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Warlords, Pestilens, NZ, Bring the Foulrain!


James McPherson

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So I spent the last few weeks hobby time mostly painting & getting ready for Warlords.

I had a lot of deliberation over what list to take, I have about 2.5k of Pestilens and can make any of the existing formations, but haven't playtested all of them yet. I mostly played up to now with 2 Plagueclaws in previous games , but I wanted to use the Foulrain this time and that meant I had less real estate to play with points wise as it's 700 points, so I found it hard to shoehorn in the rest of what I needed and that also meant I had to paint extra as I kept changing my mind. In the end I had to drop a Plague Furnace and some Censer Bearers to fit it all in.

Not everything is finished but I got enough done to have it useable. I didn't finish my basing but I will work on that later and keep going with it once I hit NZ.

Warlords was a huge adventure for me. I only came back to the UK temporarily in April to help my Mom get through a life changing operation. While I was back here I wanted to learn to play AOS so I picked up an army and got it painted and learned AOS from scratch in the space of about 3 months or so by playing games at my local gaming clubs. Warlords was the culmination of my time here in the UK and I am meant to fly out on Thursday back to work in New Zealand.

My main aim was to be able to go up to Warlords and just be able to play fluidly without too much stop starting and rule reading, to use what I'd learned the last few months in my practice games and to make as good an opponent as possible and try to be competitive whilst still having fun and enjoying the weekend. I had no idea what to expect really as I've never been to a tourney before or played wargames much before, it's all new to me. I played a few games in the early 90s with friends and family but that's about it.

I knew my army wasn't great in competitive terms but it is all I have painted and is what I have learned to play Sigmar with at my local games club, and feel most comfortable with, so I wanted to just take that and at the same time turn up for Pestilens and represent!

It was my first competitive tournament, and the most AOS I've ever played before in one weekend.

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my list in the end was

Verminlord Corruptor , Lord of War, Crown of Conquest, General 240pts

Lord Skrolk 100pts

Plague Priest with Plague Censer 80pts, Crown of Conquest

Plague Furnace 220pts, Crown of Conquest

30 P. Monks, foetid blades 210pts

30 P.Monks, woe staves 210pts

20 P.Monks fofetid blades 140pts

5 Censer bearers 60pts

Plagueclaw 180pts

Plagueclaw 180pts

Plagueclaw 180pts

Pestilent Clawpack

Foulrain Congregation

1980pts

 

Game 1

Game 1 was against Aidi McWater who placed 2nd overall eventually. I finished setting up first and gave him the first turn. He was running a death list with Vampires and a Mourngul and Mortis Engines. He put Hellish Vigour on his Zombie Dragon and it moved 28 inches in the movement phase and ended its move about 3inches from all my Plagueclaws. So that was a big mistake of mine not to screen them off or take first turn myself and try to shoot him off the table.

By the end of the round though I had counter charged and killed his Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon General with a nice charge by 20 plague monks and nearly taken out one Mortis Engine with my P.Claws, and at that point I should've kept pushing them forwards into the engines but instead I was too conservative with them and held them back, unsure of how much damage the dual Mortis A-Bomb would cause when it detonated. But then all his stuff just healed itself and came back to life when he detonated them. I made another mistake with my movement where I needlessly sacrificed the screener unit of 5 censer bearers which then left a unit of 30 monks open to a Bloodknight charge and were wiped out. So I really lost this game with poor movement choices, but also had never played against a lot of these units before. Didn't know the Mourngul gave -2 to hit in a bubble around it, and once it got up into my units it just mitigated all my combat offense. In the end it was headed towards a tabling so I think I conceded early by about turn 3 or 4.

Game 2

I thought my 2nd game would get a bit easier but I got to one of the bottom tables and there was Dan Heelan waiting for me.

Dan had said something on his last podcast about how he would never be one of those guys who would take a weak list to a competitive setting like Moonclan Grots and happily just turn up to make up the numbers and probably loose 5 games in a row, and then run around the gaming hall telling everybody how proud he was when he win's that one game.

So erm yeah, you can imagine my glaring red faced embarrassment as I walked up to table 47 and he asked what I had brought with me and I unpacked my leftfield fluffy non-competitive Pestilens army out infront of him and explained I was pretty new to AOS. Once I had swallowed my initial pride and put those comments (and my humiliation!) to the back of my throat, we just got on with it and had a pretty good game in the end. To be fair as well Dan's eyes lit up a little bit when he saw those Skaven! I think he liked seeing something different. I wish I could've given him a better/closer game but I did my best!

I tried my best to make it a good game for him and I think he enjoyed it but it ended far too easily on Turn 3. I managed to kill quite a bit of his stuff but then I moved off an objective  and he teleported his Chameleon Skinks onto the objective and it was game over. Again I had lost it in the movement phase. I had also targetted his General with my shooting when I should've been aiming at his objective scoring units ie Temple Guard.

Game 3

After my loss on table 47 I slipped further down to 48 (of 50) and played Escalation against @Arnie , we both ran similar Skaven lists, he had Skreech Verminking and a Bell and 6 Stormfiends, 10 Stormvermin and some Clan rats. His Stormfiends popped up on my flank and mullered me and I didn't have many answers to them. I finally got some combats off and whittled them down a bit but again I lost this one with my poor movement choices and not picking the right targets with my Plagueclaws.

