Hey there Age of Sigmar friends, Reecius here with another learning league battle report! This time: Brandon’s Death army vs. my Wood Elves! Check the Tactics Corner for more great Age of Sigmar battle reports!
Here’s my force:
- Wayfinder Lord
- 11 Glade Guard
- 5 Wardancers
- 1 Warhawk Rider
And Brandon’s army:
- 11 Zombies
- Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon
Mission: modified ITC Scenario 6
We deployed across from one another and got ready for battle! Brandon took first turn and summoned 10 additional Zombies on to the table, then advanced up field.
In return, I moved my Wardancers towards the Zombie Dragon and my archers moved to the edge of their effective range and unleashed everything they had! Hail of Doom Arrow, the Glade Guard’s once per game -3 rend arrows, the works, and put 6 wounds on the Vampire Lord. The Wardancers charged in and put another 3 Wounds on the Vampire, who then killed them, regaining a wound. Got him down to 4 when all was said and done.
I won the initiative and so got to go again! I then let loose with another volley or arrows into that damn Vampire and assaulted with the Warhawk, desperately trying to finish the him off. Between all of them I got it down to just 3 wounds but that simply was not enough. I had to kill the beast to stand any chance. In dying, the Warhawk gave the Vampire another wound back =(
Bottom of turn 2, the Vampire uses his Blood Chalice to regain 4 wounds which was very bad for the Wood Elves! Brandon also summoned in another 10 Zombies and both they and the Vampire made a 9 inch charge into my two remaining units and wiped me.
Wow! Haha, holy crap. Brandon could have only put the Vampire on the table against my entire army and I would have lost. I simply could not kill it, even with the double turn, and summoning in additional Zombies was more than I could handle. Had I not gotten the double turn, it wouldn’t have even been close. His ability to regenerate meant that even had he failed those last two charges and I got another round to shoot him, it would not have mattered. That thing is incredibly powerful, no one has managed to kill it yet in any of our games and it has singlehandedly murdered almost everyone’s armies, solo! lol.
Summoning is extraordinarily powerful. You really must impose some sort of limit on it to make the games at all enjoyable. At these lower points limits the impact is felt more, but there must be some limitation on it for any semblance of game balance.
That said, with my next 25 wounds I plan on bringing Durthu who if played well, can really kick the snot out of big baddies like the Vampire. Also, a unit like the Wildwood Rangers would be good for this purpose as well, as they are 3+ to hit and wound, -1 rend and do D3 wounds to Monsters. As is, at this low wound count, that dang Vampire is just brutally overpowering, like bringing a Wraithknight in a 500pt game or something similar.
As we play, we see wounds simply do not work for balancing the game as not all wounds in AoS are created equally! That was obvious prior to playing, but with practice it is painfully apparent. We’ve been looking at the SCGT format and really like what they’ve done with it as even with a simple read through, the pool points are infinitely more balanced than using wounds. We’ll wait to see what GW does in the General’s handbook, but may adopt the SCGT format as the league progresses.
All that said, I am very much enjoying the game. It is a lot of fun if you work through some of the giant rules mechanics holes, and, the models are brilliant. I definitely encourage folks to give it a try!
Thanks for reading and as always, Frontline Gaming sells Age of Sigmar product at up to 25% off of retail, every day!
Also, be sure to check out the Second Hand Shop to get some used models on the cheap!