I’m back baby… in more ways than one. 2 articles without months between them? Yes! A couple of wins? Yes! Nighthaunt? Oooooh yes! And most important of all, I had fun and I think I was a good opponent in all 5 of my games.

And… I’m already taking into account your feedback! This time, battles with original scores instead of post matrix. And with that out of the way, into another rambling article highlighting whatever stuck in my mind.

The Tournament Itself

Where: Hamburg… a short drive from home that felt like a long one after 5 games in two days (well… I even snuck in an extra practice game on Friday because I’m a doofus)

When: 18-19 Jan

More info here: https://www.germanmajorseries.de/hamburg-major-age-of-sigmar-2025

The tournament was meant to be 50 players but didn’t fill up. I’d heard the first one was a bit of a mess and that turned people away from travelling there. Conversely… I wanted to see this mess for myself and was instead pleasantly surprised by what appeared to be a pretty well organised tournament.

Terrain:

Enough for the battleplans. Nice enough, some 3d printed, some self made. Nothing to complain about here.

Food:

Pizza and pasta, vegan pizza was a bit of a bummer and they struggled a bit with the system (because lots of people forgot their orders). You can’t really go wrong with Pizza and Pasta though.

Venue:

In a school, which was an interesting vibe. Meant there was sparkling water on tap which was good. Coffee flat which is great for lots of people (I enjoyed my 1.5 cups a day)

Shared with a big 40k tournament

Price: A+, I like to keep my money for throwing it away frivolously on models… so I was really happy about that aspect

Community:

A+++, AoS is the best! Almost everyone stayed for the awards and compared to the few remaining for 40k, showed some great spirit. Nice to catch a bunch of the north western players. Some top players turned out for it too. More on that below 😛 We definitely felt like a side project with the much bigger 40k tournament going on in parallel… but honestly, that made it feel more personal and friendly.

Back to the good ol’ ghosts

Fittsy why aren’t you playing Nighthaunt v0-1 2000/2000 pts

Nighthaunt | Death Stalkers
Drops: 2
Spell Lore – Lore of the Underworlds
Manifestation Lore – Primal Energy

General’s Regiment
Lord Executioner (170)
• General
• Ruler of the Spectral Hosts
Bladegheist Revenants (360)
• Reinforced
Grimghast Reapers (300)
• Reinforced

Regiment 1
Reikenor the Grimhailer (240)
Cairn Wraith (130)
• Lightshard of the Harvest Moon
Hexwraiths (400)
• Reinforced
Hexwraiths (400)
• Reinforced

There’s nothing game-changing here… I was umming and ahhing about switching the two little heroes around so that they swap General, artefact, and trait. I said before the tournament that it would probably only come up at most in 1 of 10 games… and then it did game 2. The jist is that the Lord Ex shouldn’t be the general with the bodyguard because there are cases where you want to split the Lord Ex and the Reapers up  (something I did almost every game) and really really importantly, sometimes you want to counter-charge him to put the -1 attack on something else. I do feel like I miss the teleports of Vanishing Phantasms or Awlrach, but the Hexwraiths in 2 units of 10 give that movement. Maybe a teleport option would have changed game 3… but now we’re in the realm of “we know a new battletome is coming” and I’m less inspired to play around with list-building with Nighthaunt for now. At least I had a better army name this time 😊

Game 1: Border War against Lukas and his beautiful IDK

Revenge match! I beat him last game at my first GT (and his first GT) when we were both on 3:1.

He deployed towards one side and moved back into a corner (I assume to castle up and teleport out) so I took “the bait” (that’s a fish elf pun). Sending in the troops to clear out as many units as I could to make scoring harder for him and knowing I could get my Hexwraiths and Reik back out to score better turn 3 onwards or hunt the teleported units. The tactic worked pretty well enough and could knock the turtle off then clear more units to get my score ahead.

Great opponent, nice guy, solid player, most beautiful army with amazing converted endless spells with light effects. He rightfully won Best Painted and I hope to keep seeing the army on the tables in the future.

Game went to me with 33-26 at end of turn 4 where we timed out

Game 2: Scorched Earth against Dario with Belakor, Chosen and Varanguard (and just happens to be the number 1 player in Germany)

I’ve seen Dario round at tournaments before but never really had a chat before and definitely never played a game against him. He was a nice guy and he stuck to his word of giving me a fast game!

I was a bit nervous when I realised and I went into the game assuming I wouldn’t win. That was my first mistake. It ended up meaning that I played more cautiously than I normally would have. I hadn’t played against a Slaves list like this yet even if I’ve seen what Chosen can do.

I headed out for a Take the Flanks and otherwise stayed back as well as I could. I had a plan which was to draw the Chosen out into a charge where I could take an attack or two off them, theoretically sacrificing a unit of Bladegheists for it and hoping to slap them off in the next turn. As he should do, he charged in but didn’t tag the lord ex to avoid a -1 to hit but instead used my Hexwraiths which I’d left next to them to avoid him wrapping around me. That meant I had to counter charge my Lord Ex in to drop them by 1 attack. So I’d had some good ideas but his were better. This is where I need to change my list as at least on their second attack they would have lost 2 attacks instead of 1.

On the other side. I left my Hexwraiths out of combat but could have tagged the Varanguard and controlled that side. This is what I normally would have done but I was trying to play smart. Note to self, go with my gut and don’t try to think too much. I didn’t even see the opportunity because I wasn’t looking for it.

I learnt a lot from all that and it helped me a lot in my next games it focused me on my win conditions (or at least what I thought they were). Dario and I had a nice chat afterwards which just confirmed most of what I’d thought about the game.

