by Peter Atkinson

But heroes often fail
And you won’t read that book again
Because the ending’s just too hard to take

~ Gordon Lightfoot, “If You Could Read My Mind”

Ah, Bendigo and Ballarat.  The Springfield and Shelbyville of Central Victoria.  My town is basically an hour from both, but we’re kinda-not-officially part of Greater Bendigo, being on the main road between there and Melbourne.  Our sports teams play in the Bendigo leagues, and we’re in the Bendigo TV region so we see all the same ads for their smarmy real estate agents, flat-pack furniture dumps and how-are-they-still-operating family-owned electrical appliance stores.  Long story short this felt like an “away” trip for me too, because I go to Bendigo all the time but it’s only the third time in my life I’ve set foot in the Rat. 

I could really only remember two things about the joint:

• Merciless Blizzard was named for their springtime weather
• And isn’t that where Steve Moneghetti comes from?

Steve Moneghetti wins the Great North Run with a World Record time.  Credit: Getty Images

Now I’m clearly biased, so if you want an objective view on the whole Ballarat vs Bendigo thing, look no further than the impact the Ballaratians’ pathetic weakness has had on the modern AFL landscape:

Regardless of their failings as a city and a people, beyond returning the kind efforts of the TOs by relentlessly shit-canning their town, my objectives for the event were:

• Represent my beloved Bonesplitterz while I still can
• Cook up some convincing excuses for my inevitable string of crushing defeats
• Do the event on the cheap, since it’s driving distance from home

You can see my list in Part One – now let’s get into it.

Day 1

Game 1: Adam Kotis, Kruleboyz (The Frigid Zephyr)

Staying at home the night before meant I got a good night’s sleep and woke up ready for war.  Cruising along the pot-holed A-roads past all the rusted irrigation pivots and “Piss Off Ausnet” signs literally seared into the landscape, I could not have felt better prepared.  Right up to the point where I parked my car, looked in the boot and realized I’d left my Mega-Gargant at home.  FARK!

Every option flashed through my head, including jumping back in the car and fucking off home, but I decided to face the music and just play the first round ~500 points down.  Shout out to Roogaz the TO for rustling up a substitute Kraken-Eater that stood in for Big Drogg in rounds 2 and 3 (I went home to collect my own for Day 2).

My opponent was rocking the famous black and white of Model Citizens, probably the biggest club in Melbourne right now and home to the likes of Smorgan and Anthony “Death” Rowe.  But while he’s getting regular, high-level practice games, my opponent Kieran was new-ish to AOS and playing his first tourney.  Welcome to the jungle, motherfucker.

One side of the table had all the Arcane terrain.  My opponent won the roll-off and took the good side, leaving me with all the crap.

Kruleboyz have been picking up some strong results but they are still hard-mode: Orruks with bad armour saves and low bravery just melt under pressure (can confirm).  Kieran’s a good fella and on an upwards trajectory, but I know his army pretty well so I was able to make his life hard in this one.  Must admit that the mission also helped, effectively giving me his subfaction ability for free, and hurting his Boltboyz and Beast-skewer more than anything in my army.

We bobbed and weaved around the objectives but my lines held up long enough to crack off a big hero phase when I needed it.  Using Fast Un to zip my Maniak Weirdnob up to the top board edge got me Surround and Destroy as well as an objective on the cheap; when Kieran dispatched Gobsprakk to claim it back, the 100-point dickhead managed to make it snow and blast him off the board to secure me the top end with minimal resources.  The poor bugger got a bit unlucky there, hey.

The Highlight: Banging off the Croc with 4D6 Mortal Wounds from Merciless Blizzard, and staring down the Mirebrute Troggoth, in one brutal hero phase.

So there ya go: I won a competitive tournament game playing nearly 500 points down without my Merc Mega-Gargant.  How’s that for an Achievement Unlocked?

And as long as you don’t ask me how the rest of my games went, you and me will get along just fine.

Result: Major Win, 1-0

Game 2: Pat Nevan, Nurgle (Icefields)

Dayyum!  Me and the big dog, two Craicheads going mano a mano.  The Battleplan was one I never thought I’d have to play, because nobody would put it in an event pack, but here we are.

One side of the table had all the Arcane terrain.  My opponent won the roll-off and took the good side, leaving me with all the crap.

