I know Annika isn't popular, but I really like her model and wanted to give her a shot since I just built her. I only have one unit of grave guard and no bats so far, but I'll aim to remedy that if we start playing larger games regularly.
I was playing against stormcast (my 4 games of aos so far have all been against stormcast by 2 different opponents) and the mission was the one with set up in opposite corners (first blood?)
Sadly, Annika got taken out pretty quickly, without doing much other than giving the grave guard +1 to wound on 1 round of combat. But that was enough for the grave guard to kill the unit they were engaged with, and then they got to pile in and fight again thanks to Vanhel's dance macabre and beat up the unit that killed Annika. They were my mvps as usual, and even at 10 models, they wreck stuff, especially when they get to fight twice and/or get an extra attack.
The skeletons as always hit like a wet noodle, but they did what I wanted them to do, which was run to the center objective and refuse to die.
My zombies never got into combat this game, but they just sat on an objective most of the game, so I'm okay with that for 115 points.
We called the game at rd 4 as we were short on time and I had a significant lead in points. I think that as we get more experienced, we'll be able to play faster, but we're still at the stage where a lot of time is spent checking on how things work.
Also, even with my necromancer having the extra cast, I still never cast his chosen spell, since it was usually vanhel's and mystic shield. I think the artefact was still worth it, though.