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I've recently wanted to start AoS and the ghoulish fiends have striken my unsubtle fancy so I was thinking about what would be the first way to start: on one side the upcoming Startcollecting and on the other there's vlagorescu's mob. The latter provides more stuff and savings but I wanted to know wether or not they are worth it to build an engaging and good army of flesh eaters.

I bought that one as a base for my army.

I think you can get the best start with Vlagorescu's horde + the start collecting box.

The way I assembled my vlagorescu's box:

- 20 ghouls
- used ghoul bits + plastic skaven plagues priest (although empire models will do fine too) to convert Ghoul ghast courtier.
- 2x3 crypt horrors
- Crypt haunter courtier
- Crypt infernal courtier
- I'll be using the left over crypt flayer bits and greenstuff to sculpt furr to make a second varghulf courtier
- Varghulf courtier (very key model for playing FEC, Best unit replenischer they have, hence the conversion)
- Ghoul king. I magnetised the stone he stands on and the 40mm base for him that's included in the box.
- Terrorgheist (has a magnet next to him on the base, where the ghoulking can stand if wanted.

This set-up basically makes an abbatoir batallion and allows you to fulfill your battle-line units IF you make the crypt haunter courtier your general.

the start collecting box:

- will add some more ghouls to the mix (giving you thirty for your battle-line requirement should you want to add other death units).
- 3 crypt flayers
- Abhorrent ghoul king on zombie dragon (this is actually a slightly better model I've found than the terrorgheist... Too many high bravery armies in my local meta).

I think that gives you a rock solid 2000+ point army that will give most opponent a run for their money.

30 ghouls = 300
(Crypt ghast courtier = 80) should you have the bits
6 crypt horrors= 280
3 crypt flayers = 160
Crypt haunter courtier = 120
Crypt infernal courtier = 140
2 Varghulfs= 320
Ghoul king on terrorgheist = 400
Ghoul king on zombie dragon = 400

That basically makes 2200 points worth of models. That's a very solid base for any death army for €210

How would it fare against the freeguild? A friend of mine whom I'm likely to be fighting most of the time fielded empire with the following models:

Always 2 20 ish-man blocks: one of swordsmen and one of handgunners. Then he either fielded halberdiers, archers or both if he didn't run the state troops. He also had 2 ten man blocks of knights and one of three demigriphs, plus a unit of both outriders and pistoliers (whom more often than not we ran as a count-as outriders) and greatswords. He had two generals (horse and on foot), 2 mages, and 1+ engineer accompanying his gun wagon of 2 cannons, a hellblaster volleygun and I think a mortar or something else (cannot remember now).
Naturally he liked to field the state troop detachment and use two engineers guarding two guns each (it was before the whole GHB thing appeared).

Dunno how they'll be once points come out, but Empire are considered one of the best armies in the game at the moment. Handgunners are amazing troops, and the rest of their ranged stuff puts them in a strong point considering that most of AoS is melee.

But, FEC is pretty solid here - they regenerate dudes and heal, so getting whittled down from range is not something that happens so easily to them. And they should win combat most times, especially the bigger models.

Requizen wrote:
Dunno how they'll be once points come out, but Empire are considered one of the best armies in the game at the moment.

Are they? Maybe in a local meta but Empire haven't won any tournament of note as far as I am aware - or even finished on the podium.

That's just what I've heard. Maybe some people just have issues dealing with ranged armies right now, but I hear a lot about gunlines doing work.

Gunlines stop working quite as well tomorrow with the handbook's release. The scenarios now all (well, except one) require moving up and controlling/holding objectives.

Pure gunlines are probably a non-factor for competitive play. Shooting-centric, sure, but something durable to hold objectives will eat into those points available for pew-pew.

Maybe if somehow goes hard on Steam-Tanks they can have a best of all worlds, but I suspect some version of TAC lists will continue to thrive. AoS is just too diverse of a game to not have some ways of dealing with several things.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Gunlines stop working quite as well tomorrow with the handbook's release. The scenarios now all (well, except one) require moving up and controlling/holding objectives.

Pure gunlines are probably a non-factor for competitive play. Shooting-centric, sure, but something durable to hold objectives will eat into those points available for pew-pew.

Maybe if somehow goes hard on Steam-Tanks they can have a best of all worlds, but I suspect some version of TAC lists will continue to thrive. AoS is just too diverse of a game to not have some ways of dealing with several things.

100% agree. Freeguild/Empire suffer because you have to go out into the board and hold objectives - when we lack choppy units and receive most of our buffs from standing still and being more than 3" away from the enemy - this proves very difficult. My push to make my Empire more competitive is very much about mobilising it (by adding in things like Hurricanums and Steam Tanks).