Reecius continues to learn Age of Sigmar with his Wood Elves vs. a veteran AoS gamer: Scott and his awesome looking Death Warband in a special scenario: The Watch Tower!
Scott’s 50 Wound List:
- 1 Vampire lord on mount
- 1 Necromancer
- 1 Mortis Engine
- 5 Hexwraiths
- 2 units of 3 Spirit host
Reecius’ 50 Wound Wood Elf list:
- Durthu
- 8 Dryads
- 5 Waywatchers
- 5 Waywatchers
- 5 Glade Riders
- Waywatcher Lord
- Spellsinger
Mission: The Watch Tower
Deployment:
The Wood Elves would be the attacker in the Scenario, starting all units within 8″ of either short table edge.
The Wood Elves deploy along a broad front, ready to advance! Important to note, we were using the craters as Sylvaneth Wyldwoods as mine are not yet painted.
Death was defending the Watch Tower, with a unit of Spirit Host and a Necromancer on it, all other forces coming in from the opposite short table edge turn 1!
Turn 1: Initiative: Wood Elves
Glade Riders with their speedy 14″ move go up the flank, loosing arrows into the Spirit Hosts. Durthu advanced to within 3″ of a Wyldwood to utilize his teleportation ability next turn. The Dryads and Waywatchers ran forward and the Waywatcher Lord moved forward and let fly some of his own arrows into the Spirit Hosts.
The Glade Riders benefit from Mystic Shield from the Spellsinger as I planned on having them rush into melee next turn. The Spellsinger decided not to run forward which would turn out to be a big goof on my part.
The forces of Death came in from reserves to support their spirit bros in the Watch Tower. He also adds Mystic Shield to the Spirit Host in the tower, giving them a huge save bonus!
Spooky Ghosts advancing!
Turn 2: Initiative: Wood Elves
Durthu used the Spirit Paths to teleport up into the Wyldwood near the Watch Tower, and the rest of my forces advanced. The archers all let loose with arrows but the 2+ ignores rend save on the Spirit Hosts means they’re tough to hurt. The Dryads ran forward to get into melee next turn.
In combat, Durthu made the 9″ charge but then bounced off of the incredible defense of the Spirit Hosts…doh! Had I ran the Spellsinger on turn 1, he would have been able to automatically dispell the Mystic Shield that made them so hard to hurt and any successful wound from Durthu would have done 6 wounds! Similarly, the Glade Riders did very little damage. Lesson learned: I should have had all my archers go after the much more vulnerable Necromancer to take away those buffs and been patient.
Death counter attacks! The Hexwraiths take Mystic Shield from the Necromancer and then charged Durthu. The Mortis Engine flew up the table and blasted my Glade Riders with 4 mortal wounds, ouch! The Vampire Lord and Spirit Host ran forward. In Melee, the Spirit Hosts get Stomped by Durthu and lose their ability to cause Mortal Wounds which was super useful. Durthu swung before the Hexwraiths and only 1 attack got through but as it auto caused 6 wounds, 3 of them exploded! He then took a wound in return.
Turn 3: Initiative: Death
The dreaded double turn! Death won the initiative and I was sweating bullets. The Vampire Lord came in hot to attack Durthu! He along with the Hexwraiths dropped him down to 7 wounds, ouch! But in return, Durthu wiped out the rest of the Hexwraiths. The Stomp again prevented the Spirit Hosts from doing Mortal Wounds (they need to roll a 6 to cause them, Groundshaking Stomp is -1 to hit) which really helped me out.
The Mortis Engine flew up, unleashed his once per game mortal wound AoE attack and wasted a bunch of my Dryads and last Glade Guard…yikes. It then charged into the Dryads and the Waywatchers. Previously, by instinct, we’d be charging as in 40k: going the shortest distance. However, in AoS you simply move your charge distance and must end within 1/2″ of the target unit. Any units within 3″ are then engaged. This is a big difference! It allows a single model to engage multiple units which can be very useful and opens the door to a lot of strategies we missed at first. The Mortis Engine then beat up on some of my Waywatchers and Dryads =(
In my turn, I focused all of my ranged fire on the Necromancer as its spell allowing the Spirit Hosts to attack twice was brutal! Between my Waywatchers and lord, I did drop the Wizard, but only just! My Spellsinger moved over to support the Waywatchers stuck in melee, bringing some of them back to life with his spell. Had he been further up field, I could have been trying to unbind spells all game and used his once per game auto-unbind ability which is so good. Bad positioning bit me in the butt on this one.
