands with slow important fighters need a new way of catching up with faster opposition and this niche could be filled by Kixi-Taka and his great triple – Imbue with Azyrite Energy.
Identify the key areas where you need the insane damage of your blessed paladins and get there ASAP. In the meantime look for some critical hits with your ranged attacks.
Late Game Plan: When your Paladins will finally reach the place when they want to be it’s hammer time (M.C. Hammer impression is recommended). Your main plan at this point is to use “Fight for Profit” and admire how your Paladin attack profiles will be elevated to the mirror of attack profile of unbracketed Zombie Dragon (or even better with company captain on objectives).
When deciding the order of your activations you can try to predict where your opponent is going to attack your unharmed Fighters, as your heavy Stormcast Fighters may transfer such situation into a bonus move action with Furious Avangers ability.
This list went 3-1 in “Deeper into the forest” tournament in Poland
Dagger:
Kixi-Taka, The Diviner
Annihilator with Grandhammer
Xepic
Shield:
Annihilator with Grandhammer
Otapatl
Hammer:
Calthia Xandire
Annihilator with Grandhammer
Tok
Tips, Tricks & Tactics
Coordinated Strike – This ability is the reason why Calthia is the leader here. With triple of threes or fours we get the rampage value of bonus actions for a cost of only a triple and with fives or sixes we get the ability that is more valuable than mentioned game defining quad. Additionally there aren’t many fighters that are better recipients of bonus Move/Attack actions than Annihilators, but if needed the actions can be used to move or shoot with your skinks.
Ranged critfishing – One of the best aspects of this warband is their ranged damage potential. Especially Kixi-Taka and Otapatl can inflict significant damage with some lucky crits thanks to critical damage of 5 and 6. Usually giving luck a chance require the risk of getting close to the opponent but this warband has 2 fighters with 12″ range and one other with 7″ of range, so you can fish for sixes from relatively safe distance. The other great aspect is that it’s hard for opponents to “hide in combat” as due to not having minimal range 2 out of your 3 shooters can continue shooting to enemy engaged in melee by your fighters if you come within 3″ of the target.
Chameleon Ambush – This warband is mostly focused on spending ability dice on making sure you have a great Coordinated Strike, but if your Annihilators are not yet in combat there is not much to do with your spare doubles (other than Rush) and in case there are no visible enemies within 12″ of Otapatl it means that you can most likely use Chameleon Ambush to move into position and make ranged attack action twice. You end up with 1 extra attack action for a cost of double which is great.
3rd place on Warhammer Fest 55 player tournament (4-0 score Q2 2023)
Dagger
Saurus Knight Alpha
Tok
Xepic
Shield
Saurus Oldblood
Huachi
Hammer
Kixi-Taka, The Diviner
Otapatl
Klaq-Trok
Tips, Tricks & Tactics
Surprising durability – Durability isn’t something that is mentioned in the same sentence as skinks, but with access to Kixi-Taka’s triple boosting their Toughness and access to reaction that basically invalidates 1/X profiles skinks from this warband live surprisingly long. Obviously Saurus fighters that were already tanky with their higher Toughness and 25+ Wounds in this warband became “Stormcast caliber tough”, so this version of Seraphon can cause a lot of problems to low Strength opponents.
Saurus damage potential – Tearing Bite is probably the most feared of all Seraphon abilities and this list makes a great use of it with a 4 attacks Saurus in every deployment group. When the situation requires taking down specific enemy fighter this list is equipped to reach that fighter regardless of his position. There aren’t many opponents that would not fear potential of 4 attacks with strength 4 and 8/10 damage (with triple of sixes). Against Toughness 4 opponent is has 35,42% chance of doing 20 damage in single action, which is quite crazy.
Ranged critfishing – One of the best aspects of this warband is their ranged damage potential. Especially fighters from Hammer (Kixi-Taka and Otapatl) can inflict significant damage with some lucky crits thanks to critical damage of 5 and 6. Usually giving luck a chance require the risk of getting close to the opponent but this warband has 2 fighters with 12″ range and 2 others with 8″ and 7″ of range, so you can fish for sixes from relatively safe distance. The other great aspect is that it’s hard for opponents to “hide in combat” as due to not having minimal range 3 out of your 4 shooters can continue shooting to enemy engaged in melee by your fighters if you come within 3″ of the target.
This list finished second in 30 player Warhammer World tournament in March 2023
Dagger:
Mizzenmaster
Kixi-Taka, the Diviner
Otapatl
Huanchi’s Claw
Shield:
2x Huanchi’s Claw
Chameleon Skink Hornblower with Moonstone Club
Hammer:
Chameleon Skink Alpha with Moonstone Club
2x Huanchi’s Claw
Tips, Tricks & Tactics
Tournament report: Below you can find the summary of 2nd place finish that the man behind OffMetaMusing Youtube channel achieved with this list:
Ranged Critfishing: With Fight for Profit this warband can flood opponents with a lot of low strength but relatively high Crit damage attacks. This kind of attack profiles are the most cost efficient way of killing very high Toughness opponents like for example Stormcast Eternals. This is more “pacifist” warband in a sense that it doesn’t rely on annihilating opponent fighters with damage (as it excels at avoiding fights and utilizing their mobility with objectives in play) but in case of few lucky crits it can lift surprisingly Tough opponents.
