GRex

Yesterday was the At Ease Carnage tournament held at At Ease Games in San Diego. The event was run by our very own Scott Reed utilizing the upcoming Las Vegas Open tournament pack. The turnout was phenomenal! We had 20 players show up for the 3 round event. It was the largest Age of Sigmar tournament in the SoCal area to date. For the tournament Scott utilized West Coast pairings. This automated the matchup process along with Swiss scoring and ITC points. At Ease Games provided all the tables needed with F.A.T. Mats and tons of terrain. I ran with my Nurgle themed Chaos list for the tournament. My 2000 point list consisted of: The Glotkin Bloab Rotspawned Lord of Plagues (Chaos Runeblade) Rotbringer Sorcerer (Beguiling Gem) 4 units of 5 Putrid Blightkings 10 Chaos Warriors (Nurgle) Chaos Spawn (Nurgle) Blightguard Battalion I also had a 500 point sideboard: Herald of Nurgle 20 Plaguebearers 2 units of 10 Plague bearers For my first game I was matched against Frank DeLoach’s Destruction army. Our first scenario was Take and Hold. This was a super fun slobberknocker. Other than rushing my Chaos Spawn up the right flank towards an Ironblaster and Moonclan Grots our armies met in the middle. The fight came down to two components. The Glotkin and 5 Blightkings vs a Huskard on Thundertusk and a Thundertusk Beastriders; and 2 units of Blightkings with the Lord of Plagues, Rotbringer Sorcerer, and Bloab Rotspawned vs 12 Ogors and a Butcher. The Ogors were able to get a charge off into a unit of Blightkings but my Sorcerer popped the Beguiling Gem in the combat phase making them -2 to hit (Blightguard Formation confers an additional -1 to hit). This along with mystic shield kept all 5 of my Blightkings alive allowing them to attack back with a massive amount of attacks. My army receives an extra attack for being within 14″ of The Gotkin along with a possible +1 to hit with the Chaos Allegiance Ability. The other scrum saw The Glotkin take 12 mortal wounds in the shooting phase from the Huskar and Beastriders. The Huskar then charged The Glotkin but was unable to finish him off. I was able to pile in a unit of Blightkings along with The Glotkin and killed Franks general. The next couple of rounds was a slow demise of Franks Ogors and some unlucky rolls from the Beastriders (rolled a 1 for their mortal wound shooting and tons of misses in combat) allowing me to get to Frank’s objective and secure a major victory. Frank was a great opponent and super knowledgable and fun to talk to all things AoS. Round two found me matched against Nick Eisenhart and his Clan Skyre tunnelers. The Battleplan was Blood and Glory. I came prepared, or thought I did, for a deepstriking mortal wound dealing army. I swapped my Glotkin with my Nurgle Daemons sideboard. The idea was to use them as a meat shield along with my Warriors of Chaos that ignored mortal wounds on a 5+. I bubble wrapped myself in in the left hand side of my deployment zone. The idea being to push out and hold my objective along with the left flank objective. Turn one I summoned one unit of 10 Plaguebearers out near the left flank objective and marched my army out while preserving my bubble wrap. Then Nick tunneled his rats in. Without going through the play by play Nick slowly mortal wounded me to the point where I was unable to hold any objectives after 3 rounds. When I got my Blightkings into combat they did great. I had two problems though. First, by bubble wrapping my damage dealing units in behind my meat shield I couldn’t effectively kill rats fast enough to reach objectives in time to fend them off. Second, The Glotkin provides a ton of synergy. Losing an extra attack for all units within 14″ really stymied me. But, I think I did the right thing by swapping him with my sideboard (I mistakenly deployed my Chaos Spawn, it too should have been swapped with the Glotkin to keep my army at or under 2,000 points). Nick played his army and the mission to perfection for a Major Victory. My final fight was against Josh Greenfield. Josh brought a beautifully painted Flesh Eaters Corpse army. The Battleplan was Escalation and I went with my original list. Josh’s deployment had him going heavy on my right flank objective, he held all his Ghouls in reserve under his Battalions special rule. I deployed most of my army to contest the right flank along with a unit of Blightkings to grab the center objective and another to grab the left flank objective along with the Chaos spawn. Despite being 18″ or more from the right flank objective Josh was able to move in quickly with his 3 units of Crypt Flayers, Crypt Courtier, and Ghoul King on Zombie Dragon. As I expected the Ghouls came out near the left flank’s objective table edge. My plan was to slowly feed Josh units that can last a couple of combats to prevent his Ghoul tide from reaching the center objective while throwing most of my army at the right flight as I had the higher model count there and had no choice but to send The Glotkin and Bloab Rotspawned at the Ghoul King on Zombie Dragon. Having to deploy The Glotkin and Bloab 24″ from Josh’s deployment zone really hamstrung my plan as it took 4 turns to get The Glotkin into combat. In the meantime Josh and I were going back and forth on the right flank objective. In my turn I would secure the objective. In his turns he would clean out the unit that held the objective. The finger biting back and forth was super fun. On the left flank my piecemeal tactic worked but was probably the wrong tactic. Josh killed off the spawn and unit of Blightkings. On his way to the center objective he regenerated his units back to full strength were he slowly took the center objective from another unit of Blightkings and Lord of Plagues. Had I just let Josh take the left flank with only the Chaos Spawn to interfere I probably could have destroyed his units with two units of Blightkings and Lord of Plagues then worked to take back the objectives. Josh did everything right. He was textbook with deployment, movement, and combat activation sequence which earned him a well deserved Major Victory. Once again this was another great tournament in the SoCal area. The icing on the cake was the catered food and new taproom. At Ease Games has partnered with Barrel Harbor Brewing and opened a huge event hall that connects to the main store. Having a beer between games with my fellow AoS players along with the gaming community vibe was the highlight of the day. Special thanks to Scott for putting this all together! View the full article