 

Game 4 Border War

This was a grudge match against an old Dwarven adversary I have faced off against before when I visited AOS open day a few weeks ago. He won the last game so this was a chance at revenge! He ran compendium Dwarves with 3 organ guns, Thorgrimm, a Runelord and Unigrim . All his characters and Engineer gave crazy buffs to all his shooting. I rolled 3x 1's in a row turn one and then 3x 2's in a row for all my running moves and again I lost the game based on poor movement, hampered by poor deployment choices and deservedly lost on VP's. The highlight of this game for me came as we pondered over what a Skaven might eat for breakfast, as I cursed my rotten running rolls. I think we settled on the gnawed carcasses of dwarven women and children ;)

 

Game 5, 3 Places of Power

This was a weird game, the guy I played wasn't interested in talking at all , didn't really seem like he wanted to be there, didn't want to talk to me or speak or anything. He had an army of Mangler Squigs, Black Orcs, Savage Orks, some Brutes and some Grots. I tried to engage a bit and be friendly and he was quite aggressive and short tempered and the game was about as fun as rubbing chillis into my eyes. In the end I was in the ascendancy and looking like I would get the win, and the guy just said he didn't want to play anymore and shook my hand and walked off to Bugmans. I'm not sure what was wrong but I think there was something majorly up going on behind the scenes, because he had done the same to @Theslowcentury in their game previously, so I tried to fill out our score cards as best I could and put the disappointment behind me of having my one victory of the weekend taken away from me. I hope whatever went wrong for that guy wasn't too bad, and he gets over it. Would suck if someone had died or something bad had happened, you just don't know what's going on behind the scenes sometimes and after all, there's a lot more important things going on out there in our personal lives than pushing toy soldiers around all weekend.

 

Game 6 Take and Hold

Game 6 Turned out to be against my old Dwarven adversary again. I had to have a pint of Guiness with this one and it was a nice way to finish the weekend. I'm not even sure if it's legal to play the same guy twice, but after my last experience I just wanted a friendly game against someone who wouldn't shout at me or look at me like he wanted to punch me, so I gratefully took up arms again against Thorgrimm and Unigrim and the Throng. By this point I had been nicknamed "13" by the Dwarven stunties and we battled out our final grudge match to end the day on a high note. Again my movement choices were poor and I lost the game based on my movement. I learned a lot about how to deal with this type of army in future though and am confident next time I face something similar in how to deal with it.

I also found out that a thick heavy dwarven book of grudges exists, penned by the general of this very army that dates back through the ages of every major tournament and event this old Longbeard has attended through the ages , and that I had been immortalized and had made it in there from the Seeds of Hope/AOS open day event. I think this was possibly my favorite moment of the whole weekend and look forward to some more legendary battles in future if I ever make it back to the UK or any more events at WHW.

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So looking back overall, that was a great way to bring the curtain down on my time back home in the UK. In the space of 5 months I have managed to get my Mom through a life changing operation and help make her better, I set up a painting station and learned the basics of airbrushing, built, painted and learned to play various lists with approx 2.5k of pure Clan Pestilens down at Rygas and Exmouth IWG, and learned to play the rules of AOS competently to the point where I didn't need to constantly check the books or warscrolls , and was able to get a couple games off and learn from some of the best players out there at the home of GW in the first ever AOS competitive matched play event! How awesome is that?!

That brings a close to my chapter with this blog.

I will probably start a new one when I reach New Zealand and start back work at Weta, but for now I have to go get a new apartment, wheels, start a new job etc and get relocated to Middle Earth for a year.

I have Guardcon coming up in Auckland in 2 weeks time with @Tronhammer NZ. I hear there are numerous dudes all called James turning up so we might change the name to JamesCon which would be pretty cool!

Laters, and thanks to everyone I met along the way, it's been awesome and I kind of wish I lived back in the UK!

James McP. (the thirteenth James)

 

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James I love your positive attitude! I'm glad you can see your mistakes, best way to learn. I'm sure by next year you'll be a player to fear!

let me know if you ever make it to New England, I owe you a pint or 5!

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Great report James! Sounded like a lot of fun. Wish I could of been there. I have my first tournament very soon at the Facehammer GT. I say well done for taking a fluffy list and trying to make those pesky Pestilens work! Army looks great too - a really glowing green just like the guy on the battletome cover.

Edited by Percivael
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20 hours ago, BDJames said:

We have a great scene in Portland.  I hope you both make it here!  Check out Northwest Age of Sigmar on Facebook, as well as www.ordofanaticus.com which is the main local club and message board.  We have a 30 person tournament this October annihilation5.splashthat.com and this will be the first of many to come.

I'll defo look you up man! Will save your digits.

14 hours ago, Percivael said:

Great report James! Sounded like a lot of fun. Wish I could of been there. I have my first tournament very soon at the Facehammer GT. I say well done for taking a fluffy list and trying to make those pesky Pestilens work! Army looks great too - a really glowing green just like the guy on the battletome cover.

thanks man! Have a great time, that will be a good one! Yeah the battletome artwork was my inspiration good spot ;)

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Great write up. Glad you had a positive experience. I'll definitely be going next year then (maybe with Fimir if FW get a wriggle on...).

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Man do I love The Book of Grudges. I'm going to have to have one when they release the rumored Jump Pack dwarfs!

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