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.

Welcome back everyone! It's time for one of the biggest events of the year, Adepticon's AOS GT! In addition to that we have two other events around the world so this week we'll be covering:

• Adepticon Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Championship 2026 - United States
• Mighty Founding - United Kingdom
• Ogr Cubb Singles Age of Sigmar 2026 - Czech Republic

Adepticon Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Championship 2026

179-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Milwaukee, WI, United States on March 26 2026. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

Due to the size of the event, there were five 5-0 lists and twenty eight 4-1s, so rather than go into the 4-1 lists we'll just break down the top 5 in better detail.

The Showdown

Mission - Passing Seasons

Gavin Grigar - Sylvaneth

vs.

Walker Snapp - Helsmiths of Hashut

Thoughts

This would be a hard one to assess largely because of how batshit insane this Sylvaneth list is. Taking a look, the Helsmith list basically wants to guard their artillery from enemy attacks while they pelt them from afar. The Sylvaneth list meanwhile wants to try and bait enemies into charging them, and crippling the roll and then eating them alive. So while both want their opponent to charge them, they will approach it in different ways.

The advantage to the Sylvaneth is they have options to not engage in melee. By teleporting and abusing flying, they can remain hidden to avoid much of the artillery bombardment and scoop up objectives, only engaging in combat on their own terms.

Result

Sylvaneth Victory - 70 - 30

Gavin Grigar - Sylvaneth - 1st Place

Warsong Revenant. Credit: chimp

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Tree Weenies

Thoughts

This is a very surprising list to come out of the faction pack just as it closes up shop for the new Battletome.

Twistweald are a cheap infantry unit that can reduce charges by D3 if they are more than 6" from other units. Form them properly split exactly 6" apart and you can create a line that makes charges a lot more difficult. They're also really not bad in combat, they got ranged attacks and some decent melee attacks.

What they're really setting up for is the Spite-revenants and their crit mortals, Spiterider Lancers with their Strike First charge damage and Drycha with her Ward erasing gun. A very unique list to see and congratulations to Gavin on winning another Adepticon!

Chase Fair - Flesh-eater Courts - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Terrorgheists

Thoughts

Terrorgheists are a real menace en masse, with the Ghoul Kings leading they become very difficult to deal with. The Royal Zombie Dragon King helps get them in with +2 to charges, and then the Royal Terrogheist King gives +1 attack for the Monsters. Then they all get +1 attack for Champions, Musicians and Banner bears which can further increase their damage. It's a lot of attacks at Damage 2 and Crit Mortals which few armies can tank.

Michael Rausch - Ossiarch Bonereapers - 3rd Place (Undefeated)

Arkhan the Black - Credit Scops

The List

Archetype

Deathriders

Thoughts

The Deathriders are the bread and butter of this list, as you'd probably guess from there being so many of them. Deathriders have the ability to, instead of fighting, deal D3 mortals and leave. Sort of like a free Power Through without the wound cap, but you don't get to fight first.

This sounds a bit lacking until you stack on the Liege-Kavalos, which can also follow behind and deal another D3, and his Heroic Trait Imperious Will which adds another bad D3 on top for a possibility of 9 mortal wounds while exposing yourself to minimal danger.

Throw in the fact that you can do their "power through" for each unit, and supported by a Liege Mortek with Triaxes that's a lot of extra damage on top. The Mortis Reapers and Teratic Cohort mostly exist to be a screen and snag objectives you don't want to leave your Kavalos sitting on.

Derrek Perham - Disciples of Tzeentch - 4th Place (Undefeated)

The List

Archetype

Kairos and Tzaangors

Thoughts

Fated Blades asks the player to take a bigger risk on the offense but pays off big time. Like most Tzeentch lists it's using Kairos for support, casting spells from the back and denying the opponent their own. It then uses the chaff to move up and swap in their bigger, scarier units like the Tzaangors and Enlightened.

Fated Blades gives +1 attack on a 9+ charge so if one can pull it off (or you know, cheat with fate Points) it lets the Enlightened and foot Tzaangors cut through most any opposition, supported by the Ogroid Thaumaturge.

Kaleb Walters - Disciples of Tzeentch - 5th Place (Undefeated)

Curseling, Eye of Tzeentch. That Gobbo

The List

Archetype

Kairos and a bit of everything

Thoughts

This list is similar to the one before it. Kairos supports, Tzaangors and Enlightened do the heavy lifting. Instead of Fated Blades however it uses Mutant and Mad Things, which wants to flood the board sooner by being able to drop in units off the board edges. If opponents leave their board edges unprotected they may get an unfortunate surprise right behind them!

Mighty Founding

54-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in England, United Kingdom on March 28 2026. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Konrad Opravel - Disciples of Tzeentch

vs.

