by Calvin Rarie

It’s November in Atlanta, Georgia here in the States–for my international readers out there that means locally for us the leaves are falling and the cold is beginning to set in. Fall has officially fallen and now the first whispers of Winter are creeping in. While snow isn’t really a thing down here–Atlanta being on the same latitude as Morocco for reference–you can feel the year beginning to come to an end, with sunset coming just as most people are getting off work in the afternoon.

November also means Thanksgiving for us Americans, which generally we use an excuse to be even bigger gluttons than we normally are. It is a time of celebration, of bringing together our friends and family, of togetherness where under one roof we can–hopefully–for a short time love each other and bring out the best in us, and while it does not always work out that way it is the in the act of togetherness that we often find new depths of family and friendship that we could not have predicted beforehand.

I’m waxing poetic here for a reason: this past weekend, scarcely a week before Thanksgiving, an army of the best players in the world descended upon Atlanta to determine who among them would leave as the World Champions of Warhammer’s myriad gaming systems. If you’re reading this blog, you know we focus exclusively on Age of Sigmar here, but I will be making a note about the 40k Grand Narrative that was also this past weekend, which I personally attended and had quite possibly the best Warhammer-related time of my life at.

But first, I am going to talk about the Georgia Warband, the team–no, family–that I am apart of here in Georgia and their impact on the World Championships.

THE GEORGIA WARBAND (GAW)

I’ve been playing Warhammer for a little over four years, and going to events for about three of those years. Once COVID started to recede, and the local game stores opened I found myself among a group of fantastic people calling themselves the Georgia Warband, who had recently formed as a team of sorts, who would travel around to events together and help each other out. The team founder was Joshua Bennett, who is a masterfully skilled player, and was rampaging through our local scene with his infamous Motrek list. We met at an RTT, and I was playing Bonesplitterz in their golden day before I started writing thesis length papers on them, and while I lost that round I gained a family–after the game and after consulting with the team, Josh invited me aboard, and quite honestly the trajectory of my life changed from then on.

Fast forward several years later, and the Georgia Warband has grown from a tight-knit team of like-minded friends playing AOS into an entire community spanning the greater metropolitan Atlanta area and beyond. Much like other teams like Tough Crowd (the most handsome of clubs), we grew relationships and friendships that expanded beyond the borders of our town. We also did pretty well in events, winning Golden Tickets at Kansas City Teams and the Kansas City Open, the American Team Championships and the Rocky Top Open. We had four players representing Atlanta at Worlds, which is incredible to think about with how small we started out just a few years ago!

But this part isn’t to discuss GAW’s accolades, our records, awards, or skill as players. Instead, I want to talk about what GAW accomplished for the people attending Worlds.

Let’s face it, Warhammer is an expensive hobby. Traveling for Warhammer is on an entirely other level of expensive–Twitter was loaded with GoFundMes and Donation accounts to help players who earned their right to compete among the World’s best actually get to Atlanta from all over the world. There is no shame in this, and it’s a testament to the greater Warhammer community at large that so many players who would not have been able to go got the chance of a lifetime off the charity of people bonded by our love of plastic figurines and mock warfare.

But even then, flying to Atlanta, then navigating the city and getting to your hotel while carrying extraordinarily expensive armies is INCREDIBLY stressful, especially when you’ve been on a plane for the better part of 24 hours. And beyond that, even getting a hotel is incredibly expensive, and for some the cost of flying AND getting a room was too much.

So when Josh approached GAW and asked for volunteers to open their homes and offer to take players to the venue from Hartsfield-Jackson, many from the club jumped on it from the get go. All told, GAW ferried over 40 people to the venue, with several of those staying with GAW members locally, and providing daily rides to/from Worlds.

But the crowning moment this past weekend was a player–who will remain nameless–lost their entire army upon arrival in Atlanta. Gone. Missing. The whole army! On the DAY BEFORE Worlds!

Once the news got out, Josh put the call out to the Georgia Warband, and in little over an hour an entire Stormcast Eternals army was Frankenstein’d together from half-a-dozen players in the area and delivered to the player in time for them to start Round 1. The good news is that the army was found and eventually returned to the player, who went on to do fairly well at Worlds.

Watching an entire community crowdsource an entire army in a few hours was one of the greatest moments in my team’s short history, and is a testament to the quality of people you can find in your communities. When you find people playing the same games you do, reach out to them–who knows, you might end up with a group you can call family yourself.

