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Author Topic: The Dead Shall Rise  (Read 1960 times)

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Offline Irisado

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The Dead Shall Rise
« on: May 27, 2016, 12:06:45 PM »
My first game of Age of Sigmar will be on Monday.  My opponent has limited time and I have no money to buy any of the books, so we're just going to use the standard free rules and field armies of roughly equal model size and see what happens.

I've got plenty of undead models at my disposal from right back to Warhammer Armies: Undead all the way through to the last edition of Warhammer, so I have plenty to choose from.  I could even use the original Gary Morley designed Nagash model :D.  However, that's such an indifferent sculpt, and I'm not a massive fan of named characters, so I'm, going to refrain.

Here's what I'm thinking of using:

Vampire Lord on Nightmare

Vampiress (Lord)

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon

Deathrattle Horde:

Wight King on Skeletal Steed
10 Black Knights (Standard, Hornblower)
30 Grave Guard (Standard, Hornblower, Wight Blades & Crypt Shields)
30 Skeleton Warriors (Standard, Hornblower, Ancient Spears & Crypt Shields)
30 Skeleton Warriors (Standard, Hornblower, Ancient Blades & Crypt Shields)
30 Skeleton Warriors (Standard, Hornblower, Ancient Blades & Crypt Shields)

3 Fell Bats

3 Fell Bats

4 Bat Swarm Bases

6 Dire Wolves

Corpse Cart

4 Spirit Host Bases

1 Tomb Banshee

1 Cairn Wraith

1 Cairn Wraith

1 Cairn Wraith

5 Hexwraiths

Black Coach

This army may be reduced in size depending on how many models my opponent has (he's still checking).  The main object of the exercise is to have fun, but if anyone has any suggestions to make the list better I'll listen.  Note that I do have Zombies and Ghouls, but I was planning on raising the former and the latter don't fit my vision of the undead very well, so I'd prefer not to use them.

My opponent's army features two Greater Daemons, a Daemon Prince, and a very large number of Khorne Daemons.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2016, 12:08:18 PM by Irisado »
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Offline Lord of Winter and War

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Re: The Dead Shall Rise
« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2016, 02:30:26 PM »
If this is your first game of AoS, I recommend playing a much smaller game to gets accustomed to the rules. An easy way to do this, is limit the game to maybe 50 wounds per player and go from there. From then, when you're more familiar expand to larger games. Otherwise, the game will take forever to play.

Otherwise, all the rules are free on the GW store (on a unit by unit basis) and on the iOS and Android AoS app. Have fun!

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Offline Irisado

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Re: The Dead Shall Rise
« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2016, 05:04:49 PM »
I may yet have to shrink my force because I can't remember how many models my opponent has and he has yet to reply to my e-mail.  Also, the Zombie Dragon isn't fully assembled yet, so may be excluded anyway if I cannot finish it in time.

I agree with starting small under normal circumstances.  The problem me and my friend have is that we normally only see each other about two or three times per year, so we're keen to use quite large armies.
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Offline Lord of Winter and War

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Re: The Dead Shall Rise
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2016, 08:44:42 PM »
Fair enough. If you go into it, planning to bring an army sized like one you played in fantasy, it will be overwhelming on your first go.

 If you want to go at a larger game, for your first game, I suggest 100wounds max. Worst case scenario, you play multiple games.
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Offline Irisado

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Re: The Dead Shall Rise
« Reply #4 on: May 28, 2016, 05:24:36 AM »
The multiple games idea is a very good one, thanks for reminding me how well that worked when we played at Warhammer World :).

100 wounds may also work.  He's got such an elite army that I'm sure I've overestimated the model count.

Maybe another idea to keep things simpler would be to remove the Deathrattle horde and just field a couple of smaller skeleton units to go with a smaller units of Grave Guard and the Black Knights, while also removing the Wight King.  I could also remove the Corpse Cart, since it doesn't fit the army that well.

