ELG Age of Sigmar 1k League: Game 1
Filed Under: Gaming
On Tuesday 14th February I fought my first battle in my 1k league group, playing my dark-aelves-themed Cities of Sigmar list against Charlie’s freshly-enbookened and newly-painted squigs!
This battle report is much-delayed, so I don’t remember all the details, but it was a good game of Warhammer, and the nice thing about good games of Warhammer is you always remember the important bits.
The Armies
Charlie’s army consisted of:
- 2 Mangler Squigs
- A Loonboss on Giant Squig
- 10 Squig Hoppers
- A Squig Herd
- A Loonshrine
All in the Jaws of Mork subfaction.
My army was a bit different from the Living City lists I’ve played previously when running my Cities of Sigmar models. It’s a Hallowheart list because I wanted to see how far I could push my Sorceresses.
- Sorceress 1, the General
- Command Trait: Veteran of the Blazing Crusade (ignore battleshock wholly within 18”)
- Artefact: Arcane Tome (+1 spellcast, +1 spell)
- Spells: Ignite Weapons (+1 to wound on a friendly target), Warding Brand (when a friendly target is allocated a wound, on a 4+, the attacker takes a mortal wound – so it punishes enemies for hurting you)
- Her role is to cast support spells
- Sorceress 2, the Adjutant
- Spells: Elemental Cyclone, Roaming Wildfire (both are just mortal wound dealers)
- Her role is to cast offensive spells
- Bleakswords x10
- Bleakswords x10
- Black Guard x20 (the General’s Retinue)
- Drakespawn Knights x5
- Shadow Warriors x10
- Quicksilver Swords
- Emerald Lifeswarm
950 points, all in a Battle Regiment.
Because of being in Hallowheart, my wizards are dual casters (the general is a dual caster because of the Tome) and can take 2 spells from the Hallowheart spell lore. So basically the plan is for these two wizards to spew out buffs, debuffs and damage as much as possible, while being protected by the Black Guard, who can dish out a lot of hurt to anything that comes their ways.
The Battleplan
The battleplan we rolled was Burn and Pillage, which has 4 objectives, two in each player’s territory. You can destroy the objectives in your opponent’s territory for D3 points – something we both forgot to do. It’s nice and simple.
Once again I was playing on the ice table at Red Dice Games. I end up on it so often!
Deployment
I had a Battle Regiment, and he didn’t, so I had to set up everything without knowing where any of his stuff would be. Sometimes being low-drops is a disadvantage! As a result my deployment was very stupid.
On the left, I set up one unit of Bleakswords, to capture that objective. On the right, I created a sort of bubble around my two Sorceresses on the other objective, with Black Guard at the front and Bleakswords at the back. I did this because I was aware of the Mangler Squigs’ Giant Boing ability, and rightly terrified of it. Then I had no idea what to do with my Drakespawn Knights, so I stuck them in the middle. The Shadow Warriors went in reserve.
Charlie set up his Squig Hoppers on the left, next to the Loonshrine; the Loonboss and one Mangler Squig in the centre; and the Squig Herd and the other Mangler Squig on the right.
Round 1
Realising I’d deployed too far forward to be safe from several turn 1 charges, I chose to take the first turn so I could at least move about a bit and get some buffs off.
My general sacrificed one of her lackeys for +2 to cast, then cast Emerald Lifeswarm with +3 to cast (Cities of Sigmar get +1 to cast all Endless Spells). Then she cast Warding Brand on the Bleakswords (an attempt to disincentivise attacking them) and Ignite Weapons (iirc) on the Black Guard.
Her adjutant also sacrificed a Black Guard (it will all make sense in a moment) and cast Quicksilver Swords and Arcane Bolt, which she saved for later.
The Swords made a beeline for Mangler #2, but didn’t reach it this turn (iirc). The Lifeswarm brought the two sacrificed Black Guards back to life.
I shimmied stuff forward, kinda uncertain, preparing to receive a nasty charge.
In Charlie’s turn, I did not receive a nasty charge, because Mangler Squig #1 failed to charge the Knights. Mangler Squig #2 hid behind a rock. The Herd did not advance. The Hoppers, I think, I managed to Redeploy away from?
I breathed a sigh of relief, and then got double-turned.
Round 2
The face-punching began. Mangler #1 and the Loonboss ganged up on the Knights. They didn’t last long. The Hoppers got to work smashing the shit out of the Bleakswords. Mangler #2 charged the Black Guard, who got an opportunity to attack first, hitting on 2+, wounding on 2+, over 30 attacks… but I rolled about 15 1s :grimacing: So they did not kill the Mangler, and it ate a lot of them.
From this point on, my recollection starts getting really fuzzy, and I didn’t take quite enough photos to fill the gaps, alas!
In my turn I deployed my Shadow Warriors on the left side enemy objective. They started shooting at the Hoppers.
The are Dark Elf Shades, lovingly acquired from my past, other Rollmodels, and eBay. And they are led by a mildly-converted Shadowblade, master assassin sculpt.
I think my Guard managed to finish off Mangler #2?
Rounds 3 & 4?
I think I got priority? I was able to charge the Loonboss with my Black Guard and Bleakswords, somehow.
The Loonboss attacked the aelves who were hemming him in but failed to do much damage. He should then have been able to escape but at the time his warscroll had not been errata’d to include Fly, so as he was surrounded he was stuck. He went down in a blur of aelven blades.
Unfortunately charging the Loonboss left my Sorceresses vulnerable to the inevitable Giant Boing of Mangler #1. They had a bad time.
The Hoppers made for the Shades. The Shades and the Hoppers wiped each other out, which was hilarious, leaving me in control of that objective.
My Bleakswords made for the left-hand objective while the Guard went to get revenge on Mangler #1.
At this point we figured I’d basically lost unless he somehow failed his rolls on returning some Hoppers from the Loonshrine, so he rolled to see if that would happen and it did and we declared it a win for Charlie!
Conclusion
A very fun game in which I got to pilot this list for the first time, made a lot of mistakes, and learned from them. Charlie’s squigs were beautiful to get chomped to death by. Truly the Age of Squigmar is upon us!