Let's Talk About Age of Sigmar

I need a little guidance...

I have a Tzeentch force (through Silver Tower) and the Tzeenthc Battletome.
My son is over the moon with Stormcasts, and we have the Age of Sigmar starter inbound.

I have a buddy with WFB ork and skaven armies. One for he and one for his son.

What all do we need so these older ork and skaven armies can play with us? Do we only need the General's handbook? I see the warscrolls are online for orks and scaven, but they don't have points. Does the General's Handbook have pts for all the armies? No need for more Battletomes unless we want fluff?

Glad to see you back around, this site has missed your jurisprudence!

To play older factions that haven't been brought into the Mortal Realms, you just need the General's Handbook and the free warscrolls. If you are extra thrifty, and I know you are, you can just get the points off the BattleScribe app or GW's Azyr. Azyr is a dollar a month but it is worth it because it links everything together, including the warscrolls.

The NEWER Battletomes (Sylvaneth on) add a lot more than the older ones. They have artifacts, special abilities, and all of the batallion stuff. But they actually aren't essential to play. I have all of them for the armies we have that have one except the new Bloodbound one, they are nice to have but not important for casual play.

A word of advice from a fellow Tzeentch follower- Silver Tower is not enough to really have a Tzeentch army. If you want to run Daemons, the Start Collecting box is pretty much a must-have. But even with it, you don't quite meet requirements for battleline. So maybe a box of Pink Horrors with it if you aren't just playing open games You can fill out Arcanites with either Kairic Acolytes or Tzaangors. The GOOD think about Silver Tower is that you get a couple of very expensive single models out of it- the Summoner and Ogroid.

Tzeentch is my favorite faction to play after Skaven.

If you can still find a Spire of Dawn box, you can get that and a Warp Lightning Cannon and have a playable 1000 point army for Skaven.

I have plenty of Tzeentch beyond the Silver Tower contents. Seems my Gaunt Summoner...perhaps summoned too much...his Silver Tower operates like the little old lady that lived in a shoe...

Well mine is more of a clown car...

Pink Horrors x22
Blue Horrors x14
Brimstone Horrors x14
Kairic Acolytes x30
Tzaangors x25
Tzaangor Skyfires x3
Tzaangor Enlightned x3
Tzaangor Shaman x1
Exalted Flamer on Burning Chariot x1
Screamers of Tzeentch x6
Flamers of Tzeentch x6
Magister of Tzeentch X1
Gaunt Summoner x1
Changeling x1
Ogroid Thaumaturge x1

I can run 1000-2000 points of Daemons, mortals or both.

damn! All painted?

My tower isn't as pure...a bit more Gaunt and Friends. Slambo, Fimir, Slaughterpriests, etc.

Speaking of, I understand in AoS I can including those oddballs in my Tzeentch force so long as they are also part of the bigger CHAOS faction, correct? I need the General's Handbook for that? Same thing on the ORDER side...if we have a few sylvaneth, not a battletome or enough for a force, we can still include them as a wing of the stormcast army...but need the Handbook. Am I getting that right?

RAW using the 4 pages of rules, you can have any models fighting with any other models.

Using the generals handbook, if you want to gain your grand alliance special rules as well as your artifacts etc for your general, you need to stay within one of the 4 grand alliances. These bonuses cost no points.

If you want to unlock extra units as battleline or use battalions, you need to stay within a specific subfraction like sylvaneth or ironjaws. Battalion special rules come in battletomes and cost points though, so in casual games you're not missing out by not using them.

Rumors of a new generals handbook are circulating but no idea when it would be released. It's like $20, comes with scenarios, and if you're not in stores having to be 100% up to date, it's worth it to go ahead and get it.

About half my Tzeentch is painted. All the Daemons. I was going to hit the mortals next but then Shadow War happened so it's been straight kill teams and terrain. When all that is done, hopefully by mid-May, it's back to Tzeentch. The Tzaangors are pretty challenging to paint, definitely several steps up from a Pink Horror.

Ufe is correct, there are keywords and such that are required for certain batallions or allegiance abilities. For example, my High Elves are all of the Swifthawk Allegiance, so there are some benefits for that, such as being able to count Elysian Reavers and Shadow Warriors as battleline. The allegiance also lets you field some Eldritch Council units- like Swordmasters- by giving them the Swifthawk keyword. It's all for fluff reasons, and really there is no reason you couldn't just run whatever High Elf stuff you want. But I specifically wanted to develop this faction so I've collected the units that go with it.

Anyone have an extra ten Spireguard they don't want? That's all I'm missing to complete this army...wouldn't mind another chariot or Skycutter, but other than that I've got everything I want with them.

I will send you my spireguards, Barnes. However they're already glued (not primed, tor painted), so might get damaged in transit.

Mr. White, good to see you back!

Thanks! I will PM you!

Following up that exchange....who's got a copy of the General's Handbook they're ready to part with?

I've got General Handbook in digital edition. It is not one of these books you going to peruse a lot during a game, you basically need it to build the scenario.

My buddy with the ork and skaven WFB armiess...how do we get him into Path to Glory? I see that rules for those warbands are in the Tzeentch and Stormcast battletomes, but are there legit battletomes for these older armies that have PtG warbands? I don't believe Path to Glory warband composition is in the General's Handbook, correct?

The General's Handbook has Path to Glory lists for Chaos, Stormcast Eternals, Fyreslayers, Skaven, Ironjaws, Sylvaneth and Death.

Looks like Skaven list has tables for different clans, so there's some wiggle room for your buddy to use what he has. Ironjawz use the old black orc models as their battleline, with even bigger, newer kits for special troops (brutes and gore-gruntas), so he may have a harder time using that list if he just has WFB era orcs.

Another question regarding Battletomes.

It looks like there's a lot of them out there, but for some reason I feel like most of them are just placeholders until a faction/race gets 'Age of Sigmarized' proper. Is that assessment wrong?

It seems to me the legit Battletomes for AoS are: Sylvaneth, Ironjaws, Flesh Eater Courts, Stormcast Eternals (vol2), Tzeentch, Khorne, Fyreslayers, and Kharadron...and I'm not 100% on Flesh Eater Courts.

Not sure why I get this feeling, maybe I'm expecting to see lines of new minis rolled out for AoS?

I would go so far as to say that the "real" Battletomes start with Sylvaneth. The first ones really were kind of placeholders. So that would be Sylvaneth, Stormcast 2nd edition (it has like twice as many units in it), Bloodbound (no new figures in this one), Disciples of Tzeentch, and Kharadon Overlords. The new ones have more optional content and rules. The Tzeentch book is by far the best of them, and I think it is one of the best books GW has ever done.

A lot of the old stuff is sort of "parked" in the Mortal Realms. Skaven had a big release in End Times, including the Stormvermin which are very nearly my favorite AOS unit. Orruks had some new stuff when AOS launched. Wood Elves became Sylvaneth. Everything else is kind of on hold.

The next big release is widely believed to be Aelves. We've seen a couple of things (the Tenebrael Sharl and Mistweaver) and a couple of possible hints in some artwork...the thinking is that they will somehow be "Lovecraftian" elves, possibly with a sea thing like how the dwarves are now air miners. Not sure how that would really work though. Interested...but enough to start an eighth army? I dunno.

If anyone you know wants to play Tomb Kings, I have an unofficial Battletome some guys made. It's pretty awesome, they used a bunch of original art and made the layout and everything just like the official books. They've got all of the old Tomb Kings stuff in there with rules for AOS, warscrolls and all.