AoS Kilvakar's Battle Reports

Yeah, I wasn't sure how that would go. I thought Khorne would either make a mad dash for the exit or try to ignore my Bastiladon and kill the Oldblood and Knights on their way out. But instead, he kind of messed up by splitting his forces and basically sacrificing his Lord of Khorne while not moving his other two heroes away fast enough while the Blood Warriors held off the Bastiladon.

We were playing on TTS, but I forgot to take any screenshots. Will try to take some next time!

 

Unfortunately I don't have any screenshots for this one either, as it was really over before it began. I played against Khorne again, and due to some absolutely terrible luck the forces of the blood god withdrew in turn 2.

This time we rolled up the Sudden Assault battleplan, and I won priority once again and chose to be the Custodian, keeping with the theme of a Seraphon force fending off incursions from Khornate forces.

This battleplan had the forces of Khorne attempting to sweep the battlefield and overrun the Seraphon in retaliation for their earlier defeat. You score victory points for each quarter of the board that has more friendly models than enemy models. I had the same force, deciding to keep the Cohort of Sotek in reserve as this time Khorne sought to bring down the Bastion of Lustria with a Slaughterbrute. The Lord of Khorne was not present this time, since he was busy recruiting new warriors to his side. His Slaughterpriest had been killed during the last battle, and his Blood Warriors had been slain to the man (in game rules terms they were disbanded). But his recruiting efforts had been fruitful. Now he had a new Slaughterpriest, a squad of Mighty Skullcrushers, as well as a unit of Chaos Marauder Horsemen and Chaos Warriors. But they had also brought along a Slaughterbrute, hoping that having a bloodthirsty monster on their side would help even the odds against the beasts of the Seraphon.

On my corner of the battlefield, Tlak-Khan deployed the Cohort of Itzil and the Bastion of Lustria near the Realmshaper Engine, which was once again occupied by Ra'Tok. The Chaos Warriors, Slaughterpriest, and Slaughterbrute all deployed together, while the Marauder Horsemen attempted to move around and bring down the Starpriest with their javelins. But the blood god apparently was not pleased with their previous loss, as nothing would go well for them today.

The Chaos Warriors and Slaughterpriest ran into one corner of the battlefield, and the Marauder Horsemen moved down to get into shooting range. The Slaughterbrute moved forward, hoping to engage the Bastion of Lustria as quickly as possible as it was the main threat to the Chaos Warriors. However, despite taking control of three out of four quarters of the battlefield, things went downhill fast. The Marauder Horsemen missed with all their javelins, and then failed to make their charge. The Slaughterbrute also failed it's charge, and that's when the Blades of Khorne new that they had failed to win their god's favor that day. My opponent was obviously frustrated and wanted to concede right then, but I asked if I could at least play my turn as well, since the dice might also hate me. They did not.

I was able to shoot twice with the Bastiladon and then charge him into the Slaughterbrute, and charge the Knights into the Marauder Horsemen after buffing them with Hand of Glory and the Starpriest's staff buff. The Knights wiped the Marauders and took only one wound, and the Slaughterbrute got knocked down to half HP, and only did 2 damage to the Bastiladon in return. Since that was the end of the battle round, we were tied in victory points. I won the priority for the next turn, and that's when we decided that it was over and he could withdraw early, since I would definitely be able to finish the Slaughterbrute this round, and the Chaos Warriors and Slaughterpriest wouldn't be able to take on my entire force since with the Engine's mortal wounds and Bastiladon shooting I'd almost certainly be able to take out a single Warrior and lower their save.

So the forces of Khorne beat an undignified retreat, and I completed the battle, moving my units into enemy territory to complete my quest as well as gaining bonus renown.

So yeah, I really felt bad about this one. My opponent said that he really didn't feel bad and still had fun, but just didn't want to play out a doomed battle. So I rolled up and got an Old Keep for the exploration roll and decided to buy it, and for my completed quest I bought the Amulet of Destiny for Tlak-Khan. I took the Defend your Realm quest for my next one. Here's hoping the next game isn't quite so one-sided!

