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  • Age of Sigmar Battle Report: Ogor Mawtribes versus Hedonites of Slaanesh

    For today’s battle report, my sparring partner and I decided to test a new Slaanesh list against my new Ogors with Kragnos in toe. Check out the lists below:

    Hedonites of Slaanesh

    • Subfaction: Pretenders
    • 1x Glutos
    • 1x Lord of Pain
    • 1x Contorted Epitome
    • 22x blissbarb archers
    • 5x blissbarb seekers
    • 10x twinsouls
    • 10x pain bringers
    • Terrain feature

    Ogor Mawtribes

    • Subfaction: +1 to spells for butchers
    • 2x butcher
    • 1x icebrow hunter
    • 1x Kragnos
    • 4x mourn fang
    • 2x frost sabres
    • 6x gluttons
    • 4 leadblechers

    We usually come up with the flavor for our match as we set up terrain, so today’s battle involved an Ogor Mawtribe on the warpath coming across Kragnos, the living earthquake, and following him into conflict with a marauding band of Slaanesh’s finest. Half the board being covered in snow helped sell the illusion that the Overwinter had followed Kragnos along with his Ogor companions to their encampment before the battle.

    Round 1: Hedonites

    I was able to win the roll off, deploy first, and gave the turn to my opponent. My goal was to aim for the double turn, and otherwise react to their movement with counter charges. As is typical for the followers of Slaanesh in 3.0, the round started with a pelting of ranged attacks and ended with the pack of seekers killing my leadblechers in one combat. My boys were able to land some nasty unleash hell damage, but otherwise the first turn was relatively uneventful, just as planned.

    Round 1: Ogors

    My turn ended up being much more eventful. Despite my subfaction giving me 2 extra casts, both of my butchers whiffed on all of their spells except for Voracious Maw, dealing a surprise amount of mortal wounds. Not having a terrain feature bit me in the butt for this match, given my list, but I think my models did okay on their own without buffs. A YouTuber once told me to never rely on my spells as an Ogors player and it felt self evident in this match. Thankfully, the remains of my ogors were able to smash into the enemy line and deal a bunch of mortal wounds. Kragnos did his thing, killing the seekers, and my general popped up out of deep strike to send his sabres in to absorb the unleash hell.

    Round 2: Ogors

    Giving up the first turn paid off! I got a double turn and was able to send Kragnos across half the board (10″ move plus a 15″ charge), tackling the Epitome and engaging most of the backline heroes in combat. My hunter was able to breath ice on the archers, charge in, and take a few down before dying himself.

    Round 2: Hedonites

    To his credit, my opponent played out the rest of the round. They finest hour’d their Epitome and went in for the attack, but a finest hour and All Out Defense from Kragnos helped keep him on a +2 despite the rend, nullifying the combat phase for the most part and keeping his army out of range of their mortal wounds on 6 ability. With the Kragnos clapback imminent and him just barely avoiding being bracketed, my opponent conceded and we had a relaxing break afterwards. Sometimes its more fun to talk about Sigmar than to play, but them’s the dice.

    Thanks for reading! If you’d like to read more about Age of Sigmar, game design, or similar topics, check out the rest of the my blog.

  • Fighting Game Combo Challenge Episode 5 – Items/Stage On!

  • Fighting Game Combo Challenge Episode 4 – Free Hugs

  • 5 Lessons 10th Edition Warhammer 40,000 Should Learn From Age of Sigmar

    5 Lessons 10th Edition Warhammer 40,000 Should Learn From Age of Sigmar

    Games Workshop’s flagship tabletop wargames are just as distinct as they are similar. Both games have developed in parallel over the past few years and still have lessons to learn from one another. With Warhammer 40,000’s 10th edition just around the corner, now’s the time to theorize what the new rules set might look like.

    5. Remove the Psychic Phase

    This lesson could just as easily be learned from the success of Horus Heresy’s 2nd edition, but Age of Sigmar similarly benefits from the removal of a dedicated magic phase. Whether you prefer being able to move before or after casting spells, cleaning up unnecessary complexity will go a long way toward making Warhammer a more approachable game for everyone.

    4. Improve Overwatch

    Neither 40k’s Overwatch nor Age of Sigmar’s Unleash Hell are perfect by any means, but the disparity between which models/factions can actually take advantage of their respective anti-charge mechanics shows a clear favor towards the fantasy approach. Unleash Hell allows the defending player to shoot their opponent at a -1 to hit deficit after a successful charge move is made. These two changes in conjunction make for a much more impactful mechanic, but one or the other alone might make Overwatch more than a niche universal strategem.

    3. Adjust Secondary Objectives to be More Reactive

    No plan survives first contact with the enemy, although the current rules for Warhammer 40k wouldn’t show it. Locking each player into three secondary choices from the onset of a match does little to encourage flexibility and quick thinking from players. Age of Sigmar’s Battle Tactics may not be lauded for their design, but they at least allow players to react to what has already happened on the battlefield and change their plans accordingly.

    2. Simplify Morale

    Why Morale involves two separate dice rolls is beyond me. Everyone complains that morale doesn’t matter enough, so having something more similar to Sigmar’s battle shock might help kill two birds with one stone; that or it could just give folks more things to complain about.

    1. Free Warlord Traits and Relics

    Warhammer is always in flux, so this may simply be a symptom of a specific meta-game that we will soon forget. However, 9th edition’s recent change to force players to pay Command Points pre-game to select warlord traits and relics is something I would immediately reverse. Building a list is an engaging part of the process for many different players and forcing them to sacrifice a vital resource to access flavorful aspects of their army is antithetical to allowing players to differentiate themselves and their lists.

    What do you want to see most of Warhammer 40,000’s 9th edition? Let me know in the comments below.

  • Fighting Game Combo Challenge Episode 3 – 10 Hits or Fewer

    Fighting Game Combo Challenge Episode 3 – 10 Hits or Fewer

    If you’d like to submit a combo for Episode 4 please use this form.