by Patrick Nevan

It’s all happening in AOS at the moment: New GHB, New Points, New Battlescroll. The AOS player base have turned to their esteemed content creators for guidance to deal with this deluge of new information.¹ So I figure this is the perfect time for a recap on a small teams event, held under the old GHB, in a regional Australian town so obscure even its residents have never heard of it. If this one doesn’t get readers signing up to the Patreon I don’t know what will.

You can read the first half of this article here but for the 90 odd percent of you who have better things to do with your time, I’ll summarize. Fatal 4Play is Australia’s first proper AOS teams event, ran by my mate Dave Cunning of Stats & Ladders, Bush Radio and Measured Gaming fame. 40 people showed up in teams of 4 to duke it out over the weekend. Unusually for a teams event the lists all had to be from separate Grand Alliances and we got some interesting ones. You can check them out here. Final results are here. My team is Those Guys with the Things.

Now that’s what I call A Team

Fair warning, this article goes well over the normal toilet-break-themed length of a Plastic Craic entry. I’m going to give a rundown of the event, my team’s performance and share a few of our thoughts on our first teams event.

TLDR: The event was awesome, some flogs from South Australia won, my team did ok and team events are pretty cool.

Day One

Dave, assisted by the effervescent Tristan Smith took care of the organizing so the lazier Measured Gaming guys such as myself and Joel got a welcome break from helping out. Everyone arrived on time without any drops and we got down to business. Unfortunately Dave wasn’t able to do the round one draw the night before, so we missed a chance to obsess over our first matchup. There was also no area set aside for the content creator press but I put this down to Dave’s inexperience at running events rather than a deliberate insult.

Not even a Press Lanyard or Name Tag

Round One vs Return Address “All Seasons Resort Room 42”

The Return Address boys were a team of pretty serious competitive 40k players having a drinking weekend playing Age of Sigmar, and they were into the beers at start of play. I wasn’t even aware the bar opened at 9am but Joel was ready to meet them. Our pairing process was pretty rusty: we lost the roll off for picking the battleplan and I missed out on getting Only the Worthy² for my Gutbusters, and opened the tournament with a mild tantrum.

Frank (Fyreslayers) vs Andrew “Big Head” Armstrong (Slaves to Darkness) – Loss 19-18 Realmstone Cache

A close game, Frank’s Hearthguard put Belakor down early but Andrew’s block of Varanguard were very difficult to stop. Unfortunately they didn’t read the battleplan rules thoroughly. In Cache you roll once to split the objectives into 2 putting them a long way apart. They rolled twice and put both of the objectives into Andrew’s territory thus costing Frank the game and making him the butt of his comrades’ humor for the rest of the weekend.

Patrick (Me) vs Hayden “Potato” Manskie (Soulblight Gravelords) – Win 37-8 – Ours for the Taking

A closer game than the scores show, I got the better of Hayden with experience and a turn 2 priority roll effectively closing out the game by turn 2. Hayden hadn’t played his SBGL before our game and went on to 4-1 at the event so I’m glad I got him early.

Day One gets underway

Brownie (OBR) vs Matt “World Chamption” Jackson (Ogor Mawtribes) – Win 26-16 – Only the Worthy

In accordance with the law of tournaments Brownie’s first opponent was a mate from his 40k club. A good game, Brownie was able to tank his opponent’s Stonefang with Mortek and take out his heroes with Morghasts. Incidentally the “World Champion” in Matt’s name is not some sort of ironic title: he is a member of Australia’s all conquering Worlds 40k team and a pretty good dude as well.

Joel (BOC) vs Ben “Juju” Clarke (Seraphon) – Win 27-13, Jaws of Gallet

A solid win for Joel here. He was definitely more experienced and used his BOC out of reserve to tear the Seraphon apart. Joel was able to displace his opponent’s screens with BOC heroic actions and put down Kroak and a Slann with his 9 Bullgors in the turn they dropped. A Cathartic moment.

So we came out of our first round with a fairly solid win. The Return Address boys were a good bunch and solid contributors to the vibe of the weekend. They eventually won 2 rounds which is very respectable given their level of experience and alcohol consumption. Hope to see more of them on the scene.

Round 2 vs Ballarat Shed Gaming

We faced off against the boys from the Rat after lunch. Ha, Joel had started drinking at 9 and after a liquid lunch that Captain was ready to join the tournament.³ The Ballarat boys had plenty to prove and took the whole pairings process pretty seriously. So did our team, but we pretended not to so we could look cool and uninterested. The Shed gang⁴ were loaded for war with their lists and there weren’t a lot of easy match ups for us.

