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| Me and Chris, Table 1 Game 4 - renewing the rivalry in Age of Sigmar! |
This weekend I attended Clash of Swords, the UK's first Age of Sigmar two day event down in what turned out to be quite summery Cardiff. The event was held at Firestorm Games, which is without doubt the best venue that I have been to for a war gaming event. The shop is outstanding, there is plenty of space and the whole venue appears to be run in a very professional manner (staff, cleanliness, attention to detail). I would definitely attend another event here.
The event itself is run by Mo Ashraf and it is very much geared towards having a fun social time rather than being a very focussed gaming event such as Blood and Glory (coming up later this year). There is five a side football (won by a team captained by yours truly), fancy dress, and a very keen social scene in the evenings due to the venues location close to the city centre.
I'm not going to try and do a gaming review of the tournament - I had a great time, played five excellent opponents, had four close games and one non game. Pretty standard war gaming fare.
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| Jon Warmington - Lizards, Best Painted! |
What I do want to try and put across are some of the feelings and impressions that I got in terms of how Age of Sigmar plays as a tournament game.
Firstly I think it is important to state that I don't see any reason why the game cannot be played as a competitive tournament game. Yes it needs a number of key fixes and cannot be played 'out of the box.' However coming from a Warhammer Fantasy background I am used to playing in such events and they were common place. Events that used Swedish comp or ETC comp heavily changed army selection rules and the basic rules of the game so getting our knickers in a twist with GW and their no points approach seems somewhat daft from a competitive point of view. I actually think it is more of an issue for a friendly game that has no structure in place. The pool system that Mo used is not perfect (check it out here), but it is a solid start and can be developed however tournament organisers see fit. It allowed players to construct lists and certainly didn't limit synergies in any way. I think its fair to say that some lists had awesome combos that could really change games, and players now need to seriously think these through and the potential damage they can do to your army.
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| Steve Smith - Ogres - 3rd place painting |
Through discussion with players and TO's that were there things like stacking Mystic Shields appeared to be something that limited the fun during some games. Magic in general appeared to be controversial in places - some were of the view that it doesn't stack anyway, and even that you can only cast one spell once per phase, thus making every spell unique. All of these are valid options. Dispelling is an issue as wizards generally are behind the army so its easy to buff, but almost impossible to stop a spell going off. From my point of view having no mages was a huge hindrance as a few timely Mystic Shields would have helped me out a lot!
Some of the Warscroll abilities I think will flat out disappear from the game. Things like the Engine of the Gods ability to grant the lizardman player extra game turns or Greasus Goldtooths bribery ability are frankly ridiculous and do not make for a fair, and more importantly, fun game. If you listen to the next episodes of Heelanhammer and Face Hammer you will hear how these directly affected the outcomes of games.
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| Mark Wildman - 2nd Place Painting with High Elves |
I found that Mortal Wounds were a massive issue. In two of my games I was taking between six and fourteen mortal wounds a turn, and there is nothing you can do to prevent this which I found frustrating. Now that I have experienced 'Mortal Wound' spamming this will be something that I am keen to look at so that I know what needs to be targeted early in games. Often it is understanding synergies that will help you to prevent this. I had the issue against a double Hurricanum/War Altar empire build and it turned the game into a complete non event.
If we continue with the pool system its possible that formations will become part of the pool choices. The Knightly Order one and the Skink Patrol were both popular and powerful, and if Sylvaneth Wildwoods were a point in the pool system (needed for a lot of synergies in the Wood Elf List) then pricing formations in the same way seems sensible. You could also give discounts for formations that are particularly weak or themey rather than out and out power builds which was a nice idea that Chris Tomlin from the Black Sun floated as he was dismantling my army in game 4!
My personal thoughts about my list were that, although the Wood Elf monsters are powerful, they are also fragile. They have limited attacks and lose effectiveness very quickly. Once these guys went down I did not have much power left in the list. Shooting is not particularly effective unless you have it in huge numbers (two units of 30 Glade Guard with a lord for example), and Dryads and Treekin rely on Wild Woods, magic and Sylvaneth heroes to make them effective. Smaller units of Wild Wood Rangers or eternal guard would have been much more useful over the weekend, but I had none painted and didn't have the time pre event to get any done.
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| The character models from my Wood Elf army |
Armies still looked terrific, and I want to shout out some of the people who had completely rebased their armies on to rounds. These were particularly good and looked extremely effective on the table and when displayed for painting.
Overall I was thought the event went well and I am keen to see how the tournaments develop in the next six months or so as we build towards the South Coast GT.
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| Richard Ciereszko - Dark Elves |
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| The Boss - Beastmen |
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| Ian Scovell - Dark Elves |
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| Dom Hook - Skaven |
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| Wayne Kemp - Skaven |
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| Dom Hook - Skaven |
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| Dan Broxholme - Vampire Counts |
