Hey everyone, so this is the next article in the my Club Profile series highlighting Age of Sigmar Gaming Clubs from around the world. Today we have Sons of Slambo, from San Antonio, Texas, USA. Thanks to the club for writing the profile below.
The aim of the series is to introduce the gaming clubs, explain their history, anecdotes, iconography and current and former players. You’ll find details of how to contact the club and follow along with their successes on social media. For more club profiles, check out the clubs section of the site.
And, finally, as always, check out Dark Fantastic Mills for great 3D printed terrain perfect for wargaming. Its super versatile and light so worldwide shipping is inexpensive. Use the “aos shorts” discount code for a further 10% off the already decent prices.
Did somebody say “SLAMBO”?
Our current club focus takes us deep into the heart of Texas. The Sons of Slambo may be based in San Antonio, Texas, but they have members in Austin, Corpus Christi, and even have “Slambassadors” in the U.K. and Canada.
While many of the club have been together for over 20 years in other groups, the Sons of Slambo was re-branded and organized in 2015.
Sons of Slambo – club with a mission
Their mission is to “Develop, Promote, and Protect our community through exciting gameplay, club fellowship, charitable giving, and creating meaningful gaming experiences.”
This philosophy helped grow the handful of Warhammer AoS fans to a club that historically draws about 16-30 players on game night. Several of the players have purchased and painted over a thousand dollars worth of terrain to facilitate amazing games and incredible narrative battles.
While the core members of the club always play with painted armies, new players are welcomed and encouraged to play with whatever they have. Getting into our hobby can be intimidating, so the Sons coach their members on how to include new players in a welcoming way. It’s no wonder the club has their own Warhammer Hero awardee and often claims the top awards for sportsmanship at tournaments.
The Sons wear club shirts that parody the television series Sons of Anarchy and pay homage to one of the oldest and most revered models in the Citadel range-Slambo himself! Slambo has connections to the Old World and the Mortal Realms, making him a perfect mascot for long-time and new players alike.
When this dreadful band of ne’re-do-wells descend upon an event, cries of “SLAMBO!” echo the halls. This infectious battle cry can be heard anytime a risky roll is successful or when a brother or sister is about to make a critical roll. If you hear the call at Adepticon, WarGamesCon, or anywhere else-the club asks you to join along!
Port Maw Charity Event
The club continues to be involved with charity events like Port Maw (a worldwide narrative apocalypse event for 40k and AoS players), hurricane relief, and other worthy causes. The Sons of Slambo have partnered with many others to raise thousands of dollars over the years. Their primary beneficiary is Clarity Child Guidance Center. They help children throughout south Texas who suffer from mental illness.
AoS Shorts: Since this profile was written, the Sons of Slambo have hosted the Port Maw event for 2019. This year was the 8th running of the Port Maw Charity Narrative Apocalypse event! Over 216,000 points of painted AoS, 30k, and 40k models participated including across the US, UK and Australia. Disorder seized victory on the AoS tables.
Together, the club raised over $3,100 for Clarity Child Guidance Center! Clarity CGC exists to transform the lives of children and families. They are the only not-for-profit mental health treatment center specializing in children ages 3-17 in San Antonio and South Texas.
Check out all the awesome photos.
Sons of Slambo Membership
Members are given nicknames and titles based on their contributions and creativity. They also earn patches for hilarious fails, like “Unforgiven” (being banned by a local overzealous admin) and “Some left behind” (for forgetting to pick up a brother on the way to an event). All members are AoS Fanatics, but most of play other GW games as well. Here are a handful of their charter members:
Dan Norris, President (#EvilDan)
Mitch Fezer, Vice-President (#OGSlambo)
Jimmy Sides, Captain of the Guard (#Devil’sCandy)
Brian Strye, Enforcer (#Six)
Daniel Dawson, Chosen (#Magister)
Tom Ferris, Master (#Mighty Tom)
Daniel Sanchez, Fleet Admiral (#Sancho)
James Southerland, Chosen (#BooBoo)
Jacob Bessette, Chosen (#Change)
Robert Stehle, Chosen (#DrakeFluffer)
James Miller – Chosen (#Agent13)
Andrew Carlson – Chosen (#Chance)
Tyler Rabb – Chosen (#LordKhorne)
illy Mondragon, Standard Bearer (#BigGreezy)
Jon Knapik, Traitor (#Weirdnob)
Jeremy Cooper, Traitor (#ColdBlooded)
Nick Thompson, Slambassador (#BrainSquig)
Nigel Bartlett, U.K. Slambassador (#Chimphammer)
Plans for the future
The Sons of Slambo continue to grow and partner with clubs all over the U.S. Plans are underway to hold The Slambo GT premiering October 2019.
