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I have large Dark elf and Beastmen armies. But haven't touched the models in several years. I honestly don't remember the last codex I had for either army. From what i have read online, AoS is an entirely different game from before. But not in a good way. Now that I'm getting back into 40k, I wanted to explore the option of getting into AoS or selling off the assets. Playing with Battlescribe a bit, nothing makes sense to me anymore.

from my opinion, AoS is an ok little game, its not great, barely even good. But it is not as bad as so many think it is. It IS an entirely different game from warhammer. It can be fun, but there is nothing fresh, new, or revolutionary about it, its basically a mosh pit, even using their "missions" it still degenerates fast. If you already have the models, give it a couple shots and see what you think. It is nice to have around when you dont really have the time or patience for a real game.

It is a casual game best served as an entry point to wargaming or for thouse who simply enjoy casual game systems. It has 0 connections to old fantasy. if you want to play old fantasy there is a fanmade 9th edition out there.

In many ways you could say aos is the beta for the new 40k.
(old fantasy models still dominates the range and that means lots of direct only failcast sadly)

it is playable whit some additional house rules plus GHB, but still has many years of development for both battletomes and rules ahead of it to become a solid game.

the core rules are free, GHB(where the points system and limitations are placed) is not.

For me it is the best wargame out there at the moment and superior to 40k 8th (which is still good, but not as good as AoS).

It has a fantastically low book cost. To run your Beastmen and Dark Elves you need only the £15 GHB (but wait for the new one). If you want a full skirmish experience, get the AoS Skirmish book (£6). And if you want a narrative escalation league get Path to Glory (£20 but £10 in the App).

Speaking of the app, it has all the rules for miniatures for free meaning you can browse the entire Chaos and Order ranges and pick up those models you always wanted to and just slot them into your army.

The tournament scene is fantastic. AoS is an incredibly tactical game that focuses around synergies and buffs between the keywords of different units. You'll be familiar with this from the new 40k but it's a much more focal concept in AoS as buff have a much bigger range and benefit entire units rather than "models" in most cases.

AoS also has full narrative support with a fully fleshed range of campaign books (the realmgate wars) for you to explore, and lastly the 2 Warhammer Quest games are fantastic as well.

Basically AoS has it all. The game scales amazingly from Skirmish all the way up to big battles, and can cater for cut throat and tactical tournament play as well as grand and epic narrative play.

So, is there 0 customising your options on models or am I missing something?

FYI I'm using battlescribe.

 chimeara wrote:
So, is there 0 customising your options on models or am I missing something?

FYI I'm using battlescribe.

sorta, you can do whatever you want according to warscroll options, there really is not a point upgrade thing, though if you do skirmish or whatnot there are upgrades during play.

So the points for whatever conceivable upgrades are already included in the unit cost then, e.g. musician and standard bearer costs.

What about lord upgrades with magical items and such?

Yup, any and all unit upgrades is included in the pointcost, and the point cost is per unit, not per model.(exept for solo models ofc)

As for the general, there is a selection of 6 traits that boosts the general or the whole army(depending on the grand alliance), and 6 artefacts(items) that you equip to each hero you have.(general included)you can only have 1 artefact per hero.
You either select them manualy or roll a d6 for them, all depends on what you agree whit your opponent.

where do I find the artifacts selections and do those cost additional points?

 chimeara wrote:
where do I find the artifacts selections and do those cost additional points?

Artifacts can be found in the General's Handbook (which is being updated later this month). As of the 2016 edition, there was no cost for artifacts. No indication that this is changing with GHB 2017, but you never know.

Thanks guys!
I'll be at Gencon next week, so I'll have to scope out some games. Currently I think I'll sell one of the two armies. to fund the other plus my 40k wishlist.

I dig it personally, its a really fun game but you can't take it too seriously. It has a fantastic casual scene, and a really nice competitive scene too.

OP, check out the fan made 9th Ed for a better fantasy experience

My and my buds have been having a blast with AoS since it launched. It gets a lot of hate because for the first year or so it had no real balance mechanism beyond what fan comp systems could provide. With the launch of the General's Handbook that changed and popularity soared, but a lot of people still hate on AoS as a whole because of that first year. Others simply have a grudge because of how it came out of a complete butchering of the WHFB lore. AoS is what it is and is fun for it, but it is certainly not like WHFB.

That said, after playing AoS I could not go back to WHFB; having all of the rules be so short and simple makes games with larger, more complicated rulesets seem very unappealing to me. The resulting system may work somewhat better, but it simply isn't worth having to manage literally 10x the rules to do so (IMO of course).

 sing your life wrote:
OP, check out the fan made 9th Ed for a better fantasy experience

it's so good people need to beggar it in other games forums while being unasked for!

Seriously, for the love of god, you guys truly have no decency.


Anyways, to be actually constructive (and contrary to what some have claimed): the game is pretty good once you come down to it. The six main scenarios in GHB (wait next week for the new one, sounds they are improving the current ones... or get the current ones if you want to hoard battleplans like me!) are solid and interesting. There's issues in the core rules, but if you go for a sensible gampeplay and don't crank the cheese it won't really come into being.

AoS is an excellent game in its own right and my favorite game for over a year now. Even with the release of 8th Ed. 40k, which I greatly enjoy, I find that I still prefer AoS.

