UK number one and the AOS London GT!

UK number one and the AOS London GT!

Ritchie McAlley

Thats right read all about the thoughts of the UK's number one player...

Well the player who has been to the most uploaded events anyway if you don't know how it works it only polls your best four results for the current season and the small one dayer 3 round events like am about to write about even when won don't give many points, my chase for masters won't really get going now until Sigmar 2.0 comes out now besides London GT this coming weekend.

Justice Series 6&7

These are JustPlay's bimonthly tournaments small 16-20 player events but with a high standard of play all tables have mat nice terrain and its only £10 to enter plus you get £5 store credit. These have really picked up recently selling out each time now which has been great for getting some nice practice in during the quiet months.

In Justice Series 6 I managed 3rd place finish with 2 major wins and in the final a major loss this event I was still playing double ship list that I took to heat 1 you can read all about this in my previous article

Game 1 was vs one of my main practice partners Nathan playing Bonesplitterz. It's a weaker list compared to others as its more of hobby project and includes a Rogue Idol, cool but not very competitive at 400 points. I got to go second and a simple double turn wrapped this up pretty quick.

Game 2 I played a Archeon Tzeentch list this was my opponents first game vs Overlords with all his points in a few flyers it was over pretty quick, LOC and the Skyfires dead T1 Archeon a few turns later as I kept him tied up with sacrificial boats.

Game 3 it all went wrong overconfidence got me big time I drew Ogors on Duality old army on my best mission did not kill his troll hag turn 1 ended up far far too close to the rest of his army so he just massacred my whole army which took him on to the win!

A good event overall that last game really showed me I needed to stop messing about and get the models I needed painted to play the one ship list below.

Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords

Skyport: Barak-Zilfin

- Additional Footnote: There's No Trading With Some People

Aether-Khemist (140)

- General

- Trait: Fleetmaster

Aether-Khemist (140)

- Artefact: Aethershock Earbuster

Aether-Khemist (140)

10 x Arkanaut Company (120)

- 3x Light Skyhooks

10 x Arkanaut Company (120)

- 3x Light Skyhooks

10 x Arkanaut Company (120)

- 3x Light Skyhooks

9 x Endrinriggers (360)

- 3x Grapnel Launchers

12 x Skywardens (400)

- 4x Aethermatic Volley Guns

- 4x Drill Cannons

Arkanaut Ironclad (440)

- Main Gun: Aethermatic Volley Cannon

- Great Endrinworks: Aetherspheric Endrinds (Barak-Zilfin Skyvessel)

Total: 1980 / 2000

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 105

It was only a few weapon swaps for the Endrinriggers and 5 more models to paint pretty easy so once that was done I got ready for Justice Series 7.

Game 1 I played a Skaven list in a game that is half the reason people hate this army so much pick second double turn him and I had killed everything besides a artillery piece. Soft horde units just turn on all your guns even the pistols the amount of fire it can put out is insane.  

Game 2 This was a whole different kettle of fish I played against a VERY resilient Stormcast list with the minimum 3 archer units a Stardrake and a massive Dracoth unit. Mirror Shield, 1+ saves etc along with the ability to "deepstrike" also mean this was going to be very different to any game I have played before and was super excited to play this one.

He pulled the the trigger first bringing down all but one archer unit scoring 5 and killing all but one Arkanaught very luckily for me most his army was pushed up on my objective at this point. I came down took 6 points of him and killed all his archers he then sneaked his third archer unit back on one of the centre objective scoring himself taking a big 8 points 13/6 to him. My first big play of the game came at this point as I tried to kill the Star Drake with my riggers I had managed to splash 4 Drill Cannon exploding damage on to him so felt confident. It never worked but I did take a centre objective back scoring me 6 this time 13/12. From here I had kept massive range on him so he could not push without needing the double turn and I could threaten his objectives as he only had 2 units left at this point scoring was becoming difficult for him max 6 a turn it was a stand of now until the final turn were I made the hail mary play and broke the deadlock taking 8 points ending it 32/31 to me.

Game 3

With me killing basically nothing in my last game I ended up playing down hoping I could overtake the other two players on 2 major wins and I had drawn myself up against another Overlords player on Starstrike I was one less drop than him and won the roll which I really wanted so I got a extra unit on the board. I was lucky he failed two run rolls to grab the objectives and they had fell well for me so I took the lead and he was forced to blink and bring down his Ironclad first a major disadvantage I struck in return killing units of value and getting better board position, eventually the win.

When the final scores came I had managed to jump ahead of Tom the other player who finished on 3 Major wins I was made up to see him finish so well having attended all our previous events. Winning your own event is a little lame but really happy I got my first event win.

SCGT Warm-Up

Time for another road trip this time with my partner in JustPlay Ian and along for the ride another Liverpool player Craig I played the same list as the previous event I took part in.

