Fisren

As a gitz player, I find myself fielding palisades and sporesplattas from time to time if I know my friends plan on playing shooting heavy lists to at least protect the core heroes for turn1/2. Another common tactic I use is Hand of Gork for a unit of stabbas, hiding fanatics in them can allow for a easy-er 6" fanatic charge into enemy backlines if they aren't careful with screening, or at least provide additional threats on the board. Apart from that, we tend to setup with 1~2 pieces of citadel woods terrain to prevent line of sight, or have terrain which can block line of sight near the middle (this way shooting armies will still have targets, but you'll still be able to hide a few key targets.

Checked my last year's resolutions and.... Things I did: - Played much more games (at least one game of AoS or 40k every other week, and smaller tabletop games in between). - Have two armies at 2000 points tabletop quality. Things I didn't do: - Paint at least once a week (after batch painting my IDK army for a tourney in June, I think I got burnt out for painting and have mostly only painted non-AoS smaller projects once a month or so). -Decrease backlog (it increased by 1.5x from the previous year, though a large part of this is me finding really good deals on older armies which I liked the aesthetics of) Things that happened last year: - Since I'm relatively new to the whole tabletop scene, I started exploring different game systems (Malifaux, Infinity, Guild Ball, Bushido, Monsterpocalypse, Warmahorde, etc.). I've been rotating between working on AoS and other systems, so AoS progress has been slow. Last year I assembled approximately 15,000 points of models for GW stuff (including 40k), and painted around 5000 points to tabletop quality (idoneth and CSM armies) , which I think is not bad all things considered. - Campaign! I'm a semi-competitive player by nature, but love RPG's, so finally got a couple of friends to start a Warcry campaign. It's been a blast and I think its a great way to spend a weeknight (I've tried arranging smaller AoS or 40k games on weeknights, but usually it takes too long.) This Year's Resolutions: - Paint more often! (Now that I have a hood, its much easier for me to prime/base, so I've been doing so every other weekend) - Fill out current armies to 2000 points (Currently have 4 factions at 2k+, 6 at 1k or so), before jumping into new factions. - Try to get more AoS-related campaigns going. Hopefully I can get more people here to try and start a PtG or similar system going, since I find these smaller campaign styled games with narratives to be good for weeknights.

It's been a whirlwind of a year since I began my venture into AoS. A bit of a background, I grew up in China for most of my younger years, and was more of a console/computer gamer (loved fantasy RPGs), so never heard of wargaming or RPG's till much later. Sadly, I didn't come into contact into wargaming while in the US (7 year), and it wasn't until I moved back to Asia that I'd started getting into hobby modeling. A little over a year ago, I started glimpsing pictures of Age of Sigmar armies (I had only assumed they were themed models at this point) in some of the hobby modeler's blogs I frequented, and thought it would be a cool little project. I began looking into AoS, and then realized they were the same themes as Total War: Warhammer, which was neat. I then realized they had rules and could be played as a tabletop game, although there weren't any local retailers (at least not listed on GW's site). After a trip back to US where I picked up some Ironjawz (and CABBAGE)! as well as the tempest souls painting box, I was contentthat at least I could play by myself with some models. After some more net searches, I realized that there was in fact a local store that sold GW stuffs, and I've pretty much been hooked since (in the past year I've assembled around 5 armies up to 2,000+ points, though only one is fully painted, and two others at tabletop). The AoS community here has been great (only a handful played WHFB, while the most of us just started in the last two years), and it's been a blast playing some of the other GW games as well (I play necromunda, blood bowl, underworlds, and occasionally 40k).

Progress update! (Been playing a bit too much monster hunter since it came out, so progress has been slow). Ended up getting everything battleready for local tourney, used wood glue to glue the infantry to bases, so will be removing them (hopefully doesn't peel off paint), to do more basing work as well as more detailed colors. Currently looks like I won't get them all completed to standard by the end of the month, but it's coming together! (Pic of army before battle! Sorry for potato pic, will try to upload better one later) (Not sure why this pic keeps rotating, but pic of army in action! funnily enough, reavers did the most damage to morathi)

Getting ready for the local annual AoS tourney this month (deadline sept 21st!) I have had a bit of a head start, but aiming to finish my Idoneth Deepkin army before the tourney, or at least as much as I can! Army consists of: 2x 10 namarti thralls 2x10 namarti reavers 2 x9 akhelian morsarr guards 1 x tidecaster 1x soulscryer 1x soulrender 2 x gloomtide shipwrecks Extras (in case I want to switch lists): 2 x 3 ishlaenn guards 1 x 20 eternal guards (models arriving this week) 1 x akhelian king Army WIP (finished assembling and priming a couple weeks ago, finished airbrushing my morsarr and namarti skin last night).

