Monday 21 September 2015

Age of Sigmar - Hold or Die Batrep

Evening all, managed to sneak in a non GW store game tonight as phillion and my buddy Charlie popped round to grab a game of Age of Sigmar.

He's been working on some Sylvaneth so thought it would be great to get them on the table to show him how they perform and as I'd just finished up my starterset of Khorne with a few extras we were set for a reasonable sized game.

I'd selected Hold or Die from the first big book as I've seen a couple of batreps with it and it looked like a fun game, with a quick dice roll we decided that the Khorne would be the attackers and combined Sylvaneth and Stormcast force would be the defender.

Background:

The mighty Khorne Lord Ghorak the Slayer has been tracking a small force of Stormcast deep in the of Ghyran, his scouts have learned of a secret meeting between them and some kind of ancient forest spirit, the warband is summoned to break this alliance before it starts. Unknown to him a larger force of Stormcast and Sylvaneth is on route to secure the area.

Force Selection:

We used a simple selection system based on Ash Barkers of Guerilla Wargames Miniatures:
6-8 Warscrolls, max 70 wounds, 3 heroes or monsters, no more than 30 wounds per scroll.

The Stormcast:
Initial force:
Lord Relector
Branchwraith
6 Retributors

Reserve Force:
Lord Celestant on Dracoth
10 Liberators with Hammers and Shields
16 Dryads

Khorne Bloodbound:
Mighty Lord of Khorne
Bloodstoker
Bloodsecrator
Khorgorath
Scyla Anfingrimm
20 Bloodreavers
10 Bloodwarriors

Setup:

The forces of order pick a 9" circle centered on a small wooded grove and set up their Retributors, Lord Relector and Branchwraith in the wood.

The Bloodbound set up 12" away split into 2 roughly even groups.

All woods were nominated as Sylvaneth Woods and no other special terrain rules were used.


Turn 1:

After a short tactical discussion Charlie opts for first turn, dropping a mystic shield on the Retributors and then moving them back 4" away from the Khorne to maximise to distance between the forces whilst keeping their cover bonus. 

The Bloodbound warband surges forwards in response, the Bloodreavers driven forwards by the lash of the Bloodsecrator and Barking orders of the Khorne Lord forget their place and charge ahead of the main line into the Retributors, the Sylvaneth woods rattles to life killing several Bloodreavers as they enter.



The Bloodreavers literally bounced off the Retributors, a combination of a very poor dice roll and 2+ armour saves left the unscathed. The Retributors struck back with support from the Lord Relector killing 13 Bloodreavers and the rest fled the field. First Blood to the Stormcast. 

Turn 2:
The forces of Order won the initiative for the round,  Lord Relector called down Sigmar's fury onto the Bloodwrriors with a bolt of lightning killing one. On the left flank the reserve force turned up threatening the Khorne flank, luck for once was on Lord Ghoraks side and they failed to charge into combat.


Keenly aware of this new threat Lord Ghorak beseeched Khorne to aid him in battle and in a blinding flash a demonic legion arrived to bolster his forces (well it would have been a legion had I more models available, in reality I gained a unit of bloodletters and a demon prince with a mark of Khorne.

The forces of Chaos surged forwards to meet their foe. 


In the center Scyla and the Khorgorath managed to charge the retributors, The Khorne Lord and Bloodletters took on the Dryads and the Bloodwarriors veered off to tackle the retributors and Lord Celestant. The deamon prince clearly addled by his summoning failed his charge roll. 

The Bloodwarriors stuck first killing several Liberators and wounding the Lord Celestant, The Retributors in the center replied taking out the Khorgorath and wounding Scyla. The Ghorak the Mightly Lord of Khorne failed to live up to his name and managed to take out just 2 Dryads. The Dryads fought back and wounded the Chaos Lord several times and took out a Bloodletter. Scyla struck against the Retributors but failed to do enough damage to kill a single Retributor with some incredible poor dice rolls which started with just 5 attacks from 2D6+2...

The Lord Celestant struck back at the Blood Warriors killing several though they went down fighting wounding the Lord Celestant and killing another Liberator. The Bloodletters took out another couple of Dryads and we were into the battleshock phase. 


The last remaining Bloodwarrior fled the field, rolling a double 6 the Liberator unit supporting the Lord Celestant also fled the field. 

Unfortunately due to time constraints and hampered by tea being late and a powercut in battleround 2 losing us some time we had to end the game here. 