The club meets the first and third Friday of the month at 6:30 pm.
You can also tune into The Everchosen podcast and listen to all the great hobby, tactics, and trash talk between the Sons of Slambo and their sister club in Austin The Weirdnobz.
If you want to get the Son’s attention, don’t forget to belt out a mighty “SLAMBO!”
Thanks again to the Sons of Slambo for writing this profile. If you are interested in sharing your club on the site, feel free to get in touch, via Twitter, Facebook, or [email protected].
Hey all, today I have a quick post and interview on London’s newest Warhammer venue, the Bad Moon Cafe in Borough. Since the store opened in December 2018, I’ve seen a lot of great comments about the Bad Moon Cafe on Twitter and other Warhammer Age of Sigmar social media. So I just had to get in touch and learn a bit more about the venue, the design and business decisions that led to it opening and their plans for the future. Check out their website, Facebook and Twitter for more new news and updates.
The Bad Moon Cafe
The Bad Moon Cafe is a modern and truly dedicated Warhammer venue, built from the ground-up to be an inviting and enjoyable place to play. Think the best merger between a cafe, bar and gaming tables. The venue has 15 full Warhammer gaming tables (with mats and thematic terrain), a board-gaming space, barista coffee, locally-brewed craft beers, sandwiches, pastries from Borough Market and wood-fired Basilico pizza.
Where to find them?
The Bad Moon Cafe is minutes away from Borough Station and a 10 minute from London Bridge and Elephant & Castle stations.
159 Great Dover Street London SE1 4GZ
How to book tables?
The Bad Moon Cafe has 15 6×4″ gaming tables dedicated to either fantasy or sci-fi themes, each with their own mats. The venue operates an online booking system with the following slots:
Weekdays: Free until 5.00 pm. One bookable gaming session from 5.00 pm – 11.00 pm.
Saturdays: 3 bookable gaming sessions:
10am – 2pm,
2pm – 6pm, and
6pm – 11pm.
Sundays: 2 bookable gaming sessions:
10am – 2pm,
2pm – 6pm.
The price per table per gaming session is £12, which can be paid online or in person.
Board gaming at the Bad Moon Cafe
The Bad Moon Cafe has 10 board game cafe tables and an in-store library of over 60 titles. The board game tables operate on a first-come-first-served basis. There is a charge of £4 per person, which gives access to the entire board game library without a time limit. These tables are suitable for parties of 2 – 4 people.
The Bad Moon Cafe Interview
When I heard the rave reviews, I contacted the Bad Moon Cafe and sent through some questions about the store, its design, development and background. Hugh kindly answered.
AoS Shorts: Can you share anything about the people behind the store? Who are the key people in the store that visitors can expect to meet?
Wil and I (Hugh) are the founders – Wil is the manager of the store and I’m the marketing/social media/designer person. Wil is there nearly all the time and is extremely enthusiastic about the hobby – I think so far he’s spoken to every Warhammer player who’s come through the door about their current Warhammer project!
We’ve got great employees too – Paul is our other Games Workshop fanboy and is helping hosting our monthly tournaments. Ringo is our Board Games man and manages the board game library and stock as well as managing our board game meetup groups. Then we have Dave, Tom and Carolina who are all geeks in their own right and help organise D&D and other groups. They’re all trained baristas too! Although we’ve only been opened a few weeks, all the Facebook and Google reviews mention how great our staff are which we’re really proud of!
AoS Shorts: How long did it take you from the idea of the store to the store opening?
Wil first floated the idea of a store in spring 2018. He was working in retail management and wanted to use those skills for a hobby store. We had met playing Warhammer Age of Sigmar in various London groups and had gotten along great. When he mentioned opening a store, I realised I could use my experience working in architecture and design to help design the store itself and create a great venue. We founded the company in late July 2018 and opened on 15th December 2018, which seemed like a pretty quick turnaround to us!
AoS Shorts: What considerations did you take into account when choosing a venue?
