by Patrick Nevan

AOS Teams Events. Apparently they’re all the rage in the European scene. Still a lot of things that are popular in Europe, like infrequent showering, godawful song competitions¹ and the musical stylings of David Hasselhoff have never really caught on in Australia. The Tyranny of Distance is an inescapable factor of all things Australian. A widely dispersed player base and the hassles of travelling long distances have restricted tourneys to singles competition based around Masters. English players are free to enjoy their national pastime of running their mouths before inevitably losing to Australia at Cricket and still make it to two GT’s a month. An Australian would be lucky to get to 8 in a year. That said, the ongoing popularity of Abba, Ikea and Nude Volleyball Orgies point to another factor of Antipodean life: if the Swedes are into it, Australians will enjoy it. A teams event was inevitable.

Seriously Germany, What the Fuck?

With this in mind my good friend Dave Cunning decided to launch Australia’s first teams tournament, Fatal 4Play. For those who don’t know him, Dave is a stalwart of the Measured Gaming Club. Co-host of Australia’s longest running² podcast, Bush Radio. The originator of the Sigmar Central website and the creative genius behind the all-new and outstanding Stats and Ladders tournament scoring software. Dave is one those irritating pricks who goes through life accomplishing things instead of coming up with bright ideas and never following through like a regular person.

Fatal 4Play is a four-player teams event, held in Australia’s home of AOS, the thriving regional city of Bendigo at the Cauldron of Battle that is the Bendigo Club. Come for the Warhammer, stay for the parma. As an added bonus it is on the weekend of July 1st, which is a great time to visit Bendigo. Take the time to meet the locals and enjoy their vibrant Winter past time of staring at grey overcast skies, while shivering and pointing out that Ballarat is an even more miserable cold cunt of a place. But who cares. If you’re a committed tabletop wargamer, you shouldn’t wasting time or money on outdoor activities.

Tourism Australia leaves this out of the brochures

We wound up with 10 teams of stout-hearted innovators from across this great land pledged to attend with the promise of severe public shaming for anyone that pulls out.³ The format is fairly standard for a 4 player teams event, although Dave took the irritating courageous decision to put his own spin on things. Each team needs to be from a separate Grand Alliance with no duplication of warscrolls, which I guess means Mercenary Gargants. With Death armies pretty thin on the ground, this resulted in a certain amount of head scratching amongst the players. Happily SBGL and OBR dropped pretty solid books in the lead up to the event and a lot of tragic filth-mongers swung into action. The lists are available here and some people are well and truly out for blood.

Dave’s other major innovation, besides forbidding the mirror match, is a General’s Showdown between the members of the winning team to determine an overall winner. Everyone’s General goes into an arena and they have it out until one player is left standing. Over the years they have produced enough tense moments, hilarity, grotesque mismatches, rules quibbles, dubious tactics and enraged Salt-Mining to become a beloved Measured Gaming tradition. When you go through the team lists you can really pick the guys who have given some thought to winning the final showdown so it should be one to look forward to.

The fantasy of Generals Showdowns

The Reality

So rather than do my usual Craic article about why Playtesters and the people who love them are awful human beings, I decided to make even less effort and chronicle my team’s efforts at Australia’s first ever Teams Tournament So without further ado allow me to present my team.

Those Guys with the Things

We took the name from a running gag on Bush Radio. I would have come up with something myself but I’m really old now and nobody gets my references.⁴ Our planning sessions were great if you, like me, jump on every chance to work the word lackadaisical into conversation. We put off decisions until after Masters, then after Border Wars, then after SAGT, then after AOS Worlds until we finally got to “Holy Crap lists are due this Saturday” and swung into action like a well-oiled machine that was abandoned in the desert during World War Two.

Strictly speaking, Frankie and Brownie got their assignments early and struck with the sort of ruthless precision you associate with the first major robbery in a heist or caper movie.⁵ Joel and I went to work with the good natured aimless dithering you get from senior citizens browsing an Art Gallery gift shop. We weren’t about to buy anything, but there was no rush to get back on the bus. Anyways, here’s what the team came up with.

Brownie is one of our Measured guys out of Melbourne. A naturally competitive wargamer and a dominant force at Star Wars Legion. However his selfish insistence on getting married and moving forward in life has limited his Age of Sigmar play in the last year or so. Nevertheless he is a long-term death player and I fully expect him to be back in form after a couple of games to shake off the rust.

I’m not 100% across what the new OBR do, but this seems like a pretty capable list. One drop with plenty of mobility, a solid hammer and anvil and Big Daddy K backing the whole operation up. The Soul Mason’s Dark Acolyte command ability means the first spell he casts successfully cannot be unbound. Get used to seeing this guy with an Immortis bodyguard unit in the next GHB. Matchup-wise, we will probably be looking for high drop, low rend opponents to make the most of Brownies strengths.

