Age of Sigmar Tournament and the Big Saltmarsh Fight
This week I played a game of D&D and played in a Warhammer:
Age of Sigmar tournament.
I have had the rare pleasure to actually play a D&D
campaign where I am not the Dungeon Master. Once you establish yourself as the
local DM it is hard to get others to take up the mantle (and associated work) of
running a game. Luckily for me, my best friend did exactly that, and
myself and two other folks have had the pleasure of playing through Ghosts of Saltmarsh.
Last Thursday, we did one of, if not the final, big fight, and barely pulled it
off. Our party is not optimized in any sense of the word. We have a drunken
monk (with a single level in cleric), a storm sorcerer, and my character Felech
“Gale” who is a Rogue level 5, Fighter level 3. So, if you are keeping track at
home, that means we have no dedicated healer. Essentially, we are three glass
cannons running around trying to kill things before they kill us. Mechanics aside
we have a great time with, and I think all three players have come to really
like our characters. The new Saltmarsh campaign is really fun, and it somehow
maintains the flavor of original D&D adventures (i.e. really hard fights
and traps that are nearly impossible to avoid), but still seems in line with the
core of what 5th edition D&D is. My only warning (not a complaint
mind you) are that many of the encounters in the adventure are unapologetically
difficult, so if you don’t have players that know the game well, be advised. Also,
I think this was Kate Welch’s (of C Team fame) first project with WOTC and it
is clear from playing it that she did a great job.
As promised, I will give you a full report on the Warhammer:
Age of Sigmar tourney this weekend (yesterday) at the Bolter Hole. We only had
a turn out of 4 people, likely due to it being the day after Valentine’s Day.
Honestly though, this was good for me, as we only had to have two rounds, and
it meant that I could let me games go on without a time constraint. I went 0-2
but was not disappointed in the least as I got to play against two experience players
and felt like I held my own both times. The first game was against a Legion of
Grief army (which is one of the many undead factions). I was really impressed
by how many times the undead can bring their units back, as I killed one unit
three times. Mostly, I learned that I need get to their summoning terrain and
kill the monsters, necromancers and what not. I also really liked how he used
some old toys to add flavor to his army. Here are couple of pictures from the
game. The Bolter Hole has great terrain, so be sure to look at all the well painted
old Empire style buildings!
The second game was kinda of a butt whopping, but the player
was way more experienced than me, and gave me first turn, then got 2nd
and 3rd turn. This is a thing that can happen in AOS because you roll
for turn order at the end of each round. With his in your face Slaves of
Darkness list (new terms for Chaos warriors) it really allowed him to crush
both my flanks. That being said it is a thing that can happen in AOS, so I need
to learn to prepare for it. By the end I had killed most of his units, but he had
killed everything I had. One of the best parts of this game was the we played
on a cool Chaos board, so it looked great.
Overall, both my opponents were great players and I learned
a lot. I was glad that it was a small tourney and I feel much better prepared
for the next AOS event. I am also glad I got the 1500 pts fully painted for the
event I have a pretty good idea about what I want to get to finish up the army.
I think I am going to buy a phoenix and put a Freeguild (new word for Empire) rider
on it. I am waiting for the re-release of the High Elves (now called Lumineth)
later this year. Link here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/02/10/the-lumineth-lowdown-part-2-spear-phalanxes-and-runic-symbolismgw-homepage-post-2/
It seems strange to say, but at the moment, I think I like AOS better than 40k.
I have made a lot of progress on my first D&D adventure
this month and I have completed the layout. I found a free open source program
to do this with and it is working out great. I highly recommend Scribus over
Publisher for this kind of work. I am looking forward to finishing it and having
it up on DrivethruRPG. Also, I got a single test game of my boardgame in with
my wife and she liked it as well. So now I only have 105 test games to go!
Justin
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