Soul Wars is on it's way and should be here today! I am splitting with my primary gaming partner, who will take the Night Haunts. He already has the cheaper starter boxes, so I'll be getting those as well. That seems to round out a few units, and adding in what I have from the 1.0 starter, it looks like I'll have a decent selection to play with. Since both of us are very casual / narrative players, I think it would work well.
Now to come up with a quick-and-easy paint scheme. Edge highlighting my Ultramarines, while creating a lovely end result, is just ever-so-tedious. So I am planning some kind of metallic that will look decent dry brushed. I'm leaning toward some kind of oiled-steel, bronze, or verdigris copper.
Was there ever any link between Chaos Dwarves and Beastmen? They’re both all about chaos, and they both love them some bulls, if in very different ways.
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Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
The AoS rules for the Chaos Dwarf faction made by Forgeworld are pretty fun (They have a train!) and a giant brazen bull certainly seems their cup of tea, but I suspect this is more of a beastman thing, the head looks close to the current minotaur kit and there's been some rumouring over them getting an update in some capacity.
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Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
Was there ever any link between Chaos Dwarves and Beastmen? They’re both all about chaos, and they both love them some bulls, if in very different ways.
Not explicitly, no. The CD probably used some as slaves. In fact they have pretty different goals, since the CD want a huge orderly empire that covers the world while the beastmen hate civilization and want only wilderness everywhere.
Huh. I wonder if Beastmen ever did any desperate alliances with the wood elves against some marauding force trying to chop down their trees. Though I guess with Beastmen being Chaos their idea of a healthy forest wasn’t exactly copacetic with the elves.
Was there ever any link between Chaos Dwarves and Beastmen? They’re both all about chaos, and they both love them some bulls, if in very different ways.
Not explicitly, no. The CD probably used some as slaves. In fact they have pretty different goals, since the CD want a huge orderly empire that covers the world while the beastmen hate civilization and want only wilderness everywhere.
It’s always been kinda weird that they were called “chaos dwarfs”. They have thier own god seperate from the chaos pantheon, they don’t have demons, they explicitly want to build an orderly empire.
In the new AoS stuff if souleating elves and murder cults can count as “order” I’m pretty sure they do too.
Anyway I’ve decided to actually put more effort into playing this. Started a Beastclaw raiders army because no one plays it in my local meta (stormcasts and ghosts everywhere though....) and it’s pretty cheap (for Warhammer) to get to 2k Points.
There’s also something really appealing about dropping like 10 models and that’s it.
Anyway I’ve decided to actually put more effort into playing this. Started a Beastclaw raiders army because no one plays it in my local meta (stormcasts and ghosts everywhere though....) and it’s pretty cheap (for Warhammer) to get to 2k Points.
There’s also something really appealing about dropping like 10 models and that’s it.
Yeah, I have an 11-model list that's 2k points.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
Was there ever any link between Chaos Dwarves and Beastmen? They’re both all about chaos, and they both love them some bulls, if in very different ways.
Not explicitly, no. The CD probably used some as slaves. In fact they have pretty different goals, since the CD want a huge orderly empire that covers the world while the beastmen hate civilization and want only wilderness everywhere.
It’s always been kinda weird that they were called “chaos dwarfs”. They have thier own god seperate from the chaos pantheon, they don’t have demons, they explicitly want to build an orderly empire.
In the new AoS stuff if souleating elves and murder cults can count as “order” I’m pretty sure they do too.
Anyway I’ve decided to actually put more effort into playing this. Started a Beastclaw raiders army because no one plays it in my local meta (stormcasts and ghosts everywhere though....) and it’s pretty cheap (for Warhammer) to get to 2k Points.
There’s also something really appealing about dropping like 10 models and that’s it.
They were called Chaos Dwarfs because back then everything that was “evil” apart from Orcs and Elves was chaos.
Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
edited August 2018
Oh hey, points to anyone who saw this coming: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/08/26/from-the-wild-places/
Seems more like a Nagash-style compendium book than a DoK-reimagining, but a lot of those beastmen kits are still pretty good, and rolling in the Tzaangors gives them plenty of options.
I just finished up with a two day, 5 game tournament, which was exhausting as always, but also a fun time, I've yet to have a bad AoS tournament game and this was no exception, 5 killer games. I got 11th out of 52, could've probably squeaked higher but some of the new moving objective missions are a little finicky and I made a big movement mistake against Idoneth which lost me the game. Still, I'm more than happy with 3 major wins, and I pretty much tabled all my opponents, which is, of course, what we're really after, why would I have brought all those knife-wielding fanatics? I can do a write-up if anyone really wants a play-by-play.
The Bestigor kit is a favourite of mine while the range overall is pretty rad so it is a nice surprise to see this compendium.
I have to think a Skaven one is coming along at some point.
I’d like to read a play by play but don’t go to too much ch trouble on my count.
PSN Fleety2009
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Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
I'll do a quick write-up then, I forgot to get any pictures and these things can get pretty dull in text only anyway.
My list was the same one I took to the Grand Tournament heat, which was written for AoS 1, so this weekend was kind of a test to see how it functioned in AoS 2, and I would fairly successfully. I could probably come up with something a little crunchier, but I like this list cos it's kinda of a 'highlights' list with a bit of everything the DoK have to offer:
Morathi
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood
Hag Queen
Hag Queen
30x Witch Aelves
10x Witch Aelves
10x Sisters of Slaughter
15x Blood Sisters
5x Heartrenders
5s Heartrenders
2000 points on the nose, no battalions or extra command points, or chance at a triumph, might be worth dropping one Khinerai squad to squeeze some of that on, but sometimes having two squads is handy.
