AoS Summer League Blog 1: So much fresh meat to consume

It’s summer, it’s hot as heck, and we’re in the realm of fire for the new GHB so we are really on brand at the start of a new league!

Some returning faces return to try to dislodge Alden once more, along with a mega six new players.

We bid you all welcome, and wish you well in your endeavours (except when you’re playing me).

Format remains much the same, though this time we’re going to do 5 games so it has more of a GT format, then a break before going again for the winter league.

Missions have been carefully selected by me from the new GHB, which contains some slightly head scratching rules and twists! I have chosen 5 which require the fewest extra tokens to count (GW have shown no chill for this year), starting with Power Of The Realms.

Battle Tactics return as part of list building and along with the missions this year, GW has seen fit to make the word count hit as hard as possible, so we are all currently trying to decipher the ones which are actually reasonably straightforward to complete.

Kyle has rejoined the league at the 11th hour too, saving me the pain of deciding what to do with an odd number of players, so shout out to him!

Mission 1: Power Of The Realms

This mission allows the underdog to mess around with the ‘primary’ objective to their benefit, and otherwise seems a nice gentle opening primary mission for the group.

This will leave us plenty of brainspace to fathom our battle tactics and see what we can score.

Predictions

The part we’re all here for really, and this will be as informed as it can be when I haven’t played against half the participants and we have a completely new GHB.

Kyle (Skaven) vs Dan (SBGL)

We start with the saviour of the moment Kyle, playing Dan who I’m reliably informed is new to the game but knows a few tricks.

Dan is bringing some classic skellies with Mannfred behind them to buff them up with extra attacks, Kyle will need to be wary of Mannfred killing anything as everything within 12” will get an extra attack.

Kyle on the other hand, has resisted herohammer and taken a leaf out of Leo’s book, filling his list with hench rats, which, with the Master Molder and Fleshmeld Menagarie are capable of doing silly amounts of damage themselves. All ably supported by a small gun line with an Arch-Warlock to give a unit a free covering fire (yuck).

I think this game might come down to battle tactics, with both players choosing Siege of Ashes there could be an element of getting in each other’s way. Flanking Firestorm (which I had to re-read for this) could be tricky for Kyle with a fairly elite looking list, and a lot of stipulation about not being set up this turn which may require some set up.

Prediction: I actually can’t call this one, I’m going to plump for a narrow victory for Dan purely based on tactics choice.

Callum (Chorfs) vs Pete (Seraphon)

It’s the second coming for Pete, who has tossed aside his Fyreslayers and found his true calling as a destruction dinos player.

Pete’s list has been honed from the outset, with lots of hungry Aggradons, Slann to to keep units recycling (Callum’s favourite), then some other MSU units to support.

Callum’s list is largely familiar to anyone who has played him before, but the Centaurs appear to have been subbed out for the new SoA Anointed Sentinels who have some spicy looking rules. Also using Morbid Conjuration to add some nasty manifestations to the mix.

The lizards are not going to enjoy some of the shooting coming their way, but Pete has a lot of speed on his side to run them down.

Both players are using the same battle tactics, with a fugitive each to hunt down and a hideout to plunder each as well.

I’m slightly dubious about the Chorfs ability to go steal a terrain feature which is likely to be far away for those little legs, but am assuming Callum has a plan of some kind (right?) to address that.

Prediction: He’ll love this, Pete to win. I think his mobility vs Callum will be big.

Mark (LRL) vs Leo (Skaven)

Mark has been narrowing down his LRL list over the last few weeks, landing on a classic combo of disgusting heroes and support from blocks of archers, pikemen and kangaroo cavalry.

Leo has had a list locked down since before the GHB and is not one for changing. Swarms of Rat Ogors, a Brood Terror and a mini-Light of Eltharion of his own in Deathmaster Crixxit (who hits pretty hard too).

Both lists are going to be pretty good at killing here, with lots of additional movement tricks, combat tricks, and teleporting tricks to play around with.

Battle tactics are similar too, with both players using Legend of the Parch, stage 2 of which I think is going to be really hard for both players to achieve, as there are 4 heroes on each side, not all of which want to be near enemy units. It should be interesting to see how that goes!

Prediction: I can’t bet against Leo with the form he’s in

Liam (Sylvaneth) vs Jamie (DoK)

Liam has gone full herohammer with his list and I’m absolutely here for it. Alarielle brings a cohort of Treelords and a Spirit of Durthu and that’s it. Potentially not that much board presence, but everything present is going to be hard work to take down!

