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I saw a similar thread on another forum, So I thought I'd try it here. A thread to show off your latest purchases, talk about recent games, tactics, expectations, etc, for people who enjoy AoS and are optimistic about its future. Let's see if there are actually enough of us on dakka :-D

Personally I'm off to purchase a 45-model strong Stormcast army today. I'm pretty excited that I'll be able to play without borrowing other people's armies like I have been doing. Going to try a more somber paint scheme inspired by the beautiful Ex Profundis one in marble and red. I'm also getting the first book soon and am looking forward to the scenarios, although the free scenarios from the Clash of Swords tournament are already very good. Hoping that the game will stick around in our group, there have been quite a few games and people are giving it a chance.

Attila, where in Sweden are you guys?

 coelomate wrote:
I got sucked back in while reading about the Total War game. Some comments about AoS intrigued me, and I started digging into all the changes after not having touched wargamming in almost 4 years.

Right now I'm having a blast reading all of the rules. I've finished a fairly close read of the rules for all but three armies, and I've loved thinking through strategies/synergies and trying to figure out the design and balance intentions that went into producing AoS. In a lot of ways, the rules are very elegant - everything can hurt everything else, monsters are balanced such that they look cool but operate similarly to elite units on the table (they don't do much more damage, if they do any damage at all, and just like a unit they get less potent as they take damage), many characters are soft targets that provide bonuses and synergies rather than being walking death machines... it's really cool.

The streamlined rolling also makes it much easier to gauge the strength of something. You can make a pretty good estimation of how much damage any given unit will do in a round of combat, and how much damage it will take to put them down. Whenever I see an interesting unit, I toss it into a spreadsheet to check my assumptions about how pointy its sticks are.

The lack of points is a little tough, but I'm more optimistic about community comp and the "I-go-you-go" deployment rules than many commenters.

My next goal is to learn painting. I've played WHFB and 40k on and off for more than a decade, with lots of long gaps, but never been good at painting (or even at committing to painting...). I'd like to pick an army and slowly build it up painting as I go. It's exciting that I should be able to play some decent games with a much smaller and more diverse force under AoS rules than I could have under 8th edition rules.

I agree about the warscrolls, it's actually a lot of fun just going through and reading them, since all of the special rules are warscroll specific and there is a lot of flavor there.

Great to hear you're having fun! Would probably suggest trying out one of the points systems instead of wounds, since Ogres are super good for how many wounds they have :-)

Deusvult wrote:
The Stormcast have been growing on me day by day. Initially my reaction was the usual "fantasy space marines? Yuck" but by now I actually love them!

Have just bought the 4 new knights and some more liberators and will start painting the this afternoon. Already have a sizeable force from the starterkit and some addons.

I have to say that Age of Sigmar has rejuvenated my flagging interest in warhammer fantasy both its lore and the game itself. My only regret is the constant stream of negativity online which is a constant downer when looking for others who also love AoS

Agree on both your points! The Stormcst grew on me a little too much... And now I have 45 of the buggers. :-D

And your second point is exactly why I made this thread. It got to the point where the constant bitterness and negativity was actually killing my enthusiasm for the game, and I needed somewhere where I could simply enjoy a game I like and talk about it with likeminded people in an optimistic way. So that's what this thread is about! It's not about uncritically accepting everything GW does, it's for people who have an optimistic view of the games future and an appreciation of what it is trying to do on some level.

Here's what I've got so far, plus 3 more Retributors, 5 Paladins, 2 Liberator Champions and another Relictor still on the sprue. I didn't paint any of these so I'm in the process of stripping them... Which is the damned worst thing ever. I forgot what a pain it is to strip plastic minis, especially ones with soooo many nooks and crannies for paint to stay hidden in... Anyone have any tips how to strip them completely clean? After stripping I've been scraping paint from the recesses with a tool, which takes ages. I'm sure they'll look fine after priming but I hate paint flecks :-p

 TheCustomLime wrote:
To Stormcast Eternal players in the know: What is a good "First purchase" after the starter kit? I'm thinking buying two boxes of liberators to give my guys options for hammers but those archers would provide nice ranged support.m

Definitely Judicators for the bows!

TrollSlayerThorak'Khun'Na wrote:
Aside from my DWARFS! I am rebasing/collecting some new figurines for my warlord tales:

- Stormcast army. Now I'm going to repaint them.
- Khorne mortal/daemon army (from starter set, add bloodletters, blood crushers, war hounds)
- Undead zombie horde (two finecast heroes on mounts, about 100 zombies, 50 ghouls, 30 skeletons)
- Skaven...one unit of clanrats and a bunch of metal jezzails
- Bretonnia...units of men at arms, bowmen, two knight units, one pegasus, trebuchet

To be honest all my old stuff is finding new life! Even if just as a small war band to accent bigger games.

What's the best solution for stripping paint?

Acetone-free nail polish remover. No need to soak, just dip the model in it or spray a bit and you can just brush the paint of immediately with an old toothbrush. Best thing I've tried.