Game 1 Duality of Death - Daughters of Khaine (Khailebron Temple)
Opponent's List:
The draws for round 1 were put up a day or two in advance, which gave me plenty of time to sweat over facing this very scary list on Saturday morning, I know just what those Blood Sisters can do (which is to say, chew through basically anything in the game in short order) and my opponent had more of them than me. Fortunately Morathi is tantamount to cheating in Duality of Death, I got turn 1, transformed her and flew her onto one objective, at that point your opponent has to either focus everything into taking her off it (A minimum or two turns) or get one of their own heroes onto the other objective and hold that for the entire game to force a minor victory. A little bit scummy, but even without that I had the game pretty well handled after winning the turn two initiative, setting up my own Blood Sisters to decimate their Morsarr eels which had been put a smidge too far forwards whilst my buffed up Wyches were able to put enough of a dent in their big Blood Sister block to keep Morathi safe. The game wound up a major victory for me and a table-ing for my opponent, which is about as good a start to proceedings as I could hope for.
Game 2 Translocation Orb - Phoenix Temple
Opponent's List:
Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix
Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix
Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix
Avantis Firestrike
30x Phoenix Guard
10x Phoenix Guard
10x Phoenix Guard
Everblaze Comet
Kind of an old school, WHFB aelf-off for round two against a gorgeously painted Phoenix Temple list. The Translocation Orb is not a mission I'd had a chance to play before, it's a fun one where the objective will move around the board every turn, but probably not something really well-suited for competitive play cos you can play as well as possible and still lose if, as was the case this time around, the objective decides to stick around behind enemy lines. Not to disparage my opponent in any way, they played very well to mitigate my advantages and keep me from scoring a comeback as I began to hemorrhage points (And I believe they finished somewhere in the top 5 overall, which is certainly impressive for a battletome-less army). Another facet of the mission is that the objective is worth only 1 point if you go first in a battle round, and 3 if you're going second, and with my fragile, hard-hitting force giving up the turn was often not something I could feasibly do, so by turn 3 it was impossible for me to get a victory. I did mange to wipe out my opponent's army as a consolation victory, but that doesn't win you games! Stars of the game were certainly, as is often the case, my Blood Sisters, who made an absurd amount of 5+ saves to keep me in the fight, though not quite enough to squeak a win.
Game 3 Total Conquest - Stormcast Eternals (Tempest Lords Stormhost)
Opponent's List:
I am quite scared of the new Stormcast book, there's a lot of good stuff in there, namely Sequitors and ballistas, fortunately this list was light on both. This is one of the older missions which has had a bit of a cleaning up with the new GHB, the old version had a nightmare of a deployment map, and as a bonus the objectives do not move around, which makes things easier! My opponent's list had a few options for milling up Command Points, though I'm not sure for quite what purpose as there didn't seem to be any big combos that could be pulled out with them, but possibly they just didn't get the right opportunity. I gave my opponent first turn and they Scioned all the gun units right behind my army and popped a couple of wounds off of Morathi, the Dracolines advancing rapidly under the command of the Heraldor to get the drop on my throwaway Witches before they could threaten the skinks. I was able to get a solid counter attack in my first round, however, transforming Morathi to tie up the shooting stuff and (eventually) chew through them, whilst the Blood Sisters demolished the dracolines. Once again I was hugely grateful for the Slaughter Queen's excellent command ability that lets one of my units pile in and attack in the combat phase, thanks to the damage output of the DoK units it makes them almost impossible to tie up in combat, freeing up the Sisters to sweep up and knock out the skinks and putting basically one half of the board under my control. My opponent played very passively with their Evocators, using them to defend their home objective, giving my opportunity to buff up my Witch block, command point run them up the board and knock out half the Evocators, when my opponent failed to kill all of the Witches off in their own turn the game was called in my favour.
Volturnos, High King of the Deep
Eidolon of Mathlaan, Aspect of the Storm
Tidecaster
10x Namarti Thralls
10x Namarti Reavers
6x Morsarr Guard
6x Ishlaen Guard
5x Sisters of the Thorn
5x Tree-Revenants
Geminids of Uhl-Gysh
I have never played Idoneth before, and nor had I ever played this mission! I was glad that this was not the 18-24 outflanking eels list, cos I do not really have an answer to that. My opponent's game-plan was quite clear, and they were quite up front about it, wait till battle round 3, stack +3 attacks on the eels and Eidolon and then utilise their superior movement to do huge damage without risk of retaliation due to High Tide, it should be noted that the third battle round 3 is also when my entire army gets to re-roll hit rolls and I want to be getting stuck into combat! This led to a very cagey first few turns, with minor skirmishes on the edges of the battlefield as the primary objective flitted about, I took out their Reavers, Tidecaster and some of the Tree-Revenants, they took out most of my Sisters of Slaughter, then I had to just hunker down and hope they failed a bunch of charges. At this point I made what could reasonably be categorised as a 'big mistake', I dropped me Khinerai from the sky between their line and my own, with the intent of blocking off the movement options for their units and preventing charges, however I measured poorly and allowed them to charge his flying units over the back of the Khinerai, and then kill them off with weaker activations in order to allow the eels to pile fully into the Witch Aelfs, decimating the whole squad with ease and knocking out a huge chunk of my hitting power. I wasn't quite out of the game though, I still had all the Blood Sisters, and with Mindrazor they proved more than capable of knocking out the eels, the Eidolon used the Cloud of Midnight to escape their wrath, more's the pity. This was kind of another instance where the objectives screwed me a little, if there had been just one more round where it had been in any of the other two locations I could have won, but it didn't. I knocked out everything bar Volturnos, the Eidolon and the Thralls, and had one last chance to score a win if my cauldon could secure an 8" charge onto the objective (with a re-roll available), but I could not seal the deal. Despite my tactical misstep still a very close, very fun game and one of my highlights of the tourney.
