I played a matched play game of Age of Sigmar last night against a player that was having their first game. I really enjoy teaching Age of Sigmar to people and helping them explore another aspect of the hobby. Like me, my opponent started painting miniatures during lockdown as a new hobby to pass the time. His Bonereapers looked great for someone with such a short time in the hobby.
Being a first game, I usually opt to go open play or narrative and skip a lot of the tactical choices that come with playing matched play. However, a local tournament is only a few weeks away so my opponent came ready with battleplans and rules to practice for the big day. The chosen battleplan was Survival of the Fittest with my Breakaboss, Killaboss and Boltboyz chosen as predators. My opponet chose his Harvester, Stalkers and Boneshaper. I was more than happy to explain the differences and he seemed to pick it up fairly quickly. I had played against bonereapers before so I knew a few of their rules and helped with friendly reminders regarding ward saves and dispelling magic. I also helped to explain battle tactics and gave options for which ones I thought would be achieveable for him during his turn.
I was playing the Kruleboyz with some Troggoths as allies as I don’t quite have a legal list yet. I find this army is good for teaching as it isnt ultra competative or a list I’ve put a lot of time in with on the table. My initial roll wiffed, missing out on placing any Dirty Tricks on the battlefield. I did get to go first however and chose Aggressive expansion, running everything forward and sitting on all the objectives scoring 5 points. The Bonereapers chose ferocious advance on their turn, achieving the battle tactic for 2 points but failing to take any objectives from me.
Battle Round 2 maintained turn order. Seeing an opportunity to charge with both my Breakaboss and Killaboss I chose Savage Spearhead. Both of these heroes made it behind enemy lines and engaged with the bonereaper stalkers. Going first in combat, the Breakaboss inflicted 2 mortal wounds on his mount causing it to swing for 4 extra attacks. This was enough to shatter the stalkers scoring 1 point for the predators and prey rule in the battleplan. That and maintaining control of the objectives gave me a commanding lead of 11 – 2.
Getting more comfortable with the rules my opponent decided to try to take an objective from me for the Conquer tactic. He succeeded in taking 2 of the objecives giving him 5 points and the end of the round. He also managed to wipe out the unit of Gutrippaz and Hobgrots I had guarding the objectives. The score was now 11 – 7.
Battle Round 3 saw me lose initiative and get double turned. The Bonereapers opted for Broken Ranks and set their sights on my Boltboyz. Unfortunately they managed to survive with a single wound remaining and even managed to pass their battleshock test, tying up the Mortek Guard and Harvester for another round. the gap had closed to 11-10.
My third turn I chose Conquer as the middle objective had been left empty when all the Bonereapers advanced on my Boltboyz. In the combat phase both my remaining Boltboy and Swampcaller Shaman were removed from the board giving the bonereapers 1 point for predators and prey. I managed to pull ahead with the objectives though regaining my lead. The score was now 16 – 11
The fourth battleround began and I managed to steal back initiative for the double turn. I decided to go all in and try and Slay the Warlord as doing so would also give me my grand strategy. Unfortunately the enemy general managed to stick around so I only scored 3 points making my lead 19 – 11.
Bonereapers turn 4 began and they responded by also declaring Slay the Warlord. Unfortunately for them my Trogs managed to block any incoming attacks and held the bulk of the remaing force off the objective making the score 19 – 12.
The final battleround was upon us and with turn order maintained I went for Broken Ranks. My Breakaboss managed wipe out a unit of Mortek guard and my Killaboss finished off the general from last turn. At this point we called the game in my favor with the final score standing at 27 – 16 choosing to score the final turn as though nothing had changed. It was a good game and although I managed to have a commanding lead at the end, there were a couple of points during rounds 2 and 3 that I thought might have cost me the game.
According to Gamer Dad 