If you have been wondering about how to get started on playing in your first Age of Sigmar tournament, this article is definitely a great place to start!
Playing in my first tournament is an amazing experience and I highly recommend it to any player new or old. You get such a range of opponents that while some power lists that might be duplicated generally each army is different with a different theme. It brings in people from all over who are all geeking out over the same hobby, rolling dice, and having fun. Also this one had raffle tickets for things like killing the general, failing three charges in a single turn, etc. which made even games you are getting blown out in fun!
For this tournament as I decided to try out the new rules from the Disciples of Tzeentch book and roll with Allegiance Tzeentch. My army was super caster and shooting heavy so I knew I had to generally stay out of combat and use mortal wounds to take anything out.
- 10 pink horrors with command (battleline 1 of 3 140 points)
- 10 pink horrors with command (battleline 2 of 3 140 points)
- 10 pink horrors with command (battleline 3 of 3 140 points)
- 6 flamers (no type 400 points)
- 3 screamers (no type 140 points)
- 5 Chaos Knights of Tzeentch (no unit type 200 points)
- Lord of Change (Leader, Behemoth, 300 points)
- Karios Fateweaver (Leader, Behemoth, 340 points)
- Chaos Lord of Tzeentch (Leader, 100 points)
- Choas Spawn in reserve (no unit type, 60 points)
Total 1960
The goal was to move the chaos lord and knights forward and draw in units within range of my magic (5 wizards casting a total of 7 spells) and shooting. With the spawn he would appear either when the Chaos Lord died, or when Kairos killed something with his gift of change spell. That would let me tie up a unit or miniature for a turn and give me even more spells and shots into that unit. The pink horrors while squishy would use disciple dice rolls of 1 to auto generate models back on the units in battle shock. Then flamers would stick next to the lord of change so that they might split when they die into two (roll of 6) and there shooting would benefit from the lord of changes aura of mutability. Kairos would stay back to buff the pink horrors (They add 1 to casting rolls) as well as benefit from knowing there magic as well if within 18 inches. With the tournament, lists were limited to 2000 points and were locked for all three games.
Game 1 vs Death:
We played the border war scenario where there are 4 objectives, 1 in the middle of each deployment area and then one on either side in the middle of the board.
He set up with his necromancer in the middle with 2 blocks of 10 skeletons, a vampire lord, and then a block of 40. I countered with my unit of Chaos Knights, chaos lord, and a unit of 10 pink horrors. He then loaded up his right hand side with Mannfred, 20 grave guard, 3 Varheists, and a Terrorgheist. I countered with 3 screamers, 2 units of 10 pink horrors, and Kairos. That was his entire army so he basically gave me the left side free, so thinking I would grab it with the Lord of Change and my unit of flamers turn 1 and then push the center of the board with them. My overall plan was tie up the center, and with the knights for turn one and push his objective with my left flank.
On the right hand side I just wanted to tie them up for 2 – 3 turns and gain advantage in points so that he can’t bounce bank. This ended up working perfectly with me holding the left and my objective the entire game and holding the right objective the first 2 turns. I also gained control of his objective on turn three, which pretty much sealed the game for me. He had some unlucky dice rolls, but by loading up the right hand side I was able to kite Mannfred and ended up killing him using mortal wounds on turn four and we ran out of time at the end of then turn. I scored a major victory and killed 1320 points.
Game 2 vs Sylvaneth:
Places of power, where 3 objectives are placed in the middle of the board spaced 18 inches apart. You can claim the objective with a hero and gain points until the other player kills that hero.
I knew I was in trouble with this game being that you need to control the objective by moving a hero only onto the objective marker. Also basically his entire army will prevent your army from retreating, if they get within a certain distance which basically negates my flying ability. He can also teleport anywhere there is a Wyldwood so setting up I spread out my forces with the goal of getting two objectives and then running away. He went first and set up a ton of Wyldwoods in the center of the board around all the objective tokens. Then moved his Durthu and Tree lord Ancient on one and 20 dryads around another. While sniping my heroes from the back of his board with 9 Kurnoth Hunters.
