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So with the update saying in summer there will be three ways to play, and my local GW planning on doing a league and campaign (hopefully around that time) I've started to get a little interested in this. I read a bit of the fluff, it's not THAT bad although definitely campy. Also I really like how the Stormcasts look, I mean really really like them. My problem comes from the fluff, because it seems like you can't have Order vs. Order because they are aligned against Chaos? And, of course, narrative wise you can't have Stormcasts fighting each other (which I felt is a HUGE mistake; I feel similar in 40k with Marines where an outright war would never happen barring things like the Badab War or the Heresy itself). That's the main thing bugging me because I really want to play Stormcasts if possible, just the idea of having to handwave battles against other people playing Order or other Stormcast players makes me sad because it takes away the entire narrative part. HOWEVER, I also do like me some Khorne guys, and they would likely be another army.

So first questions: Background-wise how exactly are the Grand Alliances meant to work? Are they actually allied, in other words would Stormcasts attack.. umm.. Sylvaneth (I think that's the Wood Elves)? How about against other alliances other than Chaos? I mean sure Orruks would pillage and destroy and need to be stopped, but how about Nagash and friends? I can think of reasons they want to show up and do bad things and need to be stopped, it's just like Stormcasts vs. Seraphon or whatever that is like "Why are we fighting when there's Undead/Chaos/others to deal with?" and it seems to break the immersion.

Second: from a gameplay standpoint how are the new Khorne guys, Bloodbound or whatever (blooddrinkers bleeding bloody blood etc.)? They look awesome. I like them almost as much as Stormcasts.

Third: Since I like both of those, the boxed game is my best bet? I'm likely not getting into it until July at the earliest if I ultimately choose to.

Fourth: What exactly are the Realmgate War things, fluff books? Campaign books? Both?

WayneTheGame wrote:

So first questions: Background-wise how exactly are the Grand Alliances meant to work? Are they actually allied, in other words would Stormcasts attack.. umm.. Sylvaneth (I think that's the Wood Elves)?

Such battles have happened in the books mostly due to misunderstanding.

How about against other alliances other than Chaos? I mean sure Orruks would pillage and destroy and need to be stopped, but how about Nagash and friends?

Nagash is self-centric, power hungry and doesn't like it at all when others try and mingle in his affairs. The domains of Death are sacrosanct and he still can't forgive Sigmar about forging the Stormcast.

I can think of reasons they want to show up and do bad things and need to be stopped, it's just like Stormcasts vs. Seraphon or whatever that is like "Why are we fighting when there's Undead/Chaos/others to deal with?" and it seems to break the immersion.

In lore reasons will present themselves soon enough. I can come up with some if you want them though

Second: from a gameplay standpoint how are the new Khorne guys, Bloodbound or whatever (blooddrinkers bleeding bloody blood etc.)? They look awesome. I like them almost as much as Stormcasts.

Very hard hitting with buffs that boost mostly their killing capability. Their survivability lacks compared to the stormcast, though.

Third: Since I like both of those, the boxed game is my best bet? I'm likely not getting into it until July at the earliest if I ultimately choose to.

The boxed game is your best bet at the moment, yes.

Fourth: What exactly are the Realmgate War things, fluff books? Campaign books? Both?

Both. The fluff within is a summarized version of the events portrayed in the books. The battleplans (scenarios) are custom missions designed to re-enact these events.

I might have missed something, but I get the feeling the grand alliances are more convenient groupings for army types than actual allied armies, especially in all cases but Order.

The Fyreslayers work for anyone who gives them ur-gold. They talk a lot in the books about chaos fighting each other. Destruction all fight each other of course. The Stormcast ally with undead in the books. They haven't gotten around to any narrative that supports Stormcast vs Stormcast or the people of Azyr fighting Stormcast yet, though. I think that's because of the point we're at narratively - maybe when the good guys get more of a hold in the realms infighting will break out. But I get kind of a sinister vibe from the Stormcast myself, and I think it's only a matter of time before they make less-good ones who other Stormcast don't like too much.

If you like Khorne and Stormcast, the boxed set is the way to go. It's commonly said the Khorne side relies on more synergy while the Stormcast are more simple to play. Russ on Facehammer, who is involved in the point system announced today, has talked about his tactics with Khorne a lot and how he uses waves of units to break the enemy. Wrath mongers are really cool with their rule that makes the enemy attack itself, so they can take out huge monsters with ease when they start hitting themselves.

The Realmgate War campaign books (there are pure novel books too) are the expensive hardback books and contain fluff, scenarios, times of war, pictures and war scrolls. I think the last one was set up to basically tell a story throughout and then after each major battle in the story give a scenario to recreate a similar battle.

I haven't plunged for a campaign book yet but would like to. The podcasts do a really good job of covering the fluff, though.

Go for it! I hope there are many others like yourself too and the scene really grows!

Both Sigmarines and the Bloodbound Gang benefit from having lots of synergy and keyword combos available making for some very fun armies.

 Bottle wrote:
Go for it! I hope there are many others like yourself too and the scene really grows!

Both Sigmarines and the Bloodbound Gang benefit from having lots of synergy and keyword combos available making for some very fun armies.

I know the GW store is talking about doing stuff, so we will see. I mean.. I feel excited. I haven't felt excited about a GW game in forever, although I always had a lingering "Hmm maybe I'll play 40k again" thought for.. oh about 10 years now. So hopefully it'll be worth it. Just have to wait for some real-world stuff to settle down first in the summer.

it's not THAT bad although definitely campy

First off, this is the best summary of AoS fluff I have ever read.