I’ve got plenty of leg speed in my army, so I can get away without running, but it didn’t matter: you never need to run anywhere.  The mission is shit, but not for the reasons I expected.  You see six Objectives and you expect movement tobe critical, but with the Longways board and all the objectives clumped in around the centre, in practice it’s mainly just push your models into the middle and start swinging arms. The previous Battleplan with only three objectives honestly felt more spread out.

My strategy, if you could call it that, was to layer up my screens in the middle and perch my magic and staring in behind.  The Nurgle wards will slow down my staring, but Nurgle aren’t Magic Doms and I had PMD supremacy via the AL Battalion, so I had a decent chance of getting some punishing magic through across a couple of turns.  Let Big Drogg anchor one side with some support and hopefully break through there over time; put minimum resources into the other side and just hold it up a little, while I compete hard for Drogg’s side plus the strong centre.  Pat’s plan seemed to be quite similar.

We smooshed our minis together in the middle and it turns out that Pat’s 5++ ward was better than my 6++ ward.  I took down a little Nurgle wizard early on with a scouting group of Pigs, to remove the Merciless Blizzard threat when we locked horns in the middle, but the Maggoth Lords were killing hordes and hordes of Savage Orruks with every swing.  I did have multiple layers of screens though, so I wasn’t entirely without hope.

The Highlight: Knowing that I will never have to play this Battleplan again in my life.

It came down to one of those big Prios where if I won, it was game on; if Pat won, it was game over.  Pat got the big prio and that was me done.  My speed advantage counted for nothing on this Battleplan which is mostly just a stats check, and Nurgle’s stats are better than Bonesplitterz.  I’m pleased for Pat though, beating me is quite the scalp and probably one of the bigger achievements in his life wargaming career.

Result: Major Loss, 1-1

Game 3: Tristan Smith, Ironjawz (Lines of Communication)

Ironjawz is an army I know I can beat with Bonesplitterz, cos I do it all the time: they want to crash into you with their Ironjawz Waaagh up for the extra rend, and go Smashin’ and Bashin’ through your whole army in one game-defining turn.  Joke’s on them because even rend -1 is basically mortal wounds to Bonesplitterz and their crap saves.  So you call your Bonesplitterz Waaagh on the same turn and 4++ ward loads of damage away, interrupting their chains of attacks and leaving them bogged down and right where you want them.

One side of the table had all the Arcane terrain.  My opponent won the roll-off and took the good side, leaving me with all the crap.

I set up Big Drogg nice and prominent on the frontline, on the basis that I wanted to tempt Tristan into throwing the kitchen sink at me (which is how I always beat Ironjawz as per above), and thinking / hoping he could tank one turn of combat.  Oops.

Tristan sent in the two Maw Krushas, and it was only at this point that I realized he was running the one that was modelled as Gordrakk as actual Gordrakk.  I don’t know that it changed much, but hats off to Tristan for repping Big G, cos it’s a pretty cool flex.  Anyway.  Tristan has played the shit out of Ironjawz over the last year or so, and it really showed: he played them better than just about anyone else I’ve versed in that time.

Tristan popped Destroyer and one-shotted Big Drogg, slapping on 36 damage in a swing.  Major mistake by me to frontline the big fella, and it cost me a quarter of my army.  I held back my own Waaagh because it was only really Gordrakk hitting the Bonesplitterz units at that point, and he killed a few things as you’d expect. 

I chucked the kitchen sink at both Krushas in the hero phase: staring, Pendulum, Blizzard, you name it.  I took both of them down eventually but Tristan had cleverly avoided over-committing with his first wave, and had a second and third wave of Gruntas and Brutes still to come.  The difference between this game and most IJ opponents is that he kept back additional waves of solid combat units to have an impact after my 4++ Ward turn had been and gone.  That’s experience, that’s smart play and that’s what ultimately won him the game.  I’m scrambling to keep my army intact but by refusing to get drawn into a single, decisive round of combat – which favours the Bonesplitterz and their 4++ Waaagh – Tristan was able to grind me down in a close one.

Tristan went on to play against Pat on Table 1, Round 5 which is a really good flex with Gordrakk.  We already caught up with Tristan in a separate article to celebrate that, so go check that one out too.

The highlight: Staring down 5 full-health pigs with a single Wurrgog.  25 mortal wounds, BANG!

