Welcome to Competitive Innovations, our weekly feature for a number of game lines across the tabletop wargame space. Each week our army list and tactics experts canvass the top tournaments for their game of specialty, looking at the week’s top match-ups and how they played out on the tabletop to let you know what’s hot, what’s not, and what might be coming next as the competitive meta evolves year-round.

It's time for AOS Worlds, the first of 4th edition! AOS Worlds is one of the largest events in the world, mostly famous for its team tournament. This year in Austria it has included a singles event this year which is still quite of quite impressive size so we'll be taking a look at the top 8 from that. Then back in the US we have a smaller event with possibly the last run in Competitive Innovations of one of the armies taking off into the sunset at the end of this season.

AoS Worlds 2025 - Singles

114-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Proleb, Steiermark, Austria on April 30 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Mission - Focal Points

Javi Fernández - Idoneth Deepkin

vs.

Martin Andre Røhme - Lumineth Realm-Lords

Thoughts

This is a tough one. We've seen Idoneth in a bit of ascendence lately, with Mounted Morsarr/Allopex hybrid lists getting into a lot of showdowns. Meanwhile the Lumineth really haven't, especially not an Alarith themed list.

Yet here we are, at one of the biggest events in the world and I'll spoil the ending: The Lumineth take it, and by quite a bit at that. It's a real head scratcher and I reckon a lot of it has to do with this being a list absolutely designed to stand on circles and take being punched in the head and keep on walking. Focal Points tends to favor being able to consolidate on 2-3 objectives close together (and if you can exploit changing the center to a flank or home all the better) and that's exactly what this Lumineth list hopes to do, as standing on objectives grants them a 5+ ward. So establish ownership of the objectives early and don't give them up.

Result

Lumineth Realm-Lords Victory - 35 - 26

Martin Andre Røhme - Lumineth Realm-Lords - 1st Place

Vanari Lord Regent Credit: Joshua Saunders

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Alarith Lumineth

Thoughts

It's been a hot minute since we've seen Lumineth here, and not only to win Worlds but to do so with a far less popular build (No Foxes or Windchargers!) is an impressive feat all its own.

Lyrior Uthralle leads the charge, and both of his powers are incredibly important. There's a free All Out Attack if the unit is within 12" of him, so that means both a unit of Sentinels can shoot with +1 to hit in the shooting phase, and then some Stoneguard can benefit in the combat phase. Second, his warscroll spell is excellent for dispatching Manifestations placed in the way to chump block charges.

The Stonemage is the natural pick for a support caster both to cast the incredibly powerful spell lore and granting +1 Rend to the Stoneguard is a nice buff. Otherwise the rest of this army focuses on the infantry. The Sentinels may not get the love they once did now that they Auto-Wound instead of Crit Mortals, but it's still a solid amount of support fire into the enemies tied up in the impenetrable wall that is the Stoneguard. They pack a 5+ Ward when guarding objectives and their 4+ save effectively becomes a 3+ with the Enduring as Rock facet of War reducing Rend by 1. In short, they're very difficuylt

The Riverblades round things off as cheap Character Assassins and objective grabbers able to teleport once per turn and even skip past chaff to get the characters behind with their Anti-Hero swords.

Benji Askelaad - Slaves to Darkness - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Be'lakor - Credit: RichyP

The List

Archetype

Be'lakor and Good Stuff

Thoughts

Be'lakor, naturally leads the pack here. He just has too much good stuff. The ability to shut down the most dangerous unit for a turn, putting Strike First on their allies in the face of charging enemies, and their warscroll spell being all around solid for neutering most any threat with -1 to hit and turning off Crits.

Usually these lists have Varanguard but hey, Double Reinforced Chosen is also a very valid decision. They hit like a truck and with the Dread Banner you can shut off commands, both making them more resilient and harder to defend against. The other you can attach the Mark of Slaanesh to if you need them to charge across the field right now or Mark of Khorne if you want to further brutalize the enemy when you're close.

The Chaos Lord work both as a caddy for enhancements but also the ability to Strike immediately after it helps augment the Chosen. It adds +1 to the wound roll and if the Chosen were rather unfortunately hit with Strike Last by the opponent, this is an easy way to get around that.

