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It's been a while since I paid attention to Age of Sigmar. Last thing I remember was that dwarfs that fly with balloons and sky ships were about to come out. I paid attention to the new 40K but haven't played. Life got in the way, depression and what not. So I stopped paying attention to AoS totally. Now I finally clicked on an AoS article and wow, I missed it. I also seem to have missed quite a bit. New edition? New boxset? New games? Trying to catch up now.

For what ever reason 40K is not getting me excited, probably because of my depression since I seem to paint my armies in dark colours so I am liking that AoS is more fantasy with bright and vibrant colours. I haven't played in ages. Haven't been in the forums for AoS since I didn't want to sour on others. So I have lost my way to say.

So please remind me why you love or like Age of Sigmar. What is new that is getting you excited? What is keeping you going to play? Hoepfully once I unpack all my minis I can still find what I have bought and rekindle at least collecting and modelling if I am not gaming no more.

So let's get started and tell me your stories.

Davor

I shall start by saying this is merely my opinion as time went on with whfb I felt they were starting to do grimdark for the sake of it(*looks at bretonnia*) and the lore kinda got boring or stagnant, since it was largely the same old stories being churned out of it. I personally feel why we get so many wacky stories for 40k is because it has a far larger scope than fantasy which I feel is an advantage to a sci-fantasy/fantasy wargame setting. Black library writers when asked about what they enjoy about writing for the AOS is the increase of scope to tell stories. I am not going to get into if it's GW fault etc why some people feel the lore "stagnated".

I enjoy AOS because the scope has increased to tell more stories or implement your own and being a fan of norse mythology and elder scrolls caused me to take quite a liking to the AOS setting. I enjoy that humans, aelves and dwarfs/duardin somewhat live together in a society yes some groups have their own thing/cities going but they all interact in a meaningful and fun ways. Like the scourge privateers they own the docks within the city of Excelsis and are at odds with the nobles due to them increasing taxes and other fee's for the docks cutting into their business.

Things with humans are not hockey dory either when they have to deal with the racisim divide between ayzerites and humans of other realms and I enjoy that things are much more how should I say wondrous? Take a look at this picture.



Right this might be the living city or hammerhal ghyra but just looking at that makes me think how do the duardin and humans find living with giant tree people or fae even? In hammerhall asqha a duardin and his mates killed a giant centipede monster and converted it into a tavern that humans and aelves frequent. The person with the most impressive stall in the city is an elf. Having a lizardman/seraphon stomping around Ashqa on some mission from the slaan would not be far fetched you will never see a lizardman anywhere near Altdorf. What would sylvaneth look like if they lived within Asqhy? Since it's said in their tome they live within all the realms. Another aspect is that the gods are now a pantheon humans are not stuck with sigmar. They can worship tyrion, Malerion, Grungi etc. There is a short story of a human city that worshiped tyrion and them dealing with a khorne invasion.

In the new spear of shadows extract Grungi is teaching humans, aelves, duardin and even some Ogor's about his art.

What I felt was kinda missing in whfb was the interaction with the races they largely kept in their corners barely ever moving from them. Humans were allowed to only one city in Ulthaun I personally feel it would be amazing to have a story where humans aid the elves in pushing back the dark elves and then the dark elves retaliate by attacking human lands. Do the high elves help the humans or not? The complications with some wanting to help and those who want nothing to do with the lesser races. In the end why do I like AOS? The scope increased, I like the type of fantasy of AOS, the races interact more.

In context this is just ONE out of the 8 realms per lore the scale of the land is larger than the warhammer world.



I did not want the post to go on too long this is just my perspective/opinion.

I like the setting for what it is. It isn't WHFB but it's uniquely mythic fantasy done in a way that GW is particularly suited to pulling off. And I love how much support there is for customizing armies; allegiance abilities in particular are a fantastic addition.

I like it because you can "officially" even buy a starter box of stuff or dig through the models you have and be off to the races. Sure you could always do that with WHFB but now GW have given us "permission".

The rules are streamlined and, other than points, you can get rules-wise all the stuff you need to play for free.

Last, because it initially didn't have points values, the game tended to attract (anecdotal) people who wanted to play---not people who wanted to act as if their car title was on the line every time dice rolled.

Most of the pros outweigh the cons for me, though the cons are pretty stark and jagged.

I like the setting. I like the campaign material they are releasing. I like the models. I think that given a good group of people that one can have a lot of fun with the game.

The cons for me are what GW games have always been: the points and balance are bad. If you aren't in a group with someone that will exploit that this is a non-issue. If you are in a group with people that exploit this, this might give you heartburn.

For me, I like the aesthetic a lot better. 40k has its big lore, but something AOS feels extremely awesome. The fact it's a fantastic world where it can literally be anything you want, floating islands, rivers of molten steel, etc. It's just a clean slate for imagination and customization, much more than 40k.

Plus for me, the fantasy aesthetic has always been more appealing.

I like the open nature of the setting. I'm personally very tired of the "just before the end" nature of 40k. AoS has a sense that anything can happen.

Much less toxic than many 40k groups, much faster to play, not as much min/maxing, more laid back friendly/fun games, easier to build a large variety of lists/armies with the Grand Alliances, a mix of classic ranges and new models, massive amount of varieties to play, much cheaper entry and armies/books then to be cheaper to purchase.

I'm not sure you've missed much. Think there's only been the new generals book since. 8th edition of 40K has been hogging the limelight lately.

Thanks Crispy78, I thought I missed a lot more, so I guess with the new edition of 40K, I didn't really miss much then. That is good to know, I don't need to go back 20 pages to see what I have missed then.

Yeah, seems all the new announcements are happening recently so you've picked a good time to tune back in.

Also, you can look at their Facebook for a quick sum-up.

I hot back into 40kmin 8th. Honestly, Im swinging back to AoS...I think its a better game. The mechanics and fun factor are just better than 40k IMHO. Models are more interesting too if I'm honest.

Warhammer Fantasy:


Age of Sigmar:

The latter also doubles as the cover of the starter set

I don't think either of the last two posts is helping WFB's image, if that was the point

I don't get the He-man image people keep talking about besides the first Stormcast Hero.

I see heavy metal:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTR5OVN00MsYFoygOGLyebiTxlc8MMCNmdIg458vQ8m_kTVxRGv

Final fantasy:


Obviously Norse Mythology:
https://www.lordalford.com/mythology/Norse/worlds.jpg

And good ol' Dark Souls:







(Especially with hints of Ulgu looking like those kinds of haunting landscapes)




That's the thing about AoS, it's a high fantasy kitchen sink of epicness.

It was just an old joke. Someone here on dakka or on warseer joked that the starter set was perfect for his He-Man collection or whatever and it even came with skeletor and battlecat . It was a joke, but the similarities could be seen and were the point of discussion 2 years ago. Honestly it is a setting image that I like and is the primary reason why I collect AoS. It reminds me simultaneously of Moorcocks cosmic battle fiction and of the vision of Darksiders 2 (beautiful generic fanasy scenes)

AoS is a mashup of many cool things taken from different sources. Whether one wants to see them as one whole, interconnected setting not to his liking or as separate elements of which to choose and pick is up to personal preference.

Well said!

You know... I would rock a tabletop game that was so over the top 80s style.

I was referencing the He-man conversation from a while ago as a joke (I even found a pic of Lord of the Rings where they lined up in ranks!), but I think I do like Age of Sigmar for the same reason I like He-man toys. I may like it better because the Dreadhold is way, way cooler than Castle Greyskull or Snake Mountain ever were.