 

Here's another Path to Glory battle report! After the last run of terrible luck my Khorne opponent asked if he could re-work his list, since we were both experimenting and trying to get better at AoS 3e rules. I said that was fine, and we also came to a gentleman's agreement that neither of us would run a big monster unless the other had one too. So at some point he'll be getting a Bloodthirster in his list and I'll bring back the Bastiladon, but for now I sent the Bastion of Lustria back into the jungles to rest for a while, and brought on the Cohort of Sotek (20 Skinks with Deadly Volley veteran ability) and Hex'il, a Skink Priest.

To avenge the destruction of their previous raiding force, Khorne's army sent out a new Slaughterpriest, but with the mighty Khorgos Khul and Valkia the Bloody to aid the cause, along with a unit of 20 Chaos Maruaders, armed with axes and shields.

We rolled and got the Watchtower battleplan, and I won the roll-off and chose to be the defender. Naturally, I planted the Realmshaper Engine in the center, and then I won the second roll-off and chose to set up the rest of the terrain while he got to choose which edge of the board was where my reinforcements would come from. I deployed Ra'Tok and Hex'il in the Realmshaper, and the Cohort of Sotek right behind it. My opponent deployed the Slaughterpriest and the Maruaders on the East side, and Valkia and Khorgos on the South side. All of them would have no problem charging my units turn 1, so my units needed to hold out long enough for Tlak-Khan and the Cohort of Itzil to come to their aid. I did get screenshots this time, so here's how things looked after deployment:



It's hard to see because the Khorne guys blend in with the background quite a bit, but you can see the Maruaders to the left, and the two heroes at the top. My guys are right in the center.

So of course the Blades of Khorne went first, and after the Slaughterpriest was able to severely damage Ra'Tok with Bloodboil, they all charged in, except the Slaughterpriest, who moved over to another tree to stay in cover and continue getting a +1 to prayer rolls (we rolled Mystical on most terrain pieces, lol!)

Here's how things looked after the charge phase:



Valkia took a wound from the Deadly terrain, but everyone else was fine. I used a CP for Unleash Hell on the Marauders, and managed to kill two of them, which was good enough to negate the rend on their axes since they no longer had 20 models. They attacked, and even without the rend they killed 5 Skinks. The ward save from the Realmshaper thanks to Primeval Domain managed to save one Skink, which was probably what won me the game since that allowed them to keep their 2 attacks per model. The Marauders that couldn't attack the Skinks attacked the Starpriest, but the -1 to hit and +1 from garrisoning protected him.

I fought with Ra'Tok next, and he managed to do one more damage to Valkia. Then she fought and only got one damage through, thanks to the garrison rules once again. Hex'il attacked Valkia but didn't get any wounds through. Then Khorgos Khul fought and also failed to get any wounds through. -1 to hit is insanely valuable! Finally, the Cohort of Sotek fought back, and they managed to kill one more marauder.

My turn! Ra'Tok rolled for a CP but failed, but that would be the only failure of this round. He succeeded at Heroic Recovery and got back up to 4 wounds. Hex'il prayed for the Old Ones to curse the Chaos Marauders, and his prayers were answered! Then Ra'Tok with the Arcane Tome cast Hand of Glory on the Cohort of Sotek and Mystic Shield on himself, both of which Khorne failed to unbind, even though his Slaughterpriest and Khorgos had an unbind attempt each. (we had a brief pause to discuss how the 3e save cap rules work and how you are allowed to stack more than one bonus to save in order to negate rend, but you are capped at a total modifier of +/- 1) And of course he blessed the Cohort of Sotek with his Serpent's Staff.

In the movement phase Tlak-Khan and the Cohort of Itzil came rushing onto the battlefield, hoping to reach their friends before they fell. As it would turn out, their help wasn't even needed. In the shooting phase the Cohort of Sotek unleashed a volley of poisoned blow darts at the Marauders. The damage output with mortal wounds on 6s to hit *and* wound was amazing! 8 Marauders fell to the mortal wounds from Curse alone, and 4 more to the rest of the attacks and poison. Then in melee, the Cohort of Sotek finished off the Marauders. Valkia actually took some damage from Ra'Tok's venombolt and Hex'il's Starbolt, and even though she managed to hurt Ra'Tok again in the combat phase Ra'Tok and Hex'il were able to take her down in melee retaliation. Once again, Khorgos Khul failed to do any damage. With that, Khorne decided to withdraw and save the life of their Warlord and Khorgos. I'm sure the Blood God wasn't too disappointed. After all, Khorne cares not from where the blood flows.

