finally got a game of AoS in

[Don't Panic]

played against fixxer's slaanesh build.  had a good time.  it is as people say, you must try it cause it is kinda fun.  ill need a lot more testing though... need to give it sufficient time to see if it sucks me in like 8th.  as fixxer said, ive only been playing 8th for 1.5 years so it wasnt really 'old' to me yet like many people here so it will take some time to adjust.  so i brought a dick list.  i wanted to see the potential of dwarven gunpowder and i also wanted to test the sudden victory.  think i had like 130 something to his 80 something models or whatnot.  observations:

-multiwound is HUGE i feel in this game due to battleshock.  also standard bearers are very important.  slayers dont have them and even with high leadership of 10 they suffered the most i felt from battleshock due to not halving the amount.  fixxer didnt suffer much from battleshock except when my shooting went off(not really due to CC honestly) which brings me to my second point

-dwarf shooting is nasty.  made my engineer his target for sudden victory and stuck him in a corner surrounded by 2 cannons, 2 organ guns and a flame cannon.  they went to town.  cannons are as nasty as i thought they'd be.  flame cannon is very good with an engineer on it.  organ gun as well, but the other two i felt did probably more damage.  drakes are just stupidly good.  20 drakes do 40 shots if they dont move hitting and wounding on 3s........

-slayers are awesome though.  deathblow is even better and if there is a monster they dont even take battleshocks.  plus they have saves now LOLz

-pile in is a little awkward and you really do have to be playing someone you enjoy cause i could see some arguments over movement and such for getting attacks in.  im not really a big fan of it just cause its chaotic and i spend too much time moving and measuring all my models... but still its very interesting and brings about some new tactics.

-deployment is and movement is just as tactical as 8th if not moreso.  its really nerve wrecking though because if you fail a charge and your opponent could have two turns to shoot your face in which brings me to...

-dice off for turns: yea i didnt like it.  i know fixxer does and some others do but it just didnt seem 'fair' when i could just blast him two turns without movement for him.  especially with his build...

-i thinking shooting is VERY good in AoS just because of the additive to shooting in combat and of course the random turns can be game changing.  but saying that...

-i was rolling stupidly well for shooting and making a ton of saves and honestly if i was rolling 'average' and so was he the game would have been much tighter even with my silly gunline list. 

 

so basically, i need more testing.  its definitely a game ill be playing in the next few months.  it is a different game and thats what you have to come in with the mindset of.  i also want to play with other sudden death options.  and of course, im not going to be playing gunline lol and i want to give the beasts a breakout next!

 

on another note: go to the portland game store.  they have FAT mats, terrain, BEER!, parking was pretty easy around the block surprisingly, a lot of open space to move around and just really nice people as well.  they were very open and wanting to have gamenights so i think thats a distinct possibility if i can rally a few people together!  not many gamestores are actually open to saturdays/sundays game time so it should be something we should seize asap...

[Threejacks]

Looks like you guys played with a pretty high model count,about how many points do you think that would have been in 8th?

 

And about how long did it take to play?

 

Reason I ask is the game does seem to favor smaller model counts as that seems to avoid the potential for huge "dice off" grinds of shooting attacks and mosh pits that can end up developing.

 

Also most of the comp systems that are being developed use an alternating turn system instead of the roll off at the start of each turn as yes,just getting to go twice in a row is a huge advantage.The alternating activation for close combat is great though.

[Nathanvoodoo]

I'm glad you tried it.

 

It sounds like it wasn't that bad.

[Kremmet]

Glad you gave it a shot!  In my games with the dwarfs I've found the anvil (can only be taken with Thorek) and Longbeards to be pretty damn disgusting.  Get stuck in combat and then swap to rerolling with the shield along with the anvil's buff for a 3+ rerollable (2+ if you're in terrain).  Makes for some pretty gross combatants especially as you can shield up even while using great weapons.  I found slayers to do far less damage now especially as Deathblow is pretty toned down.  They're still pretty fun to run though and the save (finally!) is pretty helpful against grobbi.  Copters are also disgusting, but that's hardly new.

 

I hadn't read the Flame Cannon before, as I'm not sure where mine is, and wow that is pretty disgusting with an engineer in the mix.  Then again pretty much all of the artillery feels that way to me (although organ guns are a little lackluster math-wise).

[Don't Panic]

Looks like you guys played with a pretty high model count,about how many points do you think that would have been in 8th?

 

And about how long did it take to play?

 

Reason I ask is the game does seem to favor smaller model counts as that seems to avoid the potential for huge "dice off" grinds of shooting attacks and mosh pits that can end up developing.

 

Also most of the comp systems that are being developed use an alternating turn system instead of the roll off at the start of each turn as yes,just getting to go twice in a row is a huge advantage.The alternating activation for close combat is great though.

3 hours. ~2500-2800. 1 copter 5 artillery 2 engineers 20 drakes. 40 longbeards 30 slayers.  i could have dropped 40 breakers if i wanted to cause i had them with me along with 4 more copters :)  i wanted to give AoS a fair shot and playing like 1500 points or less is kinda boring to me in 8th(i like war damnit!).   i wanted to see if it could live up to the higher points and honestly it does(especially when about ~1 hour of that was looking up crap), but yea the packing in is just time consuming and precise which is pretty crazy at higher model #s.  

