This past weekend 90 players took part in the Age of Sigmar Championship at the Michigan GT. Each year I try to play different stuff at the GT – this year I wanted to really get into AOS and learn the competitive side of the game. I practiced sporadically – this time of year is very difficult with school starting for my kids, work projects, and especially coaching two kids’ soccer teams, but I really wanted to do my best. Turns out my best wasn’t great in terms of W/L record but I learned a ton and did manage some close games. Most importantly, I came in 69th (nice) place after hobby was figured in.
I’ve played in a lot of tournaments in my time – WHFB back in the day, Kill Team, 40k, SAGA, WMH, and AOS pre-COVID. I’m not a stranger to competitive play, I just haven’t done it much recently because of kids and other time stuff. This would be my first two-day GT for AOS and my first two-day event in years. I prepped by practicing once a weekend in July, August, and some of September. I did a lot of reading up and waffled on my list a bunch.
Michigan GT display board showing an Ogor army. Credit: Michael O “Mugginns”
The Michigan GT Experience
I’ve been going to the Michigan GT since it became more than just a 40k event. It’s held in Lansing every year around the beginning of October, this year being the 10th event. It has moved venues as it’s grown and we now play at the Lansing Center, a huge convention hall in downtown Lansing. Parking is fine and you can stay in a hotel that connects to it. The halls are spacious, clean, and well-lit. Tables have a lot of space between so you’re not constantly bumping into people. It’s a great location. There are between 8-10 vendors selling cool stuff ranging from miniatures to 3D prints to accessories like movement trays.
The Age of Sigmar Championship
Jeff is the TO of the AOS Championship and does a great job. Huge shoutout to all the MIGT staff – they’re all unpaid volunteers doing all of this work on their own time making a great experience for everyone. If you live in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, or Illinois and you’re not attending you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Everything was automated with the BCP app and it worked how it usually does (it’s fine, I guess). Huge shoutout to the Tabletop Battles app team – it runs like a dream and even imports lists and player details from BCP. Everything ran on time and with three hour rounds, I finished all of my games except one.
My List
The general idea I had with this list was to try to snipe out some chaff / screeners with the ungors, spells, and Ritual of Ruin and then blast in with the bullgors and doombull and do a ton of damage. The two units of gors likely would be split, one coming in Turn One to try to do damage and hold objectives, and the second on turn two when I have -1 Rend from the Herdstone. After the Raiders shoot they try to get on an objective. Enlightened run in and fight where possible while also tagging objectives when they can. I found out in Game Three that Grashrak actually isn’t an Andtorian Locus because he’s unique so that sucked – I should have realized that earlier.
– Army Faction: Beasts of Chaos
– Subfaction: Allherd
– Grand Strategy: Protect the Herdstone
– Triumph: Bloodthirsty
LEADERS
Beastlord (140)*
– Artefacts of Power: Brayblast Trumpet
Doombull (180)*
– General
– Command Traits: Bestial Cunning
– Artefacts of Power: Slitherwrack Helm
Grashrak Fellhoof (180)*
BATTLELINE
Gors (220)
– Foe-render
– Paired Hacking Blades
– 2 x Banner Bearer
– 2 x Brayhorn Blower
Gors (220)
– Foe-render
– Paired Hacking Blades
– 2 x Brayhorn Blower
– 2 x Banner Bearer
Bullgors (420)*
– Bloodkine
– Paired Cleaving Axes
– 2 x Warherd Banner Bearer
– 2 x Warherd Drummer
OTHER
Beasts of Chaos Tzaangor Enlightened (90)
Ungor Raiders (260)
Beasts of Chaos Tzaangor Enlightened (90)
Beasts of Chaos Tzaangor Enlightened (90)
Beasts of Chaos Tzaangor Enlightened (90)
Grashrak’s Despoilers (180)
TERRAIN
1 x Herdstone (0)
CORE BATTALIONS
*Warlord
TOTAL POINTS: 1980/2000
Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App
Game One – Nexus Collapse
Game one was vs Andy’s Grinnin’ Blades Kruleboyz. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever played against Kruleboyz. The terrain on this board was amazing quality but holy dang it was huuuuuuuge and spread out in all four corners, making it more difficult for my ambushes. The houses were also garrisonable and I have not used that rule much at all – I need to shore up my experience with that.
