Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi guys.
So as the title suggests I'm new to the game. Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means new to warhammer or 40kand have played and collected for a numbers of years now.
I primarily play 40k just due to the background and also the more (what I perscieve any) simplistic rule set.
Warhammer fantasy for me was one of those things that I collected and painted with the intention to playing grand battles etc. Of course this never happened and then end of times rolled around and then of course age of sigmar. now I have an Empire army gathering dust in a glass cabnet. yea they look pretty but would love to play and use them.
Now here in lies my questions. I picked the new white dwarf up and cast my eyes over the battle report and I must say, the game peaked my interest.
I love fantasy, always have and thought ok lets maybe give this ago.
Now, how different is it from 40k? I know its vastly different from fantasy but to me it resembles 40k. Also, balanced games? It's my understanding a points system is being introduced? and model count? what we looking at? masses of plastic on the table or can we do small games?

I too had a much more involved history with 40k. I had always wanted to play fantasy but the model count and "ranking" models turned me off to it.

AoS came out and now I have a mountain of Khornate stuff... and Slaanesh... and Skaven...

Kind of different from 40k but in the same ballpark.

A points system has been introduced. It's not perfect but it gets the job done.

You can play with one model or one thousand. Games of 1000 points will be quick and brutal. 2000 will be longer lasting and brutal. 3000+ (my area) long games, extremely brutal.

In AoS stuff dies. And it dies fast. Don't fall in love with a unit and expect it to last.

All base rules for AoS are free including all the Warscrolls for the armies. You can find PDFs for them on the GW website. The warscrolls for the armies are legacy ones and might work a bit differently from the ones in the printed books. Also there's an app that has everything printed for the game and allows you to buy digital versions of the books.

As far as game size goes, AoS is similar to a skirmish style game but can be played with larger numbers.

Narrative play is the standard game play for AoS and includes no points and uses the base 4 page rules of the game. In this style of game you can, potentially, have units that cannot die or auto-hit.

The Generals Hand Book came out recently and contains information on different ways to play the game. Path to Glory lets you "build" an army over the course of a campaign. Unfortunately, only a few armies have official lists to use so you might have to make up your own for you and anyone you play with. There is also different kinds of Ladder/Tournament rules if that's your thing. Finally there's Match Play which introduced the point system. The point system is VERY loose compared to 40k. You don't pay for upgrades to the unit, instead you pay by sets of models. Standard troops start at 100 points for 10 models and cost another 100 points for another 10 models. Note that even if you are under 10 models you still pay the full 100 points, so an 11 model unit would cost 200 points. Matched Play also introduced the Rules of 1 which reigns in some of the absurd stuff you can see in straight narrative play.

Other big differnces from 40k is the way combat works. There are no stats for BS WS and I. Instead each weapon has its own to hit, wound, damage, and rend. So less tables to memorize. Also, weapons deal "damage" which causes wounds on the unit, Some of these cause more then 1 and can kill more then 1 model. If a weapon has Rend it reduces the roll for a save by that much. Melee is resolved in an "I-go-you-go" fashion. So I pick a unit to attack with, then you pick a unit to attack with until all units in combat has been resolved. It can be one of the longest parts of the game.

Finally there are a series of campaign books that take place during the start of the story line called the Realm Gate Wars. These books contain both on-going story line elements and also scenarios and Times of War which allow for more abilities or unique effects during a game.

My recommendation would be to grab the rules and the warscrolls for your army off the GW website and go over them. For your first games play small narrative games to get the basics down on how turn order works as well as some base tactics. After that play some small to moderately sized point games. Always play with a scenario, they are so much better then a straight kill game.

Awesome. I've arranged my first game for Tuesday eve so here's hoping. I've doing some digging and stuff on the Game throughout today and to be honest I do quite like the look of it so hopefully the game goes well