by Patrick Nevan

“Sometimes you kick, Sometimes you get kicked”

INXS, Kick

Hello dear readers.  I’m back from Death and Riches at Geelong and here is the promised tournament article for the two or three of you who enjoy in-depth tournament recaps of mid-sized Australian events.  I went down 2-3 with my Ogors but learned a lot about the new GHB meta along the way.  I’ll go through the event and finish with some well-thought-out and nuanced reflections on the emerging meta.  Strap yourselves in folks, this is going to be a long one.

The boys from the Craichouse did their power picks and pregame for the event here. You can read the lists, round by round results and final placings on the Stats and Ladders website. You will need an account to look at it though.¹

I completely spaced on it over the weekend but they had a professional photographer onsite taking glamour shots of people’s favorite models. A guy called Rory Beeforth who I assume you can contact. The pics are awesome and I’ll be peppering them through the article in place of some of my own shaky cam/blurry lens efforts. Credit goes to Rory and whoever owns the model I guess. Really good idea.

I mean a really good idea, these things are tight AF

TLDR:  Geelong Events Rock, I’m terrible at AOS and the meta is a toxic pit of sludge resting on a foundation of decent battleplans.

Off to Geelong

Dalton Copeland (D) and I headed down to Geelong pretty late on the Friday night.  Unfortunately a few of our guys had pulled out² so it was just the two of us and Aaron McHours staying at the holiday cabin.  I don’t know if other countries have holiday cabins but they are the preferred away trip accommodation for the boys of Measured Gaming who are either cheap, broke or cheap and broke.  Ideally you pack enough people in to lower the costs and enjoy the sight of a sliding glass door vibrating in harmony with the snores of 6 apparent sufferers of sleep apnoea.³

Geelong is the old port and industry city of the State of Victoria and its general vibe of industrial decay being slowly replaced by gentrified dormitory hipsterdom should be pretty familiar to most people in the Western World.  It’s up to you if you prefer the acres of closed factories or the jean short wearing hipsters devoting their lives to ruining beer with their poisonous fruit-tasting IPA’s.  Personally I love both of these things and really appreciate a chance to get out of the house so Geelong is always a great time for me.

Your choice of filling in a Shit Sandwich

We settled in with a few beers on the Friday and talked some Sigmar.   D is a heavy hitter on the tournament scene and was expecting good things from his Gobsprakk-backed Big Waaagh.  Aaron falls in the bracket of people who would be better at Hobby if they didn’t waste so much time with work and family.  He had a non-optimized list with fun stuff like a Ghorghon but he was going to make an effort to win his games.  As for me, I’m kind of the opposite.  I was running what would prove to be a very poorly thought out Mawtribes one drop.  (Frosty, Mournfang, Spellcasters in Bloodgullet). We got to bed fairly sober ar a reasonable hour for a change.

Day One

We were up and about early.  D and Aaron hadn’t stayed at this Caravan Park before and were excited to see the elderly caretaker doing his morning exercises, which are a combination of Tai Chi and Pop and Lock breakdance, in front of the main entrance.  My theory is that Caravan Parks are sex tourism hubs for retirees and he was trying to impress potential mates with his flexibility.  After a quick breakfast and some engaging speculation about the sex lives of the elderly we headed out.

The Geelong venue is  a supremely cool martial arts dojo that doubles as a hall for hire on the weekends.  The managers stick around to run the food and drink service all weekend which is always good and astonishingly cheap.  When was the last time you got a can of beer for under five bucks?  The Lost Legion have been running events for a while, and the standard of their mats, terrain, table spacing and organization is excellent across the aboard.  Nathan Thompson was TO-ing this one and after the usual round of hey-how-you-been-back-slappery that typifies the close-knit Australian AOS scene, we got down to business.

From the mezzanine looking into the main hall

Round One vs Mike Johnson – Cities of Sigmar – Geomantic Pulse – Win 31-19

Mike was one of my opponents at the Fatal 4Play teams event in July and was nice enough to not be upset that I initially completely blanked on him.  Mike was one of a few people getting their last hurrah in with old Cities of Sigmar running a list of Phoenix Guard and Dragons in Hammerhall.  Geomantic Pulse is not a great battleplan for him and I was expecting to win this one on match up alone.

We came forward and duked it out over the objectives in the middle, and I was able to contain his dragons and get the better of him over a few battlerounds.  My damage buffs went south a few times leaving me with a few niggling concerns and a game that went way harder than I thought it would.  The highlight was a chaff battle on the non-pulse side of the battlefield between a unit of Gnoblars and 10 Flagellants.  Astonishingly my Gnoblars carried the day with the firepower of their shooting making the difference over three battle rounds. 

