Let's Talk About Age of Sigmar

Oh, I really like the Revenants...it's a cool concept, and I like how it is depicted. Definitely a little weirder than the usual wood elf thing.

I only have the Sylvaneth Battleforce, and there are no garbage units. You get TWO boxes worth of Kurnoth Hunters (six), which is one of the best (or possibly best) units in the faction. They are BEASTS in melee, but GODLIKE with the bows. 30" range, -2 Rend, D3 wounds. And the bastards trample. The Treelord is a staple, no matter which of the three varieties you build. You also get two boxes (ten) of Revenants and you really should do at least half as Spite because of Drycha, who has a synergy with them. The Revenants complement the Start Collecting well because your battle line troops there are just the Dryads- which are good, but like most troops in that class a little die-y.

The Stormcast box is way too heavy on Liberators, which are such a staple that you are likely to have PLENTY unless this is your first purchase. They really should have gone with Judicators here, because every Stormcast army should have some and they are not in the Starter box or the Start Collectiing. Absolutely essential ranged units, but instead you get more hammermen. You get ten, and they are certainly not useless. I guess if you have done the "classic" shield and hammer outfit for what you have already this is a good opportunity to do the swords or great weapons. Paladins are always good, and since they build in three very different style (Retributors are durable and hit hard, Decimators are best at fighting mobs, Protectors are great versus monsters) a set of five gives you an option there. The Celestants on Dracoths are good but actually kind of out of faction (they are actually Stormcast Extremis). The Knight-Azyros, I dunno, it's a hero and he's good...but I have him from Silver Tower and I've only played with him once (he died).. The whole thing is really sort of based on getting that Celestant-Prime at a discount, which is awesome, but I've kind of decided I have enough Stormcast for now.

The Khorne Bloodbound box is about BULK. 20 more Reavers to add to your pile and 10 Blood Warriors. This is a pretty mobby bunch. The Mighty Skullcrushers are awesome, but kind of weirdly you only get three (a box outside of the Battleforce is six). Skaar is good, and it's nice to get a character in here. Aspiring Deathbringer, everyone in the world has because he's in Gorechosen. Five Wrathmongers, which can also be built as Skull Reapers but then you throw the Battleforce battalion (Slaughterstorm). I prefer the Skullreapers myself. I'd probably pick up this box at the right price mainly to get another three Skullcrushers, Skaar and the Wrathmongers and still not be close to full retail on the boxes.

The Orruk box doesn't seem that great and I would go so far as to say it is the one that doesn't look like all that great a selection of units. Not sure why that Aleguzzler is in there, but he's part of the battalion so I guess there is a reason. But it may be, like the others, a good complement to the Start Collection.

Hope to see a Tzeentch Battleforce at the end of the year.

So, I've been playing AoS some more. And losing. All the time. I even lost against a 6 year old (but not trying hard).

It is basically my fault, because of my very limited tactical skills. I think if I was a general in WW1, I'd be the typical moron who'd send columns of troops against machine gun's nest, in hopes that "maybe we´ll get lucky and take them out at some point". Actually, I love it, because these miniature stuff is sooo different from your dudes on a grid, or card-based wargaming. Distances are real. You need to arrange dudes in such way so that they "pile in" properly. I used to arrange my boodreavers in little bands (like I imagine a barbarian formation), but in fact they need to be organized in thin and long lines, with flank support, etc. It is not mindbogglingly difficult, just different type of abstraction.

Another awesome thing is the warband roster. First I had filled the ranks with Chieftain and Deathrunner from Silver Tower. Chieftain got replaced by the Slaughterpriest pretty soon, but the Deathrunner... I was kind of attached to him. But after the last game I realized I needed to let him go. And not because he's not good enough. He is an awesome killer, but he's a trickster, and I am not. And he's very expensive. I got me another Khorgorath and a Deathbringer instead and now my band is at 1000 pts.

Man, another thing I love is re-discovering the joys of dice-throwing. The other day I managed to charge my bloodreavers supported by the Bloodstroker ... throwing 30+ dice feels good (realizing it could have been 15 more if I had arranged them better does not).

My gripe with AoS is the writing&editing of the warscrolls. It is really bad. Finally GW managed to condense all the basic rules on 4 pages (great!). And then they have a warscroll that liberally mixes fluff and rules. Does it say "+1 to Hit when charging" for my wrathmongers? Nah, why say it in 1 line when you can use 3? More important models have authentic walls of text which, after deciphering, usually amount to pretty simple modifiers. I find it very frustrating. They need to hire a good editor, maybe someone with experience in LCGs or CCGs.

