Tag Team Fight: Age of Sigmar and Team Events

Age of Sigmar tournaments are always a fun event. I have the luck of traveling to events with my local group of six players and it is always fun to talk about matches between rounds. Things we did on the table that ended up being awesome and epic, dice going the way of our opponent when the odds were in our favor, and joking about our game records with each other. It is this main reason that I enjoy playing Age of Sigmar: having a ton of fun playing games alongside great people.

However, sometimes we can feel the weight of competitive Age of Sigmar coming down on us. You have to take this build in the current meta if you hope to do well or the meta makes my army very ineffective and I need to switch to a new one to compete for the top tables. Once this fatigue started to happen and we were playing the same army composition event after event, we began to search for something new. It was at this moment that we decided to do a team event.

So now here comes the question: what is a team event and what is involved in running one? That is what I plan to answer in this article. Lets go over the basic guidelines my group has created for running team events:

  1. The point limit for each army is set at 1000 points and this leads to a team of 2000 points.

Some people might think 1000 points in Age of Sigmar is too low of a point value. It restricts what you can take in some armies and can lead to some suboptimal builds. However, this is where I think Age of Sigmar shines in terms of creativity and allows you to also maybe include models you would never normally include in a regular 2000 point list. A great example of this in my personal army, Ogor Mawtribes, is the Firebelly. In most games, I find the Slaughtermaster and Butcher to be way better wizards and have better natural abilities on their warscrolls. My 2000 point always takes both of these wizards and the Firebelly stays at home. However, I like to include in my 1000 point lists to try out something new and play something different than my regular Gutbusters list at 2000 points. With the team events being less about competitiveness and more about having fun with the game we love, this allows us to try out less optimal lists and build something that is both fun and different.

2. Each round is with a different partner.

This is probably the idea we had the most hesitation with but we decided to give it a shot and it was absolutely one of the best ideas we had. With most team events, you arrive with a partner and play two different armies together as a team. However, we realized this could lead to us creating teams with optimal combinations and lead to possible negative play experience. This is where the different partner during each game grew from. With a different partner every round, the possibility of a great team combo still exists but there is no guarantee and you have to think on the fly on how to work with your partner’s army every round. Playing a tanky melee army and your partner is mostly shooting? Seems like a good combo to me! But if you both are melee armies and the opponents are a duo of shooting armies, you might have a tougher time getting that victory. Every round is randomly done and you never know what to expect.

3. Every army is a different one (if able).

You aren’t always going to be able to make this happen but the more variety of armies leads to more diversity in the matches. We are lucky in my local meta that no one plays overlapping armies and our team events leads to each player playing a different army.

Credit: Nexus

So there you have it. These are the basic rules we put in place for our team events. But this leads to a new question to some: what is the point of doing this? Why change my regular 2000 point events into this team event format? Lets look at some reasons why:

1.Great for new armies and new players

Some of the biggest hurdles in miniature games is going from a small army into a larger army. We might be able to get into that 1000 point range with two start collecting boxes or a few boxes of models for most armies but it could be a larger chunk of money to get into a 2000 point list. This type of event is perfect for new players who are looking to get in games with their armies and get a feel for the rules at lower point values. They get to play alongside other players who can help them with their armies and learn the game as they go. Also, this kind of event is perfect for testing out that new army you are building. I used a team event to get my Kharadron Overlords a test drive and it really helped me get a feeling for their basic rules and how to pilot the army on the battlefield.

2. Learn about other armies

With a three round team event, each player will get a new partner every round. That is a potential three armies they get to play alongside that they may never have gotten to see on the table. And if their two opponents are always different across their three rounds, they have a potential to see six armies they also might not have seen. This allows for a player to get insight into how possibly nine different armies are played. In Age of Sigmar, there are quite a few armies and I have yet to play into every single one even with frequent events. These team events allow me the possibility to see new models and armies I rarely see on the battlefield and learn some possible insight into how they play.

Well, there you have it. I hope this post on team events helps show the great fun you can have with smaller army sizes and casual games with different players every round. Maybe it will allow you to finally drop that awesome model you rarely get to play into a list or start a new army with the intent of playing in a team event similar to this. Make sure to check out our articles on Start Collecting and Start Competing in Age of Sigmar to help you get started.