AoS First Game of AoS - Seraphon vs Death

[TMTMTPoS]

I finally took the plunge today and bought myself a box of the saurus guard miniatures. Having built them I decided to go up against one of the other guys at the store in a roughly 500 point match. I was using the new saurus guard and an orruk proxied as an eternity warden - making a minimum size eternal star host (GW is out of wardens on their web store right now ). My opponent used a banshee, a unit of 5 hex wraiths and two units of three spirit hosts. Those of you with a few more games than me are probably cringing right now.

We played on a one by two tile board with a few forests and a realm gate at each end. The terrain was variously dangerous, with no friendly pieces at all.

Following deployment, I got the priority and stayed still, gaining the d3 damage from the formation (my deployment was the three units of guards in a roughly triangle shape around the warden). My opponent then proceeded two move one unit of hosts through the gate behind 1 unit of saurus. In combat I quickly grew to fear these as they dealt a mortal wound on every hit of a 6, killing 3 immediately.

I was highly unprepared for this and struggled to deal with them all match. He used his hexwraiths as very effective bait to take the majority of the hits while his hosts proceeded to systematically wipe out the rest of my forces.

In the end I was tabled and in return I had wiped out his hexwraiths, put his banshee to one wound and wounded 1 host. Another host died from walking through a forest.

All in all it was a fun game and a great learning experience, despite the degree of my loss. I have a newfound respect for the spirit hosts as their mortal wounds were responsible for all but one of my guard. I made a few tactical errors on my part - charging my warden into combat being the most prominent of these mistakes, and also I struggled to deal with the multitudes of rules at play throughout the game. I repeatedly forgot my wardens attacks, bites, the bonus attacks from my warden and other such things. I'm sure I shall learn to remember all these things as I get more used to the game (it was my first full sized game, after all!)

Please tell me what you think! (Also, is there any way I can effectively deal with spirit hosts? )

TMTMTPoS

 

[Bowser]

Shooting cures spirit hosts. Chameleon skinks make great ghostbusters!

 

[Crowsfoot]

Your warden is not there to attack he is a buffer keep him at the rear or in the middle where he is safe, you need some fast movers, Chamo skinks, rippers, Cavalry.

But you had fun that's the main thing.

 

[TMTMTPoS]

Thanks guys! Reflecting on the match, I realised i have a bit of a ruling question: when I dealt wounds to my opponent, he would roll saves, I would roll damage and then he would roll saves again for each damage I dealt. Is this correct? Otherwise the game would have resolved quite differently, i would probably still have lost it but not quite to the degree I did if this is the case. Just seems kinda weird.

 

[Bowser]

Depends on which units the opponent used and special abilities granted. Normally, the wound rolls are made followed by save rolls. Then determine the damage of all successfil attacks.
On units with special abilities like the great unclean one, you would roll each of the successful wounds individually.

This is why the Jade Battlemage is a fantastic addition to an order army as pointed out by @InfamousBeany
It allows that same ability.

 

[Killer Angel]

You hit, then you wound.
For every successful "to wound" your opponent will roll saves (modified by your rend).
Unsaved wounds are resolved as damage (as per the damage listed in the profile of the weapon ).
Death faction got a further ward save for each wound suffered (6 or 5, depends from the ability of the general) for every model within 10" from a death hero.

 

[Days to Daze]

From what I remember, there is an ability that allows death to roll saves again. additional armour save or something. I tested someone else's death army once and he advised me I could do this. I can't remember what it was that caused this though. I'll see if I can find out.

Edit*
Deathless minions:

Written the top left of the death allegiance ability page in the GHb