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I was deciding between continue building my Stormcast Eternals force after the start collecting or getting a small Ad Mech force.

I have played a few games at home with the AoS stuff and in between the ToWounds and AP, I like AP better since it feels like it adds a better strategic approach.

It is good that AoS is a bit more simplistic than 40k but I am leaning more towards just sticking with 40k.

I live in a big city where I can find games for both so popularity wouldnt be a concern, although it would be 10x easier to find 40k games.

Lastly, lore-wise also 40k is way better for me. I listen to the first book in the AoS series and parts of it was a bit cheese.

Sounds you've already made up your mind?

Both games are very similar, but each game has its problems.

Personally, I would always pick AoS over 40k because nothing 40k adds or changes to the very similar core rules is any improvement to the game, and I had way more games that were over by round 2 in 40k than in AoS.

The Realmwars books ARE weak. They are mostly made to be stories that were in the campaign books and were focused around stormcast basically being Mary Sue incarnate and driving back the forces of chaos.

So they are very much focused on one faction and on that one faction winning a lot of fights and on that faction being the best of the best - able to march for days without food or water; then climb a mountain whilst fighting then fight a battle at the top then charge across a molten lake of silver and siege a fortress.

All before breakfast



A lot of it the stories which have come later have been a vast improvement. Pestilens, The Novella stories, Gotrek audio novels and stories etc.. There's a lot of better stories as the setting has opened more up; as the BL authors have become more used to the setting. Heck Stormcast don't even feature in every story now and there's a lot more diversity on show. It actually beats 40K where if you want stories about factions other than marines/Imperials you've honestly very few choices. Even Orks and Eldar have very few of their own perspective stories. Most are "Marines VS Xenos"

 Hanskrampf wrote:
Sounds you've already made up your mind?

Personally, I would always pick AoS over 40k because nothing 40k adds or changes to the very similar core rules is any improvement to the game, and I had way more games that were over by round 2 in 40k than in AoS.

So are you saying that AoS core rules > 40k core rules?

Is imbalance what you hate about 40k?

Do a Daemons army - you can use it for both :-)

Moriarty wrote:
Do a Daemons army - you can use it for both :-)

Deamons currently work differently between the two games. In AoS each Demon army is now stand alone. Instead of being one united army they are four distinct armies which can't even ally in all other demons (eg Slaanesh and Khorne can't ally each other). I will be interested to see if GW does the same in 40K in 9th edition - splitting the demon armies into individual armies and then perhaps pairing them with their respective Chaos Warrior block as well.

AoS has this really terrible rule where you roll off at the beginning of each battle round island whoever wins go first. Alternating first turn at top of battle round is terrible, play 40k.

gundam wrote:
So are you saying that AoS core rules > 40k core rules?

Well.... While there's command abilities there's none of the strat spam. And I don't (generally) have to put up with the 40k silliness of vehicles not having fire arcs. And the rules are more stable. Things don't shift every few months via FAQ/Errata.
There's also less FW stuff to be angry about being dropped.

gundam wrote:
Is imbalance what you hate about 40k?

They both have their fair share of imbalance.
That said, I've only ever had two AoS games end on turn two. One because I failed to take a sudden death victory condition into act & accidently left an opening (Doh! Stupid me.) The second was an early week league game where my foe only had 4 small melee units & I had all ranged stuff - I shot one down turn 1, another on turn two, & 50% of a third on turn two. He couldn't hold enough objectives after that.


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 Void__Dragon wrote:
AoS has this really terrible rule where you roll off at the beginning of each battle round island whoever wins go first. Alternating first turn at top of battle round is terrible, play 40k.

Outside of a tourney setting this is easily fixed. You & your opponent simply decide to use alternating & not roll. It's what my buddy & I do.
I can play it either way. He HATES the rolling for turn. Ok, we'll alternate 40k style.

You do have to roll off to see who moves the first predatory spell each turn though.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
AoS has this really terrible rule where you roll off at the beginning of each battle round island whoever wins go first. Alternating first turn at top of battle round is terrible, play 40k.

Oh that is right! I have been busy assembling terrain and playing kill team size games with my UMs that I forgot about that!

Thanks!

 Void__Dragon wrote:
AoS has this really terrible rule where you roll off at the beginning of each battle round island whoever wins go first. Alternating first turn at top of battle round is terrible, play 40k.

It is a rule I have come to like as it means you can't predictable expect to do things sequentially. This means you'll have to think about your moves with that in mind that on that roll you can lose the initiative. AoS also has a much better melee system with none of that Alpha melee in 40k so you actually have to think about how you allocate your attacks to maximize potential.

