So I won’t go on too much about the Wesersturm which is a tournament I help to run as if you’ve seen some of the other battle reports, I think I’ve said it all there. It’s held at a local games store (Kutami) who support us to organise the tournaments there. It was also supported by Playmats and Micro-Art Studios this time as sponsors.

You may have read my last article which was my tips for the new GHB… well, I took my last piece of advice and instead of going easy on myself. I challenged myself by switching to different battle tactics and trying to play my army differently. Part of this challenge was taking 1^st turn every game. Something I really should have practiced a bit before going into a tournament :D. The idea behind the list was to push hard for the secondaries and score without rolling. I’m definitely going to need to practice this some more (and paint up some new units to make the list work better). This came about from my coaching with Onwards AoS (for which they gave me a couple of free trial sessions to help out with these articles and I will be continuing with them too).

Instead of going turn by turn through… I’m going to focus on how I did play and how I could have approached it differently with the tools I had on the table. Yeah, also, without the Tabletop Battles app ready for the new GHB, I found out that if I’m not reminded to take photos I just flat out forget it! I’ll also try to highlight my mistakes (and boy did I have quite a few on this day).

I have been trying and failing to make more time for some tabletop simulator games… as soon as I get one or two more in, I’ll get up a starter guide for that! Sorry to those I’ve mentioned I would have it up in these weeks… but you know, life and stuff!

My list

This little old thing is going to look pretty familiar… what I changed was to move the Grimghasts into the second regiment so that I could split the Hexwraiths, this was to open up Scouting Force as a viable option… In hindsight, it really needed both units of Hexwraiths split into 5s (and some teleporting action from Vanishing Phantasms and/or Awlrach/Dreadblades/Vanilla Coach)

Game 1 – Mega Gargants on Linked Ley Lines

Christoph is a newer player and going into Gargants made me pretty confident and him not so much. This meant I could really focus on the secondaries whilst whittling down the gargants.

I fucked up my deployment here by deploying an inch back from where I should have with my first drop, this meant I had to use a command point just to get 2 units within 3 inches of the centre. At least I recognised it myself and knew how to solve it but it restricted my early choices!

As you may see from the list, this was also really not a bad choice. 4 megas sitting around the middle of the battlefield let them dominate the primary for the first few turns just scoring their 10s as long as they can. It let me score up some of my tactics and then come back in to start removing the gargants. Good positioning and blocking by Christoph meant that I had a tougher go of it than either of us expected. Some early really swingy rolls meant for some more impactful attacks early on from the gargants putting me on the backfoot… turning into me saving everything two megas had hit me with in a turn. That’s ethereal saves for you!

Little mistake I made here was putting my terrain too close to my front lines letting the Gatebreaker use its ability on it which hurt me a little more than I needed at the time.

What I did: Focussed on secondaries then came back in to remove his scoring options

What I could have done: Pushed hard into those gargants, this would have locked them back in deployment and started to deny their board presence earlier allowing myself to score bigger on primaries and win by more

Result: 63 to 51 for me

Game 2 – Double Chicken with Horrors and a Daemon Prince on Passing Seasons

Fabio is a good player and I always find it hard going into Tzeentch, so this was clearly going to be a bit of a tough one!

First turn I got really lucky with 2 miscasts on Kairos’ first cast and the other bird’s second cast and that alone might have turned the result.

Roughly my game plan was working… just a little too slowly and I struggle to get my Scouting Force tactics due to the deployment zones and need to pop onto the objectives turn after turn. My Grimghasts were able to wipe the Horrors pretty easily but I could never really get close to those big chickens (due to good play on Fabio’s part). Turn 3 and 4, when the spells started to go off… they really put the hurt on.

My mistake for this game was a complicated one in turn 3… I was too worried about losing Lady O to score my Strike for Attuned to Ghyran, she was on 1 wound left but I should have taken the chance (Krulghast ignoring 1^st damage in the phase helps with this) and even if I’d lost her it would have been worth it at this point… consequently, I lost the 5 points for the battle tactic as I never had a chance to score it again and she was also used to charge into then pile in off my terrain onto my back objective. That Daemon Prince was a thorn in my side the whole game (even if he managed to do zero damage into Lady O first time he long bomb charged her). If I had done this one, it would have been at least 5 more points for me and maybe 5 less for Fabio.