For the major victory I received 9 Glory Points and Khorne received 6, since his warlord took part in the battle and survived. We tallied up our renown points and rolled on the exploration table. We both got the Old Keep, which we both already had! Instead, we both opted to upgrade our Old Keeps to allow 3 extra heroes in the army instead of 1. I completed my Defend your Realm quest, so I ended up with an extra 10 Glory (which was spent on the upgrade), and since I didn't need anything else at the moment I chose Defend your Realm as my quest once again.

This battle seemed very one-sided, but really it came down to a lot of luck. Khorne failed to do enough damage to knock my Skink unit down to 1 attack per model, which is where all my damage output came from. My heroes were very well-protected in the Realmshaper, but if Khorgos had managed to get some wounds through then my Starpriest would also have died in turn 1, completely negating my Skinks ability to deal any damage. I still would have stood a chance with my Knights and Oldblood coming in on turn 2, but they would have been able to ransack my Realmshaper at the very least had they not failed to kill more Skinks and the Starpriest. Here's a shot of the end of the battle (before Valkia went down)

 

Here's a view of the battlefield before I got completely crushed by the Stormcast Eternals, lol!

It was a combination of my opponent's list (Hammers of Sigmar Stormkeep, heroes that buff Hammers of Sigmar units for free, 6+ ward within 12" of objectives) and bad luck on my rolls, but even with mortal wounds from the Skinks, Kroak, and the Realmshaper, combined with all the buffs I could get in melee, I was not able to kill a single unit of the Stormcast. Meanwhile, they killed my Skinks and Kroak (hate that random death roll...) and just tanked on the objectives until turn 3 where I realized that I was never going to be able to kill even a single foot hero and conceded. My most frustrating battle to date.

 

Ouch! Any dragons from the SCE?

 

No Dragons, just three named characters (Bastian, Vandus, Yndrasta), three generic heroes, and 30 Liberators. All of them had 3+ saves and 6+ ward saves. The named heroes all had 4+ or 5+ wards. Didn't get enough mortal wounds through to kill anyone, and Bastian Carthalos blew Kroak up by rolling 6 mortals on his ability and Kroak's random death roll killed him.

 

Yeah. I saw that from your other posts. I'm sorry, I know that's frustrating. That Kroak roll especially is a pain.

As an (humorous?) aside, I have a buddy who bought in hard to SCE back at the end of 1e/start of 2e; he loves marines from 40K, and SCE are the marines of AoS. Anyway, he played them to few wins as other books (power)crept past his. Now that SCE are strong in 3e he's sworn off of them, as "too little, too late". Oh well.

 

Oh, don't be sorry! It happens and it was a great learning experience. I say frustrating because during the game itself it was very frustrating to see all my units fail and get slowly ground down by a list that I knew wasn't supposed to be ultra-competitive. Having Kroak blow up after 6 wounds in the turn 3 hero phase was what made me concede, though. At that point I was in range for him to do Celestial Deliverance and start killing stuff, but at that point there was literally no way my army was going to be able to shift the Stormcast off a single objective. I may have swore once or twice when failing all saves or all wound rolls, lol! But it was still an interesting game.

Yeah, not the top-of-the-meta list, but certainly a hard-counter to what I had, or at least it *felt* like a hard counter. With each group of 10 Liberators able to hold the two middle objectives the entire game, I had no hope of winning after losing Kroak.

They just ran onto the objectives first turn and camped there for the rest of the game, kind of like Nurgle or Giants. Meanwhile, their heroes buffed everyone basically for free because Stormcast. Most of their warscroll buffs are free and not command abilities. So for example, even though I got Roar off on Vandus Hammerhand, he was still able to only take 3 damage from my Stegadon who was buffed with all-out attack, while also giving his nearby unit of Liberators +1 to their attacks characteristic because nothing he does costs CP. Yndrasta tanked all the mortals from spells and the Realmshaper with her 4+ ward save, and only took 3 damage from 10 Saurus Guard with exploding 6s. Bastian took 3 mortals the entire game and just healed them back with Heroic Recovery. And my Carnosaur buffed with pretty much everything he could get except all-out attack only did 4 damage to a 6 wound Lord Exorcist with no buffs.