Thanks for reading and appreciate the frankness, I typically try to write with less bias, but so far this has been one of the more frustrating matchups I've had to play (and probably shouldn't have written the report right afterwards). I hadn't played in a couple months, and my last matchup was also against the same opponent (slightly different lists), and I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. I'd consider us both as competitive players, and believe he made the mistakes in good faith, but it left a sour taste with how strong his army already was ( I still believe that deepkin are very strong despite the point adjustments, but was also surprised fyreslayers didn't get any changes in the recent FAQ). (We are both prepping for our annual local tourney, so emotions kinda ran high as well!)

Batrep: Idoneth Deepkin (me) vs. Fyreslayers Battleplan: Places of Arcane Power Lists: Deepkin: Enclave: Fuethan / Realm: Aqshy Leaders: - Tidecaster n General n Spell: Steeds of Tides n Command Trait: Born from Agony (+2 wounds) - Souscryer n Artifact: Cloud of Midnight - Soulrender n Artifact: Thermalrider Cloak Battleline: - 10 x Namarti Thrall - 10 x Namarti Thrall - 10 x Namarti Reavers - 10 x Namarti Reavers Other Units: - 9 x Akhelian Morsarr Guard - 9 x Akhelian Morsarr Guard Battalions: - Namarti Corps 50 remaining points used for +1 CP (2000/2000 points) Fyreslayers: (Don’t remember the last one of the heroes, they all looked the same to me) Leaders: - Auric Runefather n General n Tyrant Slayer n Warrior Indominate - Auric Runemaster n Prayer : Searing Heat - Auric Runemaster n Prayer: Ember Storm - Battlesmith - Auric Runesmiter n Prayer: Prayer of Ash (?) - Auric Runeson(?) Battlelines: - 10x Vulkite Berzerkers n Handaxes - 10x Vulkite Berzerkers n Handaxes - 30x Hearthguard Berzerkers n Flamestrike Poleaxe Other Units - 5x Auric Hearthguard Battalions: - Lords of the Lodge Magmic Invocations: - Runic Fyrewall - Zharrgron Flame-spitter (Sorry for the unpainted models, at least the eels are colorful? Also forgot my flight-stand bases that day so had bought the bases on-the-spot and just stuck the eels onto them…. I swear the next time I post them they’ll look MUCH better). Deployment: Fyreslayers won priority for deployment, and deployed vulkites to the west side. I deploy my tidecaster near the center. He proceeds to deploy the hearthguards(and the rest of his lords of the lodge) closer to the west edge (I was surprised he didn’t just deploy them straight down the middle), after I deployed a unit of 9 eels to the East. He then proceeded to declare the Runesmiter to ambush, which I followed up by declaring the same with my Soulscryer. He places a unit of vulkite with the runesmiter while I deploy a unit of eels with mine. I have a fewer number of drops, and finish first by deploying my namarti corps. I choose to go first to try and establish a forward position and to try and limit his movement and buffs. (I was low on time from prepping and forgot to take a pic of deployment) Turn 1: Idoneth Deepkin: Hero Phase: I decide to just go for it on Turn 1, and reverse the tides to be able to run + charge or run+ shoot turn 1. My Tidecaster pulls off the prayer on an 9+, preventing the duardin from receiving cover (might as well). I cast steeds of tides on my Soulrenderer and teleport him directly onto the center objective (hindsight, probably not the smartest move since the soulrender already had +4” movement and fly, so could just run up the center). Movement: White eels stood between boats to prepare for Turn 2, in case of deepstriking or to support the frontlines in the next turn. Middle reavers moved up to shoot duardins. South thralls were spread out to prevent deepstriking from behind, while second unit of thralls to the east ran into the woods for cover. At the end of the movement phase, soulscryer enters with second unit of reavers and the blue eels. Soulscryer was prepped to take control of the objective in turn 2, so really needed him to survive, hence the weird donut wall around him. Shooting: Reavers shoot, and I think 1 or 2 vulkanites die (nothing spectacular). Charge: Soulscryer targets a chubby vulcanite which was sticking out of the woods, and charge into the vulcanites which were flanked with a Runeson (I think). Zapped the runeson