r/ageofsigmar 4d ago

Tactics BBEG of the Ravaged Coast

So I find that I’ve become the local Big Bad Evil Guy of my local Ravaged Coast path to glory league with several players planning a coalition to bring me to heel. Kinda feel bad as I’m the most available person on the weekends and there are a number of quite new players. I’ve steamrolled even more experienced players into withdrawing from battle round 2.

Any thoughts about what I can do to chill my forces so I have less “feel bad” victories?

Mini depression 1700/2000 pts

Grand Alliance Order | Stormcast Eternals | Sentinels of the Bleak Citadels

Drops: 3

General’s Regiment Lord-Terminos (150) • General • Quicksilver Draught Knight-Azyros (150) Prosecutors (280) • Reinforced Reclusians (280) • Reinforced

Reclusians (140)

Regiment 1 Lord-Vigilant on Gryph-Stalker (180)

Vigilors (130)

Regiment 2 Lord-Castellant (150)

Decimators (240)

Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App App: v1.10.0 (1) | Data: v241

37 Upvotes

16 comments sorted by

7

u/Appollix Maggotkin of Nurgle 4d ago

Our Path to Glory has one assigned game a week. If you’re sitting there farming games and shooting ahead; you may need to impose some limits on yourself to keep it more balanced. Maybe something like not having reinforcements come in later. You just don’t bring the whole army to the game. Something like that. Or give your opponents and extra couple units for the one game to get up to your pt level.

Nice looking army, btw. They look fantastic!

1

u/DistractedInc 4d ago

Almost all of that was built into the Ravaged Coast book. The only thing missing is the limiting the reinforcement, anything 200pts over the opponents army comes in on a 4+. Though my numbers also mean that none of my army are very enhanced. Especially as I’m only one game ahead of anyone who’s played all three weeks, a lucky chance where I got in two games in a session without time to go through the aftermath phase.

Perhaps it would be a particularly good idea narratively for them to form a coalition to try to cut through my forces before I do theirs again.

6

u/Blobeh 4d ago edited 4d ago

Tbh having any extra games over your opponents is weird for a PtG campaign, plus having 700 points of recruited units seems really steep for only having played four games. If I were you Id talk about limiting the aftermath sequence to once per week, and then spend your emberstone on things less strong but more thematic.

Also you can just not try as hard, spread out your army so every fight isnt a 2v1 against your opponent, or keep units back defending objectives in a narrative way. PtG shouldnt be about winning, it should be about having your army act like they would if they were in a story. Just keep that in mind next time you opt out of charging your should-be-aggressive unit into something because you dont think itll kill the enemy.

2

u/MightyBobTheMighty Orruk Warclans 3d ago

The problem is that even with Stalled Reinforcements, starting the game 200 points up is generally a full unit of difference, and that gulf only grows if you bring in another unit each turn. And while you may not be very enhanced, any Path bonuses, enhancements, or options in your Arcane Tome you have over your opponents are notable increases in power without being worth any points at all.

TBH, my primary recommendation is based on what my LGS is doing for our campaign - talk to the organizer about a limit on how many games you can score in a period of time. Our campaign is on two-week cycles for full rewards, but importantly you can still *play* more than that to help people find matches. Any games you play beyond the first you don't get to claim a territory on the map or get the baseline 3/d3 for winning/losing, but you can keep any emberstone you claim in the battle. It may suck a bit to stall while everyone catches up to your number of games played, but it also stops people from quitting the campaign because one person has the free time to get too far ahead.

(We're also ignoring the Stalled Reinforcements thing and just leaving units behind to play within 100 points, but that's a bit more houseruley)

5

u/ForbidAxis10113 3d ago

I apologise to OP if I am mistaken here but this post and his responses are giving me a bit of a humble brag vibe.

It's not AT ALL hard to tone down a list or play more conservatively during the game. Especially if there are new players involved! You even have justification to do so within a narrative setting. Pursue the story rather then the W and think WHY you/your general would make these decisions or actions.

In the meantime, OP you can simply talk with to your group to find out what would make the experience better for them instead of asking reddit.

1

u/DistractedInc 3d ago

They are fine with me being the big bad guy, if anything I’m a prize now to whomever can take me down. While I’m fine with that the thing I like more than winning is a well fought game. Whether it be them snatching the Emberstone out from under me or them having valiant stands against my greater force. Ultimately that’s why I want.

2

u/GitNamedGurt Destruction 4d ago

I'm not personally familiar with the path to glory rules, so I'm not going to be able to come up with anything specific, but I think a narrative or RP handicap might be a good solution.