I did have a little win late in the game with my last 2 Hexwraiths where I found a battle tactic Dario hadn’t seen and I charged over the top of the remaining 3 Chosen blocking them from using a pile in and scoring a last minute Take Their Lands… I always say I play for wins not points but this helped me to start thinking differently.

Game to Dario 26-50

Game 3: Battle For The please let me get Pass Karazai against Jean-Bryce

3rd game of first day (4th game in 2 days :P)… and I was getting a bit tired for this one. After deployment, my opponent asked to use a clock which I had to accept under the tournament rules. I need more clock practice again as I haven’t been using it in 4th because I’ve been a bit lazy about it to be honest. The lack of clock practice did make a difference here in this game. I just plain forgot it halfway through our biggest combat phase and lost quite a bit of time then and a couple of other times.

I got stuck into combat with Karazai pretty early which was roughly my plan… whilst then clearing my backline from his teleporters with my endless spells and a unit of Hexwraiths and simultaneously clearing out his backline. The only problem was that my tactic didn’t work quickly enough and led to a lot of time fighting and not much happening. Karazai was able to bully me off one of the flank objectives and his back objective whilst we whittled each other down. He slowly took the lead and I ran out of time right near the end but that was enough to make it a clear win for him.

Not sure how I should have / could have played it differently… but I think I used the wrong units for the wrong jobs. It was fun taking two attacks away from Karazai and seeing him do very little to my units (except for one ridiculous rampage killing more than half my unit of Bladegheists. It was a tough battleplan as Karazai could be really effective whilst the teleporters kept up the threat of scoring and stole my home objective once. I went 7 rounds of combat with Karazai so I’ll just chalk that bit up as a moral victory. Jean-Bryce played well and dealt with a pretty unexpected board state for him as I’m sure he thought he was just going to churn through my army with Karazai.

25-36  for Jean-Bryce end of turn 5 after my clock timed out in turn 4 (when we were already over time since we’d started the clock after deployment)

Game 4: Feral Fourway with Björn and a couple of Fyreslayers

Björn is just a straight up awesome dude and it was the perfect start to the Sunday. It was my first time playing against him and he was a fun opponent and a fair opponent.

He was playing Fyreslayers which gave me a bit of worry with their mortals and many attacks. I gave him first and he went straight up for the centre with the core of his army whilst leaving a blob of Vulkites up on one corner. I pinned those little dudes on the back corner objective with Hexwraiths, using my other unit to move up the opposite flank to threaten his backline for turn 2

Then I did what I do best and I went all in for the centre blob, then I realised he could trigger the rune to give first strike… but I figured what the hell, I can still turn it so I charged in with my Reapers and Bladeghists and even set off the extra 1 attack artefact. I avoided his -1 attack by some delicate tagging (thanks to having it used against me, it was easier to see how to do it in this game). This baited a Gotrek counter charge out who summarily wiped my Bladegheists which was what I was trying to get him to do (as it was his last 2 command pts) but that still hurt a little.

I won the prio into 2nd, took the double and cleaned Gotrek off with a couple of extra wounds with my first activation – after that it was really just cleaning up and scoring on the board

Big win to me for 42-16

Game 5: Focal Points Ogor Mawtribes Monster Trucks piloted by Manu on Focal Points

Win condition: stop them from charging and control the board

Surprised him by taking 1st and throwing as much as I could up at his army and tagging a lot. That simply worked. I could do enough damage and had him pinned in his deployment zone to cripple his point scoring early and set up a comfortable early lead. I could see that the game was a bit frustrating for him since my chance to win was effectively don’t let him play the game he wants to.

Made one mistake when I got greedy for points and wanted a big turn with Reapers and Cairn Wraith. Rerolled the Cairn Wraiths charge and failed the 4+ for the Reapers. Missed to tag 2 more units then and did considerably less damage. Game was still mine at that point. “I got excited”… Shout-out here to Miscast, get back on the mics and make more episodes for me! It wasn’t entirely wrong to do it the way I did… it would have let me score bigger and I wasn’t going to lose from where I’d gotten the board state too. Actually, I should just do it again next chance I get, sometimes you gotta roll those dice and see where they take you!

4th and 5th games scores were both decided by the prio roll into 2nd turn but were still mine to potentially win without getting it.

Found out afterwards he is an ex-Worlds player, I’d thought I recognised his name…. but after game 2, I wanted to focus on what I could do instead of getting nervous playing against a top player.

Comfortable win for 47-22

Round up this article before it gets too long!

Dario took out 1st… not too surprising there. Lukas – “The Giants Player” took 2nd with a standard Stormcast list but he’s just one of the nicest friendliest guys around and I’m always happy when I see him at tournaments. Since Dario already has a golden ticket, it went to him which is really awesome because he’s just a nice dude. He’s only been playing at tournaments since a year and a half and he’s grown so much as a player! I had the pleasure of being one of his first tournament opponents.

Compared to my last GT with KO… Nighthaunt was a lot easier to play and the environment actually felt less oppressive being in a smaller venue with a smaller community. That’s something which I think is where my focus will be in the next year. My head felt good for 4 of the 5 games (game 3 on day 1 I was feeling the fatigue). Also, I really shouldn’t play a bonus match on the night before a GT. So I feel like I learnt a fair bit from this experience. I did sort of miss my shiny new nicely painted army but there was also something nice about using the first AoS model (and the first model I painted in 15 years or something) on the table and it being key to my gameplan!

I had a great time and I’m now 100% looking forward to my next tournaments and playing more AoS! I’ll be in a funny spot with new battletomes coming for both my main armies now… and with me working a new one, I’m not sure what I’ll want to be playing in the next months. Just happy to feel like I’ve got my mojo back. Seeing the current win rate at 50%, I’m pretty happy with my result too!