Thomas Lyons

In this post I'm simply posting the beautiful collection of armies that were on display at Holy Wars this year. Holy Wars is a somewhat unique event in that only 2 awards having anything to do with gameplay (best general & best sportsmanship). The other 4 awards granted have to do with the hobby, including a Best Unit Champion award, a Player's Choice pick of favorite army award, Best Army award (from the judge's standpoint), and the Hobby Hammerist award, which is the highest honor offered and given to the army that epitomizes everything the event is about (i.e. hobbying, narrative aspects of army composition, etc). Each army can only win one of these awards once, so if you bring the same army back in subsequent years you don't qualify to compete for the awards you previously won (which was certainly fortunate for me). Unfortunately, I didn't get all of the armies present (but I got most of them). Regardless, on to the armies! And then finally, my army: In the next post, I'll cover my first match-up with Justin Smith.

It was brutal. Those stunties will arguably be the most competitively costed battleline in the game if this goes live as it is. The fact that they can gain deep strike and reroll all wounds for only 80 more points is frankly insane (and Kenny wasn't even running them in their most optimized form with rending pick and shield). I forsee many mixed Order forces using them moving forward at 60 for 5.

Pre-Event Warm-Up – Kenny Lull of Combat Phase podcast – Invasion of Ghyran [Table 1] I opened the event weekend on the night before the official event with a warm-up game with Kenny Lull of Combat Phase podcast fame. Kenny has been playing straight Fyreslayers since last year and was on track to get his 100th game of pure Fyreslayers during the weekend event. Kenny was also giving the new Fyreslayer points a test so I jumped at the opportunity to help him get to 100 games and try the new points out! We played on Table 1, which was the beautiful Invasion of Ghyran table with the stunning Tree of Life. Order was tasked with defending the Tree from my nurgly Horned Legion. The objective was to end the game with more models next to the tree at the end of turn 5 while there was a secondary objective of accumulating points from three grail objectives. The foot slog across the whole length of the table was a long walk for Nurgle. Luckily the siege was able to keep pressure on his force and continue to clear off the secondary grail objectives near him. He had two tunneling units of 25 Vulkites but I was running enough units that I was able to spread out and stop them from deploying anywhere behind my front lines. He wisely brought them up in turn three because I think I could have continued to spread my 30 man units out and potentially deny him the ability to bring either unit up at all. We had a pretty straight-forward clash right under the boughs of the tree but there wasn’t enough time to really widdle the Fyreslayers down enough, especially with 50+ battleshock-immune models with a ward save popping up late during turn 3. The game ended with a win for Kenny after a grueling fight. While I think some of the Fyreslayer point adjustments were needed, my suspicions about the new Vulkite costs were confirmed. I think 60 points is too low for 5 of those models. They should have stayed at 80 for 5, or only dropped to 70 for 5. While 70 would be unusual, Plaguemonks are at 70 points per unit for example. At 120 for 10, you would be getting the arguably best generic Battleline unit in the game with a potential 4+/4++ saves, 2 attacks per model, 4+/4+/-1/1, 5 mortal wounds on the charge, and the ability to deepstrike with a hero (for 80 points) that also grants wound rerolls. Oh, and they get to reroll one of their charge dice to land that 9-inch charge after dropping. Oh, and they have a short range ranged attack on all of this for a couple extra wounds per round. This is a discussion though for another post. The game was a blast and Kenny was a great opponent. I’m glad I was able to help him in his push to 100 games with pure Fyreslayers (right at almost the 1 year anniversary of the army nonetheless)! If these new points stick, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m heavily considering a FS army, or at least a meaty contingent for battleline.