I just got done reading Bladestorm by Matt Westbrook. It was the first full length novel of The Realmgate Wars series I read from the Black Library. I have read a few other books but they were collections of short stories or novelettes. To date it is the best Stormcast Eternals book I have read. It is probably a toss up the The Call of Archaon featuring 3 Champions of Chaos fro my favorite Age of Sigmar book. In his book Westrbrook sends Lord-Celestant Thostos Bladestorm and his Celestial Vindicators along with Lord-Celestant Mykos Argellon and the Argellonites Warrior chamber on a quest to capture the Manticore Gate located in a Chaos Dreadhold. The Manticore Gate is one of the last Realmgates needed for Sigmar to muster his forces for the assault on the All-Gates. There are two story arcs in the book. The main one where the two warrior chambers have to capture and hold the Dreadhold and purge the Manticore Gate in order to use it and a small unit of Celestial Vindicators who go after a Chaos Sorcerer who escaped the Dreadhold. The assault on the Dreadhold was pretty straight forward and there was no doubt the Stormcasts were going to defeat the Khorne defenders. There is a cool part were Thostos is battered and broken but is struck by a bolt of lightning from Sigmar and goes through a minor reforging to defeat the Chaos Lord and capture the Manticore Gate. The defense of the the Dreadhold by the conquering Stormcasts became an epic battle. It starts with the battle of Splitskull pass from a HUGE Ironjawz army. Lord-Celestant Mykos and his warrior chamber buy time for the Celestial Vindicators to purge the Manticore Gate by fighting to the last man. Once the Ironjawz make it to the gates Thostos Bladestorm challenges the Orruk Megaboss to single combat. The fight had me on the edge of my seat as Westbrook made it clear that the Stormcast Eternals are willing to sacrifice themselves and Thostos has already been reforged so many times there is almost nothing left of his humanity. Another death and he may not have had anything left of his soul. Through grim determination and trickery Thostos barely pulls off a win sending the Ironjawz into a frenzied mob killing themselves and throwing themselves against the walls of the Dreadhold. The Stormcasts are rescued by a remnant of Argellonite Prosecutors who herded large plains-beasts into a sweeping charge that wiped out most of the Orruks. In the meantime the small group of Celestial Vindicators chase the Chaos Sorcerer through an underground cavern system to his lair. There Judicaticator Atrim avenges the death of a battle brother and rescues another through a horrific trial. I liked this story arc as it followed a group of adventurers compared to whole armies. The reader got to know everyone in the party. The story arcs re-merge with Atrim being hand selected along with a handful of Celestial Vindicators by Thostos to enter through the Manticore Gate. On the other side they are seeking a Knight-Azyros who is supposed to lead the warrior chamber to the muster point for the assault on the All-Gates. They find that a Tzeentch Lord has captured their brother and was holding him hostage in reality warped tower. Once inside Thostos leads an assault up spiralling stairs catching the defenders off guard. The Chaos Lord releases a Chimera on the Stormcasts and Thostos chooses between helping his brothers or engaging in combat with the Tzeentch lord. In the end Thostos kills the Tzeentch leader and finds the Knight-Azyros was captured in a magical sphere. Thostos gets the location of the muster point and destroys the sphere to release the Knight-Azyros soul for reforging. Atrim, at the same time, is the hero of the day once again by jumping on the back of the Chimera while in flight and injures it enough to freefall down the tower. The Chimera and Atrim crash into the floor killing the Chimera and seriously wounding Atrim. What is left of the Celestial Vindicators make it to muster point where the join other warrior chambers for the last battle of The Realmgate Wars… View the full article

