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Skirmish : First Thoughts


someone2040

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After an adventure in Hinterlands Skirmish last week, I was pretty keen for some Age of Sigmar : Skirmish. Although, there are definitely some decisions I don't agree upon, I wanted to get into the book first hand and on the day.

So this morning I rocked up at my Games Workshop basically first thing in the morning, to purchase my copy of Skirmish. I got the book, flipped past the fluff and got right down into the nitty gritties of the renown. The night before I had tossed up whether I wanted to bring my Freeguild with me, but in the end I decided to take my Slaves to Darkness. My store is going to start a campaign next week, starting off at 25 renown, but for today we could play what we want.

So I built a quick and dirty 50 renown list, and ended up with the following:

Chaos Lord - Inspiriational Fighter - Helm of Authority (Note, he's represented by the Chaos Chosen Champion in my games as my actual Lord's head fell off just before we started)

2 Chaos Knights (Leader with Ensorcelled Weapon, other guy with Glaive)

1 Marauder Horsemen with Javelin

3 Chaos Warriors with Hand Weapon and Shields

2 Marauders with Hand Weapons and Shield

Since I can't take Chosen under these rules, I wanted 2 Chaos Knights for a bit of punch. Even though I usually run all mine with Glaives, I used the Ensorcelled Weapon on the champion as that's what the model has.

Ended up playing 2 scenarios. The first one was Fragile Cargo against Stormcast Eternals. He had a list of Lord Celestant, 2 Retributors and 2 Prosecutors. My enemy would have the cargo, and after a change of mind, decided to put it on his faster Prosecutor as opposed to his slower Lord Celestant. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures, but he flew his Prosecutors up one flank while his melee went through the centre. In the end, I slew both Prosecutors, but they got far enough that when his Prosecutor carrying the cargo died, it ended up within my territory. This would mean unless I wiped him out, the best I could achieve was a draw. Luckily for me, I managed to whittle through one of his Retributors while my Chaos Lord finally made a charge and slew his Lord Celestant. In a more serious game, my opponent would've ran away his final Retributor but instead decided to see how much damage he could cause, which in the end was none before being taken out.

I quite enjoyed the scenario, and it makes sure that you want to keep a flexible warband. 

 

The second game I played against Seraphon. Her list included a Saurus Oldblood, 3 Saurus Warriors, 3 Saurus Guard and 2 Saurus Cavalry. We were playing the scenario Clash at Dawn, which involves random deployment. With a very minor amount of ranged shooting, and our deployments largely grouping up our members, it basically became a clash between our warbands with a few duking it out elsewhere on the board.

My Chaos Lord had found himself close to enemy lines, so the first turn for me was largely getting him back to the warband.

20170527-skirmish-chaos-01.jpg.71573d7f41882af3a69c97705b103d63.jpg

Back to safety, the warband converges on my Chaos Lord

My opponent made some poor tactical choices, and charged her Cavalry in alone. Between my Lord and lucky rolling on my Chaos Knight, I finished off the two Knights easily which gave me a very strong footing in the game. The scenario objective was to essentially reduce the enemy warband to half models, where the game would end at the end of the battle round where this occurred as the warband would 'rout'. If both routed in the same turn, it was a draw, otherwise the player whose warband didn't rout got the victory. So being 2 kills up already for none in return was extraordinarily good.

I also luckily won the role off for initiative, and mobbed her warband with my own. Given I had the momentum, I used both my Inspirational Fighter and my Helm of Authority to use Merciless Killer (The first re-rolls 1's to hit, the 2nd adds 1 to wound rolls). My Horseman picked off a Saurus Warrior, before my warband moved in for the kill.

20170527-skirmish-chaos-02.jpg.0882809db7b58a0d1ad76daac50f3f86.jpg

Thing's don't look pretty for the Seraphon

And that was about all she wrote really. I killed the Saurus and Saurus Guard in this picture on my turn, and another Saurus Warrior which while taking a few wounds myself, routed her warband. In her turn, with so few models left, she couldn't manage to kill anything and the game ended.

 

I honestly didn't find this scenario as interesting, as it basically ended up with our warbands grouping up and clashing, turning into a scrum which my Chaos were better suited to the task. The deployments rolls probably impacted this the most, as my opponent rolled 1's (A common theme) for a lot of her army, leading to a deployment which wasn't very spread out.

 

Overall enjoyed the games. While I still dislike the choice not to point the finecast and metal models, it doesn't really impact the armies I have, but it definitely impacts what I would consider making for future warbands. While there are definitely places for 'Grand Alliance' style warbands, I think most people just want to run a warband of their faction. The restriction makes this extremely tough, but it seems to impact Destruction and Death the most. Those factions already have less models, but the fact that you can't run a Vampire or Ogor warband just doesn't make sense.

 

I also think 25 renown is too low to start a campaign at. 30 would've been a better choice. Any 100 point hero in the game translates to 20 renown, which it's extremely tough to make an interesting warband with only 5 renown to spend on 2+ models. For example, if I wanted to stick to my Slaves to Darkness, I can take my Chaos Lord, a Warrior/Marauder Horsemen and a Marauder. That's my only choice unless I downgrade to the Darkoath Chieftain. Many suffer from this issue

 

Other than that, the ruleset looks like it's pretty sweet for matched play. It doesn't have much in the way of progression other than your warband getting bigger, but in a matched play environment in some ways that's exactly what you want. You don't want to run a tournament and have someones warband crippled by death and injuries because they lost the first game.

But I think the way the rules are structured, it's pretty perfect for a gaming afternoon amongst buddies, or a proper 1-day tournament which includes some variety of progression throughout.

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Interested in picking this up. Does your Hero/Units get upgrades as they progress through a campaign?

I like that idea in the Hinterlands ruleset.

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3 hours ago, Aelford said:

Interested in picking this up. Does your Hero/Units get upgrades as they progress through a campaign?

I like that idea in the Hinterlands ruleset.

So not really.

Generally, the progression that occurs is your warband gets larger. After each battle, you roll on an end of game chart (Where the victor gets a bonus to this chart which we forgot :(). These generally range from abilities that help you during your next battle, to getting more renown which you can use to purchase units.

There are some permanent things though, such as your General being able to learn new Command Abilities or your Wizard learning spells.

But overall, the progression seems more like something that suits tournament play in that you get bonuses towards your next game, but nothing really permanent.

For real progression or a more in depth system (death and experience). @bottle has indicated that this might be the kind've content that makes it into future Hinterlands versions.

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Maybe the AOS All-Gates campaign book could be used, they have regiments of renown in them with special abilities.

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