Hey guys, so I’m back from my honeymoon and wedding! Had an amazing time , really loved it!
So Scott and I decided to get a wee game in of AoS last night using the Clash comp pack (little bit of modification to let Scott use his toys lol). We played Stormcasts vs Lizards and was actually the first time I got to play with my speed painted army. Actually quite happy with the standard of them, nice effect on the table and really looking forward to finishing them off to my best possible standard. Also very much looking forward to getting my 20 judicators, 5 Decimators and 5 Protectors speed painted up. Also have a Vexilior, Vennator, Azyros and Heraldor to be painted too.
Anyway so we played a 20 point game and I was using the following:
Lord Celestant on Dracoth
Lord Celestant on foot
Lord Castellant
Lord Relictor
4x 5 Liberators with Shields
10x Retributors
3x 3 Prosecutors.
Scott took (illegal but we agreed it was fine)
Kroq-Gar
Slann
Skink Priest
Oldblood on Coldone
Scar Vet Banner Bearer
2x 10 Skink
20 Saurus Warriors
3x Terradons
Bastilidon
It’s worth noting Scott’s list was pretty rubbish but it was all he had assembled and we just wanted to have some fun. We played the refused flank from the Clash Comp pack (see here: link), Scott finished deploying first so made me go first. I chose not go with any of the teleporting formations primarily because I wanted to test and play with the units in a standard way. Also currently under the comp teleporting units cannot capture objectives and not knowing how the game would flow or my unit performed could result in a big error losing me the game.
Basically I moved up and began pushing the retributors towards the central objective, they are my slowest moving and hardest hitting unit and it made sense that they pushed to smash the centre and react easier. Had I moved to a side objective and it disappeared, they would be out of the game. The liberators pushed towards the side objectives and the characters spread out around the retributors to support each other and buff a unit if required. Also the offensive mortal wound attacks projected threat towards the lizards. The prosecutors spread forward to act as a vanguard and to keep Scott from advancing too fast towards the objectives. I think these small units will work well as speed bumps in the future.
From here onwards it is probably not worth going into massive detail of the game as my army was a lot better than Scott’s, my dice were on fire and his seemed to only roll 1s. The main learning points from the game were as follows:
- · Conventional internet wisdom is going 1stis bad as you run the risk of being double turned and your shooting probably won’t be in range. In some situations however it might be better to go first. Having fast “speed” bump units like the prosecutors that can push forward to slow down an enemy unit are great to ensure you can camp the objectives. As there are no overruns any more you can’t gain free movement from being too aggressive early.
- · The prosecutors are “ok”. They don’t hit hard (no rend) and are quite squishy (2 wounds each and 4+ save) but their utility from shooting, being fast and ok in combat is good.
- · The retributors are solid gold awesome, hits of 6 straight up cause 2 mortal wounds (no wound roll required). 3 wounds each and causing 2 damage (-1 rend, hit and wound on 3s) very, very good unit. Only problem is movement 4 so they are pretty slow but there is potential to teleport them and act as a hammer. A starstone mace also would have been nice to give D3 auto
- · Liberators are decent, with shields they are a very resilient anvil unit (4+ save rerolling 1s) and when fighting enemies with 5+ wounds they activate their “lay low the tyrants” rule making them hit on 3s and wound on 3s. Going forward I will be putting a great blade on my Liberator prime to give them a little punch.
- · The Celestant on Dracoth (VANDUS HAMMERHAND) was very good, the lightning breath causing D3 mortal wounds wise a nice ability, as it happens in the shooting phase you can react much more than having to cast arcane bolt in the hero phase. Also no battleshock within 24” was very tasty!
- · The celestant on foot was also a great addition, his hammer cloak (ridiculous fluff wise) is super good too, D6 hits that do a mortal wound on a 4+ with a nice range of 16” can be great, I killed a Slann over the course of 3 turns.
- · The castellant was also great, his buff was great making vandus and the retributors harder to kill.
- · The relictor was also good, restoring 6 wounds to Vandus with the healing spell over 3 turns. The lightning bolt attack was also good, causing d3 wounds to Kroqgar and making him -1 to hit.
Anyway I'm super positive about playing AoS and the Stormcasts in the future and look forward to using more units in the army. I maybe went a bit OTT with characters but equally it was quite fun using all their utility in the game. Playing Mike’s dorfs on Sunday, wish me luck!
