GRex

Great event! Thanks for running it @ScottR

Los Vegas is always fun, with the shows, restaurants, attractions and of course the drinking and gambling. For us though the thing that brought us to the town was Warhammer. Over a thousand hobbyists and players visited the convention hall to see, talk, and play their favorite tabletop games. For me that was Warhammer, Age of Sigmar. Battles in a mythical flavored world where the gods walk amongst men and send their chosen to fight for control of the realms. From Azyr the reforged of the God-King Sigmar and the old races of the lost golden age, have come out to pacify the other mortal realms. The dead and their Lord Nagash march out from Shyish. Raveging hoards of Destruction wander the realms looking for battle. Last the chosen champions of the Dark Gods gathered their forces from the mortal realms and blink in demonic forces from the realm of chaos. How did it go? There was a huge number of players for AoS this year. We had people from around the country, and even from around the world, come to play in our two events. The Doubles Event There was an amazing doubles event with a narrative theme. It drew 22 teams for a total of 44 players. They played in 3 rounds, using modified Narrative Battleplans. It was gaming fun with a story of two different forces coming together. The goal in the end was to bring reinforcements their into the Realm of Aqshy (Fire). The teams fiercely battled to gain dominance over the Ardor Plains by build an alliance with another force. Once forged they scoured the land looking for clues in the ruins of an ancient culture to find out how to open the silent realmgates in this barren area. As they looked the earth itself spewed forth molten rock in the unsteady plateau. Finally leading to a desperate struggle to open the Realmgate In the end the Wobbly Modelers (Bill Souza and Michael Vagenos) took the win. The Phalanx of Olympus took Best Hobbyist, and We Slay Dragons as Renaissance Man. However two buddies got to play three games together and that makes them all winners, in my book. The AoS Champions Event On Saturday and Sunday we had the main event of the ITC AoS season, the The Warhammer:Age of Sigmar Champions event. Contenders played four games on Saturday in a true test of skill and stamina. That’s 2.5 hours Times 4 rounds for 10 hours of games played. I was tired just watching them. Tzeentch had a strong showing, of course and many tried their hand at piloting the new Nurgle. The Stormcast were also present in good number. For a complete list of who brought what look up the event on the BCP App. After seven grueling rounds the field settled down to the eight top players. As predicted 3 of the 8 were Disciples of Tzeentch, generaled by Joe Krier, James Thomas, and Tony Moore. The other armies were Oliver Gandouet with mixed Order, William Soehaili with Fyreslayers and allied Kharadron Overlords, Sam Valdez with his Bonesplitterz, Bill Souza with Nurgle list heavy on plague monks, and finally Andrew Standiferd with Stormcast, Vanguard Wing. When the dust settled Andrew Standiferd stood alone, undefeated. Out of 93 players he wasthe only one Not to lose a game. James Thomas was in second, with Tony Moore in third. Declaring himself, Tony Moore from the UK scene, as the international bridesmaid after his third place position. Andrew Standiferd is the back to back winner of the LVO AoS event. I know James and Andrew played their respective lists over and over again. I’m sure Tony has done the same. Chad Graham’s Order army won Best Hobbyist (to the left). It has an amazing Alarielle model with several Frost Phoenixes painted in stunning blues. Mike Scaletti with a tenth place standing and a stunning Khorne monster and Judger list took Renaissance Man (to the right). With LVO now behind us it is time for all of us AoS players to think on our new lists for the season to come. Again, after a year long season, we will meet at the LVO. There hobbyist and generals will square off for the top positions. Some in our own factions or sub factions. Others reaching for the overall top positions and team standings. With every event like this one, it’s my fervent hope that it brings more people into the hobby and strengthens our overall community. This game has several majors now in the United States and I was happy to be part of it. —Scott Reed—Losing the realm, world, or galaxy, one battle at a time. View the full article