Andy was a great opponent, super polite and helpful. I told him I had been practicing but wasn’t super experienced yet with AOS GTs and he made sure we both had a good time. His models were painted excellently with a swampy theme and lots of great highlights and blends.
This game was close – I ended up losing 21-17, but had some fun moments. In Turn 4 or 5 I killed Gobsprakk with a unit of Gors and Enlightened in one round. I had problems protecting my Herdstone at the end of the game – my grand strategy – so I need to figure that out for the future or find a different strat. I don’t really have anvil units so my plan was just to try to kill enemy monsters or fast units and sometimes your enemy doesn’t participate in that, heh.
What I didn’t take into account was how killy the boltboyz are. They murderized my stuff when I went to charge in and then when my units didn’t break through the screens. I tried to break them down with raider shots and rituals but it didn’t happen – Andy also had some good defensive abilities especially on the first turn.
I did manage to do my best taking objectives and scoring tactics, only failing to get one battle tactic. I felt like it was a good, close match that was a lot of fun. I learned a ton about Kruelboyz especially.
Game Two – Every Step is Forward
Game Two was vs Flesheater Courts. It’s been a while since I’ve played against them – before COVID, likely. My opponent was Ric, a really nice dude who was a sporting opponent. He had a few big monsters, a bunch of characters that summoned extra dudes on the board, and a huge unit of nine Crypt Horrors. He did a great job screening me out of ambushing off the side of the board but I did get my Bullgors, Doombull, and three Enlightened into his Crypt Horrors. I REALLY NEEDED the 2+ roll to make the Crypt Horrors go last from my Doombull’s artefact so of course I rolled a 1. Instead of me chopping up the horrors and moving onto the rest of the game they binned my Bullgors, regenerated dudes and kept me at bay every other turn. I did manage to kill a ton of ghouls but that wasn’t enough – I lost this one fairly handily.
Game Three – Power Flux
This game was vs Slyvaneth commanded by Justin from Grand Rapids area. Super nice dude, super sporting opponent. He had a very awesomely painted Slyvaneth list including a super sweet Alarielle. I haven’t played against Slyvaneth in forever and never against Big A so I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect.
Justin castled up pretty well and shot out at me as I tried to come in and break it up. Because of the way the board was laid out I did manage to score objective points but not enough. I found myself in most games having a really tough time on Turn 5 trying to find a Battle Tactic I could achieve; the BoC ones are very middling, in my opinion, with two I really like, one turn locked to turn one or two, one depends on your opponent moving to your Herdstone, and one requires you to do enough mortal wounds in the charge phase to kill a unit.
I took my time trying to hold the objectives (only two were active at a time) and realized that I had taken Grashrak and he isn’t an Andtorian Locus because he’s unique; I had totally overlooked that. If he had been a Locus I could definitely have scored more points this game. Complete bonehead maneuver.
Justin did break his castle to move Alarielle out to fight my Bullgors after they had destroyed one unit and were left stranded. I was pretty worried until I remembered that my Doombull could give himself the charge order at the beginning of combat; he did so, then made a long charge, then made Alarielle fight last on a 2+. It was a pretty epic moment and I really couldn’t believe it happened. The Bullgors and Doombull proceeded to send Alarielle to the shadow realm. She did end up coming back on Turn 6 and helped Justin win the game, but it felt pretty neat at the time.
I didn’t manage to keep Justin from the Herdstone (my grand strat) so he won pretty handily. If I had written my list with a regular bray shaman instead of Grashrak I likely would have lost by only four points.
