Age of Sigmar, UB High Elves vs. High Elves, Battle Review

[Loriel]

I had a great chance of playing against Swordmaster of Hoeth through UB. This battle was more of practice and testing, than attempt to win (atleast from my part )

Ruleset

Rules from new rulebook + High Elf Warscrolls

We agreed 3 houserules for the battle:

• 5 minimum units
• army has to have general and she/he must be fielded before the sixth drop
• When a player passes deploying the other player gets to field one drop.

- The thing what I wanted was to not mess up with the rules as little as much. Trying to achieve somekind of balance atm. seems futile. Besides this game isn't made for balance, so playing it for survival is the key of enjoyment (thinking mainly about Necromunda here )
- All in all I think most of our war scrolls capture the essence of the units. Like Phoenix Guard, Swordmasters etc.

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Terrain

We chose 72 inch x 48 inch table. We rolled terrain as described in rulebook. We made that only the arcanum didn't block line of sight.

- I kind a liked the "place certain ammount of features in 2 square foot approach". Perhaps one of the reason for this that in my gaming clubs some players tend to place terrain to far edges.
- I personally kind a miss the 8th style table where the type of terrain is explained. However this leaves that option wide open. It can be river / forest / buiding etc. It also is good to support the idea that you can use any of your terrain pieces, compared to 8th where you might end up in situation that ok, i don't own 5 rivers... But as said battlefield can be done by huge
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Deployment

I won the deployment roll and chose the L shaped deployment zones from the book. Sadly as I didn't take any notes I don't have exact deployment order. Swordie might have one and I try to remember it:

- 2 Great Eagles for me
- 6 Reavers for swordie
- 20 lsg
- Swordmasters of Hoeth
- Skycutter Seahelm
- dragon princes
- shadow warriors
- 20 lsg
- 2 x great eagles
- griffon prince
- RBT
- pass for swordie
- Wizard on foot for me.

-I actually now realized what swordmaster meant or was trying to say during the game. As I won the roll to deploy first I got two extra units instead of one. so perhaps the houserule should be altered that when both players have deployed one of them decides to pass and if both wants then roll for it. dunno
- one of the key elements to "army" building in sigmar isn't thinking before but to act to your opponents drops. Say your opponent decides to field large unit of spears. You will deploy something that can answer that. etc. You don't know how big game you are going to play. This reaction style list building is really interesting.

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As this is more review than actual report I will do it phase by phase

Hero phase:
Having a special skill for the general to use is nice trick. They seem to have decent ammount of diversity and allows really different kind of lists. For example my Skycutter Sea Helm had swoop and attack which allowed all of the flyers do run + charge. Swordmasters prince on griffon allowed to reroll charge dices.

For the wizard I think here fantasy got perhaps the biggest blow. Reduced regullar wizards to be one spell casters and it seems that 18 inch range seems standard (I have looked up only couple armies scrolls, but it seems to be so). One thing I realized head on is that you cast spells at the start of turn. Compared to 8th where you had chance to move your wizard to better location in order to cast damage or buff certain combats atm. you don't have that option. So it seems wizards are really defensive units. This seems little counterintuitive compared to shooting and close combat which are done after.

Movement Phase

Well the fluid movement was somewhat fitting. It is really appealing for little games and small forces. I could never consider playing many hundred figure match without ranking up stuff. Well ranking is still and option with little benefit.

I am also pleased that GW didn't make 40k everybody moves 6 inch or 12 inch. Given different speeds to the models is really good.

Another thing that bothered me is that I cannot avoid my opponent by flying behind his ranks nor behind some obstacle right close to it. Anyone can move before charge and charge 360, over corners etc. This naturally is much more "realistic" in some sense. As the rules are that at the start of turn both players roll who starts this one. And if you were the second player in the last turn there is chance that you start this one right after your last turn. So doing these daring attempts to charge/move beneath enemy lines can be worth in this situation.

Shooting Phase

Shooting with little to modify the shooting in some sense is relieve. As Tomb Kings player I always loved measure distance, throw 5+ to hit.Any other army will have tons of situation ok, these models will be long range, move, short range, cover, hard cover etc. Ends up rolling 2-4 different modifier rolls all the time. Allthough as "hardcore gamer" I like these modifiers as they seem very intuitive, but it can stall the game.

Shooting prior charge seemed really powerfull option here. It was effective impact hits.

