Age of Sigmar - Path to Glory Practice

I have not played any games since the end of the Spearhead League at the Warhammer Store last month, so I've kind of fallen out of the habit of organizing and planning things. If things aren't part of a regular routine in my life, they just don't seem to happen at all (I forget that things even exist or are possibilities!?). So it was really nice when Orion contacted me, out of the blue this past weekend to see if I was interested in having a little practice game with our Path to Glory armies on Monday! (It was the Thanksgiving weekend her in Canada, this past weekend!) 

Now... I don't HAVE the army I was planning to use for the upcoming campaign completely painted, so I used the one I originally thought I might use... and... may STILL use, if I don't get all those Hellstriders and Seekers finished!? 

Situation

Howlthrob's Legion of Godseekers has been rampaging around the Mortal Realms is search of their imprisoned god, Slaanesh. Their questing eventually brought them to the domain of Duchess Mircalla, a Soulblight Vampire. After tearing a frenzied, destructive path across the land weeks of razing villages and slaughtering her thralls, The Duchess finally brought Howlthrob and his Hedonites to battle on a lonely plain, dotted with strange trees... 

Scenario

We played The Decisive Battle scenario from the Path to Glory Battle Pack in the Age of Sigmar 4th Edition Core Rulebook. Victory points were awarded for taking out enemy units (1VP per full 100 points), holding the centre at the end of your turn (have units within 6" of the centre and no enemy units within6" of centre), and one for holding each neutral corner (have units within 12" of corner, and no enemy units within 12" of corner) 

Forces

Howlthrob's Legion

Viceleader General's Regiment

• Hero - Howlthrob the Quivering Doomsnare, Viceleader, Herald of Slaanesh (1) 140
• Unit - Daemonettes (10)  110
• Unit - Seekers (5) 140

Shardspeaker of Slaanesh General's Regiment 

• Hero - Samesses, Shardspeaker of Slaanesh (1) 130
• Unit - Blissbarb Archers (10) 150
• Unit - Slickblade Seekers (5) 190
• Unit - Slaangor Fiendbloods (3) 130

Total: 990

Duchess Miricalla's Menagerie

Duchess Mircalla, Vampire Lord General's Unit

• Hero - Duchess Mircalla, Vampire Lord (1) 160
• Unit - Blood Knights (5) 230
• Unit - Grave Guard (10) 160
• Unit -  Vargheists (3) 150 
• Unit - Deathrattle Skeletons (10) 100

Auxiliary Unit - Vargskyr (1) 180

Total: 980

The Battle

The Two armies arrayed for battle 

Duchess Mircalla and her forces finally tracked down Howlthrob's legion and forced them to give battle... 

In the opening moves, the Blood Knights galloped off to secure the Duchesses left flank. 

The Vargheists Flew to the secure the other flank, where a cohort of undead were rising from their mass grave! 

The beastly Vargskyr lead the charge into the enemy Hedonites, crashing into the Slickblade Seekers. 

The Slaangor counter charged, and together with the Slickblade Seekers slaughtered the brute! 

The Slaangor and Daemonettes charged up the centre to attack the Graveguard holding the centre of the the Undead Army's line. 

The Daemonic Seekers charge to one flank and tried to smash down the Deathrattle Skeletons as they rose from their grave. 

The Slickblade Seekers charged the Blood Knights and nearly wiped them out! But the Vampires would not so easily give up and kept the Hedonites engaged on the flank for most of the battle! 

The Daemonettes and Slaangor  nearly wiped out the Grave Guard as well... but the legions of the dead very rarely stay down... 

Soon more rose up and were joined by their leader, Duchess Mircalla. 

Howlthrob, the Quivering Doomsnare, leader of the Hedonites force joined this battle as well and cut down the Duchess - who with the Daemons final blow, burst into a cloud of bats and fled!

Despite the loss of their General, the Grave Guard eventually overwhelmed the Slaangor and Daemons and were left holding the centre of the line! 

On the one flank the Seekers were quickly overwhelmed by the endless skeletal horde and the Varghiests! 

After being savaged by the Varghiests, who had left the Skeletons to hold the Soulblight's left flank, the Blissbard Archers were finally despatched by the Grave Guard that surged forth after defeating the Daemonettes and Slaangor... 

Ultimately the Hedonites were utterly routed and would have to spend some time recovering and finding new recruits to replace their grievous losses... 

(and... that's where I guess I stopped taking pictures...) 

The Game

Orion won the first roll-off and decided to be the defender. As defender she set up first, and thus was finished deploying first and got to choose who went first (she did). On her first turn she galloped units off to the centre and flanks and scored 3 points for those, and I scored one for taking out the Vargscyr. This made me the Underdog, for the next Round... and... the rest of the game... 

The rest of the battle was pretty much a scrum in the center and on both flanks trying to destroy units and then hold those locations... 

