MESBG Tracker review

Players should also ensure they have a system for recording Might, Will, Fate, and Wounds in the course of their games

Every tournament pack ever

If you’ve been to an organised Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game (MESBG) event you’ll not only have read this sentence, but have also needed to think about how you’ll track your stats. Even a casual game with more than a couple of heroes requires a robust method of keeping track – nothing kills the momentum of a game like having to stop and have a discussion about whether a hero has used all of his Might (“I did that heroic move near the start, and then…”).

A recent arrival in the MESBG support space is MESBG Tracker – an app designed to track hero stats as well as other important game tallies such as break point and kills.

I had chance to use MESBG Tracker at two events now (The Battle of Five Regions and The League Goes South) the second of which I used an all hero army – The Breaking of the Fellowship, so I’m in a good position to give it a review and my recommendation.

To get the conflict of interest statements out of the way, I was involved in testing the app. Additionally, I know the makers of this app. This is not a paid review.

So, what makes MESBG Tracker better than the other options out there?

Like the other options out there, it allows you to load up your heroes and remove stats from them as they expend them throughout the game. Updating stats during the course of a game is simple – tap once to reduce that stat by one, double tap to increase the stat by one.

But let’s face it, this counting functionality is the bare minimum you expect from a MESBG stat tracking application and there are a wide variety out there allowing you to do this. The MESBG Tracker adds value with what it does above and beyond that.

Above and beyond is a nice segue into the first advantage of MESBG Tracker, that being infinite POWER!… Err, I mean stats. Unlike most other options out there MESBG Tracker knows there are times you need to go above your starting values. Pull off a successful Heroic Challenge and gain D3 Might? MESBG Tracker easily lets you easily add those extra Might points and doesn’t cap it at the starting value.

Aragorn with 7 Might from all the Heroic Challenges he’s won. What… it could happen.

Heroes are saved in the app independent from armies. This means you only need to enter each hero once, then you can attach them to whatever army roster you make.

Once you’ve added your heroes into the app, it’s easy to add them to any army you make.

There’s also the ability to duplicate heroes in your roster, meaning you don’t need to manually enter the stats for Goblin-town Captains #2 through to #17 – just duplicate the first one and rename them (or not, it labels them as 2, 3, 4, etc. as your duplicate them).

Duplicate! Replicate! Down down down in Goblin-town (not pictured – any Goblin-town captains)

You can add a counter to each army you create which you can label and use for whatever you want. Foresight points, the Palantir, Lurtz’s shield throw, extra Gobin Town goblins summoned, throwing weapon kills – label it and use it as you will. In addition each character has their own Kill tracker, so you can easily track Leader kills in Contest of Champions or Legolas and Gimli’s kill count.

The interface is simple and easy to use, and you can tell it’s been designed by players who want to make game admin easier, so what really makes this app great are the small quality of life features.

When you take the last wound off a hero the casualty tracker automatically increments by one; if you’ve made a mistake and add a wound back to a dead character the casualty tally reduces by one. Dead heroes display with a line through their name and little headstones to either side. Dead heroes are listed below alive heroes. Your Leader is denoted by a helmet symbol and always shows at the top of your hero roster (until they die, at which point they show at the top of the dead heroes section).

Only Gimli and Frodo left alive – not the Fellowship’s greatest hour.

You set your break point percentage when making your army, then the counters at the top count down how many casualties you are away from breaking and quartering. A quick swipe to the side changes the casualty count to an incrementing % count, useful for when you’re running Isengard and want to keep track of the 50% broken vs 66% Uruk-hai taking courage tests.

The casualty tracker is anchored at the top of the screen – no matter how many heroes in your army, the casualty tracker always shows at the top of the screen when you’re scrolling through your roster.

The casualty count remains on screen as you scroll through your heroes

It’s not just one off games which the app is great for though. The trackers retain their previous state until they are manually reset, meaning the app is a great way to keep track of a heroes across a campaign, whether that be the Journey of the Ring-bearer, Fantasy Fellowships, linked scenarios, Battle Companies, or any other continuous or linked games you’re playing.

Price

MESBG Tracker works on a subscription payment model: 99 Earth cents per month, or $9.99 Earth dollars for a year. I say Earth dollar as the prices are regionally set at 0.99/9.99 for NZ$, AU$, US$, £, €.

Upon initial sign up you get a month’s free trial, so it will cost you nothing (that’s $0 Earth dollars) to check it out for yourself.

The competition

I know there are options out there, ranging from free webpage trackers, subscription models, and one-off purchases, and at the end of the day these are all competing against and the ubiquitous pen and paper. As someone with a gaming blog I’m already using pen, paper, and photos to record my games anyway, but MESBG Tracker allows me to keep my game notes ‘clean’ from my game admin.

Let’s just do a quick recce of the other digital options out there and see what else is available in this space. There are two main contenders out there: SBG Hero Tracker and ME SBG: Stat Tracker.

SBG Hero Tracker:

SBG Hero Tracker is available both as an app and a webpage. The app is a one-off purchase NZ$1.59; the webpage is free. The increase stat interface is a + button which appears after a stat has been changed from it’s starting value, taking up vertical screen space. This also means Stats cannot be increased beyond starting value, as the + button disappears when the stat is at the starting value.

Like MESBG Tracker it keeps track of casualties, broken and quarters and individual character kill counters add to the opposing army’s casualty count, however the casualty and kill counts only go up – you need to use the Undo function to decrease these – and the casualty tracker leaves the visible screen as you scroll down the list of heroes.

It lists heroes in alphabetical order which means Anborn takes pride of place over Aragorn (as does Angborn who is his second cousin and definitely not misspelt name).

ME SBG: Stat Tracker:

ME SBG: Stat Tracker is a free app and their big point of difference is that the app comes with hero stats both pre-loaded and organised by Army lists and Legendary Legions.

The pre-loaded stats are great however the in game interface is not streamlined. Each hero’s stats is comprised of three lines: a row of up indicators at the top, a row of stats, and a row of down indicators at the bottom.

Heroes are listed in the order they are added, and when you take the last wound off you need to tell the app what you want to do with that hero, and if you choose to keep them on the roster the hero displays with a wounds value of ‘?’. The app does allow you to go above starting values, gives a prompt when it does so, and shows the value in red.

The description for ME SBG: Stat Tracker states there is a subscription option, but I was unable to find it. Without a subscription the app has ads, and there is no casualty and kill tracker functionality. While I admit my inability to find the subscription option may be due to the age of my phone, it was a barrier non the less.

Recommendation

So, it has come to this: do I recommend MESBG Tracker? Yes, yes I do. It’s made my games easier to play, easier to keep track of, and the interface is the best out of the various tools I’ve tired (including my trusty pen and paper). I was originally planning to do sporadic monthly subscriptions to the app as I attended events throughout the year, but after using it at The Battle of Five Regions it was a no brainer for me to go in for an annual subscription.

I recommend it to the point of actually recommending it in the Player Pack for this year’s ‘The League Goes South’ event.

It’s also made in New Zealand, so it’s basically a ‘Made In Middle-earth’ product.

As previously mentioned, you get a month free on initial sign up so you’ve got nothing to lose by checking it out.

MESBG Tracker is available for on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

What is #DamianMeta

The Battle of Five Regions 2022 Day Two

PhantomNuisance (PN): Let’s not waste time recapping stuff we’ve already written; if you want the ‘Previously on’ you can read about Day One here. Day Two lies ahead, with our team goal to finish the event with triple digits of victory points (something all of the other teams managed on Day One)

Minitrol (MT): Okay say it with me. First Turn. Channel Blinding Light.

Game 4: Hold Ground

MT: Owing to the nature of the tournament up to the final round we were matched as a round Robin and only in the last round would it be matching the Teams to play for First, Second , and Third Etc.

So, in the fourth round we faced the terror of the Team with no Name. This was a fiercely competitive team. Not in a bad way each player is a lovey human but they are all very experienced tournament winners.

My first match of the day was against a Morannon horde with Gothmog, Kardush, and the ever loathed Guritz, Master of Reserves and, unfortunately, this was another Scenario my list was ill-suited for and his was ultra honed for.

From turn one I was on the back foot with the manipulation of the reserves roll meaning my warband led by Denethor didn’t get to choose where he came on and was surrounded by an entire army.

Ever feel surrounded?

My other warband likewise didn’t get to choose and this time I opted to use Gandalf as an artillery piece popping out of cover to transfix Gothmog, and the occasional Sorcerous Blast.

A Single Rider Clothed in white

In short, while I was incredibly on the back foot I vowed to make the victory hurt. So looking at the victory conditions there were points to be had for wounding and killing the enemy leader so this became my plan. Though my entire army was slaughtered Gandalf fought on till the game timed out managing to get Gothmog down to one wound and no Fate but he (rather dishonourably) lay down behind a wall so he could not be targeted!

Hatred of Men!

So my first point of the tournament!

PN: Rohan. With throwing spears. So my army but with better stats and fewer wargs. And a better leader in Helm Hammerhand with Mighty Hero rule for the Helm’s Guard legendary legion.

It was Maelstrom deployment (warbands can enter via any board edge, based on a dice roll) and my Legendary Legion gave me special rules allowing me to charge on the turn I arrive. It also allowed me to bring D6 models on to the board before the first turn of the game. I rolled a 3 and brought on 3 wargs to race to the centre and hold the objective, planning that the rest of my army would do the work of harassing and killing the enemy.

My opponent got the first turn and almost none of his army arrived at the end of his movement phase. I rolled OK, and with barely any enemies on the board I chose to save my Might rather than use it for a minimal advantage of my special rules.

Surround them, zig-zag, capture them in a pincer maneuver.

