Just a brief note – Playing Age of Sigmar is an extremely restorative activity. Over the past three years I’ve made a lot of friends. Unfortunately, a pillar of the Georgia minis community community, Eric Urbas, had a medical issue at an event during the month of August. Those of you who have played against him know what a great person he is.

Southern Fried Gaming Expo

Technically I did better at the Southern Fried Game Expo 2 day event compared to last year. Instead of a 1-4 result I was able to go 1-3-1 making it the slightly better overall result compared to last year. The event was big enough this year to result in a report on the prominent miniature website goonhamer.com. I was also able to finish every single one of my games well within time and had five great games.

Finishing within time with a new GHB was one of the keys in putting this list together. On some level its just nice to show up and execute on a simple list and gameplan. I’d highly recommend anyone who has the ability to choose a simpler list, or hasn’t had the time to practice with a list, to just dumb things down for an event.

Compared to last year there were fewer people walking by looking at models. I’m not sure if this is a function of Southern Fried having fewer people, better events, or just better weather during the weekend. Our event was in the same room as last year but had significantly more participants and fewer cowboy themed miniature games being demoed making it feel less like an event in a convention and more like a standard event. I was able to get my 2nd through 6th game in the GHB in and have to report that it’s significantly better compared to the prior version even if I, and every single person I played against, forgot about the extra command point or cast. Hooray for consistency.

So what were the stated goals for this event? Pretty simple, and they involved getting to finish games since I haven’t had a chance to really play as much as I want in the GHB.

1. I didn’t want to have to explain things – I wanted to finish games.
2. I wanted to try out the Nullstone Enhancements
3. I didn’t have a ton of experience with the GHB

Gal Pals and Spiders

Game 1 Won 26-25 on Geomantic Pulse

Villain 1 Beasts of Chaos

I took first turn to ensure that I could accomplish a battle tactic and win priority in the second turn and determine where the pulse was.  My opponent deployed the incarnate towards the B objective and left everything else in reserve. I put half my army on the right and half on the left with my spiders along the edges to screen the board edge and set up for surround and destroy on turn 1. I placed my loonshrine to the right side of the board but within 12″ of the right middle point in case I brought back a unit of spiders to steal an objective. Since I didn’t control the priority I felt the need to screen out most of my dankhold in case my opponent went first.

I was given the first turn and moved everything on the objectives and used spiders to block out the board edge as much as possible. The base size, speed, and coherency advantage of the 90 point spider unit has made it my go-to in building gitz lists. I’ve also found in games with player placed terrain the ability to move through as if they can fly is an advantage in keeping opponents off objectives and the board edge. I had my gal pals mostly in the middle and ready to fight over the objectives in turns 3-4 as the pulse moved through the board.

However, he failed a charge towards my screening spiders on objective B that allowed me to keep that unit alive for several additional turns. Against most armies Beasts of Chaos are able to lift anything they touch in combat.  I had allowed a small space for his cygor to get near the loonshrine and he was able to smash it to rubble. In many of my prior gitz lists the loonshrine is a sacred model that needs to be defended at all costs. In this list I really only need to benefit from the light of the moon on my Dankholds and they should be aggressively wading into combat, not sitting around near a rock.

However, my opponent split attacks between several of my dankhold units with a unit of bullgors and I was able to keep all the gals alive and strike back and lift the unit. I was also able to delevel the incarnate.

I felt like I was in a good spot when the moon moved to cover the entire board in round two and was given first turn after losing priority so that my opponent could pick the direction of the pulse. I was able to steal a few extra VPs due to the failed charge and take some of his models off of the board. However, I needed to clear out A LOT of bodies and keep my spiders alive to stay on the points. He was able to summon a unit a chaff with his horn and continued to increase the rend on his units as the game went on. My centrally located Dankholds were able to fight off waves of beastmen while healing up damage.

This put me ahead on primary points but I failed a battle tactic to kill a monster with a trogg unit by a single wound that made the game extremely even going into the latter rounds. I had just enough units on the “A” point to prevent him from being able to control enough primary points to win the game. I was never able to kill his wizard and failed my grand strategy while he earned his.

We traded back and forth and I was able to squeak out a win by a single point with plenty of time to spare before lunch. This was a game where I missed my -1 to hit from felwaters, spiders, or the shroommancer but was bailed out by having a few book battle tactics that I could pick from.

Game 2 – 24 point Draw on Lines of Communication

Villain 2 Fyreslayers

My opponent has been using me as a punching bag against his fyreslayers for a long long time. While I always enjoy our games its a testament to his skill level that he remains the only fyreslayers player to beat me on a regular basis. The list above is really one of the more experiential and less tuned lists he has run at an event.

Our last event game was during the prior GHB where I forgot my loonshrine and played the event without the benefits of a big dumb rock. He was my only loss but I was able to steal any honor from him by forgetting to bring a complete army and lacking the mental dexterity in general to beat him.