Check out Scott R’s latest… View the full article

On July 8th and 9th 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

About two months ago I organized and ran an Age of Sigmar Demo event at Kingdom Con in sunny San Diego. I wrote most of this article a couple of weeks after the event and paused right when my schedule got out of control. Now I am revisiting this article with the perspective of also seeing the results of community engagement. With the amazing help from my buddy Rob from our Wednesday AoS group I feel we put together a great event. Kingdom Con is a four day game convention that hosts The Broadside Bash, paint classes and judging by CK Studios, tons of tabletop gaming space, and a vendor hall. For the demo Rob and I volunteered from Friday through Sunday. We reserved 2 tables to lay down mats, terrain, and armies. Rene, the head of mini tabletop games, gave us prime space right in the main hall between the vendors and The Broadside Bash. Also, we had prize support in the form of a raffle from At Ease Games! I am going to group the rest of my musings by: what was required to run a large demo of AoS, the pro’s and con’s of running a demo for 3 days, how to measure success of a demo event. For the demo Rob and I decided on bringing our painted models themed from the Start Collecting! lines. The idea was to show you can play a game right out of the box and have fun while showing off the hobby a little bit. Between the 2 of us we had 8 armies that mirrored the Start Collecting range. I printed up the warscrolls and 4 page rules books for each army and put them in a packet for players to use. I also worked part time driving for Lyft to earn some extra cash for 2 FLG mats from Frontline Gaming and 2 tables worth of terrain. It was totally worth it, not only it look great for the event but now I will always have the terrain and mats to use again. I also bought a few cheap measuring tapes from Wal Mart and already had a ton of dice. Finally, we had cards and flyers for our league night, social media groups, and website to hand out to participants and anyone who stopped to say hi. Running the demo from Friday through Sunday had its pro’s and con’s. First the pro’s. Running the event for three days gave plenty of time for people to come and see us and play a game or two. If it was just one day we definitely could have conflicted with Kingdom Con member’s schedule and never had time to interact with interested AoS players. I will say we did get a majority of our players Friday night and a steady stream all day Saturday. Sunday was almost a bust due to very low attendance but still got a couple of games in. As I mentioned before, we were given very good floor space. The table and terrain with models out got a lot of people to at least stop and say hi and exchange information. One of the primary cons was that Rob and I couldn’t really participate in any of the events over the weekend. Waves of interested players came by during peak hours and we were never sure if it was safe for one of us to be gone long enough to demo a different game. It shouldn’t be a big deal but was frustrating on Sunday when we really didn’t get many players. It was also tough being in the next room over while all your AoS buds are getting their tournament on, but got to have a beer or two with them. As far as measuring success I went in with the attitude that getting anybody to play would be a success. By the end of the weekend we had 16 people sign up for our raffle, they had to participate to sign up, and about a half dozen more who we know did not want to sign up for the raffle but played with us as well. For me that was a huge success. There were some people who wanted to try it out because they wanted to feel out where 40k was heading but for the most part there was genuine interest from all who participated in either getting back into the hobby or starting from scratch. In the end I know we have a couple of players from the demo that now join us on Wednesdays. Furthermore in the last couple of months our regular turnout rate has doubled. I believe it has been our positive community involvement, not just at Kingdom Con, but on social media and at our local store that has recruited more players. Final thoughts: Next year I think I will just run a demo on either Friday or Saturday. I do feel we need more AoS events at next year’s Kindom Con other than the demo and GT. By displaying various ways to play such as a team event and narrative event on top of what we did this year I feel we will grow our community even more. View the full article

Welcome back to another edition of our Community Player Spotlight series. This time around I am interviewing one of our top players, Tyler Hamil. Since it did not come up in the interview, I would like to congratulate him again for taking 2nd overall in last years ITC rankings. Enjoy! Name (Nickname): Tyler Patrick Hamil (SlickKid) Club: I have learned through the Age of Sigmar community that you don’t necessarily need to belong to just one club. I have become friends with players all over the world and consider anyone who plays or has an interest in playing Age of Sigmar already in the club as far as I’m concerned. I have been known to bounce from club to club every event, so who knows . . . I could be a Chupacabrah from the greater Los Angeles area or even a SoCal AoS member. But never a WSD member; those guys are butts. They slay my Dragons. Hahaha Home FLGS: My interest in Age of Sigmar started at the GW Portola Plaza location in Mission Viejo the day AoS was released, but I really elevated an interest once I found out my beloved Bretonnians were in the General’s Handbook. Though, I have been known to roll dice at locations all over Southern California such as Comic Quest in Lake Forest, CA, the GW store in Tustin, CA or even Brookhurst Hobbies in Brookhurst, CA. Gaming Bio: My best friend from 8th grade invited me over to play after school one day and showed me this magazine called the White Dwarf. I fell in love with everything Warhammer 40K especially, Imperial Guard back in 3rd Edition. He got me my first box of Catachan Fighters and invited back over to play after school. All I remember is that I got wrecked. Things haven’t changed since then. Hahaha In High School I attended Games Day put on by GW and that was the year they released Sisters of Battle. I fell in love!!! So I packed up my Imperial Guard and solely played Sisters of Battle until the release of 7th Edition taking 6 years off from the hobby in between. After the drop of 7th Edition, I packed up the Sisters of Battle too. I was about to quit the hobby . . . Remember that rumor years ago that the entire Bretonnian and Beastmen lines were being discontinued??? Well . . . to my benefit, the year I graduated from grad school I picked up a Bretonnian collection pretty much for free and I fell in love again with the hobby again! I played a few months of Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition and continued to play them up to today with their latest and greatest update in Age of Sigmar!!! Why Age of Sigmar?: Age of Sigmar offers a little something literally for everyone! Seriously, the cognitive effort it takes to build a list or better your appreciation for the aesthetic appeal in the hobby by painting or just sitting down, making new friends & family and rolling dice . . . these are all fantastic reasons. As someone with a fine art background, I grow to appreciate Age of Sigmar in that regard by seeing the sheer talent everyone has within them expressed through their armies. But my favorite thing about Age of Sigmar is the friendliness within the community – going to an event and playing with new friends and people from all over! What is your favorite thing/experience?: My favorite thing about the hobby is attending Age of Sigmar events big and small. It is an incredible opportunity to go and play against people you have never met, rolling some dice and gaining new friends through a game like Age of Sigmar. What army are you playing now?: I have always been a Bretonnian player and always will be at heart, but I have taken a recent fancy in starting up the Order Draconis. What can I say? . . . I have a thing for all-cavalry based armies! What are your future AoS plans?: I plan to hold onto my Bretonnians and play with them from time to time – maybe even help out the community by building an unofficial Battletome for the noble Bretonnia! In the meantime, I will slowly build out my Order Draconis and Free Peoples armies. Anything else?: If you ever happen to make it out to an event in Southern California area hit me up. It would be great to get a game in and roll dice! Hopefully, I see you all at SoCal Open in Del Mar, CA in October! View the full article