The following turn was when things got interesting. Charges were made, spears were thrown, Wargs dies (including my Captain’s warg to a friendly throwing spear).

Things weren’t going my way so my shaman threw out a cheeky transfix to gain a combat advantage but it didn’t pay off. The following turn, after taking a number of casualties, I decided to use the shaman to channel Fury to try and save my Orcs which had started to die too quickly. My mistake here was forgetting I’d already used a Will and then casting Fury with two dice, getting a success then realising that it automatically ended due to being exhausted.

Things are starting to look a bit dire

Things didn’t get much better for me from that point, though I did manage to get my opponent to break point but we both broke in the same turn. After a turn worth of fleeing warg riders the game promptly ended. With no friendly models within 6″ of the objective (because I had no models left on the board) and my leader dead the final score was a 1-10 major loss.

Only Rohan left on the board

Game 5: Divide and Conquer

MT: Not a scenario I had ever played before. Deployment is in diagonally opposite corners with three objectives. I was up this time against a fierce Uruk-hai scout force. It was a lovingly painted and expertly commanded force.

I was super taken back by the speed of this force. With extra movement and Heroic Marches it quickly massed two of the objectives.

So pretty but so deadly

At least they weren’t highly armored I thought as I rushed forward to kill them honorably in a series of duels Except they are still Fight 4 so won more combats than me overall and my Shieldwall army bonus (+1 bonus to my Defence IF base-to-base with two others who also have this rule) when it comes to the practicalities of the scenarios is really difficult to maintain.

Denethor Demands that you Serve

It wasn’t long before I was broken and the game mercifully ended shortly after with, again, maximum points to my opponent and zero to me.

Tooo sloowwww

Oomph.

PN: I was up against an Armor army for this scenario meaning I was facing high defence and Foresight saves. Even then I was feeling quietly confident as I knew I would have speed on my side.

Speed is on my side.

My throwing spears had little effect and it was combat where the game would be decided. Even with the wargs’ strength of 4 I was struggling to wound, however in return most of my wargs were remaining in the game after their riders were slain.

It was a drawn out fight I gained the upper hand in and broke my opponent. King Arvedui’s 12″ stand fast kept the Arnor forces in the game and my daring strike at the King in the back lines ultimately resulted in Sharku being trapped and killed. The game ended not long after and with the objectives under my control I claimed my first win of the event 8-3.

Wargs for the win!

Game 6: Seize the Prize

MT: In many ways I hate this scenario. I’ve seen a cavalry force sweep in pick it up and Heroic Move away for the rest of the game and also I’ve seen the first person to get there fail their roll to pick it up three turns in a row.

It is no Storm the Camp. This Scenario has always felt like a Narrative Scenario squashed into the Competitive mould.

The “Relic”

Anyway this was a great narrative game with story driven moments of glee.

I was facing the Mirror of PN army another Wolves of Isengard list – if I lost priority here there would be no chance of recovery.

Slavering Wargs

I won priority.

Gandalf and Shadowfax careened through the centre. I didn’t dismount but I had channelled Terror and he remained stoic by the Relic.

My Favourite picture of my Army

He channelled Fury negating my Terror.

Wolves moved into block while the Warg cavalry pushed up to prevent me supporting Gandalf.

Gandalf laughs at these odds. Seizing priority again and again Heroic moves were issued and countered buffering back and forth.

Ware the Right Flank!

Denethor and his bodyguard threshed wargs like wheat! The Steward showing something of his mettle from before his mind Broke.

Then my opponent set up for his play passing the Relic successfully then winning Priority the next turn he pinned my Warriors. It would be okay as long as I didn’t lose too many combats.

Unfortunately I lost the flank combats and with Warriors knocked prone they had no control zone for pinning the wargs who spread their net and the Relic bolted for safety of my board edge.

It had been an epic game in great spirits and played till time was called!

PN: In the last round I was again against a Helm’s Guard Rohan force with Helm Hammerhand and a lot of throwing spears, though thankfully with fewer mounted models than the previous one.

My opponent Heroic Marched in the first turn to get closer to the objective. In return I threw a bunch of throwing spears at Helm which caused a wound, though my opponent saved it with Fate, denying me an early victory point.

On my signal, unleash hell.

My opponent positioned himself well, using the terrain to his advantage to prevent my cavalry charges. Helm resisted the transfixes directed at him by the shaman, and my opponent dug up the objective to take the advantage.

Those Warriors of Rohan held the line well

The remainder of the game can be summed up simply with ‘no heroic roll offs went my way’. With limited might vs Helm’s Mighty Hero rule I eventually ran out of might and, unable to get a solid cavalry charge off, my force was eventually broken for little losses to my opponent, ending the game as a 0-10 crushing loss.

Conclusion

PN: We did it. We ended with triple digits of victory points. We were also also voted best themed team, so thanks to our opponents for recognising the awesomeness of hats and badges.

Anyway, what a great weekend, six games against six good opponents and playing alongside three great teammates.

The Wolves of Isengard legion was a lot of fun to play. I’m glad I took the opportunity to play it at an event, and I wasn’t the only one who took advantage of the lower points value as there was one other Wolves of Isengard list there in addition to mine.

It was the first time I’d taken an all cavalry list and while I learnt a lot there’s still more for me to master in this space. I’m looking forward to my next outing.

The dogs of war.

MT: I didn’t know what to expect. I knew being a very fluffy list of older profiles I would be up against it but some army list bonuses and profiles took me so much by surprise.

I had predicted my weakness to range, lack of might and inexperience with Gandalf the White and these played equal parts but also in each game I could have blunted the loss and sought what points I could. Some good lessons learnt.

All my opponents were gracious and accomplished players who provided advice throughout but never in a pushy I Can Play For You Manner.

It was a great experience and I would definitely do another team event.

The Battle of Five Regions 2022 Day One

The Battle of Five Regions 2022 was a six round Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game (MESBG) team event held in Wellington in April 2022. Team size was four players with each team bringing two evil and two good armies of no more than 555 points each. Teams were paired off each round with games paired within the team pairings as 1v1 good versus evil games.

The event attracted six teams, so the event was run as a round robin with the final round being paired by overall placings. In the final round individual players were paired against the army which they did not face in the round robin.

PhantomNuisance (PN): I was really happy when Minitrol was keen for the event (we hadn’t been to a SBG event together for a number of years). We teamed up with a pair from Christchurch and dubbed our team the Shirrifs of the Southfarthing (having the Southernmost representation of any team at the event) and promptly started brainstorming team costume ideas (cowboy hats and sheriff badges were surprisingly efficient).

In my continued exploration of lesser-used armies I decided to take a Wolves of Isengard legendary legion. I figured a good v evil event at 555 points was the most viable event I was going to have to try the army, and set about painting and converting the last of the warg riders I needed to round out my force.

PhantomNuisance’s Wolves of Isengard list.

Minitrol (MT): Since my last event was 2018 I knew I had work to do. I did pre-match games read through the matched play scenarios and crafted a list capable of utilizing every phase. Also I included Heroic March. I also didn’t paint the army at the last minute.

Okay. So that’s obviously not true. What many people don’t know is that I am a Frodo at work, cool, impassioned and professional. But at home I am a Pippin – irrational, governed by emotion, and constantly dropping things down wells to alert hordes of stunted orcs…

So I had played one game this year which was using a different army, different points and different spirit.

Now to be clear the unusual dictates of the event required two good and two evil per team at 555 points. One team member bagging Dwarfs and the other two Evil I had to pick a Good force. This is is not my favourite in general terms I don’t really gel with any of the Good lists except the Fellowship:

In which our protagonist predicts the future

Despite PhantomNuisance’s appeals to logic “Take Beorn and the Eagles” I knew I had no choice; a long time ago PhantomNuisance gifted me the new Denethor sculpt and I had been itching for a chance to paint him.

I already had a fully painted Warriors of Minis Tirith force, so easy. Anyway long story short I ended up repainting and rebasing the entire army in 4 days again.

MiniTrol’s 555 Points of Shiny Metal Bois

Game 1: Domination

PN: My first game was against a Return of the King legion with Aragorn and the King of the Dead, with the rest of the force made up of Warrior of the Dead and a couple of Riders of the Dead. With high defence all around, and a free point of Might each turn with Aragorn I knew that I would have to rely on my mobility and numbers in order to win this one.

Two of my warg riders got a pre-game move and I tried to take advantage of my opponent’s positioning to kill his banner bearer with my throwing spears. It was a cheeky long shot which didn’t pay off but it made my opponent keep a good eye on his banner bearer for the rest of the game. In the first turn proper I landed a number of throwing spears on King of the Dead but failed to wound.

I also took the opportunity to cast channeled Fury with my Shaman as I needed the automatic passing of courage tests to charge the dead, and I figured the ‘prevent a wound on a 6’ would come in handy as the dead would normally be converting any wins to wounds as they were rolling against my courage value rather then my defence. The auto-pass courage served me well for the game; the wound prevention didn’t, including when Sharku went down to a shank from the King of the Dead.

My warg riders face off against the Dead of Dunharrow. I may have copped flack for including the Shaman in my list but he was worth every point in this match up.

I used my mobility to flank, I used my knockdown and numbers to win fights, but my real nemesis in this game was my inability to wound. My warg-riders needed 6’s in combat to wound while the throwing spears needing 6’s followed by 4’s and kill conversions just weren’t coming fast enough. At the end of the game I had killed only killed 6 warriors but due to fully controlling two objectives and contesting one other I managed to keep the game to a minor loss 4-7

MT: The night before we had discussed over a bizarre ice cream soda inspired beer the forced which would most give us pause (we had of course listened in rapt attention to the List review show HERE). One list I felt I had no tools to deal with was the Uruk Hai Fighting Legion with Ballista and Crossbows and tonnes of captains.