I was originally thinking about how I could do some clever things and try to fight against the list. This mission is almost perfect (outside of battle tactics) for fyreslayers as it has three objectives in the middle. Instead of having a big strategy I just decided to push all the gals forward, fight, and then figure out what was left over. I knew I needed to take the first turn since my opponent had an impassible wall that could make it almost impossible to get on objectives in the first turn. While my spiders are fast, they couldn’t outbody a bunch of rowdy raging dwarfs on the points. I took my turn and moved up and captured two points. Against Fyreslayers going first almost always unlocks a book battle tactic that allowed them to avoid a difficult turn 1 battle tactic choice. Compared to the prior GHB this edition presents some difficulties for fyreslayers in turn 1.

Unfortunately I tried to get a little too clever with the left objective and right objectives and got my general killed in the first round. I had been hoping to bait out a few attacks with them and use the retreat function to move over the terrain and get to the juicy flamekeepers in the back. Even a spider with a headdress of many eyes can get squished to fighting and furious dwarves. My opponent also had a cheeky unit of allied skywardens that were able to harass me on the right point.

Going into the second round the moon moved in my favor and “Coveredeth the boardeth” as I tell me opponents. Normally I would give away the turn and dare my opponent to get a little closer and set up for a double 2-3. Instead, I was up against a fighting army that could sit on points and get stronger Going back to my earlier strategy of “Move forward” I decided to take the turn and charge 4 gal pals into the center objective. I had enough spiders to cover the left objective and stay out of redeploy range and was fortunate enough to make my charges. I was able to get both of my reinforced dankholds into combat and planned to lift a unit of vulkites with one unit and then pile in with the second unit. This is a greedy play but I was rewarded with lifting almost 20 dwarves and collapsing the center of his army.

After this we traded combats back in forth and were extremely even on points. In a game that ends in a tie either player is able to point to a few decisions or dice rolls that would have made a difference. Losing my general early on hamstrung me. It’s taken a new GHB, a suboptimal list, and an underestimation of the power of Gal Pals to get even with my long-time nemesis but I’ll take it. A few more nerfs to fyerslayers and I might even become a rival.

Game 3 Loss 28-14 on Every Step is Forward

Villain 3 (first real villain) OBR

I’m not sure if I like this battleplan or not but I like that it creates some interesting choices for battle tactics. Of all the missions I’ve played in this GHB it presents the most interesting deployment so far and I’m hopeful I get some more chances to play this mission before my next event.

This was the first time that I’ve fought OBR in 3.0 and not felt like I had a huge advantage. Kruleboyz, my prior main army, was basically made to dump enough mortal wounds on OBR. Most gitz lists, with the moonface mommet and Gobbapalooza, can easily get several units up to the equivalent of rend -4 and use a combination of damage and weight of dice to lift entire units in combat. That is extremely helpful when fighting OBR. However, the list construction choices I made in the pursuit of simplicity just didn’t matter.

Because of the format of the mission I had to swing a unit of my dankholds over and kill some deathriders during the first round. I spent a few rounds getting them back into the fight but I don’t really think this matter as every single combat went in my opponents favor. The ability to strike first, the volume of dice, and the multi-damage attacks really did a number on my units. While all my games finished early this is by far the earliest finishing game.

The Gal Pals, by contrast, are relying on the strength of the warscrolls and a command ability from a Dankhold Troggboss to get an additional attack. The current flavor of the boring boners comes with Morghast Archai (a unit that I totally had encountered over the past three years) who shut off command abilities. Without additional saves or multiple -1 to hit my opponent made short work of my army. We had some combats, I tried to lift some units and failed, and he lifted some of my units. -2 rend simply isn’t enough to get through this army and I wasn’t able to out body on points.

I imagine that several recent events are going to be overrun with extremely well painted and lovingly crafted OBR lists until the next balance patch. Grey, ivory, bone, and other variations with at least three colors will be the latest fashion. I’d also imagine that single pass textured bases bringing a real minimalist feel to the models will allow opponents to focus on the narrative choices in list building and that one single bright color that was painted on every model. Competitive players make up such a small part of the minis community and seem to have an outsized impact on the design and balancing of the games. In my opinion this is a great thing for the overall health for the community if everyone does their party.

• Top competitive players find poor rules interactions, unclear wording, and simply broken combinations and then use them at events.
• Coverage of these lists flows through the community allowing people to find out new idea that might not be exposed in the local meta.
• People chasing the meta pile in and buy models (or put together something from the pile of shame) creating an imbalance in the meta. Most of these players aren’t as good as the top players.
• Top players come up with potential counters.
• A change in points or rules occurs or a new army is released and the cycle starts again.

Without this cycle we’re left with completely unbalanced rules that never change where people attempt to legitimately argue that the rules are working as intended.

The OBR build is a straightforward army to play that does battle tactics well and is extremely efficient at hanging around. It’s healthy for the game and the meta to have strong lists rotate through that allow list players to pick up a new army and plow through games as long as they understand that it won’t always be like this. It’s a good thing for the game that people can be given simple armies that are powerful and compete in most phases of the game. Should this army be run as the ringer in an event? No. Is the game better knowing that a points increase of balance patch is going to take enough away from Soulblight and OBR so they’re not so dominate? Yes. A much larger issues is armies that never get a chance to shine, or books that are extremely limited in what makes it to the table.