Just finished an Azyr comp 30 point game with my new Stormcast against Undead. Was a blast! I really need a few more characters, I only have the starter box guys right now. Going to buy at least a Castellant and a Heraldor I think. We played an objective scenario from Clash of Kings, which was great. The highlights for me was smashing his Terrorgheist first turn (he got careless and it ate 10 Judicator arrows follow by a Dracoth Celestant charge), and finally breaking his pesky 30-man unit of skeletons. It slaughtered a unit of Liberators earlier in the game with 81 attacks (would've been 108 if the Libs hadn't killed one of them), but I managed to whittle them down enough with Judicators that my Dracoth Celestant could charge in and grind their bones to dust. Then Battleshock took the rest.

Undead are really scary though and I was lucky my opponent only had two characters (a Necromancer and a Vampire Lord). Knights are super annoying because they just won't die... every turn they go back to full strength. You basically have to kill them all on the charge or you're stuck there until you decide to run. I'm still not sure how to house rule summoning, we used Azyr comp summoning and it seemed to work alright, but I don't know. He managed to snatch the victory in the end due to being a better objective grabber than me with so many fast units plus summoning, but it was a close and fun game.

FlightMedic wrote:
Just left my local shop and the owner has invested in all of the new Khorne terrain sets for the store gaming tables. They look fantastic and have some pretty cool abilities.

Starting to build my own table at home and am excited to see what all they come out with for Stormcast terrain as well.

Have any of you guys bought the new AoS terrain sets?

I have the Ophidian Archway and was so impressed by it I'm getting the Numinous Occulum tomorrow :-) really wanted to get the realmgates too but I feel that they have such a limited use beyond a few special scenarios... They look cool but if you don't use their rules (for example when playing other games) there's not much point in using them. They don't block line of sight, you can't really put minis in them and they look sort of out of place. I think the Archway and Occulum are the most generally useful pieces so I'll be sticking to those for now.

Reading the Ghal Maraz book at the moment, and getting really into the idea of creating a Nurgle/Skaven Pestilens force. Really love how they're depicted in the book. Maggot lords, Glottkin, all the Nurgle Demons, Plague Monks, a Vermin Lord... So cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, new goodies, yay!

LOVE that color scheme Matt! Great job indeed.

Painting the Numinous Occulum atm... LOVING this terrain, and Liberator Gold is such an amazing paint. Probably won't be touching any other gold paints now...

Great report Matt! Sounds like some fun scenarios indeed.

Speaking of which, I played a couple of games myself this past sunday! Managed to snap a couple of pics of the second game, which was the "A Forlorn Hope" Battleplan from the app. It's a siege scenario, where the defender of the fortress simply has to survive for six turns. We added a rule where the attacker could destroy the walls, to make it more exciting. The walls had 20 wounds and a 4+ save, which proved to be just right!

The Bloodbound (defenders) player only had the starter box models. I played Stormcast and simply put everything I brought on the table, which apart from the starter box also included 10 Judicators, 5 Decimators, a Heraldor and a Lord Castellant.



The Stormcast have advanced as quickly as possibly, with Vandus taking the lead and charging through the fortress gate.



Vandus is torn to pieces by the combination of Khul, a Khorgorath and his own Heraldor causing the earth to shake and chunks of wall to fall down, injuring Stormcast and Bloodbound alike. The Lord Castellant bravely steps up to take Khul on, while the Judicators pelt the walls with arrows of light and the rest of the army prepares to take down the walls with their axes and hammers.



The walls have been breached! Unfortunately the Lord Castellant is caught under the rubble, but nor before taking out both Khul and the Khorgorath. The Decimators wade in and utterly destroy a 20-man unit of Bloodreavers, their mighty axes taking out scores of opponents with each swipe. The Bloodbound army is in shambles, and the last two Blood Warriors and the Bloodsecrator charge the Stormcast, screaming their litanies to Khorne. The battle ends there, and since the Stormcast have failed to take out the remaining three Khornate warriors, the Bloodbound have taken the day!

This game was SO much fun. We didn't use any comp system, we just winged it, even adding the "destroy the walls" rule which proved to be both necessary (because of the tiny gate) and a lot of fun. I really loved the Heraldor and his ability to shake the walls to their foundations, but since my guys were right there as well, I think he killed an equal amount of models on both sides :-D

My opponent also pointed out that two of my most important weapons in this fight turned out to be a lantern and a trumpet

Would certainly recommend this scenario for a fun narrative battle. I also really got to see how quick this game plays! We played two games in less than four hours, including lunch and a lot of simply hanging out and talking. Such a huge difference from the often grueling 40k sessions which last an entire afternoon. Two thumbs up!

With 5-7 attacks each and half a wound on average per attack... Yes they are

I really want to listen to that audio drama!

Sylvaneth are really cool and they have that big box that saves you 20% I think, so I would start there!

Just got myself the Ghal Maraz book, a Dragonfate Dias and 17 metal Bestigor+4 Beastman characters for a great price used... Looking forward to pitting my Stormcast against a combined force of Warriors/Beastmen :-D also now I have both the Numinous Occulum, Ophidian Archeay and Dragonfate Dais. I'm chuffed!

Bad Dice is a great AoS podcast as well.