There were two core considerations- centrality and size. London, despite being a huge and populous city, is served by only a couple of hobby stores (at least in the more central parts!). Otherwise, we have to rely on meetup groups to meet people and game. London Wargaming Guild in particular are a fantastic group – it’s where I met Wil! – but we felt there’d be a market for a venue with a store and proper food and drink. There are actually several great stores outside of central London, but they can be quite a journey to get to, especially on weekdays after people have had a day in the office. So having a central location was key to serving this player base of people who work and/or live in London but who are only served by meetup groups or venues outside of the center.
Size was also key – the core of the business is community and supporting that community. To have a good sized community, we needed a good number of full sized tables, so then we could host tournaments and become the place to play for Londoners. We essentially searched for the largest place within our budget and found a 3,500sqft location near Borough which seemed perfect – we could fit 15 full sized tables in as well as a cafe and bar!
AoS Shorts: What research did you do on the local player and potential customer base? Did you already have existing connections to the Warhammer communities and clubs in London? Have you made any affiliations with local clubs now for regular gaming nights?
Research into this kind of thing is pretty difficult! We had met the regional sales manager for Games Workshop in Nottingham when we produced our first concept for the Cafe who mentioned the huge increase in player base for Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar in the past two years. When discussing this new player base, it became clear to us they were much like us – which is to say people in their late 20s or early 30s who had rediscovered Warhammer having left the hobby in our teenage years. For whatever reason, this new player base weren’t finding some of the existing gaming venues that attractive and meetup groups were getting pretty great attendance, even if they had to use venues like pubs which aren’t exactly tailored to huge wargaming tables, miniatures and rulebooks! This told us there was a market for a venue made for Warhammer that didn’t need to be supported by Magic the Gathering or other TCGs, as most hobby stores are.
We’ve now affiliated with a few clubs – London Wargaming Guild foremost amongst them – to host monthly Warhammer 40k and Warhammer AoS tournaments as well as events for 9th Age, Warhammer Underworlds and Middle Earth.
AoS Shorts: How did you decide on your table set-up, amount of space per table, shelves etc?
The tables were the key thing the entire venue was designed around. My day job is Architectural Illustration, so we had all the tools we needed to figure out best use of space.
We wanted to maximise the number of tables but didn’t want to compromise on space for players and player experience, which is usually required for smaller venues.
We wanted to avoid some of the problems we saw when playing in pubs, meetups or other venues – lack of space between tables, lack of storage for our stuff and lack of space beside the tables for food, drinks, armies, books and dice.
Our dream situation for the tables was to have the table only for the miniatures- no books, miniatures in reserve or even dice would have to be placed on the table! To that end, our table design has 1ft of space on each side for books, models and a dice tray as well as a shelf below the play surface for bags, foam etc.
The shelving was actually a pretty easy decision – the space was so large and only 1 wall didn’t have any windows or doors on- so we just covered the entire wall in shelving, which allows us to have the full range of Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar products (or at least that product we’re allowed to stock as a third party seller!).
We also knew we needed space for a bar/cafe/board game area. The board gaming area was part of the initial plan – before returning to the hobby, I was (and still am!) a huge board gamer and knew that it would be a great market to tap into to supplement our core Warhammer offering. As the venue is in a huge student residential area, a market that seem to love board gaming, we knew it would be a great addition to the store for the local community. From the first day, it’s proven hugely popular!
Finally, and key to the whole feel of the venue, was our bar. This is a huge thing – 6.5m in length, and dominates the cafe area. It’s our company’s identity on site and ties together our whole business of mixing a bar, cafe, board gaming and Warhammer venue in one place. It also makes the cafe/bar area feel like a proper cafe or bar and not just an add on to a Warhammer space!
AoS Shorts: I see you have long bookable gaming sessions? Was it important to give players enough time to get through a decent sized Warhammer game?
Yes, for us we knew that a game can take 2 hours or 4 hours and didn’t want to force anyone off a table! We can’t underestimate how much we want it to be the place to game in London and customer comfort is everything. I would hate to have a game ended early when I’ve paid to hire the table and I’ve traveled to the venue after work, giving up my evening to play. We also wanted to allow people to choose their specific table they wanted to book- so our online booking system allows you to choose a specific table at a specific time to book! All our tables are themed with matching game mats and terrain so being able to choose specific tables- as you can do at Warhammer World- seemed like a no-brainer.
AoS Shorts: What is your current split between wargaming and board gaming patronage?
