Atomic Tournament and Tzeentch Test Run.

In these uncertain times, things are getting strange. You could say things are a changing.

 

I have said for years our society lives on the edge of a knife. It would not take much to cause our daily lives to be turned upside down.  The current situation is a great reminder of this.

 

Howdy Y’all I had my first tournament with my new Tzeentch army. Painting is in full swing, but I am not sure if I still have a GT to get ready for.?!?!?

Well my spring break has been extended, I have lots of work to do from home, both professional and personal. I am currently setting up distance learning for my students. Trying to complete a collage project for my degree. Painting 1000 Blue Horrors. Working on my new website and also completing the school yearbook. Oh yeah and keeping a 5 and 7 year old entertained. I feel like I have a lot on my plate right now.

Lets talk about the situation. Me and the family are restricted from work and school until at least April 13th. And honestly It could be through summer. I am not sure what to think or do in these uncertain times. It is a fine line between personal freedoms and doing what is right for the community. I am trying to stay out of any political conversations and or conspiracy stuff, I am just a guy trying to keep moving in a positive direction with things.

The situation has definitely been impacting the AOS community here in Houston. We have already started to see local tournaments get canceled and players dropping from events to stay away from groups. I know personally that some of my friends have been cautious to get a game in and to be honest I am hesitant to have anyone come over to my house to game. The biggest question on my mind is how are we going to proceed with the GTs this year. The Lone Star GT is scheduled for May 2nd. The organizers have already announced they would not make any decisions regarding the tournament till mid April. To be honest I think they will air on the side of caution. Another factor is that the hotel/city/state could just close the event down. If it is canceled I hope they reschedule for later in the year, I had planned on attending all 4 of the GTs for the Masters this year.

So what are your thoughts on the situation? How have you been dealing with things? Getting some hobby done? Also PLEASE support our local shops! Let us do our best to help them ride this lock-down out!

 

Rolltowound.com

(This site is in Alpha, so any constructive criticism is gladly accepted. Graphics are Pre-Alpha)

 

Some of you may have noticed that I am writing this blog in a new website, Rolltowound.com. This project has been in the back on my mind for a while and I have finally decided that this year will be the year that I create a community generated Wargaming website. I know that there are several of them out there, 3++, BOLS, AOS Shorts to name a few. The reason that I want to start my own is that I believe that in our community I have meet many content creators and other who would like to have a virtual space to post their own creations. I see this site as being an entry level place that anyone wanting to create or advertise their wargaming content.

I am looking to officially launch the site later this year, but will begin to use it far all my blog post. If you are an aspiring online wargaming content creator let me know. I am looking for anyone interested. Just PM me and we can talk about the details. Also if blogging or writing is not your thing, I am more than happy for you to put post on the site advertising your; Youtube channel, store, podcast, etc. Just let me know what you are thinking and we can work it all out. Any tabletop Hobby content is welcome.

There will me more information about the site in the coming months. Like I said feel free to let me know your thoughts, and PM me with any interest in contributing content.

Tournament

So I had my first outing with my new Tzeentch at the Atomic Hobby Shop tournament this past weekend. I will start by saying That this will be an abridged recap. I was so focused on learning and playing my new army that it took most of my attention to do that. So my notes and pictures suffered. However I will give you the gist of what happened.

Let me start by saying I learned a bunch. I had only played 1 test game against myself, (Stormfiend list). And 2 turn against Tim F’s tournament winning MawTribes list.  I wanted a list that was very symmetrical and “simple”. I was not trying to be 2 fancy with the build, more of just seeing what things do and what I should focus on as I build and paint for the LoneStar GT.

I will go over what happened then give a breakdown of my after tournament thoughts.