As the lead blogger for the Age Of Sigmar Community team I thought it would be a great idea to recognize and interview members of our local gaming community. For our first interview I reached out to one of my favorite AoS players; Frank DeLoach. Frank and his clubmates are top notch players and amazing members of the community and I couldn’t think of anyone better to start with. Without further delay here is the interview: Name: Frank DeLoach Club: We Slay Dragons (W.S.D. for short) Home FLGS: Games Workshop Portola, Mission Viejo CA Gaming Bio: Got into tabletop gaming in the 6th grade. Started with like 3rd edition 40k… back when Necro, Battlefleet, Gorkamorka… all that stuff was out. Took a long break through most of high school and some college. Then picked it back up about 6 years ago.. seriously only the past two. Why Age of Sigmar?: Club mate of mine Ryan introduced me to it. It’s just so elegant & smooth game. Feels super modern. From the easy to learn, difficult to master aspect. All of the armies play super differently from each other.. really I think this is a great blueprint for people to rip off hahaha. What is your favorite thing/experience?: Going to events.. period. I love playing at the club. But, just this past year I’ve made so many friends from around the country that I’m just always excited to see. It’s really the first time that I’ve instantly felt like it’s a nation wide family. Everyone is top shelf. Especially getting to know some of the dudes from GW HQ. What army are you playing now?: Khorne Bloodbound! But I think technically I play Mortal Blades of Khorne hahaha that sounds silly. Blood Bound, Blood For The Blood God! What are your future AoS plans?: Hmm… Right now, I’m deep into getting my Mortal Khorne finished for Broadside Bash at the end of the month… after that? Deamons!!! Just like, so many Deamons. I would like to do 2k of Khorne Deamons. Also been tossing a Nurgle idea around for a bit.. who knows, depends on how I’m feeling I guess! Really the next army isn’t a big thought in my head right now, I want to get my Bloodbound dialed in… I’m going for a top ten overall finish at the ITC & Top Bloodbound this season. Anything else?: Yeah, check out our club’s Facebook facebook.com/wsdgaming and check me out on Twitter WSDFrank. View the full article

Saturday was the Spring At Ease Carnage, a one day Age of Sigmar tournament in San Diego California. It was hosted by one of our local FLGS’s At Ease Games and run by our superstar TO Scott Reed. Not only was this a super fun time but it also served as prep for a two day GT in San Diego called The Broadside Bash at the end of April. Scott has been working on tuning The Generals Handbook’s matched play scenarios to include secondary and tertiary objectives. This approach is very similar to what I experienced at Adepticon. For the tournament I decided to go back to my Stormcasts. I had one game of prep with the new Battletome and wasn’t too sure what to expect. My list is as follows: Leaders Lord-Celestant (100) – General – Command Trait : Staunch Defender – Stormcast Eternals – Artefact : Obsidian Blade Lord-Castellant (100) – Mystic Light : Lantern of the Tempest Lord-Relictor (80) – Artefact : Spellshield – Prayer : Bless Weapons Units 5 x Liberators (100)* -Warhammers – 1 x Grandblades 5 x Liberators (100)* -Warhammers – 1 x Grandhammers 5 x Liberators (100)* -Warhammers 5 x Judicators (160)* -Skybolt Bows – 1 x Shockbolt Bow 5 x Judicators (160)* -Boltstorm Crossbows – 1 x Thunderbolt Crossbow 10 x Paladin Decimators (400)+ – 4 x Starsoul Mace 5 x Paladin Protectors (200)+ – 1 x Starsoul Mace 5 x Paladin Retributors (220) 3 x Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins (80)+ Battalions Thunderhead Brotherhood (80)* Hammerstrike Force (120)+ Total: 2000/2000 I put the The Lord Castellant and Lord Celestant with Staunch Defender with the Retributors every deployment. This creates a mini death star and the Retributors gain synergy from the Celestant’s +1 to hit and get their armor save pumped up to a 2+. The Hammerstrike Force has a unit of 5 Protectors and 10 Decimators. I put the Prosecutors in the Celestial Realm and pray to Sigmar the come out by turn 2. This is obviously my main damage dealing/objective grabbing portion of the army. The Thunderhead Brotherhood is my anchor. It contains what would probably be my compulsory battleline as it stands. Spending an extra 80 points to give them the ability to re-roll wound rolls of 1 seems worth it to me. For the tournament I had 3 great games. It included a rematch against a well tuned Clan Skryre list. Game 1 was probably my worst case draw. The scenario was Three Places of Power and I had 3 footslogging Hero’s with 6 wounds or less apiece. I was matched against Ryan and his forces of Destruction. Within the list was a Kunnin Ruck with 30 Arrow Boyz. He also had 2 Frostlord on Thundertusks and a Frostlord on Stonehorn. I can tell Ryan was worried about the Hammerstrike Force as he bubble wrapped his Thundertusks and Stonehorns. This deployment hamstrung his movement for a turn but he was still able to cap two objectives by the end of turn 2. By my turn 3 I was finally able to get an objective but the game was already well within Ryans favor. My Stormcasts were able to deal a TON of damage but I was not able to clear the objectives fast enough. Ryan won a well deserved victory. Game 2 I was matched against Nick and has nasty Clan Skryre list, the scenario was Blood and Glory. I bubble wrapped my Thunderhead Brotherhood around my Retributors and Hero’s. Again I put the Prosecutors in the Celestial Realm. Unfortunately by bubble wrapping the majority of my army in one spot I created a kill box I could not swing my way out of. The Hammerstike Force did some work and went around trying to hold on to objectives but in the end it was not enough for all the mortal wounds of Nick’s rats. My final game was against Jason and his forces of Khorne in a game of Escalation. My deployment was pretty straight forward. I focused my forces on two objectives and held the Prosecutors in the Celestial Realm. I was done deploying first and chose to take the first turn. In my movement phase I was able to get the Prosecutors out and my paladins down within 3″ of Jason’s front line. This was crucial because he had not yet planted the Bloodsecrator’s banner and his army was not immune to battleshock. My Protectors charged a unit of 10 Marauder Horsemen and my Decimators rolled box cars and I was able to snake my way all the way to the Bloodsecrator, large unit of Bloodreavers, Skull Cannon, and Bloodletters. I popped the Bloodsecrator, Skull Cannon, and ten Bloodletters. The Bloodreavers and Marauders lost some models in combat and a few in the battleshock phase. This turn one deployment of the Hammerstrike Force not only killed a bunch, but held Jason up in his deployment for 2 turns allowing me to secure 2 objectives for the entire game. The top three finsisher of the event were: 1st Place: Sam Valdez – Destruction 2nd Place: James Sutton – Death 3rd Place: David Rogers – Death Great job guys! I would like to once again thank Scott and At Ease Games for such a great event. And as always this would not have happened if we did not have such a great community of players! Greg Rex @xGrexx View the full article

