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So I'm thinking of getting into Fantasy, specifically Age of Sigmar. It's taking off in my area, and I'm attracted by how easy it is to pick up and play, there's no need for rule books and codices, and I can just pick up a start collecting book and go for it.

I'm really attracted to the Flesh Eater and the Malignent sets, but I've honestly got no idea where to start really, I'm a fluff player at heart, and I'd like to know the fluff of the armies before jumping in with both feet.

I think the models are beautiful, and would set me a great painting challenge, so what's the fluff of the Sigmar setting? And where can I find out more?

 General Kroll wrote:
So I'm thinking of getting into Fantasy, specifically Age of Sigmar. It's taking off in my area, and I'm attracted by how easy it is to pick up and play, there's no need for rule books and codices, and I can just pick up a start collecting book and go for it.

I'm really attracted to the Flesh Eater and the Malignent sets, but I've honestly got no idea where to start really, I'm a fluff player at heart, and I'd like to know the fluff of the armies before jumping in with both feet.

I think the models are beautiful, and would set me a great painting challenge, so what's the fluff of the Sigmar setting? And where can I find out more?

I'll make you a quick summary:

-Stormcasts: basically enheriar. They are mighty warriors who fell to chaos and were "reborn" (or remade, whatever you fancy) to fight the hosts of chaos. Every rebirth erases their humanity/orcines/dorfity (yeah, they can belong to ANY sex AND race, so go wild if you want female sigmarines). which scares them shitless.

-Chaos armies: same bs as always, only that cranked up to 1111.

- Death: nagash rules all and we all love him. Now there's a rebellious faction:

-Flesh-eaters. Ironically this guys are no more inbred vamps but rather are the motherfraggers who survived the age of chaos (so they had a lot of stuff to deal with) and have become flying rodent gak insane cannibals. They are very interesting and their lore feels a lot like a horror film (and the good ones).

-Orruks. Same gak as always but vanilla has two more flavors: if you want something stronger go with ironjaws, which are black orcs+10 (literally, black-orcs are this army's cannonfodder) if you want something funkier, go bonesplitterz (think of an entire army of weirdboyz with a boner-heh- for killing big beasts and using their remnants as weapons.

Although written in a funny tone and mocking everything, I like to get the essentials from 1d4chan: https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer:_Age_of_Sigmar

The Start Collecting! boxes are a good point of entry, so buy one you like. It has a formation in it you can built out contents. Fluffwise, that'S a good starting point.
For Flesheater, there is a battletome, which contains rules for every unit of this sub-faction and fluff. It's optional, though, so don't feel like you have to buy it with your first purchase.

Thanks for your help so far guys, I feel like the GW site could be a lot clearer on things and a lot more user friendly for those getting started.

So could I build an army of Malignants which are essentially ghosts and ghouls, (I love the models and how the spirits whisp and swirl around the bases) and flesh eaters? They all come under the grand alliance of death, so is that one army in age of Sigmar? Or do all the various factions operate independently?

 General Kroll wrote:
Thanks for your help so far guys, I feel like the GW site could be a lot clearer on things and a lot more user friendly for those getting started.

So could I build an army of Malignants which are essentially ghosts and ghouls, (I love the models and how the spirits whisp and swirl around the bases) and flesh eaters? They all come under the grand alliance of death, so is that one army in age of Sigmar? Or do all the various factions operate independently?

You can play with whatever models you like.

However, there are different ways to play in the General's Handbook. One way is Matched Play, which limits your army to a single Grand Alliance, as long as you don't agree with something else with your opponent.

Each Grand Alliance is split into sub-factions, some of them are only a few models, others are pretty big or get made into 'real' factions with their own battletome (Khorne Bloodbound, Stormcasts, Sylvaneth, Flesheater), which makes them a lot fluffier.
But even then, you could always come up with reasons, why a certain model is included in your army.

If you're fixed on Malignants and Flesheater, yes, you can both play them together. Always and in every type of game. They don't share a lot of synergies, though.