The list:

Battalion: Changehost [1,990pts]

• The Eternal Conflagration
• Fateskimmer, Herald of Tzeentch on Burning Chariot [140pts]

  Artefact: Shroud of Warpflame, Magic: Fateskimmer, Spell: Arcane Bolt, Mystic Shield, Treason of Tzeentch, Tzeentch’s Firestorm,

• Lord of Change

  Artefact: Gryph-feather Charm, Command Abilities: Beacon of Sorcery, Command Trait: Coruscating Flames, Lord of Change Wounds Suffered: 00-03, 04-06, 07-09, 10-12, 13+, Magic: Lord of Change, Spell: Arcane Bolt, Bolt of Tzeentch, Infernal Gateway, Mystic Shield,

• Flamers of Tzeentch  x6
• Flamers of Tzeentch  x6
• Horrors of Tzeentch x10
• Horrors of Tzeentch x10
• Horrors of Tzeentch x10
• Screamers of Tzeentch x3
• Screamers of Tzeentch x3
• Screamers of Tzeentch x3
• Emerald Lifeswarm

Tournament Scoring

Awards:
Best General
Best Painted
Best Sports

Battleplan points:
Major Victory = 10 Minor Victory = 7
Draw = 5
Minor Loss = 3 Major Loss = 0
Secondary- 5 HIDDEN AGENDAS (GH19: PG 20-21)
Tertiary- 2

Game 1

Mission 1: Blood and Glory (core rulebook) Tertiary: Destroy an enemy battleline with an attack from a friendly battleline

My Hidden agenda was Slay.

I was going up against Chris S.

I do not have his full Stormcast list, But it was along the lines of:

• Knight Incantor
• Lord Arcanum on Gryph Charger
• Lord Celestant
• Lord Relictor
• Liberators x5
• Sequitors x10
• Sequitors x20
• Evocators on Celestial Dracolines x6
• Everblaze Comet

I have played Chris in the past and he beat my Stormfiends list. The biggest worry I had with this list was the Evocators coming in and smashing a flank. He could not rush me with all of his units at one time because he needed to stay back on his objectives to hold them for turn 3.

We both had the ability to teleport and he was going to bring in his Dracolines via deep strike. I had to keep the majority of my forces back to hold my points, but I saw a great opportunity to teleport a unit of Flamers up and try and take out his 2 casters. That would render his Comet useless and give me my Hidden Agenda. I figured my Flamers would die on his turn, but If I could take out 2 of his HQs I think it was worth it. However it was not to be, I flubbed my rolls and he made saves left and right. I was only able to do 2 wounds to his Lord Arcanum and 1 wound to his Incantor. It was a total fail! Other than that I shuffled up and cast a few spells, but did not do anything of note.

My end of turn 1. Was looking good at this point, until I started shooting.

Center of the Stormcast line:

On his turn his 20 block smashed into my center unit of Pinks and the Flamers that were right in front of his lines. He did a good amount of wounds to the Pinks, Killing all the starting 10. He also wiped out the 6 flamers. It was already starting out to be that kind of game for me.

He won the roll off and took the double turn. If I would have gotten the roll I feel I would have been in an ok spot, I just needed the center unit of Pinks to hold out. He was able to cast the Comet and it did a good amount of wounds to my Lord and several of my units. I came out of his magic phase ok, but not great. His Sequitors were a bit out of position to maximize the swings at my Horrors so they managed to live through the turn. At the start of my turn I had a mediocre magic phase. I was not in range to hit any of Heroes with my offense spells, so I put all I could into the 20 block. I also used the Lord of Change (LOC), spell eater ability to remove the Comet. I cast Emerald Life swarm and healed the center unit of Horrors. I just sort of held out and worked on killing the 20 Sequitors.

At the end of 2 he won the roll and took the turn. In this mission if he was able to take all 4 points he would auto win.  I was able to shut most of his magic down and his unit of Sequitors was whittled down. He brought in his Dracolines on his right side of the board. He was going to push hard to take my right point and then hope to teleport a unit in the next turn to take my L point. The good news for me was that he failed the charge with this Dracolines, even with a re-roll. I killed a few more Sequitors and that was the end of his turn. On my turn I took out his Sequitors and summoned an exalted flamer. I was able to shoot his Lord Relictor off the board and that would stop him from being able to teleport in the next turn, “huge”. I put the rest of my shots in to the Dracolines and killed 3.