If I had brought a more meta-oriented list and just sat back and shot until turn 4, I might have been able to recover on victory points. But I certainly didn't play as best as I should have either, so it's not the army's stats that are entirely to blame.

But the more I play armies that aren't sitting on 4+ and 5+ saves, the more I'm starting to lose faith in the "Seraphon are OP and can do everything well" argument. We rely heavily on mortal wounds, which only Salamanders, Skinks, and maybe Knights can dish out in large quantities. We have one damaging spell in our entire spell lore, and it's an anti-horde spell. Meanwhile, Stormcast are throwing lightning around like it's a light show, blasting mortal wounds all over the place and dishing out massive damage while even their weaker units are usually sitting on a 3+ save.

Meanwhile, our units that can dish out the mortal wounds are on a 5+ or 6+ save, with low bravery and low wound counts, with attack profiles that match. If you're not rolling a *lot* of 6's on Salamanders or buffed Skinks/Knights, you're not getting any damage through.

 

Best army in the game.



Sorry i had to play my role

We generally matchup into Stormcast and IJ pretty well, largely because of coalesced. Just gotta hope the dragons don't super spike their mortals and it's usually fine. We do a lot of damage, but its spread throughout all the phases of the game so there's a "sum is greater than its parts" effect that can happen. If you're just playing IJ with the steg heavy list tho, that can be problematic. You really need the screens to eat that first turn charge.

Usually against armies like that you're castling up and scoring battle tactics +1 with your monster shooting and holding objectives with skink screens. When they come in to finally engage (which they have to cause you just outscore every turn with the monsters) you just open up the castle on them and take off all their toys.

 

I know i was kinda joking but i genuinely don't think any army is stronger then ours. We have 1 matchup that's 50/50 and the rest are easily slanted in our favor.

Our playstyle is definitely less straightforward but I don't know if that takes anything away from our strength.

edit: wanted to add a little bit to this! I thought about it and i thought you're spot on. We have so many tools it creates an army that's just not easily delt with. Do you remove the priest to prevent the buffs? The Slann to prevent the CP gen and unbinds? The sallies to prevent the shooting damage? The skinks to keep them off objectives? It's just so many layers working together so efficiently it, you often have seraphon lists that have 3,4, even 5 separate threats that are all capable of winning games on their own. It's such a powerful toolbox it allows us to combat whatever army may be rising in the meta at any given time.

I'd highly recommend checking out Season of War on youtube, any game Ridge plays with seraphon will be a masterclass in how the army can perform.

 

My brother with his Khorne army and I got to play a 3,000 point game over Memorial Day weekend.

Here's the Khorne list. We waived battleline rules and he was slightly over the points limit, but it was against Seraphon so we agreed it would be fine. I don't have his exact artifacts and battalions.

Allegiance: Khorne
- Slaughterhost: The Skullfiend Tribe
- Mortal Realm: Ghur
- Grand Strategy: Pillars of Belief
- Triumphs:
Slaughterpriest (110)
- General
Slaughterpriest (110)
Slaughterpriest (110)
Bloodsecrator (125)
Karanak (150)
Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut (140)
10 x Bloodreavers (80)
- Reaver Blades
5 x Wrathmongers (145)
5 x Wrathmongers (145)
2 x Khorgoraths (220)
- Reinforced x 1
1 x Khorgoraths (110)
20 x Chaos Marauders (180)
- Axes & Shields
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
- Reinforced x 1
20 x Chaos Marauders (180)
- Axes & Shields
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
- Reinforced x 1
10 x Chaos Marauders (90)
- Axes & Shields
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
20 x Chaos Warriors (400)
- Hand Weapon & Shield
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
- Reinforced x 1
10 x Chaos Marauder Horsemen (220)
- Javelin & Shield
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
- Reinforced x 1
Chaos Warshrine (215)
- Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Skull Cannons (140)
Hexgorger Skulls (60)
Wrath-Axe (85)

Total: 3015 / 3000
Reinforced Units: 5 / 6
Allies: 0 / 600
Wounds: 229
Drops: 18

My list:

