Let's Talk About Age of Sigmar

My son seems to have caught the AoS bug bad.

He comes home from school last Friday with pages of Stormcasts drawn in his binder. He takes our Silver Tower minis, that 4 pg AoS rulesheet and makes some sort of hybrid game with our two stormbros fighting tzeentch. He'd rather read and talk AoS than Pokemon. He says, and I quote, "I don't really need Heroscape anymore" (!).

I've created a monster. A monster I didn't mean to create.

I allowed him to find his own thing and hobbies. Pokemon was all him. I guess finding dad's White Dwarfs and looking at my minis was enough. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

I suppose it helps that getting a new issue of White Dwarf every month helps the hype train going. Plus, games with extensive fluff really do capture the imagination.

So, back to that AoS starter. How many points does each side comprise? Already having tzeentch, I'm wondering if I should hold on to these bloodmaniacs to help build to 2000pts (in the case I ever actually want to be able to go tourney level). However....khorne has always been my least favorite of all the Warhammer factions. Tzeentch I like...then within Chaos....maybe Skaven. Nurgle could be fun, but they are the foil to Tzeentch in the fluff. I'd have to work it to come up with why Tzeentch and Nurgle forces are working together. Of course, Tzeentch will be manipulating Nurgle...

Poking around this morning, I think my AoS Tzeentch led Chaos United force will be:

Tzeentch - Silver Tower + a bunch of extras
Khorne - BloodReavers from Hammerhal + Blood Warriors from the AoS Starter
Nurgle - BlightKings from Hammerhal + a Nurgle Daemon getting started box

I have no idea how many points this is, but this should give me plenty of colorful nasty to run at my son's stromcasts. Plus, most of this can serve double duty in the WHQ games.

EDIT: Wait, does Hammerhal include enough Blood Reavers and Blight Kings to make full AoS units or is this a Silver Tower Tzaangor situation?

Bloodreavers' unit is 10 models, so you're good. No idea about those nurgle dudes.

I have only played 1000 points games (or slightly above 1000), and I don't feel like going bigger, but that's obviously a matter of opinion.

yea, to be honest, I don't see us playing over 1000pts either. However, I think the above set-up would allow me to flex the army composition a bit so I'm not fielding the same force all the time.

The only thing I need though are two tzaangors. Anyone got two to spare?

Thing is, you'll probably want to use one faction, in particular playing 1000 pts. They get special stuff in pitched battles and also the synergies between different factions don't seem to be there (i might be wrong). Like to get mileage out of khorne bloodbound, you want all your units to be khorne.
But, again, 1) I might be wrong and 2) even if I am not, you might have more fun by combining different chaos factions. It is definitely worth trying - let us know how it goes!

I'm not worried about super tight, competitive play.

Besides, don't they all have the keyword CHAOS? I'm not sure, even amongst the Tzeentch that I have, that I can be any more focused than CHAOS and TZEENTCH. Don't think I have enough models to flesh out DEAMONS, ACOLYTES or SLAVES TO DARKNESS to 1000pts.

I guess I'm understanding that the more keywords you match on, then the more focused your army and the more free bonuses. I could be way off though as I've so far just read my Tzeentch battletome for fluff.

If I do want to add the Khorne and Nurgle from Hammherhal in my force though, do I need their warscrolls from the GW website and the General's Handbook for pts? Are the online Khorne warscrolls updated enough or have they been superseded by the new Khorne Battletome?

Got two Tzaangors?

Funny enough all this matching of keywords in your AoS forces reminds me of trying to get the right keywords to get a synergy in your CCG deck ...funny given Jeff's trashdome.

You will see what I mean once you use a Bloodsecrator.
I use on-line scrolls all the time, and I don't own any books besides General Handbook.
... my Tzaangors are all employed in Silver Tower, otherwise I'd send them over.

metalface13 wrote: Funny enough all this matching of keywords in your AoS forces reminds me of trying to get the right keywords to get a synergy in your CCG deck ...funny given Jeff's trashdome.

AoS reminds me of Magic A LOT. I regularly get beaten by armies with weird (from my POV anyway) synergies, or some uncanny warbands, or stuff like that.

Hmmm... wasn't thinking I'd keep or use the Bloodsecrator. I intend to sell all the khorne out of the AoS starter except the Blood Reavers because they can also be used in WHQ as exotic adversaries. Besides some of the Nurgle Start Collecting (those big bugs and the little nurglings) it looks like the models I want to keep will be able to be used in both AoS and WHQ.

I guess I'm thinking bloodreavers and bloodwarriors used as tools charging as the front line. Nurgle and Tzeentch would follow behind.

basically, tzeentch mainly with small wings of khorne and nurgle that can also be used in whq.

can i not just add the bloodreavers and bloodwarriors as foot soldiers in my tzeentch main force?

edit: maybe i just do the blight kings and a unit of plaguebearers? only models that can do aos and whq. seems to be more savings and bang for buck with that route.

Alright...sorta talking to myself at this point...

If the only models in the Nurgle starter that are officially stated up in Hammerhal are the plaguebearers I could either buy them for around $22...or buy the Nurgle starter, keep the plaguebearers and sell the rest...possibly a small money making endeavor as bonus.

Then, I'd have all my tzeentch stuff, bloodreavers and blood warriors, plaguebearers and blightkings. Everything can serve in aos armies and as whq dungeon fodder. Seems like a winning strategy all around...

I cannot comment on most of your crazy, megalomaniac plans, but my 2 cents on what I kinda know. Bloodwarriors I think are a pretty good unit to operate on their own and with other armies, so yeah. Bloodreavers, on the other hand, are just begging to be buffed by Bloodstroker and Bloodsecrator. In particular the latter, every time I used them without a Bloodsecrator they failed miserably even as buffer.

I would look into pairing it down to 2 gods. You really do need to have some synergistic buffing going on, especially with units like bloodreavers.

Perhaps see if you can get your hands on just the storm cast half of the starter? You'll get your WHQ reavers from hammerhal in the future anyways, and those are the full kit you can equip any way you want. No point painting a ton of Khorne guys if they aren't your thing.

Poke around the app, look at hero units that grant buffs. One or two per god should help you keep up with some of the buffs the storm cast have

I've decided I really don't like playing with Khorne Bloodbound. As others have suggested here, they are all about this kind of centralized synergy, especially with the Bloodsecrator. The Bloodreavers are USELESS without him, and I would go so far as to say that they are just about useless if you field less than 40 of them. Khorogoraths are really only good to get the other player to attack the big red monster, and it needs the Bloodstoker to be effective. The Blood Warrors are GREAT though, their abilities are cool and they are just vicious in melee. The faction really doesn't work without bringing in Slaughterpriests and other units that create networks of buffs.

I sort of feel like the thinking at GW was to do the starter with the "meat and potatoes" faction, the Stormcast, and then pair them up with the Bloodbound stuff to sort of demo unit synergies and combos. Which is smart, but I dunno, when I play I pretty much never think "I'll take out Bloodbound this time". I'm actually sort of thinking about selling what I have apart from the pieces that are used in WHQ/Gorechosen.

Yeah, I plan on only keeping the Khorne units that can work the local Silver Tower. If they don't make it into any AoS army, eh, I'm not a Khorne fan anyway.

Besides Nurgle being more interesting, and fun to paint, I'm liking the idea of my Tzeentch force manipulating some Nurgle units.

Now...who's got those two Tzaangors? My inbox remains strangely quiet....