In this post, we finish our survey of the stunning tables of Holy Wars 2017, including the floating earth motes of Azyr and the scorched crust of Aqshy. Table 11 –The Upside Down Battling in the warped reality of Tzeentch is ever changing and swirling in tremendous power. The Great Eye of Tzeentch is ever watching over the upside down. The main objective in this scenario is a series of take and holds of pillars strewn throughout the table, some pink, some standard. The pink points netted you 2 points per turn instead of the standard’s 1 point, but also did unpreventable wounds to your unit. The player at the end of the game with the most points won this objective. The grail objective was an escort style mission where players carried Grail tokens from the Black Pit of Tzeentch to the Eye of Tzeentch. The player to deliver the most tokens (there were three total) to the Eye wins. Table 12 –Death, The Next Step The devoted to Vlad still seek his power and leadership in the Age of Sigmar. His sacrifice during End Times has not been forgotten by his followers. This scenario was a take and hold of a central objective. Those garrisoning this objective, the tower of Vlad, could invoke the power of Vlad to do unpreventable damage to their enemies. The player who caused the most wounds wins this objective. The Grail Token objective was a trio of grail tokens spread throughout the table and controlling them accumulated points each round. This was a new board for Holy Wars 2017 and the zombie chapel was inspired! Table 13—Skaven-Hunger Games The Skaven unquenchable hunger continues in the new age. This scenario involved the raiding of the Windmill Grain Mill for resources but in order to do so, one had to first take a and hold the Clock tower and then their auxiliary (imaginary) troops would gather resources from the Grain Mill. The problem for the take-and-holding player is that this Windmill was sinking into the mire each turn doing unpreventable wounds to the garrisoning unit. To make matters worse, all of the pools across the table were an augmented version of deadly terrain that required a d6 roll if you moved or ended movement on them at all, with a 1 causing the automatic death of that model. The grail tokens, unsurprisingly, were strewn throughout this board in these toxic pools of death. Fun times for all. Table 14—Aqshy, Realm of Fire & Ice Chaos seeks to dominate the Realm of Aqshy and the powers of the Shifting Monolith ravages all. This scenario involved the manipulation of a Shifting Monolith. Players could control the direction of the monolith although the distance traveled was variable. As this shifting monolith traveled over units, it did unpreventable wounds to units it traveled over (including your own!). The player who accumulated the most wounds done in this way won this objective. Those near this objective did indeed gain a +1 to saves, which could certainly be significant in some cases. The Grail Token objective for this board were again a trio of tokens spread throughout the table and controlling them accumulated points each round. This was a new board for Holy Wars 2017 and what a beauty it was! Table 15—Azyr, the Realm of Heavens Those who seek the knowledge of Sigmar must brave the perils of a quest that will test their resolve as never before. Despite the wonderful detail of the Aqshy board by Herner, the real new gem in this event was the new Azyr board. This board was composed of a number of floating earth motes with Sigmar’s Occulus on the central floating island. Those near this objective could call Sigmar’s lightning down on nearby units. The player who did the most wounds in this way won the objective. The Grail Token objective for this board were again a trio of tokens spread across the table, underneath the earthmotes! The player controlling them accumulated points each round. This was the real gem of Holy Wars 2017 and people were clamoring to play on it. In the next set of posts, I’ll go over my individual matchups with a brief battle report on each.

In this post, we continue our survey of the tables of Holy Wars 2017. Table 6 –Nurgle-Drink the Wyrm Otto and devious sorcerer Ethrac, riding to battle on the shoulders of their brother Ghurk, quest for more blessings from Nurgle as they look to harness the power of the mighty Wyrmrid Reaches. This table had as its primary objective a kill-quest scenario where each player was looking to do more wounds to the resident monster, the Wyrmrid Reaches, than the opposing player. I provided feedback on it Friday night, and after some testing by some helpful attendees, it ended up being toned down from its 2+ save against shooting and 3+ against combat to a straight 4+. There were also 3 Grail Token objectives that head to be held: 1 in each of the starting zones and the final one within reach of the Wyrm. This of course was significant because every round the Wyrm did unpreventable wounds to all units within 8 inches based on how wounded it was, starting at a d3 wounds and scaling all the way to d6+3 wounds to all units. Table 7—The Great Maw Challenge Harbingers of dark months and dead seasons, the ogor tribes continue their assaults on the mortal realms. They fight not to conquer or dominate, but for sustenance - they are led by their bellies to their battles, and the victims of their slaughter are consumed, staving off the hunger briefly before the hunt begins anew. The primary table objective is a fight around a terrain piece with the army causing the most amount of wounds within an ever growing larger radius wins the objective. The scenario has three fixed Grail tokens in bonfires spread across the field (one in each starter zone and the last in a contested middle area away from the stone. Those too close to the bonfire similarly suffered unpreventable wounds. Table 8 –A Tangled Web The Arachnarok Spiders lumbering monsters of chitin and dripping fangs are scattered throughout the mortals. Death comes to those foolish to wander too closely. Deployment on this board is staggered with the terrain objective on the far end, outside of both deployments. The player with the largest number of models within 6” of the Idol of Mork/Gork gains the ability to call upon Gork and Mork, calling down either Gork’s foot or Mork’s gaze upon the enemy. The player that does the most amount of damage with these prayers wins the table objective. The Grail Tokens were miscellaneously scattered around the Arachnarok hole, where a sneaky Arachanrok would chew on nearby units camping the tokens. Table 9 – Lair of the Astromancer Celestial Order, continues to study the heavens to harness the magical power in the mortal realms. This board offered a unique take and hold scenario that included at least 6 buildings. One of the buildings was the primary table objective. All of the other buildings had the possibility of a Grail Token being hidden away in their depths, but this wouldn’t be discovered until after the game ended. The goal was to take and garrison as many buildings as possible, including the terrain objective. The roads on this board were muddy and greatly hindered movement as well. Table 10 –Tomb Kings’ Endless Desert The endless dessert continues to expand across the mortal realms. Heat and sand consume all that stand in it’s path. The main objective on this board was a model-feeder scenario where you dumped troops into the swirling sands at the center of the board in pursuit of the hidden city. When units touched the swirling sand a dice was rolled for each model: on a 6, they were removed from play and arrived at the secret city; on a 1, the model was slain. Surviving models teleported to a random quadrant of the board to set up again. This objective coupled with split deployment (each player got 2 opposing 1’ x 1’ squares in each corner) made for very interesting play. Additionally, at the end of the second turn, the Grail Token would randomly appear in one of the six panels of the board and, if claimed, would lock into place for the rest of the game. This was a very fun and strategically challenging board to play on. The full scenario rules can be found here, and the full table maps and terrain features (with rules) can be found here. In the next part, I'll cover tables 11-15.

