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As the title says what do you think is the army that takes the most skills to pilot to victory in Age of Sigmar. I'm an AoS lurker/model purchaser but not a player and this question spun in my head after a few individuals in the 'Why aren't you playing AoS?' thread felt there was no tactics to the game.

So what army requires the most elite, delicious tactics?

Honestly? I would say Kharadron Overlords. The Overlords are low on the power level end of the spectrum right now. It takes a shrewd player to pull out big wins with them. They can be pretty quick and hit hard, but they rely on a lot of 4+s to be effective. This makes them prone to the whims of the dice gods. They also tend to fall apart quickly when engaged in combat. I would throw Wanderers from the GHB in second place (as a highly mobile glass cannon force with few options). I've also heard people in other places mention Idoneth and Daughters of Khaine, but they are firmly upper tier forces right now. Daughters of Khaine, in particular, have the highest current win ratio when balanced against representation at events. You get more LoN forces in the top ten, but that is because they are far more represented by the player base.

That said, there are plenty of tactics and strategies in AoS. Movement and positioning is imperative. You can bait, screen, and flank to your hearts content. Sure the game isn't a perfect simulation of a mass battle, but I don't really think it is meant to be.

Are You asking which race/fraction is hardest to win with or which of currently used popular combo-armies are most dependent to win on one lucky dice roll for initiative after first round?

Post nerf tomb kings actually have a lot of skill involved. The combos, knowing when/how to use Settra as a beat stick, cycling units, and knowing who to give the +1s to hit/wound to requires a lot of knowledge. Not only that, but most your units are really squishy (I say most, not all) but have the potential to hit like a truck.

I hope death rattle play a lot like tomb kings if they ever get expanded. Tomb kings are fun as hell to play, but their current status as unsupported makes me sad.

I don't know about highest, but pure Nighthaunt is up there if you want to play them well. They rely heavily on hit and run and shock and awe tactics. The idea is to use your movement tricks to try and force your opponent to make a bad decision and then capitalize on it.

AverageBoss wrote:
I don't know about highest, but pure Nighthaunt is up there if you want to play them well. They rely heavily on hit and run and shock and awe tactics. The idea is to use your movement tricks to try and force your opponent to make a bad decision and then capitalize on it.

Problem is the strongest thing they have is the free pile-in on a charge of 10+ which is entirely luck dependent. Someone with mediocre skill could play just as well as an expert by virtue of rolling a 10+ at the right time. But bigger than that is having the whole army ignore save modifiers eliminates a big chunk of tactics; they do not care about keeping high save models away from enemy rend, making sure characters have cover, etc. Their mobility is similarly less tactical because the whole army flies (and has reasonably high speed to boot). Like any army Nighthaunt certainly have tactics and perform better at the hands of a skilled player but they are below average in terms of tactical difficulty.


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Zond wrote:
As the title says what do you think is the army that takes the most skills to pilot to victory in Age of Sigmar. I'm an AoS lurker/model purchaser but not a player and this question spun in my head after a few individuals in the 'Why aren't you playing AoS?' thread felt there was no tactics to the game.

So what army requires the most elite, delicious tactics?

Idoneth and Kharadron IMO. Both of them have a lot of nuance to their allegiance abilities, have melee and shooting, cost a lot of points for relatively squishy units, and must capitalize heavily on mobility with a mix of flyers & non-flyers. Kharadron also have the transport capacity element, while Idoneth have their shipwrecks.


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 UnstableDominus wrote:
Honestly? I would say Kharadron Overlords. The Overlords are low on the power level end of the spectrum right now. It takes a shrewd player to pull out big wins with them. They can be pretty quick and hit hard, but they rely on a lot of 4+s to be effective. This makes them prone to the whims of the dice gods. They also tend to fall apart quickly when engaged in combat. I would throw Wanderers from the GHB in second place (as a highly mobile glass cannon force with few options). I've also heard people in other places mention Idoneth and Daughters of Khaine, but they are firmly upper tier forces right now. Daughters of Khaine, in particular, have the highest current win ratio when balanced against representation at events. You get more LoN forces in the top ten, but that is because they are far more represented by the player base.

That said, there are plenty of tactics and strategies in AoS. Movement and positioning is imperative. You can bait, screen, and flank to your hearts content. Sure the game isn't a perfect simulation of a mass battle, but I don't really think it is meant to be.

Wanderers are a good one. I considered mentioning DoK but having seem them played a lot of it is just stacking buffs on one unit and throwing them into combat where they murder everything. And TBF those tournament stats are not reliable until we have something else to support them, because it was based off only GTs that happened within two months of 2nd ed's launch; not enough time for the bulk of players to get new armies together & paint them.

 Jaxler wrote:
Post nerf tomb kings actually have a lot of skill involved. The combos, knowing when/how to use Settra as a beat stick, cycling units, and knowing who to give the +1s to hit/wound to requires a lot of knowledge. Not only that, but most your units are really squishy (I say most, not all) but have the potential to hit like a truck.

I hope death rattle play a lot like tomb kings if they ever get expanded. Tomb kings are fun as hell to play, but their current status as unsupported makes me sad.

I second all of this.

 Niiai wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
Post nerf tomb kings actually have a lot of skill involved. The combos, knowing when/how to use Settra as a beat stick, cycling units, and knowing who to give the +1s to hit/wound to requires a lot of knowledge. Not only that, but most your units are really squishy (I say most, not all) but have the potential to hit like a truck.

I hope death rattle play a lot like tomb kings if they ever get expanded. Tomb kings are fun as hell to play, but their current status as unsupported makes me sad.

I second all of this.

Almost all the units can be good if you apply yourself, which says a lot about the balence

I would argue that list building and understanding how that list works is part of the skillset needed to play the game and that likewise the skill floor is common across players of every army ("OK, I roll a die now? Cool a six. What does that do?")

I'd argue then that the army with the highest gap between that and top tier play are ones that are either built around the summoning mechanic and building up your army to respond to threats based on your understanding of the opponent's composition, or something like Deepkin or Daughters of Khaine, which require you to plan ahead to capitalize on benefits gained depending on game turn.

But there's also armies who have a larger degree of 'swing' in their performance which might be closer to what someone might call 'player skill' if they disclude the picking of the army, writing the list, playing to strengths, etc. Sylvaneth straddle the line between this and the previous group because they have fantastic mobility options with their teleporting forest mechanic but are costed based on the assumption you'll use it all the time, so must use it all the time to compete with beatstick armies.

Personally I've always been impressed with seraphon or Tzeench armies with heavy caster/anti-caster focuses. But those players who stomp me with it are quick to point out that kind of build is meant to counter the kind of army I run.

For Tzeentch and Seraphon the long standing issue is tactical skill being obscured under a thick layer of cheese