alindahl

Yes Please!

Yes they are called Battleline and the different point limits require a certain number of units of them. In addition there are limits to the number of Leaders, Artillery, and Behemoths. As to the first part of your post, I think this is even more true in AoS at least from what I have seen. There are more synergies within factions and every unit tends to have some strength one way or another. There are very few units that are just plain bad in all respects. And that fact that you can build lists using units from the all factions within your Grand Alliance is huge for strategic list building. Dwarven artillery with Stormcast Judicators and Pheonix Guard? Yes that's legal. There are a endless builds.

Well the matched play scenarios are all objective based, so a big battle in the middle is not likely to occur in matched play. Movement is certainly less tactical than Fantasy, but there is still quite a bit in that department. Trying to lure tasty targets away, tactically retreating to prevent further damage or take objectives, flanking, deep striking (and preventing them), minimizing and/or maximizing model to model contact, blocking opponents forces from valuable units, etc. One of my favorite games was when I lured my opponent into a narrow passage that I was able to block off with Retributors. They hammered themselves against it until there was nothing but scraps left of their force and it all depended on me keeping my forces just one step ahead of them. Now with the rules and how summoning works now makes magic a much more tactically engaged process. You can only attempt to cast each spell once per phase which requires a lot of thought and planning. Summoning allows you to build your army on the fly, as you don't have to declare what you will be summoning. You pick what fits the situation. Many units are strong against particular targets and weak against particular targets. How do you get your forces into contact with the right enemies and away from the ones that will kill them easily? And not only is choosing what units will attack in what order in combat engaging, but piling in is also extremely tactical. How do you do it to get more of your models in combat? Can you block the piling in of more enemy models? I'm sure others can say more. I have found AoS a game that seems really simple at first look, but once you start playing a few games many subtleties come out of the woodwork. I have not actually played a game where everything just ended up in the middle.

Don't know if this was answered. Are we measuring base to base, model to model, or the base/model measuring hybrid that has been mentioned in the forums a couple times?

Just read through the packet. Absolutely love it! Maybe just maybe I can convince her muhahaha

I'd love to go, but I don't think my wife would be too keen on me taking a trip just for this haha. And she has no interest in Vegas lol

I always kind of assumed it played the way they described based on the descriptions of the special abilities. Take the Anointed since they used it as an example. "Witness to Destiny: Whenever an Anointed suffers a wound or mortal wound, roll a dice. If the result is 4 or more, the wound or mortal wound is ignored." I think the fact that they called it a "special save" in the FAQ was a bit misleading in itself since its not a "save" per say (maybe more like a ward or something like that). The warscrolls themselves are pretty clear about how the ability works, but nothing is said in the base rules. But that's not super uncommon. I suppose the word "wound" in the description can also be misleading, but the term "wound" in this sense was defined in the base rules under the Making Attacks section, number 4 as what a unit suffers after damage is determined. Overall I was definitely happy for the clarification and also for the stacking of "ward saves". This was on Facebook, but also in the FAQ, top left page 6.

Can't wait to see you are Annihilation! Night Goblin armies seem to do really well. Spider riders and Araknarok spiders are also very powerful.

Oh yeah for sure! If we are already at 20, dang! So why wasn't AoS at OFCC? haha

Then yeah I'd use glaives

Depends on how you run them honestly. If you are confident of getting charges off first or have an ability that allows you to do so then the glaives are better. Due to their movement and the fact that Chaos abilities that boost charge are aplenty, id say the glaives are a slightly safer bet. However, if you are going to use the knights as objective takers where you don't want them charging off objectives or something then maybe the Ensorcelled weapons are a better option. It's up to you, all combos are valid in the right circumstances.

Miniwargaming has also done a review of the book (no batrep included). They really loved matched play! The only thing in the book they didn't much care for was a couple of the Path to Glory (narrative play) forces. Looks like we will be seeing more batreps from them! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6RJ_gHDlWM

Guerrilla Miniature Games, a channel that I like to follow on Youtube, has just released a decent Matched Play overview/battle-report video. Those that are curious about how Age of Sigmar works with matched play should check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htwH7p1KEb8

Sounds like there are several people from up north planning on heading down for the tourney! :D

I have the Age of Sigmar General's Handbook which introduces matched play to AoS. If anyone is interested I can send pics of point values and composition rules. I was thinking a small 1k game, rolling for scenario, normal sort of matched play. Let me know if anyone is interested!

Question, do we need to bring any terrain pieces?

That makes sense. I do wish it was more clear though because there is nothing in the rule that states the transportation only happens once, but only that the units placed to the side have to be deployed all at the same time. So that would result in being able to do the transportation rule every single turn. Which could be perceived as abusive, so I would definitely go with your interpretation. Quite a gimp to that battalion though.

Yeah I'm not positive either, but it seems like battalions generally list specific units rather than keywords. Hopefully the next FAQ will cover it. A Prime alongside the Skybourne Slayers would actually be pretty amazing. Since you are looking at Skybourne Slayers too, can you look at the Matched Play Scenario Escalation. How do you suppose the battalion would work in this scenario since you need to set-up units in waves, but the battalion requires that you call down the whole battalion at the same time. Would this mean you couldn't use the Hurled by Sigmar's Hand rule in this scenario? Or would you be able to call them in during separate turns instead of all at once? Or would you have to wait until you have all the units "set up" before you can call them down? My opinion is the second is probably most true because it says "In any of your movement phases, you can transport all of the units from the Skybourne Slayers that you have placed to one side onto the battlefield". So if you have some placed to one side, no matter the phase you can transport them to the battlefield. What are your thoughts AgentP?

PM sent

This is shockingly close to the list I was building. Slightly different, but pretty close. As far as I am concerned its a good list haha :D Although I'm not positive you can use a Lord Celestant on Stardrake as the Lord-Celestant in the Sky Bourne Slayers. The other lists that have multiple Lord-Celestant types as options seem to list them separately. I think you can only take the on-foot version. Could be wrong. See Lords of the Storm or Warrior Brotherhood.

Doesnt matter in Open or Narrative play though

I'm waiting for an Aelf battletome of some sort, preferably Wanderers. Also anticipating Brayherds, Warherds, or Thunderscorn. Unless something pops up that really surprises me. They release battletomes pretty frequently nowadays! :D

You should request access to the Bellingham Warhamsters sub forum near the bottom of the page and post this there.

Yeah your're right. I don't know. Maybe there is a surplus in the Realm of Metal and he can get a really good discount.

You could develop your own fluff and back story about how a Slann taught Alarielle how to summon the Seraphon from the stars.