Age of Sigmar - Spearhead League

This past Sunday I rode out to the Warhammer Store in Saskatoon to play in the new Spearhead League. The league had started two weeks earlier, but that Sunday it was brutally hot and smokey and I wasn't yet finished the Spearhead army I was working on at the time (Hedonites of Slaanesh). I've since painted ANOTHER Spearhead army (Blades of Khorne) and took THOSE out to play in the league. 

(Wow, this turned into a LONG POST - here's a little TL/DR [with SPOILERS] - I rode out to Warhammer store to play in Spearhead League, played two games with my new Blades of Khorne army. I lost both. Vampires suck. Ghouls can eat my ass.)

When I got there Sean and Orion were already playing and Dray was waiting for someone to play. 

So my first game was against Drayden's Flesh-Eater Courts army... I won the initial dice-off and decided to be the attacker. I'm not sure there is much value in being the attacker... but I was playing KHORNE!? How can I NOT be the attacker if given an option 

I picked Favoured of Khorne for my regimental ability - at the start of my turn roll d6 on a 2+ gain one Blood Tithe Point (the other one grants a ward (5+) on any unit that has used a Fight ability in the same phase... but who is ever going to attack a unit that has already fought when there are units that haven't... so it's at best only going to help half of your units that are targeted in a melee round... Maybe I'll try it out sometime, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me (in theory) compared to MOAR BLOOD TITHE. 

I also picked Crimson Plate for my Heroe's Enchancement, which gave the Slaughterpriest a Ward (5+). He's pretty squishy with only a 5+ regular save (and there is just SO MUCH REND out there... I figured he needed as much help as he could get!).

Drayden took Defenders of the Realm (+1 to saves when contesting an objective they control) and Crimson Victuals (roll to potentially deal D3 Mortal wounds to enemy within 18" of General, and then return equal number of Cryptguard to unit)

Drayden chose Ghyran for our battle, and deployment area and set up terrain and I set up terrain then set up my force and then he set up his and they we were ready to go!

For the first round we drew Grandfathers Blessing for the twist. Which allowed the underdog (or winner of a roll off) to choose between picking an enemy unit to have -1 to save rolls or not be allowed Ward rolls for the round. Drayden won that roll-off and chose my Mighty Skullcrushers to have -1 to save rolls. 

and kind of forgot to take pictures of the set up... 

So here we are in Round one with by Mighty Skullcrushers and a unit of Blood Warriors charging into the Flesh-Eater Courts territory being all "Shock-and-Awe-muthafukkas!"

Very nearly took out that unit of Ghouls... Of course they'd come back... but they only come back ONCE and not finishing them off in one go, means parts of the unit just keep coming back.. Would have liked to have gotten at the heroes... but he's gotten a little more cagey about protecting them since our last game... 

And then there were these guys all sitting on their asses because I didn't think to hard about setting up and where they might actually be able to charge at enemy or whatever... 

It was less that I set up super poorly than my army takes up a lot more space... 

The Flesh-Eater courts have ten little Cryptguards on 25mm bases... two Heroes on 40mm and 90×52mm bases, and then three Morbheg Knights on 75×42mm bases... I have TWENTY infantry on 32mm bases, one hero also on a 40mm base and then three Mighty Skullcrushers on 90 × 52mm... so my army takes up a LOT MORE SPACE and his army can be shoved into a relatively small area in the corner where only a few of my units can get at them in the first round... 

I think the Cryptguard were finished off by the end of my turn...? Varghulf Courtier and Morbheg Knights piled in and just started hammering on the Mighty Skullcrushers. 

On his turn, the Morbheg Knights fucked off from the combat they were in to go eat my Bloodreavers.. 

The Archregent and Varghulf Courtier were left to deal with the Mighty Skullcrushers and Blood Warriors... Somehow there are more Cryptguard back... not sure how that happened? Reinforcements on his turn? But there are only six or seven? did I waste the Mighty Skullcrushers attacks on taking out Cryptguard and not killing the Varghulf Courtier? I don't know... 

By the end of the first round, they'd finished off the Mighty Skullcrushers... Which scored me a Blood Tithe point (because Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows!) 

