Age of Sigmar: Tournament Comps (Part 1)

Age of Sigmar has been around for a few months and now there are several interesting tournament comps that have been developed by the burgeoning Age of Sigmar community. One of the more interesting army design rules that have developed is the Independent Pool System that I talked about last time.

This time, I want to take a look at how a couple of different tournaments that use the Independent Pool System re-work or modify some of the basic Age of Sigmar rules to make them more tournament balanced. Let's dig in.

The major tournament systems that has been using the Independent Pool System have been in England, including both the Clash of Swords and Blood and Glory Age of Sigmar championships, though the system has been making inroads in the U.S. as established by the West Coast's Training Grounds Tournament Pack. 

Clash of Swords Composition System

This year's Clash of Swords, created and used the Clash Comp system for Age of Sigmar. The current version of the composition system is version 1.2 (updated on September 19, 2015) and is available online. In this system, there are several basic changes to the Age of Sigmar rules that help address some of the issues I've talked about previously. These modifications include the following:

• Measuring all distances from a model's base to another model's base. This requires either using the bases that were supplied with the model or onto sensible round/oval bases for the model.
• A roll of a natural "1" on any Hit, Save, or Wound roll is always a failure. (So it is not possible to stack magical bonuses so that a unit has a 1+ armor save and can't be killed)
• Games only last a maximum of 5 turns.
• Glorious Victories, Sudden Death, and Triumph rules are not used.
• Summoning is allowed, but heavily restricted. The modifications to summoning make it so that units that are not deployed at the start of the game from the player's Pool Choice (more on this below) can be summoned onto the battlefield if a deployed model has the ability to summon such a unit. For example, if an army only deploys 17 out of the possible 20 pool choices then those remaining 3 pool choices can be summoned over the course of a game. However, once you have summoned the units up to the maximum deployable pool limit, no more models can be summoned (even if the summoned units have been destroyed).
• Spells or abilities that raise models back into existing units are allowed, but the unit may not exceed their starting size while doing so.
• The dice to see who takes the initiative at the start of each Battle Round cannot be re-rolled or modified in any way.
• When attacking with a unit, declare where each model's attack will go before rolling any dice.
• Warmachines and their crew are set up as a single deployable drop, but are considered 2 separate units for rules purposes once the game begins.
• Models have a 360* line of sight.
• A model must be fully inside a piece of terrain to benefit from the +1 Cover Save with no part of the base outside the piece. In the case of walls or obstacles, a model must be touching part of the terrain piece to receive the +1 Cover Save.
• Any ability that halves wounds inflicted on a unit are activated only after all attacks by a unit have been undertaken. Simply add up the number of wounds the unit has done and then half that number, rather than halving the number of wounds caused by each model.
• Models that are making a "pile-in" move of 3" must end their movement closer to the nearest enemy model than when that model started this move. This allows a little bit more maneuverability in the pile-in portion of combat to get more models into combat and to clean the system up a little bit.

Clash Comp also uses the Independent Pool System for both Army Design and Army Deployment. The Clash Army Design rules are as follows:

• All Warscrolls in an army must come from the same Warscrolls Compendium. No mixing from different races (Aelf, Orruk, etc.) is allowed.
• When writing an army list, a player pulls his overall list from a maximum of 30 Pool Choices. These 30 Pool Choices are a player's total army.
• Weapon and upgrade options do not have to be stated on an army list but must be explained at the start of each game. This allows a player to customize the best weapons from a unit's choices to match the enemy units that have been deployed.
• Similarly, command, unit upgrades, and magic standards do not have to be listed on the army list, but must be chosen and explained at the start of each game. This allows a player to also choose the appropriate upgrades for a unit that he feels is necessary in each game.
• When setting up during a game a player deploys up to 20 Pool Choices for each game from the 30 Pool Choices that make up a player's total army. This is the deployed force.
• Units can be deployed in any order and in any size that you want (10 models, 20 models, etc.) but each dropped unit has its own Pool Cost. So for example, a unit of 15 models that costs 2 pool points is deployed followed by another, that is 4 pool choices (even if a unit of 30 models of the same type in a single unit would only be 3 pool choices).
• No more than 4 warscrolls with the Hero Keyword can be deployed. A warscroll with the Hero and Monster Keyword counts as 2 scrolls toward this limit.
• No more than 3 warscrolls with the Warmachine keyword can be deployed. A player may only have a maximum of 2 of the same Warmachine.
• No unit may be deployed with over 30 wounds unless that unit has a pool choice of 10 models for 1 pool point. In such a case, a model can be deployed upto 40 models.
• No more than 40 missile attacks can be deployed. This is determined by counting up all of the missile attacks on all units warscrolls. Warmachines always count as 3 attacks and attacks with random numbers of shots have set attack numbers (d3 is 2 shooting attacks, a d6 is 4 shooting attacks, and more than a d6 is 6 shooting attacks). Any missile attacks with a range of 12" or less do not count towards this shooting attack cap. 
• Special formations from the warscrolls compendium are allowed but cost the additional pool points cost of the formation. Any special formation must be informed to your opponent when the formation is deployed. The formation can be deployed as a single drop or in multiple drops.