Game 5 Focal Points - Everchosen/Chaos
Opponent's List:
Archaon, Grand Marshal of the Apocalypse
Lord of Blights
Lord of Blights(?)
Harbinger of Decay
Lord of Slaanesh
40x Marauders
40x Marauders
20x Marauders
Chaos Spawn
Plaguetouched Warband
You know it, you love it, it's the Plaguetouched Warband. I've actually never played it before now, but it's fairly infamous so I was vaguely aware of it's existence, with Archaon popping all of the other heroes command abilities at once you're stacking all those marauders at -2 to hit in shooting and combat, battleshock immune, splashing mortal wounds back on you if you hit them, all sorts of stuff. This was the last game of the event, and we were down on table 9 so trophies were out of the equation, with that in mind my opponent sent Archaon hunting for Morathi's head, being one of the few models in the game that can kill her outright, though he failed the charge and was not given the opportunity. Knocking Archaon out early obviously puts a hamper on the armies functionality, so I pounced him with 30 buffed up Witch Aelves, chewing a good chunk of wounds off in my turn and the finishing him out in round 2 when my opponent won initiative. In round 2 my opponent was able to score big points by outnumbering me on the objectives with the huge marauder blobs, but with Archaon down the Witches were free to whittle down the other heroes which had been sent in to support him, whilst the Blood Sisters set to work slowly mincing down one marauder horde. By round 3 things had turned wholly in my favour, -2 to hit across the board is surmountable when you're entire army is re-rolling hits and Mindrazor is doubling out your damage. We called it by the end of round 3 when my opponent had one Lord of Blights, the Chaos Spawn and 20 Marauders left, sealing my third major victory.
And that was that, all over bar packing the terrain away. All in all I had a great time and played five fun, high-level games. My army has some core weaknesses, but I am more than pleased in how it plays, I think I'll focus on touching up the paint side of things rather than shuffle it around too much for the GT finals. I can see some nerfs/points increases falling on the DoK in the future, I feel Blood Sisters for sure would be fine at a little higher points cost, potentially Witches and Hag Queens too, but we'll see on that front, I guess, for me it's one of GWs best books and writing/playing lists with the faction is a lot of fun, and it is nice to get all hardcore competitive every once in a while, though I wouldn't want to do a tournament more than once every four months or so, they've very tiring!
Finally getting my first game in with the Soul Wars box on Tuesday. Sat unopened on my shelf for almost 2 months!
I've hacked together what look like 2 points balanced lists. Slightly wonky at 930 vs 940 points, and technically the Stormcasts are illegal as they only have one battleline but it'll do. Blimey no wonder the spooks got stomped in every demo game I saw. I had to leave a handful of the Stormcasts behind (mainly to make legal squad sizes) but to get even points I had to give the spooks some extra models, an endless spell and a command point.
Sounds cool. I have a birthday coming up, so this may find its way onto the wish list.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
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Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
I have a fairly substantial Beastclaw force, and it is a fun army to charge around the board and smash stuff up with, however I should warn that if you are interested in the more competitive, tournament-y side of AoS then the Beastclaws are not that, their battletome was one of the earlier ones and their playstyle/model selection leaves them a little lacking in tactical options.
If you're just looking for fun games, however, go wild, the (plastic) models are great and come with a bunch of extra bits for customisation, and with an army which is mostly comprised of large models you can really go big on the painting if that's your jam.
Norgoth's list looks fine, 3 start collecting boxes makes a good base which you can mix things around with, I'd definitely recommend magnetising the heads and riders of the monsters (which is easily done) so you can swap around different lists without having to buy a bunch of extraneous kits.
Only thing to be aware of when building Mounfang is that they have 3 command model options (Skalg champion, banner bearer and musician) but come in units of two as standard, so only larger than minimum squads will have all three command models. (I think there's maybe some debate on this, as to whether a unit can be a champion and a banner, or whatever? But as far as I know there's no hard and fast rule on it.)
I don't have to win tournaments, but it'd be kind of a bummer if I might as well not show up. As long as I can win some matches and not have the whole game feel like an exercise in futility it's fine.
When it comes to mournfangs, is msu good or bad? Norgoth's example list implies bad.
I don't have to win tournaments, but it'd be kind of a bummer if I might as well not show up. As long as I can win some matches and not have the whole game feel like an exercise in futility it's fine.
When it comes to mournfangs, is msu good or bad? Norgoth's example list implies bad.
I honestly have no idea, 40k is my competitive game so I’m building my AoS list just to move big ogres around. I set the mournfang squads up like that to keep it to the lowest number of start collectings I could. If your going to do MSU I would run the champion and the drummer. The banner is nice but not as impactful.
Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
I do have a bit of competitive AoS experience, I even played my Beastclaws on Warhammer TV a while back, though that was in the previous General's Handbook where they were a little more deadly.
In my opinion BCR are definitely in a rough spot on a competitive level, with a mostly 4+ to hit across the board and no native to hit buffs available they're swingy to start with, and suffer more than most under the bevy of negative to hit modifiers that some armies can bring to bear. With so many points tied up in big, single model units you have to be very efficient with your actions in the game, and if your opponent has the capacity to slow you down (via chaff roadblocks or de-buffs) it can be very hard to regain lost ground. Almost all of the matched play missions score victory points based on the number of models around the objectives, which is obviously a natural detriment to low-model count army like the BCR. Sadly in recent tournaments I have not seen a BCR army in the top half of the results table.
Part of the issue is that the BCR tome is an early book with a limited unit selection, which makes for a cool looking coherent force, but suffers a little in flexibility! You can fix this a little if you're willing to dip into allying in some other Ogor units; a Butcher or two adds magical support and buffing potential, Grots can be used to screen your expensive monsters from getting hit, and basic Ogors can provide a decent anvil block. Though if you go chasing maximum efficiency in this way you kinda end up with a mostly Ogor army with a bit of Beastclaw support, rather than the other way round.
It's not all bad news though, for one thing with GW at the moment, and with AoS in particular, the meta can shift fairly quickly and there's not much point in chasing it I find, if you like the look and playstyle of the BCR they are a lot of fun, and with any luck things will swing back in their favour in the future.
They still have what is probably the best hero sniping tool in the game with the Thundertusk, being able to force 6 mortal wounds onto any visible enemy hero within 18" (plus movement) is a powerful tool, and Blood Vultures are also handy to help peck the last wounds off if said hero manages to make a lucky mortal wound save.
Whilst pretty heavily nerfed from it's original glory the Stonehorn is still a fun unit to roll around the board like an angry missile made of rocks, a little unreliable with the 4+ to hit, but with a little luck you can clear entire units.
Mournfang are in a similar kind of boat to the Stonehorn, in that if you can hit those 4+ rolls you're golden, otherwise they can whiff at the worst moments. 2-model squads can work if you're just looking for battleline options, they won't be clearing out hordes any time soon but if you can run them up a flank they can chew up support units readily enough. I probably wouldn't run squads larger than 4 models as they tend to get a bit unwieldy in large blocks and you don't want to be missing out on getting attacks in range with such expensive models, but there's no agreed upon sweet-spot and you can experiment with unit sizes to see what works best for you.
I can go into deeper analysis, if you're interested, I'm not trying to dissuade you or anything, I love the look and theming of the BCRs, and they are a lot of fun in more casual games, they just have some design flaws at present which can be a little limiting.
Thanks for the great input! You're right that chasing the flavor of the month is the path to madness. And BCR sound cool.
I certainly wouldn't mind some more talk/advice about BCR, but I think it's better to wait until I've got the models. I have to finish up my kill team stuff first.
How bad are kharadron overlords now? I know they’re apparently not super competitive, but I’ve got a line on a great deal for a lot, and the aesthetic is pretty rad.
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
How bad are kharadron overlords now? I know they’re apparently not super competitive, but I’ve got a line on a great deal for a lot, and the aesthetic is pretty rad.
damn near dead last
they've been nerfed multiple times and received no buffs
That’s a shame, flying dwarves with rotary cannons are too good for this world.
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Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
Yeah, models are great, aesthetic is top-notch if you're into that sort of style, but there have been so many FAQs that half the rules/stats in their book are completely different now, I think GW actually even sells their reference cards at a discount cos half of them are wrong at this point.
I'm really hoping some of those older books like KO and BCR (and Ironjawz, Sylvaneth, etc...) get a bit of sprucing up at some point. Maybe once all the 40k codexes are updated.
So, if one was inclined to start AoS, what would I need besides just the rulebook? I’m assuming the Battletome for whatever army I’m interested in, but what else? I see something called the General’s Handbook 2018 and something called Malign Sorcery, do I need those as well?
I’m mostly interested in Stormcast at the moment for two reasons. I like the look of the models and they are a mix of men and women, which is cool. And they have a HQ that is a (I’m assuming by the name some kind of wizard) on a battlecat, and that’s sweet.
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Halos Nach TariffCan you blame me?I'm too famous.Registered Userregular
What you need to play is quite flexible, or modular perhaps, depending on what level you want to be playing at. The rules for each individual unit are available for free on the GW website, so you really don't need to invest that much to just get started.
In terms of what you would 'need' for a sort of 'full' matched play, 40k style competitive game.
-A copy of the core rules, these can be found in the Core Book, though there's also a 'Getting Started with Age of Sigmar' option, which is basically just a white dwarf sized magazine and a Knight Incantor model, which has all the basic core rules in it but none of the fluff stuff or rules for playing battles in the different Realmscapes. Alternatively the Core Rules are available for free on the GW website, which is handy!
-The battletome for your army. This has more than just the rules for the units belonging to that faction, it also includes special allegiance abilities, spell lores and artifacts you get to take advantage of if your army belongs to a single faction, along with a few battalions you can use to theme your army further in exchange for in-game benefits, plus fluuf and painting guides and all that stuff.
