THE VANUS TEMPLE

This past weekend I took part in the Age of Sigmar Realmgate Wars campaign weekend at Warhammer World.

It was a fantastic event, probably one of my favourites I’ve been too!

I’ve seen the events change over the year at Warhammer World. I started going when it was still the Grand Tournament with the heats and the final, it then changed to Throne of Skulls and it’s since turned from a tournament into a gaming weekend – your actual gaming points don’t really mattter, it’s all about enjoying yourself and making it a fun game for both you and your opponent! I’ve grumbled about this change in the past but now I welcome it. I used to be a competitive player and list builder but these days I just don’t have the same interests in it. I much prefer a fun narrative campaign based game rather than plonking down my tickboxed balanced force against someones force.

Age of Sigmar is definitely not a competitive game, of course people will change it into one with comp systems and balance. That’s fine as that’s what it’s been designed for, it’s our game to change as we see fit for our enjoyment!

The only restrictions for the campaign was model count. 100 models was the maximum you could use and this was to simply help games run in the time allowance.

There were about 32 people who attended which made chatting and gaming a lot more relaxed and less hectic. There was loads of room and you didn’t have to shout to be heard! No queing for dinner, or waiting at the bar for ages were added benefits of the smaller amount of people who attended. I felt that I met and chatted to more people than I would have at say Battle Brothers with 180+ people there!

There were an assortment of tables that were all themed to different realms and scenerios. It was great to see some more creative boards with huge skull towers rather than the generic woods and ruins we normally fight on. Each table had it’s own realm and battleplan (scenario), with some boards having different battleplans for each faction (Chaos and Order) with their own victory conditions. The battleplans were all interesting and different. Some definitely needed tweaking but it’s all about trying them and adjusting them for next time. There were even some massive tables for four player games using the Chaos Fortress!

I took my force of Stormcast Eternals I’ve been painting over the last couple of weeks (which is why it’s been quiet on here!) and took a total of 69 models and a Realmgate (for one of the battalions/formations in the Stormcast Eternals book). My force felt massive due to the 40mm bases and I often didn’t use the full army!

No one there had horrible armies and anyone who started with one quickly didn’t use it all again. I know Amy played against someone with all the nasty Chaos characters but against me he didn’t use them as he said it felt unbalanced. There were no Nagash’s, a couple of Fateweavers. In fact I felt quite mean taking the Celestant Prime as whatever he went near was obliterated.

The first game I played was against a Lizardmen force (He was playing for Chaos – there was no restrictions as you could join either side, there was another stormcast army fighting for chaos for example!). The battleplan was to simple kill as many models as possible. The board we played on was in the Light realm and each phase we rolled to see if a giant column of light would pierce the skys and strike the battlefield, a blast template would scatter around and cause damage which was pretty cool! We decided one column of deadly light wasn’t enough and kept rolling for more meaning there were columns of light swirling around everywhere.

  
After lunch the second game was against a Khorne army with a massive horde of sixty bloodletters! The battleplan for me was to simply survive for 6 rounds or the time limit) whilst the chaos forces units would reappear from scenery when they were destroyed. This was easily my favourite game as it was the Stormcast holding the realmgate fighting an enending swarm of daemons and Khorne warriors. When used together the Stormcast put out a lot of damage and I managed to go through the unit of Bloodletters twice in total!

  
  
The last game of the day was against a Tzeentch daemon army on a board in the Life realm. My objective was to search the towers and his was to kill my general. We both succeeded in this, the campaign was all about gaining sucesses in the realms rather than victories. The board was covered in forests which made a cool looking board but we couldn’t really utilise them as cover. The daemon army summoned itself back countless times but the Stormcast were able to put out enough damage to slowly whittle it down.

  
I didn’t mange to get any pictures of game four, but we were on a Death board where the green bits of soul rivers would drag you in on a roll of a 1! This player barely put anything down on the board so I used the Thunderstrike Brotherhood with the Prime and the two Knights characters. We had to control table sections which wasn’t a problem for the Stormcast!

The last game was against a Sylvaneth and Wood Elf army where we had to find a daemon in the buildings and bind/banish it. I think this scenrio needed tweaking as it was too easy to find it turn one or two and then bind it in the next turn meaning the battle as very short! The daemon was found in the enemies deployment zone meaning I had to get there… luckily I had a realmgate to send units through which helped but not quick enough so I didn’t manage to suceed in this battleplan!

Overall it was a great weekend and if you’re looking for a more relaxed gaming event then campaigns are the way to go! I like having the option of picking and choosing what to deploy and use depending on the scenario and it allows me to paint up models that aren’t normally taken to creat a cool looking force!

In the end Order was victorious in securing more realms than Chaos! On top of that I managed to win the Hero and Monster of Legends painting competitons and also get nominated for Best Painted Army! I didn’t win though as Amy’s (Mrs Vanus Temple) fantastic looking Lizardmen won, between us we took all the painting awards home which is quite an achievement!