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Guys is it worth to start something like SCE right now, assuming they are the cheapest army to build, or should one rather wait for the next big yearly FAQ and start then?

Also is there something like a safe army in AoS, something like eldar, but cheap, that is always good no matter what edition or points being played?

SCE are exactly what you are looking for. They have been strong on average (and with several downright overpowered options) since the first GHB and there are no indications that is going to change.

Stormcast are one of the best overall armies in the game. With several downright OP combos and undercost units to choose from.


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General topic: I have been meaning to write a battle report with my nurgle forces for the past few months but ... the last fifteen or so of my games have ended by turn 2 or 3 with a double turn ending the game. Last night was pretty awful for my opponent. A turn 2 double turn pretty much ended the game there.

I'm approaching a zero interest again.

I started just going second and never taking the double. I flat-out tell my opponent that if they want to roll we can but I am just going to alternate even if it means I lose. That said with my core group of buds we have always just alternated so it thankfully does not come up that often.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
SCE are exactly what you are looking for. They have been strong on average (and with several downright overpowered options) since the first GHB and there are no indications that is going to change.

I am a little worried because of three things. I go burned by w40 real bad, and I know I will never have the money to buy stuff like stardrakes etc but what really scares me are the nerfs , compering to w40k few people play AOS, and those that do told me horror stories about their whole armies being made illegal or bad by GW. With the money I can save up, I just can't afford to buy 1000-1250pts of stuff only for it to be made bad within a few months. I don't know much about AOS other the it having same Chaos Gods.

Also can someone explain to me the difference between AOS and nine age?

There are a huge number of Stormcast models that are not OP and are almost certainly not getting a nerf. Sacrosanct (the newest stuff) could see some significant point changes, as could Dracoth cavalry (mostly just fulminators), but the rest of the army are unlikely to see enough point changes to invalidate a list's viability unless you are seriously spamming one unit. So if you want to avoid potentially significant changes I would stay away from:
-Sequitors
-Evocators
-Fulminators
-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows
-More than 1-2 of any specific hero
-More than 10 Paladins (Retributors, Protectors, Devestators)
-Building around a certain battalion. SCE have seen more squatted and retooled battalions than most battletomes have in the first place.

Do that and any changes you encounter are not going to make an army build non-viable.

9th age is a fan written fantasy game system based on the old whfb system but has become really its own system with little resemblance of the old.

9th age is block style combat. AOS is skirmish style combat where maneuver and battlefield management are minor things to list building and combo chaining.

9th Age as a fan system means there is no official support and no real official models for it. Thats both a plus and a negative.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There are a huge number of Stormcast models that are not OP and are almost certainly not getting a nerf. Sacrosanct (the newest stuff) could see some significant point changes, as could Dracoth cavalry (mostly just fulminators), but the rest of the army are unlikely to see enough point changes to invalidate a list's viability unless you are seriously spamming one unit. So if you want to avoid potentially significant changes I would stay away from:
-Sequitors
-Evocators
-Fulminators
-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows
-More than 1-2 of any specific hero
-More than 10 Paladins (Retributors, Protectors, Devestators)
-Building around a certain battalion. SCE have seen more squatted and retooled battalions than most battletomes have in the first place.

Do that and any changes you encounter are not going to make an army build non-viable.

I was told that the heros, sequitors and evocators and the fulminators/stardrake are the only good things about storm eternals right now. If that stuff is ment to be nerfed, then it is a problem for me. I guess AoS is not for me then. Because I guess there is no good army that costs around 200-250$ for AOS right now, right ?


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auticus wrote:
9th age is a fan written fantasy game system based on the old whfb system but has become really its own system with little resemblance of the old.

9th age is block style combat. AOS is skirmish style combat where maneuver and battlefield management are minor things to list building and combo chaining.

9th Age as a fan system means there is no official support and no real official models for it. Thats both a plus and a negative.

ok, thanks. If it is not official, am not really interested.

Yes, if you are just chasing the latest broken army for some easy wins, you will be in for a disappointment because, thankfully, GW is using generals handbook to reign in OP models. As other posters pointed out however, SCE are strong, and have been strong for the entirety of the game.

Well I wasn't thinking about getting a broken army, plus doesn't seem like SCE are winning all the events. I just wondered if there are safe armies in AOS, because w40k is very unfun for me right now. I can get around 200-250$ of stuff, but the next batch of money I can realisticly get is going to be next summer, and from what I was told summer is when the reset happens. And I really want to avoid buying in to bad stuff, I already lost a lot of money on w40k. Guys here told me that their armies, tzeench demons, sce, fire dwarfs etc got nerfed in to oblivion and that either their whole collections are not worth running or they are left with 1-2 hero, of the high price kind, and have to buy in to new models. I was asking here because the SCE players seem very salty around here, all of them say they spent a lot of money on their armies , and that with the new update all the new stuff is way better then stuff they bought. I don't know what the difference is, that is why I was asking for another opinion.