Game 4 Loss 27-17 on No Reward without Risk

Villain 4 Skaven

This game was my most enjoyable and a chance to play against an new opponent with a weird army. It’s the perfect experience for an event. I felt pretty confident against another incarnate list eespite the mortal wound output of of the gutter runners and weird Skaven tricks that I didn’t really ask about or understand. Like the first game my opponent deployed almost completely off board with a single unit and the incarnate on the board. This time I knew I would be outdropped and attempted to set up to accomplish a first turn battle tactic. However, due to the large number of ambushing units that could deploy within a short charge radius I didn’t want to completely ignore my back line.

I was given first turn and moved my units out of my territory. Most of my opponents army was off board and I didn’t really have anything to do but sit on points and screen out a little bit. Given the Deceiver and Skittershank’s ability to deploy extremely close to my units I used most of my spiders to screen out and kept my Dankholds close together in the middle. I scored my five points and we moved to my opponents turn.

Once again, the Incarnate found its way into combat early as my opponent started taking away my little spiders. Instead of getting a level off the incarnate I didn’t do any damage with a reinforced unit of Dankholds. Keeping the incarnate at level 2 really concerned me as it made everything harder for me going forward. This was a portent of things to come as I did a respectable amount the next turn (11) and he was able to avoid a deleving situation. The next combat was crushing as I did 16 damage and he rolled 18 to keep the incarnate at level 2. It wasn’t all bad for me – my opponent was sweating out a charge from after failing with two other battlelines that would have prevented getting a battle tactic during his turn.

Once clever tactic was that I could use the Dankhold Troggboss ability to wade and smash to move from combat with the incarnate to combat with the gutter runners without allowing for unleash hell, retreating, or allowing them to redeploy. In my prior Trogg lists i was entirely too precious with the a Troggboss general to ever put him in combat and didn’t appreciate the flexibility of this move.

A single clever tactic can’t make up for a entire game of poor dice and a smart opponent who took apart my army piece by piece. Turns 4 and 5 were extremely fast as I didn’t have much left on the table after spending most of the game in combat with the incarnate. On this battleplan I don’t know if there is a scenario where I can avoid

Game 5 26-18 Loss on Fountains of Frost

Villain 5 Big Waagh!

Another situation where my own models were used against me. My opponent, who I’ll be playing on the same team as at the end of September, has bounced from army to army trying to find one that he connects with and seems to have taken a liking to Big Waaagh!.

During lunch there was a lot of shit talked and a lot of words passed around the table between my friend and I if we fought in a meaningless round five. I congratulate him on beating me fair and square.

I congratulate him on not putting a single model on an objective and costing himself a point in round one. I congratulate him for trapping his pigs behind some impassible terrain. I congratulate him on getting that double turn where he took advantage of me failing to roll a 4+ to avoid a blizzard. I congratulate him on actually hitting my Dankholds with single shot Killa-bows three times. However, a double turn turned into a route and this was one of the shortest games that I played all weekend. Considering that all my games finished early that’s saying something.

Takeaways:

After playing the most recent GHB in a few games I’m really happy with how it has turned out so far. The primal dice mechanic is a really great an interactive and I think that having six games I”m ready to try out some of the spells. Missing out on mystic shield and Hand of Gork is pretty unacceptable in 2023.

I struggled with a lack of command points and the straightforward nature of the list left me with only a single trick. Since I had two Dankhold Troggbosses I was able to use the “Wade and Smash” heroic action multiple times for great justice. Free movement is free movement and the ability to get into screens or move out of combat is incredibly cheeky. Since the move has an effective 9″ move and you can move into combat with a unit that isn’t currently stuck in it can really give a surprize.

The hero spiders didn’t do jack the entire event. Splitting up the headdress of many eyes and the supa venom was an error. I think that since so many of my other units were hard targets going after the spiders was a smart alternative. The few times I really needed the spiders to do some work they failed costing me two battle tactics and a boatload of momentum.

On most maps the little spiders were great for getting first turn battle tactics and hanging around. At 90 points I think they trade incredibility as they can harass objectives, screen out well, and issue commands to themselves. I rarely was using them as screens since I wanted my gal pals to wade into the enemy and spill their guts.

Not having a -1 to hit was one of the biggest issues. People like to minimize the impact of a -1 because “everyone can all out attack” but the it’s more difficult to design a gitz list without negatives to hit. Shootas, Stabbas, spooder spell, Gobbapalooza, Felwaters, and Loonbosses are all messing around trying to disrupt things.

I also downloaded and used the Goonhammer approved tracking app in the beginning of two of my games. At some point in time I’m going to play an event purely to recap the game an actually use a detailed and flexible scoring app. This event, however, was not that event. I liked the details it provides for longer term statistical tracking.

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