Yesterday was the Age of Sigmar Battlehost Tournament at Green Tower Games in Santa Clarita, CA. The event had 8 players show up for a one day 3 round scrap. Once again I brought my Nurgle Rotbringers led by The Glotkin. There was another Chaos Nurgle, Tzeentch Slave to Darkness, Skaven, Stormcast Eternals, Ghoul Kings, Duardin Dispossessed, and Bretonnians armies present. The rounds drew the following scenarios: Escalation, Gifts from the Heavens, and Blood and Glory. I was paired with Ian and his Stormcast Eternals for game one. It was his first game of AoS ever! I knew I had a hard list and I was pretty familiar with his. As the game went along I was telling Ian what I was thinking and planning and why. Sometimes I would get a turn ahead in my thoughts so he could better understand the scenario. I won the game and it was a blast. Ian was super fun to play and couple of dice rolls went my way securing the victory. For round two I drew Tyler and his Bretonnians. I had played this army once last year when AoS first kicked off and wasn’t very sure how this army works. Let me tell you this; 9 Pegasus Knights buffed by a Fay Enchantress and Damsel of the Lady are brutal. The Pegasus Knights had a plus 2 to hit and Mystic Shield from the Fay Enchantress along with a 5+ invuln save from the Damsel. I deferred turn one and the unit of 9 Pegasus Knights charged right into my center line. They deleted a unit of Chaos Warriors. I then piled in with 5 Putrid Blightkings and didn’t do any damage. The Pegasus Knights then got a second activation and killed 4 of my Blightkings! I had to spend the next two turns focussing over half of my army these guys causing me to neglect the objective that fell on my right flank ( where I didn’t deploy well). Through a good deployment and speed Tyler was able to contest my objective from turn 3 until the end of the game. He did really great with his army and deployment and won a well deserved major victory. My final game was against Mike and his Skaven which made this our 3rd tournament matchup in a row. We both knew each other’s armies really well. This game turned into a slugfest right from turn 1. Mike tunneled in on my right flank and with his warp flame units and Warp Lighting Cannons I started taking a TON of mortal wounds. I was able to get some good charges off on my turn 1 and start cleaning up the infiltrators. Then I got the double turn to start turn two and was able to get my Warriors of Chaos across the battlefield and engaged in the 2 Warp Lightning Cannons. There was a lot of back and forth and Mike killed of The Glotkin around turn 3. We drew on the objectives and had to count points destroyed. He killed 1680 points to my 1460 and earned a minor victory. Once again my matchup against Mike turned into one of the best games of AoS I have played to date. Finally here are the results: Tyler (Brettonnians)-Best General Zach (Nurgle)-Best Painted Ian (Stormacast Eternal)-Best Sportsmanship Green Tower Games had some killer prizes. Tyler won a Start Collecting box of his choice! Zach won the new Gorechosen game, and Ian won $20 in store credit. Thanks to Green Tower Games and Austin for putting this together! The venue was great and the players were even better. It is always awesome to meet and play awesome gamers. View the full article

The follow up issue to the new White Dwarf monthly format lived up to expectations. It featured the new release of the Genestealer Cult for Warhammer 40k and contained a bonus comic book set in the grimdark. As far as Age of Sigmar content goes White Dwarf featured A Tale of Four Warlords. This appears to be an ongoing feature where four Games Workshop employees started with a Start Collecting AoS faction. In October’s issue we were introduced to their paint scheme and new additions to their armies. Here’s a quick rundown: Matt Hutson – Sylvaneth Andrew King – Nurgle (started with Daemons of Nurgle) James Karch – Death (started with Malignants) Phil Cowey – Ironjawz It was great to read about their thought process for collecting their armies. There were some really good paint jobs too. I am sure as their armies grow there will be a battle report or two. What would be really interesting is if they feature their armies in an AoS campaign. Finally, to me, the best article in this months White Dwarf was an interview with Jes Goodwin. Jes has been part of the Citadel design team for the last 30 years. He is responsible for much of the visual themes found in Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k. It was great to read about the evolution of some of my favorite armies. I highly recommend picking this months White Dwarf. There is a lot of content and great pictures for both AoS and 40k fans alike. And like I have stated before, I doesn’t take five minutes to flip through like the weekly formats… there is a lot to go back to and read. View the full article

