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Played my first game of AoS last night at my local club. I brought Skaven, and my opponent had Orks. We played on a 4x4 table, so right off the bat we decided it would be a smaller game. How small? I'll get to that in a second.

After table size, we rolled to see what kind of terrain and where. It was a 4x4 table, so we rolled 4 times (once for each 2x2 section). Funny enough, we ended up with 5 pieces of Mystical terrain and one Damned. We rolled off, I rolled highest and split the table in half for deployment. Looking over my box, my first unit was 40 Clan Rats. I was definitely giving my opponent "Sudden Death".

40 Clan Rats, assorted rusty spears, rusty hand weapons, shields, Tinker Bell guy, Clawleader, and Standard bearer. I deployed them on a movement tray
20 Orks with Spears and Shields
1 Grey Seer
1 Ork Warboss
4 Jezzels
2 Ork Boar Chariots
1 Ratling Cannon
1 Ork Catapult
1 Ratling Cannon
10 Black Orcs
1 Doomwheel

I won't get too much into the game. My opponent got Sudden Death and choose Assassinate. As I only had one hero and no other Monster, Hero, Priest, or Wizard, he would claim a Major Victory if he killed my Grey Seer. Yeah, that Orc Catapult threw huge, steaming piles of crap at my Grey Seer for 4 turns... and the Great Horned One was watching out for me, as he would miss, or fail to wound. But it was a heart wrenching moment every Ork shooting phase.

The MVP unit was the Ork Boar Chariots. Initiative on turn 1 was me, then he got it for the next 4 turns. That was kinda rough. Turn one, his chariots move/run. Turn two, they are rampaging through my Jezzels and Clanrats. The Jezzels are a frightening unit, and I think I might have to get another unit.

Highlights of the game: My Ratling Guns shooting 15 times and then 11 more times to kill the Ork Warboss. Waagh Shields... reroll all saves?!?! Ugh. LOL

Things we discovered during the course of the game: I charged his last Ork Boar Chariot with one wound left with my Grey Seer. His tail ended up being within 3" of the Black Orks... who moved in during the combat phase to attack my Grey Seer (only one made it, and missed).

Charges: You don't have to declare a charge target, and can charge move as many enemy models as you want... as long as at the end of the charge, the first model moved is within 1/2" of an enemy unit.

Using the terrain is important. The Clanrats were within 3" of the Mystical Terrain and within 3" of the Damned. I sacrificed a model and got +1 to hit. Mystical Terrain allowed me to reroll wounds. I had more than 30 Clanrats, so I got +1 hit and +1 wound. That meant my Rusty Blades were hitting on 2+, wounding on 3+, and reroll wounds. Pretty epic.

Battleshock is based on models removed, NOT wounds. I was wounding the heck out of his Chariots and Black Orks. I was losing 5-6 rats each close combat phase. Command Ability: Inspiring Presence is awesome and kept me from losing a bunch of Clanrats every turn.

Taking multiple Hero's and making sure at least one is a Wizard, is kinda important. I was able to cast a spell every turn, and my opponent had no way to Unbind it. Taking a "chump" Hero gives you the ability to make him the target of Assassination and then running and hiding him. LOL Hey, it's the Skaven way, OK?

Damage: If you hit, your opponent gets to make a save. Damage is figured AFTER the save roll. So if you have a weapon that does 2 wounds or d3 wounds, you only make one save against that hit. If you save, no damage. If you fail the save, then you take 2 wounds or d3 wounds. And thosae wounds have to be on the same model. Units with multiple wounds (Black Orcs, Chariots) can really soak up damage before having to make a Battleshock test.

If there are multiple melee combats going on, the "first player" (player who won initiative that turn) picks a unit to fight. When his attacks are resolved, the second player selects a unit and resolves all it's attacks. You don't have to select the unit that was just attacked to resolve it's attacks. Let that sink in for a second, and I'll tell you why this was important.

We had one large melee combat going on in the middle of the table. My Clanrats were engaged with the Orc Boys, Black Orcs, and Chariots. My Doomwheel was engaged on the other side of the baord with his catapult. During his turn, my opponent selected the Ork Boys to attack my Clan Rats. After he finished that combat, I selected my Doomwheel and wiped out the catapult unit. Next, he selected his Black Orcs. Then I selected my Clanrats (as they were the only other unit still available). In the following turn, he still had 3 units "engaging" my Clanrats. He went first and attacked with his Black Orcs. When that was done, I attacked and wiped out his Orc Boys with my Clanrats before they could attack. I was able to wipe out two of his units before they attacked by careful selection of units.

End game: I had about 15 Clanrats, Grey Seer with only 1 wound left, and my Doomwheel. He had 4 Black Orcs left, so he called the game at that point. Surprisingly, that unit of 40 Clanrats was awesome with shields (giving them a 5+ save), using the terrain specials, and spamming the Inspiring Presence on them.

This game was pretty fun, took us about 3 hours from start to finish, more because we talked a lot about the rules and how to play the game. I'm pretty sure this is the way GW intends for us to play the game. Contrast this with the next table over that was Skaven vs. Deamons. Deamon player started off with a Deamon Prince and didn't stop until he had 4 Deamon Princes, 3 more big monsters, and a unit of 10 Nurglings on the table. The Skaven player used Thanguil and Boneripper, two Warplightning Cannons, Vermonlord (not sure which one), and 4 Stormfiends. The Skaven Player got Sudden Death ( 8 to 17 models). Don't remember what what he took. The game was over by turn 4 with the Deamon player tabled and the Skaven player not losing one model.

My observation is that the bigger the skew list, the more likely the game will end quickly with a major victory.

AoS is totally different from the old Warhammer. Its fun in it's own way, and you have to talk to your opponent before the game about the kind of game you want.


Edit: My bad, this should probably go in the Battle Reports section.

Thoroughly enjoyed your battle report! My first game was yesterday and I also had a blast. Skaven vs dwarves and my clanrats were also the stars of the battle.