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Hey guys. Been awhile since I have played anything Warhammer. Never played any of the fantasy stuff. But since AoS is making it to second ed. I figure it must be better than the original reaction to it.

I'm having a hard time finding any reasonable information. The GW website and Lexicanum, my usual go to places for lore or army information is woefully out of date or just bad these days.

So I guess my main question is, what armies are still available. I know they consolidated a lot to Order, Destruction, and Death. Stuff like that. But I feel I must be missing some armies. Are there any elves or lizardmen? Dwarves? I'm having a tough time deciphering some things, or maybe I am just looking in the wrong places.

I am interested in playing Death, as I really like undead. But lizardmen may change that if available. I'm not looking for a pdf rulebook or anything. I'll wait and buy. I would just like to know what my options are as far as armies and rosters.

Every army from Fantasy, excluding Bretonnians and Tomb Kings (rest in peace) is still available in Age of Sigmar, though they've all been reworked to fit into the new world and narrative better. As an example the Lizardmen are still around, though they're now called Seraphon and have basically been turned into Celestial Daemons, memories summoned into being by the Slann, the only remaining flesh and blood Lizardmen, utterly dedicated to the destruction of Chaos at all costs.

Gameplay wise the Seraphon are one of the stronger armies at the moment (though we'll have to see how they hold up in 2nd) and have one of the most complete model line ups of all AoS armies.

I have a very similar question as OP so I'm just gonna utilize the thread.

So I'm a long time 40k player with some experience from FB from like 20 years ago. Is AoS a reasonably different experience from 40k or is it more or less the same with different models? I mean I love the 40k setting but the AoS setting is totally unknown to me, but I'm kinda interested in a little bit of variation to my wargaming through the differing mechanics of AoS. With this background could AoS offer me anything or am I just going to end up bored down the line?

Edit: What I'm thinking of now is primarily Ironjawz possibly allied with a few Beastclaw Raiders. I suppose this is a pretty workable combo? I love melee combat and the tactical aspects of positioning etc which are currently severly lacking in 40k since it's so strongly focused on shooting.

Few thoughts

1) The GW website really shows the armies badly at present and is rather confusing as to what is actually going on.

The Grand Alliances are an overarching lore alliance of nations, which are fairly loose anyway (for example many of the order groups include the former dark elves who are more than happy to backstab their allies whilst they aren't looking). So the Grand Alliance isn't just a huge soup of all those factions.

2) The GW site does show each "faction" that is currently distinct in its own listing. Some of them are fully fleshed out whilst others have only a handful of models. Now each army can only ally with specific other armies and this very loosely follows what armies they were in before Sigma.
So for example the Dark Elf based armies all ally together, but the high elf ones won't ally with them.

The only army that allies with (far as I know) all in the Order group is the Stormcast.


So basically, barring the two armies mentioned above, everything is still on the market and can still be built up. Some of the armies are more fragmented and those that don't yet have a Battletome of their own might be more limited further (ergo they either require allies or are better taken as allies of another larger group since in the formal rules at 2K points yo can only take 400 of those points as allies).



Lizardmen are now called Seraphon and are actually one of the few that have remained as nearly an entire single faction (its elves that really got broken up into lots of sub-groupings).

Dwarves got fragmented and you've got
Kharadron Overlords (new faction with skyships)

Classic based dwarf groups:
Fyreslayers
Dispossessed
Ironweld Arsonel


I would expect there t obe at least one good web resource that lists what allies with what in each of the grand alliances. If not then I can tell you at least what Daughters of Khaine can ally with

Darkling Covens, Idoneth Deepkin, Order Serpentis, Scourge Privateers, Shadowblades, Stormcast Eternals

Which as you can see is basically all the old dark elf groups plus the new Idoneth Deepkin.

 Weazel wrote:
I have a very similar question as OP so I'm just gonna utilize the thread.

So I'm a long time 40k player with some experience from FB from like 20 years ago. Is AoS a reasonably different experience from 40k or is it more or less the same with different models? I mean I love the 40k setting but the AoS setting is totally unknown to me, but I'm kinda interested in a little bit of variation to my wargaming through the differing mechanics of AoS. With this background could AoS offer me anything or am I just going to end up bored down the line?

Edit: What I'm thinking of now is primarily Ironjawz possibly allied with a few Beastclaw Raiders. I suppose this is a pretty workable combo? I love melee combat and the tactical aspects of positioning etc which are currently severly lacking in 40k since it's so strongly focused on shooting.

if you want something basicly new to play you need to find a whole new game system.

40k 8th is designed from AoS!
however AoS is alot more refined and tuned game as it was created from square 1, unlike 40k that is simply converted.
so alot of thing from 40k you will recognise and alot of stuff you will find to be better in AoS then 40k. (currently aos is horde oriented, but that might change in a few weeks. what wont change anytime soon is that AoS is alot more mele oriented then shooting oriented, and death grand alliance for example dont have a single pure ranged unit)

beastclaw raider is a very elite army whit few and expensive models, just so you know.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

 Weazel wrote:
I have a very similar question as OP so I'm just gonna utilize the thread.

So I'm a long time 40k player with some experience from FB from like 20 years ago. Is AoS a reasonably different experience from 40k or is it more or less the same with different models? I mean I love the 40k setting but the AoS setting is totally unknown to me, but I'm kinda interested in a little bit of variation to my wargaming through the differing mechanics of AoS. With this background could AoS offer me anything or am I just going to end up bored down the line?