Range for regular archers seemed little too low, but that just might be numerous games of warhammer that I have played. Prolly if and when I get my own inner estimations to adjusted to this game it doesn't seem so

One really odd thing is (probably not intended) that by RAW you can shoot to combat and while you are engaged in combat without any penalty what so ever. This seems really odd and makes shooting units even better as most of them are as good killers in rangers as in cc. I would have no problem for idea that if a model is more than 3 inch away from the enemy it can shoot. Given this was tactic that many used in shield walls that there were ranged infantry little back and threw javelins and arrows to other side. But in direct hand to hand situation that seems really... well I don't know was it Eloriel or who said it but this way all archers get a chance to be Legolas
[Edit] Well this certainly was intended when you look reavers rule Swift Volleys: Models in this unit make 3
attacks with their Reaver Cavalry Bows if the unit is not within 3" of an enemy unit.

Reavers seemed really powerfull option right now. With the extra mobility and tons of shooting attacks.

Charge

I think one of the real mistakes here is that there is no penalty of trying long charges. If failed you don't move closer nor opponent doesn't have ability to stand and shoot. (some might, but atleas no-one that I have seen can stand and shoot)

Also the fact that models first move and then do charge is really hard for me to realized that ok, they could do this also. But that is solely on fact that I have so many games of Warhammer behind me that I need to adjust my thinking (same goes for 40k)

Atleast by the covers most charge bonuses are lost. There wasn't any impact hits for chariots nor lances only gives +1 to wound etc. Think about tiranoc chariot here that it gets rerolls to wounds that are 2 x 4+ to wound and 4x 5+ to wound. Given that they weren't particular good before now they are certainly not good and this doesn't fit for my idea of chariots, how they really should work.

Combat phase
Losing the initiative was little... i don't know... bad..., but in away perhaps it wasn't that big of a deal. before chargers got the first strike and that was acceptable. The thing that we had with Swordie is that multiple combats will have really big importance in which order does player activate the units. MSU technic charging tons of small units against one real big one will be bad news. You pick one of you small unit then the big unit will do all of its attacks.

Then again with big units you can dictate their pileups really well by doing nasty corner charges and deny tons of attacks that way. It would be best solution to fight some horde style when outnumbered. In our game I could have done that against swordmasters and most likely received couple attacks less. it also denies your opponent swarming over you as easily.

The actual combat seemed rather straight forward. At first I was really upset of the losing good old str toughness, but in most cases increased wounds on monsters / heroes actually compensate this. It is also more exciting when the hero is going to get wounds, rather than just simple deflect them with armor / high T and die after 2 wounds, here you need 5 wounds to kill wizard on foot. I personally like the idea that they "Starts to bleed" and it is more thrilling. Also the fact that monsters will have reduced abilities when wounded badly is really niche system, allthough given how simple they made the game I am surprised they included so complex system in it but good for that.

Battleshock phase

First of all realizing that every lone model is effectively unbreakable was real downer for me. As battleshock test is required only if unit suffers casualties (not per wound) and well. lone model suffering casualty is equal to dead model. so this was really odd for me. On the other hand characters are meant to be more adamant figures in the battlefield so... k. But no rules to include character inside unit so really odd. However here is implication that it is possible from battleshock rules "For each point by which the total exceeds the highest Bravery characteristic in the unit, "

Another curious note is that it is possible that you manage to deal tons of damage (and in terms of old warhammer win the combat by alot) but still your forces might end up retreating. I don't personally find this too bad idea that both sides takes the test. I can easily imagine that they might be allready running and just managed to cut some enemy troops while doing so, perhaps some just exhaust their stamina to fight more. From individual perspective it would be really really hard to say how the battle is really going.

I also liked the idea that battleshock includes all the damage from shooting, magic, cc, but there are few ways (mainly inspiring precense) to complete ignore this.

The things that I certainly don't like and think is essential for these kind of miniature games is panic tests. Or have modifier to your bravery should units be wiped out nearby etc. Anything that would simulate panic somehow. The way I have understood most battles (in real life) isn't really won by killing all of the enemies but rather breaking their morale. Swordmaster said very well during the battle that "this isn't wargame..." then I though well yeah. this isn't

Another thing is lack of surrounding effect etc. It should be much more devastating for the fighters to be surrounded from flanks / rear. How ever perhaps this can be simulated by dictating those pile up moves. If model has melee weapon only 1 inch range and you attack the unit from two ends effectively most models in middle are played out -> less damage which confers the idea of flank attack. It still exist but more in a way how the models are fielded. This also makes the wide spread formation worse compared to ranked up. In ranked up you can move those models accros enemy and still keep the 1 inch rule to your own models more easily. This would simulate the effect of the ranked models really well. SO again something that could be think "rank bonuses"

I also didn't like one bit of idea that you cannot overrun / flee / pursuit. Well, new game new things.

