This past weekend I was able to attend the first event for The Steel City Sigmar Series. The event was hosted at Legions Hobbies and Games. Organized by Bill Souza and acting as T.O, Mike Ryan. I wanted to run down my games and give some of my opinions from the event. I took Stormcast Eternals to this event using the Hammerstrike and Thunderhead formations. I do want to mention that this club is separate from the local scene that I am trying to grow within my immediate area that has been the focus on my "Building a Community" Series. Steel City Sigmar is where I simply show up to play and compete. It is vastly different from the local group I am struggling with currently.
The event consisted of three matched play games at 2000pts using the ITC format. Entry was $20.00 with prizes for First, Second, Third, Painting (although painting was not a requirement), and Smoking Boots (i.e. Last place). As I mentioned above Legions Hobbies and Games hosted the event and we had plenty of tables and space to play. All prize money was given in the form of Store Credit and everyone was scoring ITC points for attending as well as our own in-house point system for Steel City Sigmar. I feel the entry fee was a bit high for a local event, but there were thirteen players who show up to play so perhaps it is what the local scene sees as reasonable. After a bit of banter and coffee, the games got under way.
My First game was against a club mate Roger who brought a Tzeentch army with Archaon at its head. While I have known Roger for a bit, we have never faced off one another across the table so I was very excited. The first Scenario was "Three Places of Power". Roger had more heroes than I did, but my shooting kept all but Archaon cowering in the back for a large portion of the game. I took an aggressive move early to try and rack up the points before Archaon and his magic began to remove my heroes. The game had a lot of back and forth and stayed tight until the initiative roll for turn four. If I would have won, I would have been able to shoot off one of his scoring heroes. We rolled and he came up with the big roll to seal the game. It was a great game and I learned how to handle Archaon on the table as well as the power Tzeentch is bringing. My big mistake in the game was attempting to drop my Prosecutors from the heavens on a 3 up in order to allow my Hammerstrike Force Paladins to attempt to alpha strike his line. They did not arrive until turn five. A harsh lesson learned to start my game with the Prosecutors on the table.
Game two was Gift from the Heavens down on the bottom tables after my loss. I was paired off against Pat who was new to Age of Sigmar, but a long time Fantasy player. Pat had a good humor about him and seemed excited to be playing. Pat brought an Eight Edition Dispossessed Army with lots of artillery and shooting. Pat did his best with an underpowered army, but I quickly neutered his army by baiting his killing units away from the objectives and shooting off his artillery crew. I did my best to give him a proper game and we made it through four rounds despite the primary being wrapped by me up in the first few turns.
I was going into my final game as 1-1. I knew I was most likely out of the running, but I was ready strive to place as well as possible. The last Scenario was "Border War", and I was playing Tom and his Stormcast Army. Tom was new to gaming, and despite a few of the bad habits we all had when beginning he was a good opponent. This game I made my biggest mistake. I am sad to say I did not give Tom a proper game. I took myself out of the game after I realized my mistake. That mistake was that after deployment began I realized terrain had been pushed to the edges by the person before packing up their army. I was stuck deploying on objectives with no cover to be seen. I should have been more aware before deployment or called the T.O. over to rectify the situation, but I mentally took myself out of the game. We threw dice, we did have some fun, but by turn three it was all over. I did my best to give my opponent a good game, but I am sure my attitude wasn't as sporting as it could have been for the game. Tom played very tight and clean and I hope to play him again in the future and have a better experience on the table between the two of us.
I placed 12th out of 13 at the end of the day and while the gaming experience wasn't all that great I did learn quite a bit about my army. It didn't work well with how I wished to play. I am currently adjusting in preparation for Adepticon and still considering running Warrior Brotherhood, but more and more I feel the Stormcast Eternal Battalions are too much of a point sink and a strong list might not need to include any. I also got to experience a bad day of gaming and reflect on how I can handle it better in the future as well as look inward to improve myself. Overall what I took away from the event was immensely more valuable than a podium.
Taking a step back to view the event separate from my personal experience I would say it was a good first event. It was organized well and we did great as a club to get the word out to ensure a good turnout. However, I feel the $20.00 entry fee was too steep for the drive and the potential to have a lackluster day. My other concern was the lack of soft scores. The ITC is known to be very competitive, but this kills hobby and ultimately can kill the enjoyment of the game. Only three armies, one being my own, were fully painted and based. I didn't get to play against a finished army that day, which added to me wondering if the drive and entry fee were worth it to me. One bright spot of the day was receiving my Club Shirt. While the first event didn't go all that well for me the next one could be much better and I intend to continue supporting and growing with the club. The turnout was great and I hope it grows to improve the wider scene. Hopefully even my own, more local, group. Bill and Mike did a great job and I have expressed my views of the first event to them both prior to this article. Open feedback will help improve the next event and I am always happy to share both the positive and negative.
Until Next week (Adepticon week!) Happy Hobbying!
Edited by Grudgegamer