Overall I think AoS is in a better state than 40k even if I enjoy both games immensely.

ccs wrote:

gundam wrote:
So are you saying that AoS core rules > 40k core rules?

Well.... While there's command abilities there's none of the strat spam. And I don't (generally) have to put up with the 40k silliness of vehicles not having fire arcs. And the rules are more stable. Things don't shift every few months via FAQ/Errata.
There's also less FW stuff to be angry about being dropped.

gundam wrote:
Is imbalance what you hate about 40k?

They both have their fair share of imbalance.
That said, I've only ever had two AoS games end on turn two. One because I failed to take a sudden death victory condition into act & accidently left an opening (Doh! Stupid me.) The second was an early week league game where my foe only had 4 small melee units & I had all ranged stuff - I shot one down turn 1, another on turn two, & 50% of a third on turn two. He couldn't hold enough objectives after that.

I have seen probably like 40+ battlereports, half of them live and I have never seen a 40k game end before turn 3, let alone 2.

I do like the simplicity of AoS and the models are probably a little better design wise. Ideally I was looking forward to play in tourneys. Not looking to be sweaty but just want to meet people.

With the roll off for turn, AoS would be a casual game for me. I would hate to play with that rule in tourneys or with random people at stores.At first I was ok with it, but the more I thought about it the more wack it seems.


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 Eldarsif wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
AoS has this really terrible rule where you roll off at the beginning of each battle round island whoever wins go first. Alternating first turn at top of battle round is terrible, play 40k.

It is a rule I have come to like as it means you can't predictable expect to do things sequentially. This means you'll have to think about your moves with that in mind that on that roll you can lose the initiative. AoS also has a much better melee system with none of that Alpha melee in 40k so you actually have to think about how you allocate your attacks to maximize potential.

Overall I think AoS is in a better state than 40k even if I enjoy both games immensely.

Granted I have only played a few games of both, but given To Wound characteristic, it feels to me that the Melee in 40k is better, given the extra factor of AP


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Moriarty wrote:
Do a Daemons army - you can use it for both :-)

I m more of a robot guy than a demon dude, otherwise I would have considered that

It depends what you want from a game. AOS is a much simpler, less competitively-focused rules system that is more about having a laugh with your mates over some beers. There's still strategy for sure, don't get me wrong - but it's not like 40k, where the best player with the best list will more often than not win even a 1000-person event.

The lore is also a bit of a joke (not that 40k is much better on that front, lately, mind you). If you like super hero movies you'll probably be fine with it, it's very much in that vein - super over the top.

yukishiro1 wrote:
It depends what you want from a game. AOS is a much simpler, less competitively-focused rules system that is more about having a laugh with your mates over some beers. There's still strategy for sure, don't get me wrong - but it's not like 40k, where the best player with the best list will more often than not win even a 1000-person event.

The lore is also a bit of a joke (not that 40k is much better on that front, lately, mind you). If you like super hero movies you'll probably be fine with it, it's very much in that vein - super over the top.

yeah I think you can be just as chill with 40k but the simpler rule set does help.

Yeah the one AoS audiobook I listened to was a bit cheese lol

Oh for sure, 40k doesn't have to be played competitively at all. But the converse is that competitive AOS isn't really, well, all that competitive. If you played the same 100-man event 5 times in a row with exactly the same match-ups and nothing but the dice rolls different, you'd end up with very different results, whereas in 40k the tables would look pretty similar, maybe a couple places changed here and there.

You keep metioning AP in 40k as a plus, but AoS has exactly the same rule with Rend.

 Hanskrampf wrote:
You keep metioning AP in 40k as a plus, but AoS has exactly the same rule with Rend.

I meant S vs T, I just got it confused with AP and Rend

I mean, if you like 40k more, get a 40k army. Pretty simple.

I have both, because my wife likes Seraphon, so I keep a KO/Cities/Stormcast army to play with her.

Just do whatever will bring you the most joy!

Edit: I will add, that if your only army is start collecting Stormcast, that maybe you haven't experienced all AoS has to offer. I started with Stormcast and. . . they're really bland and outright bad aside from a couple units. You gotta at least try or watch someone play some of the more out-there armies in AoS like Idoneth Deepkin or Kharadron Overlords.

Quasistellar wrote:
I mean, if you like 40k more, get a 40k army. Pretty simple.

I have both, because my wife likes Seraphon, so I keep a KO/Cities/Stormcast army to play with her.