to death, and eels killed off the unit of vulkanites. Vulkanites return their attacks as they fall in battle, resulting in two dead eels. Battleshock: Nothing much happens, eels passed. Fyreslayers Turn 1: A boatload of buffs were used (quite a bunch failed too) , ones I remember were: - -1 to hit on my blue eels - General popping the -1 to wound 12” aura - +1 to save on hearthguards - (running + charging prayer failed iirc). - Both magmic invocations come out. Movement: Hearthguards didn’t get the run+charge buff, so could only waddle their way up slowly. Auric and the battlesmith run towards the west objective, while the two runemasters and runefather move towards the center. Runesmiter enters the field at the west objective, with the vulcanite berserkers placed near my thralls along the southern edge (see pic!). Shooting: The magmic thing spat fire at my soulrender, dealing 2 mw (I really dislike how despite that it’s fired during the shooting phase, its not technically considered a shooting attack). Charge (this was when I finally remembered to take a pic, sorry): Hearthguards pull off their charge into the blue eels, with a remnant also tagging my reavers. After a round of attacks by the hearthguards, 5 eels were remaining (passed battleshock w/ a 1), and only one reaver died (iirc his hero was too far back to use a CP to attack again or something). End of Turn 1: VP: 1 – 1 Turn 2: Deepkin win roll-off and take turn 2 Turn 2: Deepkin: High Tide! Hero Phase: Prayer doesn’t go off Steeds of Tides goes off, and I teleport my tidecaster to the eastern objective. Movement: Reavers retreat Blue eels retreat to threaten western objective. Southern thralls move up to block vulcanites from routing. Thralls in woods and reavers at north start to move forward. Charge: White eels charge into hearthguards, forming a wall to try and stop them from moving up further. White eels zapped and killed off a number of hearthguards, and all but one eel remains after the end of combat (iirc only 3 survived, another 2 ran from battleshock). Fyreslayers Turn 2: Hero Phase: A bunch of buffs went off, including the run+charge prayer onto the runefather. Movement: Priests and runefather start running up. Vulkanites move back to intercept my blue eels. Shooting: He thought he could fire the magmic thingy at will, but I played against him a couple months back, and checked its rules afterwards so I knew you needed a priest within 6” to activate it. Charge: His runefather charged into the reavers, and vulkanites charged into the blue morsarr eels. Combat: (here is where things got a little dicey w/ rules) Since it was his turn, he activated the ability to let the hearthguards attack first, killing off my eel. Since it was high tide, the rest of my army attacked first, and I piled my reavers such that they were out of 3” from the hearthguards (they were all closer to the runefather, so I just inched them closer to the runefather and farther from the hearthguard). Blue eels kill off several vulkanites. Fyreslayers begin to attack back. Since I wasn’t too sure of the rules, I wasn’t aware that ONLY units who charged that turn OR had an enemy within 3” were eligible for combat, so technically his hearthguards weren’t allowed to attack again. Blue eels end up down to 2 remaining, and my soulrender survives the onslaught with 1 wound remaining. I ended up ahead at 4:3 points at the bottom of Turn 2. Since we both took quite a while, the match was called (mini-event at FLGS, so matches were timed at 2:30 hrs). Had the game gone to 5 rounds, I don’t think I would have been able to win, mostly due to a couple strategical errors. (Should have probably tp’d the soulrender to capture east objective on turn 1, soulrender did little to nothing even with the namarti corp buff, as the namarti pretty much just die within one round of fighting). I don’t think I made any mistakes with timing of the eels, but rolled rather poorly (most of my spear attacks didn’t go through). I had considered letting him go first on Turn 1, allowing me the opportunity to possibly flank from behind to kill off most of his heroes. However, I felt that going first on Turn 1 with the Deepkin would give me better control of the board, and trying to get some attacks in before he could start buffing the hearthguards.

