Last week a game of Age of Sigmar was enacted by myself, Pat and Vinny. Here is the report about it.
But First, An Apology
Firstly before I get to the hacking and slashing of the battle report I have to apologise for some of the shoddy camera work of yours truly. In my eagerness to play, I did very little reviewing of the pictures until 2 days later so lighting is poor and many pictures were unusable due to the piece of paper I was using to cut out glare also put large squares of shadow all over the shop.
On the plus side I had Aaron writing notes for a lot of the game so a lot of details were caught as opposed to me forgetting pertinent stuff.
The Armies
Three members of *C.L.A.W. showed up to play Age of Sigmar. I took a **suitcase full of Wood Elves, Vinny brought his Undead horde and Pat brought his small but deadly Warriors of Chaos.
I decided to take the following: Elf Lord on Dragon (Minty), mounted spellweaver, Branchwraith, 10 Wild Riders, 10 waywatchers, 10 Dryads and 5 sisters of The Thorn. Vinny took a Vampire Lord, a Necromancer, A Wight King BSB (or whatever they're calling themselves in AoS), 3 Vargeists, 3 Crypt horrors, 10 Grave Guard, 30 zombies, Corpse Cart and a Terrorgheist. Pat arrived with a Mounted Chaos Lord, 2 chaos sorcerors with a familiar each, 10 Chaos warriors, 3 Skullcrushers, 3 Dragon Ogres and a Chimera. All told the armies were approximately 100 wounds each.
The Cast
Jason - Elven Hero.
Vinny - Pale Undead Monster.
Pat - Twisted parody of a human.
Aaron - Hunched Scribe.
Stuart - Age of Sigmar Skeptic.
Phil - Null Zone of 6's.
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| Set Up |
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| Chaos Deployment |
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| Undead Deployment |
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| Elven Deployment |
Turn One
I won the roll for initiative and got the first turn. In the hero phase my Branchwraith cast Mystic Shield on the Treeman as I thought a 3+ armour save was a bit crap. My wizard cast the same spell on the dragon, Coupled with his command ability of rerolling ones in combat it made him a very unattractive target for my opponents. I advanced most of my stuff fairly carefully (or in Aaron's notes - wimps). My only offensive act was to ***double tap with my Waywatchers on the nearest chaos chariot taking 3 wounds. So at the end of my turn I had advanced well within the threat rage of the chaos forces.
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| After Elf and Undead turns |
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| In 8th Ed, a nightmare Flanking |
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| Vinny's zombies embrace their new found freedom of movement |
Turn Two
Once again I win the initiative roll (yay me), Pat second, Vinny brings up the rear. My Dragonlord uses his command ability to reroll 1's in combat (to hit and wound anyway). Mystic Shield fails. My Spellcaster gets all Necromancery and summons 3 Waywatchers back from the grave, or at least from the figure case. I stroll my Waywatchers out of combat with the Chariot (with a nyah nyah probably). Dragon, Dryads and Spellweaver advance towards chaos whilst the Wild Riders and Sisters of the Thorn go towards the Undead. The Sisters wound the Crypt Horrors with Blackbriar Javelins. The Waywatchers double tap the Chariot to death. Strangleroots fails to damage the Chimera. In the charge phase, Wild riders go for the Terrorgheist, the Dryads charge the Chariot whilst the Treeman and Minty decide to tag team the Chimera. The Treeman causes 4 wounds on the Chimera. The Terrorgheist kills two Wild Riders. The Chimera then takes a wound off the Treeman leaving him with 3 left. In return the Dragon narrowly fails to finish the Chimera off. The Dryads cause 2 wounds on the Chariot but lose the combat.