Just do whatever will bring you the most joy!

Edit: I will add, that if your only army is start collecting Stormcast, that maybe you haven't experienced all AoS has to offer. I started with Stormcast and. . . they're really bland and outright bad aside from a couple units. You gotta at least try or watch someone play some of the more out-there armies in AoS like Idoneth Deepkin or Kharadron Overlords.

Stormcast seem pretty vanilla, played a few games and they were ok.

I say 40K, but that's because I strongly dislike AoS.

Take my advice with a grain of salt.

 Mmmpi wrote:
I say 40K, but that's because I strongly dislike AoS.

Take my advice with a grain of salt.

thats fair, I think AoS advantages are the beautiful newer models but once you start playing, I think 40k is just better overall

Seeing as I dislike AoS, 40k for sure. Admech is a pretty fun army too, and from what few Battle reps I've seen AoS is offensively shallow as a an actual game. Not that 40k is very complex or deep but it beats AoS by a landslide.

It comes down to which you will enjoy more. I've never played AoS, but I've always considered it. One reason I never picked it up is it doesn't get as nearly as much support as 40k. To me this means if the army I play is hot garbage for the current edition, it's unlikely to change for a several years. This puts a real nasty taste in my mouth. Though from what I hear even the bad AoS armies can play ok.

I will say it would be nice to have 2 different games to choose from incase you get burned out on 40k, or can't find a game......actually I may have talked myself into picking up AoS if I start another army

 Eldarsif wrote:

It is a rule I have come to like as it means you can't predictable expect to do things sequentially. This means you'll have to think about your moves with that in mind that on that roll you can lose the initiative. AoS also has a much better melee system with none of that Alpha melee in 40k so you actually have to think about how you allocate your attacks to maximize potential.

Overall I think AoS is in a better state than 40k even if I enjoy both games immensely.

Or it an force you into gakky scenarios where you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

My first game was a 2v2 team game where I played Blades of Khorne. I went first but I knew for an absolute fact I had zero chance of getting into combat turn 1, so if I moved aggressively I would have been blasted by Seraphon as well as having at least one Bloodthirster dunked off the board in combat. So I moved conservatively and managed to mostly weather a turn of shooting and not get charged, with most of the wounds I took being from that one Slann psychic power that mortal wound dunks globally.

I had everything measured out and knew that turn 1 I could counter attack, and I had the Khorne subfaction or battalion or whatever it is that lets all Bloodthirsters who charged fight first in the combat phase.

Instead they got the first turn in the second battle round, I took more mortal wounds to the ass before I could do anything, and Skarbrand was charged by a giant and one-shot.

The only correct play in hindsight would have been to have pulled my forces way back to keep from getting charged in their second turn, but conversely if I then got first turn in that battle round I'd have wasted the first battle round doing nothing. It's not only a bad rule, it might be the worst rule of any game I have ever played, ever.

 l0k1 wrote:
...I will say it would be nice to have 2 different games to choose from incase you get burned out on 40k, or can't find a game......actually I may have talked myself into picking up AoS if I start another army

I feel like this is the strongest argument here; expanding outside one game system lets you play more games/more people, while buying a second 40k army just lets you play the same game with the same people slightly differently.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

My first game was a 2v2 team game where I played Blades of Khorne. I went first but I knew for an absolute fact I had zero chance of getting into combat turn 1, so if I moved aggressively I would have been blasted by Seraphon as well as having at least one Bloodthirster dunked off the board in combat. So I moved conservatively and managed to mostly weather a turn of shooting and not get charged, with most of the wounds I took being from that one Slann psychic power that mortal wound dunks globally.

I had everything measured out and knew that turn 1 I could counter attack, and I had the Khorne subfaction or battalion or whatever it is that lets all Bloodthirsters who charged fight first in the combat phase.

Instead they got the first turn in the second battle round, I took more mortal wounds to the ass before I could do anything, and Skarbrand was charged by a giant and one-shot.

Let me guess, Skar was running around at the bleeding edge of your force unsupported.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
The only correct play in hindsight would have been to have pulled my forces way back to keep from getting charged in their second turn, but conversely if I then got first turn in that battle round I'd have wasted the first battle round doing nothing. It's not only a bad rule, it might be the worst rule of any game I have ever played, ever.

