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Hey guys,

so i've been drawn into AoS, im a 40k player who generally likes to convert and make "cool" models/ideas while also play. AoS seems suited to this in regards to that I can simply take what I fancy and create some truly fluffy and casually fun armies to play. But where do I begin?

I like to make characters/monsters - Can I make a MC style army without hampering myself?

I hear lots about people bringing "wound counts", but how would I make a nice fun balanced MC army?

I have always wanted a "wizard army" - Could I make an army of casters and still have a fun and enjoyable game? I don't want to summon as I don't have any models and don't intend to have hordes of them any time soon.

Are there any armies that lean towards low model counts?

Where do I start with picking an army? I am about to go look at some warscrolls to get an idea of what each army brings, but it seems that is like reading all the codex's for 40k and if I wanted a good feel i'd have to read them all? which seems would take me a long time. I like chaos, but i've been exposed to it in 40k for a long time, if I went chaos route i'd have to go with a less mutated feel and more just a evil vibe. Thoughts?

Per AoS rules you can do whatever you want. You put down whatever models in your collection you want to, until you don't want to put more models down.

If you want to look for "balance" or "army lists" then you need to go examine one of the dozens of home-made comp lists and then try and figure out what your local group plays.

But AoS rules are pretty simple. You play with whatever you want, as many as you want, up to fitting them into your deployment zone. The rules are straight forward, you can download them.

As Argonak said, per the AOS core rules you can bring whatever you want, so if you want a wizard based force, you can bring a wizard based force.

You can make any kind of army you want in AoS. An army of giants, monsters, wizards, hordes of troops, whatever. If you go light on troops, you'll hamper yourself in certain ways, just like an army without your wizard power would be relatively hampered. It's something you'd have to play with in mind.

Tzeentch Chaos might be a natural choice. Even the troops, Pink Horrors, cast spells.

Ogres and Stormcast lean to low model counts, but you could make a cool Chaos Tzeentch army of a handful of wizards and monsters I'd think.

I'd suggest finding what models you think look best and going from there. AoS just began and a lot of armies are still to be updated, so their art direction/style is a bit up in the air.

Hey OP, I run 4 wizards in my 30 model school-league army so I can confirm that wizard heavy armies are fun to play.

If you play Mystic Shields can stack, there are some tactics that push the limits of sportsmanship (I.e. You can make invincible units).

When you say MC, I presume you are just talking about keyword: Monster units and not Monstrous Cavalry, right?

Monster armies can be the deadliest armies in AoS due to the low model, high wound count. You would often be entitled to Sudden Death victory options too giving you even more of a bonus.

If you want your opponent to have fun, I would suggest forgoing the Sudden Death rules when you play a Monster army so that your opponent can field a suitable army to challenge them.

Lastly, monster armies have limited fluff imo which won't lend itself to a wide set of scenarios. I would suggest supplementing the monsters with troops to create a more versatile force.

Lizardmen are pretty solid in this.
They do have summoning, but nothing says you have to use it.

Grab a unit of temple guard as your main block, throw chakax in there to buff them.
Then use a slann to shield them and they are pretty damn solid.
Give you room then to add monster.

Also, please note that my group also use wounds to balance, but certain armies are hampered by this (horde mainly)
Also, summoning with vamps is pretty broken with nagash lol.

I appreciate all the responses! I really didn't expect so many so fast!

So thoughts;
Yeh MC's I literally meant Monsterous Creatures like from 40k. After posting I had a quick look through Chaos Daemons warscrolls knowing Tzeentch would be a good idea of some of the magic available and was quite impressed with some of the interesting directions it had taken (blue scribes learning spells around them, fateweaver's manipulation abilities)

Fluff wise, generally I almost always make up something elaborate that then allows me to get creative with my modelling. But as im sure many of you know (jackal just looked at your blog) modelling and sculpting can take sooooo much longer than you think.So I want to start with a couple large models I can go crazy on, get painted and get onto the table.

Generally my local scene is quite casual so i'm thinking if I plonk down a couple Big monsters against a smaller army we can simply play some sort of interesting scenario where maybe their army is hunting for someone/something. Basically I think AoS has some really interesting room for gettiing creative and fun with the actual playing rather than how with 40k often the narrative is forgotten in some of the more complicated moments where you are simply struggling to stay on the board or win against the rock, paper, scissor scenarios!

Oh and Jackal your blog looks awesome Some of the skaven monstrosities look incredible, the walker is totally nuts!

I'll just chime in and say firstly, thanks for the kind words

Secondly, say hell to the rules to begin with.
Find yourself a model you really want to go to town on then work around that.
Nothing worse than having to take stuff that you don't want or need.

Yeh im thinking a Nurgle army modelling wise - really enjoy fleshwork with sculpting and painting with powders, two things which lend themselves to nurgle.

Not sure which faction yet, as my favourite thing about chaos is that potentially I could do a ogre army or even a zombie army and give it a nurgle feel

Although I think my first model is going to be that enormous skaven model, that thing is gorgeous!

My only issue is that I get carried away with conversions and scratch builds.
So I tend to make stuff that has no use in the game as it is too big or has no rules lol.

AoS is perfect for what you want to do

Keep in mind that you can mix and match armies as long as you stay within the four factions so theres tons of options/builds.

The way the game plays its quite balanced in regards to few models vs many models as the brb has the sudden death rule and scenarios usually have objectives and the lower model count army gets to chose a side that's more favorable for them.

Now if you show up with 4 warscrolls of Necrosphinx`s and 4 mounted monster/heros scrolls,you may have an issue getting regular games,heh.

Minijack wrote:
AoS is perfect for what you want to do

Keep in mind that you can mix and match armies as long as you stay within the four factions so theres tons of options/builds.

The way the game plays its quite balanced in regards to few models vs many models as the brb has the sudden death rule and scenarios usually have objectives and the lower model count army gets to chose a side that's more favorable for them.

Now if you show up with 4 warscrolls of Necrosphinx`s and 4 mounted monster/heros scrolls,you may have an issue getting regular games,heh.

You don't even have to stay in the four grand alliances. Empire and Ogors, Dark Aelves and Vampire Counts. There are loads of cool possibilities!

In the process of building a nurgle army of awesomeness myself. so far I have the glottkin, gutrot spume, a demin prince, bloab rotspawned and 20 plague bearers. Not sure I'm going to flesh it out with more nurgly stuff, but if I do it'll probably be mortal chaos warriors or maybe my ogres for some beef. Should be fun.

Wouldn't ogres being apart of Nurgle's forces be considered rotten beef?

Good luck on making your putridly powerful pox-ridden army.