So I finally got to play my first game of
AoS last night (had opponents cancel last minute the previous two weeks and ended up playing
40k). My opponent had played a game of
AoS when the game first launched, but never with this army. We kept having to look things up, we forgot what everything did, and neither of us knew what the hell we were doing. It reminded me of prom night. Overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and just thought I'd post my first impressions (of the game, not prom night. No one wants to relive
that debacle.)
The Armies:
Mine- 1100 points of Khorne Bloodbound
Mighty Lord of Khorne (General) with the Chaos Talisman (so essential a 6+
FNP)
Bloodsecrator
Bloodstoker
Exalted Deathbringer w/ Impaling Spear with a Chaos Runeblade (so 6 attacks base)
Khorgorath
20x Bloodreavers w/ banner and musician
5x Bloodwarriors
6x Mighty Skullcrushers w/ banner and musician
Goreblade Warband warscroll battalion
His - 1100 points of Flesh-Eater Courts (to the best of my memory)
Abhorrent Ghoul King (General) with the Cursed Book (-1 to hit for enemies within 3")
Zombie Dragon (Yes, he kept them separate for some reason)
Crypt Ghast Courtier
3x Crypt Flayers
3x Crypt Horrors
20x Crypt Ghouls
10x Crypt Ghouls
He never summoned anything, but I believe he had some points reserved.
The Game
Flesh-Eater Courts Turn 1:
My opponent finished deploying first and ran his forces up, but was careful to leave them back far enough that I would have trouble making the charge turn 1. He used his hero phase to buff his army with +1 attacks (just in case I rolled a double "6" to charge with something. Nothing was in shooting range, so his turn was relatively uneventful.
Khorne Bloodbound Turn 1:
In my hero phase, I open the Portal of Skulls just in case my opponent makes combat. I run may entire army to get them closer in the hopes that I get a double-turn. The Bloodstoker whips my Bloodreavers to give them a little extra "oomph". I decide to run them toward the Zombie Dragon. Death or glory, right? About this time, I realized I had done something incredibly stupid: I put my Exalted Deathbringer (EDB from hear on) on the opposite side of the board from my general (EDBs get +2 attacks if within 12" of a
Khorne general). The idea was to send the Mighty Lord after the dragon in the hopes of using my Reality-splitting Axe to send him to hell on a lucky roll, but I decided instead start running him toward the EDB and hope my Bloodreavers and Khorgorath can stall the dragon. Of course the Mighty Lord only runs one inch. Nice. Nothing in range of my Khorgorath's tentacles, and everything ran, so no charges. End of turn.
The roll-off: Me: 6, Him: 3 (Double-turn powers, activate!)
Khorne Bloodbound Turn 2:
I keep the portal open. Everything is within 18" still, so everything has +1 attack. I whip my Blood Warriors for +3 to charge. I use my Mighty Lord to give himself, the Bloodreavers, the Blood Warriors, and the Khorgorath +1 die on the charge (take the two highest) We move up as far as we can. Khorgorath's tentacles are still out or range (8" away from the closest enemy, the Zombie Dragon), so on to the Charge Phase! The Khorgorath and Bloodreavers charge the dragon (and the Bloodreavers also get into combat with the 20 ghouls and courtier). The Blood Warriors, EDB, and Skullcrushers charge the horrors. I notice another flaw in my strategy: I charged through a bottleneck. Only three of my Skullcrushers can get in. We do manage to do a mortal wound on the charge, though. Instead of doing a complete play-by-play of the combat phases, I'll just kind of give highlights note that the attacks didn't necessarily happen in the order I describe them. He managed to pile his general into my EDB, the 10 ghouls into my Khorgorath, and his Crypt Flayers into my Bloodreavers. The Ghoul King is giving the EDB, Warriors, and Skullcrushers -1 to hit. Overall, my EDB takes 3 wounds from the Ghoul King, but he gives 2 right back (General is 19" away, so he still doesn't have the +2 attacks). One of my Skullcrushers takes 4 wounds, but the Horrors take 3. The Dragon, bizarrely does only 2 wounds to the Bloodreavers, who also take another 3 between his Flayers and Ghouls. The Khorgorath does a wound to the Dragon, then the Bloodreavers kill 2 Ghouls and do 6 wounds (?!?) to the Dragon. Luckily, the only unit I had that lost a model (Bloodreavers) was within 18" of the Portal of Skulls, so no Battleshock for me. His entire army is leadership 10, so nothing for him either.
Flesh-Eater Courts Turn 2:
The courtier brings back 2 ghouls and puts the unit back to full strength. The Ghoul Kings passes his re-roll to cast (within 18" of the Portal of Skulls), and he's just outside of range of the Mighty Lord, so I can't unbind, so he gives his army +1 attack again. He also heals back to full. The dragon automatically hits the Bloodreavers with his breath, but fails to wound. The Crypt Flayers scream at my Bloodreavers and kill 2 more. Combat phase. The Ghoul King kills my EDB, the Zombie Dragon bites my Khorgorath in half. The 20 ghouls take out a few more Bloodreavers. The Horrors knock off one of my Skullcrushers and leave another at 2 wounds. Two of the Blood Warriors pile in to the Ghoul King. They do one wound to him while the other three do a wound to the Horrors. After the Skullcrushers attack, only one wound is left on the last horror. The Bloodreavers do another 5 wounds to the dragon (Seriously.
