My local store ran a Battle for Brimstone campaign that tallied wins for Order vs. Chaos over the course of two weeks. The campaign culminated in a large scale confrontation that looked like this: Over 250 models, Order and Destruction on left vs. Chaos on right. We just brought our whole collections and it looked to be pretty even. I'm with my Seraphon in the top left. Chaos had less wins during the campaign so had the challenging victory condition of killing Karl Franz (gold figure near the center left.) The Chaos player opposite me had multiple small units. Rather than let him get several units in around me at once. I set up the Blood Geyers closer to the middle and in the spaces between terrain so that if he wanted to come to me it was between terrain and over the Geysers. I castled my Slann surrounded by 40 Saurus, Oldblood, Skink Priest, Bastiladon (who thanks to the Slann was also able to fly onto terrain) and 18 Temple Guard, all between and behind two large pieces of terrain to prevent multi-charges I didn't want. 1) We had first turn and sat there, knowing that Chaos had no shooting and had to come to us...except for my Skink Patrol. I asked my teammates what unit had to die and they said the Glottkin. I dropped my Blot Toad in front of big pappa... Get 'em buddy! ...flew my Skink Priest on a piece of terrain to orchestrate the ambush and then set up 2 x 10 Chameleon Skinks and 3 Rippers in his face. The C Skinks and Ripper riders darted off a few wounds. I found it funny that the Glottkin have a rule called Mountain of Loathsome Flesh because Ghurk is so fat that you take wounds if you're near him and then Rippers have a rule called Voracious Appetite where they won't stop eating, and in this instance they didn't. I charged in with 9 bite attacks, hitting on 4s re-rolling 1s. Most hit, then rolling more dice for each success. When I got down to two hits I rolled two more about 6 times in a row and ended up with about 30 hits. By this point a crowd had gathered. By the time I rolled the last 3 on the die the Chaos side was well aware that the Super Gross Bros had been eaten alive. After wounding on 2s re-rolling 1s we didn't even bother counting, just rolled Glottkin's impossible saves and took him off. "OMG Ripperdactyls are so OP!!!" Huzzah! 1.5) The Patrol was promptly smashed by Seekers and a Keeper on their turn. Exalted Chariots charged into the Ogre lines and were smashed to kindling. Morbidex Twiceborn futiley attempted to bring down the Stonehorn. Dragon Ogres made it into my castle. As the Priest and Bastiladon were atop terrain he only got to swing with 2 / 3 and did one wound to the Bastiladon (which he should not have as I forgot staying in cover granted +1 armor.) 2) We roll a 2 for next turn, they roll a one! Huzzah! Bastiladon vaporizes Be'lakor. Stormacast and Orges charge in. Decimators decimate some Chaos Knights and our Giants rolled a lot of dice that did nothing against the Keeper and Bloodthirster. 40 Saurus ate the Dragon Ogres. 2.5) Units in the center grind it out and are plucked off. The player controlling the last living giant with one wound remaining attempts to put the Keeper in his pants (he needed to roll a 28 on 1d6) which was hilarious to roleplay (except to the Keeper's player.) The end is nigh) After a lunch break the game slowed to a crawl. It was one players 3rd wargame ever and was frustrated, another player hopped in, there were arguments about measuring vertically and I was bored in my castle. We decided to just pit the Bloodthirster against Franz and end it. It wasn't even close. The Thirster killed Franz in one turn and only took one wound. If the game had continued we could've just flown Karl all around and never ended it. Cold-blooded) In a game of this magnitude, with 6 players, the alternating combat activation took forever and we gave it up Turn 2. In the future a new method needs to be established, maybe alternate combats in each table quarter. I now see the usefulness of the Olblood's Command Ability (which I did not use this game, to be clear), if you are about to charge or receive a charge you get an extra 3" move with a large Saurus unit to get in more attacks/diminish their attacks which is especially useful with Clubs instead of Spears. Saurus are one of the worst infantry in the game but fun to use and not terrible with Celestial Rites, Mystic Shield and over 30 models (but then again what wouldn't be.) I thought that Gift of the Heavens was quite useful as it allowed me to fly my units over each other to re-position based on what my opponent was doing and onto terrain for line of sight/out of reach. I kept casting Light of the Heavens but since it only affected Chaos Daemons and not all Chaos it did nothing. This game was a great set-up for practicing defensive play on my part and is having me think more about army composition and play style with the new lizards as being defensive/counter-offensive rather than aggressive. I kept forgetting the special scenario rules for Brimstone Peninsula; can't shoot over terrain (and terrain rules in general), random Geyser blows up every turn, don't let Karl Franz get decapitated by a Bloodthirster etc. I was just focused on remembering my own army rules and thinking of general tactics but with special battle rules thrown in there is a lot going on. I don't think that Patrol Rippers ore OP. They will kill any unit, Nagash, Glottkin whathaveyou and then die afterwords. Nothing in AoS is invincible and can't be relied upon to win the game for you. I do see how if someone didn't see it coming they would be upset because you really can't do anything about it beforehand (except for potentially Gryphhounds I believe.) You just have to prepare for the aftermath. I continue to be excited for AoS (caveat: I did not play 8th) and look forward to scenarios/campaigns involving Seraphon. It was a fun game and thanks for reading!
Nice, Thanks for putting up the report and it sounds like you had heaps of fun. I'll have to get myself a set of these ripperdactyls that everyone is going on about and try them at some stage...