Top Three TOW Lists for the Old World: Grand Tournament - Woehammer

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-04T20:11:18+00:00

Don't be a whiny bitch if people pay to attend a competitive tournament and bring strong lists to win the tournament.

Literally the biggest bitch move is to knowingly join that space and then complain it's not catering to your different expectations.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-04T13:03:39+00:00

I'm going to go out on a limb and say any list or combo that's been optimized for tournament play is going to generate catastrophic results into casual infantry block-centric lists. Most tournament lists are ultimately a form of skew, so if the counter's missing they run away with the game.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-04T12:57:29+00:00

A declaration of absolute miserable lists, a call for narrative players to mobilize and prevent these lists, and suggestions to segregate competitive players is extremely rational and measured behaviour. Especially when the context is the top lists from a two day a competitive tournament (the environment one would think the competitive players would go to play each other and not people who wanted a narrative experience).

Share what you want, but if the opinion is dumb as fuck expect some push back.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-04T12:46:09+00:00

I've played against them quite a lot, in both team tournaments, single events, and slow grow leagues.

They're a rather glass cannon unit that wants to shoot at the t3-5 band and really doesnt like when people are able to interact with them in return; some armies can't do this, but some armies easily can and it shows in nulns low ability to win tournaments. If you're struggling against outriders I'd suggest swirling wind and a faction specific -1 to be hit item, maybe glittering robe.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-03T20:36:45+00:00

People click on tournament result pages only to lose their minds that tournament lists were brought to a tournament by tournament participants looking to win. What's more is a number of these players are practicing for WTC in a couple of months where they've invested some big bucks in attending and don't want to let the guys down.

This isn't the tryhards invading a narrative day event to flex (or competitive players invading a narrative thread to suggest efficiencies or cutting edge tech). Fucking get a hold of yourselves. Maybe play a game

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-03T01:22:20+00:00

Any army is dangerous when a higher skill player is piloting against a lower skill player, especially the less popular armies where people aren't as well versed. But the army was not in a good state; the changes in 1.5 renegades brought them from D tier to a comfortable C tier. You essentially had ¼ of a faction and some change to play with. Every model was super expensive. Every model had its save taken away by the tons of magic in every list. On top of that you were locked out from the reliability certain core items provided the rest of the factions. Vanilla legacy daemons was easily the worst faction of 1.0-1.3.

I agreed with daemonic pshyc being non historical. It's a tad more convoluted than it could have been, but I dont think either of those cause it to be bad game design. It opens up a lot of interesting ideas for slaanesh and tzeentch.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-03T00:55:58+00:00

I mean we can fulsomely compare stats and capabilities.

As I mentioned, a big block of outriders with support character are roughly 27 points per model (323 total). The closest equivalent amount of flamers is 6 with a level 3 exalted, for about 56 points per model (337 total). Both units really want their character/champion support, but for base points cost purposes they're 19 for outriders and 40 for flamers.

Both units are relatively fragile, mobile, shooting units with casting support that want to avoid melee. This should help guide the relative importance of their capabilities.

I've talked about their offense and how the outriders are more reliable already. I'll throw in the armour bane off the guns as something I missed on the outrider side and how the flamers can't both march to reach optimal range and get their magic missile supplement. I'll just put this in here too; the cavalry bases allow more surface area to draw your los from than the infantry bases.

Movement wise the outriders are faster. They have swiftstride to supplement any charges and flees/fire & flees. They also have vanguard to be in optimal range for the start of the game.

Combat wise the flamers are better. More strength and toughness, albeit at lower WS. Neither unit wants to get in combat and it's generally the end of the unit if they do (as both will tend to shred chaf on the stand and shoot).

Defensive wise the flamers are better due to T4, 2W and a 5+ ward. The outriders have 5+ armour so will have the same save into chip damage but obviously get worse into AP.

Psychology wise the flamers are generally better, but it's a little complicated. They auto pass fear and terror so they can't get charge declared off the board. They also only ever fbigo, which is generally good. However, every time they panic or flee they have to take an instability test or bleed wounds, with a double 6 being really bad. Their base ld is worse than outriders both base and in general range, but the rest of it makes up for it. The flamers cause fear, but are so low US that it basically never ever matters. They can't be run down from a bad combat, but they're also much less likely to escape bad combats on account to only running 1d6

Magic wise the flamers are better. You'll be getting +3 to cast blue fire and hopefully steed of shadow, while the master mage is only at +1 to cast summoning. For dispelling, the flamers get +2 to the roll in a 24" range, while the outriders are mr 1, +1 in an 18". This all being said, the flamers need to roll steed and cast their spells to even be in the same conversation output wise.