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All in all game has more merit than it seems. there are many mechanics that seems really simple but they have effectively similar results as much more complex rules. The thing that I really liked is that the rules them self are written with much proper english than we are used to see from gw. There isn't as much vague things.

Free rulebooks and warscrolls are superior thing.

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For the actual battle in summary it went like this:

- I moved as quickly as possible in to close combat. Swordmaster hacked me to pieces end of story

[Loriel]

I posted the rest of the review. incase someone managed to read it

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Hi Loriel,

Many thanks for the review of our game! It was a great pleasure to test new rules with you and I really appreciate the invitation! I am very happy we had that test as it is always good to have initial thoughts verified.

I will follow you organization chart for the observations

Ruleset

I didn't have any particular ideas on how I want this game to be organized in terms of army composition. My aim was to check the rules, game mechanics and have a few different units/models to see how different war scrolls work. I also wanted to keep it relatively small and simple as I expected we would have to check the rules and war scrolls often. No surprise here, it is usually the case of a new game

I was perfectly ok with Loriel's idea because the way I see it Age of Sigmar is not meant for some structured game play at all. It simply relies on your own social conventions and whatever you are going to agree with your opponent.

Terrain

As Loriel said we generated the terrain by the book. We rolled how many features were in each 2 x 2 foot square and then checked what these are. We ended up with more terrain than I was used to with 8th edition but since it does not affect movement and we planned to have few units I don't think it was a problem. In general, I don't mind having lots of it at all!

We didn't use the special rules for it much during the game but I think it was due to the fact that we rolled mainly damned mysterious terrain that required sacrifice of models to get the ability working. Also, because we played online we had to agree on line of sight that normally would be easy to apply. So I guess it was a little more simplified than in a real game. However, I tried to jump into it when I could to be able to use "Cover" rule or simply moved behind it and prevent Loriels shooters to take my units as targets.

Deployment

We call it deployment but in reality it is a combination of dynamic army list building and deployment. It is completely new and quite interesting in itself. Since it was not determined which regiments are going to show up we had to consider what the opponent is putting, how that affects model count (Loriel was going for instant death but then he deployed big unit and I stopped), how the regiments I have will fight against the ones my opponent already has and should I continue deploying etc.

We didn't end up in the situation where we had to consider lack of space though. And we didn't thing about reinforcements yet either. But I think it might be another interesting area to explore.

However, with the rule Loriel implemented I could not try to go for some version of MSU style. I am not saying it is a way to go but potentially, when your enemy says stop, you can continue deploying your regiments. If you keep model count low (and that is what MSU is about) you might try to outdeploy the enemy and not reach instant death conditions. And that is the option core rules allow you to have.

It looks like setting up the game may be much more complicated and complex because of that too.

I am sure I didn't use that phase to the fullest as it was mainly a learning process. I also decided I wanted to field certain units just to see how they work so I didn't try to react to Loriels choices. At this stage I can't say what is a good counter to what. At the same time I don't know yet how to develop a way to force the opponent to react to my choices, thus seizing the initiative.

Hero phase:

I like the general idea of commanders having some kind of abilities that aid the units. It seems that characters have quite a selection of these to chose from. Again, I didn't choose my general based on some careful calculation. I'd rather assumed that some players simply may show up with what they have. As I do have Griffon Rider and I like the model then I naturally wanted to use it.

But I can see how one can try and pick characters that would aid their units the bast. Seahelm on skycutter seems like a great hero to lead flying squadrons. Griffon is aggressive too and will help to spearhead the attacks. I like BSB ability a lot too and was considering taking him as well but decided not to as I wanted to stop deployment before Loriel did.

It definitely requires some planning how to use the abilities and how to move afterwards.

Movement phase:

Again, totally different to what I got used to. The units don't move far but the fact they can move in any direction and then either run or charge means they can still cover the distance fast. We didn't have many units to move so we didn't run into any problems with that. We also used kind of generic formations but I see a great potential to explore here. You will need to take into account how you want to move your units because it will affect how you can shoot and fight. For example, I might want to use tight formation as my weapons are short ranged but then it will not help me in being in range faster for the charge. I might want to expand the formation to block the enemy but it might me make more vulnerable to attacks etc.

I also think some kind of mutual unit support is also important because when you get charged your other units may use it to counter from many directions. Once the formations are broken (as for movement purpose we tried to keep the units neat) there are many ways you can take advantage of that. Force the unit to spread and attack with more regiments.

We haven't used that either but if you include banners and have nearby units with banners you add to the bravery. And that is very important so I think movement is still very important.

Of course Loriel is correct with the observation that it is hard to hide now unless you are behind your unit. That might be the way to go too because with no panic, flee or pursuit you can block the regiments even if losing combat.