Holding out in the middle:

In the last turn he made a play to take my L objective he made a long charge and killed the unit holding it. I had to take it back and take his right OBJ. I was able to do this on my turn using the Changehost ability. I did not even engage the Dracolines, I could get enough bodies within 6 to take the point. However I was not able to kill his General, he lived through the game with 1 wound remaining.

Heavy on the left side of the table:

At the end of 4 we ran out of time, and I had 3 points to his 1, because of the mission it was a minor victory for me. I completed the Tertiary, but did not complete Slay for my hidden. He completed the Tertiary and Secondary. With all that said he lost the game, but made more points in the game than I did, 9 to 10.

This was a great test to see how well 10 Pink Horrors can hold out. They did get some help from the Emerald Life Swarm over the course of a few turns. I probably added 15-20 wounds back to that unit. I rolled low on the healings and it easily made its points back.  This game would have been much different if he would have made his charge with his Dracolines. Fun game I think there were a couple of rolls that changed the outcome, “that can be said for most games”. But it was a great game to get my feet wet with.

One of the things I want to say with this game is that I am looking for a fast, efficient way to remove the Horrors and replace them. I seemed to fumble through this process most of the game and I was consistently apologizing for moving models around. I just need to figure out a good system to count wounds and replace models as we go. Sorry Chris!

Game 2

Mission 2: Escalation (core rulebook) Tertiary: By the end of the game, have no friendly units more than 12” away from enemy territory.

 

I was matched up against K Corcoran. Was running Skaventide with a good balance of shooting and Clanrats. This was the 3rd tournament in a row that I was matched up against one of the Corcoran Brothers. Going into the game we were 1/1 against each other.

The mission was in my favor. Once again, one of the reason I moved away from Skaven is that it just suffers on several missions.

I would out drop him even with dropping units 1 at a time. So I did just that, with the intent to take out as many rats turn one as I could. Magic was average for me I was mostly casting spells to get the points for them. I ran  up all my Horrors to screen my Flamers. The Flamers were able to take out most of his center and left units. On my right the shooting and combat from the Horrors only did 8 total wounds. He did not have any command points yet so the battleshock really hurt him. The silver lining for him was that he only took 8 wounds on my right and did a large amount of damage back to the Horrors.

End of my turn 1:

These are all the rats the 2 units of Flamers killed:

On his turn 1 he moved everything up and brought in his Jezzails with the drill. He moved the rest of his army up to hold the points. His Cannon was out of range of all my juicy targets, and for the most part he just moved up. The Jezzails split fire and killed 3 models  from each of my flamer units.  His Clanrats on the R worked over my Horrors, that flank was going to fall.

 

The forces of Tzeentch advance:

He won the roll and took the turn. I will say that if he would have lost that roll, the Rats would have been in a very bad spot. He was able to kill off the R unit of Horrors and he put all his shots from the Jezzails into my L unit of Horrors. doing a good bit of wounds. I was a bit surprised by his targeting, but after battleshock the unit was almost gone, so it was not the worst option.

On my turn I put as many shots as I could into his Jazzails. I did not kill as many as I would have liked, and he was immune to battleshock now. He had moved the remainder of his center and R units of CRats onto the center OBJ. I used most of my magic and shooting to put wounds there. At the end of the turn, I was hold 2 points and he had the center. I kind of flubbed a bunch of rolls this turn, but I was still in a good position.

Both armies standing behind screens shooting at each other:

End of 2:

He got the roll. I shut most of his magic down this turn. He missed with all his shooting. However he did make the charge with his Warpseer. I was prepared to feel the pain with my Lord of Change, but he put most of his attacks into the Horrors to try and take the center point. I did a wound to his Warpseer and that was that. He scored 1 point.

In my turn I GTFO of the center and managed to take out his units on the L side. I also took the center point back and scored 3.

Monsters in the middle:

This game was a bit closer than it appeared. The double turn evened things out on turn 2. I was surprised the Clanrats did so well against the Horrors. I would have thought they would have held a little better, but volume of attacks usually wins out. Big takeaway from this game was that my maneuverability won me the game. I was able to move and re position as needed, the Skaven could not and in the end it cost them. I completed my Secondary and Tertiary and was able to max points for the game.