Great write up man. Glad we met!

Fantastic, I appreciate you sharing your list with me and greta blog post! You are absolutely correct about The Glotkin being a trap. I typically have to chose to keep him out of combat to keep his command ability or commit him to my opponent's high save warscrolls. Once I lose him my damage output gets severely diminished. Without damage potential and lack of mobility I have a hard time grinding out victories with my current list.

@Thomas Lyons funny you ask. I just got done listening to Warhammer Weekly and when you described what your list did I thought it sounded a lot like mine. You even kind of confirmed it with David who I played game 2. I don't recall seeing your army out but from what I remember from this week's episode you were running Sayl, 20 Warriors of Chaos and Blightkings in a Plaguetouched Warband. Buffing the large unit of warriors then launching them forward with Sayl. The ability to project a large block of super sticky warriors into my opponents line would definitely improve my list competitively. They cannot be ignored as they can take objectives but are almost impossible to clear out in 5 rounds. Were you also running The Glotkin? Also, I am leaning toward a list that is more mobile and has rend. I love the show and thanks for the feedback!

I just played with the roster. It is VERY hard to keep The Glotkin and the Nurgle Rotbringer Battalion and take warscrolls outside of 'mortal nurgle' with out breaking the battline requirement.

@ThundercakeI have but I like using them as a decoy/tarpit. I focus The Glotkin's two spells Fleshy Abundance and then Mystic Shield on them. They go up to 3 wounds and get a 3+/5+ save. They are actually one of my faster units too. In my opinion I would consider dropping Bloab for lightening cannons.

@Thundercake I updated my article to replace sideboard with display board, I must have had 'sideboard' stuck in my head as I was writing. The picture with the the army on a 2'x2' dark board with the green water running through it was the board I created. (The pictures are so big when they migrate to the TGA blog lol.) Some people, me included, created their display boards because it was part of Adepticon's soft score. Others created them because it is part of their hobby. From what I understand display boards have been a big deal in the midwest for some time. After creating mine I am certain display boards are now part of my hobby as well, whether or not their are part of a soft score. My number one goal when creating my list was resiliency with damage potential with synergy from The Glotkin. With Mortal Nurgle you sacrifice speed, shooting, and mortal wound output. On the traditional 6 games from matched play this army performs very well holding objectives in my deployment zone and grabbing objectives midfield. What it is no good at is getting objectives in my opponent's deployment zone and having to split the army up. The Glotkin adds an extra attack to all units within 14". This gives my Blightkings a chance of of rolling a 6 to hit rom 2.5 out 15 chances to 3.33 out of 20 chances. There is nothing better with this list than to roll 4 or 5 6's and watch them become 20+ hits, wounding on 3's, re-rolling 1's (Battalion ability). Once I lose The Glotkin's synergy my plans generally go down the toilet. After playing this list for about 4 months now I will probably retire it. I am usually assured to get get a major victory as long as I don't have to move very far. Otherwise I grind out 5 battle rounds with a decent chance of getting a minor victory. If I want to place in the top 3 at a major event like Adepticon I need a list that can get a Major win every time I play.

