Warhammer Age of Sigmar

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GreenMarine: Apr 25, 2009; Switchblade Switcharoo

What is Age of Sigmar?

Age of Sigmar is a game of fantasy miniature battles set within the sprawling Mortal Realms where the myriad armies of immortal gods make endless war upon each other for control of vast dimensional planes. The game is a successor to Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but mechanically has more in common with Warhammer 40k and lore-wise abandons the Old World of Fantasy Battles for something like the multi-verse of Michael Moorcock's Corum novels.

The rules represent a streamlining of - but not a significant departure from - common Games Workshop mechanics. You will be rolling buckets of dice, rolling to-hit, to-wound, and to-save, but these mechanics have been adjusted to play more quickly. For example, a unit might hit on a 3+ and they will always hit any target on a 3+ unless otherwise buffed or debuffed. This differs from Warhammer 40k where you have to compare the attacker to the defender to determine the to-hit value. Overall the game plays much faster than 40k and Warhammer fantasy.

In a truly epic cock-up the launch of the game alienated the faithful Warhammer Fantasy communities, but over the past year Games Workshop has worked to transform Age of Sigmar into a fun and competitive game worth your time and attention.

What is going on with this lore?

tldr: The good guy gods fail to defend their realms from chaos, chaos takes over, lots of people die. Thousands of years later sigmar decides he's had enough, forges an army, and counterattacks. Early success leads to a new alliance between several gods and the war for the realms expands.

long version: :words:

Age of Sigmar is set within eight mortal realms - infinite dimensional planes wherein gods, monsters, and mortal men dwell. Each of the mortal realms represents a different fundamental, elemental force within the Warhammer world: Azyr (Celestial), Aqshy (Fire), Shyish (Death), Ghyran (Life), Hysh (Light), Ghur (Beasts), Chamon (Metal), Ulgu (Shadow). The realms are linked by various Realm Gates which provide a means to travel between them. They are also linked to the Chaos Realms, each ruled by one of the Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods are obsessed with conquering the mortal realms in order to absorb them, increasing their individual power.

In the time before time, men dwelt upon a material sphere that touched each of these realms but it was destroyed by invaders from the realms of Chaos. The destruction of that world marked the beginning of the Age of Myth, followed by the Age of Chaos, and ending in the current Age of Sigmar. This is the grand write-off of the Warhammer fantasy lore. The previous game system relegated to foot-note status.

Age of Myth - For thousands of years the human god Sigmar ran around the mortal realms exploring, forging alliances, teaching the various mortal races technology and civilization, and generally trying to be an all around good guy. Heroic deeds were done. Sigmar manages to convince the gods of the mortal realms to form a Grand Alliance whose purpose was to defend the realms from invasion by the chaos gods. Ultimately the Grand Alliance falls apart from infighting and manipulation by the chaos gods. Unable to defend their realms, the mortal gods were divided and overcome.

Age of Chaos - With the Grand Alliance in ruins, the chaos gods invade the mortal realms. Sigmar flees to the realm of Azyr and seals the realm gates that lead there. SWith Sigmar in hiding, the remaining gods can do little to defend their realms and chaos gradually consolidates. Mortal societies are destroyed or converted to chaos. Some races, such as the wood elves, are completely annihilated. The gods hide. Everyone despairs. The servants of the chaos gods begin rituals that will absorb the mortal realms into the chaos realms.

Age of Sigmar - On the edge of a total chaos victory, Sigmar emerges from Azyr to invade Aqshy and Ghyran. Surprise chaos bastards! He's been planning for this moment from the very beginning! So, it turns out that throughout the Age of Chaos, SIgmar had been collecting the souls of brave warriors who died opposing the chaos invasion. Using magical metal from the core of the Old World and these brave warrior souls, Sigmar forges the Stormcast Eternals. An army of immortal warriors who march out to push back the all-consuming tide of chaos. The Stormcast establish beachheads on several realms, securing realm gates and setting out with the goal of finding the other gods and reforming the Grand Alliance.

That's the background in short. There have also been two campaigns that have moved the story forward. (More details later). During the Realmgate Wars, a very large four book campaign series, Sigmar establishes his beachheads and makes contact with several other races and gods. During the 2016 summer campaign, the new Grand Alliance of Order conquers the mortal realm of Ghyran.

Okay, but what about the rules?

The core game rules are available for free here. :siren:

The game is a streamlined version of the traditional GW system, with more straightforward combat. There are several other mechanics that are different from previous GW games.

Alternating activation in melee where each player takes turns attacking with a unit.
Monstrous creatures that grow weaker and more exhausted as they take damage.
Random turn order, meaning that players can take back to back turns.
Ability to shoot into and out of melee.
Simplified magic and hero powers that speed up play.

What else should I pick up?

Warscrolls - While the core rules seem straightforward, the game expands in complexity as units are added. Each unit has a Warscroll which describes the units weapons, stats, and special rules. Many of these special rules interact with other warscrolls to create complexity. You don't need to buy any rulebooks to get warscrolls. The Age of Sigmar app has every warscroll for free and a warscroll is also packaged with the miniature kits.

Battleplans - A battleplan is GW's term for a narrative scenario. The campaign books consist of a series of lore / battleplan pairs that tell a story. The various army battle tomes also include battleplans that are tailored to show off that army's play style.

When it was first released AoS had no point system or any real army structure. The rules allowed for things like infinite summoning of daemons, abusive use of terrain, beardy armies consisting only of special characters, etc. This was not so good for the reputation of the game or Games Workshop. This has also changed.

The General's Handbook is a sourcebook that provides much needed structure to the game:

Points are provided for all armies and units.
Basic army list structure is laid out.
Several rules are amended to make them more reasonable for competitive play. (Spells may only be cast once per turn, per wizard. A roll of 1 always fails. Anything that generates extra dice cannot generate extra dice. Summoned units have to come from your points budget.)
Competitive core missions are added.
Multiple campaign systems are described.
Warband rules for smaller games or slow-grow leagues are added.

This competitive mode of play is called Matched Play by Games Workshop. The book also discusses Narrative Play which is scenario based and Open Play which is the old anything goes system.

Battle Tomes are like Warhammer 40k's codexes or Fantasy's army books. The battle tome spends most of it's time on lore, but also includes three narrative battle plans for the army. The battle tome also includes warscrolls for every unit in the army. Usually the app's warscrolls are a better resource, since GW applies errata and adjustments to the electronic warscrolls. Battle tomes are less necessary in AoS than they are in 40k, but are still full of awesome artwork and lore.

Campaign Books contain lore and battleplans that advance the AoS storyline. They also sometimes contain special rules for playing narrative games in the various realms.

THE ARMIES

First, a word of caution. While there are warscrolls for many of the old Warhammer Fantasy armies, several of these armies are now considered to be "Compendium Armies". That is, they are out of print and may no longer receive support from GW. The General's Handbook has a list of the compendium armies. While many compendium armies are expected to get official support in the future, some are known to have been squatted: Khemri and Bretonnia. For now, this OP will discuss only armies that have had official AoS releases from GW in the form of Battletomes or Start Collecting boxes.

I will add armies, art, and details over this week. We wanted to open the thread before all the content was done.

--ORDER--

Stormcast Eternals

Sylvaneth

Fyreslayers

Seraphon

--CHAOS--

Khorne Bloodbound

Daemons of Khorne

Daemons of Nurgle

Skaven Clan Pestilins

Everchosen

--DESTRUCTION--

Ironjawz

Bonesplitterz

Beastclaw Raiders

--DEATH--

Flesh-Eater Courts