Very small chance of that we laughed.

It’s fair to say I had no control from the start of the game. The ballista killed Denethor the first shot and while I gamely took the objectives the numbers and my inability to keep my Shieldwall intact were telling. I used Might poorly and I had no clue what to do with Gandalf the White who I had never used before and was much less offensive compared to my Nazgul or Cave Trolls.

Clash of Pikes and Swords!

With not one point of my own claimed my Opponent romped home with a very solid 9 – 0.

Forward! Oh they have Heroic March… dang

Game 2: To the Death!

PN: My opponent in this game was running a Minas Tirith and Fiefdoms list which also included the Fellowship version of Boromir. My first objective was going to be closing the distance between our armies without taking too many casualties (including warg casualties) from the Black Root Vale archers which were arrayed against me.

The depth of field obscures just how much shooting I was facing down; I call it Art.

My concerns were well founded as the first turn saw both Sharku’s warg shot out from under him and the Shaman suffer a wound, though my flanking warriors were safely out of range and closing the gap quickly. In the movement phase of the second turn my opponent started tactical withdrawal moves, slowly moving his force backwards to keep out of range as long as possible. All the while shooting into my force, though this turn I fared a bit better as nothing hit.

The gap finally closed and fights about to begin.

Priority, in the third turn, went to me and in an attempt to negate my charge bonuses my opponent called a heroic move with Hurin. I countered with Sharku, got priority, and proceeded to charge. Boromir’s horse died to a throwing spear as I entered combat. Combat went well for me, including killing Hurin’s horse and watching him suffer a wound as he failed his Thrown Rider test.

Hurin prone on the ground after his horse was cut out from under him.

After that turn things quickly swung against me though as I lost both captains and Sharku in the same turn. I did kill Hurin and wound Forlong, and I broke his force in the turn which I was reduced to 25% however it wasn’t enough to avoid a major loss 4 – 10

MT: I was so excited about Game Two my opponent was and remains one of my favourites to play against over the years and the game was good fun, great banter, and high drama.

Men of Gondor! Forward!

I had no idea what to expect as this Moria horde contained a secret weapon – a Watcher in the Water.

My hope was to place pressure on getting supported fights to blunt his numbers and kill as many as possible before the Watcher broke through the surface as if it came behind me I would be ruined.

The Watcher emerged screaming turn 2.

Older and fouler

This was bad but it didn’t need to be the end! I still had Gandalf I had a solid block of Spearmen and warriors flanking and I could still butch the goblins. But I could not convert wounds yet the Watcher would kill three warriors a turn.

There was a tonne I could have tried but this was his game to lose and that wasn’t going to happen. A great game that taught me a lot. 10 – 0 to my opponent.

The Forces of Men in disarray

Game 3: Assassination

PN: This game saw me facing off against a Khazad-Dum Dwarf army. While it was slightly less daunting defense-wise than the Army of the Dead from my first game it was still not going to be easy. I also had a plethora of eligible assassination targets, and three heroes of my own to be the assassin (well, it was realistically only two as I was never really going to choose the shaman). My opponent and I had a good discussion about defence, wounds and fate at the start of the game (especially in regards to the two Heralds accompanying the King’s Champion and the Siege Veteran) and I decided to attempt to assassinate the Siege Veteran with my Red Captain.

My opponent deployed his army in a defensive line across the middle of the board and his ballista on the edge of a fountain, a defensible position which would negate my cavalry charges. I rolled a 5 for my pre-game scout move and took the opportunity to throw five throwing spears at the ballista crew, none of which wounded. We then proceeded to roll drawn priority a couple of times before the game eventually got started.

My warg riders quickly getting behind the dwarven line and launching throwing spears at the ballista.

As with the previous game Sharku had his warg killed from underneath him early on, but the battlelines quickly met and I started to get the upper hand, including causing a wound on one of the Heralds and making him use a Fate. It wasn’t long before my opponent had to call a heroic move to try and blunt my charge which I of course countered. Needing to take at least some sting out of the turn my opponent called a second heroic move which I countered again. As none of our heroes were in the centre of the frontline this ensured that we would each control the positioning at one end of the line. The following turn also saw a double heroic move called as my opponent tried to take a bit more control of the situation.

Things were going in my favour and I took the opportunity to get my Red Captain around the flank and heading towards the ballista. I continued to heft throwing spears at the Herald I wounded earlier to keep my opponent’s focus there. My opponent’s defensible position served him well, and it took a couple of turns until I was able to position myself, but I did get the Assassination kill.

The mighty fight of the fountain wall – I gave up all my cavalry bonuses to assault it and eventually it came out in my favour.

Casualties were mounting up on both side and my opponent and I both reached break point on the same turn. Things escalated quickly from there as almost a quarter of my force fled, and by the end of that turn I had taken enough casualties for the game to end. My valiant assassination efforts had got me my best result of the event so far, an 8-8 Draw.

MT: Not my favourite scenario for my perfectly narrative but weak as an upturned crab army list.

My opponent had 2 characters, I had three and one was Pippin and one had a Broken Mind so all in all there were no surprises for how the match played out. It was another Fighting Uruk-Hai list this time led by the White Wizard himself and Lurtz.

PN: #TrueWhiteWizard

Preparing to face their opposites

MT: I caught my opponent off guard as you can start deployment incredibly close so my Warriors and Gandalf flanked and prevented the crossbows’ from shooting while kicking down fools. Unfortunately, I had sudden second thoughts about what to do with Gandalf and kept moving out of harm’s way which was also out of the way of being useful.

I once again forgot to channel and cast Blinding Light which would have made such a difference. I had even written it on my hand (thanks to Opponent 2 for suggesting this).

Saruman orders his Uruks through the gap

I couldn’t really get the upper hand and despite inflicting reasonable casualties he Compelled Pippin into the open riddled him with crossbow bolts and I failed to do one single wound to Lurtz.

The White Wizard thematically sets Denethor on fire

Looked close on table but on paper was another 10 – 0 loss.

At the end of Day One the Shirrifs had 1 win, 1 draw, and 10 losses to our name, and from that result our team tournament goal was set – to finish with a triple digit victory point total.

To be continued…

The Battle of New Year’s Eve 2022

The first time it was a nice way to see out the year with a friend who was returning to the hobby. The second time it was a cute “Ha ha it’s our New Year’s Eve thing again”. The third time makes it a tradition, so now it gets a name – The Battle of New Year’s Eve.

Allonairre and I had played a couple of games of Age of Sigmar on Tabletop Simulator throughout the year, but the last in person game was in March. We’d shared accommodation at Team Wars but when our teams faced off against each other we avoided the ‘grudge match’. The Battle of New Year’s Eve 2022 was a great chance for us to bust out our Team Wars armies to play the year out.

The scenario we rolled was Apex Predators, a scenario which requires your Leader units to move into range to control objectives, and you only retain control until that leader moves away. With one more hero than Allonairre I was already looking to be at a slight advantage.

My deployment was pretty cramped, even with The Claw, the drakespawn knights and the hydra in flank per normal, but we both knew there was little point in holding back as we needed Leaders (and support) on objectives. Allonairre took first turn and took advantage of that to kill my Sorceress, leveling the Leader playing field. He claimed one objective but failed his battle tactic, ending the turn with 2 victory points. My retaliation for the death of my sorceress was killing his stonemage, however a failed charge by The Claw also saw me fail my battle tactic and finish the turn on 1 point.

Priority for turn two went to me and I took the opportunity of the double turn. I started with a solid hero phase which included casting the Emerald Lifeswarm, which spent the rest of the game as a constant companion to The Claw. The Claw got his charge and killed the Loreseeker, dropping Allonairre to one ‘scoring’ unit. Across the turn I managed to put some hurt on the Wardens, the Sentinels, the Dawnriders, and even a couple of cheeky wounds on the Spirit of the Wind.

I pushed forward with my Corsairs and Fleetmaster, the Fleetmaster taking the centre objective while the Corsairs formed a blockade around him securing my Aggressive Expansion as my battle tactic and 5 points this turn. Allonnaire also took an aggressive turn, charging my Black Guard with his Spirit of the Mountain and wiping them out, while the block of Wardens did the same to my Corsairs (and Fleetmaster) granting him the points for his Broken Ranks battle tactic for the turn, giving him 3 points for the turn.

Turn three saw Allonnaire get the double and continue the stomping which he had started the previous turn, while I retaliated by dropping in the Hydra and the Knights, and both of us took 3 points for the turn. The game was getting tight now. Allonairre only had one unit which could hold an objective, and while I had two Leaders on Dragons I needed to be sure of my play if I moved both of them as that would cede control of the objective.

I didn’t get the double for turn four, so Allonnaire focused all his effort into killing the Hydra to get his Bring it Down battle tactic which he did easily. In fact it was so easy that his plan to soften it up with the Wardens and then kill it with the Spirit of the Mountain for an extra point didn’t pay off. I took the opportunity to kill his Cathallar, cutting him off from any more objective based victory points, and the turn was another draw with each of us getting 4 points.

We headed into the fifth turn with Allonairre on 12 points to my 13, and Allonnaire only able to score via battle tactics, killing a Monster, and his Grand Strategy. Allonnaire had his Grand Strategy, Prized Sorcery, in hand provided the unit of wardens didn’t get cut down to four or fewer (the unit currently had 17 models), while I could not score my Grand Strategy, Hold the Line, having lost all my Battleline units. However just by holding the one objective I already had I would score 2 points, meaning that Allonnaire needed to both score this turn, and prevent me scoring any more in my turn to get the win.

