Event report - Hammertime 7 TTS tournament

Yesterday I played in the Hammertime 7 Age of Sigmar (AoS) event using Tabletop Simulator (TTS), so I thought I’d do a blog on how I got, and what it was like playing in a virtual tournament.

The Hammertime TTS tournaments have been running for a while now during the UK lockdowns, and as the name suggests, this was the 7^th one. I watched some of the coverage of the previous one and it looked pretty fun, and since Christmas I’ve been playing a fair bit of AoS on TTS, so I thought I’d give it a go. It works much the same as a real life tournament would, except that all the players are in their own homes, so it’s organised over Discord and the games are played on TTS.

My list

I ran Kharadron Overlords, using a list based on my real life Kharadron force. I didn’t have a huge amount of experience with it – I’ve played one real life game and three or four TTS games prior to the tournament – so I didn’t expect to do very well.

My list was as follows:

Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords
- Sky Port: Barak Zilfin
LEADERS
Aetheric Navigator (100)
- Artefact: Svaregg-Stein Illuminator Flarepistol
Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit (190)
- General
- Command Trait: Great Tinkerer
- Artefact: Staff of Ocular Optimisation
UNITS
6 x Endrinriggers (200)
6 x Endrinriggers (200)
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (130)
- Main Gun: Sky Cannon
- Great Endrinworks: Zonbarcorp 'Debtsettler' Spar Torpedo
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (130)
- Main Gun: Drill Cannon
- Great Endrinworks: Coalbeard's Collapsible Compartments
5 x Grundstok Thunderers (120)
5 x Grundstok Thunderers (120)
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)
10 x Arkanaut Company (90)
BEHEMOTHS
Arkanaut Frigate (220)
Arkanaut Frigate (220)
BATTALIONS
Iron Sky Attack Squadron (100)

I’ll probably write a separate blog at some point about how I’m finding Kharadron Overlords and how they play, so I’m not going to get into a lot of detail on that here. Overall I don’t think it’s the strongest possible Kharadron list, but it gives me a lot of options, and is fun to play with. I’ve done pretty well with it in casual games against friends.

How did I get on?

I won one and lost two out of my three games, which was about what I’d expected given I’m not very experienced at competitive AoS. I came 66^th out of 79 players. But all the games were fun, and I didn’t get completely stomped in any of them. So overall, it was a good day. Below I’ll go into a bit more detail about my games, and then finish up with some reflections on how I found the experience of playing in a TTS tournament.

Game 1

I’d originally been drawn against an OBR list, but that player dropped out so I got a last minute match-up against a Living City list with some Phoenix Guard, a big unit of Sisters of the Watch, some Fulminators, a Hurricanum and a couple of small heroes. We were playing Starstrike. He gave me first turn and I took out a couple of his small units, but his hard hitting stuff was all in reserve. He brought it all on on his turn and hit me pretty hard, and then he got the double turn into round 2 and hit me pretty hard again. The Sisters of the Watch in particular did a lot of damage, and took out a couple of my boats. We ended up with not much stuff left on the table towards the end, but he’d outscored me. I definitely made some mistakes, in particular spending too long fighting his Fulminators on a side of the board away from most of the objectives; I think in hindsight I should have retreated away from them as soon as possible, and focused all my fire on his larger units to reduce his board control. I also messed up my auxiliary objectives in this game, and never really had a plan for how I was going to achieve them, which led to me failing them both. It was a fun game though, and my opponent went on to win all his games and finish in the top 8, so he clearly knew what he was doing! My MVP was the endrinmaster with dirigible suit, who held off three fulminator charges before he finally died.

Game 2

I played a Dispossessed heavy Tempest’s Eye list, at Blood and Glory. My opponent split his army in half at deployment, with a big block of Hammerers supported by Longbeards, a Runelord and a Celestial Hurricanum on one objective; and a big block of Irondrakes supported by Longbeards, a Runelord and a battlemage on the other. Learning from the experience of the first game, my battleplan was to focus fire on one half while staying out the way of the other, and that worked out pretty well. I was able to take out the hurricanum very early, and then over the next few turns wiped out everything else on that side of the board, and largely staying out the way of the Irondrakes (helped by my opponent repeatedly failing to cast Soulscream Bridge). I was also pretty easily able to take out my opponent’s more mobile units (some Shadow Warriors, and three Gyrocopters). We ended up with me in control of three objectives , but not quite having the firepower to clear the Irondrakes off the final objective before the end of the game. So it ended up as a minor win for me, because I had scored more auxiliary objectives than my opponent. Again it was a fun game, and probably the one in which I feel I used my list to best effect. It’s also the first time I’ve not lost at Blood and Glory, which was nice!

Game 3

I played a Tzeentch Change Host list, at Total Conquest. He gave me the first turn, and I committed hard to taking out the Lord of Change early, which I was able to do. This left most of my army surrounded by demons though, and he was able to do a lot of damage back to me, in particular taking out all my endrinriggers except the hero. It was pretty closed for a few turns, with a lot of taking and retaking of objectives, but in end he got an overwhelming amount of board control through a few big units of horrors that I didn’t have the firepower left to shift. I don’t think I made any big mistakes here, my opponent had a strong list and it was pretty close for much of the game. My MVP again was the endrinmaster with dirigible suit, who took out the changeling, an exalted flamer and a unit of three flamers all by himself, and managed to survive for an implausibly long time by himself in the middle of a horde of demons.

Overall thoughts

I had three fun games, and winning one game out of three was my goal for the day so I’m happy enough with where I placed. I’d happily play all of my opponents again, I don’t think I had a single rules dispute or ‘gotcha’ moment all day. I still have a lot to learn about using Kharadron Overlords well, and I definitely made some mistakes, but all of the games were sufficiently competitive that I didn’t feel I embarrassed myself.

I find TTS a pretty satisfying way to play AoS from a strategic perspective, and I probably enjoyed the games themselves almost as much as I would have enjoyed real life games. Obviously, there isn’t the same opportunity to show off your nicely painted models, and admire other people’s, but I didn’t have any expectation of that so it wasn't something I was particularly conscious of during the event.

I didn’t find that there was quite the same community feel that there is at a face-to-face tournament, I had some good chats with my opponents but most of the other players are still just anonymous screen names in a Discord forum to me. But I think I’d probably have felt differently if some of my friends had also been playing in the tournament and we’d been catching up on each other’s games between rounds and so forth. It was all very well organised, and the event team did a fantastic job of making everything run smoothly and ensuring everyone had clear instructions for what they were meant to be doing.

The thing I struggled with most, and that might put me off doing another TTS tournament, was spending an entire Saturday sitting at the same desk I sit at for work and staring at the same computer screen. I’ve been working some fairly long days recently, so I really value weekends as a chance to relax and get away from the desk and the computer screen. The only good thing was that it rained all day, if it had been a nice sunny day it would have been very hard being stuck indoors. I think if I play in another TTS tournament, I’ll aim to book either the Friday or the Monday around it off work so that I get a ‘recovery’ day.