No excuses here: my dice rolls were perfectly good, it was my own decision making that cost me the game, with that choice to dangle Big Drogg coming back to haunt me.  Across the whole weekend that’s the one I’d love to take back.  Quite simply, Tristan outplayed me, and that’s a sentence I don’t want to be writing twice in one lifetime.

Result: Major Loss, 1-2

Pictured: the iconic Chiko Roll, invented by a Bendigo guy. Not pictured: Anything worthwhile that Ballarat has ever contributed to Australian culture.

Interlude: Saturday night

I’ll leave the big stories to Pat this time – I was on my best behaviour, and drove home straight after Round 3.  I already had dinner plans back home so it was a pretty chilled night for me of ribs and red wine.  I’m not sure Frasier Crane would consider it particularly sophisticated when I was wiping smokey barbecue sauce out of my beard with a wet-wipe, but for me this counts as a very civilized evening, and it was certainly more dignified than getting booted out of a strip club at 4am around the same time last year.

I guess some people just take a bit longer to grow up than others do.

Day 2

Game 4: Ryan Chamley, Lumineth (Nexus Collapse)

Ryan is a friend and a gent: we always catch up at events even though we only played each other one time a few years ago.  We usually chat about comics and he’s a very chilled guy, as well as being an unstoppable sex machine with four kids and counting.  Goooooooo Chammers!

One side of the table had all the Arcane terrain.  My opponent won the roll-off and took the good side, leaving me with all the crap.

We both had multiple spells that could flood our opponent’s unbinds with bad choices, we both had the AL battalion, and we both had loads of Unbinds.  So we were both trying to pinch hit with PMD unbinds targeted at the most important casts and the most gettable casting rolls.  That Be’Lakor spell they have that stops units with shit bravery from operating is amazing against my army, and of course the 5++ ward and double move spells are clutch for Ryan.

When Ryan cast Speed of Hysh on a 7, and I’d dutifully saved all my PMDs for a big unbind, I had to suppress my stiffy.  Then this happened, and I had to suppress a tantrum instead:

I love it when people take photos of bad dice, cos I know I’ve got them on tilt.  It’s OK when I do it though, cos then it’s “Content”. 

The 9” ward bubble is pretty tight so I could usually choose whichever staring or magic targets that were outside of it, and make headway into Ryan’s elite wound count that way. 

This game was an epic: I was leading 10-8 at the bottom of 2 when we timed out.  At that point I hadn’t lost a unit, but more importantly, I was happy that I could keep scoring Battle Tactics and had the Grand Strategy edge: mine was to keep a Battleline unit (or my General) alive and in Ryan’s territory; Ryan’s was to kill all my Battleline and keep one of his alive.  So my unless he can whallop all of my Battleline units (as well as reeling in a VP deficit) that’s a further VP swing my way.

I’d ran two units of Boarboys out wide on opposite flanks and they were fully intact with 36” + 3D6” of movement ahead of them to get where they needed to go.  I could virtually guarantee that one or both would get around the edges and into the backfield, for a 6-point swing my way.  Meanwhile in the centre of the board, where the chips were down, Avalenor was still tagged in combat by 6 or 7 Morrboys from two separate units, keeping him away from my Wurrgogs.

With no real damage spells to speak of, Ryan would have had to shoot Avalenor out of combat to get him into something favourable, and I don’t believe he had 12~14 wounds (plus wards) of shooting output in him (he hadn’t done anything remotely close to that in the game so far).  There was still a lot of game ahead of us, which is why it would have been great to play it out, but even then I have a VP lead to defend and Big Drogg to defend it; more likely (in my opinion) is that he gets tied up and stared off, and that’s GG.

I had two fully intact Wurrgogs there, and if the staring didn’t work, I had Merciless Blizzard, Aethervoid Pendulum and Big Drogg all available to knock off the remaining wounds.  I felt like I had multiple pathways to victory, but Ryan would probably say the same, and there was still too much gaming ahead of us to call it decisively.  So we settled on a draw.

The highlight: 11” charge on Big Drogg to get him around the corner of some terrain and into a unit of Hammer Aelves. 

This left Ryan with only a handful of models on one of the few remaining objectives, and effectively secured it for me for the remaining game – unless Ryan sent Avalenor up that way instead, in which case he’s effectively giving up the whole of the rest of the board.  Glorious.