We’ve only been opened for a few weeks now but our Warhammer community of returning players is growing rapidly – though not sold out every day yet, we’ll likely be doing that in the next few months. The board gaming cafe area is usually full on weekends and most weekdays- though London sort of empties for the Christmas period, so this January will really give us a clearer idea of where we’re heading!
AoS Shorts: You seem to have really focused on the atmosphere of the venue and the amenities – real coffee and Italian pizza. Was this an important consideration? What kind of impression do you want to leave visitors with?
This was really my entire focus in the time before we opened. We wanted somewhere people wanted to spend time in. Not just gamers, but even someone wanting a coffee in the morning or a beer in the evening. We wanted it to be like a great coffee shop for the general public, have that same feel of great atmosphere in a nice venue.
If we could manage that atmosphere with Warhammer gaming and store offering, we could attract the new player base we identified early on in our planning. We also felt that if we’re asking you to spend your evening in our venue we should make it the nicest venue we can. If you’ve spent a day in the office having carried your foam bag around London on public transport, it would be so nice to be able to grab a beer and a proper meal while playing at a table with space and storage for everything, rather than having a sandwich from a supermarket on the way and balancing all your hobby stuff on the table or floor.
When we were looking at food and drink, we wanted it to be the best we could get. We’re using a local brewery called Kernel, who make some of our favourite beers, and a local pizza place called Basilico, who make proper wood-fired italian pizzas – thin crust, cooked at very high temperature with great quality ingredients. We’re already looking at expanding our selection too! We’ve got proper barista coffee on offer as well, which has proven a hit with the local community and turned us into the morning staffroom for the local schools!
Essentially, we wanted our venue to not just be the place that you go to play Warhammer, but the place you’d love to spend your evening in, whether you’re playing Warhammer, a board game, an RPG or just drinking with friends.
AoS Shorts: How do you find people new to the hobby, or with no connection to tabletop gaming, enjoy the venue?
The whole new hobbyist market is something we really wanted to cater to. Some hobby stores can be pretty intimidating to new hobbyists. Games Workshop stores do a pretty good job already, though their size somewhat limits them. Really the key to attracting these new hobbyists is our staff- they love talking about Warhammer and what you’re currently working on. We’ve had people come in and buy their first kits and make them in store, we’ve had people come in and buy the rulebook and read it with a coffee for a couple of hours and we’ve had people come in for hours to just paint and have a drink and some food! We’re really keen on providing a great first experience of the hobby and have gotten great feedback so far.
AoS Shorts: Do you have regular events planned? Or is the focus on more casual gaming?
We do already have monthly Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40k tournaments organised – these are 18 to 24 player one day, 3 game events which are more casual than a 2 day tournament but still provide a decent challenge to seasoned players, in no small part thanks to some great local players who are pretty serious tournament players. We’re also planning 1 or 2 annual two-day, 5 game events. Having said that, I’m a casual player at heart, so catering to casual gaming is also important. We’re developing some events for casual gaming and new hobbyists which should provide a great day to meet new players, work on hobby projects and play a game or two against more casual players.
Thanks again to Hugh and everyone else at the Bad Moon Cafe for taking the time to answer my questions. It’s great having an opportunity to talk about the design and decision-making process that led to the opening of the store. Wish we had a similar place down here!
Hey everyone, so this is the next article in the new series highlighting Age of Sigmar Gaming Clubs from around the world. Today we have We Slay Dragons, from the West Coast of the USA and the mighty state of California. The aim of the series is to introduce the gaming clubs, explain their history, anecdotes, iconography and current and former players. You’ll find details of how to contact the club and follow along with their successes on social media. Today’s article was kindly written by Frank Deloach (@WSDFrank).
For more club profiles, check out the clubs section of the site. And, finally, as always, check out Dark Fantastic Mills for great 3D printed terrain perfect for wargaming. Its super versatile and light so worldwide shipping is inexpensive. Use the “aos shorts” discount code for a further 10% off the already decent prices.
We Slay Dragons was founded in 2011 in Southern California by Ryan Ariola & Joel Cabrera. Beginning as a Warhammer Fantasy Battles club. In the past SEVENTEEN YEARS! (Crazy for us to think) WSD has grown in leaps and bounds! Many of the core members are still here today and we’ve introduced new players into games our club currently plays frequently.
We Slay Dragons are very active in the competitive wargaming scene. The primary focus being on Age of Sigmar since the game dropped (we just can’t get enough of it), but we also play tons of Warhammer 40k, Xwing, and we even have some of players really into card games like Legends of the Five Rings.