Krzysztof Zylawy - Blades of Khorne

Thoughts

Khorne and Tzeentch, the classic rivalry. This is a rather surprising matchup, and the result is even more surprising. Tzeentch has had the advantage since its new book came out, a skilled pilot can make it so trying to make any progress is damn near impossible. Swapping out units, turning them into Chaos Spawn so you're stuck fighting that instead of getting anywhere, all while being pelted to death.

Meanwhile this Khorne list is a blunt instrument, just flail it in the direction of an objective and don't give in. And sometimes that works!

Result

Blades of Khorne Victory - 61 - 53

Krzysztof Zylawy - Blades of Khorne - 1st Place

Scary, yes. Gothic, No. Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Daemons

Thoughts

It's been a hot minute since we've seen Khorne in the Showdown, let alone such a novel list. Bloodletters can be pretty gnarly, with 2 attacks per model and crit mortals, they can cut through a lot of tough units. At 2 wounds per model, they're a lot to chew through, too!

The Bloodthirster leads the pack by punching anything they cant take on, while the other units mostly exist to be chaff for Blood Tithes. Brand's Oathbound lets you sneak a caster into Khorne (Heresy! Cowardice!) and its pretty good too, reducing enemy attacks by 1.

Daniil Osudin - Disciples of Tzeentch - 2nd Place (Undefeated)

Chaos Spawn of Tzeentch. Credit - Instagram: Exitwarp

The List

Archetype

Kairos and Mortals.

Thoughts

This leans in on a more...human touch than many lists right now. Masters of Fate subfaction gives Crit 2 Hits to Mortal units near Daemons, and Kairic Acolytes are reasonably cheap so the answer is just to bring a lot of 'em. Supported by Kairos and a Fatemaster they can often chop up units far more valuable then them, and supported by the Ogroid Thaumaturge they can take on some big threats.

The Best of the Rest

There were 8 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 3rd - Konrad Opravel - Disciples of Tzeentch: See Showdown.
• 4th - Matthew Gouldesbrough-Gerringer - Maggotkin of Nurgle: Rotigus with Pestigors and Belga with Sloven Knights.
• 5th - Obaid Bin-Nasir - Lumineth Realm-Lords: Lyrior Uthralle with Dawnriders and Sentinels.
• 6th - Paul Richards - Ironjawz: Kragnos leads Brutes and Wrekkaz.
• 7th - Dan Sidders - Gloomspite Gitz: Squigs and Loonsmashas.
• 8th - Colm McCarthy - Seraphon: Spawn of Chotec. Like a lot of them. Like they put out a rules change to Auxilaries yesterday because of this.
• 9th - Evren Mihlar - Ironjawz: Grunta Stampede.
• 10th - Dominic Stonebridge - Stormcast Eternals:Bastian Carthalos and Karazai with Annihilators.

Ogr Cubb Singles Age of Sigmar 2026

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Hlavní město Praha, Czech Republic on March 28 2026. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Jan "stromecek23" Tomeček - Disciples of Tzeentch

vs.

Pavel Šebesta - Idoneth Deepkin

Thoughts

This matchup creates an interesting challenge for the Idoneth. Although it is similar to the Allopex spam that usually makes up Idoneth lists in the usual meta, it does lack a bit of ranged support that Allopexes bring to the table. This means they often need to charge the enemy face first and hope for the best, and Tzeentch makes that task much more difficult since it can swap out the weak chaff it puts out front for the more dangerous Tzaangor Enlightened, and pop them with the Skyfires.

Result

Disciples of Tzeentch Victory - 20 - 0

Jan "stromecek23" Tomeček - Disciples of Tzeentch - 1st Place

Tzaangor Skyfires. Credit - Instagram: Exitwarp

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Tzaangors

Thoughts

As the Tzeentch book starts to crystalize we see more list form around a similar theme to this. Kairos leads the list as one of the best spellcasters in the game. He also packs the sought after +1 to unbinding and gets a free magical intervention every turn he unbinds a spell.

As stated above, the power of Tzeentch's current tome involves sending in less powerful chaff units to grab objectives, lose them to gain destiny points, and swap them out for stronger units when the time is right. This is where the legions of Tzaangors come in. You can also tie the enemy down with Turned to Spawn thanks to the extra Chaos Spawn you have to spare.

The Best of the Rest

There were 6 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd - Krystof Mozer - Disciples of Tzeentch: Kairos with Tzaangors.
• 3rd - Šimon Jung - Hedonites of Slaanesh: Shalaxi with Blissbarbs and Slickblades.
• 4th - Jozef Daňko - Skaventide: Skryre themed list with Stormfiends, Doom Flayers, Warpvolts and Ratling guns.
• 5th - Pavel "Jarmis" Jarmara - Stormcast Eternals: Iridan with Questors and Reclusians.
• 6th - Martin Koscielniak - Maggotkin of Nurgle: Rotigus with Plaguebearers, Shaman with Pestigors and Rotswords, Belga and Harbinger of Decay.
• 7th - Pavel Šebesta - Idoneth Deepkin: See Showdown.

Wrap Up

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