For the third installment of the Realmgate Wars gaming supplements Godbeasts appear to be the first to have an original storyline. The previous two books drew from Black Library books offering abridged versions of the narrative. As the title suggests this book is about a couple different types of gods in the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar universe. There are five primary gods; Sigmar, Alarielle, Grimnir, Gorkamorka, Nagash along with the four Chaos gods. There are also what are called Godbeasts. One is Ignax, a fire drake chained to the Crescent Isle, acting as the realms sun. Also, Behemat a World Titan Gargant god resting below the Scabrous Sprawl of the Jade Kingdoms. Up to this point Archaon, the Everchosen, has been accumulating power through tricking or binding his will to Kiathanus, a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, and Argentine, the Sylver Wyrm from the first book. Archaon sets a plan in motion to manipulate and ally himself with Ignax and Behemat. There is a lot of carnage from beginning to end with Stormcast Eternals seemingly always coming back from the brink of loss with a timely victory. The highlight of the story was Ionus Cryptborn’s creative way of killing Skarbrand. Ionus sets a trap that put Skarbrand near a crystal that amplifies emotion. Skarbrand is so enraged by the trap that his hatred is magnified into a physical force that make followers of Khorne’s heads explode. This is said to warm Khorne’s heart. Skarbrands howl of rage also makes the crystal explode pulverizing him with its shards. Godbeasts come with 12 Battletomes, which is the most of the three reviewed. Interestingly enough I noticed some had rules for three or more players. It also introduces the new Extremis Chamber faction to AoS. The verdict: Once again it is hard to justify $65 for a hardcover book. This time it does appear to be an original story. The 12 Battletomes, for me, is great as I am now playing them with my gaming group in San Diego. Finally, it contains free rules, top notch art, and looks good on a collection on the shelf. https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Realmgate-Wars-3-Godbeasts-HB-EN View the full article

Balance of Power is the second installment in the Realmgate Wars released by Games-Workshop. Like it’s predecessor, The Quest for Ghal Maraz, it contains a condensed version of the Black Library novel Warbeast, 8 new Battle Plans, and an assortment of new Warscrolls and Warscroll Battalions. The story continues with a rag tag group of Stormcast Eternals and remaining forces of Alarielle the Everqueen’s Sylvaneth host and their desperate retreat from the forces of Chaos. The Lady of Vines, cradling Alarielle’s soulpod, leads this band on a quest to travel the Path of the Purified and reach the top of Blackstone Summit. Here is where the Lady of Vines hopes Alarielle will be reborn in her war form. The entire time, however, the have the eyes of the Chaos gods firmly on them. Grandfather Nurgle himself can sense the end of his nemesis in the realm of Ghyram is near. He imbues his champion, Torglug the Despised, gifts and divine purpose to get the soulpod in a hope to corrupt it for Nurgle’s own vile purpose. Lorus Grymm, Lord-Castellent of the Hallowed Knights, does his best to keep the forces remaining organized and focussed despite being below combat effective. At the battle of Blackstone Summit Torglug is about to take the soulpod from the Lady of Vines when the Celestant Prime wielding Sigmar’s Ghal Maraz arrives on a meteoric entrance and turns the tide of battle. The Celestant Prime kills Torglug and it is presumed the forces of Order win the battle. More importantly we find that Torglug was actually faithful to Sigmar but his soul was infected by Nurlge in his previous life and now that he was killed Sigmar saved his soul and reforged him as a Knight Venator. Another major storyline introduces the new faction called the Fyreslayers. They are duardin descendents of Grimnir. They are cursed with seeking Grimnir’s soul witch has been scattered in the form of urgold. They not only use urgold as currency but use it to infuse their bodies with Grimnirs essence to enhance their battle prowess. The Fyreslayers fall under the Order Grand Alliance but are technically mercenaries that will fight for the highest bidder. They have one purpose and that is to collect all the urgold in the nine realms in order to reforge their god. In Balance of Power a Stormcast warrior chamber is sent to hire the Volstag Lodge in order to get safe passage to a keep belonging to the chaos god Khorne. Lord-Cellestant Sargassus of the Heavenhost not only has enough urgold to get passage through a secret underground network to the keep but enough to buy the lodge’s help in breaking into it. It is thought to be a suicidal mission and almost proves to be. Inside the keep is the greater daemon Skarbrand. He is technically imprisoned there by Khorne himself as Skarbrand has a tendency to kill everyone in site, friend or foe. Sigmar hopes that by breaking his bonds Skarbrand will cause havoc in Khorne’s own ranks and take a significant amount of attention away from Sigmar’s war to retake the realms. This plan almost works but Sargassus triggers an alarm while Skarbrand was deployed in a battle. The alarm magically brings Skarbrand back to the keep where the forces of order are forced to retreat. Interestingly, Skarbrand’s Warscroll is the only monster where his stats get better as he gets wounded. He goes from Angry to Incandescent gaining more and more attacks. The final major part of the narrative is Vandus Hammerhand and his Hammerhand host trying to stop a greater daemon of Slaanesh from learning its true name. Initially a Guant Summoner is trying to take advantage of the greater daemon hoping to bind it to his will. Things start going bad for the poor sorcerer so he starts calling in favors and summoning daemons to his aid. He finally resorts to summoning Skarbrand but Archaon and his Varanguard come in his stead. The Varanguard are Archaon’s elite fighting force. Having been champions to a Chaos god they have given up their allegiance to fight for the Everchosen himself. Archaon’s true nature is to bind the greater daemon himself. He ends up killing the Guant Summoner and the tide turns against the Stormcast host. Vandus is able to challenge Archaon but is killed along with every Stormcast on the battlefield. A message has been sent. There are a couple of short tie in with Neferrata and the Death Grand Alliance and the Seraphon on a covert mission to aid the Sylvaneth. These are a few pages and felt like they were added to keep most Age of Sigmar players happy that their armies showed up. All in all it was a good read. If that is what you are looking for you would do better by saving your $74 and just buying the novels. What you do get is a great set of Battleplans that let you recreate the Realmgate Wars on the tabletop. It also include the Warscrolls, which are already free, and Warscroll Battalions that give rules that fit the narrative. Finally, you get some terrific artwork. The book immerses you in the Age of Sigmar universe which I am thrilled about. All in all I am happy with the book and looks great on the shelf. View the full article