-The general's handbook basically has all the rules for competitive play, they release a new one every year and it's where the update the points for units/battalions, where you can find the matched play missions, rules for army composition and such. It also has some guidelines for open and narrative play games, and some rules for more varied battle types with multiple players, sieges, campaigns, there's quite a lot of stuff in there, though depending on how you prefer to play some of it might not see a lot of use.
-Malign Sorcery is a kind of add-on to the game, it's not required for play, but you are free to use its components in your army if you want to. The main draw is the 'endless spells', which are a new type of magic in the game where you can basically summon a persistent effect onto the table and have it fly around and wreak havoc, Stormcast Eternals have their own box of faction-specific endless spells too, but I believe the core rules for using endless spells are in Malign Sorcery. There's also an option in Malign Sorcery where you can have you army hailing from a specific realm, which gives you access to a further selection of artifacts and relics that your heroes can use, as well as a whole bunch of new spells for wizards to cast if you're playing with the Realmscape rules. It's not essential to play the game by any means, but it does add another dimension to play and has some fun stuff in there.
To start playing I would certainly recommend you grab the relevant battletome and a copy of the core rules in whatever form you prefer, that lets you start playing games and getting a feel for things. The general's handbook is technically required for, say, organised play and the like, but I don't think it's essential just to get started, though it is a handy book to have around at some point.
The new SCE are pretty cool, and they have some fun toys with a very broad choice of units so you have a lot of tactical options available.
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
Yeah, models are great, aesthetic is top-notch if you're into that sort of style, but there have been so many FAQs that half the rules/stats in their book are completely different now, I think GW actually even sells their reference cards at a discount cos half of them are wrong at this point.
I'm really hoping some of those older books like KO and BCR (and Ironjawz, Sylvaneth, etc...) get a bit of sprucing up at some point. Maybe once all the 40k codexes are updated.
most of the older books are totally fine except for maybe a little bit of points buffs
the big looming issue is that legions of nagash and DoK exist and are laughably busted
legions can just take a bunch of super cheap casters and flood the board with cheap and far too tough summoned units all the while denying spells
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Now to come up with a quick-and-easy paint scheme. Edge highlighting my Ultramarines, while creating a lovely end result, is just ever-so-tedious. So I am planning some kind of metallic that will look decent dry brushed. I'm leaning toward some kind of oiled-steel, bronze, or verdigris copper.
Blimey? Are they bringing Chaos Dwarves back into the fold?
They could be fun when AoSed up.
Not explicitly, no. The CD probably used some as slaves. In fact they have pretty different goals, since the CD want a huge orderly empire that covers the world while the beastmen hate civilization and want only wilderness everywhere.
It’s always been kinda weird that they were called “chaos dwarfs”. They have thier own god seperate from the chaos pantheon, they don’t have demons, they explicitly want to build an orderly empire.
In the new AoS stuff if souleating elves and murder cults can count as “order” I’m pretty sure they do too.
Anyway I’ve decided to actually put more effort into playing this. Started a Beastclaw raiders army because no one plays it in my local meta (stormcasts and ghosts everywhere though....) and it’s pretty cheap (for Warhammer) to get to 2k Points.
There’s also something really appealing about dropping like 10 models and that’s it.
Yeah, I have an 11-model list that's 2k points.
They were called Chaos Dwarfs because back then everything that was “evil” apart from Orcs and Elves was chaos.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Seems more like a Nagash-style compendium book than a DoK-reimagining, but a lot of those beastmen kits are still pretty good, and rolling in the Tzaangors gives them plenty of options.
I just finished up with a two day, 5 game tournament, which was exhausting as always, but also a fun time, I've yet to have a bad AoS tournament game and this was no exception, 5 killer games. I got 11th out of 52, could've probably squeaked higher but some of the new moving objective missions are a little finicky and I made a big movement mistake against Idoneth which lost me the game. Still, I'm more than happy with 3 major wins, and I pretty much tabled all my opponents, which is, of course, what we're really after, why would I have brought all those knife-wielding fanatics? I can do a write-up if anyone really wants a play-by-play.
I have to think a Skaven one is coming along at some point.
I’d like to read a play by play but don’t go to too much ch trouble on my count.
My list was the same one I took to the Grand Tournament heat, which was written for AoS 1, so this weekend was kind of a test to see how it functioned in AoS 2, and I would fairly successfully. I could probably come up with something a little crunchier, but I like this list cos it's kinda of a 'highlights' list with a bit of everything the DoK have to offer:
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood
Hag Queen
Hag Queen
30x Witch Aelves
10x Witch Aelves
10x Sisters of Slaughter
15x Blood Sisters
5x Heartrenders
5s Heartrenders
2000 points on the nose, no battalions or extra command points, or chance at a triumph, might be worth dropping one Khinerai squad to squeeze some of that on, but sometimes having two squads is handy.
