Beer & Pretzels Gamer

Playing against Gutrot Spume and his Slime Fleet if nothing else had taught me to screen my back line. This time though I’d have my own unit coming out of Ambush in my Icebrow Hunter and a couple of Frost Sabres. The hope was that once the objectives came down I’d be able to steal one. With the back line screened off Nurgle overloaded one side. When the PBKs that came on with Gutrot made their charge they erased a unit of Mournfangs before they had a chance to fight back. While there was another unit of Mournfang over there with some Pusgoyles (proxied with Plague Drones), Gutrot AND Slimux all still waiting in the wings had the sense that I’d need to commit more to reclaiming that side. As the fully buffed FLoSH was closer (and we were playing the river halved movement making it even tougher to get units over there) the hope was the remaining Mournfang could hold out long enough for the gigantic “cavalry” to arrive. Meanwhile I committed most of my remaining forces to the middle, hoping to take down the main block of PBKs getting buffed by the Harbringer. Unfortunately, without Brand of the Svard and Black Clatterhorn just couldn’t put out enough damage. When the middle objective came down on the relatively open side I had hopes for springing the Hunter but I lost the priority roll. Nurgle had enough to summon 10x Plaguebearers onto that objective which, even worse for me, freed up another unit of PBKs to crash the party in the middle. That was simply too much for the second FLoSH to handle... At that point, in my turn I needed to clear the remaining Nurgle units out of my territory to free my fully buffed FLoSH up for another big charge to regain control of the middle and then some luck with where the remaining objectives fell. I cleared out the PBKs but that left Gutrot and Slimux as well as the now free Pusgoyles. If the objective came on the other side in my territory I could try and hold it with my Frost Sabres and Butcher and maybe I’d get some luck with the final objective in being abl3 to spring my Hunter. It was not to be... The objective in my territory fell right under my FLoSH while Nurgle’s fell in the center. When a Nurgle won priority they charged in the Pusgoyles, Slimux and Gutrot to pin my FLoSH. The rest the pulled back onto one of the two objectives. They even summoned a screen of 5x Plaguebearers just in case I tried something sneaky with my Hunter... With Gutrot stealing my best attack could only kill him and one of the Pusgoyles. With the center objective being slightly less well defended tried to charge my Icebrow and Frost Sabres in there but no luck. By the end of my turn and thus the end of R3 I didn’t see a path to victory and conceded. That made the score Nurgle 2 / BCR 1.5 over the four rounds we’ve played. Between the higher starting model count (increased by Summoning) and fewer things dying early this game did play slower. Still hopeful to finish out with the 2K match at some point but we have another potential plan percolating...

Sincerely hoping so. About to start an Escalation League vs Orruk Warclans and Ogor Mawtribes with a Blisterkin based FEC list. (I’ve already run Gristelgore and really hoping to expand my FEC opportunity set. Think challenge will be not reverting to a “Blistergore” style list (i.e. going heavy on the RTs or RZDs). We’re starting at 1K and growing by 250 pts each round. Guessing from get go will be facing a Mawkrusha or a Frostlord on Stonehorn so any thoughts or advice greatly appreciated.

For our gaming group this is it. But even one step further. While the GM will always take into account player interests and desires when we are playing narrative it is understood that the GM has final say on the actual lists that are played. They “earn” this right by (a) ensuring that lists are reasonably balanced and (b) that the lists are narratively consistent. Of course the GM would immediately lose this trust if they gave themselves an advantage but in general as long as the GM is committed you’re more likely to see them go the opposite direction. Certainly list building isn’t an aspect of the game that should be completely ignored. But nearer tournaments we play plenty of matched play lists where this is emphasized. And for us that’s what it really has to come down to. If you’re playing narrative you’re playing it for the sake of the narrative, NOT to prove you can min-max the best list. But fully willing to say we’re lucky there. Our group’s most recent narrative (Khorne Mortals vs Khorne Daemons competing to see who could secure the most skulls for the skull/throne and blood for the blood god) was disrupted by Covid and our game streams have been more one off and/or escalation set ups. The positive is, again, these style games let our players flex their list building and competitive muscles. But hope is whenever in-person gaming becomes more practical players will be excited to play narrative again.

