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On Monday, I will be playing my first game of AoS, something I've been wanting to do since the game came out but for various reasons never got around to. Assuming that goes well, it looks like my next army project will be an AoS one, so before I start planning for that, I just want to run a few things past those with a little more experience of the game.

The idea behind the force I'd be building is a ragtag group of survivors that find themselves thrown together by chance, fate and an overwhelming curiosity to investigate the big, shiny Realmagates just a little too closely... This group would have Men, Elves, Dwarves, perhaps even Undead, maybe some Ogres and Orcs... basically, anything is fair game as far as fluff goes; this band of warriors, adventurers and hired hands are joined together in a common quest to work out what the hell is actually going on and get back home without being horribly killed by... well, everything really....

In practical terms, this means small units, a high proportion of characters, all kinds of factions thrown together, my questions basically revolve around whether this is going to 'work' in game. I'm not at all interested in competitiveness, just functionality of the army.

1) Am I shooting myself in the foot straight away by mixing armies up like this? AoS seems very heavy on unit synergies, will I be losing this if I generally only take 1-2 units and a hero from any given army? Are there many abilities that function across factions?

2) How useful are small units? I know larger units often get benefits, but would, say, a dozen Empire State Troops get blasted off the board too soon to even be worth deploying? I'm not expecting them to be game-changing on their own, I just don't want to be putting units down then picking them up again straight away.

3) This army will probably be quite light on big scary monsters, though it will have a lot of heroes and wizards. Will the lack of anything huge and stompy be a detriment, or just a challenge should the enemy bring one?

4) Likewise, my initial plans don't feature a huge number of missile troops, how essential are they, and will I be at a significant disadvantage without them?

That's about it for now, I'll probably have some more questions after the game and once I know what (if any) comp systems or house rules my group generally employ. In the mean time, any answers to the above, or general tips on starting AoS, would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Answers to the best of my knowledge below:
1)

will I be losing this if I generally only take 1-2 units and a hero from any given army? Are there many abilities that function across factions?

A hero and 2-3 units should be enough. An alternative would be 2 heroes and 2 units. Most abilities function primarily within their faction. There are some that function outside of the faction via more general keywords (Khorne, Chaos for example), but they're not that many.

2)

How useful are small units? I know larger units often get benefits, but would, say, a dozen Empire State Troops get blasted off the board too soon to even be worth deploying? I'm not expecting them to be game-changing on their own, I just don't want to be putting units down then picking them up again straight away.

I'd say the minimum safe number to take units in would be:
- 3-5 for multi wound models (stormcast)
- 10 for one wound models - their saves can be boosted by mystic shield so 10 is not a bad size.

3)

This army will probably be quite light on big scary monsters, though it will have a lot of heroes and wizards. Will the lack of anything huge and stompy be a detriment, or just a challenge should the enemy bring one?

Given that hitting and wounding in combat is no longer relative to the fighting units, your actual unit choices shouldn't worry you that much. Given enough time and units you can bring anything down relatively easy. Also, heroes are quite powerful and some are easily capable of taking down monsters on their own.


4)

Likewise, my initial plans don't feature a huge number of missile troops, how essential are they, and will I be at a significant disadvantage without them?

Shooting is powerful in AoS. I'd say take at least one good shooting unit.

Cheers, all good to know. Seems the only area I might run into trouble with my initial selection is in ranged units, but that's easily fixed by adding a unit of Wood Elves or whatever. Same probably goes for cavalry come to think of it, none feature in my initial plan but can be easily added. Hooray for wonderfully non-restrictive army building rules!

I agree with Core. I will add that synergy in terms of keywords and abilities between every unit in your army is not necessary and pretty unwieldy/almost inefficient if you actually tried to achieve it. I find pockets of synergy better, so a hero who buffs one or two units around him all hanging out together. Synergy in the sense of having an army that can deal with different threats is more important.

With that many factions possible in your army though, I think that wouldn't be too hard to achieve. Ogres would help a lot to fill the spot of a big bashy thing.

Small units of one-wound troops are going to die faster (if the opponent targets them), but I think they hold some advantages too. Part of what works in AoS is just like past Warhammer in that you want to overpower your side of the combat compared to the other, so maybe your Empire are in combat with a better unit the opponent has but you also have your archers shooting into them the whole time or a second unit of X charging in.