Allonnaire went big with Slay the Warlord which would also get him both battle tactic points and an extra point for killing a monster. I had gone long with my General the previous turn to both pull Allonnaire away from the centre, and to put distance between the two dragons and force him to commit to one of them. That move turned out to be the game winning play for me as both the Spirit of the Mountain and the Wardens failed their charge rolls leaving Alloinnaire with no points for the turn and me free to fly on to the centre objective and claim the win in my turn.

And so The Battle of New Year’s Eve 2022 is claimed by me for the third consecutive year. Thanks to Allonnaire for a close, tense game which could have gone either way right up until the end, and for keeping up the tradition.

The New Zealand Middle-earth League (NZMEL) League Final 2021

As another year comes to an end another season of the New Zealand Middle-earth League (NZMEL) also comes to an end. While this has been a more subdued year, with COVID related disruptions playing a major part in this, the league has managed nine events for the 2021 season and, as far as I’m concerned, the League Final is the NZMEL event to attend each year. Despite people playing for a top league position for the year, the atmosphere of the event is one of friendly competition and camaraderie.

League Final attendee this year all got NZMEL dice.

I was not playing for a top league position so, as well as playing games, the two other things I was looking forward to over the weekend were catching up with friends and indoor plumbing.

Bear with me on the plumbing thing.

My wife and I are living through an extensive home renovation at present meaning we have been living in two small rooms (the hobby room and the spare bedroom) for the last four months. The renovations were supposed to be almost wrapped up by now so, when we racked and packed our lives to the ceiling in August I made sure to set aside an Age of Sigmar army (for Team Wars) but in my naivety I didn’t do the same for Middle-earth.

So this saw me approaching the League Final with my miniatures packed up in boxes, behind tables, beds, yet other boxes… and accessible by ladder. When you combine this with the fact that my travel bags were also packed away my options for the League Final were determined by two factors:

1. Accessible: I needed to know where it was and that I can get the miniatures
2. Portable: It needed to be able to fit inside my one travel bag alongside all of my other clothes, dice, ipad, etc.

And that’s pretty much why I chose the new Vanquishers of the Necromancer legendary legion from the recently released Fall of the Necromancer supplement (and even then the miniatures were not where I thought they were!).

This is my life right now. The panoramic function makes it seem like there is much more space than there actually is.

The last time I played The White Council was 2017 (prior to both this blog and the current version of the SBG rules) and at that time it was unforgiving. While it gave me some fun moments, by the end of the event I was mentally drained and making rookie mistakes. I was excited to see how the Vanquishers fared in comparison.

#TrueWhiteWizard and friends

Game 1: Hold Ground

The 2021 League Final had 32 players, and for my first game I was drawn against the person who was putting me up with accommodation. The quirks of the random draw.

Gov was using a Halls of Thranduil army (Mirkwood elves) and the night before we had been talking about how didn’t know how he would go against my army, especially with Maelstrom deployment. This draw really was an unfortunate turn of events for him which didn’t get better when my Vanquishers came on directly behind Legolas and his cavalry.

Oh, hey there.

The next move phase took a while while Gov pondered his plan, and then wisely chose to play the objective (generally always a smart play) and sent a small contingent of his force off to capture the centre objective while trying to tie my models up with the rest of the army. While he was initially bolstered by Thranduil coming on behind my models I quickly knocked him to the ground with a Nature’s Wrath of Bruinen and proceeded to lay into him while he was on the ground. Thranduil used all his fate (rolling no higher than a 2 on all three dice rolls), and he met his final fate the following turn.

The result of the first of many Wraths across my games.

Gov continued to tie me up and Saruman, Galadriel, and Elrond all took wounds, but healed them over the following turns. Gov’s tactic was sound and he tried to contain me as much as possible while keeping a small group of models on the objective, but the downside of him having a small elite army was my abilty to make a run for the objective as there was a gap. And I did so as soon as I could – which also coincided with Gov’s force breaking.

Tying me up.

It was now a race against time. If the game ended now I would lose, however a couple of turns to allow me to run would leave me in contention. To Gov’s dismay the game continued, and even the Mirkwood cavalry which he had hiding around the back of the objective fled, allowing me to gain control of the objective and claim a 12-1 win.

The state of the end game.

Game 2: Divide and Conquer

Bryan was running a cool Mordor list with Black Numenoreans and a catapult. I explained my army to Bryan. We deployed armies and played the first couple of turns. Bryan then understood my army.

Corner deployment and centre objectives.

Bryan spent the first turn being aggressive with his Nazgul but once he realised he would need his will to resist magic he pulled back and started playing more defensively. Like Gov in the previous game he quickly figured out that winning involved controlling the number of models I could fight, and running for the objectives as the game came to a conclusion.

His catapult got three hits on Elrond throughout the game, all of which failed to wound or were saved, but when the game finally came to a conclusion I had managed to hold on to a 4-3 win.

Bryan’s final plays for the objectives. One successful and one not.

This game was my least favourite of the weekend. Both Bryan and myself knew what the other one was trying to do, and Bryan was playing his game well, but it just wasn’t fun for either of us. So, a special shout out to Bryan for (as always) being a good sport.

Game 3: Capture and Control.

Matt’s army had ranks of fighting uruk-hai, fast warg-riders and crebain, and hard-hitting Dunlending heroes. The scenario had five objectives to capture. This was going to test me.

Don’t mention man flesh, don’t mention man flesh…

Spoiler alert – I failed during deployment.

I should have deployed by the middle objective and move outwards from there, but for some reason I got gun-shy and deployed near my back objective, putting me at an instant disadvantage with my slow moving force.

Behold my flawed deployment.

Matt cast Fury with his Shaman early on, negating the terror tests which would normally keep me slightly safe from being swarmed, and then proceeded to surround me.

And at this stage he had me rattled and I was well and truly off my game. I left the Shaman alive for too long and ended up stuck in my own half of the board while Matt’s wargs and crebain nabbed all the objectives.

Winning fights and getting nowhere.

When the break did come I tried to make a dash to grab some objectives but fates had decided that this game would not be mine, and the game swiftly ended with a 2-8 loss.

So end of day one and I was sitting on two wins, which was a good first day for me and on par with the 2020 League Final. As always, the League Final dinner is a well attended tradition, with great people and great company! Long may it (and the League) continue!

End of Day One seems a good time to show off Guy’s awesome Balrog, complete with LEDs.

Game 4: Destroy the Supplies

Sam was the other player at the League Final running a Vanquishers force, and he’d been tracking a similar enough win rate to me that it seemed inevitable that we’d meet on the table at some point. With two small armies which needed to stay together for maximum efficiency Destroy the Supplies was going to be a tricky scenario.

Sam’s great to play against, he plays in the spirit of the game and wants to create a cool narrative. I immediately banked on him forgetting about the objectives, meaning I would have the initial advantage to destroy his – fully knowing that as soon as I did he would realise and counter play.

There are two armies on this board, honest.

In fact the whole game came down to counter play, some lucky dice rolls, and who made the least mistakes.

The game started off as a Wild West style showdown, as each gang rolled into town casting buffs on themselves as they slowly advanced towards the centre. Sam took refuge in a ruin and took pot shots at me through the windows and by peeking out the side each turn. He got a few good shots in early with Sorcerous Blasts meaning my Radagast had something to do in the early game.

When I got close enough I cast a cheeky channeled Collapse Rocks into the midst of the ruins which succeeded in wounding Radagast but no-one else (though it did win me a spot prize for being the first person the TO knew that had cast that spell). The retaliation from Sam was a couple of Sorcerous Blasts which saw three of my force knocked down.

Throughout this magical exchange I had been slowly working my way up the board, while Sam held his ruins in the centre (even my Collapse Rocks didn’t make him abandon it). I continued to skirt past the ruins in the centre and started moving closer to the left-most objective on Sam’s side of the board.

At this point Sam still hadn’t realised I was making a line to his supplies.

Sam got priority that following turn and, with two Sorcerous Blasts, knocked down everyone but Elrond. I should have consolidated and waited a turn before nabbing the objective, but having suffered a couple of knock downs getting there I just wanted to get an objective NOW! I sent Elrond to destroy the objective, and then stood the other four up and started to head back to my board edge to defend my objectives – Sam now remembering that there were objectives to play for.

Sending Elrond instead of consolidating was my first major mistake. I made the second the following turn when I committed Elrond to destroying Sam’s supplies and trusting the defense to the other four. I could have pulled Elrond back into defence and swapped him out for Gandalf, or I could have just given up the other two of Sam’s objectives. Instead I sent a second rate force of four after Sam’s squad of five who eventually wore me down and killed me before Elrond got back to them.

Between the two of us, Elrond was the only miniature which was replicated.

On top of killing my army, Sam sent his Gandalf off to destroy my supplies meaning the game winning points for Sam were me being broken, him not being broken, and my leader being dead, resulting in a 6-10 loss for me.

Game 5: A Clash by Moonlight

Finally a ‘kill things’ scenario where I didn’t have to try and play for objectives. My opponent for this game was Kev who was running an Isengard force with Saruman, Grima, and a legion of Uruk-hai.

Kev arrayed his army on a hill with a firing line pointed directly at me, and with +1 to wound with missile weapons I had to keep myself safe until I made contact with his lines. I headed off to his flank, forcing him to turn his line, and took advantage of a wood which was around to provide a bit more cover.

That’s a lot of Uruk-hai.

