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For anyone starting a Stormcast army, Shadowclaimer minis posted that up today.

I really wish GW would create an official army painter program with different races so we could digitally test schemes.

Gonna start up a Sylvaneth army. I’d always wanted to make an Eldar maidenworld exodite wraith host using tree people. This way if AoS dies in my area I’ll slap some guns on them and run some wraithlords.

Change of plans...deviating from my usual Undead, Elves or Nuns I have found myself drawn to Stormcast!

Soul Wars hopefully arrives today! ;-)

I would like to but I don't have the money since I'm saving for getting married in November. So I'm sticking with my Flesh-Eater Courts and going to build up either my Maggotkin or Ironjawz, which are the two other armies I have partials of that could be expanded. I'm not sure which yet since AOS has been declining in my area (it's mostly 40k) but recently a few of the 40k crowd have shown interest (just hope they don't only play competitively like a lot of the 40k games are)

I already have Maggotkin (mostly Daemons), but I want to start a new army anyway. Torn between Seraphon, Sylvaneth, and Ironjawz.

Hmm, now my brain is thinking about a squig army, now that my old outsider NH subfaction has become a full fledged feature army.

Could it be viable in a casual setting?

I split Soul War with my fiancee, so I'm starting Stormcast and she's going to paint up some Nighthaunts.

It helps that she's much better at blending than I am so I expected her army will be the better painted one.

Having caught up on Nighthaunt releases out so far, I am starting my second army, Nurgle. Already have lots of daemons from 40k, just ordered a GUO, trees and Blightkings.

I had watched AoS from the outside during 1.0 but I'm jumping in two feet first. I'm going to start with Stormcast Eternals but I'm likely going to shift in to more mixed order as time goes on.

My new LoN/Night Haunt are coming along swimmingly

 Hulksmash wrote:
My new LoN/Night Haunt are coming along swimmingly

Who's awesome? You are!

I'm a fellow new LoN/Night Haunt bro for 2nd Edition, and I have been buying frantically, and painting more-so. The last ten days are a blur of painting converted Ghouls to be my 60 Zombie horde...

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
My new LoN/Night Haunt are coming along swimmingly

Who's awesome? You are!

I'm a fellow new LoN/Night Haunt bro for 2nd Edition, and I have been buying frantically, and painting more-so. The last ten days are a blur of painting converted Ghouls to be my 60 Zombie horde...

Very nice. It's all still mostly going to be night haunt but sometimes run as LoN Sacrament with lots of vamp lords. I'm doing spirit hosts of properly ghostly painted avatars of war beserkers led by a vampire unforged dwarf dude. Direwolves mounted by scythe wielding humans all painted ghostly that kind of thing. Naturally normal chainrasps and reapers as my core. I'm pretty excited about it.

I think I'll wait until the Nighthaunt half of Soul Wars starts being more reasonable on Ebay (hoping it'll get down in the 60's with free shipping) and use them as another army for my games of Age of Fantasy by One Page rules. I already have Orruk, Stormcast, Skaven, and human forces.

I want another 'evil' force and always played with the idea of Undead. I think the Soul Wars models and a box of Spirit Hosts would be a nice little force (especially for skirmishing, where there would be less than 20 models on a side).

I couldn’t resist those new Dracolines so I’ve started up a Knights Excelsior Stormcast army.

Here’s the first test model:

Does adding 2000 points of Nurgle to my 6000 points of Nurgle count as a new army?

 AlexHeap wrote:
I couldn’t resist those new Dracolines so I’ve started up a Knights Excelsior Stormcast army.

Here’s the first test model:

That's amazing

If i do it won't be any of this new age bs.
It'll be a fantasy army.
In the Empire of Man.
None of this war in heaven rubbish.

https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/landsknecht/products/landsknecht-starter-army

https://www.perry-miniatures.com/index.php?cPath=22_62&osCsid=tbisk89hmm9kpus1uuadbgdrh3

And there's the empire army.
No models without shoes.

I am looking at returning. Like many I loved WHFB 8th, AoS killed it, I went to KoW. Saw the release and read through the rules that just dropped. It looks like it might be worth dusting off some old armies. This is my issue, there are so many armies now. I played Bretonnians, which seem to be dead. :(
I also have Empire which seems to be 3 factions(?) now. Free Guild, Devoted of Sigmar, Collegiate Arcane. And also have Dwarfs which seem to be Dispossesed, Fyreslayers, and Kharadoron.

I am confused, how does this work? The rules say I can pick any Order armies together (if i read it correctly). so Can I play my empire army as Free People, Devoted of Sigmar and Collegiate Arcane all in the same list?

@Dynas the "Grand Alliances" are more a lore based alliance system than they are fully a rules system. So the Grand Alliance of Order are basically the factions that united to promote order and life in the world and to also fight against Chaos. Destruction and Death also fought against Chaso, but Destruction is basically your savage orks who don't really build ordered nations whilst Death is, well, its the undead and the nearly undead.