The Darkoath Fellriders round things off as a nice mobile unit to grab objectives and flank opponents. While they may not be as good as Knights, a reinforced unit gets a lot more attacks for fewer points and they can pick off isolated units pretty reliably.

 

Pedromancer Lechado - Gloomspite Gitz - 3rd Place (Undefeated)

Credit instagram: bair_paints

The List

Archetype

Troggs

Thoughts

Who needs Squiggs? This is a Trogg List.

Well, ok, Skragrott and the Gobbapalooza help too. Skragrott is a crucial support piece both as a two cast wizard and to keep the Badmoon locked in the Grinnin' or Scowlin' position as much as possible to give the -1 to rend against Troggs.

Otherwise these are Rockgut Troggoths. They're incredibly tough, hit hard and if there's any leftover wounds on the unit they'll probably just heal it all back. Trugg makes the final support piece by offering several extremely good buffs for Troggs, most noteworthy being +1 Rend or +1 Attack.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players in the top 8. They were:

• 4th - Natasa Belic - Gloomspite Gitz (4-0-1): Troggs, with a sprinkle of Droggz da Sunchompa and Squigs
• 5th - Christoffer Karlsmose - Seraphon: Kroak and Skink Starseer with Seraphon good stuff.
• 6th - Mikhail Usoltsev - Sylvaneth: Alarielle and Belthanos with dual reinforced Kurnoths.
• 7th - Javi Fernández - Idoneth Deepkin: See Showdown.
• 8th - Jean-Baptiste Aymes - Blades of Khorne: A mortals list with Blood Warriors and Wrathmongers.

The Richmond Open AoS Event Hosted By Away Games

32-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Doswell, VA, United States on May 03 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Mission - Focal Points

James O’Brien - Stormcast Eternals

vs.

Harry Isaksson - Bonesplitterz

Thoughts

There's less than a month until Bonesplitterz ride their pigs off into the sunset and this is a noble try to give them one last run, unfortunately they're up against a pretty darn good Stormcast list.

The Bonesplitterz do got numbers but they lack some punch, particularly against the high Armor Saves of the Stormcast. While Focal Points is a game mode where making come backs can be made easier by changing the center to something advantageous to the loser, it cuts both ways and can make it easier for the Stormcast to consolidate their position and become harder to move.

It was a noble effort but Stormast pull a strong victory on this one.

Result

Stormcast Eternals Victory - 42 - 20

James O’Brien - Stormcast Eternals - 1st Place

Stormcast Eternals Liberators. Credit: SRM

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Prime Time with Stormcast Good Stuff

Thoughts

We don't see the Celestant-Prime nearly as much as we used to, a combination of being a bit expensive in a high cost army and competing with a lot of things in the "Hero that Hits Things Good" slot. With the recent point cut by 30 points, he's pretty darn cheap.

While he deep strikes the usual 9" away on turn 1, he can come in later to drop closer to the enemy (sadly, he can't get a guaranteed 12 on the charge anymore though). He has fewer attacks too since they don't scale up anymore, but they do 4 damage now and Crit Mortals so its a wash either way.

The rest of the list is a lot of the stuff we usually see. Longstrikes shoot real good, especially if they can get a Hero in their sights, while Palladors lead the charge and hurt between their ability to effectively shoot twice a turn when charging, and then being pretty good in combat once they get there, too.

Rounding it off the Arcanum and Relictor offer magical and prayer support (Mostly through the conjurations and Teleportation), the Knight Judicator to give ranged fire and to harass units with their -1 to hit ability and the Soulsworn, Liberators and Vigilors to hold down the fort on objectives.

The Best of the Rest

There were 4 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Rye Anderson - Skaventide: Grey Seer and Warlock leading a menagerie of Moulder creations including Stormfiends and Rat Ogors.
• 3rd - Michael Vagenos - Sons of Behemat: Brodd, Kragnos and Warstomper with the Ironjawz pig RoR.
• 4th - Harry Isaksson - Bonesplitterz: See Showdown.
• 5th - Logan Young - Blades of Khorne: A Bloodthirster with a Herald and Slaughterpriest lead a lot of Blood Crushers.

Wrap Up

What an exciting week, as we're down to less than a month of this season. Games Workshop has already started hyping up the 2025-26 season with the Scourge of Ghyran releases, so be sure to read our feedback on those as they come out and come back for CI next week!

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