After a little more than a month after going the Las Vegas Open I went to Chicago to attend my first Adepticon. I was under the guise of visiting friends and family for a week while fitting in the Age Of Sigmar Championships Saturday and Sunday. My list was very comparable to what I brought to the LVO. The biggest exceptions being there was no sideboard, and my Chaos Spawn is now exclusively keyworded Tzeentch. Three days before adepticon I banged out 10 Chaos Marauders to replace the Spawn along with making a display board. My list was as follows: Allegiance: Chaos Leaders The Glottkin (480) – General Bloab Rotspawned (260) Lord of Plagues (100) – Artefact : Chaos Runeblade Rotbringers Sorcerer (100) – Artefact : Beguiling Gem Units 5 x Putrid Blightkings (180) 5 x Putrid Blightkings (180) 5 x Putrid Blightkings (180) 5 x Putrid Blightkings (180) 10 x Chaos Warriors (180) – Hand Weapon & Shield – Mark of Chaos : Nurgle 10 x Chaos Marauders (60) – Axes & Shields – Mark of Chaos : Nurgle Battalions Blight Guard (100) Total: 2000/2000 As I mentioned before I also created a sideboard. I know my painting skills aren’t that strong and army paint/appearance was 20% of the overall Adepticon score. Making the sideboard, to me, was a new challenge to get more points. I also felt creating a sideboard was a must due to the amount of time other participants would be putting into it themselves. Creating the sideboard was super fun and relatively easy from a technical standpoint. I think from now on I will create one for every army I do. The TO, Alex Gonzalez, did a great job of taking missions from The Generals Handbook and building on them. Points were scored from 0-30. You got 20 for a major win, 15 for a minor win, 10 for a draw, 5 for a minor loss, and 0 for a major loss. You then had seven secondary objectives to choose from and use once for 0 or 6 points; and tertiary objectives scored either as 0, 2, or 4 points. Over the course of two days I played 5 fantastic games. My battle score results were: 30/0/20/11/25. Rather than break down the 5 games I have some takeaways about my list, mistakes I made, things I saw my opponents do, and general ramblings: My games 2 and 4 were against two Nashville area players Davin Griffin (finished 6th) and Cale Thompson (finished 13th). Both games were based off of Blood and Glory. I tried slightly different tactics each game. Game one I pushed my whole army forward as I had a bad experience of getting blown off my own objectives at LVO… David had two super mobile monsters that capped my objectives and ended the game early. Against Cale I turtled on one objective and moved a flank forward to get his objective. I was able to get one of his but still lost my two for a minor loss. Whenever I break my focus into 2 it usually goes bad for my army list as I start losing synergies. David and Cale are super technical. I was very impressed with their pre-measuring and understanding of threat ranges. They should do a video tutorial on it for sure. ALL of my opponents had better looking armies than me! I wasn’t embarrassed by what I brought but these guys blew me away… along with most of the participants of the tournament. I need more time to meditate on it, but my initial reaction to the one day tournament guys getting mixed in with the two day guys doesn’t quite seem right. I single bad matchup for a two day player against a one day player on Saturday could spoil the weekend. I definitely need to bring a SoCal buddy with next year for the team tournament! I didn’t sign up for much at Adepticon but do feel I missed an opportunity to spend time with the community by not staying at the hotel. It was great putting Twitter handles to real names and faces. I met some guys I have had conversations with on Twitter and the TGA. Adepticon was a blast. Every tournament I attend I learn something new about tournament play and gain appreciation for different scoring systems. I am already working on list ideas for next year. Adepticon Age of Sigmar Championship results: http://www.adepticon.org/?page_id=11298 Greg Rex @xGRexx View the full article

Were there any soft scores used such as painting and sportsmanship?

With the release of Age of Sigmar in the summer of 2015 we saw a fracturing of our community. Players moved on to other games, quit wargaming all together, or embraced the new AoS system. This fracturing carried over to some of our favorite podcasts. Some started covering other games, quit podcasting, or stuck with the new edition of Warhammer fantasy. Some of the old guard that are still with us and include Garagehammer, CanHammer, HeelanHammer, Facehammer, and the Bad Dice podcasts. For me, not only did they hold the community together, they embraced and promoted our hobby on a whole new level. It has been great to listen to their excitement for Age of Sigmar and truly appreciate their contribution over the years. Having so few podcasts dedicated to AoS left a void for many of us. Especially during our hobby time. A few episodes a month, that were on average 2 hours long apiece, did not give us enough to listen to. I have a TV next to my hobby desk but would much rather listen to news and rumors, hobby tips, battle reports, and game fluff. And I wasn’t the only one. From this void emerged a group new podcasters and new AoS podcasts. For many of them it is because they love the new game and wanted more podcasts themselves to listen to. The ones the I most frequently listen to are: Rolling Bad – A trio from the wastelands of Albuquerque, New Mexico. They have unofficially been dubbed the North American tournament podcast. Bill, James, and Elric regularly put on a great episodes. They have well thought out tournament ideas, meta analysis, and really promote the hobby as a whole. Scruby and Wells – Tyler’s podcast is definitely a thinking man’s podcast. He goes down intellectual paths often asking the “why?”, why play Age of Sigmar? He regularly has had special guests on and has great coverage on Sylvaneth. The podcast’s website also has great resources for all things AoS. Battleshock: An Age of SIgmar Podcast – Boss Hoss is a veteran podcaster and it shows starting with his first Podcast. This show focuses on growing the community and hobby tips. Recently there was an a whole episode dedicated to voice actors doing a narrative within the mortal realms. Super excited to see if that goes anywhere. The Mortal Realms – Another trio, these guys do a great podcast covering the fluff and playing Narrative games. While that is their passion they also cover events and tournaments that they attend as well. They are also instrumental in recruiting Narrative Event Organizers or NEO’s. Frontline Gaming: The Ninth Realm – Frontline Gaming has regular podcasts covering their business, Warhammer 40K, and Age of Sigmar. The Ninth Realm is their weekly AoS podcast with Reece, James, and Scott; and are focussed on new releases and upcoming tournaments. Frontline Gaming also runs the ITC standing so they are your one stop shop for checking out upcoming sanctioned ITC tournaments and standings. All of these guys are true hobby and community heroes. They create content for Age of Sigmar player and hobbyists to listen to and enjoy. Whether it is promoting events, giving hobby tips, keeping us updated, or reading us some of the narrative there is something for everyone. I know there are more podcasts out there hope to have the time to listen to them some day. Fortunately I now have the audio coverage I need to fill my spare time thanks to these guys. Please check all the podcasts out and give them a review! Greg Rex @xGrexx View the full article

