At MOAB I met some people playing The Ninth Age and they were keen to have me join their community. Chris is one of the champions of the community and runs a podcast. He invited me to have a practice game with him so I could learn how to play and just this past Saturday hosted Backyard Brawl, a decent sized event at his house.

The Ninth Age

The Ninth Age is a successor to Warhammer Fantasy Battles, it was created by the disgruntled European community when Games Workshop discontinued Warhammer. Like Warhammer it is a rank-and-flank fantasy wargame but is lead by the community rather than a for profit company.

A game of T9A

Pregame

Before the game each player decides on a faction to play, also called a “book”. Next they decide on a force to bring, called a “list”. A list is made up units and units are made up of models. To keep lists relatively balanced each model has a points cost based on its power and the players will decide on a maximum for both their lists.

The Game

Each player deploys their models on opposite ends of the table. The players take alternating turns doing:

  1. Charging
  2. Movement
  3. Magic
  4. Shooting
  5. Rally Fleeing Troops
  6. Combat

Winning

Each game has a total of 20 battle points up for grabs. These are gained from destroying more of the opponents units than they did of yours and completing objectives.

My List

For Backyard Brawl I brought an Empire of Sonnstahl list, mainly based around the models I currently had. The tournament had a limit of 3500 points.

  • My general was a Knight Commander with a lance.
  • I had two Prelates on horses that gave reroll wounds on the first round of combat and could cast blessings.
  • Next two units of Knightly Orders with lances that could deal a lot of damage on the charge.
  • I had a Marshal with a battle standard to give rerolls to courage checks around him.
  • The Marshal was in a unit of Imperial Guard with shields, which was quite defensive.
  • Now I also had a unit of State Infantry with spears, who died each game without doing much.
  • I had a Imperial Detachment with Greatweapons. These have a rule called Secondary which means they can counter charge a unit that charges a nearby Imperial Guard or State Infantry, however they were the ones getting charged most of the time rather.
  • For ranged I had two State Marksmen, one with crossbows and the other handguns, these did quite well chipping off models at range.
  • To have I cheap unit I picked Local Militia, they proved to be a menace to both my opponent and me.
  • The magic for my list was handled by a Battlefield Wizard on an Arcane Engine. This Arcane Engine increased the combat skill of my nearby models.
  • Finally I had a Cannon for some firepower.

My army

Game 1

First off I faced an Undying Dynasty list focused on monsters. This list was centred around three sphinxes and had scorpions and chariots ambushing to cause havoc. The game mainly consisting of me standing back and shooting whilst my opponent kept his sphinxes out of my cavalry’s charge range and failing to get his ambushers in. Once he got a chariot in, it and his snake riders did a bunch of damage to my left flank. Due to my excess of scoring units I managed to take the primary objective but due to the damage I took he won 11 to 9.

Game 2

Next I versed a Daemon Legions list with some cavalry that had many bonuses when charging. To say the least, these managed to each charge multiple times. A deviating loss of 0 to 20.

Game 3

I versed Chris for my final match. He brought a list of High Elves, with a mix of bows and elite fighters. Rather than previous games where each side of cagey about cavalry charge ranges, Chris moved his forces forward and accepted my charges. In fact he moved much more than I expected and moved past the arc of one of my units of Knights preventing a charge. I fared much better keeping my force in one region where they could support each other and benefit from the Arcane Engine and Battle Standard. I won 12 to 8.

Battle

Conclusion

I had a lot of fun at Backyard Brawl and got to meet a few more The Ninth Age players. The other players were kind helped me as I haven’t got a full grasp of the game yet – it is much more complex than One Page Rules. We played quite fast as we had to get through three whole games in one day. Playing this much left me quite exhausted by the third game. All in all, I look forward to playing more The Ninth Age and to paint this mass of gray.