Saturday, June 25, 2016

The Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Tournament Scene in New Zealand

In July, Games Workshop will release the General's Handbook (GH) - which contains additional rules to cover competitive 'matched play'. As a result, there has been a fair bit of increased interest in Warhammer as a tournament game system.

For those interested in learning more, I have summarised the events to date and those planned for this year. I have also outlined some of the main details around the General's Handbook, for those looking to raise an army and attend one of these events.

Events So Far This Year

Path to Glory Campaign

There is a monthly campaign event called Path to Glory on the third Saturday of each month. This campaign used rules that I adapted from the official Chaos campaign, which you can view here. We had eight players participate over the six month campaign, which wrapped up with a Daemons of Tzeentch warband ascending to glory. I took some photos of the April meet up and posted them on Facebook, which you can view here.

If you are around Hamilton, or don't mind travelling here for one day a month, we will be kicking off the new campaign on July 16th. Feel free to email me for more info.


Over The Top 2016

Officially the first competitive event in New Zealand. This was run on February 6th 2016, and had a small number of keen players attend. You can check out the event report in an earlier post.

We were trying out the Clash Comp community rules pack, which was a good starting point to competitive play for AOS. The army sizes were deliberately kept small so that new players in the community could field their starter set models, with achievable hobby goals.



NICON 2016

This was the most recent event, taking place over Queen's Birthday weekend. We had eight players attend, which that number again showing initial interest. The lesson I learned with this was to offer single-day events, as many people could not make it for the weekend. With a game system lacking the support of an existing player base I think this is pretty important.

For those of us who did attend, this was a damn good event. We used the SCGT tournament pack, which is my favourite of those community packs released so far. It was tightly contested, with the triumphant return of the Tomb Kings taking first place, Daemons of Chaos taking second, and my Undead force taking third. What I enjoyed most was the variety and tactical challenges posed by the scenarios (battleplans) in the SCGT pack.

We had such a good time, and at the conclusion all eight of us couldn't wait to play more. 

Final Results for NICON 2016
Byron's Goretide Bloodbound, which won best painted army


Upcoming Events

Call to Arms 2016

Taking place in Wellington on August 6th. This will be the first event to use the new General's Handbook (see below).

The Facebook event on the Age of Sigmar New Zealand Community page indicates that it will be well-attended. I am excited to be travelling down with one or two others to help organise.

We are currently waiting on the final army requirement details, but I'm painting a few extra units just in case. 

Because of travel and time constraints, there will only be one day of gaming. Check out the links below for more information:

Taking place on September 24th and 25th in Auckland. This is not a certainty, as events have not been finalised yet, but the hope is to run two single-day tournaments; smaller games on the Saturday (1,000 points) and bigger games on the Sunday (2,500 points). Stay tuned for more details on this.

Warbanner 2016

Taking place on October 8th and 9th in Napier. Again, we will be running two single-day tournaments, same as GuardCon.

Keep an eye on the New Zealand Events section of the TGA Community forums, or join the Age of Sigmar New Zealand Community group for updates. The Warbanner page to visit for the overall organisation and other events is here.


National Rankings

The plan is to have these up and running for Call to Arms. Our aim is to score the rankings on a per-game basis, so that any game at approved events or venues using the official GH rules will count towards them. Details on how the scoring will work will be confirmed once we've got our hands on the GH. The idea is that each game counts, meaning you can attend single day events and not worry about missing out.

The General's Handbook

The exciting announcement was made by a variety of podcasts, but here is the Bad Dice summary.

The book contains extra rules and guidelines for open play (the standard 'no points' rules), campaign play and matched play. From what we've seen so far, these will really add another level of customisation to your armies. 

We have not yet seen any of the scenarios. I'm looking forward to these most of all.



From the leaks that have started to come out, we can determine the following about matched play:
  • There will be points associated with each warscroll. You can view them here.
  • Each warscroll will also be given a 'battlefield role';
    • Leader Units
    • Batteline Units
    • Artillery Units
    • Behemouth Units
  • Battlefield roles help determine army composition:
    • 1000pts 1-4 Leaders 2+ Battleline 0-2 Artillery 0-2 Behemoths any other units 
    • 2000pts 1-6 Leaders 3+ Battleline 0-4 Artillery 0-4 Behemoths any other units 
    • 2500pts 1-8 Leaders 4+ Battleline 0-5 Artillery 0-5 Behemoths any other units
  • Some of these restrictions are loosened if your whole army is from the same faction (though how the factions are grouped is not yet known).
  • The Three Rules of One:
    • Each spell can only be attempted once per turn, not once per wizard.
    • A roll of 1 to Hit, Wound or Save is always a fail.
    • Extra attacks to not generate extra attacks.
  • Traits. Each army has its own set of traits:
    • 1 Battle Trait
    • 6 Command Traits
    • 6 Artifacts (each non-unique Hero can be given one)
  • Battle Traits:
    • Death: For each wound or mortal wound suffered by DEATH unit within your army that is within 10" of your General or another Hero from your army, roll a die. On a 6 or more the wound is negated.
    • Destruction: Roll a dice in your hero phase for each unit from your army that is within 6" of General or another Hero from your army. The unit can move a number of inches equal to the dice roll, as if it were movement phase, but cannot run. This does not affect their ability to move again later in the turn.
    • Chaos: Roll a dice when you pick a Chaos unit to attack in combat that is within 8" of general or other your hero. On a roll of 6 you can add 1 to all hit rolls for the unit in that phase.
    • Order: You can re-roll battleshock tests (in battleshock phase) for friendly Order units that are within 12" of general or other hero in your army.
  • Artifacts (these are the Order ones by way of example):
    • Attack in combat before anyone else (one use potion)
    • Improve Rend by 1, not for mounts
    • +1 Damage for one weapon
    • -1 to To Hit for enemies you wounded (for rest of battle)
    • Once per battle -1 to Hit for all enemies against model with this artefact
    • Heal 1 wound in each of your hero phases. 

I will be releasing more of the player's packs once the GH is in my hands. In the meantime, if you are interested in any of the events above, or want to chat about anything or everything AOS, you can get in touch via email, via Twitter or via Facebook.