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Hey there,
Up until now I've solely been a 40k hobbyist, having a basic grasp of the rules and staying firmly on the side of painting and collecting.
With the arrival of what seems to be the extremely accessible Age of Sigmar I would like to delve into the world of Fantasy, on one condition, that my AoS army be converted, kit bashed and creative!

My ideal army will be small and focused (not endless hordes of monotonous drones), fun, and unique, and that's where you come in!

Which armies are suitable for me? Relatively few models that are open to conversion and customisation?

Any suggestions are welcome, ideas for conversions and links to other themed and unique armies would be helpful too!

Thanks in advance.

Hm. I think that warriors of chaos can be pretty open to conversion. the armies (at least were) rather small, and there's a lot you can do to make the basic soldiers represent one chaos god or another...

I've never been a huge fan of Chaos, it's always appeared as all spikes no substance from the outside looking in.
The Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings appeal but I'm stumped as to how I could change them up and make them unique or themed.

I'm not a big fan of Chaos either, really.

One thing to consider with the undead armies is that AoS might have opened up... what kind of culture they come from, I suppose? Tomb Kings are Egyptian, and VC's are Transylvania, but the backstory of AoS has all of those being long gone, with new empires having risen and fallen in the millenia after.

So you might look to the myths and legends about undead from other cultures, like China or somewhere, and see if you could use that as an inspiration for a unique conversion.

Vague ideas, I know.

Another thing to consider is that you're no longer bound by the old armies. If you want to do a dogs of war style mercenary army pick the units you want from any faction and start converting, I for example am doing a Giant themed Jötunn war clan made uo of giants, ogres, trolls and beasts,

 toasteroven wrote:
Hm. I think that warriors of chaos can be pretty open to conversion. the armies (at least were) rather small, and there's a lot you can do to make the basic soldiers represent one chaos god or another...

Chaos Warriors are absolutely capable of being converted! With a little knife work you can use not only current bits, but also 5th edition plastic Warriors, Chaos Space Marine bits and all sorts of lovely monstrous limbs from things like Tyranids.

People like to complain about how the Warrior bodies are boring and monopose, but with a little work you can turn them into something exciting. Mine sport 5th edition halberds and a variety of non-standard helms. The character model below is made of bits from 6 models all bashed together.

Hmm... So you want something thats probably

<50 models.

Probably ~10 shooters ~10 fighting infantry(the generic type) ~10 elite infantry, 5 heavy cav, Maybe some light cav, and probably some sort of centerpiece war machine or med/large monster

And you want it to be a army type that you can customize the hell out of...

Ive actually been trying to do something similar. But I havent been able to settle on a gw line that Im satisfied with. Some fit the criteria, its just that I find some of gws models lacking. Been looking at other model lines but no luck so far on a fit. Not sure if thats an option for you.

Anyway HE,DE,Chaos fit it out rules/selection wise pretty well. Not sure how you feel about any of them.

Thanks for all of the responses. I think some of the elves have some fantastic models unfortunately I'm at a loss as to how they could be converted.
I'm really keen on making an army based around one of the far off kingdoms that I've just stumbled upon, Cathay, Araby, Ind, Nippon etc etc.
I noticed there are themed ogre man eaters that would fit amazingly into one of those exotic armies, but as I mentioned before I'm unaware as to the legality of just plopping an ogre into another army.
Thanks for the continued feedback!

There are grand alliances but one of the cooler things for AoS is that there is no set way of building an army. Think of a theme, and then select units that suit it.

 MenOfTanith wrote:
Thanks for all of the responses. I think some of the elves have some fantastic models unfortunately I'm at a loss as to how they could be converted.
I'm really keen on making an army based around one of the far off kingdoms that I've just stumbled upon, Cathay, Araby, Ind, Nippon etc etc.
I noticed there are themed ogre man eaters that would fit amazingly into one of those exotic armies, but as I mentioned before I'm unaware as to the legality of just plopping an ogre into another army.
Thanks for the continued feedback!

