Few weeks ago, I played my first game of Age of Sigmar after a while. My friend Nemanja, with whom I have played Warmachine for years, finally decided to give AoS a try, so he assembled a 1000-point Ironjawz army. I played my Stormcast Eternals army - actually, this is the first time I am playing them! Also, my army was almost fully painted, so that was additional motivation for choosing Stormcast over some of my other armies.
Since this was Nemanja's first game of AoS and my first game after a long break, we decided to use only battleplans, battle tactics and grand strategies from the Core Book (in order to reduce the complexity as much as possible).
Here are the lists:
ORRUK WARCLANS (IRONJAWZ)
LEADER
Orruk Megaboss (140) - General, Mega Bossy
Orruk Warchanter (115)
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90) - Arcane tome
BATTLELINE
Orruk Ardboys (170)
Orruk Brutes (160)
OTHER
Ironskull’s Boyz (80)
Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)
STORMCAST ETERNALS (KNIGHTS EXCELSIOR)
LEADER
Lord-Imperatant (175) - General, Shock ad Awe
Knight-Vexillor with Banner of Apotheosis (160) - Arcane Tome
BATTLELINE
3 x Annihilators (180)
3 x Annihilators (180)
5 x Vindictors (130)
5 x Vindictors (130)
ROUND 1
I have the priority and I decide to let Nemanja go first. He moves up the board and scores his chosen battle tactic - "Seize the Center". On my turn, I choose battle tactic "Break their spirit" and I put Arcane Shield on one unit of Vindictors. Annihilators arrive at the end of movement phase, dealing enough damage with Blazing Impact to kill one Gore-Grunta. Lord-Imperatant shoots and deals single point of damage to another Gore-Grunta. Both units of Annihilators charge: one fails the charge, but the other one deals just enough mortal wounds to kill the wounded Gore-Grunta and the last member of the unit is killed during combat.
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| End of round 1 |
ROUND 2
Nemanja wins the priority and decides to go first and chooses battle tactic "Broken ranks". He then casts Arcane Bolt on Annihilators (dealing 1 mortal wound), puts Mystic Shield on his Boyz, but fails to roll good range for Green Puke. Warchanter gives 'Ard Boyz "Get 'em beat!". Boyz charge Vindictors and use All-out Attack, while I use All-out Defense. However, despite many successful attacks, Boyz score only a single wound on Vindictors. Meanwhile, Annihilators kill two Brutes, but loose one of their own as well. On my turn, I choose "Repel" as my battle tactic. Both units of Vindictors and Lord-Vexillor attack the Boyz, but manage to kill just a couple of them. Annihilators kill one more Brute, while the second unit of Annihilators runs, trying to get to somewhere relevant.
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| Lord-Imperatant and his trusty gryph-hound observe the battle |
ROUND 3
Nemanja wins the priority again. His battle tactic is "Repel". Ironskull's Boyz charge the Vindictors and join the melee in near the center of the table. Shaman decides to charge the Annihilators. Ironskull's boys actually roll very good and kill 3 Vindictors, while Shaman does nothing (no surprise there) and is then beaten to death. On my turn, I return all 3 of the slain Vindictors using Knight-Vexillor's banner. I manage to kill most of the 'Ard Boys, while Annihilators take over one of the objectives on the other side of the table (which was my battle tactic as well - "Conquer").
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| End of round 3 |
However, at this point we had to finish the game. We counted the victory points, and Stormcast won with the score 11 - 6. Despite Orruks ending up in a tough spot by the end of turn 3, both Nemanja and I were really satisfied with the game. I like that the Stormcast are versatile army and can provide multiple playstyles, but most of all I like the fact that I can play a lot of heavy infantry in a single list (it's obvious that Trollblood bricks were my main choice back when I played Warmachine :D). Annihilators are great and with a bit of luck, the turn where they arrive from Azyr can be devastating (and having Lord-Imperatant helps them quite a bit).
UPDATE: Soon after this game, we played a rematch with the same lists and it was a very different game - Nemanja had a much better understanding of his army now. Stormcast managed to win again, but the game went back and forth and we both suffered heavy casualties. Megaboss is a real beast and as soon as he kills a unit or two things get very nasty! We will probably add a bit more variety in one of our next games with some of the scenarios from latest General's Hadbook. Stay tuned!