At the end of the round I scored Four Victory Points (three for holding objectives and a fourth for a Battle Tactic card requiring me to hold the Draconis Objective). Drayden only scored three (two for holding objectives and a third for a Battle Tactic card requiring him to hold the Ignax Objective).

For Round Two we drew the Lifespring twist which allowed the Underdog (Drayden) to pick an objective to be worth an additional VP if controlled at the end of your turn AND each unit contesting it at the end of each turn could Heal (1). I think he chose the Ignax objecrtive which was the one His Heroes and Cryptguard were currently on and fighting my Blood Warriors that would just not die. 

Drayden won the roll off and chose to go first this round, taking two turns in a row! If one chooses this, they do not get to draw new Battle Tactic cards for the round... 

Everyone piled into to take down the Blood Warriors... These guys took SO MANY hits... and saved a LOT of them. They were eventually taken down, but they took that Archregent General with them!

Morbag Knights kept retreating and charging (because they can) to reposition for better advantage and desperately trying to take out MY General... 

But that just wasn't happening... 

By the end of Round Two the Flesh-Eater Courts had scored TWO more Victory Points bringing their total to Five (though, looking back I think that should have been +3 Victory Points...? bringing total to Six... not that it would have changed anything - Oh, except that I would have been the underdog for Round Four... which could have made a bit of a difference! Ah, well...) 

For the Third Round we drew the Grasping Vines - were the underdog (Flesh-Eater Courts) got to pick an Enemy unit to be ensnared (Halve Move characteristic) - he chose my General... 

Round Three Mosh Pit in the center of the table... 

Still trying so hard to kill the Slaughterpriest... Pretty sure I took out that Douchebag Courtier this turn... leaving the Flesh-Eater Courts without either hero... 

Grrarrr! Bloodreaver that would just not die! 

(Okay, eventually he did...) 

At the end of Round three the Flesh-Eater Courts had scored FIVE Victory points, brining their total to TEN. I only scored three, bringing my total to ten... 

In the final round we drew Take the Land which meant each player scored a bonus Victory Point if there were more friendly models contesting the Large Terrain Feature in Enemy Territory... Also, the underdog adds +1 to wound rolls for attacks made by friendly units that target a unit contesting a Large Terrain Feature... (that should have been me!) 

Stupid formation of Cyptguard... this is the stuff I dislike about the game, the weird  positioning of units that happens sometimes, like, in this case, where the Cyptguard who are trying to simultaneously fight my slaughterpriest AND contest the Large Terrain feature to score points. This just destroys any feeling that this is in fact some kind of simulation of combat and  reinforces the feeling that it's more of a sporting event simulation - like capture the flag... 

(Hey look, an enemy unit contesting a 

Because my Bloodreavers had FINALLY been finished off the previous round... there was some confusion about where exactly they can be set up - I couldn't remember if it was not within combat or not within 6" or 8 " of Enemy. It was not within combat, which meant I could have set up much closer than I did... Alas... all I really needed or wanted to do was get onto the Objective as I would score THREE Victory for holding THAT one... 

I think these Cryptguard FINALLY took down the Slaughterpriest in the final turn of the final round... 

In the final round the Flesh eater courts scored SIX Victory Points! Three for holding three objectives, one for the Twist, and two from Battle Tactics (Hold Ground and Raid). That brought their final tally to SIXTEEN!! 

I only managed to score Four Victory Points in the final round... Two for held objectives, plus two more for Battle Tactics (The Behemat Dais and Take Without Warning), for a total of Fourteen... 

Ah, well... Blood was spilled... the Blood God was pleased... 

By the time we were done, Orion and Sean were finished their game so we switched things up... 

For game two I played Orion and her Soulblight Gravelords army. 

I had previously played against them with my Hedonites of Slaanesh army. You can read about that debacle here:

Spearhead: Hedonites of Slaanesh versus Soulblight Gravelords

Again, I won the priority roll and decided I needed to be the attacker, because BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!? 

I chose Favoured of Khorne and Crimson Plate again. 

Orion chose Endless Legions (which allows them to bring back a unit of Skeletons that has been destroyed) and Cloud of Bats (which allows the General to, once per game in her Movement Phase, to turn into a cloud of bats and fly off somewhere else) 

Look at that ridiculous Khorne army taking up nearly the entire deployment zone... 

