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I Collect and Play Warhammer Miniatures

@SW-User just posted about a game he had where a player got taken out basically on turn 1 and it immediately brought a game of Age of Sigmar I had about a month or so ago to mind. (None of these pictures are the specific army builds mentioned, just there to give a visual of the armies involved for those that may not have a point of reference.) This is one I've since dissected multiple times and made note of as it happened, both for my opponent and I, hence all the following detail.

It was 1500 points, I was rolling out a Blades of Khorne army and my opponent, my teenage niece, was rolling her Sylvaneth army. At the time her Sylvaneth were still largely undefeated and everyone else was having trouble beating her but I had yet to go up against her. She had the Spirit of Durthu leading her force with a shield of Dryads and a Branchwraith while I had a Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage with a Daemon Prince just behind at the head of mine.

We ended up rolling and getting a deployment that put our forces relatively close together. I gave her a warning about it maybe not being favorable to her, but she went through with it anyway. I suppose confident she'd be able to beat me regardless. So we do our deployment and roll up initiative and I get to go first. She put her forces in a tight formation amongst a Wildwood to take advantage of her Sylvaneth abilities while I made a forward spearhead to charge straight at her. This would prove already to be the beginning of the end.

With me going first I used my Slaughterpriest to put Killing Frenzy on my Bloodthirster, so he hits on 3 ups instead of 4 ups, and planted my banner on my Bloodsecrator immediately, the outer edge of it just reaching behind my niece's forward units and scraping the front of her missile units in back. I advanced up most of my units as far as I could but I simply moved my Bloodthirster and Daemon Prince so they could attempt a turn 1 8 inch charge. I rolled the Bloodthirster first and he managed to get a 12, hopping completely over the front Dryads and directly behind them, into the core of her formation and cozied right up next to Durthu. Next I tried for my Daemon Prince to charge in and he failed his charge, leaving my Bloodthirster alone in the center of the enemy formation.

For a moment, I thought he was doomed. Then he swung his axe at Durthu. Five swings, five hits, 3 6s triggering 3 bonus attacks due to his Crimson Crown, two of those hit. Seven wound rolls, three of them come up 6s causing mortal wounds due to Devastating Blow and triggering Outrageous Carnage(an area of effect damage ability that decreases in effectiveness as the Bloodthirster gets wounded), only one fails to wound. Durthu immediately takes an over 20 mortal wound hit and is instantly decapitated by the charging Bloodthirster without any saves and the shockwaves from the force of the blows deal 9 mortal wounds to nearly her entire force, only just missing a Branchwraith and Tree Lord out on the far flank. All that was left was a handful of Dryads, the Tree Lord, Branchwraith and a couple Kurnoth Hunters.

On her turn she attempted to counter-strike and fire at the Bloodthirster with her Kurnoth Hunters, they whiffed their attacks and missed everything. The Dryads then charged into my Daemon Prince to stop him and try and attack but only land one hit that was then saved, dealing no damage. The Tree Lord hangs back, already feeling defeated by the initial devastating charge and my forces still completely untouched. On the second turn my Bloodthirster charges the Tree Lord and then splattered him in a similar manner to Durthu, the explosion of 6 mortal wounds from that engagement sufficient to clean up all but the straggling Dryads that charged the Daemon Prince which he mops up without issue or taking any wounds.

And thus the measly 280 point Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage annihilated an entire 1500 point Sylvaneth force practically single-handed and pretty much in a single turn. Hell, even just that initial decapitation of Durthu was an instant repayment of his point cost, Durthu is 400 points.

My niece is still hesitant about taking on my Khorne army to this day because of that engagement. XD

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SW-User

XD That's hilarious! Sounds like you happened to get super lucky on that first turn, and then that carried you through the second.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Pretty much, it was already over by the time that explosion popped most of her army. Even if my Bloodthirster had gone down I still had all my Blood Warriors, Bloodreavers and Daemon Prince coming in behind to mop things up. Does make me find it especially funny when I see some people on the internet complaining about Blades of Khorne and Bloodbound being "weak," though.

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer I don't really get why people claim that armies which are really quite powerful are weak. Is it just because they personally can't win with them? I mean, some armies truly are weak, like most of the forces they haven't done a damn thing with in AoS (for example, I play High Elves, and literally the only releases they've put out for them was the Grand Alliance book and Spire of Dawn, and all the rules in those were the same as in the original compendium just with the allegiances changed). The amount of mortal wounds that an army like yours can put out is insane, honestly, and just because the amount is random doesn't mean that they're useless.

Sorry for rambling.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User That's all quite on-topic, not really rambling.

I think the big issue is that people get too caught up in the theory-crafting element of it and see the uncertainty/unreliability of a lot of things as evidence that they're just flat out bad. I know I've seen a lot who are obsessed with Stormcast simply because they have such good rolls for everything that they're all pretty statistically reliable. But with some armies(like Blades of Khorne) a part of the point is the unreliability and that's factored in.

Like, as a prime example of this, I see a lot of people trashing Bloodreavers as "useless." Because they have shit for saves and they don't have [i]great[/i] hit or wound rolls. But it seems to me like they're completely ignoring the two biggest features of a Khorne army in AoS. Volume of attacks and [i]Blood Tithe[/i]. Bloodreavers are blood tithe factories. They're cheap, they put out a [i]ton[/i] of attacks in really dense formations and even if they just charge in and die so long as you're doing 10 man units that's 70 points for 1 Blood Tithe, not a horrible exchange at all. And honestly I've seen Bloodreavers take down really expensive elites [i]very surprisingly often[/i]. It's shocking how many wounds one can sometimes get out with 30 4+/4+/-1 hits with rerolls. Or maybe even 40 or 50 if you're [i]really[/i] buffing the hell out of them.