By far the most stunning thing about Holy Wars are the event’s tables. From the Endless Deserts of Shyish to the verdant forests of Ghyran, you feel like you’ve stepped into the Mortal Realms when you sit down at a table. No detail has been ignored in the crafting of these scenarios. While many stock terrain pieces are present on these tables, most elements of these tables are handcrafted by Steve Herner and the love and care he lavished on their composition is obvious. There is not a single table that doesn’t entice you to want to explore it. Almost as enticing as the tables are the scenarios tied to the tables themselves. For this event, every single table had its own unique scenario. Some were attack and defend, while others were about slaying terrible terrors present on the board. No matter what table you were on, you could be assured that the table would be playing the game as much as either you or your human opponent were. For the hardcore competitive types, this event would surely be a problem because it was so very hard to plan things out in advance. Each game had 4 objectives: (1) a table objective [7 points], (2) a grail objective [6 points], (3) a secret objective [4 points], and (4) most-units-surviving objective [3 points]. Each table objective often had to do with a strategic piece of terrain that needed to be fought over. Every table also had Grail objectives that included 1-3 Grail Tokens that needed to be protected. These Grail objectives all also generated a buff within 6” that buffed all units (allied and enemy like) with things like bonuses to rend or attacks. For the secret objectives, there were five secret objectives and each player had to choose one before each game. Additionally, each player could only choose each one throughout the entire event so you had to make your selections wisely in any given matchup because you didn’t know what your next matchup would look like. The final objective was to have the most surviving units at the end of each game. So, on any given table, there were 10 moving parts, between scenarios, table effects, and your opponent. It was almost impossible to come into this event with a preplanned list/strategy because of all the moving parts. The Tables and Scenarios We’ll now briefly turn to each of the 15(!) tables and their associated scenarios. Table 1 – Invasion of Ghyran The Oak of the Ages has always been the heart of the forest and in the Mortal Realms the seeds sprout new life. Armies across the mortal realms seek to harvest the great power of the acorns. This is an attack and defend scenario with one of the forces attacking the tree and the other serving as defender. The defender of the tree got benefits (battleshock immunity and reroll all saves of 1) when immediately around the tree, which was certainly a huge perk for being forced to be stationary. The Grail Tokens on this table were spread around the tree in a triangle, one in the path of the attack and one on each of the north and south sides of the tree. This provided interesting cross-incentives because it pulled the defender away from the tree in order to gain points and it help the attack back from the tree as they would leave some troops to defend it on their advance. Table 2 –Temple of Khaine The search for the Sacrificial Dagger continues and blood will flow as armies seek to harness the dark power of Khaine. This scenario was a take and hold scenario with the Temple of Khaine in the center. The individual holding the temple could only gain points by sacrificing (unpreventable) wounds from their own units every round. The Grail Tokens on this table were likewise in a triangular pattern around the temple with one in each of the starting zones and another in the center of the table right near the entrance of the temple. Table 3 – Bugman’s Grudge Bugman’s Brew lives on in the new age fueling those who seek to gain power and knowledge from this legendary elixir. This scenario was a model-feeder scenario where you dumped troops into Bugman’s tavern to get rip-roaring drunk. Units from both sides could garrison the tavern but they couldn’t fight one another because they were too busy drinking, although they could in fact attack any units outside of the tavern. This led to people piling units into the tavern while hold units outside of the tavern to attack enemy units. Each turn there was a 50% change that 1d3 of your models in the tavern would pass out and be removed as casualties (could be selected from any of your units; these losses were total, not for each unit). The goal was to have the most amount of model loss to drinking at the end of the game. The Grail Token objective was hidden away in the mountains surrounding the tavern. Each player could send a unit into the mountains to search for the token. The first player to roll a 5+ find the grail token and it gets locked at the entrance of their mountain. This objective would quickly become a hold and defend objective once the token was found. Table 4 – Aelf, the Shrine of the Phoenix Anointed still wander the realms in the Age of Sigmar. A great power from ages past still holds power in the new age. This scenario was a take and hold very similar to Table 2 (Altar of Khaine), although instead of doing wounds to your own troops, a hero garrisoning the shrine would burn their enemies with the Phoenix Gaze spell (granted by garrisoning). The player who inflicted the most amount of wounds with the Phoenix Gaze spell would win the primary objective. There were three Grail tokens on this table as well, although I am not sure exactly where they were as I did not get a chance to play on this table. Table 5 –Favor of Sotek Lord Kroak ancient and venerable still seeks the power and blesssings of the mighty Sotek. This scenario was interesting because it set the table objective, which was a take and hold that caused wounds (or healing!) to your own troops, against the Grail Token objective, which was also a singular Token of take and hold. To make matters worse, each of these objectives were in one of the starting zones, so with each one a player would literally start on top of one while having to travel the length of the table to get to the other. So starting side was important, as was mobility. The full scenario rules can be found here, and the full table maps and terrain features (with rules) can be found here. In the next part, I'll cover tables 6-10.