Game 1

Perfect first match up taking on a new face playing Nurgle one of the armies I most wanted to practice against. 30 Plaguebearers, Blight Kings with the flanking hero, Rotigus, GUO and some Blight Drones. I took second in this and put my Ironclad in the sky mostly I wanted to see were the flanking unit came on and deal with it. In previous games testing they caused me some major problems this went to plan pretty well double turn went my way when I was done all he had left was his two boxed in big guys and a few Plaguebearers still some work todo grabbing the win as he went first and scored big and I never got many turn 1 and 2 but I got there.

Game 2

Funnily I later found out that my opponent this round Ellis should be number if heat 2 was uploaded. This was also the first of the two Malign Portent missions which meant I was going to be playing with -6 inches to my range all game not ideal. It never mattered how ever as Ellis had a huge brainfart and thought he would be going first meaning terrible deployment and most his army in Graveyards I went first all his heroes got killed bar one and Ellis conceded when I won the dice roll for turn 2.

Game 3

Playing for the win against my car mate Craig playing a heavy Skyfire/Enlightened list another dream match up to practice shame it was on the second Malign Portent mission with long deployment and me again having -6 range. Craig deployed with this in mind but had not played my army either and left me a small window to get into his back lines and in range I killed 12 Skyfires not that it really helped those Enlightened murdered my whole army but slowly. I snuck a couple of Khemists back on the Ironclad and last turn dropped them off in his deployment giving me the win as he only had the Enlightened in my deployment.

Another win! Super pleased this time I got a lovely box of chocolates to ruin my diet (all devoured on the car ride home) event was brilliant also nice bit of lunch in a lovely little village on a nice sunny day with great company.

The Malign Portent missions however pretty lame, poor at just the mission level compared to the rest of the matched play scenarios and the Portent points thing is just messy and clunky I mentioned me having -6 inches to my range but on the flip side I had +1 to hit every turn on my massive Warden unit a bit to good.

4 Events in the bag at this point and I had managed 10 Majors, 2 Minors and 2 Major losses really happy with that heading into the midseason and some big indy two day events.

London Grand Tournament

It feels like forever waiting for this event to come around especially with the SCGT happening last weekend shame I could not make that one with the LGT being already booked it was a bit to much time away from the family to close.  

It's finally here I am writing this after packing up to make the trip down different list however! 3 Khemists is just a waste and I should have known that earlier really but what else to take? 10 more Arkanaughts is a obvious choice but then you properly don't want a 40 point bid so also drop 3 Wardens and make it 30, great target for the Khemists. I spotted however a great list in the top finishes of Adepticon.

Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords

Skyport: Barak-Zilfin

- Additional Footnote: There's No Trading With Some People

Leaders

Aether-Khemist (140)

- General

- Trait: Fleetmaster

Aether-Khemist (140)

- Artefact: Aethershock Earbuster

Battleline

10 x Arkanaut Company (120)

- 3x Light Skyhooks

10 x Arkanaut Company (120)

- 3x Light Skyhooks

10 x Arkanaut Company (120)

- 3x Light Skyhooks

Units

6 x Endrinriggers (240)

9 x Endrinriggers (360)

- 3x Grapnel Launchers

3 x Skywardens (100)

- 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns

- 1x Drill Cannons

3 x Skywardens (100)

- 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns

- 1x Drill Cannons

3 x Skywardens (100)

- 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns

- 1x Drill Cannons

War Machines

Arkanaut Ironclad (440)

- Main Gun: Aethermatic Volley Cannon

- Great Endrinworks: Aetherspheric Endrinds (Barak-Zilfin Skyvessel)

Total: 1980 / 2000

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 106

These gets even more out the now only 2 Khemists adds more of our best unit and gives us MSU for objective holding that I loved in my early lists it does lose some shooting and I would say is much harder to play two units going into combat not just one simple alpha strike makes things more interesting. That though is were this lists main strength is Nurgle is making up a huge percentage of tournaments right now, great in the game along with lovely models and fun to paint means I expect to have to deal with Plague bearers a lot more.

You can see this in Heat 2 luckily Admiral Gary Percival had the same idea and took this to Heat 2 finishing in 3rd place he however grouped the 3 Warden units together after talking to him and getting a few games in I agree still having the option to buff those Wardens Drill cans and safely use Damned on them has been crucial in practice. Nice to see that it worked and other Overlord players have the same faith in the list.

I am hoping to carry on my winning streak but really I just want to know I played well and put a strong 4 win finish in.

If you are local to Liverpool or even just fancy a trip our first AOS 2.0 event is July 14th you can get a ticket here

Well thanks very much for reading and say hello if you are at this or other events in the future.