Which then also goes into how I've seen some people complain about Bloodthirsters being shit elite units because they always die before they can get into combat and Khorne has no dedicated summoning(not a thing [i]I've[/i] seen happen all that often, usually they just get badly injured and not flat out die in one turn if they get focused), but that seems to be [i]exactly what Bloodreavers are for.[/i] If you want a reliable Bloodthirster right in your enemy's face then take 8 10 man units of Bloodreavers, charge them in to kill and die and in no time you'll have your 8 points for a guaranteed Bloodthirster summon [i]wherever you want it.[/i]

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer I see what you mean. I've seen a lot of people just (seemingly arbitrarily) decide that something's bad simply because it isn't the most powerful thing available, or because they don't see some synergy with something else. Bloodreavers are, as you mentioned, a really good example of that.

Sorry, I'm not sure what else I can add here. You're far smarter than I am :(

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Yeah, a lot of people get overly faction-focused and don't even bother looking for the synergies. The number of attacks you can get out of Bloodreavers is kinda crazy. Even just the standard Bloodsecrator pairing pushes a 10 man squad from 10 up to 30 attacks(31 counting the champion's extra, of course). If you have them as a part of the Dark Feast battalion and keep the Slaughterpriest alive on top of that then you can push them up to 40.

Add in an Aspiring Deathbringer as your general kept nearby and they're up to 50. With Blood Tithe points you can trigger the same leadership ability on a second Aspiring Deathrbinger and bring them up to 60, or you could of course add in more Bloodsecrators(though there are diminishing returns after the first) or a Warshrine to take the place of the forward Bloodsecrator so he can stay more safely in the back. It's an [i]avalanche[/i] of attacks that can pour out of those guys. Have had them hack down Durthu a couple times. Has to be painful seeing a 70 point squad of shock troops take down your 400 point general. XD

You're just fine, bud. :P

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer That's brutal! With enough of them, you could probably summon several bloodthirsters! You have to pay reinforcement/summoning points for them though, don't you?

Man, my elves can't even seem to hurt Durthu. Swordmasters could probably do it, but with only 10 of them and them being remarkably fragile (4+ save with 1 wound each) they're fairly easy to kill off if they're focussed on. Lion chariots are good too though. One of the problems they have though is that, apart from command abilities and spells, they don't really have anything that can synergise with other stuff to boost each other. Banners are really about the only thing that they really have; since I play mainly Sea Guard/Spireguard, the one hero that did work with them was cut (the Lothern Sea Helm - my favourite damn hero), and they don't really have an overarching command unit like Khorne does.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Yeah, you have to keep that in mind. But you can buy 80 Bloodreavers for 560 points, which still leaves you with plenty of points to play with besides even in a 1000 point game. Whole lotta paintin' once you get to armies that size though. lol. I can currently field a max of 80, need to pick up 20 more at some point so I can do 100 Bloodreaver hordes on occasion.

Have you had a look at the new General's Handbook for AoS with the new allegiance abilities, command traits and artefacts for all the factions?

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer That's almost two units for old Fantasy XD You use movement trays for that, right? I mean, that's an insane number of models to move individually.

Man, I can't afford that! Hell, I'm still playing with Indexes!

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Noooo, lol. They move in loose formations though so it's easy to move more than one at a time, it's not as bad as it initially appears. It's kind of amusing how the large horde armies actually encourage more of a "cloud" formation than line formations for reasons relating to pile-in rules.

PDFs are your friend.

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer lol I can imagine. I saw one game ages ago with a conscript blob (back before the codex came out) and it was rather..... interesting, but not in the way you'd expect.

I know, but my local is a GW store so it's rather hard to get away with :/

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User They're not alright with you printing out a binder of compressed rules? That's what I always use to play. [i]So[/i] much faster than browsing through books.

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer Not unless they've released that PDF officially. And to get the General's Handbook.....

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Not even "photocopying your own books" allowed? That's pretty book-nazi-ish, though I've encountered similar at some hobby stores before. Glad I simply play at homes these days and don't have to bother with that business.

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer Pretty much. It's bullshit, but since it's the only one around where I live it makes it kind of difficult to get around. And playing t home isn't an option for me; don't have the space, and neither do any of my friends.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Yeah, short of renting out a place options are pretty short there. Just gotta deal. :/

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer I know that all too well. :/

Sorry, I'm being depressing.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Nah, just real. Such is the case for a lot of players, is why game shops do host games. Just a shame some are so strict with rule enforcement.

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer I know. But it's GW, what should one expect from them of all companies?

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Just as bad as WotC. But both of them are all gone around here these days, it's just privately owned hobby shops. Which more run the gamut.

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer Is WotC really as bad as GW? That's pretty crazy, but I don't really know anything about them. And yeah, they can be wildly different.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Ohhhh yeah, they were originally from the West Coast of the US(hence the name) so they were pretty prominent around here and got nicknamed "Nazis of the Coast" by a lot of the locals here because of how aggressively they would buy properties and then aggressively enforce copyright on all of it. They have lightened a bit over the years, as GW has as well, but they were pretty bad about it for a while.

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer I'm not really surprised, honestly.

UndeadPrivateer · 31-35, M

@SW-User Yeah, seems like basically standard procedure for large corporations. Of which both GW and WotC most certainly are at this point.

SW-User

@UndeadPrivateer I've noticed that, and it's honestly kind of sad. It's a good way to create ill will within your customer base and drive people away.