I’m finally back from Holy Wars 2017 and what an experience it was. My birthday was on the Friday leading into the event so I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate it than spending a couple days rolling dice on beautiful tables. I’ll be doing a series of blog posts over the next couple days regarding the event, the armies, and the tables/scenarios. In this first blog, I’ll cover my own force and briefly discuss the event. When I decided to go to Holy Wars this year, I wanted to lean more into the hobby/narrative aspect (which is what the event is really about) and less into the competitive aspect. Vince and I took a hard-as-nails list to Holy Havok 2016 team event (where we tied for best overall) and I wanted to do something a bit different. So, for this event, I built my list out of models that were narratively compelling or aesthetically pleasing in my Horned Legion force rather than necessarily strictly competitive. For example, while I initially considered including a third set of 5 Blightkings in my force sideboard with my last 200 points, I decided to instead go with my converted Nurgle Warshrine. It is a fantastic aesthetic centerpiece to an otherwise heavy infantry force and it exudes the character of Ghur where the Blighted Legion is stationed in their keep of Mireguard. Each player was told to bring 2500 points although each game was only 2000 points. This gave me quite a bit of flexibility in deployment to customize my army to what I was staring down. This ended up being a much greater boon than I had anticipated. So the list I ended up bringing was as follows… 140 Harbinger of Decay - Harbinger Gulgath the Pustulant
 240 Be’lakor, Chaos Daemon Prince
 160 Sayl the Faithless
 120 Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Chaos Steed (Nurgle)
 180 10 Warriors of Chaos (Nurgle) w/Full Command – Handweapon/Shield 360 10 Putrid Blightkings
 180 30 Chaos Marauders (Nurgle) w/Full Command and Icon – Axe/Shield 300 30 Plaguebearers of Nurgle 300 Hellcannon
 180 Plagueclaw 200 Chaos Warshrine (Nurgle) 120 10 Chaos Furies (Nurgle)
 My standard deployment would be my four heroes (560 points), 10 Putrid Blightkings (360 points, either in two 5s or one 10), Hellcannon (300), Plagueclaw (180), and 20 Marauders (120), 10 Marauders (60), and 10 Plaguebearers (100) for battleline. This would leave 200 points for summoning either the remaining 20 Plaguebearers, Chaos Furies, or a mix of Plaguebearers and Chaos Furies. I ended up doing surprisingly well with this force in the matched play although my focus on the narrative/hobby aspect paid off as I was privileged to receive the event’s highest honors, the Hammer Hobbyist award, which is given to the player who embodies the hobby and everything the event is about (painting, narrative, etc.). It was a fantastic experience overall, and in the immortal words of anonymous Yelp! reviewer #87: "Five Stars - would do agin". In future posts I’ll do some brief game summaries, provide shots of all the tables/scenarios, and the attending armies.

