AoS: Games report

Here’s a battle report or two from Byakhee Stuart for Age of Sigmar:

t might be worth mentioning that we’re only occassional gamers – which is partly why AOS has ticked a few more boxes with us than with regular WFB gamers. That’s my get out clause anyway 🙂

So here we go:

It was good actually but we got a bit confused and got the combat sequence all very wrong. I have since played an enjoyable demo game in the local GW store.

First observation, it’s very, very different.
Second observation, it’s very, very simple compared to WFB.
Third observation, it was fun.

This chimes with other AAR I have read on the ‘net.

Okay the game with my Son (15 and has been playing dwarves since he was 11), was fun. The freedom to pick what you wanted to put on the table was nice and for the first time ever he wheeled out the anniversary White Dwarf – the one with Grombrindal being held alot by Josef Bugman and Gotrek. Previously that would never have happened due to points restrictons. I put out a fairly tepid Undead Legion with 20 warriors with spears, 10 achers, 10 zombies, a Tomb King, a ‘Death Wizard’, some Morghast Archai and some Verghast big bat flappy scary things and Grumpy Moira, a banshee. Cam fielded some 10 Irondrakes, 20 warriors, 20 Longbeards , Anvil of Doom and a Volley Gun. I was somewhat outmatched BUT crucially I could ‘raise’ new units per magic phase – which I did several times.

The hero phase, movement, shooting and magic is simple. Close combat is where it went wrong.

You might know that you have to roll a D6 at the start of each turn to see who goes first. That’s new and more like LOTR. That was fresh and made the game unpredicatable. It’s hard to think two and three steps ahead when you know you might not get a chance to take the initiative. Well, on the basis of that we assumed naively that when it came to combat the player who’s turn it was got to hit first with all his units. That’s wrong.

I have since found out that this is incorrect. Crucially you have to choose which unit you want to ‘activate’ first and then your opponent gets to choose which unit to activate and fight in combat – not necessarily the one that’s just been beaten up. yes. That’s where you stop and think ‘who do I want to blat first, who is the greatest threat or who do I stand the best chance of wiping out next’

To explain. For example Cam charges his grombrinal unit with his Longbeards into my Morghast Archai. The stunties dish out the wounds and one of my Archai dies in a puff of ash. Now it’s my turn to activate a unit and kick some stunty butt. I could choose the one remaining Archai to seek revenge but I know he’s not going to take a battering again this turn. So I look to the other side of the table and charge my Tomb King and his unit of spearmen into a unit of Dwarf warriors to hopefully do enough damage to make them run away or severly deplete their numbers. I hit them and dish out a few wounds. Once I’ve finished blatting him there, Cam activates another unit and gets his Irondrakes to give my Verghast batty things a punch in the chops. And so on until everyone in combat has fought.

Then it’s a battleshock test or each unit that has taken casualties – bit like the old leadership test but both sides do it as there’s combat res as such. Crucially instead of the whole unit running away and being overrun some times – only a few models quit the field whilst the rest stay in combat. I think , for each unit, it is the number of casualties +D6 – minus the Bravery stat. So if I lost eight TK warriors in combat that turn and rolled a 4, that would be a total of 12 (I do maths me). From that 12 I take the bravey stat, which for a TK warrior is 10. That leaves 2. Therefore 2 TK warriors ‘run away/flee or my case clatter to the ground in a pile of bones. that means in total I’ve lost 10 TK warriors that turn ( 8 ‘dead’ and 2 ‘run away’). Your generals of course countermand and your rank and file can use his Bravery if within 12 inches. I think…

That’s how it should have been. What happened in game was me twiddling my thumbs waiting for a chance to do something in combat and when I did attack with my zombies I found they were crap – hitting on a 6 and wounding on a 6. Not happening.

This is an interesting set of comments and some nuances I had not really picked up from simply reading the rules.

It’s worth trying. WFB as we know is not going any further, so stick with 8th ed for the big games. But if you want a bit of fun AOS is the way forward. We were done in an hour and a half.

So a qualified thumbs up from an occasional games player. As i’ve stated before, I’ll give the game a go but am skeptical it will be the sort of game that I could enjoy during in depth prolonged battles – but we shall see.