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So as I said in my intro post, I have not yet began playing, but of the two Armies I watched back when AoS was Fantasy, Skaven and Vampires are among the top of my list of things I wanted to play.

Now, as I've peeked, I see things have been simplified(?) in terms of army lists. Seems theres three now, consisting of the main armies? If I'm correct? Skaven seem easy to pick and choose which ones are which, since kind of hard to mix up Rats with anything else, though Vampires seem more difficult now as it seems all the undead are just locked together?

Regardless, which of these may be easier for a fresh and new player to the system to get into? And any recommendations on tossing an army together for a newbie?

I would choose VC, I liek there play stay more, summoning did get nerfed hard but i still think they are a great army.

There are four main groupings called "Grand Alliances": Order, Chaos, Death, and Destruction. You can make an army with any units from within the group. Skaven are now part of Chaos and VC are now part of Death.

These groups are further divided into factions. Skaven are divided into several based on the old clans eg clan eshin, clan skyre. The old VC units have been divided into several of the death factions but Vampires themselves are now part of the Soulblight faction.

You can combine different factions in the same army as long as they are from the same grand alliance but there are some perks if you stick to the one faction such as unique abilities and being able to count some elite choices as troops etc.

So ideally sounds like I should do VC. But try to stick to one faction for the perks, like a full Soulblight army?

Stacesune wrote:
So ideally sounds like I should do VC. But try to stick to one faction for the perks, like a full Soulblight army?

The whole thing with giving you a perk if you stick to one faction is still pretty new, being introduced really with the generals handbook and Sylvaneth battletome. Most factions don't reply have any perks yet but this could change in the near future.

I don't play Death so I'm probably not the best person to give you advice here. I think it might be worth a read looking through the factions under the Death section on the link below:

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Age_of_Sigmar/Tactics#Death

Often certain units become "Battleline" (core for fantasy, troops for 40k) if you only take the units from a sub faction. Eg. Stormfiends and Poisoned win globadiers become core if you only take clan skryre.

Sometimes a sub faction doesn't give you the option, so it won't matter.

AoS has also gone to even further extremes than 40k in that you can freely take anything from your alliance as long as you've got 1 leader (Hero/HQ) and 2 battleline (Core/Troops) in 1k points. Chaos grand alliance could have a Chaos lord on manticore, a unit of pink horrors, a unit of ungors, a warp lightning cannon and a hellcannon and be totally legal.

Having said that, if you want to play pure/mainly VC or Skaven, I'd suggest that VC would be the stronger option, though stormfiends as troops, an arch warplock and some WLC's would be pretty tough.

Half of these terms are lost on me so i feel I do need to do some research. Still incredibly new to both 40k and AoS. But I am a major theme jockeys So I like to stick with one theme rather then take fifty xD

Stacesune wrote:
Half of these terms are lost on me so i feel I do need to do some research. Still incredibly new to both 40k and AoS. But I am a major theme jockeys So I like to stick with one theme rather then take fifty xD

You should do A LOT of research. One big part of AoS is synergy (certain units working well with other certain units). Have a good list put together and if you want have people state their opinions and make corrections.

Its good to have a solid list before you start buying so you don't want your money on troops you don't use.

Well I was considering getting the Start Collecting box and the army book, but I think I'll grab a copy of the Death book and build up a list and submit it since I know nothing (Jon Snow)