Frank vs Adam Mitchell – Khardron Overlords – Loss – 0-20, Lurkers Bellow

Frank went under the bus on this one. The Captain was our guy to take on the KO but it turns out the way pairings went, you could duck your worst match up. Frank got the lousy matchup so we doubled down and gave him the dogshit scenario no one else wanted to play. The game went something like, grenade that turns of ward saves – pew pew pew – major win KO.

Franks Flyreslayers

Brownie vs Martin Brooks – Blades of Khorne – Win – 20-18 – Nidus Paths

A close win for Brownie who was clearly benefitting from his one practice game with the (then) current GHB. They played cagey for the first three turns with Brownie locked up with Khorne Bloodtithe moves. They didn’t have the output to finish the OBR and Brownie was able to take a narrow lead when his Stalkers put Martin’s Bloodthirsters down. Mortek Guard were the stars again, flattening Skarbrand.

The Captain vs Lachlan MacLean – OBR – Win 28-15 – Ours for the Taking

Doc MacLean is the pride of Ballarat AOS and isn’t well loved in Bendigo because he keeps winning our events when he finds the time to play AOS. The Captain beat him last time they played and was keen for the rematch. He won by taking out all the small OBR units and limiting Doc’s ability to hold objectives or limit the rampage of his Bullgors. My match report notes with the Captain are a bit of a muddle but apparently someone cried like a salty bitch.

For them that know the source material

Me vs Joshua Nightingall – Gloomspite Gitz – Loss 19-20 – Path of the Champion

Absolute barn burner against Josh. A real see-saw, I was able to hem him in early using a Tyrant in the Bringy Dingy to get into his lines and hold him in place (Shout out to the Nature Boy, Wooo), but he rolled over me with a priority shift, bought all of his damn Squigs back and thrashed me. In the end I ran low on bodies, needed Josh to make some mistakes and he didn’t. On the bright side, thanks to the rules for Path of a Champion I was able to live the Mawtribe dream and score the battle tactics for having every Ogor Eating and Hungry in the same turn. Great Game.

We drew the round 2-2 as far as the ladder is concerned but we lost on points differential, so the bragging rights go to the mighty men of Ballarat. The Shed gang would finish on the exact same results as us at 2-2-1, but beat us into 4th place on the four points of score differential they got in our match up. Can’t argue with that, but it doesn’t take much for me to seek revenge. Next time I’m buying the captain shots for lunch.

Round 3 vs Paint it Black featuring Troggboi

Fresh from our narrow defeat we faced off against the boys from South Australia. Krohn, their team captain is a veteran player with Worlds experience and they weren’t here to fuck spiders. Once again i don’t think we had a lot of good options for the pairings. The South Australian boys managed to psyche us out using a laptop with one of those fancy colored spreadsheets.

Frank vs Jason Tipping – Soulblight Gravelords – Loss 18 – 23 – Position over Power

Another tough match up for the Footslayers.  Jason used his gravesites, summonable units and tunnel master to deploy onto the side objectives and start racking up the points.  By the time the Fyreslayers waddled over to deal with them it was too late for them to catch up, although Frank did manage to hit a lot of sixes on his Runes and claw back some points from turn 3 onwards.

Brownie vs Alexander Krohn – Kharadron Overlords – Loss – 4-24 – Relamstone Cache

Once again we couldn’t get the KO into the BOC so someone had to go under the bus.  We honestly thought Brownie’s OBR might go ok in Realmstone Cache with less objectives to contest, which shows what we know.  The game went something along the lines of, “I have the objective, pew pew, pew, Oh dear god why? Thanks for the game.”  Really everything you play KO for.

Brownie at the 23rd consecutive mortal

Me vs Jacob Bondarenko – Gloomspite Gitz – Loss 24-27 – In the Presence of Idols

Another close loss for me, it was a swingy affair where we both had fairly ordinary turns but the returning waves of the Gitz shut me down in the end.  This game was marred by some piss-poor sportsmanship from me and it wasn’t a fun one for Jacob.  I hope to give him a better game next time we play.

The Captain vs Josh Clarke – Skaven – Win 24-10 –

Both Joel and Josh are Plastic Craic Patreons⁵ so there was a bit of chest beating on the line with this one.  Unfortunately, my interview notes with The Captain consist of Very Fun Game, Shout out to Clarkey.  Not exactly ace reportage but I’d had a few myself at this point and the only question the Captain wants to answer at 8pm is “Can I get you another?”  The boys had a pretty good game tho.