Welp, I fully acknowledge I was wrong on this. I stand by the fact that this doesn't seem complete.

I think you're quite optimistic about that "leak".

This is not technically true until the new GHBII drops. The current GHB should likely stay in effect until a new GHB replaces it. Just because profiles aren't in the current SCE tome doesn't mean they are immediately illegal. The FW exclusive Stormcast isn't on that newest list and he has points and is legal in matched play. Things will likely only cycle out when they are formally not pointed in the forthcoming update. Alternatively, you might see a new section in the Compendium scrolls for Stormcast Eternals that includes these battalions (which could also be a possibility). More than likely though, with the new GHB2, these battalions will disappear. I'm not sure why people seem to be shocked by this. This is what yearly updates looks like: updated point swings based on current meta; phased out battalions; rebalanced Matched play profiles (battleline status, numbers, etc). This is what yearly updates means. Consequently, people won't be able to "buy" an army once-and-done and expect it to be playable using the same roster after a year. Point values will change and units will have to be added or taken away for it to be playable in matched play. None of this should be surprising.

I'm already questioning the leak. The absence of actual boss models suggests to me that the leak is either fake, or it in fact is an expansion for Silver Tower and not a true standalone (since it may require some miniatures from Silver Tower). While they could make boss monsters out of champ models for those units, this seems doubtful to me. This weird collection of minis (which are basically all derived from the box art) plus all the typos actually suggests to me that we're dealing with a fake. But we'll know pretty soon either way.

Thanks!

One of the steel doors on the Duardin Mobile Artillery Airship with Cannonadetm?

I used the wings off of the Sprites/Pixies in the Glade Guard/Glade Rider kits.

This information is based on the old battalion. I'll bet 10 bucks that this battalion gets updated to include the new heroes that have been released (similar to how the Tzeentch Changehost got updated to include the new horrors). Part of the reason for this consolidated release is to integrate later releases into the army. I bet we'll see that with this book.

So, back on topic. How long do you think it is going to take for someone to kit bash/sculpt halflings for our new CockCavalrytm ? Edit: Cockchargerstm maybe? Cockrid...nm.

Warhammer Weekly is a livestream YouTube show that is done by myself and @Vincent Venturella (who placed second in the community championship this year) each Weds evening. Each show is 1-1.5 hours where we cover news, releases, and talk about some element of the game or community. Each week we have a guest on the show from the community. Oftentimes it is a personality from the community like Dan Heelan or MC1Gamer, or one of the many Warhammer content producers. This week, Rob of Warhammer TV was on the show. Next week is actually our two year anniversary for the show. This week's show, which Rob was on, can be found here. The show is on Vince's Youtube channel, which can be found here. I also post new episodes on my blog here on TGA, and the link can be found below.

Agreed. I wish this would have at least been a Devoted of Sigmar release. Would have been x100 more interesting.

It was likely rushed as they needed to respond to the leaked image and control the narrative. Notice this dropped a couple hours after the grainy White Dwarf image.

It is a Kairic Acolyte. You can see it better in the full photo.

Looks like that art from the new WHQ was indeed the box art. In other news, apparently it already has a box. Rob said it was coming "soon" on Warhammer Weekly this week; maybe he wasn't joking ... From https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/1646

Here are the plague bearers in question: Thanks for the encouragement!

Daemonic reinforcements have arrived to the corrupted spires of the Mireguard, with still more on the way. Joining the ranks of the Horned Legion are the maliciously adorable Nurgle Chaos Furies (kitbashed) and the pustulant plague bearer horde. Keep your eyes open in the coming weeks. More is on the way in the coming weeks as well!

I just finished up my Nurgle Chaos Furies kit bashes and I'm super happy with how they came out. I'd love some feedback if people have suggestions. I'd also be interested to see what other folks have done with their Furies if they've likewise built some. Enjoy!