AoS My first AoS battle!

So, I finally got a chance to play Age of Sigmar. We were playing at a friend's place, and so that I didn't have to bring my whole army with me, we decided to have a simple 50 wound game to start with. Other than that, we didn't really make any house rules.

I brought:

15 Saurus Warriors with clubs
10 Temple Guard
Stegadon
Bastiladon
Gor Rok (General)

My opponent had:

10 High Elf Spearmen
10 Swordmasters
5 Ellyrian Reavers
5 Shadow Warriors
Something the Radiant, a female wizard
High Elf Wizard on a horsie
Lothern Sea Helm (?) (General)

We had some terrain: on my deployment side, there was a building that never came into play and a forest, on his side there was a hill and another forest. In the middle there was a mystical monument. We rolled it to be Deadly, so models who crossed it's base rolled a die and on 1 are slain (Important part is slain, not wounded. I didn't notice this and happily run my Stegadon and Bastiladon through it... Luckily, no 1s...).

I deployed my Temple Guard into the forest, and the Saurus in front of the building. Gor Rok was in the forest as well, and Dinos between Saurus and Gor Rok, on plain sight.

His Ellyrian Reavers and Shadow Warriors were in the other forest and were opposed to my Saurus, and Spearmen and Swordmasters were opposing the Temple Guard. Sea Helm was behind the Spearmen and the mages behind the Swordmasters.


He started. In magic, he cast the Mystic Shield twice on the Swordmasters, I don't remember if both were successful, but now they had a 3+ Save. He also cast something called the Emerald Shield that gave them 6+ "Ward" save, which acts after a failed save. It was a bubble spell, so all of his units on that side of the board were affected. He then also tried to cast Lifebloom or something, that would heal models (no wounds yet, though), and also gave another 6+ Ward on top of the Emerald Shield. He asked me if that is how it works and we checked the rules and couldn't find anything so we agreed that they stack. I didn't have any mages, so for me it was just watching him rolling two dice at a time. It wasn't very exciting to him either. Only later we noticed, that you can only cast a certain number of spells per phase for each of your mages, detailed on the Warscroll entry. That makes it at least a little bit more tactical. In any case, magic is not very exciting part of the game anymore. I also find Lizardmen spells boring. The Slann special spell is ok, but then it's just the default spells and summoning. Yawn.

The Reavers moved forward and Shadow Warriors moved to get the cover from the forest. Spearmen and Swordmasters moved forward as well, and his heroes were following them.

The Reavers and Shadow Warriors shot at the Saurus Warriors and I think they managed to do one unsaved wound. The Reavers then used their special rule where they can move 2D6 inches after shooting and hid behind the Shadow Warriors.

It was battleshock for my Saurus as they had lost some models, but it wasn't necessary to roll the die, because with Bravery 10, they couldn't fail anyway. Cool!


Then came my turn. Of course, since it doesn't cost anything anymore, I had Full Command on both Saurus and Temple Guard, so they marched forward. Gor Rok was trying to follow them, but immediately was left behind as he rolled only 2 for his run. The Stegadon moved towards the Shadow Warriors and Bastiladon towards Spearmen.

Stegadon was not in range for shooting, but Bastiladon could blast with the Searing Beam. In the hindsight, I should have tried to get rid of the heroes first, but instead I decided to thin the Spearmen unit. I think I got something like seven wounds through, but he rolled well on his saves and the ward, and only two elfies were grilled.

We rolled again for turns, another 2 for me, and he rolls 5 gets to choose. He goes first. He uses his general's command ability to give the Swordmasters rerolls to wound and saves, or something. Then fails all the spells other than one Mystic Shield on Swordmasters, one Arcane Bolt on Temple Guard (only one casualty, though, whew) and the Emerald Shield thingie.

In the movement phase, Shadow Warriors backed up a bit, Spearmen and Swordmasters nudged a bit forward.

Shooting dropped 3 Saurus and Reavers back up and were between the Spearmen and Shadow Warriors, quite close to my Stegadon.

He didn't charge anything, the distance was still pretty big between his troops and mine.


My turn! I use Gor Rok's command ability on the Swordmasters, anticipating a battle soon. Saurus and Temple Guard move and try to charge. Saurus fail, but Temple Guard reach the Swordies. Gor Rok runs but I roll another two. New game, still the same story. If there was an ability that activated on 2, I would have been on fire... Stegadon and Bastiladon move.

Stegadon shoots at the Reavers with it's flame throwers, all are in the range, so 5 hit rolls, I hit with 3, wound on all, and he saves one. Now at this point, we didn't remember that the cavalry now has 2 wounds, and he removes two models. Don't know if that unit could have affected the game, though, the results might have been the same. I also forgot that the Skinks can shoot... Bastiladon shoots at the Swordmasters I roll 7, hit 5 times and wound 4, he saves them all. Rats.

Temple Guard swing at the Swordmasters, holy guacamoley, they have so many attacks! I roll decently, and get something like 5 wounds through, but he saves all but 2. He swings and 4 Temple Guard fall. Ouch.

In Battleshock Phase, I need not roll anything again, my opponent rolls for the Reavers and Swordmasters. Both pass.


Another roll off, and I won! I choose to go first. I reapply Gor Rok's ability on Swordmasters. Saurus move very close to the Shadow Warriors, Stegadon closes on the Spearmen and Bastiladon takes a step forward. I made sure his mages are in the range now.