The Captain, in the Hawaian and Josh front and Centre

So the South Australians gave us a spanking. They would go on to win the tournament without losing a single round while having a good time. We left them in the bar at the All Seasons at 1am that night. All up we had a pretty indifferent day results-wise as a team, but we had a good time getting into the format. The game day ended very late, at 8pm and a few of the teams headed over to the All-Seasons to get on the piss. After only four hours of The Captain reminding me that he was carrying the whole team with his 3-0 I was fired up for a big Sunday.

Day Two

Dave got us up for an unconscionably early 9am start.  Team Those Guys was feeling refreshed and raring to go.   Sleeping in your own bed is a real advantage at home tournaments.  I’d finished yesterday on 1-2 and was dreading the prospect of getting a negative result, particularly if Joe went on to get a 5-0 with the BOC.  With no clear leader on the ladder most teams had a chance at a podium so everyone knuckled down for the last day.

Round 4 vs Borderline Gaming

Borderline Gaming are a bunch of lads from up around the Albury/Wodonga region.  They have a pretty strong local scene but suffer a bit from the Tyranny of Distance.  We were getting the hang of the matchups and got most of the ones we wanted in this round.  This round was noteworthy for having Twists and Turns and Lurkers Below; if they aren’t the worst battleplans in AOS 3 they will do until something suckier comes along.

Brownie vs James Anderson – BOC – L – 10-24 – Position over Power

A bit of a tough match up for Brownie.  The BOC got onto the side objectives early and started posting big scores.  Then the dreaded Morghurite Chaos Spawn got in amongst his troops and debuffed their output down to nothing.  Brownie needed some luck to go his way to get back into the game but it didn’t happen.

Jono Inger’s gentrified OBR

Frank vs Chris Chrichton – Ogor Mawtribes – Win 26-8, Twists and Turns

We were able to haul Frank out from under the bus and put him in a favorable match up and he delivered. The Mawtribes came steaming in, ran into the Slayers’ fights first ability and more or less melted.  As I mentioned everything works once in a 5 rounder. Frank was able to Yeet Kragnos off the table with Hearthguard mortals and it was all over from turn 2.

Joel vs Brad Kilmpssch – FEC – Win 27-15 – Prize of Gallet

A pretty solid win for a surprisingly chipper Joel.  As near as we can figure, when they go drinking the Captain gets the hangover.  Joel played a classic Prize of Gallet which means taking second turn and choking out your opponent’s scoring.  He had a few nervous moments when his Bullgors were monstered by Crypt Horrors but experience told the story as it so often does.

Me vs Zac Stephens – Seraphon – Win 20-0 – Lurkers Below

If you’re thinking I manned up and took on the Kroak bomb with my Gutbusters you’d be wrong. Zac was one of those cool guys who plays Seraphon for the Dinosaurs riding Dinosaurs and he had a coalesced army.⁶  Any time you take a gimmicky list to an event it works at least once, and this was that game to me.  We maneuvered to the center, I got my Gnoblar screens out of the road and just started crapping out charge mortals on ridiculously good dice.  Zac’s dice, in accordance with the immutable laws of bad luck, abandoned him and it was all over by turn 4.

The Nature Boy flattened a unit of Aggradon Lancers on his own, 9 charge mortals

The Borderline Gaming guys finished last with one draw and four losses but had a good time at the event.  The ladder was very tight after round 4 and we were one of the 6 teams in contention for a podium.  Joel was 4-0 with the BOC and staring down the barrel of a personal best 5-0 with his beloved Goats.  Unfortunately the Captain had finished off all the Stout available in the venue yesterday and he would have to face the last round on beer alone.

Round 5 vs Team Liquid

Team Liquid were a gang of young Roosters from Melbourne.  As a group they were easily the most clean cut, wholesome and healthy set of gamers I ever saw in my life.  Seriously, it was like they stepped out of one of those Games Workshop pictures of people playing the game.⁷  Not a bearded fat guy in sight.  Pairings went about as well as they ever did for us, but we won the all-important roll off to pick the battleplan and I jumped at the chance to play Only the Worthy with my Ogors.

How Team Liquid exist in my memory

Frank vs David Sulava – Gloomspite Gitz – Loss 13-27 – Jaws of Gallet

Frank lost half his army to fully buffed Squig Herd which came back after he killed them off.  He won the priority from turn 2 but was forced to give it away to avoid annihilation.  David yanked Frank’s objectives out from under him, starved him of points and eventually finished him off.  Frank’s major takeaway from the game was that Squigs are fucked.