Frankie is one of our guys from high in the Adelaide Hills. A veteran of the AOS scene he is another one of those guys who doesn’t get to play as often as he likes. Presumably like most South Australians he spends a lot of time recovering from illnesses caused by the poisonous muck they have instead of tapwater.⁶ Still, he has the right stuff for Fyreslayers: stubborn, tenacious and wholly unwilling to let go of a grudge.

Frankie’s Fyreslayers list is all killer, no filler. I like a list that leans into its subfaction abilities. Greyfyrd is for Footslayer heroes and that is most of what you are getting. I have a feeling that being able to manipulate the matchups will give this list a chance to shine when it can concentrate on one or two middle objectives instead of having to waddle pitifully across the board. There’s a pretty good chance it will be hurled mercilessly into magic heavy opponents of the back of the Nullsidian Icon. Frank and I have had a long-running argument about Footslayers being trash – now is his chance to prove me wrong.

Ah the Captain, aka Joel McGrath aka The Other Joel, you know, not the good one. What can I say about the Captain that hasn’t already been said about Russel Crowe. He is a veteran campaigner with a strong track record, a true artist unafraid to take risks and someone you might want to steer clear of when he is drunk. Also his music is terrible. Joel took a long time over list selection but in the end went back to his beloved BOC which over time have proven to be his Master and Commander.⁷

Joel’s BOC list seems pretty solid. Like a lot of current BOC lists, it’s built around a murdering blob of Bullgors backed by a Doombull and all sorts of other goat-like crap. There are Ungors aplenty for the sort of NPE shenanigans that the Captain lives for. You don’t see a lot of Drogor’s in BOC lists these days which is probably why he put them on the table. BOC currently lack a bit of staying power but I would expect this list to perform a lot better in teams. We are looking for a big weekend from Joel.

First of all this list should be titled Generic Gore Pilgrims 25: Big Pimpin rides again.⁸ Dave cut the title out for what I can only assume are small and petty reasons. For me Gutbusters have always been the fun army that gets the stupid names. Big Pimpin is the boss Tyrant of the outfit, so named for the levels of Pimptastic energy I unintentionally produced with his paint job. In the teams event I drew Destruction by default as none of us had particularly competitive armies in the Alliance. I thought long and hard about competitive lists for a variety of match ups before deciding on a purely selfish strategy of rolling with what I love.

Which is honestly not the worst idea for a mid-tier army like Mawtribes. Frosty the Stonehorn and pals would probably perform better than the hot mess I ended up going with, but I wouldn’t. This list has everything I love about Gutbusters: Gnoblar screens, fat greedy jerk-offs and a whole bunch of charge mortals. I might keep track of the charge mortals my Tyrants run up.⁹ Hopefully with the teams structure I can avoid the auto-loss match ups and concentrate on the winning battleplans. Only the Worthy is pretty much a cheat mission for Ogor GCs and it’s available rounds 1 and 5 if the dice fall my way. Worst comes to worst. my teammates are just going to have to carry me all weekend. You can get away with that sort of thing when you’re a big deal content creator.

So there you have it

After years of talk Australia’s first team event kicks off on July the 1st. The lists are in and the players are ready to rumble. Who will take away first place? Which member of the winning team will triumph in the final Generals Showdown? Probably Joel Graham’s lot but there is some competition around. I’d be keeping an eye on Ballarat Shed Gaming myself. Constant negative commentary about living in the most miserable place in Australia has left them with a lot to prove and Doc Mclean is taking a break from leaving patients sitting around in his waiting room to play some AOS. Either way I’ll be back to let you know how things went.

Notes

1 Yes, I realize Australia has a guest entry in the Eurovision song contest these days. No, I don’t know why, but it sure as shit wasn’t a result of popular demand from me. Feel free to keep the next lot we send over.

2. Longest running in episode length, we are well over four hours an episode these days. Also Not-Safe-For-Anything, you have been warned.

3. Credit where it’s due, the now traditional cry of “Your father should have pulled out!” was coined by Mick Creighton of the Failed Charge organization. Great to see them kicking ass lately.

4. I didn’t even bother asking if we could be the Four Horsemen. These kids would have thought I meant War and Pestilence or whatever.

5. You know the one where everything works properly to let you know that the team are all badasses.

6. If you can’t understand why South Australians drink such godawful beer, try their water some day.

7. Not just Crowe’s best movie but one of the most rewatchable movies ever made imo.

8. So after 2018 Masters every list I have taken to a two dayer has been a Generic Gore Pilgrims #: Name format. It’s a fun thing to do and a good way to keep track of time spent doing something you love.

9. For the nobody who cares they are, in order of seniority: Big Pimpin, The Nature Boy, The Toecutter and the Swordcoast Kid.

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