 

Glad you gave it a shot!  In my games with the dwarfs I've found the anvil (can only be taken with Thorek) and Longbeards to be pretty damn disgusting.  Get stuck in combat and then swap to rerolling with the shield along with the anvil's buff for a 3+ rerollable (2+ if you're in terrain).  Makes for some pretty gross combatants especially as you can shield up even while using great weapons.  I found slayers to do far less damage now especially as Deathblow is pretty toned down.  They're still pretty fun to run though and the save (finally!) is pretty helpful against grobbi.  Copters are also disgusting, but that's hardly new.

 

I hadn't read the Flame Cannon before, as I'm not sure where mine is, and wow that is pretty disgusting with an engineer in the mix.  Then again pretty much all of the artillery feels that way to me (although organ guns are a little lackluster math-wise).

yea i was going to do that longbeard thing but im saving that for another day .   im not sure i agree that deathblow is toned down.  you dont even roll to hit now.  its just 4+ and you wound.  which is all around better i think.  but if there's not a monster on the board they die in waves from the test even with a value of 10 because they cant have standards(or least thats what i was told *shrugs*)? i had 2 engineers and basically surrounded them with artillery.... as i said im a dick lol.  really want to try ironbreakers and longbeards next time as i think that will be pretty nasty.  copters i just need more than 1.  a group of 3 could be just insane. 

[valourunbound]

Something to remember: not all banners do the same thing.

 

For example, the Slayer banner is called an Icon Bearer, and dispels anything targeting the unit on a 5+. Irondrakes have the same. Longbeards have the standard bearer as you described, and Warriors can have either/both.

[Fixxer]

This was a great game, thanks Nate!

 

Dwarf artillery is very good. I dont think I will ever choose assassinate against a dwarf army that brought an Engineer, there is simply no way I would have been able to fulfill that mission. Nate could have made it doable by choosing a different character, but why would he? He knew he had a bunker and simply needed to defend it, how Dwarfy!

 

I liked it, pretty much streamlined my strategy to run straight at you and hopefully withstand the artillery barrage. The table was split down the middle "battle for the pass" style and with Nate grabbing a corner hill and putting his battery on top with iron drakes and slayers in wait to counter charge. The longbeards, miners, and copter ran diversion tactics, which really worked. Helped him stifle my advance enough to pick off the units he needed and when. It was very well played on his part, rerolls on artillery and rerolling saves for Longbeards really made the battle what it was. 

 

The longbeards held off a DP, a Giant (which are WAYY fun in AoS), and some whiffing diffing Chosen,  Miners kept the warshrine, chaos warriors, and Spawn occupied, while the artillery shot off knights, fast cav, dogs, chaos lord. I certainly had a chance to keep my advance but losing the initiative roll gave Nate the opportunity to charge with his Miners into the rear of my warshrine pulling back some of my advancing force to rescue it. This made them late to the party only to be crushed by the remaining slayers and Irondrakes. 

 

We have a few Initiative rolls switch on us to give each of us a few turns back to back, yes it hurts to watch your opponent go 2 turns in a row, but I really didnt see it make all that much of a difference, if anything it makes you have a more dynamic strategy or back up plan in case you do see your opponent go twice in a row, something always to consider but never know, its fun to gamble on it too.

 

All in all, I had a great time and cant wait to play again. Currently working on a Plague army for my Skaven, monks, priests, censers, verminlord, furnace, really appreciate the ability to run themed lists. I can put my Slaves, abomb, doomwheel, WLCs, Grey Seer AWAY and start working on models that havent seen the light of day in YEARS, fricken AWESOME. 

[MikhailLenin]

I actually watched almost the entirety of the game as they were playing and here some massive take away i got from it.

While Dwarf shooting was devastating it was also kinda shocking how resilient all those multi-wounds cav were against it. The Sudden Victory mechanic was actually not that stupid IMO. Had Fixxer taken the one regarding holding down a piece of terrain by turn 4, he would have to force the Dwarves down the table made it less of a Shooting Gallery. The Longbeards as I expected were incredibly resilient and deadly, their peers the Ironbreakers are even scarier imo. Fixxer actually rolled fairly poorly with his Demon Prince and Giant to kill off the Longbears which is what I think cost him the game but then again having both of them on the table meant the Berserkers were immune to battleshock and considering the Block Size, you dont want to be fighting those. 

A Strategy that emerged for me after watching that game was setting up either Ironbreakers or Longbears in a V formation while Dragonslayers or Ungrim characters sit in the middle of the formation so that way when the Breakers or Longbeards receive the charge, the characters can consolidate into the fray and those punks hit like trucks.

Had Fixxer had any range unit that could come down on the table like Stormcast, he could have definitely done an assassinate attempt on the Engineer.

 

Or any shooting to actually shoot at the Crew.