2024 New Year, New Army: Escalation Leage Begins

Who would have thought almost three years ago this week my future in tabletop gaming would be changed forever. I mean it isn’t that dramatic but sometimes it makes me not so sure.

I have since started diving into the massive world of tabletop Wargaming specifically Age of Sigmar and it completely changed my confidence in an entirely new area of gaming. Flashback, I was at my friendly local game store for a paint hobby night and saw that they had several boxes of Games Workshop boxes at 80% off! To date I have always felt priced out of Games Workshop products and intimidated. The price of entry was to steep to see if it was something that interested me. I’ve always wanted to see what these fancy Games Workshop models were all about and at 80% off I couldn’t resist. I decided to bite the bullet for less than $30 and purchased both Greywater Fastness Start Collecting box of dwarves and the Bloodbowl team of the Imperial Nobility. I was absolutely stoked.

Little did I know that I purchased the absolutely worst thing to buy in order to try and learn Age of Sigmar. You see to start a Cities of Sigmar army which contains Greywater Fastness box I purchased has more choice and options to build an army than any other army in the game, with perhaps the iconic Stormcast Eternals. Cities of Sigmar was one of the oldest, most out of date and complicated armies to attempt to learn how to play Age of Sigmar since it contained almost the entirity of the now retired Warhammer Fantasy game. To shorten the story, I ended up shelving the dream of fielding the mortals of men, dwarves and elves against the large monsters and creatures of the Mortal Realms and picked up a beginner and more affordable army of Orruks, Kruelboyz as my army with training wheels.

Waiting, impatiently like a child waiting for Christmas morning I eagerly waited the day for the promised new 3rd edition Battletome and updated model range of which to kit out my army. Now the time is primed for me to bring this long awaited dream to reality.

I mean check out this beautiful model range (credit Games Workshop youtube)!

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NEW YEAR, NEW HOBBY

Fast forward to today. I have joined forces with my friendly local game store. Together as a community we have decided to start a local escalation league of which to encourage others to collect, build, and paint new armies of which to play Age of Sigmar. This is one of the best opportunities to get started in the game as games start small, less financial investment and moving pieces to learn the rules. It is also the perfect opportunity of which to learn a new army. We all suffer the torment of endless hours of building the army of our dreams together.

Coordinating with the store who is doing a fantastic financial incentive of “New Hobby, New Year” any models purchased from November 1st, 2023 til March 1st, 2024 and are painted by the 1st of March will receive 25% of that boxes purchased value in store credit. This is my time to purchase the new model line and build my army. Since so many of the models are brand new there is not really a second hand market in existence yet so buying full price will have to happen more often than I’d like to be able to play the army I want.

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Getting Encouragement from my peers

The escalation leauge is broken into 4 phases and an introductory painting phase. We are currenting in Phase 0.

Phase 0 January 1st 2024 to January 28st, 2024 

• Painting Phase
• Minimum:
• 1 Hero 
• 1 Battle Line Unit (Minimum unit size)
• No Monsters (To help keep the 500 pt skirmish game balanced)

Phase 1 January 29nd, 2024 to February 18th, 2024 

• 500 Points Game
• Minimum:
• 1 Hero 
• 1 Battle Line Unit (Minimum unit size)
• No Monsters (To help keep the 500 pt skirmish game balanced)

Phase 2 February 19th, 2024 to March 10rd, 2024 

• 1,000 Points Game
  Minimum:
• 1 Hero 
• 2 Battle Line Unit (Minimum unit size)

Phase 3 March 11th, 2024 to March 31st, 2024 

• 1,500 Points Game
  Minimum:
• 1 Hero 
• 3 Battle Line Unit (Minimum unit size)

Phase 4 April 1st to April 22th, 2024 

• 2,000 Points Game
• Makeup painting

Scoring System

Activity	Points	Bonus
Build a new unit (Non Hero/	+3	+1 for Conversions
Paint a new unit	+3	+2 Diorama Display / +1 extra details
Complete 500 Pts every 3 Weeks	+15
Build/Paint a Hero Unit	+5	+1 Conversions / +1 Diorama Display
Huge “mini”	+5	+1 Conversions / +1 Diorama Display
Play 1st Game	+3	+2 Play for 1+ additional Games
Sportsmanship	+5	Great Opponent +3
Game Results	+3 (1/Phase)	+5 Narrative write up(Max 1/Phase)

Painted models will need to meet the following minimum standard:

• All base colors as applicable to specific miniatures (Armor, Weapons, Skin, Cloth, etc.)
• Must be based (Minimum of a color sand)
• Extra details include: Washes/Shadows, highlights, high quality basing

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Status Check

With Phase 0 ending on Monday January 1st I admit I’m significantly behind where I’d like to be. Currently the only points I have accumulated in this phase for the league are related to building the models. I might be able to squeak a unit completed by Monday but my hopes are not so great.

Assembled Units:

• +3 Steelhelms
• Alchemite Warforger (hero), no points until painted
• +3 Freeguild Command Corps
• +3 Wildercorps Hunters

Onwards!!!

I am so excited to see where this army is going to go but admittedly intimidated. Can I paint up my collection? How am I going to afford some new models I need for my list without hurting the bank? Next phase I have quite a few deals lined up and print commissions to help lessen the burden and I can’t wait to talk about it.

Now the decision I will have to make is do I decide to have a mixed army of Humans, Dwarves and Elfs or purely focused on one race…. I currently own quite a bit of all 3.