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This was a game played by two people who had played other Warhammer games, but first time Age of Sigmar players. We were playing at the Warhammer store in Huntsville, AL, USA.

Wood Elves
10 Waywatchers
8 Dryads
1 Giant Eagle
2 wizards
1 glade lord general with the hunting falcon

Chaos
Daemon Prince (retconned later to be a Tzeentch Daemon Prince to try summoning)
2 Units of Daemonettes
2 Units of Chaos Hounds

Chaos advanced across the board while the wood elves held their ground and even marched to the rear.

The great speed of the Chaos Hounds meant that the chaos only received one round of archery fire prior to charging the hounds and the Daemon Prince into battle. The Hounds were fast, but easily slaughtered in combat.

On the next turn, the Daemon Prince attempted to summon another Daemon Prince. The summoning dice were successful, but the spell was unbound by one of the elven wizards (only real effective thing the elven wizards did in the battle). The Daemonettes charged into combat in the next round of Chaos charges.

The wood elves wore down the forces of chaos and won a major victory.

Why did the elves win?

I think the elves may have had a slight edge in wounds/quality. We didn't count wounds or use any other type of balancing other than guessing.

More importantly, there were essentially three combats:
1) Missile combat (0 elf casualties, 1 unit of war hounds is shredded)
2) Combat 1 (Daemon Prince and remaining War Hounds vs. entire elf army)
3) Combat 2 (Daemon Prince and Daemonettes vs. entire elf army)

Classic case of divide and conquer. The Chaos wave strategy didn't work as well as it could be hoped. The elves had literally everyone fighting in each fight, whereas chaos had only a subset of their troops fighting.

If the elves had been regular human peasant archers who are not as effective in melee, then the wave strategy might have worked better.

endur wrote:
I think the elves may have had a slight edge in wounds/quality. We didn't count wounds or use any other type of balancing other than guessing.

For the curious, SDK looks something like this:

Glade Lord - hunting falcon
Spellweaver - staff
Spellweaver - staff
10 Waywatchers - sentinel
8 Dryads - nymph
1 Great Eagle
-----
592

VS

Daemon Prince of Tzeentch - sword
10 Daemonettes - alluress
10 Daemonettes - alluress
5 Warhounds
5 Warhounds
-----
605

So actually quite close, assuming min-sized units for chaos.

1) Missile combat (0 elf casualties, 1 unit of war hounds is shredded)

I'd say elven shooting vs chaos' lack thereof is a thing, especially in a game that favors units that can shoot as well as fight.

Cheers for the recap!

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:

I'd say elven shooting vs chaos' lack thereof is a thing, especially in a game that favors units that can shoot as well as fight.

Cheers for the recap!

- Salvage

I'm still new to AoS, so I'm not sure how much of an advantage shooting is.

BUT I have drawn some conclusions.

1. Melee is useful in both your turn and the enemies turn, whereas shooting is only useful on your turn.
2. Units move further in AoS and ranges are shorter, so you get fewer rounds of shooting before an enemy closes to melee range.
3. AoS has more scenarios.
4. Armor and toughness are more compact in AoS.

All in all, I'm not sure, but I think an army like chaos that lacks missile fire is actually better against ranged armies than in the past. In the past, a chaos army would either have to rely on terrain or flyers to deal with long ranged missile fire (enemies 36" away). Now, I think chaos is better equipped -- faster moving troops and ranges are shorter.

I'll try a battle in a week or so with a high missile fire version of the wood elves against an experienced chaos player to see how much of a difference that makes.