Yeah, there's definitely some clean up I hope they get around to whenever they do a second edition even if this is the cleanest set of rules GW has likely ever produced for a miniatures wargame. . It wouldn't hurt to have a keyword system like Magic with some generic sounding names for things like +1 to hit/wound/save/charge etc. Also, bring back some mechanics like the ward save (the save after your normal save which can't be canceled) since enough units have something similar. And yes, they biggest issue is that flavor text and rules are interwoven. It makes the abilities fun to read the first time but it's a pain when you're in the game. I don't think it would be that hard to explain why x unit gets +1 to wound on the turn it charges or whatever in the separate flavor text box at the top of the warscroll.

Got the demons of Khorne start collecting box for Christmas. Finished building the bloodletters, but then spring semester started up and I've got a 4 month old in the house, so it's been slow going getting the skull cannon built. That, and Rogue One started an X Wing kick with my usual AoS gaming partner.

You are making me want to get an AoS force, but then it would just in a box because no one seems to be interested in it locally.

Can't you use your seriously awesome Nurgle fellows in AoS?
There must be some (over-written) warscrolls for them available.

"Lord Hellkrusher's deathscythe swings through the air trailing the souls of the damned, who scream in agony as it finds purchase in the soft necks of his foes, who die without mercy or pity in the name of Khorne, who laughs heartily as their blood soils the battlefields upon which the forces of Order comically slip and slide causing them to fall down and be rendered undo death by his minions. +1 to all hit rolls."

Michael Barnes wrote: "Lord Hellkrusher's deathscythe swings through the air trailing the souls of the damned, who scream in agony as it finds purchase in the soft necks of his foes, who die without mercy or pity in the name of Khorne, who laughs heartily as their blood soils the battlefields upon which the forces of Order comically slip and slide causing them to fall down and be rendered undo death by his minions. +1 to all hit rolls."

Good one, but more like:

Lord Hellkrusher's deathscythe swings through the air trailing the souls of the damned, who scream in agony as it finds purchase in the soft necks of his foes, who die without mercy or pity in the name of Khorne causing them to add 1 to their hit rolls, while they laugh heartily as their blood soils the battlefields upon which the forces of Order comically slip and slide causing them to fall down and be rendered undo death by his minions.

GW editors have the uncanny ability to sneak the effect right in the middle of the fluff. And to have some more fluff in bold letters, too, to deny you any chance of picking up the ruling from glancing at the page.

Sounds like a print out of the scrolls are necessary, along with the liberal use of a highlighter pen.

That is a new bit of oddness that gw has done. Usually, if anything, the fluff is something that isn't associated with such a thing and is often difficult to find since that description would be in some unrelated fluff bit in their book 24 pages away.

Weird how they have done so much to streamline, then throw speed bumps around as if they were sowing seeds for autumn harvest.

OK, this AoS28/Dark Age of Sigmar thing has just happened this week and I'm really interested in it. I'll try to make a long story short, but there's been an Inq28 movement for some time that's a creativity first approach to 40k. Inq28 refers to playing the old Inquisitor game that as 54mm scaled but with 28mm miniatures. Hence Inq28. It can also refer to playing a Necromunda variant called Inquisimunda. Basically this is the type of stuff you see in the Blanchitsu section of White Dwarf. Now this approach is being applied to Age of Sigmar and it kind of being called AoS28. As for rules it uses Age of Sigmar and a fanmade narrative campaign expansion called Hinterlands

www.tga.community/forums/topic/7224-aos2...-dark-age-of-sigmar/
www.exprofundis.com/introducing-aos28-inq28-meets-age-sigmar/
www.exprofundis.com/dark-age-sigmar-showcase/

There are some seriously good modelers and painters getting involved in this.

A great game of AoS last night.