I made quick work of his handful of units defending the flank, and then crashed into the end of his main battle line. Kev’s Saruman fired a Sorcerous Blast at Elrond which he shrugged off, at which point Kev changed his plan with Saruman. By pulling him away from the main fight Kev keep him safe while also being in range to provide support with spells as needed. Though Kev knew there was little chance of spells getting off, all it would take would be an unlucky resist roll on my behalf which might swing things.

As soon as he could Kev surrounded me and tried to trap me. The rest of the game played out without a lot of board movement and, as with game 3, I wasn’t going anywhere. At at least this time there wasn’t a shaman negating my terror (not that Kev needed it – he was rolling hot with his bravery tests).

I was using my substitute Saruman in this game while my favourite one was entered into the Hero of Legend painting competition.

As I continued to win duels Kev came up with a new plan.

“I’ve got a plan. I’ll tell you later what I was trying to do,” he announced.

It turns out Kev’s plan was to try and drive a wedge between my characters, and separate them as much as possible. It was a good plan, and it paid off when Galadriel and Gandalf got separated enough from Elrond that they lost their re-roll bonus, which ultimately resulted in Galadriel being killed.

It took a while, and the loss of Galadriel, but I finally got through most of the Uruk-hai.

It wasn’t enough to turn the course of the battle and with Galadriel the only model in my force who died I claimed an 8-1 win. Our post game talk included a discussion on how Kev would play it differently if he had to do it again, and I think a rematch would have been a much harder game for me.

Game 6: To the Death!

This was always going to be a tough game for whoever faced me, as the Vanquishers are a solid defensive force with access to multiple sources of healing. I was paired against Julia who was running a Dark Denizens of Mirkwood list (with spiders, wargs, and bats) similar to the once she ran at the 2020 League Final. At that event Julia and I also faced each other in To the Death! and on that occasion Julia took the win.

Spiders, bats, and wargs, oh my.

Our board for the game had a river running through it with a bridge in the middle. We reviewed the water feature and swimming rules, and rolled to determine if the river was shallow or deep. The result was shallow meaning that Julia’s wargs could treat it as open ground though she would have to look out for me knocking her models prone which would mean a swim test with a 1 in 6 chance of drowning.

I decided to let Julia come to me, and repositioned myself to receive her charge when I saw what models she commited to each side of the bridge. The first couple of turns I spent setting up my terror spells, and blasting any beasts which came too close, including blasting a bat into the water, knocking it prone which resulted in it drowning the following turn. I focused my blasts on the bats where I could to prevent them reducing my fight value in duels.

Gosh there’s a lot of them, and they’re fast.

The lines met and Radagast and Gandalf quickly got to work slaying wargs. Julia kept her Spider Queen safe out of sight on the other side of the bridge, biding her time to bring her in for the biggest impact.

Somehow in the melee Saruman managed to get himself isolated and surrounded, so I called a Heroic Combat with Elrond to come to his aid. Winning the duel expended his remaining two might, but he kills the spider he was fighting and then pulls some spiders off Saruman. Elrond promptly failed to win his second combat but he’d done what he needed to do.

I slowly moved the combat towards the bridge and Julia’s Spider Queen – as her army leader there were victory points up for grabs for wounding or killing her. Eventually I had enough of an opening to get Galadriel on the bridge and bait the Queen. Julia pondered her choice, but eventually made the call to throw the Spider Queen into combat, backed up by a bat swarm. I called a Heroic Strike with Galadriel and, after that and the reduction from the bat were calculated, I ended up with equal fight value to the Queen which was an OK position to be in. I won the fight and dealt to the bat, making things a bit easier for me for the following turn.

Spider Queen successfully baited

As it played out the Spider Queen pounced the following turn and killed Galadriel, but it was too late as the rest of the Vanquishers were efficiently mopping up the other denizens and bringing the game to an end with a 8-0 win to me.

I finished in 6th place, which is a personal best for a League Final.

The Vanquishers were fun to play with, but I’m not so sure about playing against (my own mirror match is hardly a good representation). They were so much more forgiving than the White Council, and while they have some obvious weaknesses (speed, number of models) they were able to compete pretty well in most scenarios. I know the community is a bit abuzz with Vanquishers talk right now so it will be interesting to see how people adapt to fighting them and what strategies are employed to exploit those weaknesses. My personal feeling is that they may be a little over-tuned (maybe limit or ration the ability to casting while in combat) but time and games will actually tell the true tale, and if they do need to be pulled into line then so be it.

Team Wars 2021 – Part 2

At the end of day 1 of Team Wars 2021 I had already met my goal of winning one game at the event so I went into day 2 trying to double down on that success and get a second win. Day 2 had two rounds, so I would have two chances at this.

Game 4 – Power Struggle

Robert Vincent (GarAge of Sigmar) – Soulblight Gravelords

Robert started his deployment by placing down a unit of Blood Knights and stating “This is Castellan Fiola and her Knights”, or maybe it was “Volaska the Shred-Witch”, or maybe “Lord Arcarius”. Either way it elicited an excited response from me of “You’ve named your characters? So have I!” and the tone of the game was instantly set.

Power Struggle is a battleplan which rewards holding objectives for consecutive turns. I immediately dismissed the objective Robert had put his horde of Zombies on and started to plan how I would attack the rest. We had both put ‘token’ forces on (my) right side, so this is where I planned to break through.

I look quite outnumbered here.

The game quickly separated itself into three theatres of war. On my left there was a magical stand off between Merlana Darkweaver (my Sorceress on Dragon) and Withergrasp (Robert’s Necromancer). At one point Merlana had a Aethervoid Pendulum in front of her and an Emerald Lifeswarm to the side resulting in her taking D3 wounds and healing D3 wounds as each spell triggered. It did mean the zombies weren’t moving up the board so I was OK with the stalemate.

Take D3 wounds. Heal D3 wounds. Repeat.

The right, which I had previously noted as a potential weak point, was where I dropped in The Claw and my Drakespawn Knights, and started to harass Robert’s back line and threaten one of his objectives.

The middle got real busy real quick with the centre objective changing hands every player turn until the third battle round when Robert managed to get enough on there that I couldn’t dislodge him. That failure to swing the objective was the real turning point of the game.

This is fine…

I had been playing a game of attrition which I knew I wasn’t likely to win, and my remaining flanking units didn’t provide the breakthrough punch which I needed when I did bring them in. The game was a lot of fun, and Robert was a great opponent, but the result was another loss for me.

Game 5 – Power in Numbers

Jonathan Cweorth (Two Aelves, A Rat and A Daemon Walk Into A Bar) – Daughters of Khaine

For our final game we played against the other Dunedin team, and I was paired against Jonathan. Jonathan was the local player who helped me with my list design and the one person I had played a practice game against prior to the event. So if there was anyone other than me who had a good idea of how my army worked, it was Jonathan. Conversely as my main Age of Sigmar army is Daughters of Khaine I also knew how his worked.

Take Aim!

At the start of the game I talked up my Celestar Ballista – Jonathan knew very well that it was a Distraction Carnifex (looks big and nasty but doesn’t necessarily have the big and nasty impact of its reputation) – but it was having a pretty good tournament and there was no harm playing into Jonathan’s thoughts about its potential damage output. As it turned out it did have a decent outing, including taking a few wounds off The Shadow Queen throughout the game.

Primary victory point scoring in this battleplan was about holding objectives for as long as possible and then removing them from play to gain points. The longer the object had been held for the more points gained. It also had the Backbone of Success rule meaning that if any Battleline units are within 6″ of an objective then only Battleline units can contest the objective. As Jonathan’s army was almost entirely Battleline units this put a dent in my normal plan to drop flanking units in to grab and burn objectives.

I deployed in such a way that scenery was protecting me where it could, and Jonathan’s lines of sight were as blocked as possible, but even then the game started with Jonathan killing 12 of my Dreadspears. Jonathan was being very careful about movement and trying to deny me options for bringing in my flanking units, however he did move The Shadow Queen up towards my lines to do some damage.

I managed to put a bit of damage on a number of units, while still keeping myself as safe as possible with terrain. I also summoned the Emerald Lifeswarm which spent most of the rest of the game hanging around my Dreadspears, slowing returning them to an effective unit size. As a Battleline unit it was valuable to heal them as the Backbone of Success rule meant they could hold an objective from the rampaging Shadow Queen as long as at least one of them was alive.

Dreaqdspears – back in the game

In my second turn I dropped in The Claw and the Hydra in Jonathan’s deployment zone (netting myself the Savage Spearhead Battle Tactic I had chosen), but didn’t roll the charge I needed to get into Jonathan’s units. At the end of my turn I removed two of my three objectives to score some primary victory points, and waited for the all important priority roll.

Jonathan won the roll and, after weighing up the options of removing an objective of his choice and facing a double turn from me or letting me remove an objective, he chose to face the double turn and removed the remaining objective on my side of the board.

Morathi-Khaine is a two unit Goddess, one of which is a spell-caster (Morathi) while the other is a Monster (The Shadow Queen). They share wounds between them, with all damage going against The Shadow Queen’s wounds characteristic, but can only take a maximum of three wounds each player turn. The trick to dealing with this is to know that you’re only going to get three wounds each turn and play to that. Get the wounds and then focus on the rest of your plan. Did I mention get the wounds? Yes? That’s an integral part of that plan – actually getting three wounds in each turn. The Shadow Queen has 12 wounds which means the earliest she’s out of commission is the end of Battleround 2 – so actually make an effort to chip away at her.

I had one turn where I didn’t get the maximum three wounds, so Morathi was still on the board at the start of the third turn. I chose Bring it Down (kill a Monster) as my Battle Tactic and dealt the wounds I needed to remove the goddess from the board and net myself some victory points and a congratulations from Jonathan for being the only opponent at the event to kill the Goddess.