So within Order there are sub-alliances. The only facition in Order which can ally with anyone is Stormcast Eternals, other groups are broken down and actually mostly stick within their old world groupings. So the old High elf armies can mostly ally with each other now but can't ally with the old dark elf ones.


Now some factions have their own Battletome, whilst others are in the Grand Alliance Books and the Generals Handbook 2018 (which is probably your best bet to get to give yo the updated rules and alliance groups). There's also limits on how many allies you can have in any one force. I'd start with the Generals Handbook as it should ouline most of the factions.

I had been planning to sell My finished Bonesplitterz collection but with out an army I wouldn't be able to play for at least 6 months or more while I start a new army. I've played one game of the new edition and enjoyed it a lot.
I don't know if I will start a new army or not but I had thought about starting a Skeleton army and I want to put it on Hex bases that I found on Ebay. It would look really good I think.
Right now I am hopeful that with this new edition the Bonespltters will get a new unit or two and a new character. I made a bit of joke in another thread about female Savages. Just because it's crazy o'll AoS. So there might be room for that sort of thing. But regardless I would like something new. I have several of everything already. To be honest I haven't read any of the fluff really for AoS so I don't know what it says regarding that sill idea. (Silly as in it could be fun. And I'd love to paint new units.)

 Dynas wrote:
Like many I loved WHFB 8th, AoS killed it...

AoS did not kill WHFB. WHFB either killed itself or was brutally assassinated by its creators. AoS was just brought in to take its place by its killers.

If I ever start an AoS army, it would be my first Fantasy Warhammer army. I'd long debated which army I would want to start since the time I could take Beastmen, Daemons, and Chaos Mortals in one army, and still agonizing over it a bit. My budget does not currently support that move, though.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Dynas wrote:
Like many I loved WHFB 8th, AoS killed it...

AoS did not kill WHFB. WHFB either killed itself or was brutally assassinated by its creators. AoS was just brought in to take its place by its killers.

If I ever start an AoS army, it would be my first Fantasy Warhammer army. I'd long debated which army I would want to start since the time I could take Beastmen, Daemons, and Chaos Mortals in one army, and still agonizing over it a bit. My budget does not currently support that move, though.

Yeah yeah, thats what i meant.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
@Dynas the "Grand Alliances" are more a lore based alliance system than they are fully a rules system. So the Grand Alliance of Order are basically the factions that united to promote order and life in the world and to also fight against Chaos. Destruction and Death also fought against Chaso, but Destruction is basically your savage orks who don't really build ordered nations whilst Death is, well, its the undead and the nearly undead.

So within Order there are sub-alliances. The only facition in Order which can ally with anyone is Stormcast Eternals, other groups are broken down and actually mostly stick within their old world groupings. So the old High elf armies can mostly ally with each other now but can't ally with the old dark elf ones.


Now some factions have their own Battletome, whilst others are in the Grand Alliance Books and the Generals Handbook 2018 (which is probably your best bet to get to give yo the updated rules and alliance groups). There's also limits on how many allies you can have in any one force. I'd start with the Generals Handbook as it should ouline most of the factions.

Wow. That sounds very complicated. So is the generals handbook like the "army book" or Codex but for ALL the armies? What are these books based on the Grand Alliances? Do I even need those?

From what I can see, the Old World Empire is now 4 factions- Free Guild, Devoted of Sigmar, Collegiate Arcane and Ironwald Arsenal (with dwarfs?)
Dwarfs Are now Disposed, Fyreslayers?, Kharadoron? and also Ironwald Arsenal?
Bretonnians are Bretonnians, but no longer point supported so unlikely to be balanced vs other updated armies.

Generals Handbook basically updates most things, such as alliance groups, points etc.... It's a catch all update for the game and as such has the most up-to-date info on each faction and its various alliances.

Now the Grand Alliance book is a bit like the index for 40K in that, when they came out, they covered most of the factions with rules and points and alliances. However they are older now and the Generals hand book updates the rule side of things. I'm honestly not sure (as I play Daughters of Khaine who have a Battletome) if you need the Alliance book or not; but I know that you can't go wrong with the Generals Handbook.


The Sigmar situation sounds more complicated than it really is, and it is a bit trickier to "see" the armies on the GW website than it once was. I would recommend either buying a copy or heading to a local GW store and having a read of their store copy to help get your head around things.

The Grand Alliance books are just collections of Warscrolls, most of which are outdated at this point. No need to pick them up at all. The General's Handbooks is more of a guidebook for ways to play. You get rules for Narrative Play like aerial battles and Path to Glory campaigns, but the big attraction is that the book contains the most up-to-date Matched Play rules including points values, Grand Alliance army abilities, etc. You'll always need the most recent General's Handbook.

Many of the Old World factions can still be used in Match Play, but you'll find their rules in the Warscroll Compendiums section on the web store. The points values are at the bottom of the PDF.

 Dynas wrote:

Wow. That sounds very complicated. So is the generals handbook like the "army book" or Codex but for ALL the armies? What are these books based on the Grand Alliances? Do I even need those?