Anyway, let’s talk about Worlds.

THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS OF WARHAMMER

Located in the Hyatt Regency in Downtown Atlanta (which is a dope venue, by the way), Worlds for both 40k and AOS took place in the same room, the walls lined with the flags of the nations represented. Seeing that kind of representation both among the flags and the jerseys of the attending focuses the true international feeling of the game.

There’s been well-earned jokes lately about America’s obsession with calling the teams that win our national sports championships “World Champions” when the only teams playing are American teams. Not here though–this is as international as the Olympics, and it was awesome getting the opportunity to meet folks from all over the world, including long-standing Bonesplitterz player Lewis from Scotland, who followed his mate Reece, the only Scotland representative, all the way to Atlanta in show of support. Getting to meet one of the other five Bonesplitterz players in the World to take the army seriously was something that I could only have done at an event like Worlds.

Friendships were forged here that will last a life time. Rivalries were formed that will continue until the game is no longer supported. Hell, the finals for Age of Sigmar was literally the English vs the French, which is bringing full circle a national rivalry lasting MILLENIA.

All possible only at Worlds, where the best of the best came to play. Speaking of…

THE BEST OF THE BEST

One thing to keep note about this event, is it isn’t a GT in a normal sense. Yes, games are played and recorded and there was an eventual winner, but this is an event where EVERY SINGLE PLAYER is a winner. Not just someone who has gone 3-2 and plays every once in a while, but folks who earned their right to play. Every single person playing at Worlds is the equivalent to an end-game boss in a video game, and this is a tournament of nothing but end-game bosses.

As such, the Event Staff actually did a fantastic job of reminding the players of the simple fact that despite everyone attending being the best in the world, there were going to be people who were going to not win any games. Flat out. Some number of players were going to go winless, some who had been undefeated all year were going to lose games, and on and on. Outside of some edge cases, every win was going to be earned the hardest way imaginable.

And so it was–early favorites dropped games on Day 1, while some underdogs went undefeated. Some players made it to the Top 8 who had never been there before, while others just missed the cut after rallying from behind in the event.

The event structure was… convoluted, but I will sum it up like this:

Initially, each player is assigned to a group with an even split between US and International players for Day 1 and Day 2, and only play those players on those days. GW did a great job on setting it up so that players on Day 1 would absolutely NOT playing anyone from their side Day 1–so the pairings were exclusively US vs International players. After that, it was on.

Once Groups were finished on Day 2, the top 8 moved on to an absolute meat grinder schedule when if you lost twice, you were done, but otherwise? You keep going. The Championship was ultimately decided on game fucking 12. I’ll get to that one in a bit.

If you didn’t make it to Top 8, you were then put into what’s basically an RTT with the rest of the people in your bracket. So, if you finished the Groups section at 4-1, you got to play three more rounds vs people who went 4-1 the last two days. As you can imagine, this created death pods, but thankfully you got awards for going undefeated in them.

There were also Best in Faction awards as well, which funnily enough my fellow GAW member Kevin got one by virtue of being the only Fyreslayers player at the event.

The narratives going on in the room, and the stories these players will tell could fill an entire book, and my articles are already bookish in length anyway, so I’m going to focus on just one player here: Tommy Miklos, Mr. Fister himself, one of the best Ogors players in the world and someone I’m lucky to call friend.

PLAYER SPOTLIGHT: TOMMY MIKLOS (OGOR MAWTRIBES: MEATFIST)

A fellow Destruction brother to the max, Tommy has played exclusively Ogors in competitive events since he first started playing, first with the Monster Trucks that we all know and love before switching to his current love which is rocking out with an army of dadbods trying to get their feast on. Tommy is the kind of player that finds the one army they love, and sticks with it, and is a living testament to the success you can find if you main one army for pretty much your entire time in the hobby.

Tommy has reached savant-like levels of playing Ogors, pulling wins from the jaws of defeat and absolutely demolishing people for years now, including earning his Golden Ticket at the American Team Championships in Knoxville, Tennessee, where we won Best General and his right to play at Worlds. One of the great things about the army he plays is the tricks you can pull off with it, and getting to educate your opponent on how both the core rules and army rules work–did you know you don’t HAVE to cause mortal wounds on the charge with your Ogors? Now you do.