Big monsters will definitely be a threat that you'll have to think about but if you have a bunch of heroes and wizards, you have ways to buff your troops and deal out mortal wounds.

Go for it.

My advice will depend on the size of the armies you are fighting. I mostly fight army sizes that are 50 models or less. When fighting 50 models or less, you don't get into too many of the unit size bonuses (largest unit that I have seen is 20 models).

I would say most armies I face have minimal cavalry and missile troops; I have yet to face an army that is mostly missile or cavalry. I see more big monsters, but usually only one or two in an army.

It is possible to build a high synergy army, but I wouldn't worry about it. It is more important to build an army you like than to have the perfect combination.

Personally a few small units play as chaff like they always have done.

For my skaven I run a few teams of ratling guns to play as super shooty chaff.
They are too insignificant to assault and too annoying to ignore, buying me time to line up a few nice counter charges.


So small units have a use, but they really get more use from having missile weapons as they will pose a threat then.



I rarely if ever run a monster in my army.
I find that within a turn or 2 I can whittle 2-3 of them down to the point they do next to no damage to me at all.


Troops are solid as always.
Shooting causes alot of damage to say the least.
Magic is very useful and gets better with different spells.





I knocked it heavily to start with until running a points based game.
I've found it runs pretty seamless now and it's a good laugh.

Which army would you be using, Para? Your Skaven or High Aelfs?

Yeah, overall I'm very positive about the game, I've been hoping to play it since it released last year but only now found a gaming group that also plays. The sandbox setting, narrative-driven gameplay and practically limitless variety come together to make a game that is absolutely my style!

Good to know I won't be crippled by mixing and matching factions, I'll probably end up with a hero for every couple of units from each faction included eventually, so in theory there should be at least something for each one to support or buff or whatever.

As a starting force, here's what I'm planning:

Freeguild General
Warrior Priest
Freeguild Guard (12) with Halberds, Banner and Drummer

Anointed
Phoenix Guard (10)

Maybe a Dwarf hero of some kind...
Quarellers/Thunderers (not sure which yet)


So in theory, that covers all the bases, except magic, but I have a fair few Wizards I can re-purpose into the force.After that, I'd expand with some Elven archers (either Sisters of Averlorn or Glade Guard), maybe some Empire Knights or more Dwarf infantry..




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Which army would you be using, Para? Your Skaven or High Aelfs?

As above, basically all sorts, loosely clumped together on the basis that they're all stranded and lost among the Realms, and the only way they can survive is by sticking together and killing anything that gets in their way. There's more on the fluff over on my blog.

Couple more questions, now I've looked into things a little more (and have some minis on the way, so know where the army is going, at least initially).

Big one is can a Warrior Priest use his ability to grant buffs on himself? He has the right keyword, I'm just wondering if there's a standard on whether you're 'in range' of yourself or not for this sort of thing, My current force plan has no other Devoted of Sigmar units, so otherwise his ability is going to waste.

Other one is whether or not small units are worth anything. I have a box of Shadow Warriors/Sisters of Averlorn coming, I was wondering if it'd be better to do one unit of 10 (in which case I'd go for the Sisters) or whether 5 of each could contribute anything meaningful?

In case anyone's interested, my plan for the first part of the force, at 70 Wounds:

Freeguild General on horse (5)
Freeguild General (Battle Standard) (5)
Freeguild Guard (13)
Freeguild Handgunners (12)

Sigmar Warrior Priest (5)

High Elf Prince (5)
Swordsmasters (5)
Sisters of Averlorn (10)
High Elf Spearmen (10)

The plan is then to add 30 Wounds of Undead or Dwarves (not sure which yet) to bring me up to a nice round 100, then revisit and expand a couple of elements. I don't think there's any glaring weaknesses there, but let me know if there are.

 Paradigm wrote:

Big one is can a Warrior Priest use his ability to grant buffs on himself? He has the right keyword, I'm just wondering if there's a standard on whether you're 'in range' of yourself or not for this sort of thing, My current force plan has no other Devoted of Sigmar units, so otherwise his ability is going to waste.

Yes, naturally a unit would be within any distance of itself. This has been also confirmed by the recent FAQ so a priest can indeed use his ability on himself.

Excellent, I can fully realise my idea of a crazed Priest muttering prayers to himself while running around the battlefield, and Sigmar occasionally taking pity on the guy and granting him divine power!

There's the same topic being discussed here.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/689746.page#8631481