The TO gave us 5 minutes to talk it out but we never got past discussing Ryan’s myriad options in his next movement phase.  Cards on the table, I reckon I’d have edged this one, which I did say to Ryan at the time; but we were already way over time and ultimately who gives a fuck whether you finish 2-3 or 1-1-3.  If there was something at stake we might have had to push a bit harder for an outcome, but we just shook hands and moved on.  Fuck I’d have loved to have played this one to a resolution though, awesome game.

Result: Draw, 1-1-2

Game 5: Nathan Thompson, Kharadron Overlords (Power Flux)

So going into Round 5, the two people who already beat me (Pat and Tristan, both event winners in their own right) are playing off against each other on Table 1. Tough draw for a fella running a shit army like Bonesplitters, but heading into the final round with only one win to my name I knew I would finish up with a nice easy match against some poor scrub. 

Right?

Well somehow I got paired up into an Australian AOS Worlds Team member (and Masters player) running KO.  What the fuck is happening here?

One side of the table had all the Arcane terrain.  My opponent won the roll-off and took the good side, leaving me with all the crap. 

At this point I’m going to say that if TOs are going to pre-roll Terrain, that’s great, but if you end up with one side having multiple pieces of Arcane and the other side having assorted shite, that’s too lopsided to leave locked in for the whole weekend.  Yes it can happen with normal terrain rolling, but being on the wrong side of the table for all five games and looking across at all that Arcane was starting to test my patience.  This isn’t just having a pop at the Ballarat guys, cos the event went really well overall, but I reckon it’s something for TOs to think about for any events in general.  Anyway.

“You know you’ve fucked up when…”

Nathan, who has merrily spent the last couple of years shooting fuckers off the table with his KO, told me he wasn’t even bothering with the 4+ Shoot Twice Grundstok Army of Renown because it’s so obviously broken.  So shout out to the dev team for releasing something that even the most shameless Order Wanker would be embarrassed to put their name to: you’ve really plumbed new depths with this one. 

The sad thing is people (over here at least) are already starting to ban AORs at events entirely, specifically because of how stupidly broken KO is.  So Order gets bent rules and Destro players suffer.  Plus ça change…

Anyway.  Nathan corner-deployed with his scoring units of Arkanauts up front, and I could see a pathway to victory.  I pregame-moved two units of Boarboys aggressively forward towards his forces and moved the rest of my castle towards the middle, so they could flex up or out as the As and Bs objectives pulsed on and off. 

The idea being to threaten his screens and create a dilemma:

• If Nathan puts me in first, he probably loses all 2x 10 Arkanauts and then has two units of angry pigs right up in his business.  I can move and stagger units to control landing zones, so he has to deal with them before he can really do anything else, meaning he effectively needs a double just to start engaging with my army in earnest; and even then he’s likely got a VP deficit to make up with just a handful of minis.
• If Nathan takes first, he’ll punch holes in my army but leave me on for the double turn.  His army is pretty elite with limited mortal wound protection, so two good hero phases will rip his army apart. 

Nathan took the latter option and shot off all three layers of screens I’d dutifully set up, then charged in.  I called the Bonesplitterz Waaagh straight away, because his whole army was basically 2s and 2s with fights first; after shooting off unit after unit after unit, of course they should be better than orcs in combat too.  Cheers GW.

Anyway.  The Waaagh puts my top Wurrgog on a 2+ ward in combat, so unless I punch out a whole bunch of 1s, I should be in good shape going into the first staring contest.  Needless to say, I did punch out a whole bunch of 1s, which meant I was going into me first hero phase with him half-dead and I’m already pushing shit up the hill.

