Age of Sigmar- The Battle of Dark Glory

Hello All,

The following is a combined article (Facebook and an email with a friend) All are my words but you may have seen some of it before.Warning- Picture Heavy!

Happy New Year!

After months of "no fun" I finally got a chance to get a game in on January 1. My son (Rob) came up with his half sister (lets call her Charlie) so she could try out the game. She is interested in the beastmen army. We played beastmen & Skaven vs. My Empire army. 

Armies were constructed using the Warscroll builder system system at 1500 points a side. 750 Beastmen and 750 Skaven vs. 1500 Empire. I build both forces and decided to match building concepts as much as possible with little to no missile weapons. 

Ready to be served

Skaven

The beast heard

Note the Minotaur Giant in the back 

Exceptions: 

• I had a Volley Gun and a rocket battery with a unit of 10 militia (they now come with guns.) They had a lightning Cannon, 2 Ratling gun teams and a unit of 20 slaves with slings.
• I had 2 units of 10 Empire knights + 2 units of Great swords (10 and 5.) They had a Giant, 10 Beastagors, and 10 Storm Vermin 
• I had an empire General, A Battle Wizard, and a Warrior priest. They had Warlord Queek, a Great Bray Shaman, and a beast lord

The game lasted many hours since the forces were larger than any I have played previously and we were teaching a new player the system. Combined there were 176 models in play (there were a total of 29 War scrolls used)

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Forces

Giant

Warhounds 1

Warhounds 2

Beastagors

Gors

Ungors

Great Bray Shaman

Beast lord

Warp Lightning cannon

Ratling Gun crews

Queek Headtaker

From the front left to right- Row 1- Wizard, Warrior Priest, General, Knights Panther, Knights of Morr

Row 2- Rocket battery, Volly Gun + crew

Row 3- Empire Swordsmen, Empire Greatswords 1

Row 4- Empire Militia, Empire Halberds, Empire Great swords 2

1500 points on the Warscroll builder scale

The Battlefield

I chose the Urban F.A.T mat that I recently acquired as the base of the table. I thin filled it with an interesting selection of burned out buildings and debris in a logical fashion

The Wizards Tower

Top Left is a government building center is a burned out Inn complete with burned out stable 

Deployment

Since I set up the board and built the armies I allowed my guests to choose deployment zones and what side they wanted to start on. 

Early empire deployment (note the dice used to mark the limit of the deployment zone) 

Artillery deployment

Early Skaven and beast deployment

Beastagors hit the board

Lightning cannon in the ruins for protection

Slaves deployed

Empire ready!

Skaven/Beast ready!

Fight!

The Battle

The Battle did not go well for the Empire. By round 5 I only had a handful of troops left and faced a still sizable force of Beastagors, Warhounds, Skaven slaves, A Giant, and a Jabberslythe (Proxy Extreme Carnivean from Warmachine) along with Warlord Queek and a Beastlord! I nobly surrendered the field at that point (Actually the pizza arrived so we called the game at the end of round 5)

Empire Round 1 Moving forward

The forces of Darkness stand ready

There sure are a lot of them...

End of Empire round 1 

Since there was little more to do than move it went quick

Darkness turn 1- Movement

The slaves take up residence in the ruined Inn (Dubbed "Heartbreak hotel") 

There they are. Get um!

Panther Knights waiting for the right moment to strike

Clan rats advance through the Inn yard

The other Clan rats go through the woods

The Giant advances

Rob just blew up one of his own ratling guns! (d3 mortal wounds)

Knights of Morr Charge the Giant along with the Militia

The Knights do not fair well

See what I mean

Queek comes around the heartbreak hotel

not looking good for the militia (all alone and all)

Clan rats take the center of town

The Militia is in a bad way

Poor Knights of Morr

The Knights Panther will avenge them!!!

Kill those dirty rats!

This could get ugly

The two remaining swordsmen support the knights panther 

Same fight different angle

The empire greatswords look on in horror as Queek joins the battle against the Knights Panther

I said KILL THOSE DIRTY RATS!!!

Summoned Jabberslythe in the backfield!

Now that's what I am talking about!

The Knights are being chewed through

Storm vermin take a shortcut

Darkness holds the center

The remaining Gors attack the Empire General 

Jabberslythe attacks rocket battery

A "Slobberknocker"!

Same fight different angle

At least we are killing the Warhounds!

The loan Empire swordsman in an attempt to sell his life for top dollar attacks the beast lord  directly 

(and manages to wound him!)

After getting chewed on by the remaining Ratling gun, remnants of the second Greatsword  unit charge into the fray for a shot at glory (and redemption)

Volly gun moves forward to shoot Queek in the face! unfortunately they misfire and jam the gun. 

Most of the Halberds are dead

What the center of the battlefield looked like at the end of the game. 

Not much left (for the empire at least!)

Jabberslythe finishing off the rocket battery crew at game's end

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As the armies were built to teach the system rather than optimize units so I am pleased with the outcome.

What I learned- The Empire needs shooting. Their troops are not good enough to go toe to toe with equivalents in other armies. You really have to wear them down before they lock up.

What Rob learned- Queek is a beast in combat (that happens when you kill 5 empire Knights in 2 rounds) and if he has another hard hitter like the beastlord by his side they can mop up quite a bit. Rob also learned that though it is harder to do, Skaven can still blow themselves up with their war machines (just as the second ratling gun team)

What Charlie learned- Monsters kick butt! Her Giant completely destroyed a 7 (were 10 but 3 were killed by the warp lightning cannon) man Imperial Knight regiment in one round on the turn they charged! She also figured out that summoning a Jabberslythe in my back field was a great way to disrupt my artillery bombardments!

It was a solid Victory for the forces of Darkness and a good day to die for the forces of light.

RGH