I would suggest, you buy either into Malignants OR Flesheater first, see how they play. You get a good understanding of synergies between keywords then and can decide if you buff out the sub-faction or build into the whole Grand Alliance Death.

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
Thanks for your help so far guys, I feel like the GW site could be a lot clearer on things and a lot more user friendly for those getting started.

So could I build an army of Malignants which are essentially ghosts and ghouls, (I love the models and how the spirits whisp and swirl around the bases) and flesh eaters? They all come under the grand alliance of death, so is that one army in age of Sigmar? Or do all the various factions operate independently?

You can play with whatever models you like.

However, there are different ways to play in the General's Handbook. One way is Matched Play, which limits your army to a single Grand Alliance, as long as you don't agree with something else with your opponent.

Each Grand Alliance is split into sub-factions, some of them are only a few models, others are pretty big or get made into 'real' factions with their own battletome (Khorne Bloodbound, Stormcasts, Sylvaneth, Flesheater), which makes them a lot fluffier.
But even then, you could always come up with reasons, why a certain model is included in your army.

If you're fixed on Malignants and Flesheater, yes, you can both play them together. Always and in every type of game. They don't share a lot of synergies, though.

I would suggest, you buy either into Malignants OR Flesheater first, see how they play. You get a good understanding of synergies between keywords then and can decide if you buff out the sub-faction or build into the whole Grand Alliance Death.

Thanks!

I mainly like the Mortis Engine and Spirit Hosts from the start collecting set, and the Terrorgheist model from the flesh eater starter, which is what peaked my fancy there. I think you're right in that I should pick one and go from there really. And of course I'm utterly in love with the Nagash model, but that's something for later down the line I think.

I've always had a soft spot for a few fantasy models, but never really taken the plunge and got into this side of the hobby, I've always stuck to 40k. I've just had a read of the 1d4chan article and that was a great help. I suppose with the Death Faction, and the way the rules are set up. I can shoe horn any model into my army really, they are just dead and Nagash has them in the afterlife serving his means. I like the sound of that

Are there any good books that are worth picking up that have basic fluff in them and a few more of the rules? I know the basic rules are free to download, and I've downloaded the app onto my iPad. Is the generals handbook just the points system?

The General's Handbook includes different ways to play, infos for various campaign types, possible house-rules, of course the point system, some additional restrictions and rules. Nearly no fluff in it, but great suggestions for what you can do with AoS. If you like the first few games you play, this is a Must-Buy.

For general fluff, there is the Hardcover AoS book (https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-Age-of-Sigmar-Book-ENG). It's pretty expensive though, and nothing exceptional in it.

The Generals Handbook is optional (though in most circles, it's "optional"), but I would strongly recommend picking it up. There is a lot of good information on different styles of play, some cool campaign ideas and scenarios, the rules for Matched Play, of course, and the points system. All that for only $25 USD. As far as the models, you've been given lots of good advice already. I will tell you that from what I've seen of Flesheater Courts, the only knock I have against them is that their standard Battleline unit (Ghouls) is pretty weak. You can, however, use some of their better units (Like Crypt Flayers) as battleline if you use the appropriate Courtier as your general.

Thanks folks. I think my plan of attack is going to be to finish up a few more of my Harlequins, and then reward myself by getting the Malignants starter set. I really love the look of the Spirit hosts and the Mortis Engine.

Then I will go from there.

having recently picked up models in both the malignants and other death sections i would advise you to go with a Death allegiance in general and skip all the little stuff.
i'm currently painting a pure malignant and pure nighthaunt army for each and while i love them aesthetically they are very very limited tactically. I would imagine that a nighthaunt army could be super super strong with three mournfuls and a bunch of battleline spirit hosts but probably not much fun.

on the plus side, death has the best basic battleline troop option. you can take 3 cheap units of ten zombies but you are allowed to combine them together into one unit of 30 once you start playing. i'm currently working on a competitive chaos list and i would LOVE the option to have my 30 marauders in a horde instead of 3 easy to squash units of 10.

Yep the General's Handbook is a real must.