In melee, Durthu and the Vampire Lord beat on one another. As Durthu no longer did 6 auto wounds and had a debuff spell cast on him lowering his attacks, he didn’t slay the Vampire Lord outright, but did take a big chunk out of him! The Spirit Hosts, once again, were unable to Mortally Wound Durthu thanks to his Groundshaking Stomp ability. This really saved my bacon all game. The Mortis Engine smoked some more Waywatchers and smacked my Spellsinger, too! He now only had 2 wounds left and I quickly realized going into melee with him was a terrible idea, haha.
Turn 4: Initiative: Wood Elves
Double turn for me! My Lord and unengaged unit of Waywatchers loose arrows into the Vampire Lord and with their 2 damage shots, managed to slay him! Huzzah! Shooting into and out of combat at full effect is a bit much, I have to say. There should be some penalty, but I digress. Stake to the heart, Vampire Lord!
In melee, Durthu finished off the last Spirit Host in the Watch Tower, claiming it for the Wood Elves! The Mortis Engine continued to take a beating from my Dryads and Wanderers, but finished off the last Waywatchers it was engaged with.
Death, now running low on units, continued to try and go for the Watch Tower. The last unit of Spirit Hosts assaulted Durthu!
Unfortunately, Durthu once again Stomped the Spirit Hosts preventing them from doing Mortal Wounds and effectively stopping them from hurting him. He in turn, slew two of them in combat.
The Mortis Engine killed my Spellsinger who had no business in melee in the first place, lol, but the last of the Dryads held firm, passing their Battleshock test and taking another wound off the ghostly carriage.
We rolled to see if the game would go on another turn, but it did not. Thus, the game ended with Durthu–bloodied but still standing–locked in combat with the last Spirit Host on the Watch Tower meaning neither of us held it. I had slain the Vampire Lord and the Necromancer, earning me two bonus points, but I had not gotten into Scott’s third of the table leaving me with a grand total of 2 bonus points.
Death had failed to achieve any of their mission objectives so in the end, Wood Elves win! Scott quickly realized that had he simply retreated from combat with his Mortis Engine, he could have gotten on to the Watch Tower and won the game, having two models on it to my one, but he got caught up in trying to beat me in combat. Lesson learned!
It was a very fun game and the scenario was great. This was my first time playing against these Death units and Scott’s army was much different than Brandon’s Zombie themed army I have been playing against. Once again, Durthu carried my army. His Stomp essentially won me the game as it prevented those deadly mortal wounds from taking him out much earlier. The Spirit Hosts have a ton of attacks which when doubled by the Necromancer, are crazy! So many chances to roll that 6 to hit and score a mortal wound would have taken Durthu out early but I kept rolling a 4+ on them to apply that -1 to hit.
In retrospect, I would have killed that Necromancer much earlier and waited a bit to attack the tower as with my superior shooting, there was no reason to rush in so quickly. I could have blasted him with arrows and then charged in the last turn or two after I softened him up. Either way though, super fun game. Age of Sigmar is growing on us all in a big way. While simple to learn, there is so much depth to the game and with the General’s Handbook coming out bringing points and some structure to the game, I think it is going to really take off!
Thank you for reading and as always, Frontline Gaming sells Age of Sigmar product at up to 25% off, every day! You can also pick up some cheap used Age of Sigmar models in our Second Hand Shop!
I want to put up a big disclaimer here first: I absoltuely love what you guys do and just how much effort you put into promoting the hobby. Especialy knowing there is easier money elsewhere iwth that sheer amount of effort.
That said, I realy hope there is some kind of deal with GW going on to promote AOS because otherwise I have no idea why you keep trying to make this game take off.