Postmatch thoughts:

I'd have loved to run a third turn as it would have been really bloody, with a number of Khorne heroes and the Deamon prince closing in on the Retributors and the Khorne Lord and Bloodletters engaged with the Dryads it could have been a close game. 

It was a really good game, a hard scenario for the attacker as you need to hit combat fast, I was hampered by some appalling dice rolling with didn't help my fight against the Retributors, in hindsight I shouldn't have charged into them as without the Meatripper Axes I was unlikely to do any damage. 

I also suffered from fairly poor deployment with all my heroes hanging about at the back and failing to make a meaningful impact on the battle. I didn't have the change to plant the banner as I realised that the Bloodreavers and Bloodwarriors would have both been out of range in the combat phase so I lost out on vital additional attack. 

I really love all the rules about calling on additional forces and in this case I could have placed an additional 6 deamon units if I'd have had the models available, though Charlie could have called on more stormcast to aid him in the following turn and would likely to have gained at least 1 unit to bolster his forces.

Lesson for the day: Retributors in terrain with Mystic Shield are dammed hard to kill if you don't have ranged attacks.




Thursday 3 September 2015

Been busier than my blog suggests... honest.

Thought I'd give a bit of an update as it's been rather quiet around here recently.

I had a few months off painting between the end of Jan and the end of May or build props for and run my annual love craft larp game.

After a little break from the stress that came along with it I've picked up the brushes again and headed off in a rather unusual direction.

Phillion if you're reading this its probably best you stop now...

I fancied a change and with the rumours of a new GW fantasy game back in June-ish I dug out a few old miniatures and started to play around with some ideas for realm of chaos type gaming.

Well Age of Sigmar finally landed and after a couple of weeks mulling it over I was finally convinced to part with some cash by the excellent youtube bat reps from Ash Barker, check out the guerilla miniature games youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbO4Vs1vlAA9hz7Ad7IMgug

Well I was still staunchly in the "I'll paint up the chaos for some small games" mentality but those stormcast are truly lovely models. I picked up the big book and had a read and some of the artwork and the new mythical based fluff really interested me.

With the summer holidays upon us and my wife and kids away for a week I managed to batter through the whole of the stormcast starter figures and a few extras. With these in hand I also headed to GW during the week and snuck a few games in.

Surprisingly it was really enjoyable, the structure and pace of the game is really good and the way troops work together means you do have to do some work on planning your move and stratagem. I've managed 5 games so far and the stormcast have only managed 2 victories, part of this is the widely publicised issues around the lack of points or a build structure, as I'm playing pick up games in GW stores (something I thought I'd never do again) there is still an element of powergaming going on with a win at all costs attitude.  I've only found a couple of players who really embrace the concept of AoS and scenario play so far.

It is not a strategic battle game, but then I didn't see WHFB as being one of those either, but it is a pretty good skirmish game and the background gets me interested in a way that Warmachine and Malefaux don't.

So I best show off my progress so far:



Lord-Celestant Vandus Hammerhand on his Dracoth



Lord Celestant on Foot



Lord Relictor


Lord Castalliant and Gryph-Hound


9 Liberators with Hammers and Shields including Prime with Grand-Hammer


5 Liberators with 2 Hammers including Prime with Grand-Blade



3 Units of Retributors with Primes



Unit of 6 Judicators including Prime with Shockbolt Bow

And onto the Chaos forces:


Bloodsecrator


Converted Bloodstoker


Unit of 10 Bloodwarriors including Chaos Champion with Gore-Glaive and Icon Bearer


Half the unit of Bloodreavers including Hornblower


A mighty Khorgorath


14 Ungor with spears including Halfhorn, Bannerbearer and Brayhorn

 That's probably more actual miniatures painted in 6 weeks than I've painted in several years, they're mainly up to gaming standard rather than my usual displace cabinet figures I use for skirmish so highlights are limited to 2 and there is minimal detailing where possible.

There is still plenty on the painting table:

3 Prosecutors (need their wings magnetising)
Mighty Khorne Lord
Second Bloodstoker
Khorne Deamon Prince
10 more Bloodreavers
10 Gors
Stonehorn
5 Liberators with Swords and Shields
5 Judicators with Crossbows
2 more Khorgorath
20 Marauders (to be converted from Bloodreavers)
2 Realmgates.

So I've loads to keep me busy and a number of upcoming releases I'm interested in.

So there'll be another update when I've finished this lot.