Luckily for Jamie, taking things down is what DoK do, and Morathi is a scary prospect for anyone to come up against.

Nice to see Jamie is bringing both new SoA warscrolls, with Melusai able to tool up a friendly unit, and the Shadowstalkers able to kidnap an enemy hero (which in this match up does nothing as Liam has no infantry).

Jamie has bravely (or stupidly) chosen the Smokescreen tactic, the 2nd stage of which requires you to lose more friendly units than enemy units in your turn, which I’m certain we’re all interested to see how you manipulate!

Legend of the Parch could be tricky on stage 2 for Liam also, with essentially his whole army being required to be within 9” of an enemy unit.

Prediction: I’ve genuinely no idea with this one, it’s mega killy vs mega resilient. I’m going for Liam, as I can see a world in which the DoK get a bit stuck into all the healing (but this could easily go the exact opposite way)

Steve (Seraphon) vs Andy (SBG)

Steve’s Kroak fan club is coming to town and Nagash’s local fox hunting troupe is here to protest against them.

This is a game of excessively long hero phases and more D3 mortals than you could possibly dream of in the one 60x44 area.

Steve is very excited about his deep striking Aggradons, presumably aimed at stealing hideouts and assassinations. 2 lots of Kroxigor add plenty more 4+s to the proceedings, as well as some other MSU units to support the big frog and hammers.

Andy has been tuning his rather brutal Nagash + Blood Knights (+ more Blood Knights) list for a while and I think he may be a dark horse for the league top 3 as a result. 10x Blood Knights which, when shifted, can come back for round 2 is disgusting, and a great incentive for his opponents to avoid trying to kill them as much as is possible and practical.

Steve is not going to love the Mortis Engine being able to potentially dish out 18 mortals per turn, but equally, running away from it is a legit option.

Interestingly, we have no crossover with battle tactics, and Andy’s Legend of the Parch stage 2 can be denied if either Mortis or Nagash are dead. Steve’s issue outside teleporting will be getting to that hideout, as I assume Nagash might be hanging around nearby…

Prediction: I think Andy might have the edge here, due to that very tuned list, Steve I suspect won’t have a good answer to the potential mortal wounds output from Nagash/Mortis in combo, especially with no recursion.

Alden (CoS) vs Ross (BoK)

Blades of Khorne are like London buses, you go 2 whole leagues without any, then 2 turn up at once! 

This is the first of 2 Daemon-based Blades armies of the league, piloted by Ross who is taking a holiday from competitive 40k for some competitive AoS.

Sadly this game is going to be on TTS and we won’t get to see the 2 nice-guy/assassins of wargaming at the table together (there’s always next league?).

This is a clash of styles, with both armies the antithesis of one another.

Alden has a horde full of guns and annoying dudes who your opponent can be forced to fight, and stupid armoured cavalry for whom the rule of law does not seem to apply.

Ross has a wound-dense, horde of Daemons led by Skarbrand and another Bloodthirster who are going to be yeeted forward as quickly as possible.

This includes Skarbrand, whom if he can get into combat has the most insane Rage dice weapon in the game I believe.

Alden however is going to do everything possible to shoot the big Greater Daemons off the board as quickly as possible. Chewing through the rest could be tricky though, there are a lot of 2-wound guys with ward saves there!

Prediction: If the big guys go down early ish, it’s a long road back for Ross in this one. Alden to win, but Ross will give him a good game.

Me (FEC) vs Tom (BoK)

Lastly, we come to myself and Tom!

Tom brings Khorne Daemons in even greater numbers than Ross, led by a single Bloodthirster.

I am trying out quite a few new SoA bits for FEC, hoping I can have a pretty resilient (by FEC standards) castle and enough to clap people back with. The Morbhegs make a (hopefully) glorious return to go do objective stealing, and just be annoying generally!

I expect Tom to full-send at me, and I don’t think I have anywhere near the damage output required to take down the sheer volume of wounds on show. I’m going to need big prayers going off to turn off ward saves where I can, as well as give papa Ush fights twice to chew through Tom’s forces.

I’m going to hope Smokescreen stage 2 is as tricky as I think it is, to limit Tom’s scoring potential. We’re both on Siege, and the Bloodthirster will otherwise make a nice fugitive target for my forces!

Prediction: Tom will win unless I can outmanoeuvre/get lucky with some dice rolls!

That wraps up blog 1, I will return with a recap of round 1 and preview of 2 once the (hand of) dust has settled on these games.