New player looking for guidance in starting army selection.

[Jmarsh56]

This may not be the right place for this and if it isn't I'm sorry but I'm just starting to get into war gaming and I have a few questions before I make any purchases.

I have watched a lot of +2 Tough's videos about lore and the reviews of the start collecting boxes for Age of Sigmar and a handful of factions have jumped out at me. Namely Seraphon, Stormcast Eternals, Slaves to Darkness especially the idea of combining them with Nurgle forces for an unholy deathknight feel if you have ever played WoW, and court of the flesh eaters. In no particular order there.

I'm wondering if someone can give me some insight as to how each army feels to command. I know a lot of that will probably change depending on what units you actually use but I would hate to put a bunch of money into Seraphon because they look cool only to find out I don't like how it feels to command them.

I want some thing that can be balanced in terms of what I can bring to the table. I like the Khorne Bloodbound stuff but everything I hear is that they are almost exclusively melee with little in the way of cavalry and ranged.

I also like that the Slaves to Darkness have a very medieval feel to the strategy with cavalry and standard soldiers and chariots, but another of our players is interested in Nurgle too so I want to keep my options open so we don't double up in our 3 person group.  Starting the group was his idea so I will let him have first choice on Nurgle stuff if he wants it.

Also if anyone has any other input for new hobbyists in general that would be helpful. Myself and 2 other guys from my D&D group have decided to give Warhammer a shot so anything I can pass onto them would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to help a new potential player out!!

[Mayple]

_{Stormcast is a good choice for a starting faction if they're something you're interested in, and you're unsure about playstyles. They're sort of a pseudo-elite army who's pretty good at everything, and with more than enough units to build towards a whole bunch of different strategies - be it defensive, aggressive, fast, shooty, etc, etc. If you're on the fence about them, you won't regret going into them, as they're such a well-supported faction that you won't feel abandoned by GW at any point during your hobby This is a notable benefit.}

_{Mind that I'm not a Stormcast player, so take my advice on that with a grain of salt. From my perspective, it seems like it'd be a good option for you. Worst case scenario, you'll get to do some really cool "dark stormcast" convertions for your Slaves to Darkness army if you later on decide to go for that instead. Stormcast models make for good Warriors of Chaos.}

_{Seraphon is either heavily focused on monstrous cavalry (Carnosaur, Dread Saurian, and such) - or on blocks of infantry supported by a Slann that teleports your troops around the field. Option 2 boils down to "I will outmaneuver my opponent through my superior ART OF WAR!" - while Option 1 is more of a "I will hit my opponent hard where it hurts, and also be aware of all my re-roll buffs" (Seraphon have a -lot- of buffing available. Consider getting a flowchart if you're gonna play them. They're second only to Khorne in buff-complexity, as in, you're getting buffs from so many different sources in different phases, you're bound to forget half of them - if you enjoy playing the buffing game, Khorne and Seraphon are great. If you mainly want to focus on the pure strategic element, I'd avoid both of those for now. You can pick them up later on.) **I don't play Seraphon, but they are my most recurring opponent across multiple players**}

Nurgle is nurgly. I'll let other people chip in on that

[flemingmma]

My advice is to pick up the starter kit, out costs slightly more than a start collecting box and gives you two playstyles to experiment with and nearly 1000 points of stormcast and bloodbound.

[Lucio]

Stormcast are definitely the army to pick if you want to have an all rounder option. They get all the unit types bar artillery, but can easily add that in with allies.

 

As a note, Slaves to Darkness have a useful option in that they can go into any Chaos army, so you can easily add them to Khorne or Nurgle without diluting the key strengths of your army.

[Tiklis]

Hi there!

Stormcast is the eat to to... Unless you don't like the poster boys as I do.

You have a fee other options, but death is a basic army too. At least in my opinion. 

You have Sylvaneth easy to paint and the seem very fun. 

Khorne Bloodbound are nice to maybe a bit hard to paint if tou are a beginner but there are plenty of tutorials out there.

Orc are more or less easy to paint and pretty straigh forward. For what I heard. 