Top AoS Club for the ITC 2017 season
In 2017 we were Honored to be named top club by the ITC (Frontline Gaming’s Independent Tournament Circuit) after our 2016-17 season. This couldn’t have happened with our amazing crew of players, friends and families. Sam Valdez (former WSD AoS Captain) was a big impact on our club, really pushing our crew to play top table.
Core WSD Members
Ryan Ariola (AoS, 40k, L5R)
Joel Cabrera (40k, super hobbyist)
Frank DeLoach (AoS, 40k, XWing)
Greg Haben (AoS, 40k)
Tyler Hamil (AoS, 40k, Historical)
Josh Greenfield (40k, AoS)
Pablo Abarca (AoS, Shadespire)
Playing with We Slay Dragons.
So, we gotta be honest. We’re super jealous of the UK scene. Having an actual space to host club nights. Baller!
The WSD club house has moved over the years, but you can always find us at Comic Quest in Lake Forest CA. Owned by Kelly & Don they do a great job and have an awesome space to host.
Like I stated above, many of the core members are actively involved in the competitive scene. So our Facebook and Discord chats are always cooking up new lists, army concepts and finding new ways to make a list razor sharp. Many of our members have either podium or won large events, and are always down for a good bit of fun at tournaments.
One of our favorite things as a club is taking a newer player who’s unsure of how to get into tournament gaming or build efficient lists, having them come roll some dice and guiding them into some confidence on the tabletop. Club member Pablo is a great example of this! Coming to us a little over two years ago, we met him at his first tournament! He was just an awesome dude, and now he’s top Free Peoples player in the ITC and suspect after Socal Open, top 10 in the country. (No pressure Pabs!)
Contacting We Slay Dragons
How to contact us?! Well… many of us are on Twitter – Ryan @kunninrukk Frank @wsdfrank Greg @socalaos.
We also have our Facebook! We Slay Dragons. We’re easy to find! Hit us up! Let’s have a drink and roll some dice!
Editor: For more on Frank and We Slay Dragons, check out this interview.
Hey everyone, a new week and a new club profile highlighting an Age of Sigmar Gaming Club from around the world. Today we have Ludic Incoming – Rome. The aim is to introduce the gaming clubs, explain their history, anecdotes, iconography and current and former players. You’ll find details of how to contact the club and follow along with their successes on social media. Today’s post was kindly written by Francesco of Ludic Incoming – Rome.
For more club profiles, check out the clubs section of the site. And, finally, as always, check out Dark Fantastic Mills for great 3D printed terrain perfect for wargaming. Its super versatile and light so worldwide shipping is inexpensive. Use the “aos shorts” discount code for a further 10% off the already decent prices.
The “Ludic Incoming” gaming club was born in Rome between 2008 and 2009, created by a group of friends looking for a place to meet up and play games once a week. At first the meeting place was the basement of a notorious gaming shop, but after a little while the group began expanding so there was a need to find a bigger space, and the designed location changed three times after settling where we still meet today.
Where to find Ludic Incoming – Rome
The expansion happened thanks to the decision to reach out to as many Roman miniature players and fans as possible, giving them a common place to meet, get to know each other and play together. We had the chance to stumble upon a chess club that was entrusted with the basement facilities of a pretty big high school in the Centocelle area of Rome, and we managed to get to use those premises as well.
The facility is now pretty big and well organized, with a large gaming room, able to fit up to a dozen gaming tables, with a couple of secondary rooms, along with two storage rooms where we keep our tables, terrain pieces and more.
We meet there every Tuesday and Friday from 9 PM to late night. Currently we have many active gaming groups: Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Warhammer 40k, Blood Bowl, Warhammer Underworlds, Necromunda and the new Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, as well a few other non-GW games and board games.
Regarding the AoS section, we grew a lot over the course of the past year. Before we were only a few people, now I can proudly say there are around 15 active players meeting at our club and we expect more from September and onwards. Some of us are interested in the tournament scene and some are not, but most of the time you will find a couple of us at every AoS tournament in Rome.
Upcoming Age of Sigmar event – Conquest Italia
As a matter of fact, we will be housing the next edition of the “Conquest” tournament October 27th-28th, a Games Workshop supported event happening every 6 months in Rome, and we are very proud to be the hosts this time since it will feature for the first time an AoS tournament, along with 40k and Shadespire (more info at the bottom of the article). Check out the Conquest Italia site for the info on the AoS tournament we will be hosting in October (and the Facebook event).
