#196: How do I tournament prep again?

Four months.

It's been four months since I've played a game of Age of Sigmar... 

But I'm very excited because this weekend, I'm playing my first event since CanCon! It's not a big event, maybe 12-16 players, but I'm really looking forward to it. It's also gonna be the first time I see a lot of my good friends face to face since all the madness started. But Queensland, (and Australia) is finally reopening to a fully functioning society again, and with that comes war-gaming, which is going to be a nice escape! 

So, the tournament. It's a 2000 point 3-game event, and I gotta be honest, I'm just looking forward to rolling dice and putting models on the board. Less worried about winning, and you'll see why in just a second. 

The stakes are low, and so I decided to take an appropriately low-powered army. Behold, upon their maiden voyage... Clan Moulder!

Now, before you say it, I'm well aware. Moulder is the second weakest clan in the entire book (yeah, you heard me... second.), but after blasting through 2500 points in a self inflicted speed painting challenge, I couldn't just put them on the shelf. So, I got out my buffer disc and prepared to polish this turd.   

The Fleshmeld Menagerie battalion seemed like a no-brainer place to start. It's decent, affordable and encompasses almost every Moulder unit in the army (beside Brood Horrors and Wolf Rats, both from Forge World), so I went about filling it. I started with four units of Giant Rats; one horde of forty and three cheap units of ten to act as objective grabbers or (far more likely) very gentle speed bumps to throw in the path of my foes. Battleline was sorted and I had 70 models already. Well, alright then.

I took the compulsary Master Moulder and unit of Packmasters to give my units some handy auras, and, well... I have to.

Next, I picked up a unit of eight Rat Ogors. This is a pretty hefty chunk of my army, costing me 400 points for eight bodies. And while they can probably mash their way through hordes and unsuspecting heroes, they're gonna have a real bad time against anything with staying power. Their biggest weakness, however, comes in the form of a complete lack of defensive abilities or mechanics. The only thing protecting them is a paltry 5+ save. 

This is offset, very slightly, by one rule; a command ability on the Master Moulder warscroll called "Unleash More-more Beasts!" which allows you to bring on a fresh unit on a 5+ after it's been destroyed. You can take a command trait that makes that dice roll a 4+ OR you can take the Fleshmeld Menagerie which gives you the same benefit without chewing up your valuable general slot. This is pretty much the only avenue I have to spend CP outside of battleshock and such, but if I'm bringing a unit back for free, I want it to be decent. 10 Giant rats is a bad return on investment. * Rat Ogors, though? 

Lastly for the battalion, I took two Hell Pit Abominations. Why two? Well, these things are 90% of the reason I painted an entire army, and I wanted to use them! They can be devastating. They can roll through just about anything. They can also roll double ones for movement and trip over one of their own surgically attached limbs. The random movement on HPA's is the Achilles' heel of the monster, because you know full well that when you need it to be somewhere, it's going to slow down to smell the roses. 

I like the idea of a 1:1 ratio of HPA's to Master Moulders for those bonus Prized Creations buffs. A passive re-roll 1's to hit in combat and D3 extra wounds at the start of the game is nothing to sniff at, and I wanted my horrific affronts to nature to be on the table as long as possible. So, a second Master Moulder joined the ranks, wearing the Rabid Crown for that tasty 13" re-roll To Wound aura. It's a shame, because the rest of the Moulder artefacts require you to be in the thick of the fight, which is not somewhere a Master Moulder is interested in being.  

This left one role to fill in my army. The general.

I knew it was going to be Masterclan, and while I think a Grey Seer on foot or on a Screaming Bell is probably a better option, Rule of Cool reigned supreme, and so the Warpgnaw Verminlord won out, rocking the Suspicious Stone. With a handful of spare points, I grabbed the Vermintide Endless spell too, as a cheeky little trick to throw out there.

So, there it is. It's not great, but this army and this event are not about being great for me. It's more of a celebration of the hobby, deploying an army that I think is cool, and seeing if I can't get a bit of a tune out of this broken guitar! 

I'm just enjoying the hobby for what it is at the moment. It's easy to get drawn into the competitive edge of the game, and break everything down into "best-in-role"s and "most effiencient"s. And while I truly enjoy pitting my army and my mind against the best of them, I also just wanted to ease back into gaming and remind myself why I play and why I love the hobby. It's easy to get so engaged with the rules that you forget the models and the themes. Are Moulder trash? Probably, but if I manage to jag a win this weekend, it will be the sweetest victory. 

Here's to not getting the wooden spoon. 

Thanks for reading,

Gabe