Not going to repeat all the negatives here, everyone has seen that discussion done to death.
You’re making the official Warmachine mats, if you realy want to push a fantasy skirmish game why not that? I don’t even like Warmashine but that’d make sense.
AOS ain’t happening. They made up the target audience. There are games out there that put in so much effort with so much less means and they could use the push way more. And you know might produce actual happy players. Instead of a group of people who’ll keep telling themselves their expensive purchase was worth it and everyoen else just has the wrong attitude.
Personally I love the AoS reports and I’ve had nothing but fun in my games with it.
Even managed to get a particularly jaded player to get into it. It’s simple and fun.
I’m lookin forward to a lot more AoS content from you guys.
The game sounded fun. The big tree man is a beast if you can’t cause a lot of wounds to him before he gets to you. I can’t wait till you have the new sylvaneth units. Are you getting Arielle with her giant beetle?
I’m with you here. Everyone who has given it a fair chance here has really enjoyed it. Even a few people who disliked that it existed but were able to put their opinions aside for a game. Personally I play it more than 40k right now because its just easier without having to worry about points per model and upgrades and the force org. That stuff is all coming out but I know a few of us will stick to doing whatever we want in addition to using it.
Hell yeah I got Alerielle! That model is astounding!
I really don’t get your attitude here. People are enjoying the game and you’re trying to tell them they’re not actually having fun and just fooling themselves?
The game is neat. It’s simple, straightforward, but has a measure of depth in terms of combos and list building. The events that people put on are doing just fine, and some stores have full on embraced it. Maybe it’s not “happening” in that it didn’t convert all WHFB players into AoS players, but it’s happening in that it has a following just like any other wargame.
Or, maybe, myself and others actually do like AoS?
Maybe some people like things that others don’t and that’s fine?
Maybe if there’s an article explicitly about things you don’t like you shouldn’t look at them?
I mean, that’s all just a possibility of course 😉
I’m so glad you’ve opened my eyes. I truly thought not a single person alive was enjoying the game. I never considered the possibility that some people might. And since everything is total a number bigger than none must mean its so many the game just has to break even.
On a less ironic note I’ve said my piece and won’t rain on people who are having fun anymore. I think it is a massive shame to put the effort into a game that was made with the attitude of “we don’t care what you want” and that’s been brewing up for a while now (I’m the angry sort. It’s in my name…) so I had to spit it out or explode and I just painted the walls so I can’t have that.
It’s an understandable stance to take, GW did put it out at a pretty low point and with an air of disdain. But honestly with all the effort they’ve put into it lately – the General’s Handbook, reaching out to Tournament Organizers, working with organizations to make the rules work better, putting out FAQs – I think it’s a fair time to give them a bit more slack.
I would never say it doesn’t have a tumultuous past, and I don’t know if Rountree would have killed WHFB if he was in charge at the time, but I think they’re doing their best with the situation that was in place, and that best is actually turned into something pretty good. And it’s also very thanks to the community that kept it going in the year of bitter downfall up until this point, who saw the potential and worked hard to make it decent.
You’re entitled to your opinion friend, no hard feelings. I felt fairly similar to you until Jason finally convinced us to give it a real shot and once we did, we all started loving the game. You just need some sensible restrictions put in place and the game is actually a blast. It is starting to gain a lot of steam, actually. You may not like it, which is fine, but I honestly feel with the General’s Handbook it will take off.
Great battle report! Sounds like that was a fun one.
It was!
Great report. Playing in a league at my local store, myself with my ogres. We are doing wounds now but will be switching to points in a few weeks
Ogres are great. Really hoping the rumors of new ogre models this summer come true.
Yeah, and such awesome models, too!
Oh man, you have no idea how badly I want them to put out a proper Rhinox model. I love Rhinos, and ogres are badass monsters riding two-horned rhinos… Right now my only options are a Rhinox strapped to a cannon (pretty awesome I admit) and Forgeworld rhinox riders.