For a fluff overview, there is a free download called the "Age of Sigmar Primer" from the iOS bookstore that has a quick overview - or the magazine in GW with the Stormcast on the front. Or, inside the app the Season of War download has some good fluff in it.

Malignants don't really have any lore at the moment, just being ghosts and ghoulies as you said. The Flesh Eater Courts are once noble humans, now insane cannibals - yet they know it not, in their minds they are still noble knights and brave heroes. Quite fun.

The flesh eater courts have their own battletome. It's an "old style" battletome in that it has none of the extra perks (spells/abilities) that the post-GHB battletomes have had - it also has no points values (those are in the GHB) but it should be crammed fluff of fluff and custom scenarios.

Edit - lastly do NOT be tempted by the Grand Alliance Death Book, as the warscrolls contained within are largely out of date (I.e all the Flesheater Courts). Wait for a rerelease of it next year if you want printed versions of your Warscroll, alternatively the battletomes have the up-to-date ones.

Agreed with EnTyme. General's Handbook is "optional" in most places - since points are a thing, people will generally play with them.

As far as starting Malignants and FEC, the Start Collecting kit both is good, but the best bang for your buck when it comes to Flesh Eaters is "King Vlagorescu's Ghoulish Host", a box set that's a fraction of the price of the dudes inside and comes with most of the things you'd want in an army.

If you want to focus more on ghosts, though, you probably won't need more than one Mortis Engine, so only get one of those starter sets, and then get what looks good.

If you're playing Matched (you probably will be), you just need one Hero (aka HQ) and enough Battlelines (aka Troops) to make it legal and then bring whatever else. Spirit Hosts are only Battleline if you only take Nighthaunt, but that's bad so don't do that. Flesh Eater Ghouls are always Battleline, so you'll need 2 units of those for 1000, 3 units for 2000. Then just pick a Hero that looks cool (all of them are good imo) and then get whatever you want from there. Very easy to make an army in AoS.

Just noticed you can get the 'primer' from blacklibrary.com too.

Thanks again folks, I've downloaded the primer and I'm going to start there.

Thanks for the heads up on the Death book I will hold off on that for now then.

As for battle line, heros etc I have a lot to learn in that regard. Once I've picked up a Start Collecting set and gone from there I guess I will know more.

I can't imagine I will get too involved in competitive play, but it's always nice to have that option isn't it.

I do have a little idea but I'm not sure it will work given the info you guys have given me. Basically there a one or two cool models I've seen over the years that I've always fancied picking up from the fantasy range. The Cairn Wraith, The Lord of Plagues, and The Slaughter Priest being examples.
Basically I was thinking of making a small band of heroes who had been trapped in the realm of death, and forced into the service of Nagash, then building a suitable death themed army around them. So they'd be painted up to look like they'd spent way too long in the afterlife, and were working to free themselves or something.

Now from what you're all saying I can mix and match factions just fine, but in certain styles of play I need to be careful about how many types of certain units I use, just like in a CAD in 40k for example.

 General Kroll wrote:
Thanks again folks, I've downloaded the primer and I'm going to start there.

Thanks for the heads up on the Death book I will hold off on that for now then.

As for battle line, heros etc I have a lot to learn in that regard. Once I've picked up a Start Collecting set and gone from there I guess I will know more.

I can't imagine I will get too involved in competitive play, but it's always nice to have that option isn't it.

I do have a little idea but I'm not sure it will work given the info you guys have given me. Basically there a one or two cool models I've seen over the years that I've always fancied picking up from the fantasy range. The Cairn Wraith, The Lord of Plagues, and The Slaughter Priest being examples.
Basically I was thinking of making a small band of heroes who had been trapped in the realm of death, and forced into the service of Nagash, then building a suitable death themed army around them. So they'd be painted up to look like they'd spent way too long in the afterlife, and were working to free themselves or something.

Now from what you're all saying I can mix and match factions just fine, but in certain styles of play I need to be careful about how many types of certain units I use, just like in a CAD in 40k for example.

Keep your ear to the ground. We've had rumors for quite some time now concerning a Death-themed Silver Tower expansion that would likely be right in line with that.