You can see Tommy’s list below, but this article will go on forever if we try to discuss all the nuance, so here’s a shorthand:

1. Foot Ogors hit hard in combat. Ironguts, in particular, kill just about anything they get into contact with.
2. Gnoblars are still the best screen in the game, and absolutely infuriating to deal with. Also, they have a unit leader called a Groinbiter, which is fucking awesome.
3. Gorger Mawpacks eat commands on a 5+, deepstrike, and have Bravery 10 in combat, meaning a unit of five never takes battleshock while in melee.
4. The Mawpit is a gigantic piece of impassable terrain that can be deployed anywhere on the board outside of your opponent’s territory, fundamentally changing the layout of the table.
5. Tyrants with 3+ impact mortal wounds will absolutely ruin your life if you ignore them.
6. Firebelly’s spell gives a 12″ -1 to hit bubble. Don’t leave home without it.
7. The grand strategy requires Tommy to have more Ogors in his opponent’s deployment zone than enemy units. Considering what Ogors do and how big territories can be, it’s a no brainer.

Tommy ended up going 4-1 in Groups, which is a MONUMENTAL feat of both generalship, and endurance–more on that in a second. Because of how the event works, this meant that Tommy was locked into a final position between 9th and 20th after groups, when the players enter their death pods. Tommy in particular ended at 20th at the end of the event, but is first place in our hearts here in Georgia.

We’re only going to focus on these first two days here for the sake of simplicity, which is as close to the normal GT experience as you will get at the event.

THE CRUCIBLE

Day One began on Thursday, with only two rounds that day… each four hours long. GW’s strategic choice here was to minimize the impact of jetlag on games, and give players the most amount of time to more or less warm up in advance of the enormous number of games before them.

“I both hope and don’t hope I get top eight,” Tommy told me a few times leading into the event. Playing five rounds of great Warhammer is hard enough as it is–playing twelve is an a whole other magnitude of difficulty.

Leading into the event, most of the practice work Tommy did was with his teammates, as Tommy isn’t what you normally would call a grinder. “I’ve been playing wargames since I was a kid. My dad loved those games and he got me into them, so I have been thinking about strategy and tactics probably longer than a lot of people,” Tommy said over a few beers. And it reflects in his playing. He is a precise player, and one of those rare folk who understand the nuances of the game with little practice.

When asked about how he thought about his matchups, Tommy did not want to focus on the players, saying “Look, everyone here is the best at what they do. I’m the best at what I do. I’m not going to let names get in the way of my games, which is how most people should do it. If you’re here, you earned it already, and to be honest, you should just be focusing on the game in front of you instead of the game ahead.” So with that, the majority of the prep work in the event boiled down to fundamentally understanding the lists that were being presented, and working through the tricks each of them can bring. Less focus on the players, more on the army.

ROUND ONE: LINES OF COMMUNICATION VS EVARISTE MOURETTE (LUMINETH–FRANCE)

So Tommy started off by playing a member of Team France, the first of three such French players he would get paired against. This player–on a BEAUTIFULLY painted Lumineth army–set up across from Tommy on Lines of Communication. The prep work for this mission basically came down to:

Are you charging your opponent this turn? Then choose the combat phase to disrupt their CP efficiency. If not, choose the shooting phase if they have shooting attacks.

Tommy and his opponent dance around each other the first turn of the game, with his opponent in a Battle Regiment making Tommy go first. Tommy advances up slightly, just to toe onto two objectives, while his opponent does much of the same, adding some light spell casting on top. This dance continues for another round, before Tommy decides to close for the kill, but fails to make all his charges, putting his Ironguts in Blizzard range.

Tommy loses priority, and now the Ironguts are standing in the wind waiting to get Blizzarded. His opponent casts his spell, casting the Blizzard on a 20+ and Tommy has no way of unbinding it… except the Ironguts have a 6+ spell ignore.

AND HE ROLLS THE 6!

From there on, Tommy finally gets to connect with all his beefy boys, and the frail elves are overwhelmed.

Evariste finished 39th in the event, but finished first in our hearts for his incredible paint job.

ROUND TWO: FRIGID ZEPHYR VS HENRY WAGNER (SYLVANETH–AUSTRALIA)

Henry is an Aussie, bringing with him from the land down-under a beautifully rendered Sylvaneth army, relying on among other things a pack of 9 Kurnoth Hunters with Scythes to Strike and Fade their way to victory. Henry is good people, and a great opponent, and Tommy and him ended up having a good time overall.

