Summer Slaughter is a 98 person Major GT in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Held by the Basement Wargamers Club about an hour outside of Philadelphia, this 5 round tournament was scored based on W/L with the tie breaker being in-game victory points. Being the the largest US-based Sigmar Since 2020 LVO, everyone had their forehead temp scanned, hand sanitizer everywhere and new masks in everyone’s swag bag, something I hope to see as a recurring theme as events start ramping up again.

This was also my first 5-0 since Flying monkey 2020, it feels good to finally break out of the 4-1 (or 3-2 at Saga,) slump I’ve seemed to have fell into.

My List

Round 1 – Marcella Helu (Daughters of Khaine)

Marcella Helu w/ Morathi and the Bow Snakes

The Strategy for me going into this, was to remove or hinder the components of the army that could threaten my army: The Blood Stalkers. I also out-dropped her army so I really had the option of control to put the pressure on them early. Her army tray also had the Blood Viper endless spell, that I mis-remembered as a prayer, and in turn gave me flashbacks to Bugeater where my Loreseeker died in 1 hit to that…so I also felt I had to remove the Hag as well. (Seeing as she did have the only actual invocation, it wasn’t the wrong end thought, just poor directions to get there.)

So my turn was to remove the hag and drop 4-6 bow snakes, and grabbing 3/4 objectives. The rest of the game was Keep away from Morathi with the foxes, and going after secondaries with the foxes and Sentinels.

Round 2 – Lincoln Tidwell

Vs. Lincoln Tidwell onnnnn Shark Week

(That’s right, 9 individual sharks.)

This was the craziest game of the tournament, and is such an interesting army to play against. As a highly mobile shooting army, this is almost a bad matchup for me. I have to put all my units in spots that can help each other out or shoot for spiking damage. As its been a week since the 4 days since the event, this game was as tight as your muscles might be free swimming with real sharks. 

Turn 1: 5-4 (in my favor)

Turn 2: 9-9

Turn 3: 14-14

Turn 4: 19-19

Turn 5:

.

.

.

24/20.

What

A.

Game. 

The only thing I had left was 3 foxes, and all he had left was the Eidolon. Crazy. Great game.

Round 3 – Brad Bitler (Fyreslayers)

VS Brad Bitler’s Hermdar Fyreslayers

This game was gonna be a testament to my ability to deal attrition damage. His whole army ignores rend 1-3 depending on which buffs are up, and where. Add in the 4+ Ward, and at least 2 wounds a piece and it is a slog.

With his army having next to zero shooting, My army was pretty safe from retaliation. But he still had a lot of dangerous bodies on the field. The mission only had 4 objectives, and enough space to keep me away from him for just long enough.

Turn 1 was a play to remove the 5 Hearthguard on the top right objective, and then basically camp it with Windspirits, while Severith sat in front of his army being a living wall from first turn charges and hopefully turn 2 as well.

Turn 2-3 is when one of his Hearthguard made it to my sentinels, but after Unleash Hell and Protection of Hysh from a unit of Wardens and Empowered Weapons there were only 7 or so left to fight them, he killed about 10. On my turn 3 still had 20 left and they were then cleaned up by those Sentinels and foxes.

The rest of the game left all the foxes alive and the last 20ish sentinels cleaned up everything else except the last 15 Hearthguard. Who had just finished cleaning up my Total Eclipse Wardens who were off the in the corner on a side objective.

Round 4 – Ethan Beers (Sons of Behemat)

Vs. Ethan Beers’ Tap Dancing Sons of Behemat.

6 units of giants to deal with, 6 objectives, and all of the Dancing Sky Foxes. 6 objectives for giants, when the other army has as much power projection and mobility as mine, is going to be an uphill battle. This was Ethan’s first ever major tournament, and has been 3/0. So, he definitely has been playing tight.

My first turn I drop 2 of his littles. And then played “mobile fox wall” to kinda gate keep his Gatebreaker and Warstomper. The rest of the game, I dropped at least a mega or or the rest of the littles a turn. If I recall he did kill a fox after I charged him with 3 in a turn and it got caught out, or I’m miss remembering from round 5…

…Who were also giants.

Round 5 – Horacio Rivas (Son of Behemat)

Vs Horacio Rivas’ Breakthrough Breaker Tribe

This game was definitely the closest game I’ve had vs Giants. 27/23 final score. 3 objectives all game. Misplaying by misplacing some foxes, almost losing secondaries multiple times. Total eclipse came in clutch for me in the form of failing battleshock after losing x2 littles from a unit turn 1. Then dropping 2 littles out of the second unit round 2 where he again fails battleshock. By the end of the game his General made it back to my side of the field, cleaned up both wardens and then ran back to cap his last objective he could get round 5, and this 40 wound giant with a 5+ ward who was off the corner scoring an objective every turn was the only giant still standing after back to back games.

The score this whole match was very close, I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the points till he won priority turn 5, and finished his last turn, with an hour still on the clock, I did the math quick to see if I could still even win, as he had been more consistent in scoring every turn. I was getting points for killing Monsters and had turned Severith or Windmage into a monster a few times via the Windmage casting Metamorphasis, to help spike some scores just barely higher, and then had the whole “score 1, score 2 score more + a final Battle tactic”, ending the game barely in my favor. 

Conclusion

At the end of the weekend, I had 5 great opponents, with me and Bill Souza looking longingly towards each other wishing for a 6th round, but alas we did not. Of the x3 5/0’s, he was the highest in game score as the tie breaker, me in second, and Matt Obringer in 3rd with Slaves to Darkness.

It was a well run event, great vibes, except for the fact that it’s located in the middle of nowhere for us who fly to events, but I can only imagine this events will grow even larger and get even better. They had insane prize support: Last place, Dead middle place, 1st place and then all the best in Grand alliance.

Oh, and the Final one, the Person who killed the most units at the end of the weekend…. Matt snuck that one out from under me in the last round with 49 kills over 5 games. Mine being 43 on account of back to back giants…. But, it was well earned and a real fun one that I haven’t seen before!

Big ups everyone!

In addition to his new column, JoeK also offers coaching services and personalized commentary for Age of Sigmar through his Patreon, which you can check out here.

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