AoS Blog 2 : Electric Boogalo

A month has passed in AoS league land and a new round of matches begins.

Wild cards have been thrown about after the first round, dice have been burned, friendships strained, a campaign of hate against elves and rats has begun in earnest, and now we look forward to round 2.

Mission: Battle for the Pass

This is very much the same objectives set up as round 1 and scoring is the same, however the territories and deployment zones are very different, using short edge zones instead of long. Having played a practice game with Callum last week, it feels like a lower scoring mission than last week’s.

The way the territories are laid out makes taking the flanks very awkward, so beware of that!

Pairings:

Alden (LRL) vs Kyle (Skaven)

2 of our highest scoring winners from round 1 face off here in what should be an intriguing match up.

Alden brings misery wherever he lays his pointed ears with access to incredible amounts of movement whilst restricting his opponents, whilst Kyles mobile man(rat)holes give him access to a huge range of movement shenanigans as well.

Kyle has wild carded his list to a 2 drop to match Alden ahead of this game as well as dropping his ill-fated Verminlord for his shiny new Grey Seer on Screaming Bell.

I expect Teclis to maintain magical superiority, Kyle will have to be rolling 8 or more on all his casts to not be auto-unbound, but has more casts to attempt it than before.

Ultimately, Alden’s cavalry are going to cause some misery to Kyle’s infantry with their access to mortals, but those blobs of clanrats are hard to pop and if used to screen could be the speed bump Kyle needs to clap their pointy eared foes.

I expect this to be a bloody fight but I think Alden comes out on top simply due to his well drilled list which has beaten everyone it’s faced so far. Kyle will pose lots of questions though and I think this will be high scoring for both parties.

Prediction: Alden wins 36-32

Craig (FEC) vs Lauren (Sylvaneth)

I received a fairly brutal going over in round 1 and will almost certainly use a wild card before this match takes place per my usual tradition of being unable to stop myself tinkering.

Lauren scored very well in losing to Kyle, and has the big bad beetleborg (most dated reference you’re going to find in this blog) herself to make my recursion look quaint (just roll a 4+ from beyond the grave).

The trees have the movement shenanigans, but the FEC are quite fast as well, with additional Morbheg knights incoming for my list we will both have quite lean, quite fast lists. 

I have concerns that my army will not be able to dish out enough damage to get ahead of the trees' healing, plus screening out trees movement will be difficult as well. Not even the wall will be able to stop the teleportation. That said, if I can stop rolling double 1s on charges, who knows what might happen!

Prediction: Lauren wins 34-32

Jake (FEC) vs Billie (Idoneth)

Another Flesh Eater Courts player here, thirsty for salt water air this time after his maggoty starter last week (look up the ethersea, it’s rad). Billie has stepped in for Holly and comes in as an unknown quantity.

There’s a nice mix of bodies in the Idoneth list including the famed mega turtle, I’m not sure of all the bits and bobs they can get up to though and they will be facing down 12 Morbheg Knights and Ushoran which are capable of smashing through armies.

Jake bullied his way past Joe round 1 and I’m expecting that momentum to continue here, so almost guaranteeing egg on my face. It should be an interesting game!

Prediction: Jake wins 34-28

Chris (Sylvaneth) vs Aiden (Stormcast)

Teleporty trees versus a very fighty Stormcast Eternals list for this game. Chris has stuck with his herohammer, including the frankly obnoxiously big Alarielle proxy, but Aiden’s stoic automatons will not be intimidated!

I hate to say it but I think this could be close, Chris has all the teleporting to do his battle tactics, but I think Aiden’s armoured boys may be tough to peel open and get off objectives, Karazai and Bastian Carthalos are both pretty scary up close, with Karazai getting even more attacks the more he gets hurt.

Prediction: Aiden wins 32-28

Tom (Gundam) vs Callum (Gitz)

The architects of my downfall from last week come together to dance over the FEC corpses they have wrought together.

This could be the battle of the unstoppable force meets the immovable object, with lots of high saves and wounds, and healing on show.

Callum might have the edge with trolls healing after they fight AND at the start of every turn, but the dragons have some nasty rampages and a lot of health of their own to chop away at.

I genuinely can’t call this one, so I’m going for a draw.

Prediction 26-26

Pete (Fyreslayers) vs Joe (Maggotkin)

Unlike the last game, this will be more like that bit in Austin Powers when he’s riding a steamroller really slowly towards a henchman who inevitably gets squished (they’re slow).

This is a rematch of a game these two played in which Joe conceded turn 3 after Pete’s Gotrek went absolutely ape shit through the Maggotkin lines.

Joe has wild carded since game 1 and is now bringing more bodies, so I suspect this is going to be a protracted mid board brawl between some big reinforced units (it’s a lot of wounds and wards) as there is very little in the way of mobility or movement shenanigans.

Again I think this will be a low scoring affair as a result, and Pete might have the psychological advantage going in.

Prediction: Pete wins 34-28

Matt (CoS) vs Dickie (Skaven)

Matt has done me a huge favour by winning his first game, then playing a wild card, so I now have even less idea what his army is doing! 

I can see however he has 2 big reinforced units of armoured cavalry which could spell trouble for the rat beasts. What I can say is, it looks like an army.

I criminally underestimated Thanquol’s Menagerie in week 1, and the rats are probably still finding ginger hair in their teeth and claws.

However Matt is on a bit of a run having won his round 1 game and his extra stand-in game, so maybe, just maybe, he knows what he’s doing. There is a fair bit of cavalry which seems to be the meta currently.

Dickie will have had his confidence stung by a game against Alden the Double Turn maestro but can bounce back here if things go his way.

Prediction: Matt wins 40-32

Leo (Big WAAAAGH) vs Mike (Stormcast)

This could be an interesting match up, Mr Bombastic himself has used a wild card to switch from mono-Kruleboyz to the BIG WAAAGH which I think is a sensible move. Adding some well armoured Ironjawz will help, especially going into Mike’s own armoured boyos.

My advice for Leo would be to try and keep Gobsprakk away from Yndrasta, she has a violent hatred towards monster units and she will pop him without breaking a sweat to be completely honest.

This will be a brawl and I think Mike’s big monsters will trump Leo’s green boys on this occasion but I hope Leo is going to have his best game yet after having a pretty brutal start to his AoS career in the last couple of weeks!

Prediction: Mike wins 40-30