For some reason, despite being the attacker... and playing Khorne... I thought I'd let the Gravelords go first (probably worrying about my nigh indestructable Mighty Skullcrushers being destroyed on the first turn again because over extended and overwhelmed... 

So the Blood Knights just charged them. 

And those Blood Knights and my Blood Warriors and Mighty Skullcrushers battled over that objective for the next three rounds... Slowly... VERY SLOWLY chipping away at each other's units. 

In the middle by Bloodreavers entered an endless battle with some Deathrattle skeletons - both units replacing their losses each turn. 

The two Generals eyed each other up and decided NOT to fight each other as either could potentially kill the other... 

Over on my right flank, the other Blood Warriors got stuck in against the other unit of Skeletons... a few rounds they killed enough of the skeletons to wrest control of the Objective long enough to score it... only for MORE skeletons to rise up and take it back on their turn!? 

I did keep track of all the cards played and points scored... but I'M getting bored of typing all that stuff out, so I can't imagine anyone else is still reading... 

In the first round the Soulblights were ahead, in the second round I scored SEVEN points putting me in the lead 

The Vampire lord joined in the fight against the Blood Warriors. I swear at least two turns in a row I had dealt her enough damage that she was down to one health remaining, only to have her eat half the unit and gain back a bunch of health... 

the Slaughter Priest joined the fight with the Bloodreavers and by their third turn they FINALLY overwhelmed the Skeletons... 

And then the Vargheists showed up and ate a Skullcrusher... 

Then the Vampire Lord turned into a cloud of bats and flew away... 

The Bloodreavers charged the Vampire Lord - also dealing her a PILE of damage... but NOT QUITE ENOUGH to take her out... 

So she ate half the unit and healed right back up again!? 

Vargheists killed the Slaughterpriest... 

This game ended with the Soulblight Gravelords scoring SIX Victory Points to end the game 19-15... Not as bad as the game against the Hedonites... 

I'm really starting to feel like it's better to NOT have a lead early in the game and take advantage of all the Underdog abilities. You want to keep it tight, but be a bit behind in points... 

It's hard when you play Khorne and you want to play them like Khorne fights in the fluff (CHAAAARRRRRGE-KILL-KILL-KILL!!!)

I wonder how different they might play against an army that DOESN'T just keep healing and bringing stuff back EVERY FREAKING TURN!? 

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Spearhead - First Game!

I rode all the way out to the Warhammer Store on Friday to see if I could get in a game of Warhammer Underworlds... and no one showed up... 

Dray showed up with his Flesh-Eater Courts Spearhead force and I was talked into trying out a game of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Spearhead - using the store's Stormcast Eternals force.

The Stormcast Eternals force consisted of:

• Lord-Vigilant on Gryph-stalker (armoured warlord on giant beastie!) 
• Lord-Veritant (priest?) on foot with Gryph-Crow companion
• 3x Prosecutors (winged, flying troops in plate armour!?) 
• 5x Liberators (foot troops with BIG HAMMERS!?) 

The Flesh-Eater Courts Force consisted of:

• Abhorrant Archregent (King of the Ghouls?)
• Varghulf Courtier (big Beastie!) 
• 10x Cryptguard (Ghouls) 
• 3x Morbheg Knight (Ghouls on big beasties) 

These forces are fixed. If you are playing Spearhead, each faction has a fixed list that can be used to play. Some factions have two? The Stormcast and the Skaven. Most of them seem to have four elements - 1-2 Heroes, with 2-3 Units of troops of some sort. 

My Hedonites of Slaanesh have the one hero (Shardspeaker of Slaanesh) and three units (3x Slaangor, 11x Blissbard Archer, and 5x Slickblade Seekers). The Soulblight Gravelords (which I have a feeling I'll pick up later this summer, after I've finished the Hedonites also has one hero (Vampire Lord) and three units (3x Vargheists, 5x Blood Knights, 20(!)x Deathrattle Skeletons)

I somehow have a feeling that, as new Battletomes are released, there may be new Spearhead force released along side it, giving each faction another option to play with...? Maybe that's wishful thinking? 

Anyway, THE GAME!

I managed to forget my reading glasses at home so there was a lot of squinting and hoping I was reading things right and John reading about or reminding me what all the units did... 