As some of you may have noticed Age of Sigmar in the Southern California area has been booming since the end of last year. On March 3rd we had two one day RTT’s in the area garnering over 20 players. Since January of this year there have been a total of 8 one day tournaments. On top of that we had the Las Vegas Open which many of us drove to attended. It is my opinion that the rise in popularity of Age of Sigmar in Southern California can be attributed to 4 things (on top of The Generals Handbook). They are; our Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS), the Independent Tournament Circuit (ITC), Tournament Organizers (TO’s), and of course the players. Southern California is cursed by the high cost of owning a home. As such, many of us do not have a garage or basement to play in. We are, however, blessed to have fantastic FLGS’s that provide us with plenty of gaming space and terrain. Some of these stores immediately embraced AoS while others were tentative but eventually came around (most likely due to a spiked interest after the release of the GHB). Many of our stores promote league nights and meetups, and are very willing to host tournaments and work with the community to create awesome events. You can find a comprehensive list of the FLGS’s that support AoS here: http://www.socalaos.com/forums/topic/socal-game-stores/ The ITC is a tournament organization run by Frontline Gaming, famous for their Warhammer 40K standardized tournament pack and ranking system. Shortly after The Generals Handbook was released an AoS ranking system was created but no rules or FAQ’s were released by the ITC. The game is currently promoted to be played as written by Games Workshop. Additionally tournaments can be run using the Best Coast Pairings app where players can sign up and TO duties of creating pairings based off of Swisse Points is automated. I think that the ease of use, competitive atmosphere, and brand recognition is a great benefit for our community. I alse feel that the ITC has the potential for gamers to gain recognition and validation through the ranking system. Next up is our our TO’s. These guys spend a ton of their personal time setting up events. Whether it is meeting with FLGS’s store owners, creating social media promotions, getting on forums, or gathering terrain and prizes there is a lot of logistics work that goes on behind the scenes. There is a lot of stress that goes into being a TO. Many times they do are not sure how many players will actually show up until the day of. Despite all of this they still keep putting on events and they get better every time. This in turn keeps drawing more players to the events which creates more interest for the next event. Finally, there is our player base. I would like to start by saying that the Age of Sigmar community in Southern California is awesome! We have a super active Facebook group called SoCal Age of Sigmar that allows us to share ideas, hobby updates, and schedule meetups from Ventura to San Diego. I can’t speak for everyone but I know I look forward to my Wednesday league night and weekend tournaments. Age of Sigmar is a great game but it is even better playing with such a great group of people. Whether it is hobbying, playing matched or narrative games, and talking fluff we have something for everyone. If you have made it this far please check out the Home page to see all the upcoming events in Southern California. We also post on Twitter regularly @SoCalAoS. Cheers! -Greg Rex @xGrexx View the full article

@Odiamh, I just got up to speed your Building a Community series. I feel liking having great scenery as a great goal. I was just thinking of this yesterday participating at a local one day AoS tournament. The event was at a local FLGS and they provided 4 tables with store scenery. The TO and another volunteer brought some FAT mats and scenery and created 2 extra tables outside to accommodate 12 players in total. The tables with the game mats and great looking scenery seemed to get a lot of attention by people passing by. It also looks great in pictures on social media promoting our club. I have spoken to our main TO in San Diego about the issue you are having. As a club we meet at our local FLGS where tables, mats, and terrain are provided. (I know this is a blessing) What we want to start doing is organizing tournaments and narrative weekends outside the game store. The biggest setback is terrain. Meetups painting terrain models, flocking trees, and cutting hills is a great start. The problem is funding for the supplies required. One idea we came up with is to start charging a little more for entries into the tournaments and making a transparent fund used to purchase terrain pieces. Our second idea was fundraising. Either through creating club merchandise and selling it or having 50/50 raffles with prizes attached at our events. The biggest hurdle is accounting and making sure the "poisonous" members of the club don't dictate where the money is spent. Hopefully you meet your club's goals. I look forward to following your blog in the future.