Got quite a few games of warcry in last weekend, though only used IDK in a couple matchups against untamed beasts. My list was: 1 x ishlaenn prince 1x morsarr guard 3x namarti thralls 4x namarti reavers Won both matches mainly due to enemy misplay rather then strength of list. Ishlaenn prince is really strong with S4, and both prince and guard are tough enough to steal/hold objectives. The rest of the units are somewhat lackluster, with T3/8 wounds and S3 attacks just not quite enough to punch through enemies. Thrall's skills seems nice on paper but its much harder to pull off in comparison with iron golem's double skill. Shooting was also nice to have, but my reavers pretty much just held objectives.

Haven't had too much time to play using the new rules yet, but I find myself using most of my command points for inspiring presence since typically I lose at least 3~4 eels in a turn and try to avoid losing more. I have considered splitting eels into 1x12 and 1x6 for more staying power with a larger group, but I tend to find even a group of 12 eels don't have enough staying/killing power to deal with a large /elite horde or horde + support hero without charging, retreating, then charging again over 3 turns.

Curious how people are faring against newer battletomes (meta lists) nowadays. My last couple games with Deepkin have been a struggle (still come out with a win, but extremely close games). (Pre- GHB 2019), I was running a 2k list with: Volturnos (General) Soulrenderer Tidecaster 2 x 9 morsarr eels 2 x 10 namarti 2x3 ishlaenn eels Game 1 was against Fyreslayers, which included 1 magmadroth, one runefather, and 3 other support heroes 2x10 vulkite berzerkers 1x30 hearthguard berzerkers 1x5 auric hearthguard Mission was starfall. Turn 1 was mostly just movement, with me taking turn 2 and charging into his magmadroth and runefather (he positioned poorly behind the hearthguard blob). Even though I killed both, there was still a runesmiter or battlesmith nearby, so the hearthguard pretty much decimated the 9 eels in one turn (rr hits into MW is disgusting, especially with 2x melee and 2" reach). Along the outer edges of the battle, my namarti killed 2 vulkites while the vulkites killed all the thralls in one turn, while my second group of eels killed off 10 vulkites (not before losing 3 from the death/counterattack + regular attacks beforehand). I ended up winning mostly with the ishlaenn and remaining thralls holding objectives which landed far from the hearthguard blob. In the end, my 2nd group of morsarr only killed off 4~5 hearthguards on the charge before perishing (Even having only one hero remaining makes the hearthguards impossible to deal with). I think that was one of the more frustrating matches I've faced so far due to the strength of the hearthguards. The support heroes weren't all that easy to kill off either by being near an auric hearthguard unit, and I had to use up most of my alpha charge to barely kill them off. Other match was against a typical DOK lineup. My eels were able to charge into morathi, hag queen, and witch aelves turn 1 (poor positioning on his part, and luckily his prayers all failed), and killed off the hag queen, dealt 3 dmg to morathi, and killed off quite a few witch aelves. Turn 2 my other 9 eels killed off a second hag queen, and started to slog against witch aelves. I was able to kill off a good portion of his army, Despite getting an early advantage, witch aelves were still more point efficient, and I ended up losing more units than DOK did on Turn 2. By Turn 3, my volturnos didn't really have any good targets to buff (besides himself). Running a Volturnos as general list seemed to perform decently, but despite early advantages from pulling off great alphas (at least I thought so), it still feels like an uphill battle. My unit of 9 eels were able to take out key enemy support heroes as well as do decent damage to troops on the charge, but were rarely able to survive 2 rounds of combat for me to retreat them. I've found most of my fights to be over by turn 3 partly because of this, so didn't really have enough surviving units to make too much use of High tide. I'm sure I could have played better strategically and would have probably fared better using tidecaster as general, but overall IDK felt like they didn't pack too great of a punch. (I'm mostly comparing their output to enlightened on discs and evocators, who felt like they had better point efficiency) Thoughts?

FLGS plays mostly 1000~1500 points (using 1000 matched play list composition rules): Similar to what others have said, games are done much quicker, and it caters well to my FLGS as the AoS scene is still relatively new here ( we have maybe 10~20 regular AoS players, with around 90% of whom only started in the past 1.5 years or so). Most people here start AoS after becoming attracted to a centerpiece, so want to try and play without finishing too many models (i.e. many of my games are against opponents with 1~2+ behemoths/monsters). To put it in perspective, I live in Asia so most players are experienced figurine modelers coming into AoS (most who used to build Gunpla or other figurines), so buy into the game mostly since they find a big piece they want to make (i.e. GUO, Nagash, etc.). Sometimes it becomes a chore to play monster-bash games, but there's a good enough variety that it keeps thing interesting. Personally I enjoy building different armies, so only having to prepare 1000~1500 points for different factions is a sweet spot (I can have a good variety of units, make semi-hordes, and not burnout). This is probably a slightly different take than most FLGS, but so far its been great! On another note, I play a good number of 500 point games against newbies or people who are still building they're armies up as well (just for a quick weeknight 30~1hr game). Usually only requiring one hero, one battleline, and whatever else fits.

I love playing aggro warbands (mainly play Magore, Zarbag, Briar, all with aggro-type builds) so will be interesting going from a large model count to a warband with a small count and focus on one model (Mollog). I'm excited to see how much gameplay will be shaken up with the new relic upgrade (+1 additional glory on kill) as my FLGS has been leaning heavily towards mob-type armies (skaven, briar) in the past couple months. Currently thinking of using cards like cursed artefact/soultrap or similar to increase survivability (1 defense on shields is kinda hard to keep alive with all the cleaves going around, also not many methods to buff shields defense (i.e. acrobatic for evasions)). Also looking more into push cards or instant movement cards as I'm pretty sure sudden growth/deadly fortitude will be must-haves for Mollog. Can't wait to see all the other card releases to come up with a new deck!