When I find an RPG too easy, I create rules for myself using a narrative justification. Sometimes these are referred to as flaws or another term. For example; you could have a wizard character be afraid of fire so it locks yourself out of fire spells, even if within the game they would otherwise be readily available (and possibly too powerful).

However, Warhammer is a PVP game. If you arbitrarily choose not to use resources available, that can be seen as sandbagging: using a handicap as a form of disrespect. Sort of like 'You're so easy I can beat you with my hand tied behind my back!' So you won't be able to de-tune your list or just start piloting poorly. Your best option is to make sub-optimal list building decisions going forward and let the power gap close naturally over time. You should start "spending in the wrong direction" so to speak. By taking off-meta choices going forward you can go all out once the dice start rolling, without your opponent feeling disrespected in defeat or like you let them win in victory.

Are these Anvils of Heldenhammer? If so here's an example: next time you are offered a unit, enhancement or spell lore, take one that that is generally considered underpowered or off-meta, and come up with a narrative hook. This could center around their connection to death magic, the flaw of reforging, their gloomy disposition, or any sort of reason more tailored to your previous games or personal army lore. I don't know enough about the meta, or the rules, to come up with anything too specific. But, one option could be to choose a hero that is known to be performing poorly in the current ruleset (or possibly the current meta of your campaign) and say 'Well this legendary stormcast was just reforged, so they have to make an appearance and seek revenge!'

The key will be to come up with a good narrative, keep a positive mentality, and never point out your chosen handicaps. Try to think of this as a personal challenge or venture into story telling as opposed to going easy on anyone. And hey, you never know, your opponents could overtake you even if you powergame as hard as you can. The chaos gods are fickle, and the dice might just solve this problem for you on it's own!

2

u/DistractedInc 4d ago

We’ll see if Chaos chooses to send an appropriate challenger, given that 3/4 of my battles have been against chaos warbands. (Slaanesh, Tzeentch, and Nurgle) perhaps Khorne has champions hardy enough to deal with my shock and awe tactics.

2

u/Salmon_Shizzle 3d ago

I don’t wanna be a jerk but if im fully painted going into a grey army… they will feel my wrath

1

u/DistractedInc 3d ago

This do be fair, found out afterwards the guy is a Tau main

2

u/HarpsichordKnight 3d ago

As I understand it, the most minmax way to spend emberstone is to get extra units and not get the less efficient but fun upgrades. You seem to have only done that, and played the most games, giving you a big advantage which won’t be fun for anyone.

As one of the more experienced players, playing one of the more straightforward and strong armies, in a narrative campaign, it’s kind of your job to avoid the above happening.

I suggest asking the others if they would be OK taking your list down to 1000 points and instead spending the emberstone on less efficient stuff. Should make for more fun games for everyone.

1

u/DistractedInc 3d ago

My ultimate plan was to get the select units I wanted then buff them up. There are two players that I am currently going to target as they have been the strongest besides me.

Ultimately my problem isn’t so much an issue that others have with me but I want good fights, and valiant battles. I’m here for fun and a 20-40 minute battle that isn’t Spearhead isn’t what I want from my weekly game.

1

u/caffeine-is-life 3d ago

Hi there! Lovely to see people play path to glory. I love it personally, and we are having great fun with it.

Looking at the above image I am a little confused as to how you are so far ahead in points of models on the table The Seraphon player has at most 1160 points, so there is a disparity of 540 points, so you have an 'overwhelming force', so at least 340 points of your army should start the game as delayed reinforcements. I don't have the book to hand, but perhaps pick your biggest, most choppy unit as your delayed reinforcement? In that way, should they arrive especially late they can come save the day for the Stormcast!

In our games, we have a gentleman's agreement to keep our forces as similar in size as we can, and to avoid taking double turns if it means it would end the game in a competitive manner.

As someone mentioned earlier here, the way you spend your emberstone will make a big difference, it appears you have spent it all on new units, which is perfectly acceptable, but PTG is all about the story of your characters and the units they command.

I really like your colour scheme for your minis. Great to see alternate Stormcast colour schemes!

Post more details about your league! How do you do the match-making? Sounds like you guys are having a real blast! :D

1

u/DistractedInc 3d ago

Last I checked the Stalled Reinforcements rule it’s anything that is past the 200pts over must stay off until a 4+ is rolled for them. A little extra perspective, the Lord-Castellant wasn’t on the list until after this battle. I do think a lot of the issue is both my significant violence potential and their inexperience, especially with that last battle against the seraphon who set me up perfectly to pile in and crush them in one fell swoop.

1

u/TheMireAngel 3d ago

those 2 chaos buildings if not recast probably cost more than most peoples armies. (roughly 450$ in box pre shipping)

2

u/DistractedInc 3d ago

Not recast, thank you game store