Great report! I like to see that you are using some of the scenarios there. I don’t mind the generic 40k like ones you guys have but the GW ones can be a ton of fun. Keep it up! There are a few really cool ones in the godbeasts book too. The other day we modified the one where the monsters are randomly controlled to the monsters kill everyone. This was a ton of fun especially since we had 5x more monsters than we should have.
Yeah, the scenarios are good fun. We will make some generic ITC AoS missions for tournament play, too, but for a laugh these missions are awesome.
Loving the AOS content and written battle reports with pictures. We’re planning to take part in the worldwide campaign in August, and switching to the official point system once the General’s Handbook is released. (currently using PPC comp). Lots of interest here, so hoping the AOS content continues!
Glad you’re enjoying it! We have no plans to stop, everyone is having too much fun with the game.
So from what I’ve seen, a lot of the old models will not have points for Pitched Battles, including your Waywatchers. What do you think you’ll replace them with if/when you switch to Points?
Probably just make points for them, ourselves honestly. We don’t want people to not be able to play with their models, that’s no fun.
Oh don’t worry about that. The current leak just didn’t take pictures of the whole thing. Even tomb kings and brettonia got points so everything is getting points.
OK, awesome!
I love seeing all this interest in the game. Right after the release the shock of new rules and a new attaude crushed the leagues here. A year later we have a working league of 12+ players half of them new to Warhammer and our last tournament had dozens of people now checking out the game. It’s a great pick up game and has lots of new awesome models. Right now as a war gamer we have a plethora of choices and we can find the one, two, or ten games that scratch that itch. What a great time to be a gamer.
The list has 5 Hexwraiths not 6 I would not want people thinking I cheated by 2 wounds, and still lost, Durthu why!!! I hope to see some of you at LVO, at the AoS event. I make it a habit to by the first round of drinks each game. “Only the Faithful!”
Great game, buddy! I will change your list in the article to reflect 5 models.
And yes, Durthu is bonkers, lol!
I like these barrels very much. Especially when you write them out so I can read them quietly on my break at work. Keep up the good work!
Glad you like them, buddy!
I’m still only playing 40k, but I hope to get to Sigmar in the future. I’m enjoying these battle reports. A lot of people at our local store collect AoS, and they’ve started playing it frequently now.
It’s a very fun game!
Interesting notes:
Reece’s list comes to about 1240 points, 3 Leaders, 1 Behemoth, and 4 Battlelines
Scott’s list comes to 840 points, 2 Leaders and 1 Behemoth
Points will be very different from Wounds as a means of measuring armies!
Yeah, can’t wait for points!
The points can be brutal though. We have been testing here and with the stuff I have I can only run a warherd army. My battleline units are minotaurs…. It’s been nuts and I feel so dirty….. For friendly games I need to see if the opponent is ok with me going points only because its LESS brutal. At 1000 points I can bring 9 minotaurs, a doombull and the ghorgon with the bullhor stampede to buff the damage a lot… And that’s it. At 2000 there are very few more options since warherd has access to only 4 different units and they hit hard.
You can run an army of anything, you just get bonuses for running it in the same Allegiance. You retain Chaos Allegiance (and get use of the general abilities and relics then) and take any other chaos army, though the Bullgors are no longer Battleline.
Sadly that’s my problem. They are the only potential battleline unit I own at the moment. The list before was minotaurs and bestigors with a wizard doombull and some monsters. Ya no longer matched play legal lol. I just need to get the hundreds of gors/ungors earlier than I thought lol. I’ll probably start on the undead first.
Well hey, if you need to order a bunch of AoS stuff, you can get it from Frontline Gaming at a nice discount 😉
You can run just a chaos Warband and throw more stuff in.
Ya I plan to so long as we aren’t doing their force org. If we use the force org I can only go warherd since I don’t have any other battleline units lol. Especially since the other chaos factions don’t appeal to me. But since I plan to get over 120 ungors and 100 goes that wont matter too much.
Yeah, you’re good to go, then. As I understand it, you can make just a Chaos Warband. You may not get the specific benefits of the eventual Warherd faction, but the Chaos faction bonuses and magic items will be available to you.