In Shooting Phase, Bastiladon unleashes the Searing Beam on Whatever the Radiant, 7 hits, 5 wounds, he saves 4... And apparently Radiant heals herself one wound every Hero Phase. Well, that doesn't look good.

Then my Saurus and Stegadon charge. Both succeed, the Saurus kill 4 Shadow Warriors and take one casualty back. Stegadon stomps on Spearmen, killing 5 (I didn't roll too hot here either) and takes no wounds in return. Gor Rok charges the Swordmasters, and barely succeeds. Temple Guard and Gor Rok swing left and right, but after all is said and rolled, he still has 5 Swordmasters standing. One guy attacks Gor Rok and manages one wound, the others kill 2. I'm left with 3 Temple Guard and Gor Rok.

In Battleshock, the last Shadow Warrior decides to abandon the battlefield. I won't be mentioning Battleshock anymore, as after this either no one has to roll it anymore, or they pass.


In his turn, he tries to cast the Arcane Bolt twice on the Stegadon, only one goes through. Stegadon takes three wounds. He fails all the other spells except Emerald Shield. It surprised me how easy it is to fail spells that need 6 or 7 on 2D6.

His general moves towards the Stegadon and mages shuffle a little bit.

He decided not to shoot with the Reavers, but charge instead, to tie them up and not let them get involved in the bigger battles yet.

His general charges the Stegadon and Reavers catch up with Saurus. I don't remember exactly how many wounds the Reavers cause, but Saurus wipe them out and I think they had 7 models left. Sea Helm wounds the Stegadon once, who in return stomps him, but only does 2 wounds.

Swordmasters wipe out the Temple Guards and wound Gor Rok, he then kills two Swordies in return.


On my turn Gor Rok keeps applying his command ability on the Swordmasters. Saurus move around the Stegadon and Spearmen, towards the mages.

Bastiladon shoots at the Swordmasters, but fails to wound any. Stegadon shoots into the battle where he is, because apparently he can. After flamethrowers and spears, one Spearman is still standing.

In combat, Stegadon fails to do anything, but doesn't take any wounds either. Gor Rok takes a beating, but still has one wound left. He is left facing two Swordmasters. Uh oh...


Again we roll off, and again he wins. Luckily, he rolls terribly for spells, and only manages to heal his general back to full and do the Emerald Shield. He then proceeds to kill Gor Rok, and causes one or two wounds on Stegadon. I think Steggie had 4 wounds left at this point. Even with her injuries, Stegadon inflicts 3 wounds on the Sea Helm.


My turn dawns. Saurus move and get ready to charge. Stegadon shoots at the Sea Helm, but fails to wound. Bastiladon shoots at the Swordmasters and kills one. Saurus successfully charge my opponents mage on a hores. Then on the Combat phase, Steggie finally finishes both his opponents off. Saurus strip a few wounds off of the mage. Mage misses, but her horse kills two Saurus. Super horse.

Another roll off, another victory for my opponent. I'm not sure which spells he got off, but at least two Arcane Bolts, that kill the Stegadon. He moves the Radiant one away from her colleague, and charges the Bastiladon with the remaining Swordmaster. Bastiladon takes one wound and proceeds to bitch slap the Swordie with his tail. Mage on a power horse kills another two Saurus and suffers two wounds. She's down to two, I think.

Final turn, I charge the Radiant with Bastiladon, score three hits and 7 wounds. My opponent saves a few but it still spells the end of her. The Saurus also kill the other mage.

A Victory! Hard fought, indeed.

I will post some of my thoughts of the game later. Thanks for reading!

 

At first, I thought I'd just write a short review of the battle, but as I started writing, I noticed that details of the battle came to me rather easily. As I continued to write, however, some things were really difficult to remember. But I was already too far ahead to stop...

Also, after the battle, we noticed that multiple wounds carry to the unit, so Gor Roks d3 wounds (with 6) would have actually mattered... Oh well.

Anyhoo, like I said, I'll write some thoughts about the battle, the AoS system and our armies.

AoS pros and cons:

+ Quite easy to jump in
+ I actually like the fixed to hit and to wound numbers. For some reason, it was always really difficult to remember what I need to hit something with a certain WS, and always had to check the table. It was annoying
+ Not devoid of tactics. You had to think about how to move, on whom to use the Command Abilities and such
+ Command abilities were fun!
+ Monsters were amazing!
+ Not Herohammer. I like that Heroes are now individually stronger than before, but also easier to kill, since there is no protection from the unit nor "unkillable" combos (I hope)
+ Battleshock was actually a pretty cool mechanic

- Stupid and boring magic phase
- Shooting into combat while in combat. Same with magic
- Why do I want to take Saurus again? Just more Temple Guard (Yeah, I know that there's that one Battle Formation...)
- The rules are too loose
- It felt like I was playing 40k but without plasma or any weapons that had the name "Annihilator" or "Devastator" attached into it
- It still takes a lot of time. Moving units is slow, even in such small numbers that we had.

I felt like my opponent brought the worst units he could and I brought a lot of good ones, and we still almost tied. I wonder what will happen when he'll bring better ones. Or, Ogors.... On the other hand, I still have a lot of units to try...

All in all, it was ok. Smooth and pretty fun, but it still felt something was missing.