Kaleb Daark:
Hi all,
Today I had my first AoS game since 7th edition. ( I don’t include the starter box game which was a bit rubbish as it’s so biased to the sigmarines).
We played a friendly put whatever you like down game, a real gentleman’s agreement.
He played goblins - he had 20 spider riders, two units of 20 night goblins, a shaman, six trolls and a shaman on an arachnarok.
I decided on taking Drazoath, two hellshrieker rocket launchers, a hellcannon, a unit of 20 infernal fireglaives and three bull centaurs and a Taur’uk.
Without labouring on turn by turn blow by blow details it went something like this;
Turn 1
I deployed first with everything pushed up on the front deployment line.
He won initiative but couldn’t do alot, his first turn was spent moving his stuff up the field.
Straight away I had an advantage since all my artillery was in range. The movement rules allowed me to march my dwarfs midfield right away, and bang in the middle there was a tower, so cinderbreath flew onto that so he had full reach of the whole board (4’ square)
I identified his trolls and spider riders as being the biggest threats outside of his giant spider so I concentrated on those.
Turn 2
He won initiative again, and so proceeded to try and close the gap on me. His trolls scaled the building and attacked cinderbreath. by the time they’d thrown up and pounded the life out of him, he was down to 1 wound from his original 13!
When I attacked back I managed to take two trolls down with him just breathing on them.
Turn 3
Finally I win initiative
I used this turn to get cinderbreath out of melee and behind the centaurs and dwarfs whilst still being in breathing range.
The dwarfs started shooting at the goblins, and the centaurs pile into the spiders who are trying to get to the hellcannon. Taur’uk gets between araknarok and centaurs as its all set up for a flank charge.
I get the charges in, and the centaurs, absolutely wreck six spider riders!
The Taur’uk holds his own against the araknarok, but is reduced to two wounds. That boy hits hard however!
At this point my rockets and cannon train everything they got on the araknarok.
They manage to block my summon fireborne casting and I get off his signature spell, but fail to do damage. bugger.
Turn 4
This round my dwarfs get into melee with the goblins, and the spiders try to hit back, but failing. Taur’uk is down to one wound but survives the araknarok due to rubbish dice on his part, and cinderbreath breaths over more trolls from the safety of the back line.
Time was up and the table was needed again - tallying up the woulds done, I’d suffered four dwarf casualties to his twenty goblin and six spider riders - plus the other five removed due to battle shock.
I win.
Conclusion
I didn’t want to like it, but I found myself warming to it, probably in no small part because it was my army.
The things which haters hate, was actually what I liked about it.
People bang on about battle shock in AoS, but for me it was the initiative which was the biggest threat.The fact that you both roll initiative every turn means nothing is guaranteed, and the fact the movement works differently to wfb means your troops actually see proper action.
Technically it actually is a challenging game, but you can’t approach it from a ranks and flanks perspective. I suppose its why 40k players find it easier to get their heads around. Setting yourself up for charges is just as important and you can’t guarantee that the big gribbly is safe because he’s got bucket loads of wounds. The 20mm square bases also helped as it meant the reach of the dwarf allowed the second rank to get a hit.
Yes it’s more simplified, but it’s like a guitar, the basics are easy, but mastery is the challenge. Yes it could be improved, and yes it doesn’t have the complexity at face value that the old game had - but by the time you’ve got the individual rules for warscrolls etc, you’re still trying to remember as much.
I’m prepared to give it another go… this time maybe with more centaurs, and fireborne on the board from the word go.
With my drazoath model on the way, my current model I was using (the destroyer conversion from a slaughterbrute I did) will become a great taurus - as they still are just brutal with the breath weapon and the hooves.
granted I played mere goblins, but I have to say, it felt good cracking them out again. 