Scenarios in the free rules

One thing I've noticed that's regularly said around forums is that Age of Sigmar has no scenarios without purchasing a Battleplan in the app or a hardback book. This is touted as being a major flaw in the rules and that all battles end up as a pitched fight in the middle of the board because of this apparent lack. 

This is just plain wrong. 

Firstly, ensure you're using a reasonable amount of terrain. Following the basic rules you'll get eight terrain pieces on the board on average. (Remember this shouldn't include hills, as games-workshop intends that you play on a Realm of Battle Board). Use the Scenery Warscroll for each piece or roll on the Mysterious Terrain table if using homemade. This alone should help break up a battle by creating choke points, defendable positions and other areas of tactical interest. 

Secondly, you have Sudden Death Victories. When playing by the basic rules you should always aim for one player to have a sudden death objective. These are your scenarios. Importantly, this is decided after scenery is placed and deployment, so when placing terrain and units you should have an idea which objective you would choose if the chance arises.

A brief comparrison of basic Age of Sigmar with the Warhammer Fantasy 8th scenarios:

• Non Sudden Death: Similar to Battleline. Battle of two roughly equal sized armies. 

• Assassinate/Blunt: Similar to Blood and Glory. Use an aggressive army and force the opponent to protect a unit. 

• Endure: Similar to Watchtower. Take up a defensive position and force the enemy to come to you. 

• Seize Ground: Similar to Watchtower. Reinforce the objective and hold off the enemy in a glorious last stand. 

In addition:

• Table Split: You may now split the table in half any way you like. This creates scenarios similar to Battle for the Pass and Meeting Engagement. 

• Combinations: The table split can be done in addition to the above Sudden Death Objectives to create even more variation.  

So as you can see, Age of Sigmar has scenarios built in to the basic rules, at least five variations, not including combinations. It all depends on the armies you deploy.