Sorry for the long post! Just got into miniature wargaming world last August (randomly entered a GW store and fell in love with AoS models, I blame the Cabbage). In the past 5 months I've binged a bit too much (by the end of 2018, had 2000 points of SCE (built, half painted), 1000 points of IJ (built, only maw krusha painted), 1500 points of BoC (assembled, unpainted, these models have been much more difficult for me to clean up/assemble), with a backlog of 1250 point of NH, 1000 points of BoC, 3000 points of IDK (they were 30% off at FLGS due to low demand, and also got one and a half battleforce over x'mas. This was also the faction I most wanted to play, but decided not to start due to no start collecting! kit), and around 1000 points of khorne (doggos!). (Also have chaos chosen and undead BB teams, all underworlds mobs, and T'au KT assembled but only parts painted) Kinda started reflecting on purchases and decided to set a limited budget (now that I have a better understanding of how frequently new stuff comes out). I'm lucky to have a local FLGS with quite a few frequent players (almost always able to find a pickup AoS 1,000+ point game on weekend, and even sometimes on weekdays), as well as for other games (Underworlds, BB, KT), so it's been awesome learning the various tabletop games. AoS is still my favorite by far, especially with all the different armies available and different ways to play each army as well (and love a lot of the designs, especially cabbage!). I think for me its slightly the opposite from most people, where I get too excited to play/try new games/factions/warbands, so I assemble models quickly to play, but haven't been painting nearly as much as I should . I've been building plastic hobby models for several years, so to meet personal minimum quality, I remove all mold lines using knife, sanding down to 600 to make sure at least curves and proper panels show, fixing seams for hero/centerpieces. For the first few months this was fine, although building BoC models took more time than I had expected (minor conversions on bullgors, and doombull took quite some time to fill gaps/pin/green-stuff). Personally, I find it the most difficult to find time to sit down and paint the models. Since it's currently rainy season and it's naturally humid here (yearly average 75%+ humidity, and it rains ~75% of the days right now), finding time to prime models has been a nightmare. Currently planning to purchase an airbrush set to offset this issue, as well as to speed up base-coating. Although only <20% of the players locally field fully-painted armies, one of the reasons I started getting into GW models was for the painting aspect, so one of my major goals is to slowly try to improve painting skills and field a fully painted army. Goals: Most of my goals are currently based on upcoming events (and occasionally switching tasks to prevent burnout). Short term: January (posted on painting contract as well, so will keep this short) : Finish assembling + painting T'au kill team for local commander league (~15 models). Work on BoC army for 1,500 local tourney. Begin assembling IDK Feb.~April: Paint Undead BB team, fully work on fielding IDK army (FLGS most likely to host a tourney with prizes, and I want to use my IDK before (most likely) upcoming nerfs in GHB 2019). Long Term: - I've decided to hold off on purchasing more than 1,000 points for any new army until I finish off at least assembling another one of the backlogged armies (IDK, NH, Khorne) or fully paint an assembled one (SCE, IJ, BoC). (although gloomspite gitz are super tempting). - Other than that, my main goal is to spend at least 1 night a week on painting. (I already spend ~20+ hrs per week on assembling, hopefully I can balance this with more painting time) - As a semi-competitive player, I hope to also work on documenting + analyzing my own AoS games, so will be trying to take more pictures during gaming for battle reports. So far last year has been a great deal of fun getting into tabletop gaming, and looking forward to see what everyone will accomplish this year!

Got extremely lucky with the sacrificing rolls this game (first time trying out allherd). With gavespawn its typically a group of raiders every other turn (useful for contesting objectives, but terrible damage), or bestigor/enlightened on disks (decent fighters) turn 3.