Having had the “fun” of regularly going up against PBKs (with Rend from Blight Cyst and the Harbringer’s CA aftersave) and their exploding 6s I concur that they have to be in contention. Plus I find they provide a very versatile foundation as I’ve seen them stacked with lots of other options from the 3x GUO Thricefold Befoulment to units with Pusgoyles or Plague Drones and even comboing with another Nurgle Battleline, plaguebearers, for a nice Hammer & Anvil style. This also means they are rarely, if ever, inconvenienced by the battleplan.

As “awesome” as a me against all comers dynamic might be 😏a lot of the fun of AoS comes from experiencing a variety of different play styles. Sure, we could get some of this from changing up the armies more often but realistically this diversity best comes from playing against a variety of different opponents, each with their own playing personality. To achieve this we had to test “concierge” play. Would the gaming Cage work with two remote players and myself as a 3rd party moving all the models? We tested this with a 1K match between Beasts of Chaos & Nurgle playing the GH18 version of Shifting Objectives. (The North-South orientation works better on our board than the East-West orientation in recent GHs.) Kept the terrain relatively simple with one objective kind of boxed in by some mountains and forests with the majority of the board an open plane. If asking asking for clarification was key when it was me vs a remote player with two remote players it became absolutely vital. With a lot of Ambushing and Summoning making sure stuff was coming onto the table the way the player intended was key. This was compounded by there being a lot more models on the table than any game we’d previously played. This significantly upped the difficulty of things such as pile ins. The most obvious result of this combination of factors was that while we had been getting through 4-5 rounds in 2.5-3 hours pretty consistently in our BCR vs Nurgle Escalation League, despite higher points, we were well past the 3 hour mark when we called it we’d just rolled for the primary objective to start the 4th round. Based on where it fell it was hard for one if the players to find a path to victory. Anyway game kicked off with a 4 making the center objective the primary objective. BoC went first and ran their Bestigors onto the primary objective and then ambushed Bullgors onto the Southern objective and more Bestigors and the Beastlord onto the Northern. In their own movement phase Nurgle would advance towards the middle and the Slime Fleet would land in enemy territory capable of threatening both units of Bullgors. Failed charges would mean not as many Nurgle units would get into combat R1.2 but in the South and the Center Battle was joined. Both conflicts would go reasonably well for Nurgle leaving them with an advantage re:those objectives they sustain the next two rounds. Which ended up being big as in both R2, R3 and R4 despite the promise of the Battleplan’s title, the primary objective did not move on a rolls of 4,4,3... (For Ss& Gs we did a proxy roll for R5 and it finally landed in the North). Thus even though BoC was able to establish dominance in the North on their next turn they would be having to find ways to get enough units with enough punch to the middle the rest of the game. Nurgle would summon Plaguebearers to screen one of the passes and threaten the Shaman and Bullgors in the East with the freed up Southern units. BoC nonetheless would force the fight in the middle. Ultimately though they lacked enough punch to get the job done.. With a significant VP lead at the end of R3 for Nurgle, and Nurgle winning initiative meaning they’d rack up more before BoC could try any last minute Hail Mary BoC conceded. The positive takeaway is that “concierge” games are viable which means that we can consider a broader Escalation League, one-off matches when an infrequent player can drop in, or even a mini tournament. Another takeaway (reconfirmed with a second BoC game last night) though is that Elite builds are far more robust and scalable in this dynamic. Honestly can’t imagine trying to get 2K worth of BoC around the table (plus Summoning) in anything resembling a timely manner. So as we look to “next steps” we are zeroing in on an Elite Meta. Still ironing out the details but in the interim we’ve got two more games scheduled this week. The first is the 1.75K game in the BCR vs Nurgle Escalation. The second is another 1K BoC exhibition match, against a Bloodgullet list this time.

The tokens mark each of the potential landing spots for the objective. With Starstrike the middle one falls at the beginning of the second round. The other two fall at the start of the 3rd round. Conveniently the line on which those two fall also marks out the initial deployment zones (12” from enemy territory). Again, probably overkill for an in-person game but incredibly helpful when streaming.

