NooB to Good to Great - pointers please!

[Mad Doc Grotsnik]

How do?

So I’m pretty much a NooB at AoS. Played it a handful of times when it first came out, but due to real life, had an enforced hiatus from hobbying in general (three to four hour commutes are rubbish).

But I can now work from home, even when Nurgle isn’t having shenanigans, which means I can attend my local club without having to worry about being home particularly early.

And it’s to AoS I’ve returned. Got the latest rules, and a decent sized collection of Bonereapers I swear I’ll get painted in time.

What I’m looking for here is kind of a beginners guide, focussing on the non-obvious. I know the turn structure and how buff stacks work etc. But given my local club (Hydra club in Tunbridge Wells) has at least two genuinely world class players, I’m looking for a wider picture of what to look out for.

Ideally I want general game stuff, as at the moment my frame of reference is too small for army specific ‘wotcha and gotcha’ things. But hey, if you want to chip in with a ‘wotcha’ for specific armies or list builds, I’ll still read it, digest, and be thankful for your input

In case peeps want to weigh in with Ossiarch specific stuff? I’ve got all the characters, barring the Generic Horsey Lord, 60 Mortek Guard (40 built as sword and board as two units of 20), 15 Kavalos Horsey Dudes (going with spears, as cavalry without look wrong to me), 2 Harvesters (Bludgeons), 2 Crawlers, 6 Immortis Guard, 3 Necropolis Stalkers (another 3 on order), and the Endless Spells. I do intend to get the terrain piece, but finding one in stock is difficult right now!

Right. Over to you. Show me the mysteries of AoS!

[Reuben Parker]

https://aos-tactics.com/2017/02/21/zoning-area-denial/ This website has a lot of articles on the key elements of sigmar I’ve linked the zoning and denial one as really that’s the most important. Sigmar is hugely about model placement, screens and threat ranges. 

 

 

[Overread]

A few general Ossiarch thoughts:

 

1) Have a plan. This goes for all armies, but Ossiarchs have a high point cost and a generally slower rate of movement across the whole army in general. You can boost their speed and such, but by and large they do not have numbers nor speed to be highly reactionary as an army. In fact many times you might find that the opponent gets to objectives and starts scoring before you do.
As a result having a game plan is imperative. Whilst you must remain flexible to the changing state of the game, you've also got to follow through on your plan as much as you can. You can't as easily change targets or focus because you could easily be a turn behind on points and control. Now ossiarchs counter this by being tough as nails and hard to kill, whilst remaining very effective at killing opposing units at the same time. So often once you start contesting a point you can push through to secure it.

But having and sticking to a plan of action you better your chances at achieving your objectives and scoring points in the long term. Ossiarchs are in battles for the long view and can push through much opposition to get there. 

2) As noted above you might find you end up early on losing the game quite quickly in points and scoring. Watch some videos of people playing and you can see this pattern repeated fairly often. Now as a new player there are likely lots of little bits that mean you won't as easily recover from such a state so you might find that in games you end up starting to lose almost because you feel as if you've not enough turns for your army to start working. Rest assured much of this is going to be inexperience and lots of little things that likely make up the result, rather than big mistakes that mess everything (though they happen to us all too). 

3) Try not to hold back. As noted above speed is a bit of a weakness in the army. They are not abysmal and do have options to speed up, but they are not an army to hold back. Of course the Walking Catapult is the exception to this rule, provided it has good line of sight to targets. It's also not bad in close combat so I wouldn't be tempted to hold units back to support it. Instead I'd focus on a forward offensive game and moving forward on the attack. 

4) It is your duty as an Ossiarch player to bug/pester/bully/coerce/bribe GW into making an Ossiarch dragon model at any point you can. 

[Kramer]

Figure out piling in. The nuances and tricks in it make all the difference. It’s an extra movement if done right same as charging. 
and get the ‘its an objective game ‘ mentality fast. It’s easy to forget in the hear of things. 

i think those two things are the most tricky while having the biggest impact. And in general just play a lot and enjoy. And ask those world class players for tips. 