I asked about the nine age, because some guys playing it talked to me after I talked to the people that play AOS. But from what I researched it is not only unofficial, but also the starting army costs like 900$ with multiple big kits required and they don't have stormcast in the game.

There is a difference between playing Grand Tournament-level AOS, normal tournament AOS, and casual play.

Stormcast are not winning all of the GTs no. They are placing consistently and winning a lot of normal tournaments, and in casual play can be absolute wrecking balls though.

Karol wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There are a huge number of Stormcast models that are not OP and are almost certainly not getting a nerf. Sacrosanct (the newest stuff) could see some significant point changes, as could Dracoth cavalry (mostly just fulminators), but the rest of the army are unlikely to see enough point changes to invalidate a list's viability unless you are seriously spamming one unit. So if you want to avoid potentially significant changes I would stay away from:
-Sequitors
-Evocators
-Fulminators
-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows
-More than 1-2 of any specific hero
-More than 10 Paladins (Retributors, Protectors, Devestators)
-Building around a certain battalion. SCE have seen more squatted and retooled battalions than most battletomes have in the first place.

Do that and any changes you encounter are not going to make an army build non-viable.

I was told that the heros, sequitors and evocators and the fulminators/stardrake are the only good things about storm eternals right now. If that stuff is ment to be nerfed, then it is a problem for me.

For a tournament, sure. But tournaments in AoS are cheese or lose; fundamentally if something in AoS is doing well at tournaments it needs a nerf, and these days has decent odds of getting one. However the vast majority of games are not tournament-tier and in that environment SCE are good almost across the board.

Someone I follow on social media had a great little 'Tournament Checklist' for AoS.

How to write an #AoS army list;
- Pick a fighty hero on a monster.
- Add 3 of it to your list.
- Pick a battleline unit.
- Add 3+ of it to your list.
- Ally in a wizard.

It might seem snarky...but it definitely seems to be the way tournament lists go from what I've seen.

Karol wrote:
Well I wasn't thinking about getting a broken army, plus doesn't seem like SCE are winning all the events. I just wondered if there are safe armies in AOS, because w40k is very unfun for me right now. I can get around 200-250$ of stuff, but the next batch of money I can realisticly get is going to be next summer, and from what I was told summer is when the reset happens. And I really want to avoid buying in to bad stuff, I already lost a lot of money on w40k. Guys here told me that their armies, tzeench demons, sce, fire dwarfs etc got nerfed in to oblivion and that either their whole collections are not worth running or they are left with 1-2 hero, of the high price kind, and have to buy in to new models. I was asking here because the SCE players seem very salty around here, all of them say they spent a lot of money on their armies , and that with the new update all the new stuff is way better then stuff they bought. I don't know what the difference is, that is why I was asking for another opinion.

The new Stormcast stuff is better than the old stuff; to elaborate some of it is on par while certain units (Sequitors, Evocators) are massively stronger in every way. That is why they are heading for a nerf. The older SCE stuff was not nerfed and has not gotten worse, so the salt may simply be anger over the new stuff being such a slap in the face.

Tzeentch did get nerfed pretty hard. They deserved it, was probably the most overpowered army in the game. Still performs just fine in a regular setting and I have seen at least one tournament player still get decent results out of them (he is very skilled with the army).

Fyreslayers just got one OP option nerfed afaik and are otherwise fine. They are not tournament viable but they are a relatively balanced army. I cannot state enough that an AoS army which does well at tournaments is not balanced and needs a nerf.

Ok that explain it a bit. If I bought an army and 6 months later GW would make most of the options in it much weaker then the new stuff, I would be salty too.

Thanks guys, I looked in to the stuff and it looks like almost every army includes either 10+boxs of high cost infantry or a few more units, but a high cost monster or two. Thought that maybe AOS was cheaper then w40k. Althought it does seem cheaper then nine age.

Again thank you all for the advice.

Ebay can be a source for cheap starter set units.

Its frustratingly easy to start as SCE since the dawn of AoS.

1) Find a friend who wants to play as Night Haunt (or Khorne a year+ ago)
2) Buy Soul wars ($160)
3) Buy Tempest of Souls ($80)
4) Friend does same.
5) Trade for NH stuff for SCE stuff.