After being literally knocked out of football I played golf senior year of high school and through college. If you were like me, a bogey to double-bogey player on average you hit 90-110 shots in an 18 hole round all for the 3-5 shots that you’d remember. That 300 yard drive you had that miraculously landed in the fairway, even if you mangled your approach and three putted. That approach shot from the rough after a bad drive that landed on the green and gave you a shot at birdie, even if you choked leaving your first put a foot short and your second put a foot long. That 16’ put you nailed to save par after barely making it onto the green with you third shot... It is those shots that you remember that get you back on the course after you’ve sworn off the game having just put three consecutive balls into a water hazard. This... this was like hitting a hole in one. And I say that even though I was on the wrong side of it. I was playing the Frostlord on Stonehorn. I rolled 10 for my charge but only did 3MW. That left the Beastlord with two wounds. I activated my FLoSH first and he was fully powered and had Brand of the Svard Artefact plus Black Clatterhorn Mount Trait so I knew I had a solid set of attacks coming up. For fun I tried first to punch him out of the game. Two landed, enough to kill if both go through but with no Rend he easily saved. Fine, onto the Frost Spear. With three damage I only need one of the two Wounds to go through and with -1 Rend the odds are in my favor. No dice though as he rolls 5s & 6s. Not sweating yet as I roll 3 attacks with my Crushing Hooves. All three go through! But again he rolls 5s & 6s!!! Suddenly the Everwinter is not looking favorably on me as ONLY ONE of my Horn attacks go through... But it’s the -2 Rend so only a 6 keeps the Beastlord alive. Surely he has used up all of a Khorne’s favor in the last three Saves?!? Nope, Khorne smiles and he gets a 6. The Beastlord lives to fight another turn. -x-x-x- I’m obviously telling this game out of order and as far as this Blog goes I need to go back and cover the previous game given its importance to Zoom League’s operation but having just finished this game I just couldn’t wait to get this post done. Going back to the beginning we were playing the GH20 Starstrike Battleplan at 1K. I was running Boulderhead Beastclaw Raiders and my opponent was running Darkwalkers Beasts of Chaos with the Brass Despoilers Battalion. BoC had fewer drops so I’d had to deploy with a bubble around my FLoSH ( having learned the hard way how frustrating it is when he doesn’t get his a Charge off) as best I could with limited drops in case they went first and Ambushed units to try for 9” Charges. No luck though as they had me go first. I did my best to advance up the table so no matter where the first objective landed I’d have a chance at it R2 while doing my best to maintain my bubble. In their turn they positioned a set of Bullgors on the Western landing sight but instead of using their first Ambush to “pop the bubble” they instead used it to “claim the Eastern potential landing site. They would charge a unit of 10x Bestigors into my Huskard and 10x Ungors into my Mournfang (we were proxying Gnoblars fir those looking closely...) as well as summon 10x more Ungors. His Bestigors degraded but did not kill my Huskard while you Mournfang killed most of his Ungirs with the rest fleeing in Battleshock. At the end of Turn 1 we rolled the landing site and I got lucky that it came down in the middle... I was less lucky when my opponent rolled the double-turn. With the ability to Run & Charge they were able to get the Eastern flanked Bestigors into my Frostlord (few four unit bubbles can withstand a double turn...) and they teleported some Bullgors close enough to have a 10” charge into my FLoSH, which they made. They used the Ungors they summoned last turn to screen off my Mournfang. On the other flank their Bullgors charged my Gluttons. Only the Beastlord failed their charge... The Bullgors did some damage to my FLoSH but not enough to degrade him between good saves and his Stone Skeleton wound negation. I overcommitted to wiping the Bestigors, killing them off with 5 Wounds to spare with my Horns, leaving only my Frost Spear and Punches & Kicks for the Bullgors. That was enough to kill one and Wound another. (I’d finish that one off with my Frost Sabre in a later activation but that still left my FLoSH pinned with 1 surviving Bullgor.) The other Bestigors got