Yesterday was the Lords of War tournament run by Scott Reed and hosted by At Ease Games in San Diego. We had 10 players show up for a one day three round event. The tables were beautiful. At Ease Games has a bunch of F.A.T Mats from Frontline Gaming and a huge range of terrain. On a given day At Ease Games can accommodate at least 10 6’x4′ mats with a ton of terrain. Scott, the Tournament Organizer (T.O.), utilized bestcoastpairings.com for registration and matchups. The program allows the T.O. to track results which in turn automates the next round’s matchups. It was a pretty sweet system once the program was figured out. After matchups were set a scenario was pulled out of a hat that every table played. This format put everyone on an equal scoring system. The only variables being army lists and terrain. After the first round there was a break for lunch and exhibition for the painting competition. Every player laid out their favorite models/units they wanted voted on by their fellow players. There was one entry allowed for the following categories; Behemoth, Artillery, Leader/Unit. This was a nice pause since we had some food catered in as part of the signup cost and we got to chit chat about the first game we played. At the end of the tournament Scott had an awards ceremony. He had certificates for the winners of each painting category, a player voted Best Sportsman award, and certificates for 1st-3rd place. Some of the certificates came with store credit from At Ease Games and those who placed also recieved a gift certifiacte from our sponsors Powered Play Gaming. Powered Play Gaming sells LED kits for wargamers. I am seriously looking at their Video Display that can be modeled into a Sci-Fi billboard. I saved the best for last… the results. Yours truly won the event overall with two major victories and a minor loss. My loss came game one and I spent the next two playing to have fun and to give my opponent a good match. The powers of the Blightguard led by The Glotkin proved to be too much in the end. 1st-Greg H. 2nd-James C. 3rd-Mike F. Sportsman-Donovan S. Best Painted Behemoth-Darrel C. Best Painted Artillery-Mike F. Best Painted Leader/Unit-Paul D. https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/event/lordsofwar Thank you to our sponsors, Scott, and the players for making this such a wonderful event! View the full article

On Saturday we saw Games Workshop put up another expansion for Warhammer Quest titled Arcane Heroes. It gives players 5 more playable characters for both The Silver Tower and Age of Sigmar. Along with the Mighty Heroes expansion this brings the total number of playable models to 15. Arcane Heroes includes: Grey Seer Chaos Sorcerer Knight-Heralder Sorceress Skink Priest Before I get to value I would like to point out the Sorceress model is an old Night Elf Sorceress model. GW did not use the name Aelf to describe the it. My tin foil hat tells me this means something. So, for $55 you get 5 great models. If purchased individually you would end up spending $96.75. Whether purchased for your Silver Tower collection or you plan on beefing up your AoS collection you can’t go wrong here. Fingers crossed for a new dungeon expansion! Check it out here: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Warhammer-Quest-Arcane-Heroes View the full article

We still have openings. Check it out. Less than a month to go!

Awesome! I am totally looking forward to this.