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| The Sinister Darkness Hides a Terrorgheist! |
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| Chimera vs Dragon & Chariot vs Dryad Scrap |
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| Wild Riders are not what they were in 8th |
In Vinny's turn we get to find out just how bad a Vampire is and just how good Zombies are! As my scribe went home I have no notes on what Vinny did in his hero phase, but summoning he did buff the Zombies (+1 A) to unpleasant proportions. The forces of undeath move forward merrily (as they always do) to play practical jokes and sing ribald songs - or whatever it is they do. The Zombies charge the Dragon Ogres and the Crypt horrors go at it with the Sisters. The Vampire also charges in to try to save the Crypy Horror battling the ******Skullcrushers. The Grave Guard fail a charge on the Sisters and end up looking sullenly at the ensuing combat. In the combat phase something terrifying and at the same time wonderful happened, the Zombies caused 14 wounds on the Dragon Ogres, unsurprisingly killing them, then one of the dead dragon Ogres miraculously came back as a Zombie! The Wild Riders get the Terrorgheist down to 1 wound and the final Crypt Horror fighting the Skullcrushers dies.
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| The Blender Zombies Advance! |
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| A Shadow Falls over the Grave Guard |
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| Disappearing Dragon Ogres |
Turn Three
The initiative roll roll is rolled and I win again! Pat next, Vinny last. In the hero phase I cast mystic shield on the Sisters and the now clinging to life by a thread Treeman. By this time it's getting late so we've already decided this will be the last turn. A total brainfart on my part makes me completely forget about my Wild Riders who could very probably get into combat with the Crypt Horrors beating up my Sisters of The Thorn. I shoot a few Zombies (simply to try to even out the playing field - I thought Vinny was at this stage ahead so it was time to try to drag him back into the mud). In combat Minty kills the troublesome Chimera. Minty is now sitting in a pile of Chimera gore waiting to see if anyone wants to come and play with her*******. It is, I'm pretty sure the turn the Treeman carks it, but I can't find in my notes who the culprit is. Ah well, I'm sure it was an heroic end.
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| Chaos Warriors come to save Minty's bacon (unintentionally I bet). |
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| Free Chaos Spawn! |
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| Minty tries to look inconspicuous! |
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| The Unblender Vampire vs Skullcrushers |
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| The continuing Chaos Warrior/Zombie tete a tete |
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| Wizards relaxing in the woods |
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| Where's my 4+ Ward Save? Where? |
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| Free Terrorgheist! |
Jason 54% lost,
Pat 56% lost,
Vinny 49% lost.
A win for Vinny albeit not a crushing one.
Conclusion
Well, I enjoyed that game, but it wasn't an accurate representation as I find when you're playing against two opponents both have to be considered in your movement phase and that leads to a more conservative style of play. I learnt a bit about the importance of sequencing your close combat attacks and other tactical aspects of the game. My failure to move the Wild Riders may have been influenced by my 8th edition habits of not considering models behind me as targets. It is also possible that if I had gotten them into combat with either the Crypt Horrors or Grave Guard, then it could have swung the kill ratio in my favour. I also learnt other things. For example the correct use of a light diffuser(?) would have made my photos much better. It is also imperative that you have some form of a plan - there are strategies despite what you hear on the forums. Simply mashing your stuff into your opponents just isn't enough. So until next time when I write up my next battle report against Donal's Empire army - I also have a bit of a plan - Thanks for reading!
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| Upside-Down Chaos Warrior on the ceiling watches impassively |
*Cavan Longford Associated Wargamers!
** Interestingly the order of placing models and the ability to stop placing stuff is one of the tactical considerations of the new game.
***I completely forgot for every to hit roll of a 6 with the Waywatchers I got another shot! Probably missed out on a couple of wounds, this may (or may not) have altered the games result drastically.
****Anything written in yellow denotes Aaron's comments.
***** Can't remember why, probably about who gets to attack, and when in a 3 way.
****** In AoS the world is turned upside down.
******* Yes I've decided she's a she.
******** This is probably due to Phil - host of the game - who has ungodly dice probability manipulation powers. He'd been playing Warmachine earlier so he couldn't interfere with our game until near the end.
