Ultramates - Game 2

Game 2: Take and Hold - Hysh

Game 2 was Take & Hold and we were against team FTG - From the Grave. As you may glean from this name, there was a theme to these lists:

Matthew Jones: Legions of Nagash

Vampire Lord (General)

- Lord of Nagashizzar (Command Trait)

- Terrorgheist Mantle (Artefact)

- Spell: Vile Transference

Necromancer

- Spell: Soul Harvest

Wight King

30 Grave Guard

20 Skeleton Warriors

1 Extra Command Point

Matt is a guy a have played a few times since I got into AoS and something that is immediately apparent that he loves his Grave Guard. This love can be seen in this list, where the whole list is geared towards buffing up the Grave Guard and sending them hurtling into the enemy.

Samuel Ahola: Nighthaunt

Lady Olynder

- Spell: Spectral Tether

Guardian of Souls

- Spell: Lifestealer

- Artefact: Beacon of Nagashizzar

30 Chainrasp Horde

20 Chainrasp Horde

Warscroll Battalion: Chainguard

2 Extra Command Points

I've seen Sam around but haven't ever played against him. This list was the defensive list of the two, and had a lot of regeneration in the Chainrasp hordes. Other than knowing that they have ethereal saves, I haven't had much experience playing against Nighthaunt.

Initial Strategy & Deployment

I had never played Take & Hold but I felt like our lists were suited to this scenario; we had elements that could defend our objective and elements that could fight/flood their objective. While setting up, I was only really on the look out for the Grave Guard; they were the only unit that was going to be able to break through 30 Plaguebearers. However I had completely forgotten that they could be deployed in the Grave! We ended up splitting our force into three parts - the Monks with swords went on our left flank with the Great Unclean One and Feculent Gnarlmaw, the 30 Plaguebearers went in the middle on the objective, and the Monks with staves went on the right with the Corruptor and the Plague Furnace. Matt and Sam set up 20 Chainrasps on the left with the Guardian of Souls, the Skeletons and Legion characters went in the middle and Lady Olynder and her 30 Chainrasps went on the right.

Our general strategy was to send the sword monks off to break one flank and possibly swing around in the centre. The Plaguebearers would hold our objective, and the stave monks would be flexible but with a view to taking out the Grave Guard. The Corruptor's job was to reduce the size of the enemy units with his own spell (roll a dice for every model in the target - each 4+ deals a mortal wound). Finally, if we saw a chance to kill the Vampire Lord then that was a high priority.

Matt and Sam finished deploying first and they chose to take the first turn.

The Game

In Matt & Sam's turn one, each block of Nighthaunt moved forward and the Grave Guard were summoned in the middle of the board, 9' away from the front of the Plaguebearer unit. Some spells were cast but they were essentially moving out to zone us out of their back field and to set up the Grave Guard making a play on the Plaguebearers. In our turn one, the Plaguebearers stayed where they were, but the Plague Monks on the left received +1 attack from the Plague Furnace and went straight into the 20 Chainrasp in front of them. On the right, the Verminlord got Spellportal and Dreaded Plague off and killed 9 Chainrasp from the 30 man unit. We otherwise played cagey with the 40 Monks with staves and screened them with the Plague Furnace. The sword Monks that went into the 20 Chainrasp handily took them off but unfortunately left the Guardian on a couple of wounds.

Matt and Sam then won priority going into turn 2.

After seeing the mortal wounds from the Corruptor and losing a unit to the sword monks, Sam decided to turn his remaining Chainrasps around and head back to their objective. Matt continued on and charged in a Grave Guard Units with 5 attacks each and Vanhels Danse Macabre connecting with both the Plaguebearers and the Plague Furnace. Interestingly, the first pile in didn't wipe out the Plaguebearers or the Furnace, but the second one certainly did. In our turn two, the Plaguemonks with staves were all set to go into the Grave Guard, and the Corruptor positioned in a way to provide them with re-roll hits from his Command Ability. The sword Monks on the left went after the 20 Skeletons holding their objective and the Lord of Afflictions saw an opportunity to take on the Vampire Lord. After summoning an Feculent Gnarlmaw behind the sword Monks and Lord of Afflictions, everything made their charges on combat was on!

We started with the Grave Guard; if they attacked, they still had all their buffs on and could have wiped the stave Monks which was could not afford. After rolling a huge amount of dice, but before we started on the staves, the Plague Monks had wiped out the Grave Guard. This was an example of how powerful re-rolling 3's to hit and 2's to wound was - there was very few attacks that didn't go through to dealing damage.