Game 1 Duality of Death - Daughters of Khaine (Khailebron Temple)
Opponent's List:
Bloodwrack Medusa
Hag Queen
HagQueen
Hag Queen
20x Blood Sisters
5x Blood Sisters
5x Blood Sisters
30x Witch Aelves
5x Heartrenders
6x Akhelian Morsarr Guard
The draws for round 1 were put up a day or two in advance, which gave me plenty of time to sweat over facing this very scary list on Saturday morning, I know just what those Blood Sisters can do (which is to say, chew through basically anything in the game in short order) and my opponent had more of them than me. Fortunately Morathi is tantamount to cheating in Duality of Death, I got turn 1, transformed her and flew her onto one objective, at that point your opponent has to either focus everything into taking her off it (A minimum or two turns) or get one of their own heroes onto the other objective and hold that for the entire game to force a minor victory. A little bit scummy, but even without that I had the game pretty well handled after winning the turn two initiative, setting up my own Blood Sisters to decimate their Morsarr eels which had been put a smidge too far forwards whilst my buffed up Wyches were able to put enough of a dent in their big Blood Sister block to keep Morathi safe. The game wound up a major victory for me and a table-ing for my opponent, which is about as good a start to proceedings as I could hope for.
Game 2 Translocation Orb - Phoenix Temple
Opponent's List:
Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix
Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix
Avantis Firestrike
30x Phoenix Guard
10x Phoenix Guard
10x Phoenix Guard
Everblaze Comet
Kind of an old school, WHFB aelf-off for round two against a gorgeously painted Phoenix Temple list. The Translocation Orb is not a mission I'd had a chance to play before, it's a fun one where the objective will move around the board every turn, but probably not something really well-suited for competitive play cos you can play as well as possible and still lose if, as was the case this time around, the objective decides to stick around behind enemy lines. Not to disparage my opponent in any way, they played very well to mitigate my advantages and keep me from scoring a comeback as I began to hemorrhage points (And I believe they finished somewhere in the top 5 overall, which is certainly impressive for a battletome-less army). Another facet of the mission is that the objective is worth only 1 point if you go first in a battle round, and 3 if you're going second, and with my fragile, hard-hitting force giving up the turn was often not something I could feasibly do, so by turn 3 it was impossible for me to get a victory. I did mange to wipe out my opponent's army as a consolation victory, but that doesn't win you games! Stars of the game were certainly, as is often the case, my Blood Sisters, who made an absurd amount of 5+ saves to keep me in the fight, though not quite enough to squeak a win.
Game 3 Total Conquest - Stormcast Eternals (Tempest Lords Stormhost)
Opponent's List:
Knight-Incantor
Lord-Castellant
Lord-Relictor
Knight-Heraldor
3x Evocators on Dracolines
5x Judicators
6x Castigators
10x Evocators
5x Sequitors
5x Sequitors
10x Skinks
I am quite scared of the new Stormcast book, there's a lot of good stuff in there, namely Sequitors and ballistas, fortunately this list was light on both. This is one of the older missions which has had a bit of a cleaning up with the new GHB, the old version had a nightmare of a deployment map, and as a bonus the objectives do not move around, which makes things easier! My opponent's list had a few options for milling up Command Points, though I'm not sure for quite what purpose as there didn't seem to be any big combos that could be pulled out with them, but possibly they just didn't get the right opportunity. I gave my opponent first turn and they Scioned all the gun units right behind my army and popped a couple of wounds off of Morathi, the Dracolines advancing rapidly under the command of the Heraldor to get the drop on my throwaway Witches before they could threaten the skinks. I was able to get a solid counter attack in my first round, however, transforming Morathi to tie up the shooting stuff and (eventually) chew through them, whilst the Blood Sisters demolished the dracolines. Once again I was hugely grateful for the Slaughter Queen's excellent command ability that lets one of my units pile in and attack in the combat phase, thanks to the damage output of the DoK units it makes them almost impossible to tie up in combat, freeing up the Sisters to sweep up and knock out the skinks and putting basically one half of the board under my control. My opponent played very passively with their Evocators, using them to defend their home objective, giving my opportunity to buff up my Witch block, command point run them up the board and knock out half the Evocators, when my opponent failed to kill all of the Witches off in their own turn the game was called in my favour.
Game 4 Shifting Objectives - Idoneth Deepkin (Ionrach Enclave)
Opponent's List:
Eidolon of Mathlaan, Aspect of the Storm
Tidecaster
10x Namarti Thralls
10x Namarti Reavers
6x Morsarr Guard
6x Ishlaen Guard
5x Sisters of the Thorn
5x Tree-Revenants
Geminids of Uhl-Gysh
I have never played Idoneth before, and nor had I ever played this mission! I was glad that this was not the 18-24 outflanking eels list, cos I do not really have an answer to that. My opponent's game-plan was quite clear, and they were quite up front about it, wait till battle round 3, stack +3 attacks on the eels and Eidolon and then utilise their superior movement to do huge damage without risk of retaliation due to High Tide, it should be noted that the third battle round 3 is also when my entire army gets to re-roll hit rolls and I want to be getting stuck into combat! This led to a very cagey first few turns, with minor skirmishes on the edges of the battlefield as the primary objective flitted about, I took out their Reavers, Tidecaster and some of the Tree-Revenants, they took out most of my Sisters of Slaughter, then I had to just hunker down and hope they failed a bunch of charges. At this point I made what could reasonably be categorised as a 'big mistake', I dropped me Khinerai from the sky between their line and my own, with the intent of blocking off the movement options for their units and preventing charges, however I measured poorly and allowed them to charge his flying units over the back of the Khinerai, and then kill them off with weaker activations in order to allow the eels to pile fully into the Witch Aelfs, decimating the whole squad with ease and knocking out a huge chunk of my hitting power. I wasn't quite out of the game though, I still had all the Blood Sisters, and with Mindrazor they proved more than capable of knocking out the eels, the Eidolon used the Cloud of Midnight to escape their wrath, more's the pity. This was kind of another instance where the objectives screwed me a little, if there had been just one more round where it had been in any of the other two locations I could have won, but it didn't. I knocked out everything bar Volturnos, the Eidolon and the Thralls, and had one last chance to score a win if my cauldon could secure an 8" charge onto the objective (with a re-roll available), but I could not seal the deal. Despite my tactical misstep still a very close, very fun game and one of my highlights of the tourney.
