Age of Sigmar Tournament Report: JoeK attends the Atlantic City Open

With the 2nd edition of Age of Sigmar winding to a close, Josef “JoeK” Krier took his Lumineths out for one last ride at the Atlantic City Open. In this report he talks about his list, and the games he played as he closed the book on this edition.

The ACO was the first Major Age of Sigmar event in America since The Pancake (Rob: This is what JoeK calls the pandemic). 72 players meeting up in, you guessed it: Atlantic City. The ACO was one of the most open-spaced, fully air-conditioned, and well ventilated venues I have ever been to. And if you don’t know me, I have been to a lot of tournament venues. The ACO was a 5-round event, with the first three rounds hosted in the Realm of Metal, while games on Day 2 were hosted in the Realm of Life. Each round, the mission was randomly generated from a list of 7 possible missions, which had been published ahead of time. Which is a weird way to do it, but it was what it was.

The missions that we played were: 

1. Blade’s edge. (Ironically the same as Bugeater last week.)
2. Total Conquest
3. Shifting objectives
4. Knife to the Heart
5. Focal Points

Event scoring:

• 20 points for a major victory
• 2 points for a major loss
• 1 point per secondary completed
• 1 point per secondary denied
• 2 secondaries chosen every round.

The List

For this event, I brought the same list as Bugeater – you can read more about its past exploits in my article last week.

My list, if you have forgotten from last week was: 

Round 1: Blade’s edge vs Nurgle

Emma Mangel's Nurgle army - Click to Expand

I was given first turn. I moved up with the Wind spirits, killed the 5 chaos warriors and a beast of Nurgle, and then covered an objective so she couldn’t walk her forces onto it during her turn. During her Shooting phase they backed up to avoid charges like the Wily foxes they are. Round 1 ends 5-2 in my favor. I believe I also went first in round 2 and decided to try and kill all 30 of her plaguebearers in a single turn. After all three Wind spirits, 10 Windchargers, and both sharks shot and charged the plaguebearers, and dealt with the -2 to hit in shooting and the 5+ Ward… two plaguebearers were left. It took a command point to keep them from Battleshocking off, and that came from the Great Unclean One, as the Sloppity Bilepiper was also dead. I spent the rest of the game chasing down the Blightkings and Beasts while padding out my lead.

Final Score: 22-4

Round 2: Total Conquest vs Slaves to Darkness – Knights of the Empty Throne

Corey Begley's Slaves to Darkness - Click to Expand

My opponent took the first turn and ran his knights up as far as possible toward the Wind spirit screen. I moved the Wind spirits just in range of his pile in, having faith in their survivability when it comes to tanking an inadequate amount of damage due to weakened pile ins even after the double swing. Sure enough, they all lived with at least 1 wound left on two of them. After my combat in his turn and my shooting phase I had removed all 6 varanguard and he failed his command ability on a 5+ to bring back 3 of them from a board edge.

Loreseeker camped his (the loreseeker’s) objective like a champ and the rest of the Hurrakan units and sharks moved to fight him off of the 3rd objective until all 60 marauders and 10 warriors were dead. At this point around turn 3ish was enough to call the game.

Final Score: 23-3

Round 3: Shifting objectives vs. Sons of Behemat

Garrett Mulroney's Sons of Behemat - Click to expand

The Loreseeker sat on the one objective closest to the kraken-eater who was in front of the trio of Mancrushers, keeping them too far back to charge.

Garrett took the first turn and walked the Giants onto all 3 objectives but failed his charge with the Kraken-eater against the Loreseeker, and ended up scoring only two of them. My first turn went into a double turn and I killed the Kraken-eater, two of hte single Gargant units, and two of the three-gargant unit. I cleared the final gargant during his turn 2 and then on turn 3 took out the other mini giant, leaving him with just one Mega-gargant and 3 objectives on the table. So the game was good enough to call at that point.

Final Score: 22-4

Round 4: Knife to the Heart vs Slaves to Darkness – Knights of the Empty Throne

Anthony Trentanelli's Slaves to Darkness - Click to expand

This was one of my closest games with this list. My opponent – Anthonly – would go on to win Best Overall and he absolutely deserved it. I’m super proud of him, and his army was gorgeous.

Turns 1 and 2 were me basically playing cat-and-mouse with his Varanguard just trying to keeping them from running into my side of the board and taking out my fragile backline units. On turn 3 I finally took the leap into combat with all the Wind spirits, sharks, and windchargers but crashed right into his 2+ re-rollable save and some literally terrible rolls on my end – Sevireth literally failed 90% of his 3+ to do D3 mortal wound goops as he flew over units. Anthony had at least 1 Varanguard left by turn 4. He won priority on turn 4, gave it to me. I killed his final varanguard… and he spent a command point to bring back 3 more and passed the 5+ test do so. On his turn 4 the three brand-new Varanguard charged the lone Loreseeker on my objective and his final marauders charged and cleared the Wardens on it as well, winning him the game at the bottom of turn 4.

Great guy, great list. Congrats again on best overall!

Final Score: 4-22

Round 5: Focal Points vs Fangs of Sotek

Nate Punches' Fangs of Sotek - Click to expand

What.

A.

Game.

I took the first turn and moved up the 3 Wind spirits, then shot and fought in melee, taking out the Skink priest (his general), 9 Skink handlers, after which Battleshock took out two Salamanders, and all but one wound on one of his Starpriests. Also I got Solar Eclipse off to make his 1 Command Point useless for preventing Battleshock.

Score: 4-0

On Nate’s first turn he retaliates by killing two Wind spirits, then he gets a double turn, killing Severith and both of my sharks.

Score: 4-8

On my turn 2 I clear out the 40 Skinks who charged my side of the board and teleport 5 Windchargers into his backfield, who then proceed to shoot, charge, and fight Kroak on Balewind to death in that same turn.

Clutch.

Score: 6-8

On Nate’s turn 3 he finally kills my loreseeker with his four remaining salamanders.

Score: 6-12

My turn 3 I clear some Salamanders and a Starpriest.

Score: 12-12

I double to turn 4.

On turn 4 I clear out the remaining Salamanders then the Cathalar casts Darkness of the Soul on the remaining x30 skinks, potentially sealing the game….

Score: 20-12

On Nate’s turn 4, the 30 skinks fail their “Darkness of the Soul” leadership roll and freeze in place.

Score: 20-15.

Time was called and all he had left was his unit of 30 skinks, while I had both windcharger squads, the windmage, the cathalar and wardens left.

Wild. Game.

Final score (event): 23-3

Final Thoughts

Five great games, and every one featured a great opponent. I saw a lot of other friends I haven’t seen (somewhat suspiciously, even) in over a year and a half. Everyone was great. The event was very well run and everything went smoothly. I came out of the experience truly grateful to be back playing games. I ended up taking home the award for Best Order (as a primarily Chaos player, that feels dirty….) and 4th best overall. And got the chance to talk a bit on my friends podcast: The Rage of Sigmar about the event, And now with 3.0 on the horizon. We shall see what the future holds…

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. And if you’re looking for more in-depth analysis about the list, how it’ll play in 3rd edition, or you’d like coaching and list building help from JoeK directly, consider supporting him on his Patreon, where he offers custom coaching services and advice.