I have now had two weeks to recover and reflect on the Age of Sigmar GT I participated in at the Las Vegas Open. Frontline Gaming partnered with Games Workshop and really put on a hell of an event. FLG even had their new battlemats, forest scenery, and a boatload of GW terrain on hand for some epic play areas. The event ran Saturday and Sunday, each day consisting of 3 games from the Generals Handbook. (As it turned out we played all six scenarios in order.) I had 6 amazing games with most coming down to the final round or when time ran out. Before I go over my games I want to cover my list. The tournament pack called for a 2,000 point list and an optional 500 point sideboard. In order to use your sideboard you and your opponent rolled off before deployment and alternated setting warscrolls into the side board and bringing a warscroll into your main list. My theory was to use 400 points of Plaguebearers and a Herald of Nurgle to swap out with the Glotkin and Chaos Spawn in case I played a high mortal wound dealing army. Main List: Leaders The Glottkin (480) Bloab Rotspawned (260) Lord of Plagues (100) Rotbringers Sorcerer (100) Battleline 5 x Putrid Blightkings (180) – Mortal Nurgle Battleline 5 x Putrid Blightkings (180) – Mortal Nurgle Battleline 5 x Putrid Blightkings (180) – Mortal Nurgle Battleline 5 x Putrid Blightkings (180) – Mortal Nurgle Battleline 10 x Chaos Warriors (180) – Hand Weapon & Shield – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle Units Chaos Spawn (60) – Mark of Chaos: Nurgle Battalions Blight Guard (100) Total: 2000/2000 Side Board: Leaders Herald Of Nurgle (100) Battleline 20 x Plaguebearers Of Nurgle (200) 10 x Plaguebearers Of Nurgle (100) 10 x Plaguebearers Of Nurgle (100) Units Total: 500/500 As it turned out I never used my sideboard but should have used it once. For my first game I was paired against Levi and his Stormcast Eternals in a Warrior Brotherhood battalion. From experience this is a hard army to beat but I got lucky drawing Take and Hold as the first mission. For all 5 turns I was able to turtle on my objective and slowly kill more Stormcast Eternals then he killed of Nurgle. In the end I won a Minor Victory. Game two I was paired against Casey and his Death army. We played Blood and Glory and we each split our forces in two. I think both of our plans were to try to take each others objectives, my only caveat was to hold Casey’s army in the center of the board if I couldn’t get to his objectives. Casey’s Ghoul King on Terrorgheist and Neffereta were able to each blow past my line and land charges on my right and left flank objectives respectively. Over the course of a few turns I had to piece meal my army back onto my objectives to prevent them from getting taken but in the end lost to a well played Death army. I walked away with a Major Loss. The last game of the day was against Matt and another Death army in a game of Escalation. This game ended up being a bloodbath on the center objective as most of our forces collapsed on the objective. I decided to take first turn which proved to be pivotal. I immediately took all three objectives and scored 3 points. Matt’s turn 1 he took back 2 objectives and got two points. The next two turns we kept going back and forth taking objectives. By the end of turn 3 we were tied and Matt was slowly gaining control of the center objective, but time ran out. In retrospect had that game gone the distance Matt was on his way to keeping two objective from me and probably would have won by one or two. Because we were tied when time ran out we calculated for the Minor Victory and I slightly killed more points than Matt. The next day I was paired against Anthony and his Beast Claw Raiders. He had a whopping 11 models, 2 were on Stonehorns and 2 were on Thundertusks. The scenario was Border War. I was done deploying first and said I wanted to go second. Anthony then talked me out of it because he was certain, and was right, that all his units would make the charge turn 1. I really appreciate him letting me change my mind and taking the first turn. I was able to move out and cap 3 objectives. Then Anthony went… not only did he easily get his charges off he also did 12 mortal wounds in the shooting phase to The Glotkin and killed him off in the first combat. For the next 5 turns Anthony leaf blowed me off the objectives and ended up boarding me at the end of turn 5. He asked me, and he was right, why I didn’t use my Plaguebearers. My rational when I deployed was I wanted to have The Glotkin on the table to have enough damage output to deal with the Thundertusks. What I should have done was take the higher model count/mortal wound ignore on 5+ and hunker down on two objectives frustrate his 11 model count army. Despite getting shellacked this was a super fun game for me will make me a better player in the future. Game 5 I was matched against Fred and his Skaven in a game of Three Places of Power. This was one of those games you knew who was going to win before the first dice roll. Fred had three heroes on foot and they all had 7 wounds or less. I deferred turn 1 to Fred and he ran his entire army forward. That set up a bunch of charges for me turn one and all 4 units of Blightkings got into combat and mercilessly killed tons of rats. By turn two I had 3 heroes on all 3 objectives. Another setback for Fred was that most of my Battleline were -1 to hit. This negated his high number of attacks and he was forced to feed his army into a meat grinder. After 5 turns I had won a Major Victory. My sixth and final game was against Ryan. The scenario was Gifts From the Heavens. I was super excited to play Ryan as he had Tzeentch army and was using the new Battltome Disciples of Tzeentch. The new Tzeentch dice mechanic was super interesting and added a new wrinkle to making decisions. Most notably he had a Lord of Change within 12″ of The Glotkin and I had to choose to target either the Lord Of Change or a unit Marauders. Ryan had 6 sitting in his pool so if I got the shot off on the Lord of Change he would most likely have used that 6 for the save instead of rolling a 6. Or I could have played it safe and shot the Marauders. I elected to shoot the Lord of Change with the intention of making Ryan use his only 6 (I failed to wound lol). In turn 3 I got a charge off with my Chaos Warriors that put me within 6″ of Ryan’s objective contesting it. A single turn with your objective being contested will almost always seal your fate in Gifts From the Heavens. We were able to finish out turn 4 before time was out and I ended up with a Major Win. It was super fun playing Ryan and a new army! In the end I played 6 awesome games. It was super cool to have Games Workshop running and streaming the event live on Twitch along with the LVO hosts Frontline Gaming. Finally to top things off I was in the running for placing in the top 3 of the inaugural season of the AoS ITC. I went 4-2 in the tournament getting me enough points to squeak into third place. Special thanks for Best Coast Pairing for making an awesome app both for TO’s and now for players. http://frontlinegaming.org http://bestcoastpairings.com View the full article

This is a great idea. The Southern California Age of Sigmar scene has really picked up since the ITC started tracking tournaments. I have played in 6 sanctioned events at 4 different LFGS's in the last 4 months because of uptick in regularly scheduled events. Also, we went from having 6- 10 player turnouts to hitting the 20 mark earlier this month. It gave our local TO's the confidence to schedule a GT this summer.

@pez5767This group still active?