Great game against Kyle, always fun playing the Corcoran brothers.

Game 3

Mission 3: Places of Arcane Power (2019). Tertiary: Have a friendly hero kill an enemy hero on an objective

My final game of the day was against Cliff P. I had never had the opportunity to play Cliff before he was running a very scary Slaanesh list that would just churn out Deparivty points like crazy. Because of the mission and match up I made the decision during deployment that I was probably going to lose the game and I would just play for my Secondary and Tertiary points. I was hopping to get as many points as I could for the tournament placings. After the battle I reassessed the game and could have made a fight to try and win this game, but I knew coming into this match that only having 2 Heroes was my weak point. I also I did not have any hero models with me to even summon. I chose to take sacrifice for my Secondary.

His list:

 

My deployment was a triple layered castle formation. I needed the LOC to stay alive to I could complete the Tertiary. Chris had Teleporting Marauders so I had to keep that in mind.

Protect the General! 

Hello ladies, er.. fellas 

The board: 

My whole plan this game was just to sit tight and have some fun. I will say I was playing 100% stress free. It was honestly a very fun game for me. I was just doing stuff and trying things out. On my first turn I rushed my Fateskimmer into his 3 Keepers. He was killed in short order and my secondary was complete! Cliff was very confused at the tactic until I told him my Secondary.

As the game went on he played it cautiously and I just sat back and plinked at his units. At one point I Teleported 6 Flamers in range to shoot Sayl, I only managed to to 1 wound to him and 1 to his spawn. Once again it is reconfirmed that the Flamers just are not great at killing heroes. However in later turns they one shot 20 Marauders. I was able to kill his Keeper on the center point with my LOC, it took 2 turns of shooting and spells to do it, “I rolled low”. So I completed my Secondary that way. By the end of the game I did kill a second Keeper in the same way, I did not know this but his Secondary was center ground. and ended up taking the point. So I ended up stopping him from getting those points. the final score was like 16+ to 1, HAHA.

During the game I was slightly below average at casting spells, however Cliff was casting left and right. At one point I had 18 points and then I summoned an Exalted Flamer and by the end of the game I was back up to 20 or so points. This was the first game that was magic heavy and I will have to be sure in the future to bring many extra units for summoning to the board. This tournament I only brought 1 Ecalted Flamer and and extra unit of Screamers.

There are more now:

It was a very very fun game. I learned a good bit about my army and its capabilities. I was also reminded that Slaanesh is still no slouch, even though it has fallen out of the current local Meta. This list was tooled up nicely and I can see it doing very good at tournaments. It was made to max out Depravity and bring more and more models to the table. The Teleporting Marauders add a good bit of flexibility.

On a different mission I may have had a chance against this list, but I was happy with the outcome, It was a fun game.

 

Tournament Roundup

The tournament was full of good players from the Houston area. There were some good list at the tournament. There was 3 Archaon at the tournament all three made the top 5. List built around him will be all the rage this year. So if you are planning on playing in any tournaments here l suggest having some way to deal with him.

I think that it will be much more difficult to make the masters this year. So many more people are pushing for it and much earlier in the year.

The Usual Suspects: 

 

List performance

I cannot complain about the staying power of this list. I think that the units of Horrors did their job very nicely. There is a good bit of tactical flexibility with being able move a unit around every hero phase. My 2 complaints about this list is that it only has 2 Heroes and the lack of Damage output. I am not saying that the damage output is bad, it is good against cheap hordes, but has a big problem taking out heroes and tough units. The magic is also minimal for a Tzeentch list and that can hamper my summoning.

The current change that I am planning on making to the list is adding the Changeling and dropping one unit of Screamers and the Emerald life swarm. I would really like to include the Swarm, it is a great inclusion, but I would not have the points. I will continue to play around with the composition of the list.

