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Hi all,

I'm a long time modeller who wants to -maybe- get stuck in a little with finally having a game with some Darkoath, but I have no idea about how units work.

Like, my aim is to have 40 darkoath infantry ready - but I don't really want 4 banners and 4 musicians - I'd much rather have two groups of 20, or even one giant horde of 40. If this doable? Is it wise, if it even is doable?

And how to war queens fit into all this? are the just independent wanderers, or do they replace the normal leader in a "squad" of darkoath?

I know these questions reek of someone who hasn't done their homework, but I'd love some help all the same.

Thank you!

I'll be honest - I HATE GW's approach to requiring you to take 4 banners and 4 musicians per full squad of infantry or cavalry. It never looks right and its a shame they couldn't just bring the old "if the banner dies swap it with another model in the team as they pick it up" which is what the old system was in rank and file.

It just looks all kinds of wrong - heck for cavalry it ends up looking really silly as most of them are only 5 models strong so you're looking at nearly half playing instruments and waving banners in the air on the battlefield

Does that mean you can merge up to 4 kits together to make a single unit?

Porsenna wrote:
Does that mean you can merge up to 4 kits together to make a single unit?

That is a good question - and unfortunately it has been quite some time since I built the Darkoath kit.

However, most GW kits these days do not force you into having musician and standard bearer models, and I think the Marauders fall into this. So, you can build blocks of 20 (or 40!) and have just one musician and one standard bearer. However, the unit leader is quite imposing and will I seem to remember that there is an alternative build for her, the not-leaders are going to look a bit too similar. You might be able to shield that with a clever paint scheme or slight conversion.

That said, I found this unit to have really characterful models, in a way that I have not seen in a 'basic' unit for quite some time.

Hopefully someone will chime in to confirm (or deny!) the alternate musician/standard thing.

https://assets.warhammer-community.com/eng_aos_core&key_the-rules_apr25-t7q3fbv0zb-bit50crc5k.pdf

See P.36, section 3.3, Reinforced Units.
You may purchase a unit at double the listed strength for twice the pts.
So the max # of Marauders in a squad would be 20.

P.39, Command Models
They keep using the word could & talking about the proportion of models in the unit that may be champions/Musicians/Standards
This implies that you could have 0, 1, or 2 of each in a reinforced unit.

ccs wrote:
https://assets.warhammer-community.com/eng_aos_core&key_the-rules_apr25-t7q3fbv0zb-bit50crc5k.pdf

See P.36, section 3.3, Reinforced Units.
You may purchase a unit at double the listed strength for twice the pts.
So the max # of Marauders in a squad would be 20.

P.39, Command Models
They keep using the word could & talking about the proportion of models in the unit that may be champions/Musicians/Standards
This implies that you could have 0, 1, or 2 of each in a reinforced unit.

Is there any game play benefit to not taking 2 of each? Or is the best game play decision to always have two unit champions, standards, and musicians?

Porsenna wrote:

ccs wrote:
https://assets.warhammer-community.com/eng_aos_core&key_the-rules_apr25-t7q3fbv0zb-bit50crc5k.pdf

See P.36, section 3.3, Reinforced Units.
You may purchase a unit at double the listed strength for twice the pts.
So the max # of Marauders in a squad would be 20.

P.39, Command Models
They keep using the word could & talking about the proportion of models in the unit that may be champions/Musicians/Standards
This implies that you could have 0, 1, or 2 of each in a reinforced unit.

Is there any game play benefit to not taking 2 of each? Or is the best game play decision to always have two unit champions, standards, and musicians?

champions are usually limited to 1.
im not sure if you can snipe standards and musicians so that alone may be the only reason to take more than one, so you dont lose their benefits.

Porsenna wrote:
Hi all,

I'm a long time modeller who wants to -maybe- get stuck in a little with finally having a game with some Darkoath, but I have no idea about how units work.

Like, my aim is to have 40 darkoath infantry ready - but I don't really want 4 banners and 4 musicians - I'd much rather have two groups of 20, or even one giant horde of 40. If this doable? Is it wise, if it even is doable?

And how to war queens fit into all this? are the just independent wanderers, or do they replace the normal leader in a "squad" of darkoath?

I know these questions reek of someone who hasn't done their homework, but I'd love some help all the same.

Thank you!

The Darkoath range is really characterful.

With unit upgrades I have found this edition that it is important to read the fine print in the book. A Darkoath Marauders unit can have one Champion, one Musician per 10 models and one Standard Bearer per 10 models. The unit can be Reinforced, meaning you go to 20 models. In this case, one can be a Champion and you can have two Musicians and two Standard Bearers. The advantage of having extra Musicians and Standard Bearers is that you might find in a fight that casualty removal and coherency rules can mean choosing a Musician or Standard Bearer to be a casualty. Having an extra of each means that you can still have their benefits if you have to lose one. So you can freely build Darkoath Marauder kits with a Standard Bearer and Musician from each box, but if you a strict whysiwger then you need to choose with the Champion models (there are ways around that though!).

The War Queen is a Hero. She can lead a Regiment that includes Darkoath Warriors and any other Darkoath units. Age of Sigmar list construction in 4th Ed is centred around Regiments that tend to have certain units being unlocked by certain Heroes that share keywords. Each Regiment has to have a Hero and can then have up to three more units (except the General's Regiment that can have a fourth). The Warhammer Community site has a free download with the Battle Profiles for each army that state which Heroes can take which units in their Regiments. Of note, the recent update now allows Chaos Lords (there are three types) to have Darkoath units in their Regiments. If this all seems confusing, its because it is! There are some good Youtube videos, though, that can guide you through this in general terms (Honest Wargamer being one).

The War Queen does not "join" the units in her Regiment, but she has some buffs for them. She doesn't have to stay near the units in her Regiment, but one of her buffs is a 12" aura.

Thank you all! This has been wonderful!