A catch-up with friends at Warhammer World

At Woehammer we do a lot of articles on the competitive side of the hobby, but sometimes it’s good to be reminded that the hobby is about more than competition. We can have just as much fun with smaller games taken at a casual pace… and playing something a bit different.

So it was that I was invited to a friend’s Birthday at Warhammer World on Friday, and a gaming day of doing whatever we wanted to do. We last did this in 2019, before COVID ruined any chance of further get-togethers so it was great to meet up and play.

Age of Sigmar – 1000 points

Competitive Age of Sigmar is not necessarily where you want to play your first game of AoS, or even your first game of AoS3. It’s great to have a relaxed location and game where you can get used to your warscrolls. It also allows your opponent to remind you of things you can do… or suggest tricks of the army you may not have thought of yet.

Which is how I found myself playing against Marcus’ Nighthaunt with Chris helping him. I had brought my Ironjawz because they are easy to use – although I didn’t upgrade them to Big Waaagh as I often do. I thought the Wurgogg might be a bit much for a friendly game against someone with no shooting!

Age of Sigmar – the game!

The table we had reserved had some lovely big terrain in the middle and Marcus had brought the models he had painted or nearly finished painting. I had a Megaboss on foot, a Warchanter and lots of Brutes… Waaagh! Marcus won the roll off and forced me to go first so I went as quickly as I could forward, allowing Marcus some long charges in his first turn… Chris (helping Marcus), failed the one he was responsible for but Marcus made 3 9″ charges significantly affecting my armour save and killing 5 Brutes… ouch!

He then got the priority. As it was Marcus first game with the new Nighthaunt I reminded him that he could retreat, so he did so; charged in a did damage to the Megaboss whilst killing another 2 Brutes… but then I could swing back. The Megaboss cleared the Spirit Hosts in the centre whilst the Brutes finished off the Chainrasps. By end of Turn 3 Marcus had only characters left so he cast Arcane bolt and charged into my Megaboss… with two charges of 10 or over… oh dear! The Megaboss fell and – whilst I killed his general so did my Warchanter and Brutes in the centre. Fortunately I had two units of Brutes left who had been fighting Spirit Hosts on the left and right and they can in and finished off the last character, with the last roll of turn 5… very close!

Necromunda

I have a Van-Saar gang, but I don’t like how I’ve painted them so we went Goliath’s vs Orlock with 2 players per gang – at 1.000 creds. This was great fun as we chose an objective that moved after it was captured. The Goliaths proved a little weak with their initial shooting, but our Turn 4 kept us in the game whilst we snuck around a zone mortalis board and kept the Orlocks from the objective with ‘knockback’ ammunition.

After a bit of to-and-fro we won the third roll turn and got a charge…. our Tyrant with his Power-Maul. This was only the second time my co-captain (a different Chris!) had charged in. So, he rolled the dice and killed his opponent. This meant we captured the objective – which promptly ran off to our gangers. It was clear we were going to win, and when the Orlock plasma-gunner ran out of ammunition (thanks to our Tactic card (Click)) the game was ours.

I love Necromunda and don’t play it nearly enough. It’s a great game as long as both players know not to ‘min/max’ which was the case here – and the Goliath’s got a win!

Aeronautica Imperialis

I have wanted to play this since it’s release but didn’t have anyone locally so let it ‘fly’ past (sorry). It was good to see a game of Space Marines v Eldar where the Eldar failed to hit anything. So I could learn some of the rules… so I took over the Eldar for game 2.

For those that don’t know the game: You’re flying small planes across a hex board using different manoeuvres, but you have to select them before you see your opponents. It’s then ‘you go, I go’ with each plane. Move all; then Fire all.

Eldar are very good at close range, whilst Space Marines are mostly good at medium range. So I ramped up the speed and tried to get within close range – and it worked! Despite them killing one of my four planes with their first shot. After much manoeuvring and shooting I had got the Space Marines. It was a great fun game and thanks to the gang for teaching me.

There was a final game of Imperial vs Space Marines. Darren managed to get his planes (Imperial) behind the Space Marines. In Aeronautica Imperialis this allows you to shoot twice In the game it resulted in 2 dead Space Marine planes.

Thanks to everyone for a great fun day and remember that not everything needs to be competitive. You can have just as much fun just rolling dice and (sometimes) pushing tiny planes around.

— Declan & Eeyore