[Mad Doc Grotsnik]

To be honest, I’m mostly looking forward to the world class players beating seven shades of snot out of me, and hoping they’ve the time to walk me through not just what I did wrong, but what they did right.

See around 11 years ago, I worked for GW as a till monkey. And part of that was running intro games, and providing an opponent when plans fell through. So the subtle art of ‘kind of’ going easy, wuhgniyg outright throwing the game is a fine art I was once familiar with.

Because a butt kicking without constructive feedback is worthless!

[Overread]

Just be sure that once you've had a good kicking you come and report here too to help further others. Sadly tactical learning and teaching is a big grey area online for the whole game market it seems. We need more people willing and able to put some energy into it. 

 

 

Also Doc check your Dakka pms. 

[Mad Doc Grotsnik]

If needs be, my still warm, bloodied, burst, twitching corpse, through the will of Nagash, will return and report!

Because it’s one thing to see a top list, and quite another to understand why it’s so rock!

[Bayul]

6 minutes ago, Mad Doc Grotsnik said:

Because a butt kicking without constructive feedback is worthless!

This should be the sought for mindset for veterans who read this thread. I made this experience in an other game I played (X-Wing TMG) when I lost against one of the best players in my region. He memorized the whole game and immediately gave feedback the second the game ended. He praised the good moves I made and showed me why I lost the game and how to improve for the next time. I never felt that I wasted my time when I lost against him.

[Mad Doc Grotsnik]

100% that!

if you kerb stomp some by accident or design, feedback costs nowt!

[Mad Doc Grotsnik]

On 4/11/2020 at 6:12 PM, Reuben Parker said:

https://aos-tactics.com/2017/02/21/zoning-area-denial/ This website has a lot of articles on the key elements of sigmar I’ve linked the zoning and denial one as really that’s the most important. Sigmar is hugely about model placement, screens and threat ranges. 

 

 

Well this is good! Read some of it, as the rest probably needs a level of ‘on the board experience’.

Suffice to say the Pile In consideration of area denial has given me food for thought on Spears. Particularly with OSB, a suitably buffed unit of Mortek Pokey Bois could do very well....

[Landohammer]

Here are the top 5 tricks to doing well in competitive play

1) Screen

2) Screen

3) Screen

4) Build your army around the scenarios you expect to play

5) Screen

Combat can be particularly brutal in AOS. There are units and armies that can wipe out your primary units before they even get to swing and in many cases they can reach you as early as turn 1. 

Screening is the easiest and most reliable method of preventing that. Its a simple but powerful concept, because it essentially takes away their priority. Now they won't be able to determine when they get into combat, and have to rely on scoring the double turn or eliminating your screen via other phases.

This is partly why the Inspiring Presence command ability is so powerful. Because what if they fail to kill your screen unit? Even just 1-2 surviving models of a decimated unit can then stick around and tie up your opponent's model's for another turn. You've essentially turned your cheap crappy unit into a weapon.

But screening also works with single model units. For example, dropping a 70pt Gyrocopter right in front of their 30 Witch Elves. Now your opponent has to choose between going around the Gyrocopter and wasting valuable movement, or wasting a turn killing it. This is a popular trick with Endless Spells. 

Finally make sure you read up on the GHB and BRB scenarios. Some of them are pretty wacky and many experienced players have done poorly because they ended up playing a scenario they weren't prepared for. 

 

 

[swarmofseals]

First and foremost I want to echo what others have said:

1. Internalize the fact that the game is about objectives first and fighting second. This is probably the biggest place new players go wrong.
2. Learn the ins and outs of movement and model placement including screening, piling in, area denial etc.
3. Learn the battleplan you are playing and adapt your play to the needs of the situation (ie: the combination of the battleplan, your army's capabilities and your opponent's army's capabilities).