At this point I figured I would need to take out his heroes so I went all in on turn one. I managed to kill the Treelord Ancient with my chaos lord and burning a lot of destiny dice and focusing magic on him. Then I took the unguarded objective token with my lord of change and my turn ended. Turn 2 he won the initiative and managed try up to my flamers and lord of change which hurt me in the long run as I could not retreat with them. He also put some pressure on Kairos with a unit of hunters with scythes. That being said I stuck to my plan and managed to get 7 mortal wounds on Durthu, if I had won the initiative roll I think I could have killed him and won the match, but with him winning it he managed to heal Durthu 6 wounds with his branchwych and he basically marched through my army because they couldn’t retreat for the rest of the game. Major loss but I killed 740 points
Game 3 vs Death: Take and hold where you need to have 5 models and no enemy units within 6 of an objective to control it. You win by controlling both objectives at any point after the third round
My opponent was running the flesh eater courts death army and he had 40 crypt ghouls, 2 units of 6 crypt horrors, crypt haunter , 2 Varghulf courtiers, a unit of crypt flayers, and a terrorgheist with ghoul king. He put the ghoul king on the right the two units of 6 crypt ghouls with the 2 leaders behind and the other behind him. On the left was the 40 crypt ghouls, he left the crypt flayers in the back to cover his marker. He made me start the game and I made the mistake of moving forward, looking back at it I should have stayed put and moved my fast moving troops along one side, but instead thinking I would win initiative roll I moved forward with everything. I did not realize how fast the crypt ghouls are and he was within charge distance for turn two.
Which he won initiative on. He managed to get all of my pink horrors and flamers on good charge rolls turn two. He also landed his ghoul king near mystical terrain on the previous turn and when he passed his roll I used Kairos oracle ability to make it a 1 taking him out of the game for that round. By the end of turn two I was feeling good as I have killed all his leaders but the ghoul king and the crypt ghoul hero. And only lost 2 knights and 6 pink horrors. Turn three gave him the initiative again, which he rolled a one for his king basically giving me a pass to attack him, however he did some serious damage on my pink horrors and flamers. At this point we both realized victory would be based on points so I focused fire on his king killing him and the crypt ghoul hero.
By the end of the game it came down to points and his unit of 6 crypt ghoul guys had a single wound left one them. Which ended up determining the game that unit was worth 280 points, which he killed 1200 points and I had kill 920…. So it was a minor loss but besides that first turn I was happy with taking out all his heroes and would go with that strategy again.
Overall I was happy with my first tournament taking 10th out of 18, (if I had gotten that last wound I would have been 6th) that being said there are a couple of things I would like to change. First I would drop the chaos knights, chaos lord, and chaos spawn as they don’t really fit and besides game 2 under performed. Second I would focus on getting the Host Duplicitous battalion and going so that I could one drop my army in and get to decide if I want turn one or to pass. It is a big deal with such a shootie army.
It would also let me teleport a unit around that was in melee and potentially get them out of melee with the Changehost required for it. The battalion finally buffs my wizards in that all 1’s are actually 2’s and it gives me a spell called “Scintillatingsimulacra” which seems silly in that is causes successful hit and wound rolls to be misses and misses to be hits… Except when they are hitting or wounding on a 2+, in which case this can essentially shut down a powerful unit. In order to do that I will need to add some horror heroes to this army, so buying them and getting those painted up is my next order of business.
Final thoughts on the raffle and tournament was that I liked that even losses gave raffle tickets and there was ways to win bonus tickets. It made the games fun and unique in that while winning got you the most you could also kill all their heroes to get a bonus ticket, or slay there highest cost model, etc. The one downside was painting…. I think for a tournament even in a FLGS store there should be an effort on painting the armies. I am hoping when they do the second one in April they require at least half the army painted.
When I played game two I could not tell a lot of his units apart because they were all grey and looked pretty similar, while it did not affect the outcome, it was less enjoyable then when I could look at a painted unit and knew exactly what they were. Compared to the two death armies I played where you could tell a lot of effort went in to make them look unique from one another. Besides that I had a wonderful time and would gladly do another one… In fact I hope to have a second tournament write up done in April with the goal of coming in the top 5.
More On Age of Sigmar
About the Author: Travis Perkins