my Huskard down to 3 remaining Wounds but in a rare case if the exception that proves the rule he actually dished our a decent amount of damage, killing enough units to allow Battleshock to clear a few more. After the game my opponent realized they could’ve popped the Brass Despoilers once per to help Bullgors & Bestigors reroll all failed Wound rolls. Not sure how big a difference would have made for FLoSH given saves and Stone Skeleton as I also had the CP to a Dig Deep My Heels and ignore the damage when making my attacks. But could’ve made difference with Huskard. <Corrected from initial post after opponent confirmed it was NOT Beastlord CA but this one he forgot> All in I had to be happy with where I was at when my turn in R2 started. The Grasp of the Everwinter rolls were amazing for me and I cleared the surviving Bullgor, freeing my FLoSH to make a normal move. My Hailstorm went off killing the remaining Bestigors around my Huskard who healed himself via both his Mount Trait and his spell, getting back down to 6 Wounds taken. He was now free to move as well. I was hoping to charge my Mournfang into the Great Bray Shaman on the Bailwind Vortex but they only had enough when I rolled to get into the Ungors. My Huskard made their charge into the Bullgor. And my FLoSH charged the Beastlord, setting up the combat this post started with. Fortunately I killed off the Bullgor and the Ungors so all-in-all I was in great shape heading into R3. Both of the objectives fell in the East. My opponent won the initiative again and went first setting up a last stand on the Eastern Objective in their territory with the Great Bray Shaman and summoned Gors. The Beastlord’s luck ran out though and died in the R3.1 combat phase. When it was my turn I had the choice of staying simple and just claiming the objective in my territory and in the center likely with little chance that anything could knock my FLoSH off the former nor a significant probability that I’d lose the middle if I plopped my Huskard, Frost Sabre and remaining Glutton on the middle objective. That would still let me charge my Mournfang into his Shaman and Gors, and if they survived he’d pretty much be stuck there in R4 while I collected VP. But I went for the more fun approach moving everything I could towards his last redoubt (though I did position my too far away Frost Sabre so, if necessary, it could claim the objective in my territory and the solo Glutton would similarly be in position to claim the center objective in R4 as well. My Huskard would fail the charge but get in range to Shoot at the Shaman, wounding him enough that he’d die on my Frostlord’s Charge. The Mournfang would kill all but one of the Bestigors, with a single model left on the table my opponent more than graciously conceded. -x-x-x- Ultimately this one for both of us was about learning. On my part a lot of the consideration was around the Huskard, They’ve dropped in points and this game I got about as much as I’ve ever gotten out of one of them with all but one of my prayers going off and the Shooting Phase going as well as it has since the nerf. While I again whiffed their melee R1.2 they didn’t some melee damage in R2.1 and then god charge damage in R2.2. I’m still not sure that even when it’s about as good as it gets, even at the lower cost, that it is worth it? But after this game I can’t completely dismiss the unit. For my opponent as much as the Battleplan theoretically favored Darkwalkers mobility their sense was that Gavespawn may have been better in this game. There was also debate regarding whether the aggressive play going after the Huskard was worthwhile? Post-game seeing how close they were to killing the Huskard (with the probability increased had they used the Brass Despoilers once per) and how much damage the Huskard did manage to achieve this game I’m guessing in 3 out of 5 tries the gambit would’ve paid off and then they could’ve been more patient in other aspects of the game. But I’d acknowledge it is a tough call. -x-x-x- And of course part of the learning process always relates to the mechanics of Zoom League itself. Laying out and clearly labeling all the potential landing zones is probably overkill for an in-person game. (NOTE: before the game started we decided to remove the tower you can see in picture below.) But in a remote game it was very helpful and a major time saver. A side benefit was that the lines and markers also helped visualize the Herdstones range.