Yea youre somewhat limited with the elf kits. Especially if youre wanting to go as conversion heavy as Im starting to suspect.

Maybe just pick a theme and find models to build from anywhere and just plug them into the rules later?

edit- there is also the fact that all those old exotic places kinda went boom too you know

All the old exotic places did infact explode but part of the joy of the new realms is that you can invent your own exotic places and almost certainly find a realm in which they fit

 Melcavuk wrote:
There are grand alliances but one of the cooler things for AoS is that there is no set way of building an army. Think of a theme, and then select units that suit it.

Just a word of caution here at the very beginning: while you can take an army with any warscrolls, in-game synergies based around shared keywords, formations should you be interested in running one, and a large number of comp packs (including those to come) that limit your army to a single faction (Chaos, Order, Destruction, Death) are all reasons to consider limiting yourself a smidge. At the very least to a single faction, as the synergy bonuses largely just provide in-game advantage - or in other words, the faction thing can make it tough to play this army you lovingly converted at an event in the first place; the other two just make it better once it's on the table.

- Salvage

Undead I find pretty easy from the conversion angle. Any models from other races can be zombified/skeletized/vampirized. You don't need to have hordes of regular skeletons/zombies either. As a pretty crap converter though, I used to love making extra skeletons because you could basically make a skeleton out of any loose bits, even if you just had one arm coming out of the ground.

Ahh I see! What're the odds of getting a game in my local GW, are people funny like they are when it comes to Unbound 40k?

And with everything going 'boom' does that completely rule out the idea of an exotic theme? If not, I may even go for a Cathay themed Vampire Counts or maybe even a band of elves that have taken on a faraway culture, does that sound feasible?

Naw you can totally do it still. Theyre just from some new place that is awfully similar to the way cathay was is all

At this point you can pretty much claim anything Id say. Just blame it on a wizard.

xevv wrote:
Just blame it on a wizard.

- Salvage

 MenOfTanith wrote:
Ahh I see! What're the odds of getting a game in my local GW, are people funny like they are when it comes to Unbound 40k?

And with everything going 'boom' does that completely rule out the idea of an exotic theme? If not, I may even go for a Cathay themed Vampire Counts or maybe even a band of elves that have taken on a faraway culture, does that sound feasible?

chaos high elves? Always thought its a great idea...

Go skeletons, give them bretonnian bits, make a skeleton king's army and call him Leoric.

Another idea is... ogres. Ogres have billions of conversion bits, especially Ironguts, Thundertusks and Mournfang Cavalry units, and they have one of the best written fluffs in 8th edition. Their kits come with robbed imperial, bretonnian, dwarven and even sky titan junk like shields, helmets, weapons, so you can both use that AND other kits' bits and go bonkers with converting those adorable fat, man-eating violent monsters.

And their numbers are very low - units of 6 ogres are considered big, so with so few models you can really focus on making each one of them a unique hero of his own story.

I immediately think of ogres when the topic of conversions come up. Their whole fluff is perfect for it, especially the maneaters who travel around as mercenaries. If you search around google for converted ogre maneaters you can find tons of amazing stuff.

Well I did a Terracotta Army, TKs and VCs without a single GW figure!
But equally you could use Samurai as Chaos warriors...
Or Elves as fast, accurate Mongols...
The sky's your limit.
And enjoy!
H

 MenOfTanith wrote:
Ahh I see! What're the odds of getting a game in my local GW, are people funny like they are when it comes to Unbound 40k?

And with everything going 'boom' does that completely rule out the idea of an exotic theme? If not, I may even go for a Cathay themed Vampire Counts or maybe even a band of elves that have taken on a faraway culture, does that sound feasible?

Seems to me that you have even more possibilities for exotic themes than ever before. Since everything has been destroyed and scattered, you can basically make up your own realm that suits your fancy and convert away to make something truly unique.

Ogres? Giants? Both are small forces, so you can definitely give each a real character.

Something to remember is some of the people from the old world survived. So you still can go with a theme