Tournament AoS.

Hey Folks...

I recently attended a tournament put on by some good friends of mine. My main reason for going was, basically just to play some games and roll some dice. I have been working abroad for a long time which has reduced my play time. I used to be a regular player at GW tournaments in Nottingham but I found that they got really competitive and, as I have mentioned before, I am not really that kind of gammer. I like to use the models I like and I am just not that into spending massive amounts of time working out the best way to smash people up. Thats not to say I don't like to win, of course I do, I just don't like playing when all my opponent cares about is winning.

Well this wasn't one of those, it was a fairly small laid back affair and I had a really great time. Unfortunately there aren't really any pictures in this report, as I didn't take any, but you can see them on the Facebook page of the 'Greetings from Sigma' group.

This is more a report on the army and units and how they performed rather than of game tactics.

My list: -
The Glotkin.
Morbidex Twiceborn.
30 Plaguebearers.
30 Plaguebearers.
5 Blightkings.
3 Nurglings.
3 Nurglings.
10 Nurgle Chaos Warriors.
5 Nurgle Chaos Knights.
1 Nurgle Chaos Chariot.

There wasn't really an overall plan. I have found in the few practise games I play that I tend to win by scenario in a long drawn out slugfest. I tend to be able to manage Alpha Strikes well and can endure them to take it out in the long game.

Game 1. Lizards. 
I was worried in this game as I have never really played Lizards before and I know they can be pretty powerful. They have lots of tricks and my opponent explained them all to me - I remembered nothing of this conversation. I basically thought - well I will see what happens. As stated my expectations of this tournament were to learn a few things and play some games. Well turn 1 he teleported is Stegosaurus over, shot and charged The Glotkin and took a huge chuck out of him, at this point I was thinking that this game was going to be over pretty soon. But I remained focussed on the scenario and objectives and moved my army to start scoring as soon as possible. The one thing I was surprised about was how big my army seemed to be compared to everyone else's and this really paid off in the end. I managed to start taking away some of his models, the Blightkings came in to their first combat with a massive hit and wiped out a 20 man Skink unit in one go. For each 6 they roll to hit it causes D6 hits, in this combat from 15 attacks I rolled six 6's. The Nurglings were also doing a sterling job holding up the other flank and in-fact were increasing the size of their unit thanks to Morbidex's ability to generate new bases each turn. In the end my numbers took their toll and each turn I was scoring and at the end of turn 5 I had a convincing victory. I was really chuffed.

Game 2. Khorne. 
This was a full on Khorne rush army. Two units of Jugger Cav and then a ton of infantry. There wasn't really anything I could do about getting charged so I stuck a big unit of Plaguebearers and the Nurglings in front of the Cav and then everything else went after his Infantry. I was hoping that the Plaguebearers could hold one flank whilst the rest of my army could take out his army and then swing round to help. This was one of the scenarios where the objectives dropped during the game. As it turned out they dropped in my favour. The Plaguebearers did hold the flank and my other units did take out his army. Now this is the controversial bit - I lost on objectives points scored. However we only got to turn 3 (there was a long phone call involved). If we had played turn 4 I would have claimed three objectives and taken a massive lead. He did not have enough left of his army to win on turn 5 either. So whilst it went down on the scorecard as a loss I am counting it as a victory. I was a little annoyed but then I remembered my intention to go and have fun and learn some stuff so I took it on the chin and let it go.

Game 3. Ghosts.
This was an interesting army. The scenario was the basic capture the flag. Defend one objective and take another. My opponents army was basically made up of spirit hosts and I had no idea how to play them. They ignored all "Rend" and had a multitude of saves. I made mistakes in this game through lack of knowledge, I charged The Glotkin into the Ghost units when I should have charged my bigger Infantry units etc. Well in the end it was a draw on objectives but I lost on points. My opponent took out the Glotkin and Morbidex Twiceborn which scored him a ton of points, lots of his units licked out Mortal wounds and the Glotkin can't do anything about those. This was a good learning game and the next time I play this type of army I will feel better equipped.

Conclusions. 
So a win and two loses, I'll take that. But the best thing over the weekend was winning the Best Painted army award. This was voted for by the players so I feel really cool that they picked mine. I think this is one of the highest honours you can get from other players. I won by 1 vote from a beautiful Sylvaneth army and this was the army I actually voted for myself.

I was really pleased with the way my army performed and I took a lot away from just those three games. The way I play certain units, what units are good at, what they aren't etc. Stars of the show were probably the Plaguebearers. They held up really well, took out a ton of stuff and were virtually impossible to move. With the +1A form the Glotkin they are absolute monsters. Without the +1A from the Glotkin they aren't as good but they are still tough nuts to crack. The Blightkings were awesome as well, they can kick out some real damage and even without the +D6 they are still pretty dangerous, they also suck a lot of attention as well which can be a benefit. The Glotkin was good, its hard to ascertain his total benefit as its the buff that does the damage more than The Glotkin himself. He still has some great attacks and spells. Mortbidex was ok, I am not sure I fully utilised his abilities but the Nurgle generating ability is great and the Nurglings really caused some issues. No units really performed badly at all. I would like to bump the Blightkings from 5 to 10 which will cause a bit of jiggling around, I would also like to try out some other units to see how they play but I think the backbone of this army is pretty solid and I wont move away from The Glotkin and Plaguebearers for a while.

Until next time...