Game 5 Focal Points - Everchosen/Chaos
Opponent's List:
Lord of Blights
Lord of Blights(?)
Harbinger of Decay
Lord of Slaanesh
40x Marauders
40x Marauders
20x Marauders
Chaos Spawn
Plaguetouched Warband
You know it, you love it, it's the Plaguetouched Warband. I've actually never played it before now, but it's fairly infamous so I was vaguely aware of it's existence, with Archaon popping all of the other heroes command abilities at once you're stacking all those marauders at -2 to hit in shooting and combat, battleshock immune, splashing mortal wounds back on you if you hit them, all sorts of stuff. This was the last game of the event, and we were down on table 9 so trophies were out of the equation, with that in mind my opponent sent Archaon hunting for Morathi's head, being one of the few models in the game that can kill her outright, though he failed the charge and was not given the opportunity. Knocking Archaon out early obviously puts a hamper on the armies functionality, so I pounced him with 30 buffed up Witch Aelves, chewing a good chunk of wounds off in my turn and the finishing him out in round 2 when my opponent won initiative. In round 2 my opponent was able to score big points by outnumbering me on the objectives with the huge marauder blobs, but with Archaon down the Witches were free to whittle down the other heroes which had been sent in to support him, whilst the Blood Sisters set to work slowly mincing down one marauder horde. By round 3 things had turned wholly in my favour, -2 to hit across the board is surmountable when you're entire army is re-rolling hits and Mindrazor is doubling out your damage. We called it by the end of round 3 when my opponent had one Lord of Blights, the Chaos Spawn and 20 Marauders left, sealing my third major victory.
And that was that, all over bar packing the terrain away. All in all I had a great time and played five fun, high-level games. My army has some core weaknesses, but I am more than pleased in how it plays, I think I'll focus on touching up the paint side of things rather than shuffle it around too much for the GT finals. I can see some nerfs/points increases falling on the DoK in the future, I feel Blood Sisters for sure would be fine at a little higher points cost, potentially Witches and Hag Queens too, but we'll see on that front, I guess, for me it's one of GWs best books and writing/playing lists with the faction is a lot of fun, and it is nice to get all hardcore competitive every once in a while, though I wouldn't want to do a tournament more than once every four months or so, they've very tiring!
That doesn't look like a clown at all.
I've hacked together what look like 2 points balanced lists. Slightly wonky at 930 vs 940 points, and technically the Stormcasts are illegal as they only have one battleline but it'll do. Blimey no wonder the spooks got stomped in every demo game I saw. I had to leave a handful of the Stormcasts behind (mainly to make legal squad sizes) but to get even points I had to give the spooks some extra models, an endless spell and a command point.
I like
Beastclaws look cool. Can I trouble you for an example list?
Edit: Ideally mostly based on (multiples of) the start collecting box. The finecast stuff look like a right pain and the yetis look kinda daft.
I just started Beastclaws, and you honestly just need.
Three start collecting boxes.
Some magnets.
And that’s it.
Edit: Frostlord on stonehorn
Huskard on thundertusk
Riders on stonehorn
6 Mournfangs
4 mournfangs
Is 1900 points. Fill with CP or Grots for objectives.
If you're just looking for fun games, however, go wild, the (plastic) models are great and come with a bunch of extra bits for customisation, and with an army which is mostly comprised of large models you can really go big on the painting if that's your jam.
Norgoth's list looks fine, 3 start collecting boxes makes a good base which you can mix things around with, I'd definitely recommend magnetising the heads and riders of the monsters (which is easily done) so you can swap around different lists without having to buy a bunch of extraneous kits.
Only thing to be aware of when building Mounfang is that they have 3 command model options (Skalg champion, banner bearer and musician) but come in units of two as standard, so only larger than minimum squads will have all three command models. (I think there's maybe some debate on this, as to whether a unit can be a champion and a banner, or whatever? But as far as I know there's no hard and fast rule on it.)
When it comes to mournfangs, is msu good or bad? Norgoth's example list implies bad.
I honestly have no idea, 40k is my competitive game so I’m building my AoS list just to move big ogres around. I set the mournfang squads up like that to keep it to the lowest number of start collectings I could. If your going to do MSU I would run the champion and the drummer. The banner is nice but not as impactful.
In my opinion BCR are definitely in a rough spot on a competitive level, with a mostly 4+ to hit across the board and no native to hit buffs available they're swingy to start with, and suffer more than most under the bevy of negative to hit modifiers that some armies can bring to bear. With so many points tied up in big, single model units you have to be very efficient with your actions in the game, and if your opponent has the capacity to slow you down (via chaff roadblocks or de-buffs) it can be very hard to regain lost ground. Almost all of the matched play missions score victory points based on the number of models around the objectives, which is obviously a natural detriment to low-model count army like the BCR. Sadly in recent tournaments I have not seen a BCR army in the top half of the results table.