Matt then activated his skeletons and killed some sword Monks. The combat with the Vampire Lord was what was really nerve wracking for me though! I was very concerned about the Grave Guard coming back for a command point, and knew that if we didn't kill the General then we could face that. Despite this, I forgot to use the Rustfang and after attacking he was left on 1 wound!

Unfortunately we didn't have time to play and finish Round 3. In discussing it with Matt and Sam the outcome of the game was still up in the air; if the Grave Guard managed to charge the Plague Monks they might be able to take our objective, however if they couldn't deal with the sword Monks then we may take theirs. Ultimately we decided to calculate Kill Points at the end of Round 2. This left Sam and I up and we ended up with the minor win!

Thoughts

I think we made some mistakes that could have had some bigger significance if they game had continued longer. Firstly I had set up 10 Plaguebearers to screen the flank of the sword Monks while they pushed up the left flank. However it may have been better to place these in front of the 30 Plaguebearers to take the initial charge of the Grave Guard. I also used the Plague Furnace to screen the stave Monks from the Grave Guard, but it may have been possible to avoid the charge without losing the Furnace. Ultimately it was imperative that the stave monks didn't get charged and that goal was achieved.

Overall though, I think the game plan was appropriate and other than user error it was the best way to approach the situation. We had unexpectedly won both of our first two games and after lunch we were in to game three!

Ultramates - Game 1

Game 1: Battle for the Pass - Shyish

Up first was Battle for the Pass! The realm rules were in effect (though promptly forgotten) and our first round opponents were a team called 'the Friendly Geordies' made up of two young guys by the name of Geordie and Che. From memory their lists were:

Geordie: Beasts of Chaos

Doombull (General)

Great Bray Shaman

6 Gorebulls

3 Gorebulls

Ghorgon

Wildfire Taurus

Che: Daughters of Khaine (Hag Narr)

Slaughter-queen on Foot

Bloodwrack Medusa

10 Sisters of Slaughter

10 Sisters of Slaughter

10 Blood Sisters

5 Khinerai Heartrenders

5 Doomfire Warlocks

Unfortunately I don't have copies of their lists so I'm not sure what their artefact selections were, but they didn't come into play during the game.

Deployment

We rolled off and our team won sides and deployed first. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the Skaven side of our list, so we deployed the plaguebearers in a long line along the back and sides of the board to prevent summoning or Khinerai dropping into our backfield. We set up the furnace and rats with woe staves on the left flank, the rats with swords and the Verminlord Corruptor on the right flank, and the Great Unclean One centrally to maximise his movement buff. The free Feculent Gnarlmaw had gone on the centreline on the left hand side of the board.

Geordie and Che each took a flank each and the herdstone was set up in the middle. They each set up the majority of their forces on the line and were looking for a fight. In particular, Geordie set up 9 Gorebulls in a line. We finished deploying first and gave them the first turn.

Game

In a recurring them for the day, Geordie and Che made a big mistake straight off the bat and didn't give enough thought to the danger the Plague Monks posed. Geordie pushed his Gorebulls straight forward while Che shuffled a little bit and had Geordie send his Doombull to the other central objective.. Very little else happened in their turn, but from our perspective (as Nathan from the Honest Wargamer so sagely noted) the objectives were bait and they had taken that bait. In our turn 1, the monks with woe staves received the +1 attack buff from the Furnace and ran 17' at the Gorebulls, leaving them 3' away and within range of the Feculent Gnarlmaw. They then proceeded to charge the two units of Gorebull, removed the unit of 6 and left the unit of 3 with one wound remaining. This charge had clipped the Ghorgon but the Ghorgon whiffed with all of its attacks.

This initial charge took a large chunk out of our opponents forces, and when we then won the double turn the rest of the game fell into our favour. Highlights were:

• The unit of sword monks went into the DoK army and held most of it up for a couple of turns. It took out 7 of the snakes and after that did sporadic wounds here and there.
• The Lord of Afflictions took on the Doombull. Unfortunately the Doombull was as effective as the Ghorgon and did no wounds over two rounds of combat before the Lord put it into the ground.
• The Verminlord Corruptor charged in to the Ghorgon and did 22 mortal wounds with its Sword of Judgment.
• After the stave monks charged, the Plague Furnace was left on its own and could no longer move as there were not enough monks within 6'. This happened a fair bit over the weekend.

At the end of turn three the score was 13 to 9 and time had run out. The Friendly Geordies had a couple of characters left on the board and some heavily depleted units. We had lost a unit of Plague Monks and the Lord of Afflictions.

Thoughts

Geordie and Chu were great to play against. It seemed that Geordie had a bit more knowledge than Chu but both were fairly new to Age of Sigmar 2.0. That lack of knowledge resulted in us getting a turn 1 charge and eviscerating the heart of Geordie's army on turn 1. 