Visited FLGS last night and a friend challenged me to a mini pickup game of 500 points of AoS. (I had my BoC army still at store from last weekend's 1000 event). Matched Play: 500 points Mission: Starfall (played on 2x2 board so edited mission so that objective would drop in center of either board rather than 3 locations). Lists: BoC: Greatfrey: Allherd - 1 x Beastlord (General, Command Trait: Dominator, Artefact: Blade of Desecrator) - 1x 10 Ungor (mace and shields) - 1 x 10 Bestigors - 1 x 3 Bullgors (Greataxes) - 1 x Chaos Spawn Total points: 480 KO: Skyport: Barak-Urbaz, The Market City (Footnote: Where there's war, there's gold) - 1 x Aether-Khemist (General, Command Trait: Khemists Supreme , Artefact: Breath of Morgrim ) - 2 x 10 Arkanaut Company (7x Pistols, 3x Light Skyhook) - 1 x 5 Grundstok Thunderers ( 5x Aethershot Rifle) Total Points: 500 Deployment: KO won deployment, and deployed in a line (left to right) Grundstock, arknaut company #1, aether-khemist, arkanaut company #2 On the opposite side: Herdstone right at center of BoC territory Bullgors, chaos spawn, ungor (near herdstone), Beastlord (on herdstone), Bestigors Round 1: KO finished deploying first and decided to go second. BoC: Gained 3 primordial points sacrificing ungors to the beast gods! For a total of 4 points to start. Bullgors and chaos spawn ran up the left side of the board, staying 22 inches away from Grundstocks (18" shooting + 4" move) Bestigors ran up right side of board to 17" away from enemy (original plan was to stay outside pistol range of 12" shot + 4" move) KO: Aether-khemist buffs both arkanaut company's skyhooks (+1 to attacks) KO army inches forward 4" with their stubby legs Both arkanaut companies shoot skyhooks into bestigors (24" shot range, forgot about those @_@), killing 8 bestigors (remaining 2 run off in battleshock phase). Round 2: To my dismay, objective drops down to the right side of the board (where my almost-decimated bestigors are at!) KO win initiative (yea... rolled 4x 1's for initiatives throughout this match) and decides to go first. KO Turn: Aether-khemist buffs himself and arkanaut company #2 (right side). Arkanaut Company #2 and Aether-khemist run with their short stubby legs run to capture the objective. Arkanaut Company #1 remains in place, while Grundstuk move up to prepare for shooting. Shooting: Grunstuk shoot into bulls, doing a grand total of 2 dmg, arkanaut company #1 deal 1 dmg to my chaos spawn. KO gain control of the point and gain 2 points. BoC Turn: Hero: Sacrifice 3 more ungors to the gods! (gain 1 (hero phase) + 3 more summon points for a total of 8). Two command points are converted into summon points (10 total) Movement: Bullgors move up towards Grundstuks, readying to charge. Chaos spawn starts heading towards Arkanaut Company #1 to prevent them from assisting to capture points. A unit of ungor raiders are summoned near Arkanaut Company #1 (far side edge), while a unit of bestigors are summoned on right side of the fight (near Arkanaut Company #2). (10 summon points used). Shooting: ungor raiders make 1 shot into the Aether-Khemist! Charge: miraculously, everyone makes their charges (bullgors into grundstuks, chaos spawn and ungor raiders into arkanaut company #1, bestigors into arkanaut company #2) . Close Combat: I chose bestigors to go first (with +1 attacks on charge, rerolling 1s to hit against order, +1 to hit against unit of 10 models), and deleted the arkanaut company #2. KO chose grundstuks to go next, and..... they retreated!!!! (didn't know they could do that, so was a misplay on my part). Chaos spawn attacked next, dealing a grand total of 1 dmg. Arkanaut company splits attacks into chaos spawn and ungor raiders, dealing 2 wounds to chaos spawn (3/5), and 2 wound to ungor raiders. Ungor raiders whiff all their attacks into arkanaut. Battleshock: Just when you don't want to see that magical 6, it appears! resulting in an additional 4 ungor raiders running (2 dead + 6 roll = 8 - 4 battleshock = 4 run). BoC recapture the point and gain 2 points for objective. Round 2 score: BoC 2: KO 2 Round 3: KO objective drops on the right side of the map to my horror. BoC objective drops on the left side of the map (meh). Initiative: (Guess who rolls a 1 again!) KO wins and decides to take the turn. KO Turn: Aether-khemist buffs himself and Arkanaut Company #2, and decides to use the "Where There's War, There's Gold" this turn on arkanaut company #2. Arkanaut Company #2 shoot, killing off the ungor raiders, but only getting one wound off on the chaos spawn (YAY!). Movement Phase: Aether-khemist move towards my bestigors, and triggers Breath of