Skirmish in the North 3 - aka Learning Age of Sigmar Part Four

Hello!

This past weekend I went to the Skirmish in the North 3 event, a 1000 point Age of Sigmar tournament run by Hull's Angels wargaming club (in Hull, obviously). I was not expecting to do well (my last AoS game seems to have been back in April last year) and with five smaller games on the day I was going in looking for a fun and educational time, literally doubling the number of AoS games I have ever played - and one of those was in first edition before they had points costs.

As it happens, that's exactly what I got, coming away with a much better understanding of how the game works and, spoilers, the last place award. I was running the current/old Seraphon book with a fairly basic selection of Koatl's Claw Saurus units and no magic to keep it simple; two units each of Saurus Warriors and Knights, a unit of Skinks to get in the way, led by an Oldblood on Carnosaur, a foot Oldblood and a Sunblood. As usual with these tournament reports, I'm just going to run through a very brief summary of each game and then some final thoughts. Here goes.

First game was Morgan, who had Magotkin of Nurgle. Some cultist types, a couple of characters and a big blob of Blightkings. Nurgle does nurgle stuff, so I was expecting tough units and a sprinkling of mortal wounds, which is what I got.

I had a good go at killing off the various units and scoring some points, but ultimately I had no answer to the Blightkings, after the Carnosaur killed three of them, then got easily cut down in return. 26-15 to Nurgle.

Second game was against Ryan and his Gloomspite Gits. Lots of squigs and lots of Trolls.

Unfortunately the Gits had some fun mushrooms that meant a unit of squigs charged and ate my general in turn one, which was not an ideal start. Elsewhere I found out that Troggoths hit hard and are really tough, so the rest of my forces struggled to make a dent. Particular disappointment were the Saurus Warriors who charged the Cave Squigs and only managed to kill two of them, and then obviously got slaughtered in return. 28-8 to the Squgs.

Game three was against Rob and his cool alternative Idoneth Deepkin. A couple of blobs of thralls plus two units of angler fish-eels and a big boss riding a rather scary eel. Wasn't sure what to expect from these guys other than fast and elf stuff.

This felt like a close game with a lot of back and forth action on a central objective that then split into two. However I was foiled by consistently failing to kill stuff. Saurus Warriors with character support failed to finish off a unit of Thralls, Carnosaur failed to finish off some eels, and finally the two generals met and did about one wound between them. Close until it wasn't - 24-9 to the fish elves.

Game four was a lizard-off against Lee and his also Koatl's Claw Seraphon. He didn't have a big dinosaur, but he did have two reinforced blocks of Saurus Warriors and magic Skinks to buff them. He also had, amusingly, brought the Sunblood to get some use out of it having unique rules before the new book turns it into a generic Oldblood.

The main story of this game was the Carnosaur getting taken out by Skinks. A little unit of ten got buffed to dish out mortal wounds on sixes and between that and some awful saves they took 6 wounds off the dinosaur in melee! Much reduced it struggled to eat them and finally got taken out by the lizard wizard on the pyramid. Ouch. My foot heroes did a lot better, each taking a beating before they finally fell, (and my Sunblood was winning the duel until he got swarmed by Saurus Warriors instead) but I didn't really have an answer for those big blobs. 28-12 to the blue Seraphon.

Final game was against Conner and his Gloomspite Gits. Having faced them before I was wary of the damage squig units could put out and the survivability of the Troggoths. Luckily he didn't take a Cave Squig missile, instead opting for a big unit of gobbos to hold his home objective.

This game was a real close one with a lot of back and forth, and the general finally got to do proper big dinosaur things as he chomped through a load of squigs and trolls through the game. Conner was a few points ahead of me all game, pulled away a little at the end, but thanks to having last turn I was able to stop his grand strategy (have something in my territory at the end) and complete mine (no enemies in my territory) which left the game agonisingly close, but wasn't quite enough to grab one win from the event. 23-21 to the Gits.

So with that, I went 0-5, and into last place, but I did pick up the favourite player award, which is nice. I do genuinely try to make my games enjoyable for my opponent, as it tends to mean the game is more enjoyable for me as well, so it is appreciated that apparently I wasn't seen as a salty loser or anything. And importantly I did have fun - four of the five games felt like I was at least in with a shout, and I feel like I got most of my rules correct once I'd gotten going. 