However, this is game is an example of needing to fundamentally understand what your opponent’s army does–it’s very easy to get wrapped up in the moment or applying generalized knowledge in the situation, but doing so without context is, at best, a gamble.

Case in point, Henry makes Tommy go first in Round 1, as you normally should in most cases. Tommy advances up, scores an easy five points, and passes. Henry in return does the same, setting himself up in what appears to be a defensive bunker, banking on the toughness of 9 Kurnoth to withstand the onslaught that’s about to come.

Well, Henry wins priority into R2 and gives away priority to Tommy, who promptly moves his entire army into charge range, and proceeds to rip off multiple charges in a row, causing CATASTROPHIC damage to Henry’s forces. By the end of Tommy’s turn, over 60 wounds of Kurnoth are dead, having been trampled and bludgeoned to death in the course of a charge and combat phase. The game, essentially, was over at this point, as Henry just did not have any damage output left that could reliably destroy Tommy’s ogors.

In the aftermath, Tommy and Henry discussed the game, and Henry was very candid about not fundamentally understanding just how hard Ogors can hit. In retrospect, giving away the double was obviously not a good choice to make, but one made not from poor generalship but rather just not ever playing against the army in the local meta. EVERYONE knows just how hard Monster Trucks (Beastclaw Raiders) can hit, but foot Ogors are a considerably rarer beast. When in doubt, feel free to ask your opponent for more info about their army, as it might just keep you from making a not-so-good choice.

Anyway, Henry finished 69th in the event, so he’s the real winner of Worlds.

ROUND THREE: GEOMANTIC PULSE VS PHIL MARSHALL (GITZ–ENGLAND)

Tommy’s on stream!

In conversation after the round, Phil’s entire tactica was “Well, fuck it, we’re getting in and ending this game quick one way or the other” because both armies were absolutely devoted to rampaging through their opponent as quickly as possible, with little in the way of defensive strategy. Sometimes, though, you just have to go for it, and the trick to being a great general is knowing precisely when to go for it. In this case, Phil knew when, went for it, and got rewarded.

Phil ended up 3rd at Worlds, and is an all around great guy even when he absolutely crushes you.

ROUND FOUR: NEXUS COLLAPSE VS LEO RAUTONEN (KHARADRON OVERLORDS–FINLAND)

Nexus Collapse is a weird mission. If you’ve never played it before, you score points like normal (2 for battle tactics, then 1 each if you hold 1, 2, and more objectives). The trick is, at the start of each battle round, the player with the fewest VPs can remove up to two objectives from the table.

Want to know how weird this mission actually is? The final score was 11-7, which Tommy won. He won it scoring exactly zero objectives points, four battle tactics, and his grand strategy., while his opponent scored only two battle tactics and scored max on primaries once. Here’s how:

In deployment, both players purposefully do not deploy onto the objectives in their territory, so when the game starts no objectives are controlled. Leo–being in a battle regiment–gives away T1 to Tommy, who scores an easy tactic to start R1 and again chooses not to touch any of the objectives. Leo on his turn purposefully chooses a tactic he cannot score, and maneuvers around the table, again choosing not to take any objectives, so he scores zero points. R1 finishes with a 2-0 score for Tommy.

Priority goes to Leo who removes two objectives. Tommy this time purposefully chooses a tactic that he cannot score, and continues to stay off the objectives to score zero, and Leo follows up with much of the same. Going into R3 the score is still 2-0. Leo wins priority again going second, and blows up two more objectives in the center of the table.

Tommy advances up the board, scoring two points but not quite reaching the objectives. Leo more or less can win the game simply by scoring one objective and playing keep away for the rest of the game, but instead moves his boats close to get a good shooting phase off, but fails to deal considerable damage to the Ogors.

Now Leo’s boat and his forces are well within charging range… and Tommy wins priority (the first time the whole weekend!) and goes first in R4, and crashes his entire army into the Kharadron, sealing the game from there.

Leo–the sole representative from Finland–finished 40th in the rankings.

ROUND FIVE: LIMITED RESOURCES VS JORIN KAMPER (GLOOMSPITE GITZ–FRANCE)

If you paid attention to the finals for Worlds, we’re all pretty well aware that the finals definitely should not have taken five hours for five rounds. So while by the clock the final game was the longest game of the weekend, it definitely wasn’t the most grueling.