Morgrim, dealing 3 MW. Grundstuks inch towards the edge away from bullgors. Shooting: Arkanaut Company #2 is stuck shooting into chaos spawn (very very dead this time). Aether-khemist and his ungodly 3d6+1 shots (ending up in 15 to my horror), lands 7 wounds on my bestigors and kills them off (those dice...). Grundstuks shoot at bullgors, dealing 3 damage total and killing one off (one at 3/4 wounds remaining). Battleshock: none Victory points: Aether-khemist captures point in KO territory, gaining a total of 3 +2 = 5 points. BOC Turn: Hero: 2 more ungors are sacrificed! (1+2 = 3 total summon points). (I could have used an additional point to summon ungor raiders, but didn't really want another unit of raiders at this point). Movement: bullgors decide to move towards arkanaut company #2 (ignoring grundstuks). Ungors run and make it to capture BoC objective. Charge: Bullgors pull off a 10" charge, making it into the arkanaut company #2. Close Combat: .... and bullgors score mvp by missing ALL attacks. Luckily arkanaut company isn't very good at melee either, dealing 1 wound to the bulls (2/4) remaining. Victory points: BoC only capture one point, for 3 points this round = 5 points total Round 3 end score: BoC 5 : KO 5 Round 4: Initiative roll: for once, BoC go first! (double turn, yay) BoC turn: Hero: beastlord decides to sacrifice himself to the gods, and get smited for an ungodly 3 MW (1+3=4 + 3(from last round) = 7). Movement: ungors run toward the center (6!) to try and help capture points in round 5. Beastlord decides its time to move off the herdstone or everything will be lost!, moving towards aether khemist. 10 bestigors are summoned (again!) to the right edge of the map, 9" away from the khemist. Charge: Decided to attempt bestigor charge first (forgot about command trait allowing charge rerolls if beastlord made it first), and fails to charge. Beastlord, on the other hand, makes a 10" charge. Close Combat: With beastlord down to two wounds and potentially contesting the center point, beastlord goes first, making all 5 attacks! but..... Aether-khemist saves 1, and survives the onslaught. Arkanaut company #2 decide to go next, whiffing everything. Bullgors land 4 wounds onto the arkanauts in retaliation! Aether-khemist only succeeds to deal 1 damage to my Beastlord, hence both generals survive the turn. Battleshock: KO uses a command point to prevent battleshock test, bullgors prevent battleshock (6+ 3 units within 12"). Points: unable to kill off the khemist, BoC only gain 4 points for the previously captured objective in BoC territory. KO turn: Hero: Aether-khemist buffs himself and arkanaut company #2. Movement: Grundstuks move toward their own point. Shooting: Arkanaut Company #2 shoot at bullgors, and succeed to do 2 damage, killing off one bull and putting 1 wound on the last bull. Grundstuks all whiff! Aether-khemist gets another ungodly 15 shots at the Beastlord, landing 6. Yea... that's one super dead Beastlord. Close combat: Arkanaut Company #2 go first, managing to deal 0 wounds to the bullgor. Bullgor swings and a grand total of 1 damage to the company. Points: KO keep the center objective for 4 points. Round 4 points: BoC 9: KO 9 Round 5: Initiative: BoC gain initiative and go first. BoC Turn: Movement: Ungors run and make it into within 3" of the center point, bestigors run and make it into the KO objective point. Combat: My single lonely bullgor champion decides it finally wants to make a splash, landing all three greataxe hits for a total of 9 damage (rend 2, dwarves couldn't save it). Since I've captured all three points, we decide to call it after the combat (yay bullgor!) Conclusion: My friend has been very disappointed in KO after its nerfs, so I tried to come up with a more friendly list (I also had chimera (which i was super tempted to summon), enlightened, ghorgon, bray shaman, etc. at hand. It was also either I play my beasts or I play sacrosanct stormcast (LA on gryph, 2x5 sequitors) which isn't very fun). I misplayed one combat phase (though those grundstuks ended up not doing much damage throughout the game *shrugs*). Skyhooks are super deadly, and aetherkhemist hurt as well (especially with that rend 2). Overall it was a fun mini practice match on a weeknight (he's relatively new to AoS). Note to self: take more pictures @_@. Trying to get beasts painted but have a super long hobby list (Kill team season about to start which includes judging of painting so have to work on that first... as well as blood bowl mini-event, hence why BoC are all black right now. Also can't decide if I want to do a grey-scheme beasts or a blue-scheme beasts army).