Edit: What I'm thinking of now is primarily Ironjawz possibly allied with a few Beastclaw Raiders. I suppose this is a pretty workable combo? I love melee combat and the tactical aspects of positioning etc which are currently severly lacking in 40k since it's so strongly focused on shooting.

if you want something basicly new to play you need to find a whole new game system.

40k 8th is designed from AoS!
however AoS is alot more refined and tuned game as it was created from square 1, unlike 40k that is simply converted.
so alot of thing from 40k you will recognise and alot of stuff you will find to be better in AoS then 40k. (currently aos is horde oriented, but that might change in a few weeks. what wont change anytime soon is that AoS is alot more mele oriented then shooting oriented, and death grand alliance for example dont have a single pure ranged unit)

beastclaw raider is a very elite army whit few and expensive models, just so you know.

Okay thanks. How does the ally thing work? I'd like to have Ardboyz and Brutes as battleline (I don't even know what that means, troops?) but I understand that it requires the Ironjawz keyword. How do the Beastclaw fit into all this? Do I have to drop the Ironjawz keyword from my army or can I run separate detachments like in 40k ?

see here is the thing, AoS is still in the @ work prossess when it comes to adding armys.
death grand alliance for instance is nothing but a big bowl of soup since it was made from the old vampire fantasy army and thus has many small factions that cant be an independent army on its own, expept for two: fleash eaters and upcoming nighthaunts.
destruction grand alliance was made from fantasy orc+ goblins and ogre kingdoms and thus was full armys. when the AoS change happend they kept the orc and goblins but remade them into AoS, gave ogre kingdoms the boot and created the beastclaw raiders instead. ogers still exist but as part of the grand alliance.

so, you CAN have both orc and beastclaw at any point value in your army but then as destruction grand alliance and you need to have the battleline units from destruction grand alliance, (battleline is the core of your army and are a requirement in pitched battles(point battles)) and you give up on bonuses and special rules that each induvidual battletome has and instead take the grand alliance bonuses and special rules.

battleline units for destruction grand alliance is; grots, ogors, orruks and savage orruks.

now, if you spesificly claim allegiance to say ironjaws to use ardboys and brutes as battleline, then you have locked yourself to one allegiance and can take full use of their special rules and bonus but you can only use units from ironjaws, nothing else.
as this can realy limits your unit option, that is where allies comes in, but allies are more lore driven then game driven. aka ironjaws cannot ally whit beastclaw raiders. they can only ally with giants and other orc clans.
so if you want to play orcs and beastclaw in pitched games(point based games), you must play as grand alliance.

It's actually pretty straightforward, AoS has two ways you can run allied forces:

AoS has four so-called Grand Alliances, Order, Chaos, Death, and Destruction. Every faction in the game falls under one of these alliances, and if you run your army as a 'Destruction' army you have access to the every subfaction under that Grand Alliance.

The second is a little more restricted, if you take your army as a specific subfaction (such as Ironjawz, for example) you're allowed to put a certain portion of your points towards allied units. Which faction can take which allies is outlined in the General's Handbook, which is also your yearly update on points costs and middling balance changes.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
It's actually pretty straightforward, AoS has two ways you can run allied forces:

AoS has four so-called Grand Alliances, Order, Chaos, Death, and Destruction. Every faction in the game falls under one of these alliances, and if you run your army as a 'Destruction' army you have access to the every subfaction under that Grand Alliance.

The second is a little more restricted, if you take your army as a specific subfaction (such as Ironjawz, for example) you're allowed to put a certain portion of your points towards allied units. Which faction can take which allies is outlined in the General's Handbook, which is also your yearly update on points costs and middling balance changes.

Ahhh, thank you. I was getting really confused by the Grand Alliance and Allies talk. I'm still just dipping my toes in the water here. A lot of this has gone over my head but I am trying to look some stuff up so I can understand. I only have my phone for that for another week or so, so that might be my problem. Some of these mobile sites are just awful.

You could try using the AoS mobile app by GW?

It includes the rules of the game and all the individual unit profiles (though points and list building functionality are behind a paywall) and you can use that to browse the Grand Alliances and subfactions as you like.

it is confusing at first, but it follows the same system as 40k.
think of grand alliance as the index book and battletome as the codex if your coming from 40k.

in terms of the armys you will need 1 of 2 books: the grand alliance book from where you army belongs to from a faction standpoint(order, chaos, destruction, death) or allegiance spesific battletome IF GW has made one.

IF the army you want to collect dont have a battletome, its units and rules are in the grand alliance book.
(aka, if i want to collect skaven(rat army) then i get the skaven battletome as that exists, so i have no need for the chaos grand alliance book as skaven belongs to chaos faction, but if i want to collect brayherds and warheards (cow army, chaos faction) then i do get the chaos grand alliance book as brayheard and warheard dont have their own battletome)

it is confusing to understand what books you need for your army but it is just 1 of 2: grand alliance or allegiance spesific.

Well, Clan Pestillens has a battletome, but other Skaven don't. They do have allegiance abilites for Clan Skryre and Clan Pestillens in GHB 2017, though, and GW has said that the GHB 2017 allegiance abilities will be transferred over to GHB 2018.