Brownie vs Kieran Robinson – SBGL – Loss 20-24 – Prize of Gallet

Another close loss for Brownie who really took this one down to the wire.  They had a pretty close battle but Brownie was never able to produce enough damage to put down his opponent’s unrendable Zombie Dragons.  With the healing available to them you need to throw a lot of dice to put them down in a turn.  Kieran played a smart game and was able to edge Brownie out despite losing nearly everything that wasn’t Nefferata or a Zombie Dragon. 

Brownie (Front middle) Enjoying his clash with Kieran’s etheral dragons

Me vs Mike Johnson – Daughters of Khaine – Win 28-8 – Only the Worthy

This one was always going to be an uphill struggle for Mike.  The DOK aren’t in great shape and Only the Worthy was the battleplan I picked my army for.  He came at me as hard as he could but rolled some terrible dice and bounced off.  I rolled over him with another amazing turn of everything going right.  Even I was embarrassed when I hit my third 10 up for a charge.  A bad day for Mike but I was pretty happy that I got my beloved Tyrants into their magic battleplan right at the death of the GC GHB.

Joel vs Lazlo Nedanovski – Nurgle -Win 27-26 – Battlelines Drawn

With Joel looking at his first ever 5-0 with the BOC this one was for all the marbles.  Happily it was one of those rare times when the actual game matched the occasion.  The debrief notes from Joel’s game tell the story better than I can.

“Really good game, BOC holed him with Darkwalkers bottom of turn 5 teleporting to a board quarter, Bullgors killed two flies, general, Bllightkings got smashed by Bloab, died to disease with Bloab dead, excellent game.  10 Blightkings never left the center of the board getting yanked by BOC heroes.  Lazlo one to watch.”

So there you have it.  We finished up with a draw in our last round with Joel triumphant for the tournament.  Team Liquid finished up in 7^th place with a respectable 2-1-2 result.  As always we were all pretty wiped at the end of a hard-fought five rounder. All that remained was to get the final results.

Results

The tournament wound up with The South Australians of Painted Black featuring Trogg Boi as the clear winners.  Measured Gaming’s other team in the event, Fuck We Need A Team Name, lead by Spooky Luke Ingram came second.  The Canberra Team, the Mortachs of Beers slid into third place, aided by a series of draws amongst the more capable teams.   The Mortarchs also received a special prize for their work online.  David Sulava won Best Painted for his excellent Gloomspite Gitz army.

David’s Gitz

A unique feature of the event was a final General’s Showdown between the Generals of the winning team to determine the overall champion.  A good crowd stuck around to watch the South Australians have it out in the Arena of Death.  The battle opened with the traditional preamble of rules quibbles and scheming amongst the participants before they got down to business.

It went something like this.  Jason’s Vamp Lord on Zombie Dragon butchered Krohn’s Arkanaut Admiral while he was cowering in terrain, trying to avoid being noticed.  Josh came after the Vamp Lord with his Verminlord Warbringer and just barely finished it off after losing a few wounds to unleash hell.  Josh then turned to deal with Jacob’s Trogg Boss, who had spent the battle cowering in a corner of the board, and overkilled him by a few wounds.

This made Josh, a Plastic Craic Patreon, the ultimate winner. Thus, the Craichouse was the real winner on the day.  The showdown was a roaring success and a fitting end to a great event.  I’m glad the South Australians had something to talk about on their seven hour car ride home.

Final Thoughts

Damn this has been a long article, congrats if you made it this far.  I figure I’ll close out with some general reflections on the teams format followed by the thoughts of my teammates.  The boys all represent particular types of AOS player and it’s worth examining their different perspectives.  Then we will hear from the Organisers.

Most of the players at Fatal 4Play had never been to a teams event and, asking around, they all seemed to touch on a few common points.

• It’s a great weekend away with your boys.  You are all fighting on the same side and best of all you don’t have to play each other.
• The team spirit gave everybody something to fight for.  Games that would normally be conceded went the distance, with even non-competitive players scrapping for points.
• There was real value in taking one for the team and guys willing to throw themselves under the bus earned a lot of respect.
• It was exhausting.  Rounds were a bit longer with pairings, more games went to time and there was more mental drain than a singles event.
• Experience counts.  It’s no surprise that the top 2 teams both had Worlds players on them.  There will be a few people, myself included, who will be taking the next one a lot more seriously.
• The one from each Grand Alliance structure worked fairly well. It got a few interesting armies on the table but didn’t stop the competitive teams from bringing the filth.
• Teams events rock.  I’m fairly sure most of the teams would happily come back next year.  I don’t see them replacing singles but it was a fresh approach to a familiar game.