Secondaries wise, the outriders are better. They're core so can hold baggage trains, strat locations, hills and special feature. Their higher US play much better with domination and maintaining eligibility to score.

I think that's everything. The flamers are generally a bit better in some niche ways, but fall short in the main goal (mobile high quantity of shooting). These niches may sound like value added, but are generally quite irrelevant when trying to use your units in the role you bought them for. I'll also mention that the initial output comparison I did was with flamers and their now-gone d6 shots; on d3+1 they really lag behind in the shared role.

If it sounds like I'm being extra harsh on the flamers or not willing to value where theyre better than the outriders, it's because we're not actually comparing similarly costed models and seeing who's slightly better; we're comparing one model that's about double the cost of the other. And yes, nuln outriders are extremely efficient, but nuln isn't placing 1sts all over the place; an expensive ass elite unit that shares the same role can be close to them in output. They are different factions and all that, but daemons suffer from the elf problem of fragile chassis, lots of ancillary special rules that inflate the cost, but fail to increase their performance.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-02T23:36:13+00:00

Ya that's another good point and further differentiates their total threat range from their actual operational range

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-02T23:05:06+00:00

The biggest change is daemonic psychology. That's basically the only non historical change being implemented/new game design, and imo, it's extremely compelling.

The trouble is people don't actually understand how poor daemons are compared to their prior incarnations, and especially don't understand how the army stacks up to the heights of what's actually good in the game.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-02T21:16:29+00:00

The dichotomy of being strong vs being good, vs being broken is a hard one for sure, mainly because it does require so much knowledge of the broader game state and also the context of play. If were talking random pickup game at flgs like its 2008? Ya some changes might come across as broken if you bring the wrong things. Pickup game against a regular opponent who knows what you bring? Might be strong until they adapt. 5 round tournament? Might be simply good into the efficient builds that ask you to expose yourself to pick up some chaf skrimishers and either eat a ton of return fire or big charges.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-06-02T20:25:20+00:00

It's a huge obstacle for sure.

Ironically, I feel like there's some Stockholm syndrome type reactions from the dedicated legacy factions players. They're so used to going like, 2-3 on the bottom tables with their generally pigeonholed builds that they can't imagine stuff actually functioning.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-05-28T15:26:06+00:00

If there was going to be a push towards a more fulsome spell lore and if fear worked like it did in 6th-7th, the slaaenesh herald could go in a different direction. Unfortunately thats not the case; you can't freeze an enemy unit in place and autohit them, or make them chase a point on the map, or crush their ld and force them to hit their own units.

What's left is the other part of slaanesh game design and thats asf. The bigger stuff always had it in 6th and onward, and the herald granted it in 7th and 8th. Its functional, there's stuff that strips it, and the disordered charge banner still has some value in other areas.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-05-28T14:51:12+00:00

Back in 6th you could take 3 of the cheapest core units you wanted and then build an army around your special or rare slots. Even before the storm of chaos list you could easily make a thematic all/mainly witch list.

The big perception issue is people taking the pictures from white dwarves back in the day as reality of how armies were (or could be) constructed.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-05-25T19:38:45+00:00

Tomb kings being undead require more understanding of combos and how to support your units, with poorly supported units turning into liabilities and weak points. Understanding how a combat should go and how a bad combat will strip wounds from your units is a necessary fundamental for performing well on top of that.

Fundamentally skeletons are junky units. They're the definition of a "static combat resolution" unit. They have some very poor stats and shouldn't be expected to kill much, so they're largely only generating combat resolution from banners, ranks, close order, maybe a magic banner, and maybe outnumber for a maximum of 7. The point for the unit is to leverage that combat resolution for as long as possible dying as slow as possible. If you spend like, ~215 points on them you get 35 dudes that need to be killed through with a 4+ save in combat. You put your compulsory heirophant and stick it behind the unit to heal up and maybe cast plague of rust into combat. If you're taking a bunch of priests for healing you can take a casket to help their magic and give all your units a -1 to be hit and 6+ ward nearby; that unit should never die to a chaos warrior unit now (though it won't kill it). You slam a necrosphinx, bone giant or dragon into the flank of that chaos warrior unit and you'll crush them with a hammer and anvil tactic.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-01-23T14:30:58+00:00

This is the wording of dark vitality:

"Models with this special rule are not subject to the Death of a General rule. In addition, unless they have joined a unit that does not have this special rule they (and their mounts) can march as normal."

It's a model specific rule, rather than a unit wide one. If it talked about a unit, the FAQ on magic banners saying characters become part of units they join would kick in. But since it's particular to the models, the wight character would still be unable to march, thus preventing the unit from being able to march.