The Claw and the Hydra got the charge rolls they needed and started to do some damage in the Daughters of Khaine back line, but some good saving from Jonathan kept the targeted unit of Witch Aelves alive and, with Backbone of Success, kept the objective in Jonathan’s possession. The Drakespawn Knights were also deployed this turn, one to threaten/reinforce each flank.

Jonathan retaliated by killing the Hydra and removing all three objectives he controlled to give himself a commanding lead. We had both lost a lot of units at this stage, but the primary victory points he gained from this turn would be the winning point of the game.

To get a win from here it would require me to get as many secondary victory points as I could from Battle Tactics, while denying Jonathan points, including his Grand Strategy. The fourth turn of the game pretty much put paid to that plan as I finished the event in a similar way to how I started – with rubber lance syndrome. It was already a stretch of a play but that turn, and the casualties I took in return, wrapped the game up for Jonathan.

There a few of my miniatures not in shot, but this was essentially it at the end of the game

So, with final scores tallied D.A.R.T came in fourth position by a mere 4 points while the other Dunedin team (Two Aelves, A Rat and A Daemon Walk Into A Bar) took third (yes, I’m riding those coat tails). I didn’t get my second win, but I did play five great opponents and, even in those games which had a clear tipping point against me, my opponents made sure I had a good experience.

I’m very happy at how comfortable I feel now about Age of Sigmar’s third edition. Prior to the event I’d only had a couple of games of third edition (five according to my records) so I felt like a bit of a novice going in to Team Wars. With these games under my belt I’m more excited about it and the possibilities and am looking forward to playing more games, and writing more army lists.

A round of thanks to wrap things up – thanks to all the Dunedin players who played a game with me, or made the opportunity for me to get a game, before the event, thanks to my travelling companions for good company on the journey to and from the event (even if you were both on the ‘other’ Dunedin team), thanks to Adam for filling the vacant spot on our Dunedin team, thanks to each of my opponents, and thanks to Jamie for running the event.

The Claw will return…

Team Wars 2021 – Part 1

Team Wars 2021 was a two day team based Age of Sigmar event held in Christchurch over Labour Weekend. The Dunedin Age of Sigmar scene is on the rise at the moment, and it was great to see us almost be able to field two teams at the event (my thanks to our Christchurch sub for filling in the last team spot for us).

Each round of Team Wars had two battleplans and a pre-game opponent matching process which was completed by the Team Captains. At the start of the match up each captain revealed one of their players – this player was guaranteed to play battleplan A. The captains then each revealed two further teams in response to their opponent’s initial reveal. These were paired off by the opponent’s captain with one player paired up against the initial reveal in battleplan A, while the other would face off against each team’s ‘final’ player in battleplan B.

This was an interesting piece of strategy to the event, and it was really fun to throw some Theoryhammer around in our team chat before each pairing. What do we consider good/bad match ups? What battleplans do people want to play (or not)? Can we bait our opponent into bad match ups? It really was a cool part of the event.

I’m currently in the process of renovating my house, so the decision to run Cities of Sigmar was made months ago when my game room was packed up and then had my entire existence stacked into it. Some good pre-event discussion with one of the local Dunedin players swayed me from my usual predilection of Anvilgard to Misthavn – the City of Combat Drugs. I usually shy away from ‘once per battle’ effects in Age of Sigmar so this was quite a departure from my norm, but hopefully I had enough of those ‘once per battle’ effects to make a difference. The army also allowed me to deploy units in flank (reserve) which could arrive later in the battle as long as there were no enemies units within 9″ of where they deployed.

Andy Long’s AoS gaming aids are constant tabletop companions of mine
https://aosshorts.com/age-of-sigmar-gaming-aids/

Our team settled on DART as our team name, an acronym made from the first letter of each of our names. In the words of our captain “simple, easy to pronounce, mildly marketable.” The rest of my team comprised Stormcast Eternals, Slaves to Darkness, and Sons of Behemat armies. Another of the unique features of Team Wars was that warscrolls (units) and artefacts were not able to be replicated in multiple armies within a team. There was pre-event discussion about this but we mostly managed to not to step on each other’s toes – I think the closest we got was my use of a Stormcast Celestar Ballista in my army.

And speaking of my army, here it is:

My army list including the glorious return of The Claw – a character I created during my Warhammer Fantasy Battle years.

The last Age of Sigmar tournament I attended was a blow-out (five losses and no wins), so I set myself the realistic target of winning one game at Team Wars. Obviously more would be better, but one win was the minimum standard I wanted to meet.

The event had six teams which allowed it to be run as a round robin, meaning each team would face every other team across the event. So with armies created, strategies set, and personal goals in place we got down to the business of a weekend of Age of Sigmar.

Game 1 – Savage Gains

Richard Punt (Team Narrative) – Sylvaneth

We started the weekend playing Team Narrative, the team who would be crowned the 2021 Team Wars winners, and we knew it would be a tough one going in. As Misthavn isn’t one of the more commonly played Cities of Sigmar we chose my army as our first reveal to try and keep them on their toes. What that meant was that I got to play my first round of the event against an opponent I first met and befriended three years prior during a Middle-earth event. Richard and I had seen each other at subsequent events but it was never across the table as we were always playing different game systems, so it was nice to start the event playing against a friend.

It also started my tournament off with one of the toughest games of the event. I chose to look at this as a good thing – I would get a good test of my army, and I would get to catch up with a friend.

Richard was running a Sylvaneth/Stormcast army, with the Stormcast represented by Slyvaneth models to stay in theme. He started off deploying centrally on his side of the board, creating a bunker which I would need to apply precision pressure to break. I spread out to put pressure on him from all sides and put The Claw, Drakespawn Knights, and Hydra in reserve to react to where the bunker looked weakest, or started to crack. I also parked both of my Sorceresses by the arcane terrain to help with my casting (which has a history of performing poorly without help).

This is my bunker. It’s made of trees. I am trees. I am the bunker.

Richard’s first turn involved setting up buffs and more Wyldwoods, and then he used Alarielle (the goddess of life) to summon her free once-per-game unit. I took a bit of a hit, but nothing game breaking. I immediately went on the offensive on my turn, surging forward where I could with my deployed forces and dropping in most of my reserves in the small opening Richard had left me. I have vague notes about my Hydra at this point – I believe he was killed in the Stand and Shoot. The Claw got a charge off against Alarielle but then immediately suffered ‘rubber lance syndrome’ and failed to convert most of his attacks into wounds. The one wound I did manage to get through was promptly saved by Alarielle.

I had used the Strangler-kelp Noose to prevent Alarielle from attacking back but owing to poor positioning (completely my fault) I ended up on the receiving end of the unit of Kurnoth Hunters and The Claw suffered his first death of the tournament. On the other side of the board I had managed to summon my Emerald Lifeswarm Endless Spell which happily flew around healing my general for the remainder of the game, so I was quite happy with a successful endless spell for the game.

Not pictured: The Claw (due to being dead) and Hydra (see previous)

The following turn saw Richard continue his mostly defensive tactic, moving Alarielle to a more central position, summoning another Wyldwood and firing some magic and shooting at me, causing decent casualties on my units of Dreadspears and Corsairs. Undaunted by my blunted attack on the previous turn I continued to push an aggressive agenda, dropping in the second unit of Drakespawn knights ready to charge Alarielle. In order to maximise the Drakespawn Knights’ charge I made the decision to sacrifice the Black Guard. I declared their charge first, drawing out the Stand and Shoot from Alarielle which killed all but two of the unit. I then rolled the charge with the Drakespawn Knights and failed… so I used a re-roll… which also failed, leaving me with two lone Black Guard fighting a goddess.

The rest of the game went as expected from there with Richard capitalising on his position, and me trying to minimise the losses. We had a good debrief (and beer) afterwards, so a tough but good game with a good opponent to start the tournament.

Game 2 – Feral Foray

Ross Johnson (4inches) – Goomspite Gits (Troggoths)

I’ve always enjoyed playing against Gloomspite Gits as the very nature of the army means the people who play them are there to have a good fun time. Ross was no different, so my (completely scientifically robust) previous sentence still holds true.

Ross’ army was a bunch of Troggoths, with some Troggoths, some more Troggoths, a Sloggoth, and a sprinkling of Gobapalooza and Shamans for some neat tricks. Facing off across the table from 24 Troggoths I quickly started trying to work out how to control the engagements, as this was what I needed to do to win.

And then Ross teleported a unit of 9 Troggoths, and I had to start reevaluating my plan. Quickly.

A busy game with a lot of units.

My Corsairs didn’t fare well against them, but I brought The Claw and Hydra in on the flank and managed to take out most of the unit with the charge. I also got Drakespawn Knights into his back line and caused a bit of havoc until some Troggoths came and vomited on them. My Celestar Ballista had a good game with a decent number of shots rolled, helping me inflict some wounds where I needed them.

Beware The Claw!

The other side of the board was in a bit of limbo. Ross had cast his Soulsnare Shackles Endless Spell as a control mechanism, and then both of us promptly reacted to it by having the AoS equivalent of a staring contest. Neither of us made a move, neither of us attempted to dispel it. Both of us were happy with letting the impasse play out until we needed to break it.

Unfortunately for Ross this played more in my favour than his, as it allowed me a couple of turns to clear my right flank. The third battleround was when I made my big move. I had dealt with the Rockgut Troggoths and had a clear line to his general so I chose Slay the Warlord for my Battle Tactic and went all in.

Finest Hour! Magic! Celestar Ballista! Hydra and Dragon Flame! Roar! Titanic Duel! Strangler-kelp Noose!

For the glory of D.A.R.T.