It was a thoroughly enjoyable game without any major dramatic events.  At the risk of sounding condescending Mike is a guy whose ability and knowledge of AOS is well ahead of the lists that he puts on the table.  He is one of a posse of newer players on the Victorian scene and I’m expecting big things

Round 1 in general didn’t produce a lot of drama.  The match ups went more or less as expected.  For the many fans of Jarrad Coots he continued his round one tradition of ruthlessly slaughtering his opponent before taking his foot off the pedal.

Round 2 vs Fletcher Oldaker – Gloomspite Gitz – Every Step is Forward – Win – 26-21

Round 2 was one of those hilarious games defined by wild swings in dice rolls.  Fletcher is an old hand on the AOS scene and he was running a Spiderfang based Gloomspite Gitz army with an allied Gatebreaker.  Every Step is Forward was the only one I had played from this GHB and once you get your head around the weird deployment it is a solid battleplan.

Fletcher’s army deployed

I gave Fletcher the first turn and he pushed onto my bottom objective while I pushed my Frostlord forward to leap his screen, murder his A-Rok general and smash his lousy shrine.  In what would become a theme for the weekend I failed most of my buffs, did not do enough on my trampling charge and underwhelmed against his general, leaving it on three wounds.  Fletcher refused to let me have all the spikey rolls and proceeded to take the last three wounds off his own general with a miscast, rolled another miscast, and then spiked 19 wounds into my Stonehorn on Blizzard leaving it on 2 wounds.

He followed this up by failing a series of under seven inch charges leaving himself exposed.  My Mournfang got all their buffs for the only time in the event and zeroed out his Gargant, actually finishing the brute with their Gargant Hackers to the delight of Mawtribe players everywhere.  A second Blizzard of only 18 mortals finished off my general and the game ran down to scrabbling for battle tactics.  Oh and I did manage to get the Aethervoid Pendulum off, but rolled a one for both its targets.  Then I killed an A-Rok in combat with 6 wounds from a Slaughtermaster, it was that kind of game.  Fletcher finished on a very respectable 2-3 and hats off to him for running a narrative list.  I was two games up but it was pretty clear that I had made a few mistakes with my list.

Round 2 saw the start of what would be a recurring theme for the weekend.  A fair few games went right to time and in a few cases the players were unable to easily agree on a result.  Poor old Nathan had his work cut out as a TO.  There was a rising tide of grumbles about Blizzards and Primal Dice from the player base and I don’t just mean me.

TV Tray bolted to the bottom of my display board, You’re Welcome

Round 3 vs Alexander Krohn – Tzeentch – Spring the Trap – Loss – 28 -14

As I mentioned at this point it was pretty clear that I had written one of those lists that go OK in theory but don’t perform on the table and I had badly misjudged the meta.  Well in Round 3 my chickens came home to roost and it turns out they were Tzeentch Big Birds.  Krohn is one of Australia’s top competitive players running absolute filth with Guild of Summoners and a Krondspine to take advantage of the new “Rupture your Krondspine to send it Wild and feed it Endless Spells to make it unkillable” strat.  It was going to be a tough day at the office.

With the set up for the battleplan I figured I had one chance to get across early, hop his screens and tear into his casters before they rolled over the top of me.  I took first turn, dutifully failed all my buffs except the movement prayer⁴ and made my charge into his screens.  Needed a 6 on Trampling Charge to get over the screen into Kairos and the casters, rolled a 5 and got around to at least kill the prick with blizzard.

From there it was the Tzeentch show with the Krohn-Spine ruptured, fed endless spells and sent into my Frostlord and the rest of my army.  I did manage to hit back with some lucky reserve deployment charges but not enough came of putting unbuffed Mournfang into neg 1 to hit daemons.  If only someone had told me that units that hit on 4’s were garbage.

The highlight of the game was the Krohn-Spine being obliged to eat a summoned big bird but I was beaten and scrapping for points by turn 3.  A position I compounded by foolishly piling my last unit of Gluttons into eating range of the Krondspine, so I threw in the towel in turn 4.  Krohn is easily one of my favourite regular tournament opponents and he handled my occasional displays of childish petulance with his normal aplomb.