Teamwork makes the Dream Work

Frank

Frankie came to the event as an enthusiastic casual player who doesn’t get a lot of regular playtime.  He finished 1-4 for the weekend which is a pretty miserable time competitively, but he found the weekend better than most events because of the camaraderie and support from his teammates.  His main criticism was that drawn rounds should have counted for more in the scores.  Once you get around the logistics of finding a team as a casual player it is a winning format.

Brownie

Brownie came to the event as an experienced competitive player who is not in love with AOS at the moment.  He has a lot of teams experience in other systems and rates the format highly for the camaraderie and tactics.  Brownie went under the bus a few times on the weekend which I think reflects on our team make up and inexperience with the pairings.⁸  We could typically duck an impossible match up but struggled to get good ones.  For a guy who plays a few systems, teams is definitely a draw.

Joel

As both a Masters-level competitive player and a big deal organizer in the Australian AOS scene, Joel had a bit to say about teams.  In terms of our team’s performance, Joel and I fucked up both in list construction and pairings.  A bit more attention to detail would have yielded much better results. The vibe was awesome all weekend and the only salt Joel saw was from Doc MacLean.  Team events were definitely fun but would be more of a competitive brain stretch in a six or eight man format.  I agree on this and tend to think that if we want to win Worlds we should hold an 8 man at some point.  Results wise a 5-0 in teams is great, but doesn’t carry the same weight as a singles win.  Regardless of the armies you are matched up against the Swiss isn’t bringing you up against the toughest players.  Joel wouldn’t go so far as to say that Teams Warhammer is the best Warhammer but he’d definitely consider travelling for a teams event.

Don’t ever change Captain

The Tournament Organizers

Fatal 4Play was Dave’s first solo run at organizing an event after a bunch of Measured Events.  To the surprise of nobody that knows Dave, the event ran smoothly and he was happy with the process for the pairing and match ups.  There were a lot of questions about rules interactions but these tended to be legitimate queries rather than good old fashioned salt mining.  Dave’s major take away was a few improvements in the scoring system and pairings.  It was generally agreed that a Swiss format didn’t work well with only 10 teams, and going forward Dave will be looking at a round robin day one and Swiss day two.

Fatal 4Play was Dave’s first test of the teams scoring system on his Stats and Ladders tournament software.  Apparently it worked without a hitch.  From the players’ point of view we just gave the captain our results and he took care of it. 

Good job fellas, looking forward to next year

Tristan had a blast being co-TO.  His major takeaway was that too many games were running over time.  This is a growing problem for a game that isn’t going to get any quicker with longer hero phases in the new GHB, and it’s definitely something for TO’s to be aware of.

Other than that, Teams was a blast.  The wide dispersal of Australia’s player base will always make competitive teams events a tricky proposition.   The costs involved ensure that headkicking comp players will generally be looking to Masters rankings when they travel.  I couldn’t see myself traveling interstate for more than one a year but there is definitely a place for a big annual teams event.¹⁰

Even if no one else decides to carry the torch, Teams will be back in Bendigo next year.  There were a few of the locals (me) who weren’t too thrilled with the smug looks of triumph on the faces of those piss-water beer drinking, serial-murdering South Australian fucks.  Expect a tougher fight next year.

Notes

1. Or a bunch of talentless hacks launching into a feeding frenzy of lazy clickbait. Whichever?

2. For those who can bring themselves to give a damn about last GHB’s battleplans, in Only the Worthy objectives could be held by one GC at a time. Because Ogor heroes count as 5 models they automatically trump the opposition.

3. My good mate Joel McGrath is the alter ego of Captain Joel aka The Captain. The Captain is a red-faced roaring fellow of infinite jest, high spirits and low cunning. He arrives when Joel is about 6 Pints in and leaves when he damn well feels like it.

4. Ballarat Shed Gaming are named after their meeting place in a particularly awesome shed. No one has heard from any other Ballarat AOS players since the Shed got new concrete.

5. Comprehensive studies have shown that Plastic Craic Patreons are 17% better at Warhammer and have 36% more sexual magnetism than other gamers.

6. I will never understand why they swung the nerf bat on the melee side in the new battletome. It’s like slapping a muzzle on a Dachshund cause you were savaged by a Pit Bull.

7. The one with all the 20 somethings around a suspiciously clutter free table, having the time of their lives in that weird turned-to-the-camera-without-acknowledging-it pose they use.

8. Frank wound up with more than his share of bus tyre treads as well. Sorry guys, we will organize better next time.

9. I always feel a bit ridiculous when I go on about Masters Level players and Community leaders in our toy soldier hobby, but these folks really do set the pace.

10. South East Queensland is the logical destination. A strong local community and convenient for the player base.

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