WTF?) and 2 to the Crypt Ghouls. Battleshock phase, my wounded units are still immune to battleshock, and effectively so are his.
The roll-off: Me: 1, Him, 2 (turnabout is fair play)
Flesh-Eater Courts Turn 3:
King regenerates, courtier returns the lost ghouls. +1 attack spell goes off. The Crypt Flayers are no longer in combat, so the move toward my Bloodstoker and Bloodsecrator. 20 Ghouls are also out of combat now, so they move toward my Blood Warriors and Skullcrushers. Zombie Dragon (again) auto-hits, but fails to wound my Bloodreavers. Opponent forgets to scream at my Bloodstoker (and I "forget" to remind him). He charges the flayers into the Bloodstoker. Ghouls fail their charge. Combat phase. The Ghoul King kills two of my Blood Warriors, who then get to immediately attack back, dealing two wounds. Courtier kills some more Reavers, Dragon kills a few more. Only one left (the chieftain). He does another damage to the dragon (go, man, go!) Flayer do three wounds to the Bloodstoker, he does one back. The last Horror manages to knock off another Skullcrusher and puts another down to 3 wounds. The Bloodreavers are now out of range of the Portal, so they're now vulnerable to battleshock. I effectively have a bravery of "1" now. What do I roll? A "1". If these guy survives this, I'm making him a goddamn Chosen of Khorne!
It was at this point, my opponent makes the comment that he thought my Skullcrushers would be more "killy". I agree with him, and take another look at their warscroll. Dejectedly, I realize I haven't been attacking with their mounts. Note to self: I need you do display at least 40% less stupid next game.
Khorne Bloodbound Turn 3:
Portal of Skulls stays open. No shooting left, on to combat. My Mighty Lord is just beyond charge range on the Crypt Flayers, so the Bloodstoker is on his own. Combat phase. I attack with the Bloodstoker first, and a whopping 1 damage. Flayers finish him off. Blood Warriors do another wound to the Ghoul King. The Skullcrushers, with the help of their mounts, finally kill the last Horror (Khorne Cares Not activates, Skullcrushers get +3 bravery). The Dragon and Bloodreaver fight to a stalemate again (This guy is totally getting a name!) Nothing left to battleshock.
The roll-off: Me 6, Him 5
Khorne Bloodbound Turn 4:
Portal stays open. Mighty Lord finally get into combat with the Crypt Flayers and quickly changes it from a plural noun to a singular. The remaining Flayer does a couple wounds back.The Skullcrushers charge the 20 ghouls, doing one mortal wound to both them and the Ghoul King. The Warriors do another wound to the Ghoul King. One Skullcrusher attack him while the other three attack the ghouls. The Ghoul King dies, and nine more Ghouls go with him. Yeah. Skullcrusher are much more killy when you use their mounts. The dragon finally manages to kill the last Bloodreaver (Sorry, buddy. No name for you. Names are for winners). Battleshock phase. The 20-man ghoul squad lost 10 models, so battleshock is just a straight
d6. Four more gone. Only six left.
Flesh-Eater Courts Turn 4:
Courtier brings back three Ghouls (so 9 left in the unit). Zombie dragon moves toward my Mighty Lord of Khorne and the Courtier moves in to help his Crypt Ghouls.. The Dragon finally manages to wound something with its breath, and unfortunately, it's my Mighty Lord. Both generals died in turn 4. Courtier and Ghouls manage to do two wounds to my Skullcrushers, but the Skullcrushers decimate the Ghouls in return. Blood Warriors fail to do anything of note. Crypt Flayer is close enough to pile in to my Bloodsecrator. The Bloodsecrator takes one wound, but takes out the Crypt Flayer. No Battleshock.
The roll-off: Me 3, Him 6
Flesh-Eater Courts Turn 5:
The dragon moved into charge range of my Bloodsecrator, fails to wound with his breath, then makes his charge. The courtier does a whopping one wound to my Skullcrushers before they once again live up to their name. The Bloodsecrator is dropped to one wound, and fails to finish off the dragon (also at one wound).
Khorne Bloodbound Turn 5:
I keep the portal open for one last round, then move my Blood Warrior back toward the Zombie Dragon. My Skullcrushers run toward the 10 ghouls my opponent left on the other side of the board. Combat phase. The Bloodsecrator finally brings down the dragon, and my opponent concedes with a handshake.
Khorne Victory!!
Impressions to follow in my next post.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Impressions:
There were a couple of brief rules debates, but a quick trip to the
FAQ cleared them up. It's not a perfect system for sure, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned a lot about my army (Bloodreavers are fragile as all hell, but they can bring the pain under the right circumstances. Also Skullcrusher have mounts
) as well as another army I would consider collecting. Hopefully, I will learn from the mistakes I made. The best part is that even though we were constantly double-checking rules, the game only took about two hours!
I still plan to play
40k, but I'm going to do everything I can to help my
AoS community grow.
2000 Khorne Bloodbound (Skullfiend Tribe- Aqshy)
1000 Tzeentch Arcanites (Pyrofane Cult - Hysh) in progress
2000 Slaves to Darkness (Ravagers)
Either or both? 
If you can't believe in yourself, believe in me! Believe in the Dakka who believes in you! 