It was the stuff of legends! Ross’ legends that is – when the dust settled his general was still alive on 1 wound.

Such is the way of dice games sometimes.

The blunted Battle Tactic wasn’t a deal breaker though, and the game played out in my favour meaning I had achieved the one win I had set as my personal target.

Game 3 – Survival of the Fittest

Ashley Vale (Hot 1s) – Flesh Eater Courts

Earlier when I discussed the opponent choosing process I mentioned bad match ups. This army was a bad match up for me. To be fair it was a bad match up for most of D.A.R.T. so someone had to take the hit. Our team captain, Tim, had given himself a bad match up in round two (“For the band. For the band!”) so I told him I’d take the bad match up this time so he wouldn’t be ending the day with two bad match ups out of three games.

See, it doesn’t look that bad.

Controlling engagements against Troggoths looked simple in comparison to the 3 Terrorgheists and 1 Zombie Dragon which faced off against me here (two of which were ridden by Ghoul Kings). I deployed The Claw and Hydra on the board rather than in flank so I could choose them as Predator units for the battleplan, giving me a better chance to gain extra victory points.

Looking slightly worse now.

Ashley’s army list doesn’t really show what I faced, as he summoned in his additional units in the first battleround and promptly had forces on both of my flanks. And then I got lucky. Not too lucky, but lucky enough that I didn’t get completely routed by his charging Terrorgheists. It was an unexpected turn of events but one which I attempted to capitalise on. I threw a bunch of magic and shooting at the enemy and brought in my flanking units and, while I also didn’t have a fantastic charge, I got some wounds in, dealt with the Archregant in the back field, and even smashed a bit of faction terrain.

Ok, it’s all going pear shaped now

When I again came through the combat phase less damaged than I expected I decided to go for a big play the following turn and, for the second game in a row, chose Slay the Warlord for my Battle Tactic. The plan was the same – Finest Hour, Magic, Shooting, Strangler-kelp, Titanic Duel. This was a big play which would have netted me 5 victory points however, for the second game in a row, my opponent’s general was left alive on 1 wound when the dust settled.

Such is the way of dice games sometimes, however this one stung a little bit more than the first time.

Time to go big! Who’s ready for a repeat of the last time I pulled this stunt?

The reprisal from Ashley was swift and merciless and the game ended not long after with me closing out the first day with a major loss.

And that brings us to the end of day one which seems an appropriate time to take a break. I’ll be back with day two featuring me facing off against more undead and my second goddess of the event, Morathi.

Age of Sigmar – a Second Edition Swansong

Non, rien de rien

Non, je ne regrette rien 

Ni le bien qu’on m’a fait

Ni le mal, tout ça m’est bien égal

It’s that time of year for our mutual posting about Age of Sigmar (AOS), the games played and the state of the game.

Minitrol (MT): Per the Sacred Portents as foretold in Ages past it was time for a new edition of AOS. Or alternatively as it had been three years and to maximise shareholder profit a new edition should be released.

Age of Sigmar 3.0 as it’s kind of boringly known was released into the middle of a global pandemic and its fair to say it probably still hasn’t reached its full potential yet with various global lock downs restricting in person play, although a robust online playing scene through Tabletop Simulator has filled the gap.

So, before the release of the new edition, we were at the point where we had assembled armies large enough to finally play a 2,000-point game. This was quite exciting I had a very-nearly-oh-so-close-to-finished fully assembled and painted force close enough that I was happy to use them, and I knew the army reasonably well.

The Phantom Nuisance (PN): Yeah, what he said. Except instead of taking an army I knew reasonably well and was close to finished I decided to bust out the Slaaneshi Salesgirls for our last second edition fling. To be fair having recently finished assembling my Keeper of Secrets and wanting to get a game in with it was a big part of that.

MT: AOS has come a long way since the rushed written on the back of a napkin rules of 2015. We have gone from no points, to points values, battle plans based on objectives instead of just killing things, armies with complex interactions and rules interruptions, summoning models to the battlefield. Not to mention expanded magics with the use of Endless spells to represent in-game magic spells which remain in play!

Its basically become a system where you have the base rules, choose an army then within those armies you bolt on additional rules which change the army mechanically and thematically.

For my Seraphon they have undergone several rules explorations before they got their first full battletome and it opened up a lot of ways to play. I had fallen in love with the ethos of the Seraphon being starlight Daemons so I continued to play them using the Starborne battle traits. This means the army has a base Bravery 10 and the ability to summon more models from Azyr (the realm of Heavens in game) through the collection of celestial conjuration points.

This along with the free teleport once per turn gives my army a decent amount of surprise movement and the ability to sneak up behind an opponent should they not guard the rear of their board space (foreshadowing).

PN: Slaanesh has also undergone a plethora of rule variations ranging from ‘Is Games Workshop trying to remove Slaanesh from the game?’ to ‘Overpowered summoning of additional units’ before their current iteration. The net result of this for me is that I haven’t played many games with them over the past three years, however I have continued to grow my army as the new models are freakin’ sweet.

My Slaanesh army is a fast moving glass cannon. Speed is on its side and it rolls a large number of dice (a key component for most of my Warhammer armies), however I need to hit hard up front as they don’t fare as well if they get bogged down in a protracted fight and have their numbers whittled away.

MT: This game would be our swansong for second edition.

We rolled the Better Part of Valour which we used an older version of where you play lengthwise which felt better to us.

This is a match that requires careful positioning as the longer you sit on the objective the greater the points.

PN: You remember when I described my army a couple of paragraphs ago? Do you recall sitting on objectives being mentioned? No? Seems I was going to have to work for this one.

MT: I took the opportunity with deployment to stack one side and use the terrain to help funnel the horde of super-fast Salesgirls towards me. I also kept a contingent of Saurus Knights further back as, though not the fastest cavalry, they can still be relied on to get where they need to, and on my extreme flanks I positioned my Bastilodon with super laser and the Engine of the Gods at the other side protected by the Slaan Mage Priest.

PN: I could see what he was doing, and it was good deployment. I knew the Engine and Bastillodon would cause me trouble, and Minitrol had deployed them deep enough to be a threat but outside of an alpha strike if I got the first turn. I deployed thin and wide to both maximise my speed and to claim the objectives in my territory before the advancing began. I had to trust to my speed (and my piles of dice).

With armies are deployed we prepare to send second edition off in style.

MT: The first couple of turns I tried to keep a distance and bombard with magic and laser Dino. This was a moderate success as I was able to kill the Keeper of Secrets who I was terrified of before s/he could combat my large group of Saurus, but I couldn’t stop the Fiends from getting into combat and pinning the other flank.

The Saurus proved their mettle however taking heavy losses but slowly and surely grinding back enough kills to make room for the Stegadon to charge in and just tip the balance.

PN: The loss of the Keeper stung a little as this was the first time I’d had it on the table. I don’t mind losing a power piece if it means my opponent also takes a hit, or I force them to give me an opening. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. Positioning was messy in the mid-board and I was definitely the one who ended up worse off.

My Fiends did what I intended them to do, that being close ranks and tie units up. With debuffs to hit and wound them in melee the fiends are the one unit in my army that I’m happy to get tied up for a couple of turns. Unfortunately a failed charge from the unit of Daemonettes resulted in the Fiends being isolated, and without the extra unit they lacked the punch to do the damage they needed before the countercharge from the Stegadon.

The Phantom Nuisance’s Keeper of Secrets strides the midfield while his Fiends hold up the flank.
Alternative caption: The Phantom Nuisance’s Keeper of Secrets stands in open ground asking to be shot while his Fiends fail to fully finish off any units they’re engaged with.

MT: Points at this time were still very close PN had managed to tip one of my objectives into his possession and opted for removing it so I couldn’t reclaim it. I decided at this point I needed to take some risks and teleported Skinks to an unguarded objective claiming it and eventually burning it.

PN: Those sneaky skinks. I made the choice to bring my rearguard unit of Salesgirls forward and Minitrol pounced on the opportunity. The plan was to put pressure on his main battleline and force him to commit to the forward line to prevent me breaking through, but the dice gods were not with me on this occasion and my advance was blunted against the hides of the Seraphon. Cue the call back to not wanting to get bogged down in a protracted fight.

Just before the fateful charge and the teleporting skinks.

MT: The game proved to be very tactical as the Summoning hook for both armies is very different. Seraphon choose to forego spell casting to build up points and at the end of the game I still had 15+ point banked enough for some decent units to reappear. PN also had a pool. The difficulty for both of us was in having areas they could appear. We were both doing quite well for zoning and area control as most summoning in AOS comes with the restriction that new units must be in coherence and 9 inches away from any enemy units.

Slaanesh enjoys pain and a points are earned through units being damaged but not wiped out. This led me to change my attack priority solely to deny as may summoning points as possible just to keep the greater daemon off the battlefield for one more turn and in the end, it was enough with Seraphon claiming the day for the arcane and reptilian designs.

PN: Hats off to Minitrol for another good game. He outmaneuvered me at every opportunity he got and, as much as a blunted charge makes for a (dis)satisfying climax of a game, it was the positioning that won him the day.

It was cool to see off second edition with a big game. It’s been great to see the game grow and gain more of its own feel and identity over the last three years, both in lore and in gameplay. Third edition is now the current iteration of the game and I look forward to getting my head around all the new rules and interactions over the next three years.

My 52 cents worth: Age of Sigmar at a thousand points

My two games of Age of Sigmar in January were both played at 1,000 points. It had been a long time since I’d played at 1k points and it was really interesting challenge for me to build a force that small. For both games I decided to bring my Daemons out for a spin.