I haven't had much experience playing Hagg Nar but the re-rollable ward save is incredible - it hurts me slightly that scantily clad murder women are more resilient than lesser deamons of a Choas god known for resilience, but these are the rules that we play in.

The Plague Monks showed that they were the blender that I thought they could be, however there is a lot of dice to roll and it meant that Sam and I needed to be as clear and efficient as possible. This issue is exacerbated by the monk warscroll that has different effects on 6's to hit and 6's to wound - you end up having four sets of dice with some having rend, some having +1 damage, some having both and some having neither.

At the end of the game, the Verminlord Corruptor was in a position to take the rest of their heroes off with the sword of Judgment. Having 10 attacks and a Command Ability to re-roll all hit rolls made it a very reliable way to do mortal wounds to heroes. The Lord of Afflictions also did an excellent job with his -3 rend - he reduced the Doombull to 1 wound in the first round of combat and it could just as easily have taken him off in one. The fact the Rustfang helps the mount's attacks is very significant.

Overall it was a very enjoyable game and it would be interesting to see how they would do things differently next time.

Ultramates 2019

So on the Sunday just gone, 18 March 2019, Western Australia's largest Age of Sigmar tournament to date played out. Run by Mitchell Byrne, our very own TO extraordinaire, Ultramates was a doubles tournament that had 36 teams, or 72 players sign up, with 29 teams participating on the day. It was held on St Patrick's, in a pub (yes!) and was run by our TO extraordinaire Mitch Byrne.

Tournament Details

So in it's basic form, this was a 4 game tournament (gaming event?) held over one day. Each player brought a 1000pt army; two players per team meant each team was playing 2000pts. Each team needed to meet the usual requirement, so 1 leader and 2 battleline units. There were no restrictions on Grand Alliances playing as allies so Death could pair up with Chaos, or Order with Destruction; the aim was to allow people to play with their mates in a fun setting (hence Ultra'mates' - get it?). There were some house rules regarding the doubling up of terrain based allegiance abilities (ie. two Sylvaneth players were only able to place one Wildwood rather than two) and spells and abilities that affected 'friendly' units could only affect your own army (so no Blades of Putrefaction on allies which was very relevant for our list design). Other than this the Realms were in play (but largely forgotten in my games at least) and there were some slight changes to the way in which artefact's were selected. If you are interested there is a Facebook page where you can find the players pack, but the changes were primarily flavourful rather than significantly altering the way armies were built.

My partner and I

Doubles Tournaments always seem to pull people on the sidelines of Sigmar in to give it a shot. Players who have been on the fence or haven't played since Fantasy Battle can be convinced to join in on the basis that they can have a great time with their mates and that someone will be there to celebrate their victories and commiserate with their losses. In this sense, our team was no exception.

Back in the days of Fantasy, myself and my twin brother (Sam) both played here and there; I played Daemons and he played High Elves. He hadn't played Sigmar at all but I convinced him that he should come play in a Doubles event with me. He agreed on the condition that I essentially pick the army for him and away we went.

Over the past six months I had been adding Pestilens units to my roster, and with the Skaventide book approaching, it seemed like a good opportunity to expand my Nurgle collection further. Sam was on board, and so the lists I devised for us were as follows:

Our Lists

Alex: Maggotkin of Nurgle

Lord of Afflictions (General)

 - Rustfang

 - Virulent Contagion

Great Unclean One

 - Bile Blade

 - Doomsday Bell

 - Lore Spell: Glorious Afflictions

30 Plaguebearers

10 Plaguebearers

Total: 1000pts

Sam: Skaventide Pestilens

Plague Priest on Plague Furnace (General)

 - Master of Rot and Ruin

Verminlord Corruptor

 - Sword of Judgment

40 Plague Monks

 - Paired Foetid Blades

 - Doom Gong / Bale Chimes / Contagion Banner / Icon of Pestilence

40 Plague Monks

 - Foetid Blade & Woe Stave

 - Doom Gong / Bale Chimes / Contagion Banner / Icon of Pestilence

Umbral Spellportal

Total: 980pts

Creation of the lists

In building a list for Sam, I was very mindful that he had never played a game of Age of Sigmar, and that our time to practise would be very limited (in the end we got about 2 turns of a practice game in before the event). With that in mind, I wanted a list that would be straightforward to play, but one that would also give him some opportunity to create some fun stories. In the end (and with a certain degree of pride) his list ended up being absolutely filthy, but it ticked these two boxes:

1. It essentially involved throwing Plague Monks into something important, and given their power they were likely to kill what they touched. This meant that Sam didn't have to spend much time thinking about whether he would kill something, particularly when he would be relying on me to tell him what everything was.