Somehow I got to go first, so... I charged... like, clear across the table and engaged them Ghouls on their own turf... something about best defence being a good offence...? fortune favouring the bold....? "There they are, CHARGE!" is the only tactic I know!?

It seemed to work out, though... 

The Lord-Vigilant on his Gryph-stalker beat down the Varghulf Courtier pretty hard... 

The Prosecutors did less well... It was probably hard work flying around in that plate armour in the heat of Aqshy! They did not roll great and then got swarmed by Ghouls and the King of the Ghouls and one of the Ghoul-knights riding the bit beasties even attacked them... 

The Liberators tried Hammering on the Ghoul-Knights... but running across the sun-baked plains of Aqshy in full plate armour, was hard work and by the time they got across that field they were mighty tired and... rolled a LOT of ones and twos... 

The Ghouls and Ghoul-King pushed on past the dead Prosecutors... or... maybe they were blasted back to Azyr in a flash of lightning as they died...? Regardless, the Ghouls charged forth and attacked the Lord-Veritant and her Gryph-Crow companion! Rude! Attacking the Clergy... a woman, at that!

Two rounds of attacks just could NOT take her down... 

I forgot to continue taking pictures at this point... so here is what I remember of the rest of the game... 

The Liberators were destroyed by the Ghoul-Knights on Beasties. The Ghoul-Knights on Beasties charged the Lord-Vigilant. The Lord-Vigilant just trashed them. reinforcement Liberators and Prosecutors arrived and... the Prosecutors didn't do much as there was no one to charge, by the time they showed up. The Liberators charged and took down the Ghoul-King.... 

We only ended up playing three of the four rounds that are normally played... But it was pretty clear who the victors were... WOW, the Stormcast are nasty. They did not win by any tactical genius or crafty gamesmanship or stellar dice rolls on my part! 

Like most GW games, the game is determined by who scores the most Victory Points throughout the game. Some of those are from holding various objective at the end of your turn. A card is flipped at the beginning of each round that gives the players a new way to score some points. Also at the beginning of rounds, each play draws up to three other cards that they hold - these cards have an interesting mechanic as each can either be used to give a benefit to a unit during the round OR be scored for a point if the objective listed on the card can be done. It's a little like objective cards and power cards from Warhammer Underworlds (but there are way less of them to get overwhelmed by, and they are dual purpose - in that they can be used for one things or the other thing). 

There were a lot of special rules for each of the units, and some options for units and forces that need to be chosen at the beginning of the game, but not SO MANY that I was overwhelmed by it all. I'm sure I fogot a lot of them throughout the game, but I think after a game or two with a force, it will be pretty easy to remember all the stuff. 

I like it. It's quick to play. Not SO many rules (and special rules and abilities) that it will be overwhelming to keep track of. 

I feel like it suffers from most of the other competitive games from GW in that, with all the running around trying to score points, it feels a little more like a sports match of some sort that any sort of simulation of combat. With the FIXED forces, I'm a little concerned that games might get pretty samey-same... there are some different choices with special abilities, and the cards that tell you how you score will all come out in a different order... but still... 

Mind you, Warhammer Underworlds has very fixed forces... There, though, you are playing with different decks that can WILDY change the outcome of each and every game. Also with Warhammer Underworlds, there are different boards to play on that can be oriented in wildly different ways. The different boards offer different set-up options and areas that can affect play (Lethal Hexes, Blocked Hexes, Snare Hexes) and wildly different placement of Objective tokens every game. The Spearhead board is FIXED as well, with two set up options (along the long edge, or in the corner) and the terrain is negligible and placement of it has almost NO impact on the game, whatsoever. 

I hope that this gets some people excited about Age of Sigmar again and inspired to paint their models! Maybe once their spearhead forces are done and they start getting a bit bored of the Spearhead matches feeling very similar... maybe they'll expand their forces into smaller, regular Age of Sigmar forces and we can get a Path to Glory Narrative campaign going with forces starting around 500 - 750 points and slowly build to playing with slightly larger forces (up to 1000?) 

We shall see... It wasn't a great disappointment that made me regret purchasing the Hedonites of Slaanesh Vangard box, rather I cycled home quickly, hoping to get some painting done in the evening! 

(In the end I DIDN'T get to do any painting as i ended up cooking a late supper and then sorting out stuff with Amanda until WAY TOO LATE in the evening...) 

