So I've labelled this one as a 'battle report', but it's not really, because I don't really know what I'm doing. Back in 2020 I painted up a bunch of Seraphon stuff to add to my existing pre-Age of Sigmar Lizardmen army, and since then I have yet to use them in battle - until now. I have decided that 2022 would be the year I finally get into actually playing AoS. Before this I did play a simple open play game on TTS to get my head around the basics - in that game I won based on a turn two double turn enabling my melee force to all charge my opponent's melee force. This game however would be a 2000 point matched play game, ramping up the complexity a fair bit.
I got the first turn and moved up to hold objectives. I tried to keep my most powerful units back a bit to be a counter attack and to protect them from the double turn. As we will see, this needs work.
I was playing against Dargiris and his Slaves to Darkness force. I believe the scenario was called Savage Gains, basically four objectives in a diamond pattern, points for holding them etc etc.
The chaos forces had a couple of knight units, a big block of tough warriors, some chosen, a war shrine and an assortment of scary characters - most notably a daemon prince who had access to a load of auras to buff his guys and slow me down - halving charge moves over a wide area. Apart from one bonus character they all dropped in one go, which I believe is a pretty common sight in AoS.
My force by contrast had a load of smaller units and many drops. Mostly Saurus based, I was running Coatl's Claw Coalesced as my sub faction choices which makes the lizards tougher, chompier and Saurus units better when they charge. An Oldblood on Carnosaur was set up to be the killiest thing, but I also had a Slaan and an Oracle on Troglodon for some magic and stuff.
The Chaos Knights came around on the flanks and engaged my Knights, and outclassing them. I did manage to deny one of the objectives due to having Saurus Warriors in range to outnumber the Knights, so at the end of turn one I was in the lead on points.
Then we rolled for priority, and it was time for a Chaos double turn! Everything moved up and most of it charged in.
My cheaper screening units folded in short order, but thanks to some good movment by the Knights on the right flank and poor planning/rules knowledge by me, they were able to sneak round and engage my Saurus Guard, Slaan and importantly tag the Carnosaur. Because of AoS' 3 inch rule the big dinosaur was locked into combat, but because there was a building in the way, he was unable to get into range to actually fight. Similarly because of the coherency rules the Guard could only attack with two or three. Basically I'd made a right mess of that screening thing!
In my turn I wanted the Oldblood to power up and go fight the Daemon Prince, but he still got stuck within 3 inches. The Guard eventually worked their way through the Knights, but they were held back from getting a good charge and getting most of their number in thanks to the Prince's aura. The Carnosaur did manage to wreck the building that had frustrated it though!
Instead of combining with the other big dino, the Troglodon went into the Prince on it's own, and, predictably, got beat up pretty badly. My remaining Knights on the left flank did manage to chase off their Chaos counterparts, but they were staring down a big mob of Warriors, who rudely proceeded to tie them up with a follow up move so they were unable to charge and get extra damage on their spears.
After turn two the Chaos forces had lost their Knights but the solid centre was still very solid. They had also wracked up a sizable lead by keeping the objectives to themselves. Going into turn three Chaos went first again and scored for three objectives once more, pretty much putting me out of the game on points.
With the game gone, most of my models dead and my brain somewhat hurting, the Slaan called the retreat. Ironically I still had the Slaan, the Oldblood on Carnosaur and most of the Saurus Guard - probably my three most powerful units. They were just all tied up at the back and unable to influence the game. Chaos Victory!
With hindsight, given that holding my units back failed so badly, I probably should have shoved all my strong units up on one flank or something, to make sure I got value out of them. I was very scared of getting double-turned, which I was, but I think possibly in trying to account for that I just made it worse. This is definitely something important to learn - how to play to defend against it without conceding control of the battlefield. I also got severely caught out by the 3 inch rule - this is very different to 40k where if you're not within an inch, which is also the range in which you can attack, you are not locked in melee. I need to either keep my units further apart or deliberately keep them close together to support one another I think.
Ultimately, I'm not upset by a crushing defeat - as the title says this is a learning process. Aside from the importance of unit placement as stated above, the other thing to learn is, well, everything. All the uses of command points, all the unit and army special abilities I have, all the 'secondary objectives'. I'm less bothered about this fine detail compared with learning the general flow of the game and what you are 'supposed' to do, but it is something that will have to come with practice. I will say though that I might try and play a few non-matched play games before I try this again just to get my head around it a bit better - the complexity is a bit much to jump straight in. I'd heard a lot of people saying that AoS is a lot simpler than 40k, and I would now strongly disagree. It may have fewer stratagems and the like, but I think there are just as many weird unit abilities and combos to try and keep track of. Overall I'd say I like the feel of the game but it's definitely not just 40k without the complexity!
Anyway, hope this was in some way an interesting read, I'm sure there will be more somewhere down the road. Thanks for checking it out, and stay safe out there.
Interesting stuff buddy, I've made a very tentative start into AoS from 40k too so it's good to hear about how you've found it so far
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