On the Second Round, the Soulblights took out my Seekers (+1VP) on my left flank and then held that corner for the rest of the game (+1 VP/turn). On my turn , I took out the Vampire Lord (+1VP - but also shut down a number of abilities and magic!), but then they took out Howlthrob (+1VP)... and the Slaangor (+1VP)... AND my Daemonettes (+1VP)... leaving me with the Slickblade Seekers and Samesses the Shardspeaker of Slaanesh. (Soulblight 8VP, Hedonites 2VP)

In the Third Round the Soulblights held the left flank (+1VP)... and destroyed their own Vargheists by using one of my temptation dice and dealing themselves enough mortal wounds to finish off the last one! (+1VP for me!) (Soulblight 9VP, Hedonites 3VP)

In the Fourth Round, the Grave Guard finished off my Blissbarb archers (+1VP) and then held the centre and one of the corners (+2VP). On my turn, I held one of the corners, barely (+1VP)... (Soulblight 12VP, Hedonites 4VP)

In the Fifth Round the Soulblight took out the Shardspeaker of Slaanesh (+1VP) and held the center and flank (+2VP) ... on my turn I chose a tactical withdrawl and left the battle! Leaving the battle automatically awards the opponent a Major Victory, but there was no recovering at this point... Maybe if I'd stuck around another turn I could have finally finished off the Blood Knights and scored.... Two more points...?  They were winning a Major Victory, regardless. The point of the game was to learn the rules, and I'd learned as much as I was going to learn, at this point!  (Soulblight 15VP, Hedonites 4VP)

IF this were a Path to Glory campaign... 

Orion's force would have gained 50 Glory (at a 1000 point game, 30 is gained for playing a game, +20 for a Major Victory). I would have gained just 30. An additional +5 Glory can be gained if your General survived... but neither of ours did! 

When enough Glory Points have been gathered they can be spent to add new units to your Roster. It doesn't always mean they get to play in a game. If you are playing a 1000 point game, you still only get to field 1000 points even if you have MORE than that on your roster... it just gives you options... and if you and your opponent decide to play at higher point level games... then you DO get to use more! 

Units then individually gain Reknown points. Each Unit or Hero gains d3 Renown if they survived the battle, or 1 Renown if they were taken out during the battle. One unit can be declared Favoured Warriors and gain an additional d6. 

Rolling for the Slickblade Seekers that survived, and the Shardspeaker of Slaanesh, I ended with... 

 Howlthrob the Quivering Doomsnare, Viceleader, Herald of Slaanesh - 6 Renown (as the General, he starts the campaign with 5) 

Daemonettes - 1 Renown

Seekers - 1 Renown

Samesses, Shardspeaker of Slaanesh  - 5 Renown

Blissbarb Archers  - 1 Renown

Slickblade Seekers  - 3 Renown

Slaangor Fiendbloods  - 1 Renown

I forgot about declaring a Quest - which then I would have kept track of Quest Points towards it's completion... 

The Shardspeaker, having gained 5 Renown, would gain their first rank; Aspiring! having obtained the first rank on the Path to Glory, they would have to pick their path and gain the benefit. The Shardspeaker would pick the Path of the Mage and gain the Dedicated Practitioner benefit (+1 to Casting Rolls!) Considering I missed three out of five casting rolls this game BY ONE... this could be handy... (or maybe I'll just miss them by two!?) 

This is handy, narratively, as I was thinking of retiring Howlthrob as General and the new Path to Glory force would be LED by the Samesses the Shardspeaker of Slaanesh... If I go with Hedonites of Slaanesh... I'm not quite so certain I will now... 

What I Learned... 

The Hedonites of Slaanesh are maybe not-so-great in this game... or (more likely) I just do not know how to play them... and/or this game... or some combination of all three! 

One big thing we learned only part way through Round Four is that the Rally Command CANNOT be used by units that are IN COMBAT, which we had been doing all game... which is why the battle between the Blood Knights and Slickblade Seekers went on for so long... Otherwise, the Slickblade Seekers would have finished off the Blood Knights in the second round and 

I'd misread the rules for Temptation Dice and, which still way better than the way they work in Spearhead... weren't nearly as good as I'd initially though they were. Some how I missed the fact that when you made units Euphoric (and gave your opponent a Temptation Die) they only remain so for that Battle Round... (somehow I'd thought it was for the rest of the game and you only gave up the Temptation die once... of course, once I reread this and realized how it worked, that made much more sense as it would have been just TOO good, otherwise...) 

I was the Underdog for most of the game. In Narrative Games there is a Twist chart that is rolled on at the beginning of each round that gives a benefit to the underdog. They are significant benefits... and I forgot to roll for two of the four rounds I was underdog. The first round, I think I forgot to USE the benefit, and the fourth round... the benefit was completely useless as I had no units left that could make use of it... 

I feel like there were a few "AHA!" moments... but I can't remember what they were at this moment... 

My models are flimsy as fuck... another one broke! So many of the spindly little bits are so har to actually repair?! I am loathe to have to transport these anywhere. it's entirely possible that I damaged these transporting them to and from the Warhammer Store in for the Spearhead Battle against John's Stormcast... as it was bent at the beginning of this game when I took them out of the display case, and it fell off during the battle...

All five of the Slickblade Seekers are a disaster waiting to happen with so many extended spindly bits that hook on anything (clothes, terrain, other miniatures)... don't get me started on the hooked flail/whips on the Chariots and Hellstriders!?

I love this setting - the background fluff is fun (even if it has GLARING PLOT HOLES) and the factions (and all their miniatures) are interesting... but holy fuck is it dispiriting to LOSE this many games. I've played seven games of this new edition (six Spearhead, one Path to Glory) and have yet to win a game... or even come close!

(Okay there was a seventh Spearhead game - it was a learning game at the warhammer Store using their Stormcast Eternals where I had no idea and John kindo f just told me what to do... and we didn't finish the game, but I was ahead by a LOT... but it doesn't really count...).

I really do need to get a Soulbound Role-Playing Game going on and make use of all these miniatures in another way! Ha!