Ludic Incoming – Milan
From a couple of years we have a Ludic Incoming section also in Milan, started by a veteran member of the club who moved to Milan for work, and who now manages our second home. In any event you will recognize us by our classic t-shirts and hoodies featuring the Ludic Incoming bomb logo and colors: green and yellow for Rome members and green and orange for Milan members.
Growing the Age of Sigmar scene in Rome and Italy
Our most important goals are expanding the AoS pool in Rome, Milan and in Italy in general, promoting ourselves during Italy’s most important gaming conventions, and giving people a chance to spend some quality time together, playing and having fun while meeting new players and possibly new friends.
In this past year we hosted an AoS Skirmish tournament and a Path To Glory campaign, and we are also looking forward to organizing more AoS events: there is a new escalation campaign that started in September, where everyone begins with a small 250 points warband and expands it up to 2000 points.
In general we are happy to welcome new or experienced players, and you will always find someone glad to show you how to play from scratch, as well as more experienced opponents for full scale games. There is a wide variety of armies played by our players: Stormcast, Sylvaneth, Idoneth, DoK, Nighthaunt, Skaven, Khorne Bloodbound, Fyreslayers, Legions of Nagash, Kharadron Overlords, Legions of Azgorh, Bonesplitterz and even more.
Where and when to find Ludic Incoming – Rome
On a practical side, our meeting days are Tuesdays and Fridays, from 9.30 PM to 12 PM-1 AM (we are super flexible with hours), and you can find us here: Via Giorgio Perlasca @ ITIS Giovanni Giorgi, 00155 Rome, Italy.
You can follow us on Facebook. We have a WhatsApp AoS group where you are welcome to join us and where all important communications are transmitted.
The first time you will come will be free of charge, after that we have a gaming fee of 2€, strictly used for self-funding any sort of event and expense the club needs, and to refill our fridges with fresh beverages available to anyone. All you need to do is contact us so we can introduce you to the club premises and members. Just bring your models and dice, and we will supply the rest: a table, terrain and even an opponent!
Thanks to all the staff of AoS Shorts for this opportunity and shoot us a message on our Facebook page if you want more info.
Hey everyone, a new week and a new club profile highlighting an Age of Sigmar Gaming Club from around the world. Today we have South London Legion (@sthlondonlegion), home club of the recent AoS Grand Tournament winner, Ben Savva. The aim is to introduce the gaming clubs, explain their history, anecdotes, iconography and current and former players. You’ll find details of how to contact the club and follow along with their successes on social media. Today’s post was kindly written by club member, Nico.
For more club profiles, check out the clubs section of the site. And, finally, as always, check out Dark Fantastic Mills for great 3D printed terrain perfect for wargaming. Its super versatile and light so worldwide shipping is inexpensive. Use the “aos shorts” discount code for a further 10% off the already decent prices.
The South London Legion is a wargaming club in Croydon, South London. If you’re looking for Age of Sigmar, Shadespire, 40K, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, the Hobbit, Malifaux or other games in London, then shuffle like a Chainrasp down to the South London Legion any Wednesday afternoon.
Typically we have about 12-16 players on a Wednesday weekly playing various games. Our WhatsApp groups are the beating heart of the club, with near continual list building, hobby and banter.
Gaming at the South London Legion
Memberstypicallyplay one one or two 2,000 point games in an evening or one large game and then a smaller game like Kill Team or Necromunda.
If you have a smaller force, then someone should be happy to give you an introductory or demo game as well.
There’s a competitive edge to some of the members of the club – we’re often practising for tournaments. Some members like Ben “Best Dressed” Savva and Rob “Gamey Pete” Bradley have done well at recent events and we regularly get decent numbers to large events around the country.
Narrative gaming at the South London Legion
There’s also a more narrative side to the club, particularly on the 40K side and with Ben “Four Flappies” Raven and his refusal to take named characters.
We’ve run a successful 9 round Bloodbowl league and are looking to do the same with Necromunda and 40K/Kill Team.
Venue
We’ve recently upgraded our venue to the bar area of a hotel, which offers ample gaming space and storage. Most importantly…
It has a bar🍻It’s a bright room with a big fan in the summer! You can now find us at the Lansdowne Hotel in Croydon.