Hmm. That's not the only correct play.
Screening, it's not just a 40k concept.... You can take advantage of piling into combats. Keep something nasty about 1.75 inches behind a thin red line of chaff. Let the foe hit your screen. Sure, you don't get a charge bonus, but a bloodthirster piling in is plenty dangerous.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

It is a rule I have come to like as it means you can't predictable expect to do things sequentially. This means you'll have to think about your moves with that in mind that on that roll you can lose the initiative. AoS also has a much better melee system with none of that Alpha melee in 40k so you actually have to think about how you allocate your attacks to maximize potential.

Overall I think AoS is in a better state than 40k even if I enjoy both games immensely.

Or it an force you into gakky scenarios where you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

My first game was a 2v2 team game where I played Blades of Khorne. I went first but I knew for an absolute fact I had zero chance of getting into combat turn 1, so if I moved aggressively I would have been blasted by Seraphon as well as having at least one Bloodthirster dunked off the board in combat. So I moved conservatively and managed to mostly weather a turn of shooting and not get charged, with most of the wounds I took being from that one Slann psychic power that mortal wound dunks globally.

I had everything measured out and knew that turn 1 I could counter attack, and I had the Khorne subfaction or battalion or whatever it is that lets all Bloodthirsters who charged fight first in the combat phase.

Instead they got the first turn in the second battle round, I took more mortal wounds to the ass before I could do anything, and Skarbrand was charged by a giant and one-shot.

The only correct play in hindsight would have been to have pulled my forces way back to keep from getting charged in their second turn, but conversely if I then got first turn in that battle round I'd have wasted the first battle round doing nothing. It's not only a bad rule, it might be the worst rule of any game I have ever played, ever.

I think you were damned either way considering the current state of the Khorne tome(I could write an essay) compared to the current state of the Seraphon codex. A very good Khorne player can do wonders, but against high tier tomes it will always be an uphill battle.

Much like 40k, AoS has problems with certain factions and how to balance them and I'd say they have very little to do with the Initiative rule. At this point BoK needs a complete rewrite considering its internal problems of synergy that can be tracked back into early AoS 1.0 and haven't been properly addressed. It's why Bloodthirsters are so popular as they do not have to rely excessively on another unit to perform like almost every other unit in BoK. Even then they can die easily. Love my Blades of Khorne army, but it is also the most frustrating army to play as they have so many cool units that rarely see the table unless you are playing narrative or a friendly game.

MW generation is also an area that I think needs to be addressed. There has been a weird escalation in MW output over the years that I'd love to see scaled back. Again, that tends to be a faction specific problem that can be addressed by changing the army instead of the core rule.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 l0k1 wrote:
...I will say it would be nice to have 2 different games to choose from incase you get burned out on 40k, or can't find a game......actually I may have talked myself into picking up AoS if I start another army

I feel like this is the strongest argument here; expanding outside one game system lets you play more games/more people, while buying a second 40k army just lets you play the same game with the same people slightly differently.

yeah I thought about that as well. Shops here have both AoS and 40k. But like some people said here, the AoS current turn system is a bit wack. I prefer shooting and cover armies. So I think I would get more enjoyment from trying a horde army or a meele army vs AoS where a lot of the armies play the same


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 l0k1 wrote:
It comes down to which you will enjoy more. I've never played AoS, but I've always considered it. One reason I never picked it up is it doesn't get as nearly as much support as 40k. To me this means if the army I play is hot garbage for the current edition, it's unlikely to change for a several years. This puts a real nasty taste in my mouth. Though from what I hear even the bad AoS armies can play ok.

I will say it would be nice to have 2 different games to choose from incase you get burned out on 40k, or can't find a game......actually I may have talked myself into picking up AoS if I start another army

haha yeah, I thought about that but after playing both for a while, I think I rather pick a completely different style of army (hoard, melee, psychic) vs another AoS army that would be similar to what I already have in play style. Design wise they are as far as you can get but watch enough bat reps of AoS and you see all of the games turn out to be almost the same


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 Castozor wrote:
Seeing as I dislike AoS, 40k for sure. Admech is a pretty fun army too, and from what few Battle reps I've seen AoS is offensively shallow as a an actual game. Not that 40k is very complex or deep but it beats AoS by a landslide.

yeah I agree, I think a lot of it has to do with fantasy vs urban type of warfare.

Fantasy style of games like LOTR is some range stuff peppered in but at the end its just two armies ramming into each other. Most of the AoS batreps I have seen all turn out to be very similar. Plus in terms of content and narrative, explains why most big youtube channels stop doing regular AoS stuff. One example is TableTop minions where he did a bunch of AoS 2 years ago but the last AoS video he did was 8 months ago. It is like that for most big miniature channels. Only decent size channel doing AoS bat reps is MGW and they are ok. So another minus for me is just how little good content creation I can find for it.