Yesterday was the last Age of Sigmar tournament for me prior to the 2017 Las Vegas Open. It was hosted by Game Empire Pasadena and jointly run by their staff and Scott Reed. The event used a similar rules pack to LVO’s. 2000 points with a 500 point sideboard from the General’s Handbook. Again I brought my Nurgle Rotbringer list led by The Glotkin and his Lieutenant Bloab Rotspawned. My sideboard had 500 points of Daemons of Nurgle but I did not dip into them for the event. For my first game I was matched against David and his Tomb King army. He didn’t have snakes but he did have tons of chariots! I deployed mostly in the center of my deployment zone. I have learned my army does better moving slowly (4″ movement for the Rotbringers) as a cohesive army and turtle over the objective when it drops in turn 2 rather than try to cover all three potential objective areas. Each deployment zone had a Chaos Dreadhold with gate wrapping around a table corner. I elected to go first on turn one hoping to bait David’s chariots into my Warriors of Chaos and Chaos Spawn. It worked out pretty well. He had a unit of insanely buffed chariots fly right into my warriors and killed the whole unit but I was able to pile in with a unit of Putrid Blightkings and return the favor. I found that by taking the first turn against very fast armies allows me to get The Glotkins very crucial command ability to activate. 20 attacks from 5 Blightkings is WAY better than 15. When the objectives landed in turn two David’s was in his open right flank and of course mine landed in the Chaos Dreadhold… where there was only really one way in. I was able to run Bloab in and get the objective while slowly running the rest of my army over to block the gates entrance. However, by turn 4 David was able to contest my objective securing him the victory. I had a small opportunity in turn 5 to charge Bloab across the board and contest David’s objective but he was able to kill The Glotkin standing on mine and capped both. This was a very fun game and the game was essentially decide by me failing to score one more wound on his one heros contesting my objective and his ability to get exactly 18 wounds on The Glotkin turn 5. My next game was against Frank and his army of Death. It was led by a Vampire on Zombie Dragon assisted by a Ghoul King on Terrorgheist, Vampire lord on Abyssal Terror, and Crypt Ghast Courtier. They led 3 units of 20 Ghouls and a unit of 5 Blood Knights. The mission was Three Places of Power so we both had a good amount of heroes to capture objectives. Again, I elected to go first and surged my army to the central and right flank objectives. Frank then blew my mind. He Charged his Ghoul King on Terrorgheist into a gap I had dead center of 3 units of troops and his Vampire Lord on Terrorgheist straight behind my line and into The Glotkin. His Abyssal Terror and Courtier went for the left and right flank objectives. Frank activated his Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon first. He did a good amount of damage dealing 9 wounds… then my jaw dropped. Being his General Frank gave his Vampire Lord the Allegiance Ability Red Fury. This meant he automatically got to attack again because he did more than 6 wounds. This time the Vampire laid The Glotkin to rest with a massive amount of wounds from himself and his Zombie Dragon. The Terrorgheist on the other had targeted a unit of Chaos Warriors that were buffed with Mystic Shield and Fleshy Abundance (an extra wound per model). I piled in on the Terrorgheist with 2 units of Blightkings and worked him down the next 2 turns. I had some luck in turns 2 and 3 against the Zombie Dragon getting a unit of Blight Kings and Lord of Plagues to finally take the beast and his master down. By turn 4 I had the center and right flank objectives secure and was in a position to kill the Abyssal Terror and cap the left flank. Realizing this Frank called it as I was quickly taking control of the board (Ghouls die fast to Blightkings) and he was out of heroes. I won 16-15. It was very tight despite my table control. For the final game of the event I was matched against Garry and his legion of zombies. I believe he had a Vampire Lord on foot, 3 Necromancers, 2 Mortis Engines, a Corps cart, a unit of Dire wolves, and an uncountable amount of 10 man unit of Zombies. The scenario was Blood and Glory. For the first time ever with my Blightguard I decided to go on the offensive and attempt to cap all 4 objectives. I felt my army was faster and did not want to get bogged down by zombies defending my deployment zone where their sheer number would allow them to steal the objectives away from me. The first turn was uneventful as we both shamble up the board. Gary did summon in a Balewind Vortex by one of his Necromancers and now had a 28 inch summon range for a 400 point pool he had left in reserves. Turn two Garry combined 4 units of zombies, summoned in 20 more into them , and got off Dance Macabre on them. Next he charged with an 11 and was able to get that single unit of 60 zombies in combat with 2 units of Blight kings. In his first activation Garry killed 3 Blightkings from one unit but the other only took 3 wounds. I activated the full strength unit of Blightkings and rolled 12 sixes out of 20. Sixes on a to hit roll for Blightkings become D6 hits. That turned into 50 something hits re-rolling to wound rolls of 1 per my Battalion and Gary had to make a little over 40 wound saves… he didn’t make many. Next he activated what he had left in that unit thanks to Dance Macabre and was able to kill another Blightking. Then the battle shock happened and the rest of the zombie unit fled. Between that and losing his Dire Wolves and a Mortis engine in my turn Garry conceded and we shook hands. He still had a lot of models on the table but I took out close to 1000 points in turn two and took the will to fight out of his army. David from my first game ended up winning a well deserved first! I ended up taking second overall for the event along with best sportsman (despite making a unit of 60 zombies explode on their charge) and Scott was awarded best painted by the staff of Game Empire. It was another great SoCal Age of Sigmar event and truly appreciate the event organizers and the players for coming out! View the full article

San Diego, CA The last At Ease Carnage drew 20 players. Totally looking forward to the next one!