The new venue is between East Croydon and West Croydon Stations. You can get regular trains from London Victoria or London Bridge to East Croydon in only 15 minutes.
Social media and contract details
The Legion are a large club with strong social media presence – the guys and gals are all over Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to reach out to them through either of those media.
Hey everyone, so this is the (slightly delayed) second article in the new series highlighting Age of Sigmar Gaming Clubs from around the world. Today we have Measured Gaming (@MeasuredGaming_). The aim is to introduce the gaming clubs, explain their history, anecdotes, iconography and current and former players. You’ll find details of how to contact the club and follow along with their successes on social media.
For more club profiles, check out the clubs section of the site. And, finally, as always, check out Dark Fantastic Mills for great 3D printed terrain perfect for wargaming. Its super versatile and light so worldwide shipping is inexpensive. Use the “aos shorts” discount code for a further 10% off the already decent prices.
The Measured Gaming lads have truly put Bendigo, Victoria, Australia on the Age of Sigmar map. The guys are instantly recognisable at Australian events and have a great deal of swag. If you don’t know, Bendigo is deep in the Aussie bush and described as “a gold rush boom town” that has now reinvented itself for tourism.
Peter Atkinson (@PlasticCraic) has kindly provided the write up on Measured Gaming for this post.
Measured Gaming is based in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia – Bendigo will be best known to some people outside Australia as the location for the recent Rick and Morty parody episode. For those who don’t know, we are located a couple of hours north of Melbourne, and proud of our status as the Bogan Kings of Australian Wargaming!
Our focus is heavily on GW games, and Age of Sigmar in particular is huge at the club. Many of us have been along for the journey from Day 1, right through the campaign book era, through the launch of the first General’s Handbook and now we are all stoked to welcome 2nd Edition.
We are a relatively young club, with just over 3 years of history, though most of us had experience with other gaming clubs prior to the establishment of Measured, whose purpose was to provide a great place for fans of Games Workshop games in Central Victoria.
Where to find Measured Gaming
We meet alternate Saturdays at The Old Church on the Hill in Bendigo, from Noon until late, with people coming and going throughout the afternoon as it suits them. And when we say until late…we mean late. The current record for a meet to finish is 5am the following morning. If you think you can beat that, new members are always welcome to come along and have a go!
Where you can find wargamers in the early hours of the morning
*not actually Measured Gaming
Our club meets always feature a barbecue – what could be better than smashing into some barbecued meat, and discussing the day’s gaming over a Battle Brew or three?
Measured Gaming – Tales of Victory
The club sent a 10-strong delegation to CanCon this year, which was the first 2-day event many of us had attended. We like to think we arrived on the national scene with a bang, rocking our club Hawaiian shirts with style! Our best performer was the club’s Overlord Joel McGrath (@JoelMcGrathMG), who finished 8th overall from a field of 104, and picked up a Coolest Army nomination…and won Best Terrain piece into the bargain. We are always keen to play with good terrain, and our club meets and events always take place on high quality game mats.
At time of writing, the club has 7 members in the Top 24 positions of the Australian Matched Play Rankings (the Top 24 getting an invite to Masters at the end of the year).
Some very Australian movement trays!
We regularly travel to tournaments in Melbourne and throughout Australia, and we are particularly keen to support the new SAGT in Adelaide next year, visiting our good friends from Realmless Gaming.
Probably the most famous tradition at the club is the General’s Showdown, where the generals of each army face off in an arena of death. We use this as the tie breaker for placings at our events, in place of secondary objectives, and it has given us some great moments over the years.
At the Club Championships last year, we had a 3-way showdown for 3rd place between a Lord Celestant on Dracoth, a Lord Celestant on Stardrake, and a Mighty Lord of Khorne. The Dracoth went first, and charged the Mighty Lord (he didn’t want a bit of the Stardrake!) – he failed to kill Khorne’s Chosen, who in turn swung back and insta-jibbed the Dracoth with his Reality Splitting Axe.
Down to two now. The Mighty Lord is up next. He charges the Stardrake. Sneaks one wound through that filthy save. On a 5+ Reality will split again, and that’s for a place on the podium.
He throws the dice and turns his back.
He can’t look.
He doesn’t need to look.
The roar from the crowd tells him what he needs to know…He pops the big 5 and that’s it, goodbye Stardrake!