Shooting phase:

On one hand the ranges are shorter but on the other the units can move and shoot without any penalties. In fact, war machines can do that too. It makes it more dynamic as you cannot simply park behind the terrain and stay safe. I think we were still shy with they way we moved our units. But it will take time to see what can be used against something else, i.e. I was worried that single bolt thrower with 12 shots can decimate my Sea Guard fast. Not to mention other units. Hence, I didn't move anywhere near. But maybe I should have

It is indeed quite powerful in the way that the unit that can shoot and have decent save can quickly produce quite a significant damage. And since Battle shock is taken at the end of the turn, you can accumulate the damage nicely.

The fact there are few modifiers and the system is simpler makes it quicker of course.

Charge phase:

I agree with Loriel. I was surprised as I didn't notice that in the first place but there is absolutely no risk involved. If you don't make it you don't get closer to the enemy, you are not pulled out of the formation. There is also no difference for cavalry and infantry, the only advantage is that cavalry can move further in movement phase to get into possible charge range. The funny part is that even if you don't make it and you were second that turn, the following turn you might be first and move+charge almost automatically.

In a way it simply feels like an extension of the movement phase and since you can pre-measure and sometimes re-roll the dice then the randomness can be mitigated.

Combat phase:

Technically it is faster but in practice it may not be. You will have to check all the models if they have range before you determine the number of attacks. Especially that some units have shooting weapons as well as combat weapons and these have different ranges too.

It felt good to have Swordmasters with 4+ save (which as good as cavalry), hitting on 3+ with re-rolls of 1's and wounding on 3+ with rending -1. But it just shows typical situation when units get better/worse with new army book/edition and it simply takes time for players to find out what is good against what.

Combat phase has its own peculiarities and indeed, the order of attacking in multiple combats will be important. Then I don't quite like the fact that after the combat you end up with some kind of silly mess because you piled in but now your enemy is dead and you might not even have time to use your own movement phase to re-dress the formation. Of course it also means you have to plan ahead so the way you pile in will be important. It is mitigated to an extend by the fact that even if you lose a unit the enemy can do nothing either.

So while that has some interesting mechanics and simply works differently I don't like its totally messy character.

Battleshock phase:

I find it weird that you may inflict more casualties upon the enemy but unlucky BS test may cost you more than the combat itself. I understand you can mitigate the effect with banners, proximity of friends, BSB and some other special rules. But the probability of rolling a 1 is the same as 6 and you have to do it when you lose a single model.

Of course the effect of rolling a 1 or a 6 is not the same if you lost 1 model than when you lose many. But I just find it strange and kind of random effect to inflict more casualties.

Overall impressions

The game has totally different mechanics and because of that plays differently. But we knew that already so it was just a confirmation.

The rules are short but they already create quite a lot of confusion so I am not sure if that helps to play intro games much. You don't have to read or carry army books but the fact each war scroll is so unique you will still have to bring them all to the game. So I don't see it as a solution that would make it easier for a newcomer to get into game even if these special rules look characterful at first glance.

In general, I think it is a game to help re-create RPG stories and play casual games with like-minded friends so you don't need to waste your time for endless balance discussions. Just create a scenario and play! In addition, the less serious you treat the game the better because you would simply not care about the fact that you would need to constantly come up with solution to the problem in the game that the rules don't cover.

Last but not least but certainly the most important thing that test demonstrated is that it will be fun if you play against the opponent who has open mind and the same attitude like yours. Because only then you will be able to come up with the solutions. Please, note that I said like-minded. If you are more of a competitive player who needs strict rules to follow I am sure you will find a common ground with a person who shares your point of view. If you are story teller who does not need to win to have fun then in a game against another individual of the same attitude you will have plenty of inspiration for your stories.

But this is not a game to simulate battles in fantasy world, it is not for tournament play as it simply has too much randomness and too many places to be exploited.

Once again, I would like to thank Loriel for a very enjoyable evening and it was great playing against him in that very first test battle for both of us. It was his open-minded attitude that created great atmosphere for the game!

Cheers!

[Loriel]

thanks for the post. Hard to add anything. We had a good talk right after the game in chat room also.

[Tiny]

Thank you for sharing!

Although I do not like much of what I have read about AoS sofar, your report nevertheless made me eager to have some test games myself.

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Hi Tiny,

Great to hear from you!

I must say that I didn't plan to get into AoS, definitely not at this stage. The fact I had a lot of fun this game was thanks to my opponent, Loriel. I am sure that if we played any other game it would be the same. But it was good to give it a try with as open mind as you can. Simply to see how the game mechanics work. It's like having a free ride before you decide if you want to buy a car or not

Cheers!