Vermintide

  Played another great game of Age of Sigmar today, only this time around my boyz got proper smashed by a horde of Skaven.  We didn't use a comp system or plan ahead on force size, we just opted to bring roughly equivalent sized armies and go for it.  I left my boar boyz behind and the armies seemed about right, though I think I should have a few more heroes with my boyz (I only brought 1 savage orc shaman and 1 goblin boss on a gigantic spider).  We also agreed to a few simple house rules beforehand too - units could not shoot a unit they were not engaged in combat with, and shooting against warmachines would scatter between the machine and the crew. 

  All told, we got to grips very quickly, but things went downhill soon thereafter.  On my right flank, the gobbos and savage orcs were steamrolled by the plague furnace and plague monks (supported by storm vermin), and on the left my spider riders and gobbo boss were quickly surrounded by rat ogres who tunneled from below and night runners who slipped in from the rear.  The arachnarok and river trolls, my 2 best units, slammed into the center but too late - with both flanks gone they were quickly surrounded and dealt with.  After 3 turns, my gobbo big boss took the remainder of the spider riders and the war machines and fled back into the forest to fight another day.

The forest goblins and savage orcs brace for impact from the plague furnace.

The river trolls smash their way through the center, while the arachnarok loks to climb up the dreadstone blight (just because he can!).

The forest goblins take down a few plague monks before being turned into minced meat, and the savage orcs fail miserably in their attempts to take down the plague furnace (which withstood an enormous amount of fire power and melee to end the game with 1 wound left, hahaha)

Lessons learned:

• Chaff units are still important.  My river trolls couldn't get to grips with a worthy foe until they cleared some weapons teams out of the way, so it would have been nice to have smaller units to take out the enemy's smaller units.  Also, it would have been nice to have a chaff unit bear the brunt of the runaway furnace!
• I really need to get some bullies to whip my artillery into shape!
• Unit formations are still important.  My savage orcs were spread out too far wide, so when they got charged I couldn't pile in far enough to maximize my attacks.  It also made them vulnerable to being charged by more than 1 unit.  Next time I'll deploy deeper formations.
• My plan fell apart when I found myself surrounded.  I ran units in all directions and soon found my general was out of range to use his command abilities to boost my units.  I should keep my units closer to each other (especially the heroes) so they can support each other better.  

All in all it was a great game and congrats to the chittering hordes of rat men.  Next time we'll build bigger webs to catch them all!