The place goes off, everyone is going mental, overweight nerds are trying to high five each other (and missing), and Pat’s place in Measured Gaming history is secured forever!
Measured Gaming Events
Across the course of the year, we run events at 1000 points, 2000 points and 2500 points. Our belief and experience is that this leads to a very healthy gaming environment. Different factions and builds come to the fore at different points levels, and it presents an ongoing and thought-provoking list-building challenge.
We hosted a 1000 point event earlier this year that hit 30 players: we believe that is the biggest AOS event in the state of Victoria to date, which is quite an achievement for a town in the Australian Bush…and sets the bar for the Melbourne community to reach for! We are hopeful that we will beat our own record with the forthcoming Bush Bash Bonanza GT on 20th -21st October, which along with Badgacon in June is one of the two annual 2000 point GTs ran by the Club.
We also enjoying running days with a less competitive focus. One of our biggest days of the year is the Random Doubles event (1000 points each, paired up randomly on the day, with Battleplans drawn from sources such as the Realmgate Wars books or Battletomes).
Measured Gaming Social Media
The Club is highly active on social media: follow our Twitter account @MeasuredGaming_ (which is run by Peter Atkinson @PlasticCraic) to stay up to date on our club meets and events. As well as recently launching our new YouTube channel, we have been Livestreaming key moments from club events on the group Facebook page. Anyone who has joined us for those Livestreams will tell you that things can get rowdy in Bendigo on a Saturday night!
Last year we hosted what we believe to have been the largest game of AOS played anywhere in the world to date: Order & Death vs Destruction & Chaos, in a custom Battleplan where your objective was to sack your enemy’s fortress while defending your own. Including summoned units, the game hit 100,000 points per side and although we’ve actively searched, we can’t find one bigger anywhere in the world!
Come along to Measured Gaming
Measured Gaming is a very welcoming club and we draw in members from throughout the state and even further afield: we regularly have people attending meets and events from towns such as Kyneton, Castlemaine and Maryborough. We also have close links with the Melbourne AOS community, and are always happy to welcome them to Bendigo, as well as visitors from other wargaming clubs such as our friends at Mitchell Shire and Borderline Gaming.
We are always very grateful that people are willing to travel to come and roll dice with us, and the continuous growth of AOS has been great for everyone involved.
More players, more tournaments, more games, more fun!
Hey everyone, so I’m adding a new series to the site to highlight Age of Sigmar Gaming Clubs from around the world – first up are the Cheltenham Warchiefs (@CheltWarchiefs). The aim is to introduce the gaming clubs, explain their history, anecdotes, iconography and current and former players. You’ll find details of how to contact the club and follow along with their successes on social media.
For more club profiles, check out the clubs section of the site. And, finally, as always, check out Dark Fantastic Mills for great 3D printed terrain perfect for wargaming. Its super versatile and light so worldwide shipping is inexpensive. Use the “aos shorts” discount code for a further 10% off the already decent prices.
The Cheltenham Warchiefs are one of the most instantly recognisable Age of Sigmar clubs on the UK tournament scene. Warchief Baz (@WarchiefBaz) kindly provided the write-up and photos for this profile.
The Cheltenham Warchiefs club is over 20 years old and under the guidance of the current gaffa, John Harrison is going from strength to strength. It’s fair to say that the club embraced Age of Sigmar from the start so we have a large pool of players who love and play the game on a weekly basis. On average there are at least 4-5 games ongoing each club night. The club provides boards, gaming mats and scenery so all you need to do is turn up with an army and play.
We also run all day Sunday gaming a couple of times a year as well as a Mini Waaggh 750 point Age of Sigmar tournament every 3-4 months. We have also run several larger Age of Sigmar tournaments such as the Warchief Warpath and Warchief GT (and the infamous monster hunter award) with further events planned for the future.
Some of our more illustrious members are former South Coast Grand Tournament winner, Robert Sedgemen (@sedge55), Les Martin of the Facehammer Podcast (@__Wintersoldier) and the Mighty Lord of Khonre, Pano (@The_True_Pano). Club members attend lots of tournaments around the country and can be identified by our distinctive purple and yellow hoodies, so if you spot us come and say hello!
If you are interested in coming down to the club please contact us via Twitter or Facebook. First game is free and then its £2.50 per game after that. Age of Sigmar games can be arranged via the Warchief WhatsApp group and we are happy to take new players through tutorial games of Age of Sigmar so they can get to grips with the rules.