From what I can see, the Old World Empire is now 4 factions- Free Guild, Devoted of Sigmar, Collegiate Arcane and Ironwald Arsenal (with dwarfs?)
Dwarfs Are now Disposed, Fyreslayers?, Kharadoron? and also Ironwald Arsenal?
Bretonnians are Bretonnians, but no longer point supported so unlikely to be balanced vs other updated armies.

I'm just getting into AoS myself, but I'll take a whack at this.

Yes, the game is a sort of venn diagram of overlapping and nested factions.

Every unit has keywords listing all the groups it belongs to, from the smallest (its own name) to the largest (its Grand Alliance).

More or less, to choose your faction, you choose one keyword. Some keywords have "allegiance abilities" which are army-wide special rules that you get if all your units have that particular keyword. In theory, the narrower the keyword, the better its allegiance abilities.

The Grand Alliance books are super old and don't even have allegiance abilities. They're just books of warscrolls (= unit profiles) which you can see on the GW site anyway for free. Newer books work just like normal army books or codexes, they have allegiance abilities and corresponding warscrolls for one or more keywords.

The General's Handbook is a yearly update for the game, listing full rules for matched play (armies of equal points value and symmetrical objectives) and updating factions that don't have a proper army book of their own yet. It has the points cost of all the models, but no unit rules.

Wow!. Thanks all that helps. The Venn Diagram make since. So sad my Brets are "gone."

I ordered the General Handbook so hopefully reading that will clarify things a bit.

Looking into list building with what I have, the allies rule count towards any Faction that is not the Main faction.

Example: using existing WHFB empire models
Main Army is Freepeople
Use statetroops, knights, generals
My Arch Lector, Luthor huss and War Alter would be Devoted of Sigmar and be allies
My amber wizard would be an ally from Collegiate Arcane
My cannons and Mortars would be allies from Ironwald Arsanel


Edit: Found this helpful website
https://ageofsigmar.eu/allegiance-abilities/

Now only question is: If i take a different faction, in order to IGNORE a keyword so that I can take another Keyword Ability, I would designate that unit as an ally to ignore it for key word purpose to unlock allegiance ablilities?

Yeah, I suppose I am. I have a bunch of Nurgle stuff sitting around which I mostly got to use for Dungeons and Dragons, but I will probably make a force lead by a Great Unclean One.
20 Plague Bearers
1 Herald of Nurgle
3 Nurgling Swarms
3 Blight Drones
1 Great Unclean One

Thinking about picking up a beast of Nurgle, but they are quite pricey.

I also have the Lizardman Start Collecting set, and was thinking of adding a Bastilodon, Terradon or Ripperdactyl riders and a unit of Skink Skirmishers to it. Maybe a Slaan Mage Priest too, since I have always loved the mini but never got around to getting one.

From what I see online, my Lizardmen force would be pretty jam packed with weaker choices. Is that right? I don't really want lots of Saurus because I think the minis look goofy.

Edit: Though looking at the rules situation, it seems to be a fair mess. Wondering where I should go to get up to date rules for my factions. The rules used to be free online, has that stopped? My boxed sets come with rules for the units inside, but I am not sure if they are valid any more.

 Dynas wrote:
Wow!. Thanks all that helps. The Venn Diagram make since. So sad my Brets are "gone."

I ordered the General Handbook so hopefully reading that will clarify things a bit.

Looking into list building with what I have, the allies rule count towards any Faction that is not the Main faction.

Example: using existing WHFB empire models
Main Army is Freepeople
Use statetroops, knights, generals
My Arch Lector, Luthor huss and War Alter would be Devoted of Sigmar and be allies
My amber wizard would be an ally from Collegiate Arcane
My cannons and Mortars would be allies from Ironwald Arsanel


Edit: Found this helpful website
https://ageofsigmar.eu/allegiance-abilities/

Now only question is: If i take a different faction, in order to IGNORE a keyword so that I can take another Keyword Ability, I would designate that unit as an ally to ignore it for key word purpose to unlock allegiance ablilities?

It's like this:

First, choose an Allegiance (this is what you call "main faction"). An Allegiance is an army consisting of units that all share a keyword (for example, "STORMCAST ETERNALS", "NURGLE", "FREE PEOPLES", "ORDER" etc are all Allegiances). Some Allegiances, including all that have Battletomes and a few that don't, have special Allegiance Abilities which are usually very powerful. In your case, the only Allegiances you could use that have Allegiance Abilities would be

1) FREE PEOPLES
2) ORDER

Using any other Allegiances, such as IRONWELD ARSENAL or COLLEGIATE ARCANE, would be pointless, since they have no Allegiance Abilities.

If you choose FREE PEOPLES as your Allegiance, any units in your army without the FREE PEOPLES keyword would be considered allies. You can take up to 400 points of allies in a 2000 points army. In addition, only 1 in every 4 units can be an ally.

If you choose ORDER as your Allegiance, you could use all of your models together without any such restrictions (since they all have the ORDER keyword). You would, however, not be able to use the FREE PEOPLES Allegiance Abilities, but instead the Allegiance Abilities for ORDER, which are pretty generic and generally not as useful as more specific Allegiance Abilities.