This past weekend I attended the Age of Sigmar “Raffle Tournament” at the Grand Rapids War Room. It was a 1500 Modified Vanguard and 3 game rounds. Tickets were awarded for W/L/D, and completing in-game fun tasks. The player then had the option to allocate the tickets for drawings for a number of prizes. After perusing the available prizes, the only thing I saw that I was interested in was some aelf miniature boxes.
I didn’t really have an optimized army to participate with – I pretty much threw together an army of what models I had available. My final list looked like this:
Empire/Sylvaneth Alliance
Empire State Troop Detachment – 120
1 Freeguild General – 100
30 Swordsmen with standard bearer, musician, shields – 240
10 Handgunners (1 with Hochland Long Rifle) – 100
10 Handgunners – 100
5 Pistoliers – 140
Allies:
1 Jade Wizard – 100
1 Helblaster Volley Gun – 120
1 Treelord Ancient – 300
3 Kurnoth Hunters – 180
I would have liked to have had pipers in my handgunners, the extra 20 shot fusillade would have been devastating when charged, especially when Holding the Line along with the Stand Together, Fight Together ability (2+ hit/2+ wound/-1 rend). I also would have rather had outriders, as pistoliers are squishy and have to get close to use their weapons. They are pretty much only good for supporting units by emptying shots into enemies that are tied up in melee. Ah well, I also learned more lessons as the day went on.
Match One
My first battle was against a Seraphon list which contained a Dread Saurian – a HUGE lizard, along with some priests, skinks, saurus guard, kroxigor, and salamanders. It was a bloody fight that I ultimately lost 4-6. I made several mistakes during this fight, the most glaring was that I didn’t use my hunters to start sniping at the priests. They provided buffs for the units which made them quite powerful and resilient. The Dread Saurian was nasty, my Treelord Ancient and Kurnoth Hunters spent most of the game trying to keep it tied up from reaching my front line. It was a pretty bloody fight when it was all over. I didn’t really have any mobile units which would pretty much haunt me through the whole event. All my tickets went in for the aelf boxes.
Match Two
My next battle was against a Chaos list which had a Bloodthirster, Soulgrinder, some Flamers, Horrors, and Plague Bearers. My objective was to kill his general, which was his Bloodthirster. In turn two, he went down in a hail of gunfire, while the pistoliers were burned to a crisp while trotting across the field. When the Soulgrinder tried to flank me, the handgunners opened up on it and weakened it enough that the Treelord Ancient was able to finish it off. I won that battle 10 – 0. More tickets for the aelf boxes.
The prize pool was increased because the store was selling tickets and hit their $100 goal. Up for grabs were four “getting started” sets. A win in this raffle would give you a “getting started” set of your choice. I bought 25 tickets and shoved them in my pocket.
Match Three
My last match was against an horde of mounted Chaos Knights. My biggest weakness of not having hard hitting units was made apparent in this match – The knights were incredibly tough, and it was a grind to kill them off. I REALLY wish I had those pipers to fire when receiving those charges! I lost this one big time, 0-18! Between not having harder hitting units and rolling dismally, it was a disappointing game. Even my opponent felt bad! Hahahaha.
By this time, the store had sold $200 worth of tickets and put up a Battleforce box set up for grabs. I put the last of my match tickets in this bin along with the 25 I bought.
I ended up in 13th place out of 14, which isn’t bad considering it was my thrown together force that was hardly optimized. Where I won big however, was in the post game raffle. I ended up winning:
The big prize! I won the Battleforce box, it retails for $170, and has $311 worth of models if purchased separately.
A box of Sisters of the Thorn which retails for $37:
And finally, a box of Doomfire Warlocks, which also retails for $37:
I got a pretty good rate of return, I spent $30 total, and while I didn’t place, I still walked away with $375 worth of models, and got to spend a fun afternoon pushing around soldiers and rolling dice!