2. The Verminlord Corruptor had the potential to go off both with magic against hordes and in combat against heroes and monsters. Sam could look for opportunities to create stories with the Corruptor, and if it died it was not going to be game breaking.

I was confident that the Plague Monks would blend almost anything they touched, and the Verminlord Corruptor was a fantastic toolbox for managing hordes, heroes and monsters alike. In designing my list, I was looking for ways to hold objectives, provide support to the Plague Monks, and to try and protect them from retaliatory counter charges. The Support GUO fit the bill here with his bonuses to cast and dispel, as well as the 3" movement to Nurgle units within 7". He would allow the Plague Monks to more reliably alpha strike when the opportunity arose.

The Plaguebearers were also fairly obvious choices. 30 Plaguebearers are tough to shift and they were exactly what we needed to hold objectives in our side of the field. If we held an equal amount of objectives but the monks could claim one enemy objective for a turn then we would ultimately come out on top. I would have liked the second unit to be larger but ultimately could only afford the 10 to meet the Battleline requirements.

The least straight-forward choice in my list was the Lord of Afflictions. I'm a huge fan of the Lord of Afflictions; I think he is super fun to play, benefits from the GUO command ability well and can take some damage. In this list though I had a particular purpose for him. We had way of killing heroes and monsters, and hordes weren't going to be a problem. What we didn't have an answer to were heavily armoured units like Sequitors or Kurnoth Hunters. Multiple wound units that could get a 3+ or 4+ re-rollable armour save were going to be very difficult for us to shift. The Lord of Afflictions provided an answer to this by being a mobile Rustfang carrier (he could reduce armour saves by 1) and he naturally had -2 rend on two of his attack profiles. When combined with the Rustfang this meant that he could ignore 4+ armour saves.

Allegiance Abilities

Something that I want to highlight is the interaction between the Skaventide and Nurgle armies that we were playing. Because of the way in which this tournament was set up, we had a unique opportunity to merge the Pestilens and Nurgle allegiance abilities on all of the Skaven units. While I couldn't buff the Skaven units directly, the Nurgle allegiance applies to all Nurgle units, whether friend or foe. This gave us the ability to supercharge the Plague Monks in a significant way.

Plague Monks start off by hitting on 4's and wounding on 4's as baseline with their blades. When in the Skaventide allegiance, units of 30 or more receive +1 to hit and +1 to wound, and they get +2 to their bravery for each 10 models, rather than +1. The way to reduce their power is to whittle them down to under 30 and then under 20.

In a Nurgle allegiance, Plague Monks  get access to the Cycle of Corruption, which can give +2 movement or +1 to wound. Importantly, Nurgle also provide Feculent Gnarlmaws which give run and charge. However, Nurgle can't buff the hit rolls of the Plague Monks and often don't have command points to save them from battleshock.

When combined however, the weaknesses of the Plague Monks are covered by each allegiance and a hideously powerful 240 point unit is created. With the wheel and the Great Unclean One, the Plague Monks have a move of 11', they run d6 + 1', and then they can charge 2d6 + 1'; this puts them squarely within alpha strike territory. The importance of them being able to alpha strike is that opponents don't have an opportunity to whittle them down and reduce the bonuses. Over the course of the weekend, this dual interaction was very important to our gameplay, and it heightened the power of the Plague Monks to a greater degree than what you will find at a singles event.

Preparation for the day

Leading up to the 18th, we ended up both being very busy. At the time that I settled on our lists I had the Nurgle side of the force adequately painted, and I had 20 Plague Monks with paired blades that were ready. This meant that we needed to buy, build and paint the following:

 - A Verminlord;

 - A Plague Furnace;

 - 60 Plague Monks; and

 - The Umbral Spellportals.

On the morning of Saturday the 17th, we had built everything and undercoated the plague monks, but that was it.

We had to paint 2 behemoths and 60 monks. Within a day. 

What followed was a painting marathon from 6:30am until 3:30am, with occasional breaks for coffee and food. By midnight my fiancee had decided that we weren't going to finish, and despite knowing nothing about painting or Warhammer, she spent the last three and half hours with us painting bronze bells, sword and woe staves. Come 3:30am we were all tired, but it was immensely satisfying to have powered through it all to a point where we could put two painted forces on the table (and wouldn't risk anything being removed for not meeting the requisite painting standard).

The Big Day

The next morning we were up early and got to the venue by about 8am. We had about 3 hours of sleep each and had a water with Berocca in hand as we entered. I had made Sam a file with each battleplan and scenario, and in the 30 minutes we had before the first game he re-read all his warscrolls and read the first mission and realm rules for the first time. We were as ready as we were going to be.

Stay tuned for Game 1, 2 & 3 in the next post!