I'd also add the following:

1. Get comfortable with the basic math. Know the average amount of damage you can expect your units to deal and to take. If you can, try to know the standard deviations too so that when you need a specific outcome you know roughly how likely it is. Know the probabilities for 2d6 dice rolls.
2. Have a plan, but don't get too specific. You need to adapt to the situation, and if you get tunnel vision you will be more likely to lose.
3. Correctly assess the level of threat that enemy units present and prioritize them accordingly.
4. Build good lists. There's a lot that goes into this, such as understanding the costs and benefits of adding or subtracting from your drop count, developing a list that can compete against a range of opponents in a range of battleplans, and effectively analyzing which units are good and which aren't. Efficiency matters a lot, but it isn't everything. Inefficient units can be good sometimes, but super inefficient units are very rarely good. Similarly, high efficiency units are very often good, but you can't just completely build your list around efficiency (well, sometimes you can but generally it's not the best path). 
5. An add-on to number 4: know the purpose of the list you are building and know your skill level. An easy to play, high variance list is good in a tournament if you aren't a great player. If you are a good to great player though then you want a lower variance army. 
6. Understand that for your own units dying can be as important as killing. Destroying enemy units can be great, but if it leads to your own valuable unit being destroyed in return you might not gain much. But if you can delay an expensive unit using a very cheap one as a sacrifice, that is likely to be a favorable exchange for you.

[Warboss Gorbolg]

Good players know what their oponent's army can do and therefore can anticipate their strategies and moves. It's one of the many factors that has kept me from being a good player. My hypothesis has long been that this is the key for consistently successful tournament players. 

[Reuben Parker]

6 hours ago, Mad Doc Grotsnik said:

Well this is good! Read some of it, as the rest probably needs a level of ‘on the board experience’.

Suffice to say the Pile In consideration of area denial has given me food for thought on Spears. Particularly with OSB, a suitably buffed unit of Mortek Pokey Bois could do very well....

Yeah I think for OBR especially PE with the ability to add rend a nice building block is 40 spears 2*10 swords in a shield Corp. 820 points gets you all the battle line and often the equivalent of 3 RDP a round with the 1 it adds and the free shield activation per turn. 
 

then with the added character In the battalion it puts 4 drops to 1 which often will mean you can compete to win deployment and decide first turn. 

[readercolin]

I am not a particularly great player, though I like to think that I am decent.  However, there is something that I've discovered through trial and error about list building and playing.

You have to have a number of units that your opponent has to respect.  What do I mean by that?  Take for example, stormcast.  If you drop a block of evocators (foot or mounted), they are strong enough that they can obliterate most units that they run into.  However, at the same time, if I only have a single unit that my opponent has to respect, it is relatively easy to neutralize that one unit.  They can blow it up with shooting, neuter its offensive power with magic, screen it with stuff they don't care about, etc.  So you have to have multiple credible threats.  And if you want to really make them work for it, diversify what those threats are.  Having 2 threats on the board that are looking to run at your opponent, charge them, and plow through is nice, but it might be more effective to have 1 threat that is going to run them over in melee, and another that can kill off key support pieces at range, or blow apart screens to allow your melee threat to get at jucier targets.

Next, you have to have to remember that this is an objective based game.  You can, as a matter of fact, win the game without any models left on the board.  Remember to always play to the objectives.  If you have a choice between eliminating an opposing unit or holding an objective, evaluate which of those options is going to get you closer to winning the game.  Is that a unit that can take you off objectives in the future and score more points?  Or is holding the objective and getting those points going to bring you back into the game/seal the game away.

Last, remember to keep the double turn in mind, and play around it.  If you went first, there is about a 45% chance that your opponent will get two turns in a row.  Can you do enough damage/are your units safe enough to survive that?  If your opponent went first, you have about a 45% chance of going next.  Can you use this to your advantage.  Also keep in mind that you have to play to your outs.  Is your only way to win to sit and hope your opponent doesn't get the double?  Then play towards that and ignore the chance of your opponent going.  Is your only way to win to play to the double yourself?  Then play towards your outs.

Hope all this helps.  You are probably going to struggle with all of this to start, but time and practice will help you get better.