All is not lost, because I’ve got multiple ways to hurt Nathan heavily:

• I kept my spell-casting wizards a little bit back from my main castle, so they’re healthy and in range to blast out the damage spells they need to
• Although he’s in combat and can’t Heroic Recover, I can still do the healing dance from my Wardokk onto my Wurrgog at the start of the phase and send him in to stare in better shape
• Merciless Blizzard could pop a unit of my choice, which means Nathan will have to use the automatic unbind on that one
• Aethervoid Pendulum is arguably even more threatening than Blizzard is to Nathan’s army, being bunched up and in Garrison, because it should hit 5 or 6 units and do 5D6 or 6D6 MWs
• Once the auto-unbind is drawn out, I have PMD supremacy from the AL Battalion and can likely force through at least one or maybe two of my key spells
• If I can get through the first hero phase, I’ll be able to retreat the Wurrgog in my movement phase and Heroic Recover him at the start of the next hero phase, regardless of who gets the next turn

I start off by rolling a 1 on the Wardokk dance, so the Wurrgog doesn’t heal.  I miscast Aethervoid Pendulum, so it didn’t draw out the Unbind, and then Nathan can auto-unbind Blizzard.  At this point I’ve already been fucked by dice past the point of no return – I needed a big hero phase and now it’s almost impossible to get there. 

The Wurrgog was already half-dead and blew himself up, so I didn’t have the Hero phase I needed; that’s obviously an occupational hazard for Starey McLaserface, but hitting all those 1s on my 2+ wards in the preceding combat phase (followed by a 1 on the healing dance) is what sent him in there half-knackered already, and hitting the miscast meant I had to push the staring to catch back up when it wasn’t really on. 

The highlight: Getting home from the event early with time to go for a run before dinner

I lost the next prio and that’s all she wrote.  Of my three losses at this event, this is the only one I’d blame on getting fucked over by the dice – it’s hard to craft a risk-free path to victory against a top player running a superior faction, but I know I could win this one with a decent tailwind. 

Result: Major Loss, 1-1-3 and my worst-ever performance by a distance

Closing Thoughts

My Results

If I was shooting for a podium, I never would have taken Bonesplitterz to the event, given that they’re dogshit. That would be like declaring you’re aiming to hit a Bullseye, then stepping to the back of the oche, putting on a blindfold and commencing to jump up and down while you throw the dart.  All the same, it’s still hard not to be disappointed when you hear it thud into the plaster. 

This was meant to be a final hit-out for the Bonesplitterz before GW sends them to the great hunting grounds in the sky, but I’m not letting them go out with a whimper.  Of the three games I lost, it’s really only the one vs Tristan and his Ironjawz that I feel I should have played significantly differently.  I know I can get a much better result with the Bonesplitterz than this (which is admittedly setting a particularly low bar) and I’ll take them again to an event under this GHB, aiming to sign off on a high note next time. 

The Event

They say you should try everything once in life except Morris dancing and incest, and you probably do need to give even the crap missions in each GHB at least one competitive hit-out.   The missions selected were “different”, and it wasn’t the worst thing to at least give them a go, but I’m looking forward to playing the more popular Battleplans again in future. 

The idea of pre-announcing which five Battleplans we’d be playing on, but then randomizing the sequence from Rounds 1 to 5 on the day, was a pretty neat idea and something I’d potentially like to see other TOs borrow from.  Every event has its own way of doing these things but this is definitely one good idea to put into the rotation.

Roogaz and Matty were great TOs, constantly walking the floor and checking in on players.  They’re both regular tourney players themselves and they really helped the experience to flow.  I would 100% play one of their events in future, and hopefully make a night of it next year in the Rat.  Good job fellas.

My List

In terms of the army, I was consistently hitting my Battle Tactics and the cheat sheet (linked in Part One at the start of this article) was a big factor in that.  Very glad I put that together: any thinking you can put in away from the table is just money in the bank.  I didn’t fail a single BT all weekend, albeit a couple of those games were cataclysmically brief.

I was on the fence about having Pendulum in the army vs a strong Triumph bid, but it was worth its weight in gold.  Along with Hoarfrost and Blizzard, you’re almost guaranteed to punch through one high-impact spell every turn, even after your opponent hits maybe one PMD-boosted unbind and the one lucky unbind.  I hit loads of miscasts across the weekend but that’s just dumb luck and I definitely had my moments too.  Pendulum stays.

What’s Next

Congratulations to Pat on another tournament win – well done mate. 

What’s next for me?  I’ll be enjoying the new shiny Brodd’s Stomp and Brute Ragerz for a while, then circling back to Bonesplitterz after that.  I played Ironjawz all the way through their 30-odd % win rate era without ever dipping below 3-2; by contrast these results were just shit, regardless of how bad the army is.  That’s not how I’m going to allow my Bonesplitterz story to end. 

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