Secondly, Stormcast do fight Stormcast but not 'for real' in a sense. While not directly covered anywhere, it is mentioned numerous times how the Stormcast fight each other in mock battles for training and to attain certain positions. For example, in one novel a Knight Heraldor thinks back on how he earned his position in the [insert fancy-name for arena] battles. I dimly remember a reference somewhere to army-on-army battles like this for training the Stormcast commanders in tactics and such. Presumably these battles aren't lethal, but it is Stormcast-v-Stormcast.

As for the rest, the above posters pretty much said it. Worth note that even the Order grand alliance isn't all good guys. Sigmar will ally with literally anyone as long as the oppose chaos (read: Nagash) and the fluff for some of the groups in Order is far from morally uplifting, particularly for the Dark-Elf-descended factions.

Dark Elves were kinda tempting, they were my first WHFB army back in 1995 or so when I started (5th edition I think) so playing them would have brought me full circle. But I want something that has more updates and doesn't seem like it's just kind of thrown in for the sake of not completely alienating the old players. Also like I said I really really have started to like the Stormcast look, especially the ones with those cool wings.

I was just using them as an example, I believe the other posters' advice to go with the starter kit is on-point.

In the audiodrama when the stormcast meet nagash for the first time. It did not end well for them this is a line from the audiodrama.

"THEY DO NOT BELONG TO SIGMAR. SIGMAR THE DECEIVER. SIGMAR THE BARBARIAN. SIGMAR THE TRAITOR. WHO ALMOST COST AN UNDYING KING HIS KINGDOM."

Nagash wants to murder all the other gods and become the supreme god of all he even talks about how he will own Khorne and he is good at speeches.

Yeah, just as it was in the old world, Order doesn't mean nice guys who get along. They just hate eachother less than they hate everyone else.

Stormcasts can certainly be put into a scenario where they're fighting eachother. Since they go back to Sigmar when slain their death might even be a critical necessity, such as if they're possessed or so far gone from their humanity that they're willing to do ruthless things that a group of fresh Stormcast would oppose. (I.e. kill a allied general suspected of being a traitor or weak link, burn a city of innocents that may be daemon-worshippers, cull the ranks of "doubters" or mercenaries that could turn.)

Of course you can reverse it were the "hollowed" Stormcast are protecting a village on old orders and the new Stormcast come in to burn it because those people angered Sigmar or showed a slight taint.

Sigmar can be pretty ruthless in this setting so it's your choice on his orders being Noble Warrior God or Fickle War God orders.

There's also the (iirc) Gladiatorium which was a gift from one of the aelven bunch - it sounds like a Star Trek holodeck where the Stormcast fight to the death, and the arena 'resets' them once there's only 1 left standing.
So that's an absolute fluff example.

Well, I can worry about that later. I don't even know how the game plays. Maybe I should ask for a demo at the GW shop when I have the money to buy the boxed set; they love that kinda stuff (or are supposed to). The Khorne guys look cool, and I was thinking of Daemonkin in 40k once upon a time too... could be interesting fluffwise to do that and have it basically be the same warband in both games, since the Warp/Realm of Chaos transcends space and time and all that.

Let me say this - the default scenario in the rules is awful. Use scenarios for all that is good and right in the world. If you base your opinion on the game based off of the default scenario, it is unfairly going to be painted negatively.

 auticus wrote:
Let me say this - the default scenario in the rules is awful. Use scenarios for all that is good and right in the world. If you base your opinion on the game based off of the default scenario, it is unfairly going to be painted negatively.

Thanks for that. I have to say I'm used to that from Warmachine (the scenarios in the book are absolute garbage, you basically need to play "tournament" scenarios to have things fair). One of the things I'm enthralled about, honestly, is the notion if the game is flexible enough to come up with custom scenarios for the "narrative". Like maybe using some minor baseline but then coming up with specific objectives for each side, special rules for the setup, things like that.

Yes the game is very easy for you to make your own scenarios and there are a LOT of scenarios that GW has published in various books that you can get either by buying the book, OR by buying the scenario on the app.

As a narrative gamer, that is one of the primary reasons why I like AOS.

 auticus wrote:
Yes the game is very easy for you to make your own scenarios and there are a LOT of scenarios that GW has published in various books that you can get either by buying the book, OR by buying the scenario on the app.

As a narrative gamer, that is one of the primary reasons why I like AOS.

Have to say I'm not a narrative gamer (I've never really seen anyone who played that way, even back in the old days of WHFB and 40k it was never narrative) but that's one of the things that has me curious about AOS. I tried to play Warmachine competitive (I sucked at it lol) and I found I was missing the "cool" aspect, being able to theme things and name my guys and in general feel like the battle was part of something and not just a random fight for the sake of playing a game. Especially after reading some old books about old wargaming (like Tony Bath and Featherstone) it really got the mind working about how cool it would be to actually play a campaign or narrative series of games like that. That thought (pipe dream though it likely is) is what got me curious about playing GW games again, if I were to not play them in a competitive style at all but laid back and encourage others to do the same.

I hear ya. Most people have not seen what narrative gaming really is unless they happen to wargame back in the 80s.

After many years of doing it where I am it finally caught on but it was an uphill battle.

I live for narrative campaigns. Thats why I am in this hobby.