I got my first really good taste of the problems with the new GHB in this one.  Not just the returning Rupture Krondspine but the interaction of the primal system and the magic Dom armies.  The Big Birds were unstoppable with Primal Dice on top of their Mastery of Magic dice changing routine.  They managed to unbind me on 18’s with more than their customary ease.  Krohn didn’t even need to do the thing where a Big Bird rolls a six, you change the other dice to a six, add a primal dice for any result and cast with total power. 

These pricks really needed a hand with their casting

The wider round 3 saw a few more issues with people timing out and some salt at the end of a long day.  Games are running longer and dealing with the all new battleplans and rules made for a pretty exhausting day.  It was clear that there had been a considerable shift in the meta and those who adapted early were doing well.

Saturday Night

We headed back to the cabin to decompress before the now traditional BBQ at Michael Clarkes.⁵   D finished the day 3-0 while Aaron was on 1-2 so we had a full range of results.  D was designated driving so Aaron and I got on the beers until that finely-judged moment when we either left for the BBQ, or ordered pizza and got hammered in front of the television.

Clarkey is a mainstay of the Australian AOS scene, two-time Worlds veteran and Victorian State Rep for the Australian Masters Committee.⁶  He hosted a BBQ at the first Geelong 2-dayer a couple of years back and enjoyed the opportunity to dunk on the rest of us by showing off his stately mansion and all the cool toys he has in the massive shed which he devotes to hobby.  It’s also pretty much the only time he can get anyone to play ping pong with him and his epic clashes with the Captain have been highlights of previous years.

This sign hangs above the toilet in Clarkey’s Hobby Shed. What a Nerd

As always the food was great and, being an excellent host, Clarkey remembered my fondness for White Russians⁷. This year he went a whole bunch of extra miles providing a seemingly endless stream of White Russians blended up with Ice Cream instead of milk.  They were delicious.  Long story short I got stuck into it, overrode the cut off switch in my brain that reminds me I’m well into my forties and got 1990’s drunk.  We all had a blast talking all kinds of hobby and life shit, and went back to the cabin where a long suffering, sober D went to bed and Aaron and I blathered away for a few more hours.

Day Two

I woke early with a hangover that felt like it had been marinating since the 1990’s compounded by consuming way too much sugar.  Still you shouldn’t pick the song if you can’t face the music, so after my morning hello to the geriatric Tai Chi sex pest I had a pretty good bacon and egg roll and we packed up our stuff, piled in the cars and headed out.

The Sunday morning drive to the venue was, in the words of D, “Some Silent Hill shit.” Lower Geelong was blanketed in fog and we drove through empty streets with the light towers of the nearby stadium rising above it all like strange ships bound for some distant planet. It was a rare moment of beauty in a town better known for its suburban blandness.  Ominous like a motherfucker as well, and I confess to a feeling of unease.  It was going to be a big day.

Yeah, should be a great day

Round 4 vs David Sulava – Big Waaagh – No Reward without risk – Loss 26 -15

Big Waaagh would have to be a top contender for my most hated opponent in the game.  I’ve played against them so many times.  To me they represent the pinnacle of piss-poor game design.  An Orc army devoted to harnessing the unstoppable power of the Waaagh that invariably sits still and castles up for two to three turns to run up its buffs.  It’s the same sort of genius that made Khorne a board control, out-of-phase movement army.  You only ever see them when they have the jank in their favor and this GHB they have Gobbsprakk dishing out d6 mortals with Primal Dice to back up his unbinds, and some of the derpiest battle tactics ever written.  Seriously, Kruleboyz get one for standing within 3 inches of terrain.

Yes you did achieve your battle tactic! Who’s a Good Krule Boy?

David has been around awhile and wasn’t about to do me any favors by throwing his army into my Gnoblar screens.  Turn one I castled up and nudged forward.  He castled still and did his interpretive dance to muster the raging power of the Waaagh.  Turn Two I failed all my buffs and took some Gobsprakk mortals, so I edged a bit further forward.  David got enough Waaagh points for his plus one to hit and wound, teleported in one 3-man of pigs and took out one of my Mournfang units.  Turn 3 I realized I could attack or die slowly so I failed my buffs, made a mess of my charges and whiffed.  On the plus side I finally got the big numbers off on my Stonehorn soaring 14 inches over his army into his unit of 6 pigs, and killed a whole 2 of them.  The three that made it into combat did 12 wounds back to my Stonehorn.