Allegiance: Seraphon
- Constellation: Thunder Lizard
- Mortal Realm: Ghur
- Grand Strategy: Beast Master
- Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Engine of the Gods (265)**
- General
- Command Trait: Prime Warbeast
- Artefact: Cloak of Feathers
- Mount Trait: Beastmaster
- Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse
Lord Kroak (430)*
Saurus Astrolith Bearer (150)*
- Artefact: Fusil of Conflaguration
Skink Priest (80)*
- Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal
Skink Priest (80)*
- Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal

Battleline
5 x Saurus Guard (115)*
5 x Saurus Guard (115)*
Stegadon (265)**
- Weapon: Skystreak Bow
Stegadon (265)**
- Weapon: Sunfire Throwers

Units
2 x Salamander Hunting Pack (280)**
- Reinforced x 1

Behemoths
Bastiladon with Solar Engine (250)***
Bastiladon with Solar Engine (250)***
Bastiladon with Ark of Sotek (165)****
Bastiladon with Ark of Sotek (165)****

Endless Spells & Invocations
Emerald Lifeswarm (60)
Soulsnare Shackles (65)

Core Battalions
*Warlord
**Thunderquake - Slayers
***Alpha-Beast Pack
****Alpha-Beast Pack

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 3000 / 3000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 6
Allies: 0 / 600
Wounds: 136
Drops: 14

With a 3k point limit, I wanted to try Kroak since I hadn't gotten to use his actual model yet, and then just wanted to fit as many dinos in as possible.

We picked the First Blood battleplan and I chose to be the attacker. Since I out-dropped Khorne, I decided to let him go first and try for the double-turn. Here's the board turn 1:



He went first and was able to claim all the objectives. He also succeeded on his battle tactic, so scored 5 VP at the end of his round. He got both of his Invocations off, and moved them towards my army. Nothing got into range for combat, so I began the Seraphon turn 1. I did some chip damage with Comet's Call and the Realmshaper, as well as a couple wounds on his general with the Realmshaper. My dinos further away from the engine were able to kill most of the Marauder Horsemen, which were my target for Broken Ranks. They died to battleshock, so I succeeded on the tactic but didn't get any objectives. So Khorne took an early 5-2 lead.

He won the priority roll, so no double-turn. Khorne did some damage to my Engine with the Wrath Axe and then charged a unit of 20 Maruaders and the Chaos Warriors into my main force to keep them away from objectives, and charged a Khorgorath into one of my Arks on the other side of the board. They did some more damage to the Engine and some mortal wounds on one of my Bastiladons, as well as killed 2 Saurus Guard with the Skullcannon. He succeeded on battle tactics again, and still held more objectives than I did, so he scored another 5 VP.

I began the bombardment on my turn. I did some chip damage with Comet's Call, the Realmshaper, and Stellar Tempest on the Chaos Warriors. Then I focused as much fire as possible on the Chaos Warriors. I rolled for Saurus summons on the Engine. I was able to kill a lot of Marauders and finish the Chaos Warriors and the Khorgorath in combat. I succeeded on my battle tactic of Monstrous Takeover, and now I also controlled 2 objectives. So now I gained 6 VP (3 for objectives, 2 for battle tactics, and 1 extra for completing the tactic with a Monster), leaving the score 10-7. Here's the shape of the board at the end of the round:



I won the priority roll for turn 3, double-turn incoming!

I was able to dispel the Invocations, but Kroak rolled snake eyes on his first casting roll and did 3 wounds to himself. After him blowing up in my last game, I was kind of worried, lol! But he healed just fine, so he remained alive but no magic for this round. But I was able to shoot off the remaining Marauders and charge my Engine and Ark of Sotek into his center where the Skullcannon, Wrathmongers and Warshrine were. I didn't kill any of them, but I was able to do some damage with the Engine and despite not being a very damaging unit, my Arks of Sotek were consistently able to get 2-3 damage off each turn, and took no damage since he was targeting the Engine with the Bloodboil prayer. I was now controlling more objectives again, and succeeded on another battle tactic so I got another 5 VP, taking the lead now at 10-12.