No, that goes to the game between Tommy and Jorin at the end of the Groups stage of Worlds. This fucking game went on for SEVEN ROUNDS.

I don’t have a play-by-play for this one, as I was busy getting absolutely demolished in the 40k Narrative (and having a great time doing it) and had dinner reservations that Tommy was in fact going to attend–until he had to go into Round 6. And then Round 7.

That being said, here’s the highlight reel:

1. Jorin is an absolutely immaculate player when it comes to precision measuring, and he came PREPARED–measuring sticks upon measuring sticks. Every movement was honed down to the millimeter, and it shows just how much ludicrous prep Jorin had put into his army
2. Tommy and Jorin danced around each other’s army for quite a long time, purposefully ducking and weaving and entering specific combats to hopefully control the flow of the game.
3. Tommy’s Gorger Mawpack deepstriked into Jorin’s backfield, threatening Jorin’s Grand Strategy of Chasing The Moon (keep his general alive and near the Loonshrine, mostly). Because of this, Jorin was forced to move his troops around to deal with the Gorgers, completely reshaping the battlefield.
4. Tommy and Jorin from R3 onwards enter an extremely prolonged and grindy melee with each other–Tommy’s Ogors doing horrendous damage to Jorin’s Gitz who are reinforced from the Loonshrine.
5. In one combat on the corner of the board, Jorin engages Tommy’s Gnoblars with his Snarlfang Riders, doing not quite enough damage to kill them off but enough to basically guarantee they run… except Tommy has a command point and Gnoblars have a unit champion, which lets Tommy retain control of the objective.
   • A disbelieving Jorin calls for a Judge at this point, and the Judge walks over and asks Tommy if the unit does in fact have a unit champion. In one of the all time great quotes, Tommy responds, “Yes, Gnoblars have a unit champion. His name is Groinbiter.”

From there, the meat grinder intensifies, until both armies are more or less drained of any considerable fighting forces. At the end of R5, it’s a natural draw, with both players scoring all 5 tactics and their Grand Strategies.

However, due to the implications of the match results, the TOs have a discussion with Tommy and Jorin, and the conclusion is this: too much rides on the victor of the match to allow a draw to happen. The game will continue, with the caveat that no Battle Tactics can be scored, only primaries and Grand Strategies, which at this point is:

• Tommy keeping more units in Jorin’s territory than his own, and staying alive while doing it;
• Jorin keeping his general alive.

However, due to the nature of the mission (where it becomes possible for neither player to score primaries), the game more or less devolves into who can deny the other’s Grand Strategy.

The winning play ended up being a charge from Tommy that–after pile-ins–got Jorin’s general to with 3″ of a Gluttons unit. After confirming that Jorin’s general was in fact in range, Tommy rolls for the Gulping Bites, gets a 4+, rolls the d3 mortal wounds and got the 6 to kill Jorin’s General exactly. Once Jorin walked through his potential plays and decides that there was nothing he could do to prevent Tommy’s Grand Strategy, the game was called and a victorious Tommy collapsed onto the floor.

A testament to Team France and the quality of players from over there, Jorin finished 10th overall.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

As an observer, the World Championships is something to behold. The skill in the room combined with the personalities in there is an experience unique in the Warhammer world, as despite your record at the end of the event you can say you played against the best of the best, and earned your right to be there. The long and short of it is if you can get a Ticket, go. It’s a life-changing experience.

To help expand on it, here are some quotes from players and spectators at Worlds:

“I don’t know if my brain can physically handle doing this again–these were the hardest and best games of my life.”

“I know I will probably never win the World championship, but I want a ticket so I can meet all my new friends again and hang out with them next year.”

“I came here with my mate, as he’s the only representative from my country and I wanted to root him on in person. He may not be doing well record-wise but I know he’s playing his ass off and I’m proud of him for getting here.”

“I played eight new people and made eight new friends. If I can, I’m doing this again.”

And on and on, player after player and spectator after spectator you got the same messages. This event was something special because of the people who attended it. New legends and stories were born here, and lifelong friendships were developed that will span the globe over a mutual love of trying to be the best at a game and how that pursuit has forever changed the lives of the people who play it.

Also, sorry England, but it’s still not coming home.

If you’d like to help us continue our work, we’d love to have your support. All Patreon Tiers include Discord access, exclusive articles and regular contests. Our Tiers are priced to be within everyone’s reach, so please click here to join us today!