Yeah, that title is click-bait… what are you going to do with guys like those fine fellas over at Plastic Craic stealing all your Age of Sigmar Competitive article reading time and Goonhammer releasing the battlescroll. But seriously, what a shake up this is! Regardless of all the other changes that the new season brings, this is for me the biggest impact.

I’m still left in a little wtf shock at these and I’ll be honest, they’re confusing me a bit still even after a couple of reads and trying to write this article.

Should I be trying to select cards to fit my list or fitting my list to the cards? How will I adapt to different battleplans? How many should I realistically be expecting to score each game?

There’s going to be a lot of trial and error here. For sure, one of the best things you can do is get out there and start getting games in the new GHB!

I really want to write Battle Tictacs every time I refer to the tactics in this article but then it’s going to screw up things for people searching for this article. However, if you quietly sneak in saying battle tictac once or twice a game, good on you! I’ll probably come back to these in a month or two once we’ve started to see the dust settle and take a look at the impact and my thoughts as the meta evolves.

How does it work?

Well… this part doesn’t seem too complicated…

• Pick two cards during army composition
• At the end of the turn, can achieve one tactic per turn per card
• Each card has three steps which are unlocked by achieving them in order
• If you take the double (and aren’t 11 pts behind) then you can’t select a battle tactic

Nothing to stop you attempting a tactic again (and again and again)

Opponent is then the underdog until they seize the initiative

That’s important for 2 of the cards where you are then doubly punished for taking a double

The Cards

Thanks to whichever champ took those screeenshots and turned them into something comfortable to read… if you know who did it, let me know and I’ll credit them!

Master the Paths

Affray: is going to be tricky against some opponents in the first turn or two

Strike: can be potentially blocked easily by opponent, side benefit, forces the opponent to try and block this, oddly hard for the half/half battleplans (of which 1/3 are this)

Domination: this one is a bit weird, if you’ve tabled the opponent all fine and good. 9 inches is pretty far from the corners but you’ll need quite a few units still on the board to pull this off

Restless Energy

Affray: Nice start, this is the sort of thing a lot of armies will want to do turn 1 or turn 2

Strike: And then we get to one which will be really tough in a lot of matchups, still, with a bit of a focus on army comp that can enable this maybe not too bad for turn 3 or 4, for most of the battleplans there is just 1 within enemy territory so that helps

Domination: Well, if you’ve already won, you’re going to win slightly bigger on this one

Intercept and Recover

Affray, Strike, Domination: This one doesn’t even get 3 comments! I really like this one for if you want to have a fun game… playing cat and mouse. Fun idea: Both choose this and chase each other round all game. This one has a big con that it’ll be easy for your opponent to play against it across the game, a good player will be able to deny you points or force you to target the units you won’t want to. Side benefit, your opponent then has to play against it the whole game 😉. Oh yeah, also if you take a double… you auto lose a chance at 5 points. Hmmm, maybe there’s a cool trick here where your opponent won’t expect you to take the double and then you do it anyway because you were never going to score all 3 tactics on the card.

Wrathful Cycles

Affray: Nice easy one early in the game

Strike: Aha, you wanted to double your opponent. Well, nope, this card isn’t for you. Also a fun concept which plays against achieving the Affray Tactic.

Domination: Ah, the destruction battle tactic. Not for destruction armies… just a silly amount of conditionals. Another if you’ve already won you’ll get more points tactic.

Bonus comment: This is one of the most clever cards, if you’ve got a big brain, go ahead and take this one 😉

Scouting Force

Two conditions here which you’ll need to lean towards, infantry and cavalry and not being in combat. That means that for the first 2, you’ll need 3 units out of combat. Certainly a little boost to shooting units who otherwise copped a few nerfs.

Affray: Wholly outside friendly territory is pretty easy on 2/3 of the battle maps making this an easy early score

Strike: Conversely, the enemy territory is small on 3 of the maps making this one tricky when the first is easy

Domination: Same as the Strike, but now it’s even deeper in enemy territory

Attuned to Ghyran

This one is almost an auto-pick for some armies and a never-pick for others in a way the others don’t feel like

Affray: This is seize the centre

Strike: This is bait and trap (which I always really liked because it feels fun to do)

Domination: Can you pin your opponent? Alternatively, have you wiped them out? Then this isn’t too bad but otherwise, this is an easy one to deny

Now how to pick our cards / tailor our lists

Also bullet points again for some reason… I’m really digging bullet points at the moment for some reason.

• I reckon you need to pick one of 2 cards which is achievable in turn 1 or 2 at worst
• Watching out for cards which are going to block achieving them
• Watching out for tactics which push us away from how we want the army or list to operate
  • I’m not even going to get started with whether you pick your cards then your army or vice versa or something in between
• Lots of MSU beneficial? Certainly for some of the tactics cards
• Wild take… what about picking cards which are going to put decisions on your opponent instead

I didn’t even answer the heading here did I… bugger. Well, I’m still trying to figure that out myself so maybe that’ll be the focus of the follow-up article.

How important is it to score these battle tactics?

A strange question but thinking about maybe not scoring all of these… maybe a more important question than it looks. Over the course of the game, we have a max of 30 points to score if all 6 tactics can be scored. From the objectives, we’ve got a max of 50. So the Battle Tictacs are worth 37.5% of the total points you can score (look at me, I did a maths). It’s more than it feels like at first glance when we compare 5 points a tactic vs 10 points for full objective score. Going just by gut feel, I’m going to wanting to score minimum 4 of the 6 possible tactics so this is going to factor into the cards I choose.

Fittsy’s Faves

Warning: I definitely looked at these with Nighthaunt goggles on… also, I’m a combat sorta fella. I’ve been thinking about which ones I’d take for Khardron and they would be pretty different, hello Scouting Force

I like the look of Master the Paths and Restless Energy giving me options early to unlock and they don’t seem too complicated (I’m a simple sorta fella). I’m oddly coming around on the idea Intercept and Recover (force the enemy to use their units differently) or Wrathful Cycles (an extra disincentive to your opponent to take the double against you.

Final Foughts

Wow, I think it’s going to be tough to even think about scoring all 6 tactics in the game but enabling scoring them is going to make all the difference. Vice versa, denying your opponent their tactics will be important but even harder than under the old system. On the other hand, when it’s hard for you to score those dominion cards, I think it’s also going to be hard on your opponent. I reckon that’ll mean some really tense exciting close games and others which are a complete blowout.

At first I was afraid, I was petrified (after a charge from a Nighthaunt hero into me) but I’m coming around to these now and I am looking forward to sink my teeth into the new system. Am I a bit nervous about managing this on top of all the other changes and new battleplans? Fuck yes. A bit over a week and these are all out officially. Time to get practicing to get those Wins!