HH AoS Winter League Blog 4

Much like the January rain, AoS at Hobby Henchmen is coming in hard and from a south-easterly angle, the winds of which have taken us to the end of Round 3.

Before we peek into my crystal ball for Round 4 predictions, let's have a quick sweep around the results from episode 3:

Callum (SoBs) vs Alden (Lumineth Nonsense)

Prediction: Alden to win

Result: Alden takes the win

Alden changed up his list, but the result remains the same (in less than an hour, no less).

The Light of Eltharion seems to have done his thing and popped off, ably assisted by archers raining death on the poor Gargants.

Me (FEC my life) vs Joe (army book is coming!)

Prediction: Joe scrapes a win

Result: Craig scrapes a win

I was basically right with this one, a scraped win one way or the other.

Unfortunately for Joe, Nurgle are kinda slow, and to win his battle tactic required him to have units fighting or enemies outside his territory.

So, of course, I ran away, keeping tantalisingly out of reach to clinch an incredibly close victory by 2 points, epic game!

Leo (increasingly ratty) vs Pete (I don’t need 5 Magmadroths)

Prediction: Leo wins a nail biter

Result: Leo wins fairly comfortably

The last played but by no means least of our games from this Round, Leo using his new-found wargaming powers took his first AoS victory in reasonably comfortable fashion.

Bullying the Fyreslayers via teleportation, which their little legs can’t get close to did the trick, as well as rats carrying treasure a long way out of reach!

Liam (Chorfs) vs Kyle (gnawing away at the leaderboard)

Prediction: Kyle to win

Result: Kyle victory

This was a pretty epic and tense game, which Liam might have made more of an impression on if Kyle, who was debuting Vizzik, was not rolling a ridiculously high proportion of ward saves.

Max (burly boys) vs George (bells and furnaces)

Prediction: Max to win

Result: George steals victory

Despite the dadbods managing to haul down the dreaded SoG Screaming Bell, George was able to stem the tide in this instance and negotiate the assault of the bellies.

Aid (Skellies) vs Andy (Skellies, but also Vhordrai)

Prediction: Andy to win

Result: Bye draw

In the end both players were unable to be free on the same day, so I called this one a low scoring draw rather than punish one with a loss.

Round 4: Linked Ley Lines

This battle plan has some unusual underdog mechanics which are essentially ‘enemy manifestations are not welcome’ and friendly manifestations get to smash first, both of which are very useful and have potential to affect the games a lot more than previous mechanics we have seen.

There is also a primary scoring bonus for scoring three objectives in a line which is a fun twist on ‘hold more.’ 

This is a good battleplan for any Master the Paths or Restless Energy fans also!

Round 4 predictions

Liam (vertically challenged bad) vs Pete (vertically challenged orange)

First up we have a battle of the long beards and short legs which is conjuring images of the Jon Cleese knight in Holy Grail repeatedly running and running in the same spot until suddenly he is on the guards at the castle.

When the 2 armies eventually reach each other, there should be some serious brawling, with various shapes of bulls going toe-to-toe with, well, guys with their toes out.

Pete has already wild-carded into a more charge-beneficial formation and I expect he will need to bear down on some of Liam’s shooting at the earliest opportunity to tie some stuff up to stay alive in this one.

This should be a fun one!

Prediction: Liam to win (Liam’s dice hate him, Pete hates winning)

Leo (warpstone running hot) vs Andy (P + V =?)

Leo has unlocked the secrets of warhammer and is going well in all formats, and Andy is fine tuning his Vampire legions ready for tournaments and the like, so this ought to be a fun one.

There is a real possibility that a Vhordrai could run rampant through Skaven ranks with a general lack of ward saves and rend, however you never know with the rat-men, who are prone to occasionally going absolutely berserk on something and giving Andy a mighty shock.

Both armies have recursion and mobility, and pretty well zero shooting, so I expect an absolute midboard meat grinder in this one.

Prediction: Leo to win a close one.

Kyle (Vizzik fan club) vs Aid (just hoping to get a game in)

Hopefully opposing shifts don’t deny us a good game here.

Kyle continues to cook with his beloved Skaven and his latest creation is a tarpit led by Vizzik and that f**king Screaming Bell.

Aid’s list I’m a fan of and has lots of big reinforced Skeleton units as well as some Blood Knights with the awesome Vampire Lord on Nightmare Steed in tow.

Aid will need to smash through the big blobs of rats with his cavalry efficiently to have a chance of stopping the clawhorde (entirely possible) and get through to Kyle’s important hero pieces.

Prediction: Kyle to win

Callum (the fantastic four) vs George (rats on the up)

Callum has already forgotten his game against Alden (I’m sure) and will be raring to go at the rats in this one.

Another pretty smashy match up here, I can see the gargants breaking through the rats with relative ease (as long as those 4+s pop reasonably well) but the giant lads are equally lacking in armour so will take some serious punishment in return especially if mortal wounds pop off.

Kicking around objectives in this battle plan would be actively negative for both parties as a high roll could move an objective off a Ley Line and affect scoring.

This would be really interesting to see so Callum can you please ensure you do this!

Prediction: Close game, Callum to swing it his way.

Craig (heavy lies the bone crown) vs Alden (heavy lies the actual crown)

There is no doubt in my mind that Alden wins this game. 

My list will be changing to either have more Horrors or many, many more serfs (depending on what I can build in time), but it’s going to be an uphill battle for me.

Genuinely hoping I can score reasonably well to help my podium chances later in the league! I also will not let Ushoran die in Alden’s very first activation this time :0

Prediction: Alden wins comfortably

Joe (Nurgley Newness) vs Max (bloated bellies, but in a different way)

Joe has yet to submit his ‘new year, new book, new me, new list’ of newness for us to peruse: a result of a combination of production, painting time and experimentation.

This should be an interesting first outing for them, having a wall of rotund bellies charging at them.

I’m expecting lots of plague bearers in the list to stand on objectives and be really annoying to hit, especially for Ogors for whom most hit on 4s.

New and improved disease is going to hurt the Ogors as well as they lack ward saves.

Equally, Max has the potential to run into the Maggotkin before any of this setup can be done and do a lot of work into less strong saves and ward saves than Maggotkin had previously.

This could come down to who goes first, and possibly an early double turn.

Prediction: Joe to bring a win with his shiny new book.

That’s all from me for another month, I’m looking forward to this round and hoping we have some great games on what looks like a fun battleplan!

Remember to get any wild cards in and thus invalidate my predictions also.