Just have some yarn. Have used it for enough different battleplans now that I usually have the right size available. Was helpful in-person but great in this context.

With proof of concept the big question was - What’s Next? With scheduling issues for one player and still working out logistics for some of our other previously regular players the two of us that could schedule more regular games set out to play an mini-Escalation League between Nurgle and Beastclaw Raiders. Neither of us had been thrilled by our beta test 1K build so we both went back to the drawing board. Nurgle proxied in a couple of Plague Drones as Pusgoyles to give their list a little more movement while I swapped my Thundertusk Beastriders for a Huskard on Thundertusk and his Everwinter Prayers. We played GH19 Total Conquest. Without Rend the PBKs struggled to take down the bigger BCR Monsters but some cold rolling for the Frostlord and the Harbringer of Decay’s Command Ability left stuff a little too jammed up in the middle. This resulted in a tie on VP as neither managed a breakthrough, even with Gutrot and the Slime Fleet popping up in the backfield. BCR took a minor victory by killing off more of Nurgle’s points than they lost. This stalemate would’ve been discouraging if it had been one of the Beta Tests but it played fast and Nurgle knew with the point jumps they could add in the Blight Cyst Battalion and get the Rend that had been sorely missing in the 1K matches. And with the points jump for BCR knew I could add some bodies to give me a little more flexibility in maneuvering for objectives. I’d also be bring a Butcher which meant the Mawpot was now in play. This time we were playing GH20 The Blade’s Edge, which immediately became one of our favorites. The power of choosing which objectives got removed was potent enough that when Nurgle won priority rolls in later rounds they gave up a double-turn to be able to remove objectives from BCR’s territory. This was a tactic that proved effective enough to put the game away on VPs even before they knocked most of the Ogor models off the table. With a major victory Nurgle was now ahead 1-0.5. With another points increase though BCR was able to roll out Double Frostlords on Stonehorn as well as a Butcher and a Slaughtermaster. While Nurgle was able to load up on PBKs and try out Slimux the set-up for GH20 Forcing the Hand made Nurgle separate his big blocks of PBKs with the result that only one group got the Harbringer’s buff. Nurgle’s deployment difficulties were compounded but the Slime Fleet entering from the back corner and then failing their charges which allowed BCR to basically ignore the first few rounds. Still, despite these advantages for BCR it took some very bad rolls for the Gnarlmaws and the Blessed Sons exploding PBKs (back-to-back ones when all that was needed to take the last wound was a 2+...) and some strong saves and shrugs from the Frostlords to keep them in the game long enough to secure BCR a major victory on VPs. Hopefully we’ll be able to complete the cycle with games at 1.75K and 2K but the scaling so far highlighted two BIG reasons why the “Zoom Meta” almost necessitates Elite armies/lists. To start with even at the beginning Elite lists just have fewer models to move. This is vital given the dynamic of remote players. But arguably equally or more important is that as points go up damage goes up without being diffused. Getting every model into combat with a Horde unit is rare so there is often a big differential between the theoretical damage output and the practical reality can be huge. In contrast typically you’re goin* to get both a Mournfang in and barring creative model removal ALL of a Monster’s attacks almost be definition will be eligible (overkill can be risk). The net was even though we were starting with more models by rounds 3 or 4 we were still down to the numbers we’d been at in lower pointed round as concentrated firepower was removing models at a faster rate. And keeping matches at the ~2.5 hour mark is a practical priority for this dynamic. Again, that is a very different meta than our in-person games where in early games Hordes of Grots were common and even in our more recent games where loads of Khorne mortals were finding their way to the table. Not that we didn’t have elite armies as well (I was running Gristelgore last year at this time) but, pre-quarantinethe next Army we were expecting was Tzeentch. So clearly we were adapting to the new conditions.

While scheduling caused a few more delays we eventually lined up two Beta Test games. Both would be 1K with an emphasis on “the basics”. The first match was Beastclaw Raiders versus Nurgle. A simple two objective battleplan with minimal terrain did mean this was a bit of a race forward and smash each other in the face style match-up, though Gutrot Spume and the PBKs in the Slime Fleet did add a little flavor. Mostly what this one did was serve as proof of concept. Our second match-up was an Execution Herd-centric Legion of Azgorh against BCR but “1st page” of Battletomes and war scrolls only. (In other words no mount traits or Boulderhead sub-faction abilities but the trample and hungry/eating benefits for the Ogors while LoA got their Blackshard Armor buff...). Same battleplan but played different enough that we had conviction this wasn’t a fluke. There were two key takeaways though: 1) You Need an ABSOLUTE Direction System As anyone who has had to say “No, not your right, my right” knows a lot of the basic directions we use on a day-to-day basis can be unintentionally confusing because of the inherent relativeness of the terms. With the need to shift all around the table to move the models we needed something absolute to go with. So the top of the screen became North, the bottom South, the right-side of the screen East and the left-side of the screen West. Wasn’t always perfect (turns out it is as easy to confuse your East from your West as it is your right from your left, especially at the beginning, but after a couple turns everything was Running pretty smoothly. 2) You Need Trust & Open Communication Especially for the remote player’s movements you need a running dialog about what there intent was? For example, in trying to pile-in as many models as possible were they intending to activate (put pieces w/in 3” of an enemy model) that initially hadn’t been eligible? In completing a charge we’re they trying to “tag” both adjacent enemy units or just one of the two? In other words the in-person player should absolutely NOT be trying to create an advantage for themselves either by commission (i.e. moving an enemy model in a way that benefits them) or omission (i.e. not telling the remote player about a potential advantage or disadvantage that may not be easily evident from the God’s Eye view). The biggest positive though was that, despite our worries going in (and no doubt helped by the fact that we were only playing 1K), the game played very fast. We’d been prepared for a lot of slowness but after some initial hiccups turns weren’t taking much longer than they do in-person. This was a very pleasant surprise as it meant we could increase the points...