In turn 4, I had a choice of primary and kill a unit, or get my tactic… in the end, it was the same points so I went and took another unit off the board.

At this point, we had a full complicated turn 5 to go and the time was up for the round. After this really intense game and not knowing how the last turn would go, we checked through the score and it was a pure draw on Battle Tactics.

What I did: Took first and it was a good decision. Tried to play to the secondaries but chickened out on them twice.

What I should have done: Score those secondaries! Throw a unit away for an additional 5 points when you need to!

Ah, so what did we learn… shouldn’t have stuffed up one tactic and should have also taken the tactic in turn 4 instead of wiping a unit.

Result: 45 to 45 for a pure draw!

Game 3 – Kragnarok and pigs with a few Kruelboyz friends on Roiling Roots

What a fucking list! Henne is a great player who rocks some wild lists! Although people looked at the matchup and saw Kragnos and me with Nighthaunt and thought it was a good one for me. However, There is a pretty rough counter to my 800 pts of Hexwraiths with one of the Dirty Tricks removing the +1 damage on the charge and being able to give me fight last. Plus that dirty vulture with Kragnos pumps out the mortals into target units too! Also, cleverly, the Hogs receive the benefits from the Endless Spells here too.

I took first and threw my 10 Hexwraiths into the pigs to hold them up but they ended up failing at that spectacularly going down end of turn 1 (to a wound), a countercharge from the other big pig was my plan but it hurt after I got the strike last on me from the dirty tricks (and the no bonus damage on the charge of course). I took Kragnos and the Bird to the face turn 1 which wasn’t too bad and I was in a good place to recover having scored my 20 first turn).

Henne took the double into me turn 1 into 2 and started to put the hurt on me. Here is where I made my big fuck up mistake for the day. I completely forgot that this made me the underdog and I could have made the two objectives in the middle strike last completely mitigating the damage he could have done to me. Ouch ☹

But not to worry, I could still pull a double 2 into 3 to potentially save the game. I rolled the big 6 and could have it… and Henne took his reroll and threw a bloody 6! And that was that.

I also was playing into Intercept and Recover and put it on my big unit of Hexwraiths when I should have just left it on the Krulghast and Lady O instead to keep it safe for longer.

What I did: Scored big and crumbled against the double because I forgot the underdog ability

What I should have done: Probably taken second turn in this one, I think this swung the game clearly here and next time… don’t forget the underdog bonus!

Result: 37 to 70 for the Kragnarok!

Summing things up

I really struggled taking the double against me in all 3 games early on… I like the idea that it’s meant to force that choice on the opponent and that did impact the scoring in games 2 and 3 but it caused me more problems and cost them 5 points each. What I did really like was being able to use the terrain for Nighthaunt is great for Scouting Force Strike and Domination tactics. The new terrain is really great! The artefact I took was poop (it popped off 3 times only but it’s a bit of a 5 crappy artefacts one good-ish one for 20 pts situation).

I definitely wasn’t at my best, I made key mistakes as well as other small ones, really making life a bit or a lot harder for myself. Turns out I was getting sick and spent the next 4 days lying around feeling sorry for myself which helps explain a bit about how I felt on the day. On the other hand, these were 3 really great games, Christoph was a lovely opponent, Fabio gave me a real challenge and it was an amazingly exciting game, and Henne and I had a great time watching my army crumble with plenty of laughs. Sorry about all the fucks here… but at least they highlight where I made my mistakes 😀

I didn’t follow my own tips! I think I would have had a smoother day if I had and things could have worked out very differently. Does that mean I don’t think that using NH to play this way is wrong… no way! I just think it needs a list more focussed towards doing it… and a lot more practice!

Hope you’re having fun in the new GHB. Get out there, have fun, and get some Ws!

P.S. Birds are weird (and my new nemesis)