Start of his turn 3 David stared off my Stonehorn and I called it there rather than make everybody miserable with the grim process of butchering my last units.  Not a great day for the Ogors but pretty typical for a Big Waaagh match up.  All this misery is not to sell David short as an opponent.  He took a good list for the GHB and executed a solid strat.  Big Waaagh are pretty hot in the new meta with their teleports, easy mode strats and the all-important Gobsprakk. David would finish 6^th on a very well deserved 4-1 with a couple of sports votes as well.  I look forward to playing him again.

The wider tournament had settled into winners and whiners.  Of the three 4-0s, D and Krohn were playing each other while the invincible Joel Graham was playing down into Dan Trotter’s Morgaunt FEC.  I was playing to avoid the ignominy of a 2-3 finish.  Sure I had taken a terrible list, but I would be able to salvage a positive result if I could get some damn spells off.

Round 5 vs Joshua Nightingall – Seraphon – Nexus Collapse –  Loss – 18 -15

I drew Starborn Seraphon with Kroak and a Slann.  So much for getting any spells off.⁸  Josh is one of the Ballarat boys and a pretty fair hand at AOS, so I was in for a tough day at the office.  Nexus Collapse is one of the most interesting battleplans in the new GHB.  You can burn 2 of 6 objectives from turn one if you are behind on points so it is a solid anti-castling mission.

My best chance was to bumrush him and play for the Double so I gave him first turn and he scored 5 points.  I hit on the genius tactic of taking Magical Dominance (cast a spell, have no spells unbound) as my battle tactic.  Josh could unbind me, draw ahead on points and have his objective burned next turn, or let me have my damn buffs.  He unbound me.

I couldn’t get the Stonehorn into his Slann but I picked off the Saurus bodyguard, got the double as planned and was in a position to roll into his Slann with a unit of Mournfang until I whiffed my charges by rerolling a 4 into a 2.  Josh proceeded to give me the sort of double turning I haven’t had since the early days of AOS.  There was plenty of bad luck to go around and he managed a miscast on his main Slann in both turns, but the 30-ish mortal wounds from Blizzard made up the shortfall. 

I dug in and went for it turn 3 hoping for a lot of luck, got my 5 points and put down his General but it was all over.  One of my last acts for the tournament was to charge a Slaughtermaster into Kroak for a battle tactic.  I had a thought that there was an outside chance of putting Kroak down to salvage some dignity from the tournament but I rolled snake eyes for his 2d6 random attacks.  I wasn’t even surprised.

Smug Douchebag sitting there on his stupid mobility Scooter

I conceded turn 4 and Josh finished on a solid 3-2.  Congrats to him for the win and for having another baby on the way.  Josh has signed on to TO the Ballarat event first weekend of October which is well worth going to.

For the rest of the tournament, Joel won his game pretty comfortably by Blizzarding Ghoul Nagash off the table over two turns and winning the tournament.  Krohn and D had a close struggle and Krohn got up finishing 2^nd while D came in 3^rd.  Once again a lot of games went right to time and there were a few hard-argued finishes.  Our own Aaron McHours battled it until dice down for a crucial draw.  Nathan Thompson had a tough time of it all weekend with games running over and a fair amount of salt about the place.  Having been on the TO and player side of a highly contested timeouts it’s not a great time and it all points to the inevitability of standardized chess clock rules.

Final ladder on Stats and Ladders

Still like every tournament we packed up, handed out prizes, applauded the winners with varying degrees of sincerity and went back to our regular-ass lives.  D finished in third while Aaron finished at the top of his bracket thanks to his draw. Graham Nightingall, Josh’s dad came away with best sports.  Joel Graham added yet another notch to his hobby bedpost. I left with the ridiculous amount of self worth I invest in competitive toy soldiers at an all-time low.

Despite the crushing blow to my ego it was a great event and I’ll be back for the next one on November the 18^th.  The Tournament experience is ultimately not about results, it’s about the event, the vibe, getting to spend time with people who share your passions without having to apologize for playing with toy soldiers.  Unless you win.  Then it’s about winning.

Final Thoughts

Damn this was a long article and I haven’t even shared my thoughts on the emerging meta.  For myself I got a chance to relearn an important lesson about playing the game that’s in front of you, not the one you wish it was. Maybe I will take it in, sixth times a charm. For the Meta let’s start with the good, and it is really only the battleplans at this stage.  We played 5 good battleplans which is 4 more than they wrote for the last GHB.  The variety of deployment and objectives are good and the anti-castling battleplans are a welcome addition.  In this sense the bones of the GHB are strong and with some changes we will be in for a good year.  As for the rest, well Benoit Blanc put it best.

