Take the Highground!

Interested in joining Highground Gaming for our next Age of Sigmar tournament? Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks. We will be announcing a new team format for our next event featuring three-player teams, each with their own 2,000 point army!!

The Highground December GT was a smashing success! Thirty players were signed up, but ten had to drop at the last moment due to the holiday season. Of our twenty competitors, every person that attended not only played competitive games but, more importantly, had a great time. Our team was incredibly excited about how our event turned out, the venue was great, and the players were terrific people. We strive to create a competitive environment that encourages players to interact with each other positively. Warhammer is, first and foremost, a social game that we all play as an outlet for our creativity and, hopefully, tactical genius. The social aspect is key to enjoying games that allow everyone to go home afterwards feeling good whether they win or lose. 

Visiting each table throughout the round was a ton of fun as the tournament organizer. I witnessed some very close games and only a couple of blowouts. I noticed that most games in Age of Sigmar 3.0 tend to be very competitive. The Beasts of Chaos player took 55 mortal wounds to his various units in round one. The Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage out of the Legion of the First Prince is a mortal wound bomb! There was no doubt how that game would end. If you could design a unit to counter Beasts of Chaos, it’s that Bloodthirster!! The best part was the players laughing about the ridiculousness of the moment and the rest of the tournament players talking about it throughout the weekend. 

The winner of our December Age of Sigmar GT was Michael Rausch!! He came up from Toledo, OH, to take the GT by storm with his Ossiarch Bonereapers Petrifex Elite list that looks eerily similar to many of the lists we saw in AOS 2.0. He was packing a unit of 30 Mortek Guard backed up by a Gothizzar Harvester and another 20 block of Mortek. He went undefeated over the two-day event against tough opponents and army matchups. 

Check out his list:

Round 1 saw him defeating Gaby Hartman, who ended in sixth place, with a Disciples of Tzeentch Eternal Conflaguration list. She was sporting Kairos, 20 pink horrors, six flamers, and two exalted flamers. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough flames in a challenging game to melt all bones off the table.

Gaby’s list:

Round 2, he played against our September GT champion, Michael Caldwell, and his Kastelai Dynasty Soulblight Gravelords. This game created Michael Rausch’s favourite moment of the tournament when 1800 points of Blood Knights, Prince Vhordrai, Vengorian Lord, and Mannfred were unable to chew through the unit of 20 Mortek Guard, causing Caldwell to fail his battle tactic!! The Mortek Crawler shined in this game due to some poor savings throws on a couple of Soulblight heroes. Caldwell ended up taking 4th overall. 

Caldwell’s list:

Round 3 Michael found himself against one of the Hedonites of Slaanesh players in Jack Cawood. Jack’s Godseekers army had an interesting piece of tech in the list in the form of Rotigus!! Deluge of Nurgle from Rotigus can spike and do D3 mortal wounds to up to 7 units for a huge depravity turn but still tends to net 3-4 depravity each turn making him a reliable way to gain summoning points. I think I will have to try him out in my own Slaanesh builds. However, in this game, that didn’t seem to be enough to allow the Hedonites to defeat the undying legions of Mortek Guard. 

Round 4 found the only two remaining undefeated players in the room against each other. Joshua Ahlborn ultimately placed 2nd and won the Best Painted award with his incredible Seraphon Thunder Lizard army. The Slann led army created a real nail-biter of a game through the first couple turns. Mid-game things started to snowball for Arkhan the Black and the seemingly invulnerable Mortek blocks in the middle of the table. Even the Celestant Prime striking from the heavens couldn’t turn the tide. The cold-blooded star lizards could not overcome the undying legion and suffered defeat.

Into round 5, Michael remained the only undefeated player meaning a victory here would clinch 1st place, but a loss would put him down into the 4-1 bracket where he might miss 1st if someone else scored a higher point total. He handled an immense amount of pressure from Jarrad Barrick and his Stormcast Eternals Hammers of Sigmar list. Jarrad had a few tough games and was in the middle of the pack pointwise going into round 5 at 3-1. He knew that to try and take 1st or place in the top 3, he would have to score a win by a landslide. He played this game aggressively with his Dracothian Guard Concussors and Evocators on Dracolines. The never-ending ranks of Mortek Guard thwarted the aggressive play of the Stormcast, leading to the end of the Stormcast and the ultimate victory for Death!!

Congratulations to Michael!! He played a heck of a tournament, and his dad was there rooting him on the entire time, which was cool to see.

Thank you to all of the players that came out!! We are excited about the team tournament coming early next year. Stay tuned and follow our Facebook page to announce our Team event!!