I'm starting to understand now a little better how you are 'supposed' to play AoS - how to work around the various rules that differ from 40k, such as the 3 inch engagement range, the double turn, and chargers not auto-striking first. I've also learned that some of these old Seraphon units are massively outperformed by equivalents in other armies. If only they had an up to date Battletome...

Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and stay safe out there!

Tempest of War Battle Report - Death Guard vs Aeldari

Hello!

Another Tempest game, again at 1750 points. As I said before I am trying to play mostly Tempest to see out 9th ed, and as part of that I am planning on attending a 1750 point Tempest event run by Wooden Spoon Wargaming soon. As such, this is more or less the army I'm planning on taking - Death Guard led by Mortarion! 

Now, fair warning, my battle reports are usually pretty vague and focus on the main thrust of the battle rather than all the details. I also find that Tempest is a little harder to remember in detail because of the revolving secondaries. And this game was over a week ago at time of writing. So what I'm saying is it's mostly going to be pictures!

That said, it was a good looking game as it was against Sharpy, who always puts on a good table, and his Aeldari, which are always a bit of a mix of classic space elf units. For this one he brought a Farseer and an Autarch leading Warlocks, Guardians, Warp Spiders, Shining Spears, a couple of units of Rangers plus their jet bike equivalents the Shroud Runners, Dire Avengers, a War Walker, a unit each of the Wraith constructs and the centrepiece - the Avatar of Khaine. His Craftworld traits were to reroll a wound roll once per unit per phase, and to get +1 to hit after a unit has lost a model - which is very nice on those tough Wraith units.

Arranged against them were my Death Guard forces, running as Mortarion's Anvil as usual. The big lad was of course here and the warlord, but I chose not to splurge too heavily on pregame CP to dish out a load of traits and relics elsewhere. Here it's a battalion and a super heavy aux, but this list will fit into the Arks of Omen detachment if it's in use.

HQ: Lord of Virulence (Acidic Malady), Malignant Plaguecaster (Plague Wind, Curse of the Leper)

Troops: 7 Plague Marines (power fist, blight launcher, sigil, two plasma guns), 2x 10 Poxwalkers

Elites: 7 Blightlord Terminators (combi plasma, blight launcher, flail of corruption), Helbrute (fist and multimelta), Foul Blightspawn (Revolting Stench-vats, Viscous Death)

Fast Attack: Foetid Bloat Drone (Fleshmower), Myphitic Blight-hauler

Heavy Support: Plagueburst Crawler (entropy cannons, rothail volley gun)

Lord of War: Mortarion (Miasma of Pestilence, Gift of Contagion, Putrescent Vitality, Warlord, Gloaming Bloat)

Deployment was a pair of opposing triangles with a bubble missing in the middle, 9 inches around the centre. The mission was to hold one, two and extra points for claiming an objective with an action - which was a bit of a problem with me since most of my troops can't do actions (a revision of this list might add in some cultists for this reason). I choose to keep the Terminator armoured units in reserve in case some appropriate secondaries came up, with the Eldar left the Warp Spider and Shining Spears to sneak through the webway.

Aeldari got the first turn and moved up to take shots. Nothing really died apart from some Poxwalkers but the Shroud Runners got in some sniper shots at the Foul Blightspawn, reducing him to one wound. With the Avatar marching up the middle it was obvious there was a challenge issued...

Which Mortarion gladly accepted! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Elsewhere I moved out to try and get towards some objectives, with the Plague Marines engaging some Rangers and smashing them off a point. Shooting was fairly ineffective with the combined firepower knocking off a Wraith construct or two.

Not too many points on offer here, but the big duel raged on, with the Avatar skimming a few wounds of Morty but dropping by half himself.

Turn two saw the Aeldari use their speed and tricksy ways to surround the Death Guard, pouring fire into the units on the flanks. Wraiths caused heavy damage and threatened to take objectives...

But more significantly the Shining Spears made it into melee with a strands of fate 6 to tie up the PBC and steal my backfield objective! Morty eventually slew the Avatar (though it fought on death to wound him further) but the Aeldari's champion was just a distraction to allow the rest of their forces to spring the trap!