I don't think I finished the game report from the Warhammer Underworlds tournament last weekend!? I shall try and get to that this weekend. Spoiler: I did not win! 

Warhammer Underworlds: The Grymwatch

The Grymwatch are a Crypt Ghoul warband of the Flesh-Eater Courts for Warhammer Underworlds - released as an expansion for Beastgrave. Crypt Ghouls are pretty weird in Age of Sigmar. Unlike being human shaped creatures with little higher brain function, little better than animals that just want to FEED! These are... well, they ARE and little like that.. creatures that just want to feed... BUT they believe themselves to be totally not that. They all suffer from collective delusion that they are all regal members of a knightly court... or something. 

There was a story about them in the Direchasm and, not knowing about this, it was a little confusing as I knew the story was supposed to be ABOUT the Grymwatch and the names of the characters were the names of the fighters in this warband and they were all described as being part of a band of huntsmen (and women) despatched by their king to track down a vile beastman that had laid waste to their kingdom and I thought maybe this was them BEFORE they became Ghouls... but then it got all weird and they were freaking out when they saw what they thought was horrid monsters beyond this translucent amber, but was actually their reflections... I'm describing it poorly. I liked the story. But I did not get what was going on until I stopped and did a google search and did some reading on Ghouls in Age of Sigmar... 

The warband - another larger one. There are seven in total. and some of them can come back after they are taken out of action 

Duke Crakmarrow - he has a special action to bring back any Crypt Ghouls that have been taken out of action - and gets to do the action once for free at the beginning of each round... which seems like it might be kind of cool... or... maybe it will mean more ghouls for opponent to kill and gain glory from...?

Gristlewel, Duke Crackmarrow's right hand... man...? He imagines himself carrying a mighty greatsword, but it's really just a big-ass bone... or big-LEG bone...? Also Valreek the Tracker - and protagonist of the story in the Direchasm Anthology. While they are, technically Crypt Ghouls... they dont' have the Crypt Ghoul keyword on their cards and can't come back after being removed from the board. But that's because they suck less than the others - having 3 wounds and doing more than one damage with their attacks. 

The Royal Butcher and Night’s Herald - these are the crypt Ghouls that can be returned to play. 

Master Talon and the Duke’s Harriers. Master Talon is also a Ghoul that can come back. The giant bats, not-so-much. 

When I had initially assembled and started painting these (in late January/Early February) I was also trying to organize things for Warcry and decided to rebase some of the older, metal GW Ghouls I had. 

Originally these are on metal washers for bases, but I put them onto DW's Broken Realms sculpted bases - hoping they might work with the Grymwatch minis. I did try to match the skin on the Grymwatch with the way I'd painted these older ones... I got pretty close. Close enough that I don't hate it. 

I don't know... the older metal minis seems a bit chonky by comparison, though. and SO MUCH heavier. I'm not sure I'm all that excited about mixing plastic and metal minis in the same unit or warband. Maybe in separate units in a larger army...? 

I can't recall if I'd figured out if these would be useable in Warcry or not, and, as I'm pretty excited about WArhammer Underworlds at the moment and looking forward to Cursed Sity... I'm not all that fused about whether these would be fieldable in Warcry at the moment. When I do get back to Warcry - and I DO hope to revisit that at SOME point - I think I'd rather track down some more plastic Crypt Ghouls and fill out a ghoul warband that way. I'd thought of getting more metal ones, but, wow, do people ever want a lot for ghould of this vintage on ebay... I do have some old GW vampires, but apparently Vampires and Ghouls don't really mix in Age of Sigmar... Ghouls are part of the Flesh Eater Courts and Vampires are part of the Legions of Nagash - or the new Soulblight Gravelords! I guess they're like punks and hippies, or whatever.., they're both undead, but they just don't get along...? 

Excited to try out the Grymwatch in Warhammer Underworlds this weekend - and maybe bring back the Dread Pageant. I did get around to messing with their deck a bit and thinking about strategies that might make them... well... maybe not WIN... but hopefully not lose so badly!

This might be the last of the Warhammer Underworlds warbands I paint for a bit as I'm hoping I'll have a copy of Cursed City in my hands in the next few days and will switch gears and focus on those for a bit...