I faced a Saurus band: big dinosaur with a spear-tossing lizard on top, a very expensive lizard-mage-leader, a skink priest, 2 units of saurus guard and 1 unit of saurus knights.
There was one pretty big castle ruin in the middle.
I arranged my bloodreavers as shock troops in two lines, supported by bloodstroker, bloodsecrator, a slaughterpriest and lord of khorne. A unit of two khorgoraths and bloodwarriors on the right flank and wrathmongers on the left flank (kind of aiming for the big dinosaur).
The lizards moved first and quickly occupied the left part of the ruins with their big dino and saurus knights. That's when I realized that the dino rider was a shooter. And that I had no option but to attack him in cover or he'd just shoot my dudes.
So, I planted the banner, moved my bloodreavers drawing a semi circle around the ruins (couldn't completely surround it because walls) and then rushed them. Of the 20 guys, about 14 targeted either the dino or the knights, with 3 attacks each. The dino mostly saved, and one knight perished. Not a good start, but I only lost about 3 guys on their retaliation.
On the next turn, my slaughterpriest managed to cause 6 wounds on the dino by praying to Khorne. And then I moved in my wrathmongers behind the bloodreavers, adding yet another attack to most of them. So, 4 attacks each (!). It was a massacre. Of the knights, only one remained, and the dino was about to bite the dust. The lizards moved in their sauron guard and the general, and together with the dying dino and the knight wiped out my bloodreavers in two turns. But although the battlefield looked clean of my forces, and he had lost only 4 models as opposed to my 20, the battle was pretty much decided in my favor by then - the wrathmongers and the heroes moped up the dino and the knights, while the khorgoraths smashed into the remaining unit of saurus guards and the skink priest on the right flank. This is the first time I played with 2 khorgoraths instead of 1, and the difference is pretty huge.
The saurus guard on the right flank resisted the wrathmonger onslaught better than expected (thanks to magic and presence of a leader, those lizards got their save rolls to 2+)... but the best power of a wrathmonger is to get killed and make the opposing model attack a friendly unit. So I turned the Saurus guards against their leader and that was the end of him. And thus, my first AoS victory.

I feel like I really deserved it. I finally have an idea of what my guys can do and cannot, and how to position them in order to obtain good synergy. For the first time they felt more like an organized gang than a mob.
My concern is that my Khorne Bloodbound is excruciatingly slow and lacking any real shooters compared to the other armies I've faced so far. It was relief to watch those saurus knights get into a stationary cover instead of a flanking maneuver into my wrathmongers (which my opponent immediately recognized as a big blunder post-mortem). Maybe I should get some mighty skullcrushers next...

Bloodbound is ALL melee. They don't have anything in their core list with range except for the Khorgorath's 8" attack. They are built to run, charge and hack. I think it's best to set them up as close as you can and not worry about cover. You've got to leverage all of the stuff that buffs their charging and running and try to close ground quickly because your Reavers in particular will get chewed up by ranged attacks. But if you can get in range to get into melee turn 1/turn 2, you can usually put the other side on the back heel, forcing them to react to 40 or so Reavers and whatever else you have out that is designed to last in close combat.

How many Blood Warriors are you running? I have 15 and I always use them all. That counterattack and the parting shot are awesome.

I have never used Skullcrushers effectively...they tend to get shot up or countered before they get their charge in. I've thought about getting three more regardless.

My 1000pts gang is:

- 20 Bloodreavers: 120pts
- 5 Blood Warriors: 100pts
- 5 Wrathmongers: 180pts
- 2 Khorgoraths: 160pts
- Mighty Lord of Khorne: 140pts
- Bloodstroker - 80 pts
- Bloodsecrator - 120 pts
- Slaughterpriest - 100pts

I have 5 more bloodwarriors on the way... and right now I am not sure what to do - whether to expand beyond 1000 points, or keep tweaking it on 1000 pts (honestly, I don't know how, it feels like a pretty tight outfit) or work on a new army. Suggestions are very welcome!

Michael, I agree with your assessment of their tactics... one thing, I've always played on 4"x4" with some terrain. It is pretty hard to maneuver 20 bloodreavers into position, 30 or 40 just doesn't seem feasible. Of course, if I go to 2,000 pts, that means more space... and longer playtime (sigh)

Speaking as someone that has six armies...start another!

You can run Daemons of Khorne or Slaves to Darkness/Chaos Warriors as part of a Bloodbound army...I've not really looked into that much though.

Man, I have completely forgotten that I have The Spire of Dawn (because despite my vows not to, it was just too good of a deal). Will be building those Skaven next week. So, yeah, Army Number 2, here we go.

All you need to bump them up to a 1k Vanguard is a Warp Lightning Cannon...Doc's has a couple of open box ones for $22 shipped. High Elves can go to 1k with just a chariot. It's usually about $30. I really like that box a lot, great value and it's good if you lwant some of the classic Warhammer factions/models.