Its has a more narrative, casual feel as others have said but runs perfectly fine as a competitive game. The buy in cost, especially as the OP already has armies, is very low. The (soon to be updated) General's Handbook is $25 and honestly that's it. All the rules are in the GHB and the free AoS app.

In the interest of complete openness, the most recently updated armies (Sylvaneth, Kharadron Overlords, Stormcast, Beastclaw Ogres, Bonesplittaz Orruks, Chaos Khorne and Tzeentch), have Command Traits, Artifacts, and Battalions that are found in their new Battletomes or can be purchased in the app as a Battlepack for something like $10-12. Beastmen and Dark Elves have not received the new Battletome treatment yet so those purchases are not required.

Unfortunately, AoS does still have a stigma in many troll's minds which means it is hard to find many fans or even unbiased players on lots of forums. Dakkadakka still has a pretty bad case of trolls when it comes to AoS.

I HIGHLY recommend you check out The Grand Alliance. That forum is, overall, a very positive place filled with people that enjoy the game as opposed to people who only enjoy trashing the game and its fans.

http://www.tga.community/

I also play Dark Elves (Exiles) and enjoy AoS casually. While many prefer Matched Play I personally like Open/Narrative play. I've played Matched games but have not found them nearly as interesting.

My suggestion is get the Scenario Books. They not only have various games you can play but also include part of the Realmgate Wars storyline. On top of that there are a few faction detachments.

With the new Generals Handbook coming out the Exiles are getting a small boost with their own Allegiance abilities. If you don't want to carry around some books there's going to be a card deck coming out soon that will let you create a random Scenario to play. I'm really looking forward to it.

It's a pretty great game that is easy to learn but still has depth, plays fast and has very thematic rules for most units. It has dozens (probably hundreds?) of missions from the Campaign books that can also be downloaded for a small cost from the app, so the variety is extremely high. It's also tremendous fun! So yeah, highly recommended.

AOS shines as a narrative game. I think it fails pretty hard as a competitive game. The balance issues and holes are too extreme IMO for it to be taken seriously as a tournament game.

But as a narrative game, its a blast.

IMO AoS is the best game ever with "Warhammer" in its name. Bottle and bhollenb sums up very well the reasons why it is so. Easy to get into, works with lots of different setups from casual skirmish games to competitive tournaments and easy to customize.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
AOS shines as a narrative game. I think it fails pretty hard as a competitive game. The balance issues and holes are too extreme IMO for it to be taken seriously as a tournament game.

But as a narrative game, its a blast.

This might be true, but comparing the competitive lists from AoS to 8th ed 40k, I would say that it works in that purpose still better from the two. GW games are not designed first and foremost as tournament games, so it's understandable that the "spirit" of the game changes quite much in that kind of setting. It's interesting to see what the Shadespre will be as it's the first game from GW designed since the beginning as a competitive game.

I think comparing AOS and 40k tournament lists and claiming AOS is not as bad is like comparing two pieces of rotten fruit and claiming one is at least not as rotten lol

I don't think either game is very good as a competitive game.

I *am* very interested in shadespire and am hoping that not needing to sell models will mean that the designers won't allow broken things into the game for the sake of model sales and that the game overall will be solid from a mechanics and balance standpoint.

I yearn for a competitive game where player skill at the table is the most important part of winning/losing.

Thanks guys. I've sold my dark elves and will focus on my beasts. I appreciate all of your feedback.

Then you can either buy the chaos grand alliance book for unit profiles, or go to the gw site, find each unit manualy and download the pdf unit profile.

AOS dont care about bases as they by default measure from the figurine not the base, so it dosent matter what kind of style, shape or size of base you use.

Good luck and be mindfull of your unit keywords when you make an army list.

Or just download the app and get access to all the Warscrolls straight away. :-)

 Bottle wrote:
Or just download the app and get access to all the Warscrolls straight away. :-)

app, shmapp.... some of us are oldtimers and refuse to adapt to new age sorcery =P

Going off Auticus' comments, I feel like the tournament scene for AoS is alright, but shouldn't be taken seriously. A skilled player can bring a solid list and not get crushed every time, but generally speaking only cheese lists take the top spots. AoS definitely shines more as a narrative/casual game and I would also say that GW seems to focus on that aspect more for AoS verses 40k where they are putting a lot of effort into the competitive scene.

I likely won't be playing tournaments since some of my models are non GW. AoS is something to kill time with if I can't get a 40k game going. So I wont be taking it seriously.

Sounds like you are in a great spot then!

IMPO, its a great game if you wanna hang out at the hobby shop, shoot the breeze, and happen to play a war game at the same time. Over all AoS is about getting your wombo combo off first before the opponent. Most top tier armies i have seen or armies that dominate are centered around a gimmick and the goal is to use that gimmick before the opponent breaks it. For example, Chaos with reaver+blood secator spam. a 90 point unit can dish out somthing like...80 attacks rerolling wounds.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
IMPO, its a great game if you wanna hang out at the hobby shop, shoot the breeze, and happen to play a war game at the same time. Over all AoS is about getting your wombo combo off first before the opponent. Most top tier armies i have seen or armies that dominate are centered around a gimmick and the goal is to use that gimmick before the opponent breaks it. For example, Chaos with reaver+blood secator spam. a 90 point unit can dish out somthing like...80 attacks rerolling wounds.

In a competitive setting, sure. In any other setting, such as the hobby shop you mentioned, a club or a friend's house, it's not.