On July 8^th and 9^th the Southern Califonia Age of Sigmar community got its first (annual?) Dichammer Grand Tournament at At Ease Games. The event was put on by a local tournament organizer that goes by the name of Nick Dicehammer along with Scott Reed. They used matched play scenarios from The General’s Handbook along with secret agenda’s that must be picked prior to starting the game.

This was the first two day AoS tournament, that I am aware of, that was held at a local game store and not at a rented hall or part of a bigger convention in the Southern California area. I was watching the signups on both Best Coast Parings and Facebook and felt pretty confident that we were going to to get about 25-30 players. Unfortunately the actual number was 14. I am pretty sure there were a few factors that went into it: First the release of new 40K. This event was planned months ago and there was no way for the organizers to know the specific day of 40K’s release and impact. Second, I think it was hard for many members of the community to commit to 2 days of playing. As it was a new event and not part of an established tournament or convention players were skittish to commit and tell their loved ones, bosses, etc. they were going to play over the course of a couple of days.

For those that did turn out I was amazed at the distance players were willing to travel and the quality of armies that were on display. We had bunch of guys from NorCal come done along with two members from the Phoenix area.

For this tournament, and probably the foreseeable future, I used my Stormcast Eternals. My list theory was to use a Hammerstrike to aplha my opponent hopefully by turn two and make them make some tough deployment and movement decisions. My Thunderhead Brotherhood would hold objectives while my heroes buffed and redirected my opponent’s target priority. This is what I brought:

Heroes
Lord-Celestant (100)
– General
– Command Trait : Staunch Defender
– Artefact : Mirrorshield
Knight-Heraldor (120)
– Artefact : Spellshield
Lord-Relictor (80)
– Prayer : Lightning Chariot
Lord-Castellant (100)
– Mystic Light : Lantern of the Tempest
Knight-Azyros (80)
Units
5 x Liberators (100)
-Warhammers
– 1 x Grandhammers
5 x Liberators (100)
-Warhammers
– 1 x Grandblades
5 x Liberators (100)
-Warhammers
5 x Judicators (160)
-Skybolt Bows
– 1 x Shockbolt Bows
5 x Judicators (160)
-Skybolt Bows
– 1 x Shockbolt Bows
3 x Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins (80)
5 x Paladin Retributors (220)
– 2 x Starsoul Maces
10 x Paladin Protectors (400)
– 4 x Starsoul Maces
Battalions
Hammerstrike Force (120)
Thunderhead Brotherhood (80)
Total: 2000/ 2000
Heroes: 5/6 Battlelines: 5 (3+) Behemoths: 0/4 Artillery: 0/4

Day 1 I drew Justin Rusk and his Nighthaunt army for a game of Escalation. I’ve played Nighthaunt armies before and was aware that they ignore rend making my Paladin’s Starsoul Maces invaluable. Turn one I was able to roll on my Prosecutors and get both the Retributors and Protectors right in Justin’s center mass. I made a tactical error though by trying to sandwich them in the backfield and leaving my Protectors too far from the center of the table. For the first few turns I held two of the objectives but by turn 4 I was on the ropes. Turn 5 I was in a position to tie or possible win the game by making a 3” charge with the Protectors I deployed too deeply but rolled snake eyes. This was one of many games that came down to the wire.

The second game of the day was against Ben Cornelius’s Blades of Khorne fighting in a game of Three Places of Power. For this game I put everything I had in the Celestial Realm. I knew his army was able to move and charge into my deployment zone turn 1 if he wanted and figured I would be able to get 2 of the 3 objectives secured by the end of turn 2 or 3. As expected Ben moved his army forward having his 2 Bloodthirster each claim an objective and bubble wrapped a Skullmaster with 30 Bloodletters on the third. On the bottom of turn 1 I was able to get my whole army on the table (3+ per war scroll). I dropped my Protectors right in front of one of a Bloodthirsters and put my Retributors in a position to attack the Bloodletter bomb. The Thunderhead Brotherhood (which I had to roll in individually) went center on Ben’s half of the table. My Judicators made quick work of the Bloodsecrator and I opted to activate the Protectors to kill a Bloodthirster. The Bloodletters killed 3 of my Retributors leaving just two Starsoul Maces to mortal wound back. From that turn on I acted as a leaf blower working my way from my left flank to the right slowly grinding Ben’s army off the table and placing my heroes on the objectives. My downfall though was I was not able to shoot the Skullmaster off the table and could not get into close combat until the bottom of my turn 5. The Skullmaster scored 15 points for Ben and secure him the win. I got the moral victory by vanquishing every worshipper of Khorne and tabling Ben on the last dice roll of the game.

My last game of day 1 was against Troy Salewske and his Disciples of Tzeentch. The games was Gift From the Heavens so once again I decided to put everything in the Celestial Realm.  My general idea was to drop the bulk of my army on my objective and get the Hammerstrike Force on Troy’s, having a single model from my army within 6” of his objective would disrupt his scoring. Troy deployed his army on his right flank. He bubble wrapped 3 Lords of Change and Kairos Fateweaver with Pink Horrors creating a devastating 18” threat bubble. Troy deferred turn 1 to me to see where I dropped. As a Stormcast player you don’t

have a choice but to roll to see if your war scrolls come on, if I could have deferred I would have. Most of my army was rolled on one at a time and I put them center of my deployment zone so I could react to where the objective fell. Fortunately my Prosecutors failed their reserve roll and was able to keep my Hammerstrike Force in reserves. Troy then won the initiative and and deferred to me again. My objective came up on my right flank so I started turtling my army around it. My Prosecutors came in and I dropped my Paladins in right in the Pink Horror’s faces. I wiped two of the Pink Horror units but they became Blue Horrors then Brimfires. I knew my Paladins were toast but was hoping they could hold out during Troy’s turn to disrupt getting points. Hope failed. His objective crashed right in the middle of his daemons and a devastating magic and shooting phase wiped all my Paladins and Prosecutors. Then karma kicked in and I was slowly table dying a slow death getting tabled on turn 5.

I realized how long this blog entry is getting so I am going to stop here and wrap things up this weekend with day 2 and my final thoughts of the event. Thanks for reading and I will get Part 2 out soon!

View the full article