Part of the issue is that the BCR tome is an early book with a limited unit selection, which makes for a cool looking coherent force, but suffers a little in flexibility! You can fix this a little if you're willing to dip into allying in some other Ogor units; a Butcher or two adds magical support and buffing potential, Grots can be used to screen your expensive monsters from getting hit, and basic Ogors can provide a decent anvil block. Though if you go chasing maximum efficiency in this way you kinda end up with a mostly Ogor army with a bit of Beastclaw support, rather than the other way round.
It's not all bad news though, for one thing with GW at the moment, and with AoS in particular, the meta can shift fairly quickly and there's not much point in chasing it I find, if you like the look and playstyle of the BCR they are a lot of fun, and with any luck things will swing back in their favour in the future.
They still have what is probably the best hero sniping tool in the game with the Thundertusk, being able to force 6 mortal wounds onto any visible enemy hero within 18" (plus movement) is a powerful tool, and Blood Vultures are also handy to help peck the last wounds off if said hero manages to make a lucky mortal wound save.
Whilst pretty heavily nerfed from it's original glory the Stonehorn is still a fun unit to roll around the board like an angry missile made of rocks, a little unreliable with the 4+ to hit, but with a little luck you can clear entire units.
Mournfang are in a similar kind of boat to the Stonehorn, in that if you can hit those 4+ rolls you're golden, otherwise they can whiff at the worst moments. 2-model squads can work if you're just looking for battleline options, they won't be clearing out hordes any time soon but if you can run them up a flank they can chew up support units readily enough. I probably wouldn't run squads larger than 4 models as they tend to get a bit unwieldy in large blocks and you don't want to be missing out on getting attacks in range with such expensive models, but there's no agreed upon sweet-spot and you can experiment with unit sizes to see what works best for you.
I can go into deeper analysis, if you're interested, I'm not trying to dissuade you or anything, I love the look and theming of the BCRs, and they are a lot of fun in more casual games, they just have some design flaws at present which can be a little limiting.
I certainly wouldn't mind some more talk/advice about BCR, but I think it's better to wait until I've got the models. I have to finish up my kill team stuff first.
damn near dead last
they've been nerfed multiple times and received no buffs
I'm really hoping some of those older books like KO and BCR (and Ironjawz, Sylvaneth, etc...) get a bit of sprucing up at some point. Maybe once all the 40k codexes are updated.
I’m mostly interested in Stormcast at the moment for two reasons. I like the look of the models and they are a mix of men and women, which is cool. And they have a HQ that is a (I’m assuming by the name some kind of wizard) on a battlecat, and that’s sweet.
In terms of what you would 'need' for a sort of 'full' matched play, 40k style competitive game.
-A copy of the core rules, these can be found in the Core Book, though there's also a 'Getting Started with Age of Sigmar' option, which is basically just a white dwarf sized magazine and a Knight Incantor model, which has all the basic core rules in it but none of the fluff stuff or rules for playing battles in the different Realmscapes. Alternatively the Core Rules are available for free on the GW website, which is handy!
-The battletome for your army. This has more than just the rules for the units belonging to that faction, it also includes special allegiance abilities, spell lores and artifacts you get to take advantage of if your army belongs to a single faction, along with a few battalions you can use to theme your army further in exchange for in-game benefits, plus fluuf and painting guides and all that stuff.
-The general's handbook basically has all the rules for competitive play, they release a new one every year and it's where the update the points for units/battalions, where you can find the matched play missions, rules for army composition and such. It also has some guidelines for open and narrative play games, and some rules for more varied battle types with multiple players, sieges, campaigns, there's quite a lot of stuff in there, though depending on how you prefer to play some of it might not see a lot of use.
-Malign Sorcery is a kind of add-on to the game, it's not required for play, but you are free to use its components in your army if you want to. The main draw is the 'endless spells', which are a new type of magic in the game where you can basically summon a persistent effect onto the table and have it fly around and wreak havoc, Stormcast Eternals have their own box of faction-specific endless spells too, but I believe the core rules for using endless spells are in Malign Sorcery. There's also an option in Malign Sorcery where you can have you army hailing from a specific realm, which gives you access to a further selection of artifacts and relics that your heroes can use, as well as a whole bunch of new spells for wizards to cast if you're playing with the Realmscape rules. It's not essential to play the game by any means, but it does add another dimension to play and has some fun stuff in there.
To start playing I would certainly recommend you grab the relevant battletome and a copy of the core rules in whatever form you prefer, that lets you start playing games and getting a feel for things. The general's handbook is technically required for, say, organised play and the like, but I don't think it's essential just to get started, though it is a handy book to have around at some point.
The new SCE are pretty cool, and they have some fun toys with a very broad choice of units so you have a lot of tactical options available.
most of the older books are totally fine except for maybe a little bit of points buffs
the big looming issue is that legions of nagash and DoK exist and are laughably busted
legions can just take a bunch of super cheap casters and flood the board with cheap and far too tough summoned units all the while denying spells
and daughters will just table everything turn 3
I picked it up as part my big dive in with Nighthaunts and I don't think there's anything that useful for me other than battle plans (scenarios).
I'm pretty sure for Stormcast, as they have a nice new book that's pretty much all you need.
teaser for the upcoming teams
Darkoath
Karadhron
Sylvaneth
Moonclan
Monsters/Troggoths
Tzeentch