My brother was a bit disheartened at this point, so he decided to concede. His reasoning was that without having killed any of my Bastiladons and with me now controlling more objectives, even with the summoning he was preparing he didn't think he'd be able to retake any objectives. His plan was to bog down the middle and hold more objectives than me long enough to ensure victory. So it was a victory for the Seraphon!

Afterthoughts: I definitely think Khorne needs a big buff. They're a melee that lacks rend and shooting, and unlike Ironjawz or Nighthaunt they don't have speed or movement shenanigans. The Daemons are actually very good glass cannons, but he prefers mortals so he mostly uses them and saves the Daemons for summoning. I think much of what we say about the Saurus side of Seraphon also applies to Khorne. They need more rend and slightly better attack profiles. They're also a horde army that suffers from 3e's anti-horde rules. I'm guessing that when they get their new book they'll be upgraded to deal a lot more damage to compensate for their lack of shooting and relatively slow army speed. But for now, I think we'll be holding off on playing Seraphon vs. Khorne for a while, except for our PTG game. Later this week we plan on trying out an Idoneth vs. Orruks game!

 

It's been a while! I haven't really been playing as much, other than going to a tournament at my LGS last year. The new Gallatian season of war just hasn't been doing it for me. Excited about the new book, but still kind of bummed that it nerfs Thunder Lizards so hard. I want to play my dino spam, lol!

But I recently played a TTS game where I actually played Ironjawz instead of fighting against them, going up against Khorne with the new rules. We ignored all the Gallatian rules and just stuck with the core and battletome rules.

I won't go turn-by turn, but just to give a quick summary:

I played a list with Gordrakk, 2 Warchanters, 2 units of 3 Gore-Gruntas and 3 units of 10 Brutes. Khorne had a Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage, 3 units of 30 Bloodletters and several foot heroes. I'm pretty sure they were a Slaughterpriest, a Skullgrinder, a Skulltaker and two Skullmasters.

I had a one-drop battalion and was playing Da Choppas for the Warchanter buffs. He was playing the Bloodlords for the extra mortal wounds.

I went first turn 1 and attempted to make a turn 1 charge with the Orruks but surprisingly was not able to get it off. There was just a bit too much distance. Neither of us really did anything the first turn.

Second turn I charged with Gordrakk and one unit of the Gore-Gruntas, but the second unit failed. Gordrakk decimated a unit of Bloodletters but was hit back very hard by the Bloodthirster and more Bloodletters. I finished off the Bloodthirster in my opponent's combat phase, but Gordrakk died as well.

The remainder of the battle was basically a slogfest with my Gore-Grunta units dying by the end of turn 2 but my undamaged Brutes catching up to clog up the center of the board, preventing Khorne from taking the middle objective. The battleplan was one where by the end of turn three, if you controlled all three objectives you win. Otherwise, by the end of the battle whoever controlled 2 won a minor victory. Khorne summoned a unit of 20 Bloodletters in turn 3 and the Skulltaker's anti-hero abilities took out one of my Warchanters. But the Skulltaker died and his Bloodletter units were pretty worn out by that time while my Brutes had taken very little damage at that point. So after failing to claim the objective in turn 4 Khorne conceded.

It was a fun pick-up game, and it was fun to play Orks since I rarely do. I definitely missed the extra CP generation I'm used to in Seraphon. I only ever had 1-2 CP in a turn. Orruks are still very good just in terms of raw stats, and both armies had good rend so we pretty much were on 5+ or 6+ saves the entire battle. Khorne seems a lot better now, having gotten a lot of base warscroll upgrades and some amazing artifacts and command traits.

I'm going to be actually kind of nervous fighting Khorne as Seraphon now, lol! I'm guessing that to beat that type of list you're going to have to either take at least 2 blocks of 30 Saurus and hope to camp the objectives long enough to win, or attempt to tie them up in their deployment zone with Aggradons or Raptadons. Trying to use magic with their Hatred of Sorcery rule just seems like a detriment now. A 5+ spell ignore that also gives them a Blood Tithe point each time it goes off sounds like attempting the new Trog Bomb strategy would just end up fueling them more than hurting them.

I'm kind of lukewarm on the new book since it hits dinos so hard, but looking forward to more battle reports here in the coming year nonetheless