I guess a plus is I probably wont buy any more minis for a WHILE. AoS figures are leaps and bounds way cooler than any 40k stuff. Granted obvi much newer but I can take any stormcast figure and it is just so much more detail and original than any 40k mini I have. We can all agree that this is extremely overpriced plastic but given how much more cool designs I get from AoS, I am just like "unless you start to get original GW, I am not paying for recycled 40k designs"


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 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

It is a rule I have come to like as it means you can't predictable expect to do things sequentially. This means you'll have to think about your moves with that in mind that on that roll you can lose the initiative. AoS also has a much better melee system with none of that Alpha melee in 40k so you actually have to think about how you allocate your attacks to maximize potential.

Overall I think AoS is in a better state than 40k even if I enjoy both games immensely.

The only correct play in hindsight would have been to have pulled my forces way back to keep from getting charged in their second turn, but conversely if I then got first turn in that battle round I'd have wasted the first battle round doing nothing. It's not only a bad rule, it might be the worst rule of any game I have ever played, ever.

true, It has to be one of the worst rules ever. I feel game testers pitched it as a meme, and GW execs were like "Sure. Send it"

When it comes to the concept, I enjoy cover and urban settings way more than open world were terrain isnt a huge factor and at the end it is just 2 armies running into each other LOTR style.

ccs wrote:


Let me guess, Skar was running around at the bleeding edge of your force unsupported.

No, he had two other Bloodthirsters hanging out with him. Also had a block of Bloodletters there but they were busy getting vaporized by the allegedly much inferior AoS shooting because I had no place to possibly hide them. Given how slow they are I suppose you might argue I should have been moving them up to get them into combat, but the end result would have been the same: vaporized in two consecutive turns of shooting with no ability to mitigate it.

Hmm. That's not the only correct play.
Screening, it's not just a 40k concept.... You can take advantage of piling into combats. Keep something nasty about 1.75 inches behind a thin red line of chaff. Let the foe hit your screen. Sure, you don't get a charge bonus, but a bloodthirster piling in is plenty dangerous.

It's true, I could have tried to bubble wrap my entire force with the mob of Bloodle- oh wait that's right, no I couldn't, they were killed to a man by two consecutive turns of shooting.

And one of my Bloodthirsters did pile in and kill the giant that killed Skarbrand, but like, who cares? By that point my 380 point model had already been dunked off the board by a 170 point model that made double its points back in one turn. Because he could essentially double move to do it due to taking two consecutive turns.

There is no way to balance rotating turns (save maybe the Apocalypse thing where apparently models only die at the end of the battle round) and you're delusional if you think otherwise. Being able to move predatory spells first does not make up for it, not even close.

I had another game where I went Slaanesh and I got the first double turn and it was the same gak. I had better early economy of action and was able to butt devastate enough of his force that by the time he mustered a decent counter attack I was able to summon another Keeper of Secrets and a full blob of Daemonettes. Another one of AoS's hilariously broken rules, despite being from what I understand a severely nerfed version of it.


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 Eldarsif wrote:


I think you were damned either way considering the current state of the Khorne tome(I could write an essay) compared to the current state of the Seraphon codex. A very good Khorne player can do wonders, but against high tier tomes it will always be an uphill battle.

Much like 40k, AoS has problems with certain factions and how to balance them and I'd say they have very little to do with the Initiative rule. At this point BoK needs a complete rewrite considering its internal problems of synergy that can be tracked back into early AoS 1.0 and haven't been properly addressed. It's why Bloodthirsters are so popular as they do not have to rely excessively on another unit to perform like almost every other unit in BoK. Even then they can die easily. Love my Blades of Khorne army, but it is also the most frustrating army to play as they have so many cool units that rarely see the table unless you are playing narrative or a friendly game.

MW generation is also an area that I think needs to be addressed. There has been a weird escalation in MW output over the years that I'd love to see scaled back. Again, that tends to be a faction specific problem that can be addressed by changing the army instead of the core rule.

Oh I will never forgive my friends for lying to me that Bloodthirsters and Khorne in general are cooler/better than they are in 40k only when surprise, Khorne still sucks but at least in 40k a Bloodthirster is actually more or less the baddest mother around in the fight phase that isn't a special character. The Bloodthirster in 40k is still probably the worst greater daemon but it's much more satisfying than in AoS where, according to my AoS friend, they're punks who drop like flies but they're "cheap".