In DG turn two I drew the 'Behind Enemy Lines' card and decided to drop my Terminators into the corners to grab some points and pressure the Eldar back lines. Morty stomped forward and dispatched the Dire Avengers, while assorted shooting dealt with the Shroud Runners, but I was unable to shift the Spears or Spiders.

The Lord of Virulence gooped all over Guardians and charged the Rangers, but I messed up here as due to the funky deployment zones this actually took him out of the zone and meant I didn't score the secondary. He didn't even kill all the Rangers on his first go!

As the game wore on Morty basically cleared a bubble around him, but the Eldar were tenaciously sticking to my back lines and denying me load of points. In particular those Shining Spears just refused to die to close range Entropy cannons.

The Terminators failed their initial charge on the Walker, eventually killing it a while later, but wasting their chonky ObSec presence in the far corner of the board - a poor move deploying them all the way over there.

In the end I wasn't able to cycle through a series of secondary objectives that were tantalisingly close to achievable, but the stubborn space elves weren't having it. 

Dramatically at the end the remaining Aeldari forces made a play for Assassinate, reducing Mortarion to a single wound, but he survived. With the too-late Terminators finally adding their firepower the Eldar were all but scoured from the board (aside from a couple of the cheeky Aspect warriors fighting over my objective), but the points told a different story, something like 90-45 to the Aeldari.

Having recently said Tempest produces really close games, I guess this was bound to happen! Still, it was fun and though not tight in the points it did allow Mortarion to do his thing in his first game, which was cool. Also, lots of lessons learned for the future - primarily regarding those Terminators and their deployment (probably best start on the board) and the chasing of marginal objectives rather than discarding them.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Stay safe out there!

Mortarion

Hello!

As I alluded to in my last post, I've been working on something quite big, so here he is! Mortarion, Lord of the Death Guard, Daemon Primarch of Nurgle, Big Daddy M, whatever you want to call him.

Here he is in all his gribbly glory. I had a great time with this model, fun with contrast paints, a full model wash, weathering powder, Typhus Corrosion, and of course, the sponge. He will be joining my Death Guard force, 'The Desiccated', and has appropriately taken their colours on his pauldrons for the occasion. 

His hood and robes/cloak thing turned out pretty well I think, the purple really contrasting well with the rusted armour around it, and the model really lending to a couple of slightly inconsistent highlights.

This may be a bit sad, but I think my favourite little bit of weathering on him are those green tanks on his back, I just think they look particularly realistic.

I chose the Lantern to go in the right hand, aiming, because it looks cool (the alternate build is the scythe and pistol in opposite hands, both held down.) As one of the few obvious glowing bits on the model it's a good place to draw the attention and then it's a straight line back to his face and more subtly glowing eyes. 

The mighty scythe Silence. This was the last part of the model I finished, originally it was a bit more green like his armour but I didn't really like it so I added some more sponged metal and then bone to rough it up a bit, and make the blood and green ooze stuff look old and dried.

This was another model that barely fit into the light box, so to take a proper photo of the wings (which received a lot of sponge love) I had to lay him down and invert the picture!

And of course it wouldn't be a big Nurgle model without some little lords!

Finally, a shot with some of his boys, off to cause mayhem around the galaxy, no doubt. I hope you like him, I'm really pleased with how he turned out, better than I envisioned in my head at the start. Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there!

Tempest of War Battle Report - Tyranids vs Nurgle Daemons

Hello!

GW released the Tempest of War cards recently, seen as a kind of blend of the current GT pack style matched play games and the old maelstrom cards. I bought it pretty much immediately, since I used to love the Maelstrom style of random objectives and, though I do like the GT pack missions, I dislike having to build an army around your chosen secondary objectives. With that in mind I've been looking to give them a go for a while, so when I was invited back to JP's garage for a game, we gave them a go!

Having recently got a shiny new book, I wanted to run the Tyranids again, though a little wary of what new 9th ed books can do, I took a mix of mostly the units I didn't take to the Grim Dice tournament. Though that's not to say I didn't want to win - this was the site of my only previous Codex, 9th ed game with Tyranids, where they got battered by JP's Cadians, so I was out for a bit of revenge!