Huge amount of SCE and rules for $240.

I fail at the find a friend part The number of people playing AOS is much smaller here then those playing w40k. Don't know why, I know there were a lot of Fantasy players at least from the number of armies being sold on the polish second hand market and the adds posted at my store by people selling their armies.

Is there something like AOS version of kill team? I know there is Shadespir, but it seems like a mix of a card game and something else, plus there is a ton of set of cards to get for a single deck.

AOS in my town is strange, small group of people that play against each other and then go to tournaments in bigger cities, two or three times as many people playing nine age. And both groups hate each other more then any group playing at the store. To a point of not talking at all. Makes it hard to get any credible info, because each time you ask anyone about anything, people from the other group come and tell you why the advice is wrong or bad.

There is AOS skirmish and AOS Path to Glory. Path to glory is the closest to kill team but they are neither of them very detailed.

Path to Glory had its own book, and the current battletomes have path to glory progression charts. The newest GHB also has the current path to glory progression charts for armies without books.

I'd say Shadespire is the AoS version Kill team, and imho, GWs best product. The teams are set so there's no list building per say, but you do have to build a deck with them. All cards needed are in the box with the minis. Try hards will get all sets just for the one card they might want in their deck for optimization (inherit weakness of the system)

I played a skirmish campaign, and it was a fun way to take something like a Get Started box and get some fun games while painting them up and accruing more models for bigger games. but the rules and scenarios were a bit lacking.

Trying a Path for Glory campaign starting soon. Seems like a good place to go after Skirmish campaign, slightly larger model count, progressively bigger as the games goes on.

Path to Glory, IMO, is far superior to Skirmish. There's too many arbitrary restrictions in Skirmish as to what can or can't be used.

Skirmish in my eyes is just very sloppy. Even in an open/narrative sense there are too many models that break game balance. A grundstock thunderer champion with drillbill has the ability that whenever he gets charged on a 2+ that unit takes a mortal wound. When every model is its own unit that means he can solo entire warbands on his own if they do not have shooting. A plague monk champion with book does a once per game roll a dice for each unit within 13" on a 4+ they take a mortal (only hits Nurgle on 6+) which again causes issues when every model is its own unit. Models with multiple shooting attacks are often really strong since they can put each one towards a different model and eliminate any overkill risk. Models that rely on size-scaling abilities lose their flavor entirely.

Path to Glory on the other hand is awesome. Tons and tons of fun. It has its rough spots like a power skew towards the stronger champions and being unable to combine units to raise them beyond the original size, but a few house rules go a long way. Bigger issues would be that the Legions of Nagash charts need to be reworked entirely for being on a wholly higher power level than the others, and certain champions needing to be banned outright for simply being too strong (Ironclad, Stardrake, Slann) but again this is something that can be worked around. The core concept and structure is well done and simply very fun.

The Path to Glory also eliminates battle line requirements. I want to try it, simply because I think a small campaign on the side, played with models that are in essence "your guys" would also encourage players to paint them. Doesn't help that we have a BCR player who puts his stonehorn on the field...

Does anyone have a homemade scenarios for the format?

There is an open war scenario generator in the core rulebook (or ghb?) that works very well. It is the print version of the open war cards.

Is there khorn mortal army in a better state then SCE, and by that I mean more builds or cheaper, but still effective, I saw some really nice looking blood warriors online, but here no one plays khorn, and I have no one to ask about the army.

Would an army based around blood warriors and blood warriors on juggernoughts be valid. Or are demons needed to play the faction?

Khorne is not a very effective competitive army barring a certain build. THey are definitely not in a better state than the stormcast.

You need demons if you want to powergame. Mortals can't hold up to the powergame.

Brass stampede is very powerful in the hands of a skilled player. Nearly won Adepticon GT this year.. Came in second at Nashcon.

whoops replied to the wrong thread. nothing to see here.

Karol wrote:
Is there khorn mortal army in a better state then SCE, and by that I mean more builds or cheaper, but still effective, I saw some really nice looking blood warriors online, but here no one plays khorn, and I have no one to ask about the army.

Would an army based around blood warriors and blood warriors on juggernoughts be valid. Or are demons needed to play the faction?

Go here. https://www.tga.community/forums/forum/6-order/

https://www.tga.community/forums/forum/7-chaos/

GW has put up Hidden Agendas (secondary objectives) on the community site:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/10/01/a-new-kind-of-matched-play-scoringgw-homepage-post-3/

What do you guys think?

Sidenote: I am amused at the pretense that players use the default triumph rules.