Game Four – Lines of Communication
This game was against Nicholas and his Maggotkin. I’ve played against them semi-recently so I recall the annoying mortals-at-end-of-turn stuff and I knew what Be’Lakor could do. Nicholas was a super nice dude and a sporting opponent (again, I know I’ve said that a bunch, but it’s true). This was my worst loss of the day; I didn’t have a hard time killing stuff, but the pile in restrictions from the Bilepiper meant I wasn’t getting as many guys on the objectives as I needed and, to be honest with you, I can’t remember why I couldn’t get my Battle Tactics done.
He also managed to kill my Herdstone before Turn Four so I really got Down Bad when that happened. I understand I’m probably an idiot for having it killed but man it feels rough. All of my strat in turn four and five revolves around movement and taking out their pieces so I can score points; when my stuff goes from -2 rend to nothing, man that hurts.
Game Five – Fountains of Frost
This game was against OBR, a faction I’ve only played against on TTS. Tim had a ton of big bone bois who were tough with shields, Arkhan, some horse bois, some flying angel guys, and a big pounder monster thing. I really thought I had a good chance this game – I felt that I was setup well and could get in and take objectives and outnumber my opponent.
The game got off to a great start when I had chosen Magical Dominance as my battle tactic, had no enemy unbind within 30″, chose a low cast spell and rolled a double one with no wild die to help me out. ROUGH. It continued to be worse when I managed to charge Arkhan with an entire unit of Bullgors (420 points) and managed to leave him at two wounds. I did the math after and it seems like they should have killed him reliably, but man, they definitely didn’t. He did wounds back to me, healed up, and then his flying angel guys came in and absolutely demolished my Bullgors. This really bit me in the ass; I was able to get battle tactics done, but I couldn’t take objectives away from him because he had a big monster holding them plus horses and stuff.
I did end up taking down Arkhan but not before he killed my Herdstone (again before turn four). It was a slugfest after that but I knew I couldn’t win without that rend from the stone. Tim was a great opponent and deserved the win.
Overall Thoughts
I love the Michigan GT. It’s got great parking, it’s in a big spacious convention center with lots of room between tables, it’s near food and hotels. Organizers are super nice and on top of everything. Best Coast Pairings actually worked and the event ran smooth as butter.
The only real feedback I have is to try to get rid of some of the HUUUUUGE terrain pieces (like the ziggurat board, or the big foam houses board I played on round one) that make movement and deployment all weird.
I ended up #69 (NICE) out of 100 registered after hobby was taken into account so I can’t be mad. I did want to try to eke out two wins, but realistically I think one win was definitely within reach for me. I am inspired and enthusiastic afterward and want to continue playing in AOS tournaments. I heartily recommend the Michigan GT to anyone in the midwest.
List Thoughts
I am currently bound up by ‘my favorite guys’ stuff – I really love my Gors, simple as. While mathematically do they well with dual axes on output, and their 3+ fight last thing is an awesome defensive mechanic, they’re not the best choice for our army, especially after losing Galletian Veterans. I am unlikely to ever chase the meta super hard with BoC and do an all Spawn army or an all Enlightened on foot army – I just don’t have that drive.
Instead I’m still sticking with the base of two 20 blocks of Gors and Allherd. While the Ungor Raiders are again not our best choice, I really like their ability to possibly break up screens and they can take objectives.
I’m going to try this out. I’m putting shields on a few Bullgors so they can be WYSIWYG and then also have a 4+ save. At 5+ they just feel suuuuuuuuper weak. I’m going to try a herd of nine of them and see if they can be a real block that destroys stuff and takes up resources while my Enlightened and Gors are doing stuff and waiting for later game when they have awesome rend. I
I’m going to try this out and see how it goes. I am missing monsters, still. I really like Gargants so I may drop some Gors and put one in. I like having the two Shamans for spell casting but also for Rituals of Ruin. If I had to make some bullet points for stuff I think I would try next:
- Gargants
- Bestigors (likely a 20 block to try out some anvil stuff)
- Enlightened on Discs
I’ve used all these guys before but not since our new tome, really, because their points haven’t been great.
– Army Faction: Beasts of Chaos