Of course at the time “everyone” was trying to by webcams to videoconference into work or for their kid’s remote learning. My original plan had been to use GoPro cameras as then, when hopefully the need for a Gaming Cage was no longer present, they’d have other uses. Unfortunately I ended up in a software update loop that hours with their Service Center couldn’t fix (basically it required a software update but until the software was updated it wouldn’t let me into the program I needed to get into in order to download the update...). Once I’d identified some webcams that I thought would work I ran into another technical difficulty. While our plan had always been to start at 1K on a smaller field once mounted we could see that the (now fixed focus) cameras couldn’t get the full 6’x8’ table into the picture. Showed way more of the sides than necessary but you’d lose 4-6” on the ends. Not a huge deal but with so many things these days coming onto the table 6” for the edge a potential complication. For now though we decided to make a bug a feature and played “sideways” which allowed for a 58”x48” playing area while leaving table space for dice rolling and “dead” models as well as an easier position for the computer we’d be using to coordinate all the cameras. A friend who had done some streaming recommended a particular software and a particular service and at first it seemed great as we quickly set up a three camera system (to which we hoped to add to). Unfortunately we again hit software problems as, despite the fact that we’d downloaded the software directly through the service we just couldn’t get the service to recognize the software when it was fully set up. We tried for a couple hours that first day and then again on another day just in case it had been a fluke with the server connection or something. No dice. Many of our local gaming group also have a movie night and we’d been doing a Zoom meeting discuss a movie we’d all watched every other week. It had been working well enough that we decided to try gaming over Zoom, though it meant dropping from a three camera set-up to a two camera set-up (God’s Eye plus a side view showing the player). With a quick camera test showing it theoretically worked we were ready to beta test.

We were in the middle of a Khorne-centric narrative cycle when the lock down started that we were using in part to learn some new armies that we might take to a friendly small tournament (The Battle in the Barn) between our local gaming group and another gaming group an hour or two down Route 90. Like a lot of people our initial perspective was to take a wait and see approach while focusing on the hobby side of the game in the interim. As it became more and more likely that our small tournament at the start of summer wasn’t going to happen and that in-home face-mask to face-mask games weren’t going to be practical anytime soon we started looking for creative alternatives. With the gyms closed I’d started hiking in the local county park. With relatives coupled up in Brooklyn I’d joked I was going to get a GoPro and livestream my hikes for family stuck in small apartments all day. While that wasn’t going to be a thing as I was hiking I started thinking up ways I could hook up webcams over a playing table to stream the game to other players. Fortunately I called my Dad up and he talked me out of some crazier designs into a simple “box” design to go over the table that would allow for both a God’s Eye (top down) view and plenty of other angles and shots if they proved necessary. I measured the gaming table I planned to use. I also measured the height of the ceiling fans that would be a major constraint to height in the spare room it would be set up in. 25+ years later my 8th grade industrial arts teacher would be very disappointed to learn that, after rigorous testing* to determine what size PVC pipe I would use for the frame I didn’t go back to my drawing and re-adjust to allow for the width. As a result, once built, the mid-frame was about 1.5” above the table-top instead of being flush. This is a little annoying but not devastating. The other design issue was that, for simplicity of measurement I’d put the support for the God’s Eye Camera dead-center. If I’d stayed with a GoPro that would’ve mounted easily underneath this would’ve been fine but when I switched to more traditional webcams this meant the side mounting biases the camera a little. After a few delays getting started actuallly working with PVC pipe and “furniture” grade couplings made the construction the easiest phase of the project. All I needed was a sharp handsaw to cut the lengths and (by design) I’d maxed out the number of lengths that were exactly the same so frequently as long as I got the first cut right I could use that one to measure the rest. In under 90 minutes I had a “Gaming Cage” set up in the garage. Unfortunately getting it built would prove a lot easier than getting it online... *By rigorous testing I mean I stood with the 10’ lengths straight up in the air and “shook” them to find the narrowest pipe that still provided enough rigidity for the structure... believe me this elicited plenty of strange looks. I settled on 1” which also helped because there was also a full range of couplings available and I needed some “non-traditional” joints.