just did it to practice warhammer math (and to organize all to a single table) and take a look at using both XD, purely from a buff perspective ordinator covers its value at 3 ballistas, and with both heroes at 4 ballistas. ([dmg]/[total points] probably better reflects worth, as [added dmg]/[hero value] is basically treating the hero as a unit who does the extra shooting dmg?)

lol, this warband has been a blast. Snirk has been awesome, usually taking down someone before I park him off in the corner (haven't included any reliable objective/starter hex teleport cards yet). Extreme flank is almost always a must-have to get early glory points, and deploying on boards with two side-by-side hexes helps early setup/movement as well (still havent been able to score mad scurry as squigs keep dying early). Mostly just been testing it against casuals (mix of 2~3 expansions, my main meta deck is Magore and haven't swapped cards from it yet, so equally unoptimized), and been doing pretty well using a kill oriented setup. Have yet to ever inspire the squigs... (they're almost always the first to die since they give easy glory points to the enemy), trying to include berserk axe or other mechanisms to make the herder hurt himself. How's everyone else been doing with them?

Ended up playing in a mini local tourney (8 people) ; 2 maps: focal point, scorched earth. First was against a tzeentch on Focal Point with 2x 10 acolytes, lord of change, chaos lord on manticore, ogroid thaumaturge, and some other sorcerer who casts 2 spells, and 2 chaos spawns. deployment:I put evocators; 2x ballistas, ordinator in reserve. He finished deploying first so went first on first turn; chaos lord on manticore captured center point while chaos spawns tried to flank/prevent me from deepstriking from the far edge of the table. Some spells were cast (not much happened since everyone was 18"+) My first turn: deepstrike far onto his end and landed 8 wounds on his lord of change. Evocators fail charge, rest of units guard my two points. First turn ends (4 (tzeentch):2(SCE)) Kept praying i'd get a double turn but no such luck. Tzeentch starts 2nd turn, ogroid suceeds in casting fireblast for 6 dmg (destiny dice), almost finishing off one ballista, more spells were cast and ogroid and successfully charges my evocators. (forget what spells were cast, but evocators pretty much die out, ballistas also end up dying). Chaos lord on manticore charge my sequitors + castellant, sequitors gallantly survive w/ castellant buff. At this point I'm pretty much screwed, only good thing is all his units pretty much ran/charged backwards at my deepstrike. Rest of the game: sequitors, castellant, and venator eventually take down the chaos lord, since all his units were so far back dealing with the deepstrike, my units pretty much just held objectives and time clock ran out after 3 rounds (I held center + multiple points after his chaos lord tried to attack the sequitors on a side objective). 2nd game: nurgle with: great unclean one, rotigus, poxbringer, sorcerer, 2 5xputrid blightkings on Scorched Earth. Deployment: same units in reserve. nurgle put one blightking unit on each side, rotigus/great unclean one on center board along both sides, poxbringer behind unclean one. He starts turn 1, units begin moving forward, rotigus successfully casts spell and starts dishing out MW. I decide not to deepstrike turn 1 since he didn't move his units too far up forward, venator whiffs his shots, castellant's gryph-hound starts circling along the edge towards enemy territory. He burns his center objective. (0:1) Nurgle ahead Turn 2: He ends up going first again, moves units up, somehow magic/shoots venator to death. I go second, deepstrike into his backline onto an objective point (just far enough that my evocators outnumbered his blightkings), ballistas all shoot into pox and pox miraculously survives. Evos fail charge On the opposite corner, the rest of my units are on defense (sequitors + castellant + LAoGC waiting for the rotigus/blightkings to attack). I burn my center objective (2:1 SCE ahead) Once again, i bet on getting a double turn to get some damage in ........but Turn 3: Opponent gets initiative, great unclean one manages to charge into my lord ordinator and evocators, blightking charge into evocators. After combat is resolved, Evocators get reduced to one model, ordinator dies, i manage to kill off one blightking and do 3 damage to the unclean one. on the opposite corner, rotigus and blightking charge into my sequitors. sequitors all survive w/ channel shields, castellant buff, and LAoGC revive ability, managing to kill one blightking. On my turn, ballistas try to kill pox again (and fail again), evo does 3 damage to unclean one before dying, On the opposite corner; sequitors pretty much whiff everything against blightkings and rotigus but survive yet again (lose 1). At this point i decide to cut losses and LAoGC rides the wind (7D6 got 28", just enough to fly straight into opponent's objective) and along with gryph charger, outnumber enemies on the far point to steal his objective(enemy parked the sorcerer there). (i probably should have burned my objective to prevent enemy from taking control.. but got kinda caught up with everything). He burns the objective that the evocators previously stole (2:3 Nurgle ahead) Turn 4: He gets initiative (meh i have no luck), Magics my LAoGC to one wound remaining, kills off ballistas, evocators, and takes back control of point. on the far side, rotigus and blightkings finish off my sequitors and lord castellant, capturing my point. He summons some snakelike fat lady who charges into my LAoGC and kills him off, and sorcerer kills off gryph hound, recapturing another objective. During my turn, all I have remaining are a unit of sequitors that i parked for the entire game in the opposite objective from where evocators deepstriked. and... they remain in position. At the beginning of turn 5, basically we calculated that since I had initiative and he couldn't reach my sequitors/couldn't capture the point, I won by points (2+8: 3+4+2) Conclusion: Went 2-0 from points! but since I pretty much only killed one unit (got the manticore!) lost from killing points. Granted I pretty much banked on getting a double turn (and didn't get either!) so wasn't able to use ANY anvil skills. They DID lure the enemy away so I was able to get more objective points, but evocators dying out early/ having only 2 unbinds in my army made it near impossible to avoid damage from Tzeentch/Nurgle spellcasters (who did a ton of MW dmg). Venator was near useless, dying from enemy spells which only required visibility (that was really lame). I guess I probably should have went with Gav instead of Venator to make sure evocator charge was successful? My original plan was to run Astral Templars stormhost since 6/8 players brought 1~2 behemoths (somehow i ended up against 2 w/ 2 monsters/behemoths, just my luck!). At 1250, and with most of my units from Sacrosanct only, I felt there wasn't too many options unless I wanted to commit to a full melee alphastrike lineup (which i was hesitant to do since enemy sorcerers were all fat behemoths that I was unlikely to 1-off). Nurgles were super difficult to deal with due to the 4+ save and 5+ FNP on the daemons (blightkings are fat with 4+ save and 4 wounds each). Not sure if there are any more optimal lineups against these factions (granted I probably played a bit too aggressively, this was my 3rd/4th AoS game in total XD) Balance.pdf

wish they released this a tad earlier, I've always been a big minotaur/beast-style fan but got started on soul wars XD (already working on SCE and NH and too soon to start a third faction sadly). Hope they're as fun as they look so I can plan out a third army

Hi, still relatively brand new to this game. Aiming to build a 1,000 point army based on the tempest/soul wars boxes (so mostly sacrosanct units (LA on gyphon, 2x 5 sequitors, evocators or castigator, knight-invocator, ballista). Most lists I've come across seem to include one or more endless spell (in particular chronomatic cog for the extra movement if I'm not mistaken). If I don't plan on using endless spells, does this cripple the army/ is it designed to be used with endless spells?