Ulthuan

I've got my first game of AoS coming up next thursday. After playing High Elves for 15 years and not touching them since AoS was released I'm pretty exited to get by HE back on the table again. I just hope I enjoy the game enough to keep playing with them.

Now I've looked at some AoS battlereps and my first conclusion was that I should probably include Tyrion, Teclis AND Korhil in my list, but I'm not going to. I want to see how my old army performs in AoS and see if I can make it work. I used to play 'minimum characters, balanced force', so I just took my old standard approach to list building and ended up with this:

Dragon Noble on foot, general, relic starblade en enchanted shield.
Archmage (probably on foot as I have no painted model on steed)
20 spearmen
10 Silver helms
10 archers
10 white lions
10 sword masters
2 great eagles
2 bolt throwers

I doubt this is anywhere near 'competetive', but I think the best way to learn how the army has changed with the new rules is to use the same army I used to field.

I'll post my results here after getting soundly trashed.

_________________

Hell is other people
- Sartre

The list looks interesting enough. You're probably correct that it's not the most competitive list you can build. But I think that when learning the game you actually learn more and become a better player if you play a balanced list. Having one or two models that win the game by themselves doesn't really teach you much. Also, I would consider it less fun to play. And this way, you can still take them if at some point you need to increase your power level.

Keep us updated on your progress. I'd love to read some reports on how the army performs.

Rod

_________________

Eirik wrote:

Please try to remember that, no matter how 'official' the source seems, rumours are basically just a dictionary combined with a random number generator

For Nagarythe: Come to the dark side.
PS: Bring cookies!

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I've only played 3 games so far, but large blocks of infantry seem really good in AoS.

Also, highelf units are pretty resilient to shooting.

WTF! That's never been the case.

I'll be facing undead, so I expect little shooting. My opponent is probably fielding:

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (ruler ot night / cursed book)
Tomb Banshee
Cairn Wraith
2 x 20 skeleton warriors
20 skeleton archers
2 Morghast Archai
2 Morghast Harbinger

So I believe I'm doomed from the start. Those Morghast are fast and hit really hard, and with that zombie dragon I'll have to many targets for by RBT's. Oh well, we'll see tomorrow.

_________________

Hell is other people
- Sartre

Spearmen have 5+ save. with rerolls on 1 and 2. against shooting attacks.

Add to that the 6+ save from the mage.

doing some math that leaves us with a 61% save against nonrending shooting attacks.

That is pretty sweet.

A 3+ save is 66% so its quite good.

against -1 rend. its a 39% save.

against -2 or better... well its just the 6+...

I would call that resilient.

As promised, reporting on my first step in AoS land.

The lists for completeness:
Dragon Noble on foot, general, relic starblade en enchanted shield. As general he got the reckless skill, allowing units within 10" to re-roll charge distances.
Archmage on foot
20 spearmen with banner
10 Silver helms with banner
10 archers
10 white lions
10 sword masters with banner
2 great eagles
2 bolt throwers

And the undead:
Vampire on zombie dragon with ruler of the night and cursed book, so death units get up again on a 5+.
Wraith
Banshee
20 skeleton warriors
10 skeleton warriors
20 skeleton archers
2 Morghast Archai
2 Morghast Harbinger

The mission was 3 places of power. 3 objectives on the center line, only heroes can claim them and accumulate points for every turn they are within 3" of an objective. (1 point the first turn, 2 points the second turn they claim it, and so on)

I knew I'd be going second as I had way more units than him. I refused my left flank, having only 1 great eagle there and put everything on the right flank and the bolt throwers in the center for maximum field of fire. opposing my empty flank were 2 morghast, 20 archers, 10 skeleton warriors. His center was the banshee, wraith and 2 morghast and his right flank contained 20 warriors and the zombie dragon.

I decided right away I wanted to take down the dragon and see if I could.

T1
He elected to go first, and he cast mystical shield on his vampire, raising the save to 2+. Then he moved forward to claim the objective on my right flank and followed the dragon with the skeletons. The rest of his army moved forward.

My turn, after my mage failed to cast a spell, I moved my great eagles towards the wraith to see if I can do some damage there. I moved my SH, WL, SM and spearmen towards the dragon as far as possible. My General was deployed in the center of the board and sprinted towards the flank. I had a 50-50 shot at a double turn, and if the dragon charged he'd be away from the objective and leave the skeletons behind so that was fine too. Shooting was disappointing, both RBT's fired at the dragon, 2 single bolts missing and the 12-bolt volley unable to get through his save with only a -1 rend.

Now everything charges. The SH and WL make is, the Swordmasters fail their charge and are just outside my generals reckless range, and the spearmen make is but only a few can get in striking range. The great eagles in the center both charge the wraith, but 1 fails his charge range of 5" by rolling a double 1. (I bloody hate random charge ranges. Always have)

In combat the silver helms and WL do a total of 3 wounds on the dragon and manage to knock a wound of the skeletons I clipped, taking them to 19 models and thus negating the '+1 attack if 20 or more models' special rule. The dragon in turn only causes a single wound on the SH. And so the stalemate begins.

The lone great eagle does nothing against the wraith, suffers 2 wounds in return and uses it's special rule to leave combat and fly away.

T2: Turn roll-off: I won! So a double turn it is. But that's the last exiting thing to happen really.
The following turns consist of me slowly beating up the dragon while losing half the SH and the unit of WL in return. My mage accomplishing his one good act of the battle, which is stopping the vampire-lords mystical shield in turn 3, the morghast and archers killing my eagles while my bolt throwers take down 1 of the morghast.

At the end of turn 4 I have slain the dragon but I'm 12 points behind on the mission (I wasn't going for the mission anyway, but still).

__________
A fun game, but if I'm going to give my opponent some opposition I need to start looking at some things with rend -2 or something. Shooting is supposed to be very effective (according to my opponent) but I didn't see it. Next time I'll bring Tyrion along, his -3 rend attacks should make short work of some of the harder enemies so my infantry and cavalry can take out the soft targets. I can also use an extra hero for some added fighting power.

I'm still struggling with the combat system of 'I strike - U strike'. I think the best way to use it is to engage 1 target with as many models as possible, but then those models should not be big units as they won't get into striking range. Trying to wrap a dragon in 50 HE was not a great idea.

I'll give AoS another try at least. It is nothing like WH of course, and that saddens me, but it is a fun game in itself. It is a shame that the HE are no longer a proper faction. My army consisted of ORDER alliance, because my units came from 5 suballiances (eldritch counsel, Highborn, Lion Rangers, Swifthawk agents and Order draconis) and my generals own ability could only target order draconis units. There is no synergy in the army in that regard, which is a shame.

_________________

Hell is other people
- Sartre

It sounds like a nice battle. I think there's some learning curve involved to figure out what works and what doesn't. I do think you have the right approach where you're not expecting some form of WH but rather are looking at the game in its own right.

I personally think that the split of the HE army between 5 different suballiances is a bit silly. I don't think any of those suballiances makes a complete army, unless you want only one or two units. Which makes it very hard to create an army full of synergy.

Rod

_________________

Eirik wrote:

Please try to remember that, no matter how 'official' the source seems, rumours are basically just a dictionary combined with a random number generator

For Nagarythe: Come to the dark side.
PS: Bring cookies!

Check out my plog
Painting progress, done/in progress/in box: 167/33/91