If you are working on a Tzeentch list I found that the Horrors do a great job, Emerald Life Swarm to support them is a great addition. Flamers can take out hoards. and Exalted Flamers are great Hero snipers. Screams are also great additions, they are cheap and move 16 inches. Awesome flankers and late game OBJ grabbers.

 

Hobby update

This is what I am currently working on, for my army. As you can see I have many many blues to paint!

 

The Brimstone Horrors should paint up quick, I am just going to Contrast them and hit them with a dry brush.

My first full unit of Pink Horrors is complete. They are a very basic level of painting. I based coated them, washed them and did a little drybrush. I just need them to be tournament ready….If that happens in May.

Crackle based with Blue resin crystal accents.

I used Green Stuff World Florescent Paint under the crackle paint. This is the glow that it gives off under a black light.

http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/187-fluorescent-acrylic-paints

 

 

A large portion of my time painting over the last few weeks was to get the Lord of Change done. Man I poured the hours into this model. I wanted a very very good centerpiece model for the army and I think I accomplished the task.

 

 

Lord of Change Painting Guide:

• Prime
  • Macragge Blue
• Tank Skin
  • Base
    • Karak Stone x2
  • Wash
    • Reikland Fleshshade
  • HL/Glaze
    • Karak stone/Lahmian Medium 1/2 x2
  • HL/Glaze
    • Ushabti Bone/Lahmian Medium 1/2 x2
  • HL/Glaze
    • Flayed One Flesh/Lahmian Medium 1/2
• Feet
  • Base
    • XV-88 x2
  • Wash
    • Seraphim Sepia /water x2
  • HL/Glaze
    • XV-88/Lahmian Medium 1/2
  • HL/Glaze
    • Tau Light Ochre/Lahmian Medium 1/3
  • HL/Glaze
    • Ungor Flesh/Lahmian Medium 1/4  “spot”
• Claws and Beak
  • Base
    • Adaddon Black
  • HL/Glaze
    • German Grey “V”/Lahmian Medium 1/2
  • HL/Glaze
    • Base Grey “V”/Lahmian Medium 1/1
  • Gloss
    • Ard Coat
• Cloth
  • Base
    • Warfiend Grey x2
  • Wash
    • Nuln Oil
  • HL/Glaze
    • Slaanesh Grey/Lahmian Medium 1/3 x3
  • HL/Glaze
    • Pallid Wych Flesh/Lahmian Medium 1/3 x3
• Cloth Yellow
  • Base
    • Yriel Yellow x2
  • Wash
    • Nuln Oil
  • HL/Glaze
    • Troll Slayer/Lahmian Medium 1/2 x2
  • HL/Glaze
    • Mephiston red/Lahmian Medium 1/1 x2
• Gold
  • Base
    • Averland Sunset
  • Layer
    • Old Gold “V”
  • Wash
    • Nuln Oil
  • HL
    • Shinning gold
  • Edge/Spot
    • Runefange Steel/Shining Gold 1/1
• Green Gems
  • Base
    • Warpstone Glow
  • Wash
    • Coelia Green Shade
  • HL
    • Warboss/Lahmian 1/1
  • Spot
    • Warboss/White 1/1
• Blue Skin
  • Prime
    • Macragge Blue
  • Wash
    • Asurmen Blue
  • HL/Glaze
    • Mordian/Lahmian Medium 1/1
  • HL/Glaze
    • Ultramarines Blue/Lahmian Medium 1/2 x2
  • HL/Glaze
    • Deepsky Blue/Lahmian Medium 1/3
• Staff and Wand
  • “All these were thinned down with Medium and blended together. I used the techniques in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzEdzxPoPOM&t=1061s
    • Colors = Ultramarine Blue, Lothern Blue, Blue Horror.
      • HL
        • Deepsky Blue/White 1/2
  • Wand
    • Colors = Yriel Yellow, Troll Slayer Orange, Mephiston red
    • Dry brush
      • Black “V”

 

I will say this may not be the best AOS model I have ever painted, but I am very happy with it. Trying to get those Hobby Points at the next GT!

Thanks for Reading.

 

Y’all be good.