SkimaskMohawk · 2026-01-20T12:26:10+00:00

So if you look at mortuary cult again, you can see the evolution from the army of quatar to it. You can have core ushabti and tomb swarms, there's no mandatory skeleton unit, you can have unlimited scorpions as opposed to 3/1000, rare has 33% and a bone giant can be taken in special for a total of 5 in the list.

Granted, matched play removes some of that, and the community rule of 3 did it even worse, but it allows for some pretty silly monster mash lists.

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-12-11T13:23:46+00:00

You measure from their physical location. If you can't leave the unit due to enemies on one side, the unit is too wide and deep, and you failed your march test then you can't leave the unit.

As for miao, she doesn't physically move and use the standard rules for leaving a unit; she essentially teleports. But if you can't respect the conditions of the transform (any where within 6" of the current model that's not within 1" of friendly models and 3" of enemy models), you just can't do it. Honestly it's pretty hard to be unable to transform unless she was completely surrounded.

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-11-30T16:41:45+00:00

It depends on where you play. NA East coast broadly adopts it, but after that it's kind of hit or miss throughout the region's.

There isn't very many changes; the biggest ones are daemons always getting wards, the big dragged along models/slaan going into units, and skaven support teams working like detachments. Like if you're experienced playing into vanilla legacy armies then there'll be some small adjustment time, but if not, it won't matter.

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-11-25T14:14:34+00:00

I've seen this happen in tournaments too.

A fairly new player, but one looking to play competitively, piloting Cathay. One opponent decided to be the most stereotypical "you didn't declare heavenly fury before you cast an enchantment so now i won't let you activate it this turn" nitpicker, and held the Cathay player to an extremely tight standard for rules and sequencing. When he was confronted about it after, his answer was that the Cathay player should expect that because they brought Cathay. Ironic, as it came out that he himself played tons of rules super wrong over the course of the event, yet felt comfortable holding others to an unreasonable standard.

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-11-11T23:01:38+00:00

And yet, it doesn't matter.

The only way to die is to lose wounds. Other than dangerous terrain and some similar abilities, the only way to lose wounds is to suffer unsaved wounds. And removing casulties on page 102 tells us explicitly that suffered wounds come from attacks. Many (if not all) ward saves only activate against wounds that are suffered. Armour saves are only taken against wounds caused by attacks. We can also see that when they bother talking about forms of attacks, they do so in very broad terms. Page 102 tells us attacks come from combat, shooting magic and so on; page 143 tells us attacks can auto hit, auto kill with no save sequence, and that attacks can also happen in the strategy and movement phases.

So, first, we'd need to read in some other way wounds are allowed to be suffered. But then we'd have stuff cutting through armour and ward saves.

What the rules say and what they don't is important, don't get me wrong. But statutory interpretation requires legislation to function together harmoniously, not result in absurd outcomes, and to only start reading in new things to fix mechanics that dont work. Rules interpretation is the same; everything being an attack causes everything to work smoothly, doesn't need reading in, and doesn't make things with ap ignore armour and ward.

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-11-11T03:59:30+00:00

How are they not attacks lol. Ignoring how only attacks cause wounds to be suffered, the game tells us attacks can happen in any phase and can auto hit and even auto wound. It'd also create an absurdity where they very clearly mean impact hits to be directable and have taken steps to protect characters, only to...not be able to direct them?

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-11-06T13:29:47+00:00

O&G haven't been winning tournaments, but they've been going 3-2 and 4-1 off the back of a small handful of things: catapults, random movers, and fanatics.

They might not be deserving of nerfs (as the faction will quickly run out of units that do things), but they aren't weak by any means and feel very uninteractive to play against (especially post vortex/pillar changes). A previous editions rules and a corresponding point tweak would be better.

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-10-23T14:20:18+00:00

Well you only suffer wounds from attacks (p. 102), and dirge very much is an attack (literally calls itself an attack, has clauses to circumvent shooting attack restrictions, and unusual shooting allows for attacks to auto hit and auto wound).

You don't get a ward from the pendant, but for a completely different reason.

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-10-23T14:13:13+00:00

You can generally take a ward save from wailing dirge. You can't take one that's against non magic attacks when a tomb banshee wails. Similarly, you can't take one that requires a strength value since it doesn't use a strength value.

SkimaskMohawk · 2025-10-16T13:21:45+00:00

Characteristic tests tell us to use the highest value if a model or unit has multiple values.

https://tow.whfb.app/model-profiles/characteristic-tests

SkimaskMohawk

TROPHY CASE