Clash Comp also uses various objective based scenarios in order to determine the winner of a game rather than simply wiping your opponent's forces off of the board. Each scenario (of which there are 5) is based around controlling an objective. Objectives can be captured by any unit of at least 5 wounds, except for single models. Any unit that starts off of the battlefield cannot capture an objective on the Battle Round it arrives onto the battlefield. All models from the capturing unit must be in cohesion (within 1" of each other) in order to capture the objective and a unit must be within 3" of the objective in order to control it.

Each game there is primary objective based on capturing objectives at the end of the game or something similar. If a player wins the primary objective on a game, they receive 15 points and their opponent only gets 5. Then, there are 5 additional points that can be awarded for achieving secondary objectives that are present in each game. Each secondary objective is worth 1 point and include assassinating the enemy General, killing more pool choices than you lose, capturing more forests than your opponent at the end of the game, kill the largest unit as per the Blunt special rule, and control a piece of terrain as per the Seize Ground special rule. Thus, a player who achieves a primary victory and all secondary objectives could get a maximum of 20 points per round.

This is an interesting composition system, both in changes to game rules and in army design. I particularly like the rules modifications. In comparison to GW's own "unofficial competitive rules" these modifications make sense. The Clash rules don't make game changing modifications like removing initiative or preventing units from shooting. Instead, there are smaller modifications like measuring from the base and having a roll of a "1" always count as a failure. These are changes that don't negate the aspects of Age of Sigmar that make the game interesting. Rather, they are designed to simply eliminate certain issues from the game including modelling for advantage or abusing confusing issues. I like them and would use some version of these modifications, if not these exact modifications, for my AoS games.

I also like the concept of the Independent Pool System with a larger army list that you then use for a particular game. This makes the alternating deployment rules of Age of Sigmar have more of an impact as you get to customize your deployed army based on what your opponent has already deployed or at least has the possibility of deploying from their army list. This creates a little but more strategy for each game as it allows a player to choose the appropriate units at the appropriate size for each scenario and opponent. Anything that adds tactical depth to a game, particularly Age of Sigmar, I am a big proponent of.

Blood and Glory Comp
The Blood and Glory Age of Sigmar Championships is using both the Independent Pool System and the most recent Clash Comp rules with a slight modification. Because this tournament is designed around crowning a champion, the Triumph rules are in effect for the tournament so that if you have won your last game you get one of the Triumph bonuses for the next game to keep your winning momentum going. This will be interesting to see if any Triumph bonus really comes into play over a five-game tournament.

WC Training Grounds Comp
As a way to get players in the United States interested in Age of Sigmar, particularly those on the West Coast, a few players from the Leadership 2 gaming club including "Mohawk" Mike Scaletti, have put together the Training Grounds composition system. This system is very similar to the Clash Comp system but there are some interesting differences. The Training Grounds system modifies the basic AoS rules as follows:

• For purposes of measuring, all measurements use a model's base rather than the model itself.
• A natural roll of a "1" is always a failure on any to hit, to wound, or saving rolls of any kind.
• Any wizard with summoning spells may only ever summon a single unit at a time. If the summoner is ever removed from play for any reason, the summoned unit also disappears.
• Wizards may attempt to unbind a spell even if they are more than 18" away from the caster. However, if the wizard is more than 18" away from the caster, then the unbind attempt is made a -1.
• Sudden Death victory conditions are used in all games with the modification that it is based on deployed pool choices. So if a player has deployed a third more pool choices than another player, the player with less deployed pool choices may choose an objective from the Sudden Death table.
• The system also uses the Independent Pool System, but  army lists are made up of 25 pool choices and only 18 are deployed each game (as the Training Grounds system is designed to get people into Age of Sigmar). 
• The deployed army is 18 pool choices of which no more than 4 pool choices can have the Hero keyword (Hero and Monster still counts as 2 choices), no more than 4 pool choices can have the Wizard or Priest keyword, only 2 warscrolls with the Warmachine keyword, no more than 40 missile attacks (attacks with range of 12" or less don't count towards this limit), and no unit may contain more than 35 wounds unless the unit gains a bonus for having more than 35 wounds. 

It is clear that the Training Ground comp system is an entry system between the basic Age of Sigmar rules and the more competitive Clash system. It has many of the same rules changes including the universal unbinding which I really like and includes Sudden Death victories which I also think is a great part of Age of Sigmar. Especially when there is a Pool System for army design and deployment which brings more balance to the lists.

Well, there we go. A quick overview of the major comp systems arising using the Independent Pool System of army design. I expect some continuing modification of this system until it develops into what I perceive as the most likely to be used tournament composition system (assuming of course that Age of Sigmar survives the encroachment of Kings of War). Still to come: I take a look at the SDK point system for Age of Sigmar as well as my first look at Kings of War: 2nd Edition (now that my book has finally been delivered).