My Daemon armies are currently at the part assembled state where I can field smaller (unpainted) forces of individual allegiances, or larger (still unpainted) forces of mixed allegiance. While I have no compunction playing with unpantied models – unassembled models is where I draw the line. My Tzeentch force can field about 1k points (with about another 800 points unassembled), while my Slaanesh has about 1,800 points assembled (with about another 1k points unassembled).

Primed, but unassembled = not playable

I wrote the 1k lists to help my Keen Opponent test out his doubles army for an event and at the time I didn’t know what my partner would be bringing so the lists were built quite differently. My Tzeentch army was very magic and shooting heavy, while my Slaanesh was fast and melee. As it turns out my partner had Beasts of Chaos so I decided to field the Tzeentch for ranged support.

As it was a testing ground for a doubles event we took our time talking through things so Keen and his partner were best prepped for the event. We ‘timed out’ in turn 3 game but I really enjoyed getting my Tzeentch back on the table. The highlight for me was running out of horror models as, due to three great battleshock rolls, my Pink Horrors were bolstered back to full strength after taking wounds and generating 20 Blue Horrors.

All set up for our game of doubles

A couple of weeks later I did get a chance to play against Allonairre with the Slaanesh force I wrote, which was good because I really wanted to play with my Slaaneshi Salesgirls one last time before the new battletome dropped (which looks to be a number of changes for the better which is great). Allonairre is getting to know his army quite well now and this, coupled with my lack of experience with Slaanesh, allowed him to score a win from me.

Most of my Age of Sigmar games are played at 1,500 points. On occasion we’ll stretch to 2k, but for us 1,500 is the sweet spot. We find it allows us to finish the game in good time (including slow games where we’re enjoying a coffee/beer/hot chocolate), it allows a decent sized army to be brought to the table, and also allows us to bring a battalion or centrepiece model (e.g. Morathi) without the downside of them being a points sink.

Allonairre’s High Aelves – slowly but surely being replaced by actual Lumineth Realmlords

It also allows us to bring a diversity of armies. While it’s great that I have about 3.5k of Daughters of Khaine and 2.5k of Cities of Sigmar (and the aforementioned 1.8k of Tzeentch and 2.8k of Slaanesh) what I’ve really built up there are options. Options for games with various sizes, options for games against specific opponents, options for games with specific victory conditions, and even options for theme.

Playing at 1,000 points though, that really makes you think about your army composition. Suddenly your combos and elite units are taking up a greater percentage of your army. Suddenly doubling the size of a battleline unit seems a good alternative to running multiple small units. Suddenly ‘Battleline if’ is just that little bit more tempting… but at what cost.

My Tzeentch force ready to rain warpfire on the enemy

For my two lists I decided to focus on one thing, and try to do that one thing the best I could. For my Tzeentch my focus was ranged damage and I stacked my army with Flamers, Exalted Flamers, a Herald on a Burning Chariot, and unit of 10 Pink Horrors. The potential damage output was good, and the army was mobile allowing me to reposition relatively quickly. The Slaanesh army had two units of 20 Daemonettes and was headed up by a Herald on Chariot, a Contorted Epitome, and an Infernal Enrapturess (leaning into the heroes as Slaanesh did with the old battletome). A little less maneuverable than the Tzeentch army, but with two solid blocks of infantry and a lot of melee damage.

This is fine* (*This is not fine)

I’m happy to say both armies played as expected. The Tzeentch was the more adaptable of the two (fly will do that just as standard) but I always felt like I was one bad roll away from it collapsing, which of course is where Destiny Dice came in to play. The Slaanesh was a glass cannon which fired OK, but not OK enough and I was playing defence from the second turn. Nonetheless two very enjoyable games, and an enjoyable time writing the more concise lists. If your local group is getting stale maybe think about dropping the points on your games and keeping people on their feet.

Minitrol

I thought I’d also chip in here as I’ve also played a 1,000 point game In January and a 1,500 point and of the two the 1K game was the more taxing and tactical!

I played Allonairre with my Legion of Sacrament from the Legions of Nagash book. The LoN book is a great tool kit for creating lots of different Undead armies with different units dependent on if the general is Nagash (God of the Undead in Age of Sigmar) or one of his Lieutenants known as Mortarchs. Each one has a different character and flavour with their respective Legions playing differently to each other.

I also wanted to use Arkhan the Black as I painted him to a pretty good standard and was desperate to get that “New Model” curse off him.

I did feel a wee bit guilty about using such a powerful character in a small game but I needn’t have worried the list I played against was the Lumineth Realmlords and owing to their key feature of multiple magic casters and to tie up your command abilities I just barely held my own. It was a loss in the end but it was very close. We could tie it all back to one unit of cavalry which stole an objective early game that I had left undefended by a couple of inches! Placing Allonairre on a commanding lead which was very difficult to catch up.

It was tense and tactical and every claw back of points felt earned. We both thought it was one of our best games.

My Final Games of 2020

On the final day of work this year a colleague asked me if I played board games. When I replied in the affirmative he asked me for a strategy game recommendation, and instead of pointing him to one of my posts I had to scroll through my game tracker to remind myself of the most enjoyable new game I’ve played this year – Ethnos.

Yes, you heard me correctly, Ethnos was one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played this year and I didn’t even blog about it (cos, you know, 2020). Well, lets sort that out now.

Minitrol and I played Ethnos in August (the only game I played in August) when we managed to catch up with each other for an afternoon. We both wanted to play something, but weren’t in the mood for anything large scale, or that would take a long time. Minitrol brought out Ethnos which he assured me was a good game, though he added caveats that the board was boring, the tokens were basic, and the art looked like it was just some stuff John Howe had lying around. By the end of our games I had agreed with him on all accounts (don’t get me wrong – the John Howe art is nice but it feels bitsy, and not like parts of a cohesive world).

The game is primarily a card drafting game, with some area control mechanics added as a point of difference and to drive some scoring and playing conditions. At the start of each game you randomly select the 5 (or 6) races which will be used in the game (out of a total of 12 possible races) and each of the selected races brings a unique ability, functionality, or play area to the game.

What I really liked about this game was the underlying simplicity of the core rules. Each turn you can either draw a face up card, draw a face down card, or play a warband and discard your other cards face up. Certain actions allow you to place a token on the map, and at the end of each ‘age’ of the world you score points for your played warbands and the areas controlled.

With so few core rules you might be concerned that the 12 different races would run out of ways to subvert them, however there is enough that each race feels like it’s bringing something of value without any of them being so different they no longer feel like a natural part of the game. Elves allow you to keep cards in your hand after you play a warband, Trolls allow you to break ties, Merfolk allow you to add additional tokens to the map after you play enough warbands led by Merfolk (as tracked on an additional Merfolk board). They’re all small, simple changes to the core rules meaning that once you understand the core rules you’ve got a good handle on the game, but ensuring that plenty of strategy remains.

How good was the game? One picture good. That means I was so involved in playing the game I only took one picture (and also the aesthetics of the game do not lend themselves to a range of diverse pictures)

Minitrol and I played three games of Ethnos in rapid succession, each of us winning one of the first two meaning that the third was to decide the rightful ruler of Ethnos. It is a title which I shall cherish until it gets won from me, or I forget I hold it. The games played smoothly, and each decision I made felt important to the overall game. Minitrol says the game scales up well (it supports up to six players), and I’d be happy to play some more Ethnos in the future.

My last two games of 2020 were of Age of Sigmar against Allonairre. Allonairre has had a slow introduction to Age of Sigmar, however the reemergence of Teclis into the lore of the Mortal Realms has finally managed to get him to commit a bit more. He’s been slowly building up a Lumineth Realmlords army and we played two games in December.

In our first game I took a variation on my Cities of SouthCon army, replacing the Corsair contingent with some Executioners and a Drakespawn Chariot. Allonairre found himself on the end of my Vitriolic Acid/Spellportal combo and his Alarith Spirit of the Mountain had it’s armour save removed and found itself dead before it could make any impact on the game. It also opened up that side of the board for me and allowed my Dark Riders access to the objectives in his deployment zone.

My spellportal and archery combo paid off.

The other side of the board was under the control of Allonairre, and I wasn’t able to make a definitive gap which I could exploit. A couple of failed charges left some of my units isolated, and I paid the price for that. I held the line for long enough to gain a solid lead, and with some good rolling for victory points when I burnt his objectives I ended up with a comfortable win, despite most of my force being killed.

Our post game discussion was mostly about speed and maneuverability, and it obviously got Allonairre thinking as, just after Christmas, he called for another game.

We decided on New Year’s Eve for some end of year symmetry, and the possibility of setting ourselves up for a New Year’s Eve gaming tradition. This time I used my Daughters of Khaine (a variation on my 2018 SouthCon army) and we finished off the year with a Alef versus Aelf battle.

Alloinaire was more confident with his army this time, and was starting to get into the rhythm of his order of actions. The game flowed better, and there was less looking up the rules than the previous game. As I was not running my Cities army, his Alarith Spirit of the Mountain made it into melee where it promptly killed 15 Witch Aelves in the first round of combat. I managed to switch in a unit of Sisters of Slaughter the following turn who did a few more wounds to it before the mountain spirit finally succumbed to mortal wounds from the sisters’ shields in a display of mutually assured destruction.

I again managed to break through one side of Allonairre’s force to claim objectives in his territory and secure a solid lead (and eventual win), so the post game discussion again turned to the speed of his army and how he could best respond to situations where he lost a side of the battle. We had some ideas, but not a final answer, however Allonairre has said he wants to try and play more games in 2021 so we’ll see what that brings.

And with those games out of the way there’s nothing left to do for 2020 but wrap up the year with my annual 52 Weeks Later post. See you in a few days.