Lightning fast Chameleon: With Treasure missions the fact that Otapatl can do 3 move actions for a cost of a double means that with few treasures in play you can move one of the treasures to a safe location and focus your Mizzenmaster on chasing treasures stolen by your opponent.
Staying Alive: Hunters of Huanchi fighters are very difficult to pin down thanks to Slippery – great reaction they have access to, which makes staying out of combat way easier. It’s great not only to survive longer but also to deny your opponent a chance to “hide from shooting” in combat with your skinks.
Arkonaut Company Privateer with Privateer Pistol and Arkonaut Cutter
Shield:
Endrinrigger with Rapid-Fire Rivet Gun and Aethermatic Saw
2x Arkonaut Company Privateer with Privateer Pistol and Arkonaut Cutter
Hammer:
Endrinmaster with Endrinharnass
Grundstok Thunderer with Aethercannon
Arkonaut Company Privateer with Privateer Pistol and Arkonaut Cutter
Tips, Tricks & Tactics
Arguably the best ability in the game – The biggest strength of KO is access to Fight for Profit, ability which is currently the strongest force multiplier in the game. This is how you will spend 95% of your triples and most likely you will want to do this every turn. Try to keep as many fighters in the range of ability and lay waste on your opponents from distance and if necessary in melee too. In rare cases of 2 triples consider using it twice a turn
Budget Titan – Supercharged Endrinharness ability will change your 140 points Endrinmaster damage potential into Ogre Hero category. Try to use the fact that this hero is often undervalued and surprise your enemy (ideally while fighting for profit at the same time) with unexpected damage.
Keeping Thunderers safe – One of the priorities of the list is keeping enemy mobile units away from your Thunderers so they can obliterate your opponents from distance. Popular saying “Offence is the best Defence” (and another popular one – “death is the best form of crowd control”) is the key to do this and to make killing enemy fliers (that are often the most mobile enemy fighters, so the biggest threat to Thunderers) even easier this faction own fliers have access to Master the Skies ability that will help you make sure that you keep air superiority over the battlefield.
For your Mizzenmaster this ability advantage over Onslaught is quite consistant with Onslaught winning only in 2% of most edge cases but in case of Endrinrigger better ability depend on number of damage you need to inflict, you can find the exact difference against Toughness 4 below (with Fight for Profit affecting Endrinrigger always use Master of the Skies):
Damage
Onslaught
Master the Skies
1
98,77%
96,30%
2
98,77%
96,30%
3
91,36%
96,30%
4
91,36%
79,63%
5
74,69%
79,63%
6
72,22%
79,63%
7
55,56%
49,07%
8
44,44%
49,07%
9
38,19%
49,07%
10
21,53%
19,91%
11
19,68%
19,91%
12
11,34%
19,91%
13
5,79%
4,63%
14
5,79%
4,63%
15
1,62%
4,63%
16
1,00%
0,46%
If remembering patterns is easy for you and you really like minmaxing I suggest to try remembering that Onslaught wins with every third number of damage starting with 4, so the chain is as follows: 4,7,10,13.
Old Guard with Ancestral Weapon and Gromril Shield
Vulkite Berzerker with Pair of Fyresteel Handaxes
Vulkite Berzerker with Fyresteel weapon and Bladed Slingshield
Shield:
Hearthguard Berzerker with Berzerker Broadaxe
Vulkite Berzerker with Pair of Fyresteel Handaxes
Vulkite Berzerker with Fyresteel weapon and Bladed Slingshield
Hammer:
Doomseeker
2x Vulkite Berzerker with Pair of Fyresteel Handaxes
Vulkite Berzerker with Fyresteel weapon and Bladed Slingshield
Tips, Tricks & Tactics
Mobility – The 2 main remedies to the fact that all fighters from this list have 3″ movement (which isn’t surprising for dwarf list) is access to Swift as the Wind and Relentless Zeal abilities.
This abilities let your short-legged forces to get where they need to be. Keeping your Old Guard ally safe is one of the highest priorities as the list can’t easily be outmaneuvered without him.
Gathered Heroes – Keeping your forces in tight groups should let you transfer some of your Vulkite Berzerker actions into better fighter movement with Fyreslayers reaction.
Whenever possible make sure to close in with Annihilator Prime or Doomseeker without spending their actions on movement.
Conditional Rampage – Keep close eye on damage that your Hearthguard Berzerker gets as after receiving 5 wounds he gets access to Duty Unto Death, powerful ability that is a “pseudo rampage” that only costs triple.
Overthinking Warcry 