Could try that. Ideal though would be something that would make it easier to switch from the God’s eye (top down) perspective to camera’s from a more traditional “player perspectives”

Both the tournaments I would normally play in are cancelled this year. With the situation in America so dynamic and uncertain our gaming group has been trying to rebuild by playing games over Zoom (though if anyone has a video conferencing platform recommendation that can incorporate more than two cameras easily I’m all ears). Our early tests have been successful and we’re slowly increasing the points on the table. Next step is to try a match where two remote players are playing against each other and I am just hosting (i.e. moving the pieces and running the stream). Early observation is that so far It is definitely biasing our new local “meta” towards Elite builds. Should see a BoC 1K match next week but doubt we’ll scale that to 2K and it is hard for us to picture two Hordes competing in this set-up. An obvious constraint is it only works for armies “onsite” so to speak. The big question is whether we can run a mini-tournament/league with this set-up or is it more amenable to say Individual Escalation matches vs the host and intermittent remote vs matches as things permit?

Just played that Battleplan and confirm that the choice it forces did cause my opponent to choose to go second in the second round to ensure they were able to remove one of my objectives. Before that we played Total Conquest from GH19 which gives you 2 VP if you take away an objective for an opponent and there are situations there were you’d prefer to go second to either get the double or where you want to avoid giving such an opportunity to your opponent. As regards basic game mechanics will admit to accidentally discovering one the first couple times I played. Didn’t read close enough to see that VPs were allocated at end of each players turn so we were only allocating at end of each round. That created a huge incentive to go second so you had better control of what the board looked like when scores were tallied.

With the successful beta testing of the new “Gaming Cage” allowing us to play games over Zoom two of us have started an mini-Escalation League that I am using to learn Beastclaw Raiders (set up works best for elite armies) and he is using to trial the new Nurgle sub-factions from Wrath of the Everchosen (specifically so far, Blessed Sons). For the 1K game I went with a Boulderhead list: FLoSH - GENERAL w/Lord of the Beasts, Brand of the Svard & Black Clatterhorn Huskard on Thundertusk w/Pulverizing Hailstorm and Blood Vulture 2x Mournfang 3x Gluttons Took a minor victory as I just didn't have enough units to contest the multiple objectives. In moving up to 1.25K took a Butcher to bring in the Mawpot and 20x Gnoblars because I’d never used them. He used his extra points to upgrade to Blight Cyst to give his three units of PBKs -1 Rend. Between that, the death explosions of Blessed Sons, a a critical failed charge roll early for me I disappointingly took a loss. Dropping the Gnoblars, as they just don’t work in this set up AND I think the Huskard on Thundertusk (as points wise I just don’t think I get enough out of him) as we move to 1.5K. Thought is to add another FLoSH. If I drop the Gluttons as well (at least until new points are released) can round out list with a Butcher, a Slaughtermaster and three units of 2x Mournfang. With the battalion he now has fewer drops and with Gutrot Spume he also gets to come in on an edge which has been frustrating my instinctual tactics so far. Think second FLoSH will help prevent him concentrating all his strength on my General but for 1.75K and 2K not sure which direction to go in...

Had second test of Game Cage last night. Sorry, no pics as it was a fun & fast moving game so I forgot to take any. Legion of Azgorh’s Execution Herd w/Daemonsmith & Magna Cannon back up against Ogor Mawtribe’s BCR style list with FLoSH, SHBeastriders, and a couple min sized Mournfang pack. BCR jumped out to an early lead but when all of the Execution Herd piled into the FLoSH even the strongest Stone Skeleton couldn’t hold up. Some bad rolls and bad choices saw too much of the Execution Herd emerge intact. Came down to initiative in 4th Round as Beastclaw could’ve put the game away on VPs if they’d gotten to go first or somehow managed to hold on for one more of LoA’s turns but good movement and some strong charge rolls that together got them across the board allowed LoA to take the win. Success of first streamed game might have been a fluke but smoothness of second game gives me confidence we can start scaling up both the complexity (played GH18’s Duality of Death both times for a simple battleplan and were not fully using all the options in the battletomes as we focused on getting the mechanics down), model count (we’ve been playing very elite builds) and eventually points (both matches 1K). Playing a more detailed battleplan and adding in more faction specific details for a Nurgle vs BCR match tonight. With a sure way to play giving me some conviction and motivation to get back to painting! Will admit that after the initial burst had slowly shifted towards just assembly and then stopped altogether. That may have had something to do with points uncertainty regarding regarding my current project...

Execution Herd to BoC, a la Tzaangors and Tzeentch. Rest to StD, a la Cities. Think sales of both improve.

Was a big learning experience. Hope is to eventually be able to use it for Battle Reports and Game Reviews but still figuring a lot of things out.