I took a Behemoth list again with a battalion, using a walking Hive Tyrant to lead the force, an old Hive Tyrant aka Tyranid Prime, and Old One Eye filling out the HQ slots. Two units of Termagants, two of Warriors and two of Gargoyles made the core of the force, supported by a pair of mixed Carnifexes, Raveners, Hive and Tyrant Guard, a Mawloc and the first showing of the Haruspex. Notably I took the Shardgullet relic Venom cannon on the Tyrant, thinking that traditionally gun relics are a bit mediocre...

JP took a whole load of Nurgle Daemons to the party. Two full units of Plaguebearers and a big blob of Plague Drones made up most of the numbers, supported by several units of Nurglings, a few Beasts, and led forth by the trio of Nurgle heralds and two Great Unclean Ones - an Exalted one with a 4+ feel no pain and Rotigus the special character version.

Though obviously this now represents one of the oldest and least powerful books, I was aware that the Nurgle forces were surprisingly fast and would be swarming all over objectives from the go. Notably one of the little characters was able to let the two GUOs advance and charge, which could be significant...

So here's the mission the cards gave us. Direct Assault pretty much in line with a GT pack mission, Scrambler Fields restricting pregame movement and mid game deployment somewhat from being placed near objectives (I think this version is a bit more interesting than the flat 'no forward deployment' clause they've used in GT packs) and finally a slightly funky but not too challenging deployment map.

Deployment - I stuck my snakes underground, and everything else was popped on the board. We decided the front 'gate' to the big ruin section of the board would be navigable by all the big monsters, but even with that there would be some interesting choke points.

JP won the roll for first turn, and the Daemons surged forward!

The Nurgle forces quickly moved out to cover all of the objectives aside from the one in my deployment zone, picking up some secondary points in doing so. There was also a secondary objective to Bring It Down, where It was the Haruspex. You remember the Great Unclean ones were able to advance and charge?

Yeah, that big boy made it in to melee! A few big cuts with the blade (added to some earlier smite damage) and the newly painted Haruspex went down in turn one! It did somewhat make up for it with the Acid Blood stratagem stripping five wounds off the GUO.

A glorious first round for the Daemons, though luckily Rotigus failed the charge to one of the Carnifexes, and was sitting in a similarly forward position to it's brother.

Tyranid turn one, and time for revenge. Thanks largely to the Shardgullet (damage 5?) and buffed to hit on 2s Carnifexes, my shooting and psychic took out Rotigus with little wasted effort, then Old One Eye and a 'fex piled into the remaining, wounded GUO and tore him down.

Elsewhere the Nid forces ran into blocks of Nurgle daemons and didn't make much of a dent. So that was most of the Nurgle damage potential used and removed in the first battle round, but a whole lot of board control for them requiring a bit of a grind to deal with.

Turn two for the Daemons was basically a bit of shuffling, scoring a secondary or two, and a whole bunch of primary points.

Tyranid turn two, the reserves arrived and the forces pushed in. Lots of Plaguebearers died, but not enough to push them off the points yet. I found out that Raveners are pretty tasty now, massively improved in both output and defence. Tyrant Guard also did some work.

Daemons had another quick turn three, wracking up more Primary points, putting them into a fairly significant lead at this point.

Tyranids turn three however proved to be a decisive blow. Old One Eye managed to remove pretty much the entire squad of Plague Drones, the Mawloc made it in an blended some Plaguebearers, and the Fexes/Tyrant continued to deal consistent damage. By the end of the turn the Nurgle forces consisted of just the three Heralds. Ouch!

With two turns basically unopposed to wrack up points, it ended up in a stonking victory for the Nids. 95-55.

Well, that was looking like a tight game, until it wasn't. An amazing first turn turned into a bit of a pasting as the old 8th ed rules just couldn't hang with the huge weight of quality attacks from the Nids. Stuff like 16 attacks on the Mawloc made a big dent where they might otherwise have been less impressive vs any of the Armour of Contempt factions for example. I think whenever the Daemons book rolls around it's going to have to have some massive changes.

As for Tempest of War - I enjoyed it, but I don't think this was a very good test for it. It's also worth noting that we didn't find it significantly easier in terms of book keeping than the GT missions - it just shifts a lot of the decision making from list building/the start of the game to mid game, basically every turn. Personally I'm ok with that, but I don't think it's entirely fair to say that Tempest is 'easy' matched play.

Anyway, thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed. Even though the game was one sided, we still had fun - it's always a treat to play on a beautiful table with two fully painted armies after all! Stay safe out there!