Age of Sigmar battlereport: Idoneth Deepkin vs Slaves to Darkness

 Time for the first game of the new year, and it is an actual Age of Sigmar "refresher" game for the rules.

 

Because due to circumstances, I only played it a few time before... in 2nd edition, apart from some Spearhead.  But now we played 1000 points just to freshen up the rules.

 

I brought my Idoneth Deepkin, and on purpose took something of about everything to have a look at how things worked.  A unit of Legends because I allow them from the go in the Escalation League  and contains a wizard, a Regiment of Renown,  cavalry and infantry, and a monstrous mount.  Guess bar war machines / shooting units and a priest, I managed to cover all bases.

 

My force was organised as follows:

 

Regiment 1: An Akhelian King on Deepmare with the Armour of Cythai and the Form of Fangmora, an Allopex with a Razorshell Harpoon and a unit of 3 Morrsarr Guard with full command.

 

Regiment 2: An Akhelian Thrallmaster (Ghyran version), 10 Namarti Thralls (Ghyran version) with champion, and Cyreni's Razors from the Legends section

 

Regiment 3: A Stumblefoot Giant regiment of renown.

 

And I picked the Akhelian Beastmaster battle formation with Wrathful Cycles and Scouting Force battleplans. 

 

Facing me was Noah with a force of Slaves to Darkness, consisting of two drops.

 

Regiment 1: Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount with Radiance of Dark Glory, a regiment of Chaos Knights

 

Regiment 2: Chaos Lord with Head of the Unworthy, a unit of Chaos Chosen with the Dread Banner and a unit of Chaos Warriors.

 

He had Master the Paths and Intercept and Recover as Battletactics suite, and my Thralls, Taskmaster and Cyreni's Razors carried the treasure. 

 

So with both forces drawn up and ready for action, it was time to begin hostilities. 

 

Cyreni immediatly had herself and the Razors Steed of Tides to the other side of the battlefield (mind you, they actually deployed further to the side edge, but I was still placing them while making the picture), in order to either cause a distraction or go for the objective on the back of his lines.   

 

The rest of the force advanced through the center, to claim both the large objective as well as completing the first step of my Scouting Force battle tactic, where I need three units out of my friendly territory.

 

The enemy however responded to this, and started to advance both over my flank and my center.

 

The Morsarr redeployed, to make the charge range for the Knights over 9" in the hopes they will fail this above average roll to reach me. 

 

However, he rolled a 12 (disclaimer: he only once NOT roll 11 or 12 for his charges in this game), and a big melee erupted in the center, between the Slaves to Darkness hero, warriors, chosen ones and knights on the one hand, and my Akhelian King, Morsarr Guard, Allopex and Giant on the other side.  This didn't look all to good though for the Idoneth...

 

 But while the shark was killed by the Chosen Ones, the line managed to hold on... only to have "Paddy" the Stumblefoot Giant go crazy, stuffing a Chosen One in his bag, and smashing, kicking and headbutting enemies left and right.  Something the Aelves however failed to do so...

 

This resulted in an impressive 17-5 benefit for the Idoneth after the first battle round.

 

In order to try and swing the balance a bit, the Akhelian Thrallmaster and the Thralls moved in to join the fight.

 

As they also entered the melee, hopefully their numbers could tip over the balance and together with the gaint destroy the final Chosen Ones and the knights. 

 

However, the Slaves to Darkness really spiked at this moment.  The warriors slaughtered ALL the Thralls and the Taskmaster due to the ability with the Lord, while even though the Giant put one Chosen in his bag again, both the last Chosen and the Knights spiked on their defence and saved each and every wound inflicted.  This was going to cost me the game, as instead of removing one, probably two units from his side, the freaky dice instead deleted two of mine, which also gave him two treasure tokens for additional VP's.

 

 In his turn, the Giant was finally taken down, soon followed by the last of the Morsarr and my King, as I failed about every saving throw I needed to take.  The battle was as good as over, though I still had a small chance.

 

In the back, Cyreni's Razors kept tagging objectives, and I still managed to be in front 27-17 after this round.  If I could play hide-and-seek for three more turns, I might draw out a small victory, but it would become a close affair.

 

Using both my Steed of Tides and my Tides switching, the Razors kept dancing around the field, trying to escape from the mighty Chaos forces while "lighting up" objectives where able. After round three though, I still was in the lead with 37-27.

 

But the Chaos forces started to disperse and claim more and more of them, so they will be forcing my hand in the final turn for certain, but as the chessgame continued during the fourth round, the Razors managed to still keep it at 45-42, it would be close.

 

Well, so close that I actually needed to charge his last knight in the final round, and I failed to roll a 9... coming out with an 8... TWICE!  Oh bugger, this will cost me the game now as I can't prevent him from scoring more then 8 in the last round.  Had I succeeded in the charge, I could have stolen a few points, and had I remained alive it would have come down to some moves on his part for a very close game, which would probably end with 2 or 3 points in one side or the others favour. However, now the Chosen, who had rallied almost back to full strength, charged in and decimated the Razors on the final moments, grabbing their token and scoring a round of 20, resulting in a 45-62 win for the Chaos force.

 

So this was tense, and I still am in doubt wether I would have needed to move as far forward for that high scoring turn 1 that put me far in the lead until the very last turn, or hold back a bit.  Either decision in my case could have worked out, but what did me in was the "double spike" both offensively and defensively for the Chaos troops in turn 2, which literally broke the back of my full army.  

 

But, fun first game for sure, and now to get some archers painted up for more flank pickings, and reinforce the Thrall unit.