Finally figured out a workable streaming set-up for two cameras. Top down worked very well but would be good if we could get in some more side perspective cameras as well. Fun 1K game test run last night. BCR vs Nurgle on a 48”x58” table. Not much terrain either. Will want to run a few more games to build up the proficiency before bumping up to 2K on 6’x4’ but last night gave us confidence we can get there.

Decided to take my previous “shop class” comment a bit more literal. Designed and built a frame to comfortably go around one of my gaming tables. Objective is to attach multiple webcams (e.g. top down, “players view”, dice tray view, etc.) in order to be able to play games with friends still in lockdown. Will update after beta test...

Thanks. We were initially luke warm on the Agendas of Anarchy but while it might take a little setting up the Horrors-specific shenanigans were winning us over, as long as all the summoned and restored Horrors in that unit still got benefit.

Our gaming group hoping to resume playing as soon as reasonable and that will come with premier of Tzeentch. Tried looking through thread for answers to a couple of questions that have come up regarding the following list: Hosts Arcanum Heroes Curseling General w/Infusion Arcanum Gaunt Summoner of Tzeentch w/Glimpse the Future and Aspect of Tzeentch Artefact Gaunt Summoner on Disc of Tzeentch w/Arcane Suggestion The Blue Scribes w/Treason of Tzeentch The Fateskimmer w/Fold Reality and The Fanged Circlet Artefact Battleline 20x Pink Horrors 10x Kairic Acolytes 10x Kairic Acolytes 6x Screamers of Tzeentch 3x Screamers of Tzeentch Endless Spells Emerald Lifeswarm Balewind Vortex Aether-eater Host Battalion -x-x-x- Q1: Does the up to 6” movement for d3 units for the Command Trait Spell Hunters occur before or after priority has been determined for Turn 1? Q2: For the Tides of Anarchy Agenda, if accomplished by the unit of Pink Horrors do all subsequently summoned Blues and Brimstones (or for that matter returned Pinks from 1s with Battleshock or the Emerald Lifeswarm) count as 2 models or just the models that were there when the objective was seized? Q3: Similar question for the Reckless Abandon or Ninefold Dismemberment Agendas re: do all subsequent models summoned/returned get the +1 to melee attacks or +1 to Hit? With the number of Pinks potentially on the table want to be sure we’re thinking about this new aspect of the tome correctly in relation to them. Thanks in advance for the help here. Any feedback on list also appreciated.

While my primary purchase was Battle for Skull Pass I also purchased some other units at the same time in the hope of building towards a full army (as FLGS owner was honest that I’d struggle to find other players interested at just playing at the smaller scale of the box set, which was primarily thought of as a tutorial). So I had experience with putting together metal models. (In my second go I’ve also had a lot of experience trying to repair broken metal models...). Also, while a lot has converted over to plastic obviously there are still a lot of resin models in AoS and 40K so I’ve spent plenty of time washing, smoothing down, softening up, green stuffing and otherwise assembling those. Again, others’ experiences may be different and I’m sure there are better and worse plastic model designs out there. But in my experience at least, after he got one lesson on building at the FLGS I can hand pretty much any recent plastic kit to my (now 9 year old) and he can assemble a very nicely done model whereas resin (nonetheless metal) wouldn’t work out. Sorry to hear about your local gaming scene. Have heard similar stories but again, lucky to be in a thriving and growing scene personally. The last time I talked about the AoS 1.0 debacle with someone who lived through it (an all metal I believe Seraphon player) was at the local tournament where to my understanding the number of tables dedicated to AoS (while still less than 40K) had doubled over the last few years and there was still a waiting list to get in. Maybe today’s announcement will reduce the churn in 40K as at first blush they do seem to be learning some lessons from what has made AoS so much more successful in my area at least.

To get to the specifics of the question, apologies for jumping in with a tangent first, the price increases have spurred me to acquire some Blue Horrors for our gaming group sooner than I otherwise might. Original plan had been to see how practical it was to play two 20x blocks of Pink Horrors (which require in theory 40x Blue Horrors each) AND to see if the new GH changed the points cost any. With the price increase looming taking a better safe than sorry approach and pulled forward the purchase (hopefully if we decide we don’t in fact need them we’ll benefit from a little price arbitrage on secondary market). The price increases also are suggestive of high price points for the Sons (whenever they release) and as such the building of a sons army for our gaming group may be spread out longer than originally expected. Those most obvious changes I can think of re:AoS side.