That list would look something like this:

Vampire Lord on Nightmare

Vampiress (Lord)

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon

10 Black Knights (Standard, Hornblower)
20 Grave Guard (Standard, Hornblower, Wight Blades & Crypt Shields)
20 Skeleton Warriors (Standard, Hornblower, Ancient Spears & Crypt Shields)
20 Skeleton Warriors (Standard, Hornblower, Ancient Blades & Crypt Shields)
 
6 Dire Wolves

3 Fell Bats

3 Fell Bats

4 Bat Swarm Bases

4 Spirit Host Bases

1 Tomb Banshee

1 Cairn Wraith

1 Cairn Wraith

1 Cairn Wraith

5 Hexwraiths

Black Coach

Still large for a first game I know, but would it be a bit less unwieldy?
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Offline Lord of Winter and War

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Re: The Dead Shall Rise
« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2016, 07:50:12 AM »
Still is going to be a lot for your first game.

I will still recommend limiting the game to 100 wounds and seeing how that goes. Playing a few games if that goes quickly.

But, one way to make sure it goes faster, is to be very familiar with your war scrolls before you play. A lot of time will be spent sorting through scrolls finding out what each unit does.
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Offline Irisado

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Re: The Dead Shall Rise
« Reply #6 on: May 30, 2016, 02:13:14 PM »
Killersquid, you were right about everything which you said :).  We had great fun though.

I have to say that the rules suited us and we had both sides engaged on turn one.  The whole battle became a melée meat grinder, which I lost spectacularly, but I had fun in the process.

The lessons I learnt were that Daemons remain my nemesis.  I couldn't beat them in Fantasy and the result was no different in AoS.  I just can't generate enough attacks with my undead to punch through their units, and their counter blows are ferocious.  They just have so many attacks.

The units which did impress were the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, who killed Skulltaker and took four wounds off the Bloodthirster, before the Lord of Change zapped him with a really nasty spell, and the Bloodthister finished it off. The Grave Guard also took six wounds off the Daemon Prince before being massacred by him and a Khorne herald and twenty Bloodletters charging in.

I played far too aggressively though and deployed across too wide a frontage.  I ought to have back more with some units to counter attack.  I just wanted to get into close combat, but Daemons are just so brutal and they're pretty fast too.

A question which came up during the game was whether my opponent's Flamers could shoot the Fell Bats they were fighting in close combat.  The only constraints on firing missile weapons didn't include fighting in close combat, so we decided that they could.  Was this correct?

I'm not sure when I'll get my next game in, but if anyone has any advice for beating Khorne/Tzeentch Daemons when using the Vampire Covenant, I'd love to read it, as I'm struggling for ideas.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2016, 05:27:04 AM by Irisado »
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Offline Lord of Winter and War

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Re: The Dead Shall Rise
« Reply #7 on: May 30, 2016, 02:41:26 PM »
Yeah, big games can be very clumbersome especially off the bat. I also recommend looking online for battle plans from different tournaments (check out the South Coast GT mission pack), or trying to get access to battleplans from the AoS campaign books, as they are a lot more interesting to play then 'Kill everything'

I really recommend the next time you play, to limit the game to either the South Coast GT points system, or play with a wound cap. That'll help balance things right off the get-go. I typically for a 100 wound game wont have more then four-five heroes, more then four warmachines or more then a few monsters.

For playing with undead, the army's troops are really fragile, but it's easy to get more troops Via summoning. Summoning is a huge advantage for the Undead Grand Alliance.

Buffing your troops is also really important and using the terrain rules well can help as well. Mystical Terrain can be a huge boon to a unit, as can a lot of the spells you can cast.

Daemons and Undead are both pretty similar in a lot of ways. High bravery, fairly fragile and a lot of access to summoning.

Graveguard are really good, as are skeletons next to heros (for the +1 to hit). Necromancers are handy, as they can shrug off wounds to dead units next to him.

Batswarms I find are okay at tarpitting, but not really good besides that.

Things which can case Mortal Wounds are also very good. Spirit hosts are good for this.


You'll find with experience, what works and doesn't as well. There are not many flat out terrible units in AoS, so most units can find a place when you find out how to best apply them :)
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That's not blatant, this is blatant: I'm super happy that I'm playing Austria, the greatest nation in all of Diplomacy!

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