It’s just dumb.  When we reminisce in the old gamers’ home AOS 3 will be remembered for its blunders.  Coherency to 5 models, the Krondspine, 6-monthly GHB’s, the Bounty Hunters battalion and now the whole Andtorian⁹ thing is shaping up to be a worthy addition to that list.  Lets look at the big three.

Krondspine:  Has there ever been a unit that has made for more miserable play experiences that this tool of the meta oppressor?   They’re fun sponges, why give magic doms the easymode tools to send them wild and feed them endless spells? Does anybody like this stinking thing?  There is a sort of corporate conspiracy theory that they built way too many of these turds and changed the rules to shift ’em.  That makes way more sense than the rupture-your-Krondspine-feed-it-endless-spells routine making it through design and playtesting unscathed.

It’s not all gravy, you have to risk rolling at least a 4 on 2d6 to make the strat work

Bizzard:  Way too much damage at zero opportunity cost.  Magically strong armies have absolutely no trouble casting this thing with a couple of primal dice.  The stupidity of the teleporting blizzard wizard speaks for itself.  Even the no-teleport ones draw a 24 inch circle on the board that you attack into with elite units at their peril.  Was the intent of Blizzard to drive powerful monsters off the gaming table? Because that’s the result.  You’d be mad to take one to a tournament.¹⁰ 

Primal Dice:  Hey here’s a cool mechanic that will give foot wizards a chance to do outlandish shit.  What’s that, Big Birds cast with total power if they roll a single six?  Oh hang on I’m taking 6 mortals off an unbind cause Gobsprakk’s result was over ten.  Oh wait, it’s turn 2 and my opponent has 4 dice and a plus 4 to cast for existing while being Seraphon.  Guess I’m getting Blizzarded unless he miscasts.  As usual they have introduced new rules with near zero thought about how they interact with the game.  Primal Dice do give magically weak armies a chance to get spells off but I was regularly being unbound on 18’s by magic doms.  I know there’s a faction in AOS design that looks at Seraphon buffs the way an Australian serial killer looks at hitchhiking backpackers, but you have to wonder if this was playtested?.

If you’re thinking I’m a bit salty cause I took a terrible list to an event and got flogged then, well spotted Lieutenant, I’m promoting you to Captain Obvious.   These gripes aren’t just a matter of opinion like the aesthetic of the new Cities range.  There was a lot of discussion amongst the gamers at the event and if anyone was “OMG I love the Krondspine!”, “Yay Blizzard!” they were wisely keeping it to themselves.  The general vibe was a now familiar sense of resignation and hope that things would be improved in the balance updates.  Even the guys using the ruptured Krondspines thought it was a ridiculous combo.  There were three Ruptured Krondspines and three Gobsprakks amongst the seven 4-1’s at this event.¹¹  That’s not a criticism of the guys who adjusted to the meta and took them, but it’s not great design.

As long as I’m ranting don’t @ me with any nonsense about learning to play around it or gitting gud.  I know I fucked up at this event and I know how to adjust.  I’ll be back after a period of sober reflection and adjustment.  My point is that any version of the AOS meta where big stompy monsters are a stone cold liability is just plain stupid.

A period of sober reflection and adjustment

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Notes

1. Full disclosure Stats and Ladders is owned by a mate of mine. If you hate making accounts to look at things I’m right there with you but give it a go. You will be seeing a lot more of it. ↩︎
2. Their fathers should have pulled out. ↩︎
3. As Jake Dutton’s father once said. “If you can’t sleep with the sound of another man snoring, you aint tired.” ↩︎
4. In hindsight taking a list that relied on Ogor spell buffs working was a really bad idea. Even with the spellcasting subfaction and the primal dice they’re still Ogor’s. ↩︎
5. The AOS guy not the international Cricketer. ↩︎
6. Competitive AOS in Australia is ‘run’ by the Masters Committee. Each State elects a representative so they have someone nearby to complain too and blame for anything they don’t like. ↩︎
7. Yes I am that guy that started drinking White Russians after watching the Big Lebowski. Fuck You, they’re delicious. ↩︎
8. Again, what the fuck was I thinking? ↩︎
9. Even the name is dumb. An-D-torian, And-Torian, An-Torian? ↩︎
10. No doubt some prick will go and win a tournament with Stonehorns to prove me wrong. That said Joel Graham blizzarded Nagash of the table over two turns. You decide if big monsters are a risk. ↩︎
11. And one Morathi. Ryan Chamley took the old girl and her bow snakes out for a spin and did very well. Who would have thought Morathi and Bow Snakes would ever be a bold choice. ↩︎