I started AoS in January. So I was in your spot a few months ago. My final call was between Death and Sylvaneth. I choose Death they looked great. But they are an horde army so it takes more time and money to assemble it right. With my actual knowledge I would choose Sylvaneth.

But as I said before pick something you like.

[NemoVonUtopia]

Nurgle units are gereraly slow and durable, they have a lot of debuffs, healing, and bonuses to wound through their spells. They can summon trees that let them run and charge so they can mitigate their slowness. They have a lot of options being able to choose units from slaves to Darkness, nurgle only mortal heros and units like blightkings, nurgle daemons, and even skaven Clan pestelins. They have the most unit options but they have no long range shooting other than the skaven catapult.

Like others have said, stormcast can do pretty much anything other than magic and artillery but they can ally that in.

I have fought Flesh Eater Courts a fair amount. They have swarms of ghouls, many small support heros that regenerate units, and big monsters like terrorgeists. They can be annoying to fight because their multi wound units like crypt flyers and horrors can have several models come back if you don't kill them all. 

[Twitch of Izalith]

Flesh eaters are one of the cheapest armies to get into as you can build the whole thing from start collecting boxes - except the Vargulf Courtier - and to be honest you could just use a vargeist head (comes in the kit) on a crypt flayer model, Give it a distinctive paint job and use that as a Vargulf.

They are mostly a combat army but with some magic and ranged attacks (though no shooting as such). The "cavalry" aspect comes from winged monstrous infantry and their are also some abilities that give you extra mobility. 

The army can be very resilient, if you can keep your characters in play. with many of them having the ability to regenerate units. Consequently you might struggle against armies that can easily take out your characters - If they have strong ranged magic attacks or shooting for example. 

I would support what the others have said about stormcast and slaves to darkness also, but cant give you much advice about Seraphon as I have limited experience with them.

I think to begin with, the most important thing is to pick and army that inspires you with the background and how it looks. You are going to spend vastly more time building and painting than you are playing if you get into miniatures games and its important that you have that motivation to get the army painted when you start out. 

 

[Jmarsh56]

Can any of you guys offer any insight into the differences between what to expect between the two Stormcast Eternal Start collecting boxes? It seems to me like one is strictly foot troops that I am going to assume are probably slower, tankier and maybe more damaging?.... And then there is the Stormcast Vanguards box which seems to be more mounted combatants that I assume are quicker more hit and run with ranged support?

I have seen things talking about how the standard Stormcast box is less that ideal and seems to be intended to be paired with the starter kit and not so great as a stand alone starting point.

[Jmarsh56]

Sorry for a double post, I just realized I hadn't had a chance to respond to any of you fine folks that have taken the time to help me out.
 

Upon further inspection, Flesh eater has such a small amount of variety of models that it really doesn't interest me to be honest.
The Nurgle/Maggotkin/Slaves of darkness/ all the nurgley goodness still seems really cool to me with all of them different models to choose from and the whole war of attrition and the idea of playing the army that isn't going to smash your teeth in but instead just out last you really interests me too. BUT, as I have said I will let my friend have first pick on that but he seems to be leaning towards the Nagash stuff so it may not be an issue.
Then there is the Stormcast Eternals.... I really like the models and variety of them. As well as the ability to really tailor an army to be able to do whatever the heck I feel like doing or being able to try something different without having to completely start over.
 

8 minutes ago, Jmarsh56 said:

 

 

[Barkanaut]

Do not start legacy factions especially if they are in destruction or death. They will likely never see a new model again. I know people don’t like when I say that but it’s the truth. If anything as GW gets more AoS amies out I expect the older legacy stuff to go. Some armies kind of return like the daughters of khaine, but they are very different to the point they may as well be new. 

If you don’t care about that then do whatever but don’t be disappointed if they are phased out as more new armies are added. 

[Jmarsh56]

2 minutes ago, Barkanaut said:

Do not start legacy factions especially if they are in destruction or death. They will likely never see a new model again. I know people don’t like when I say that but it’s the truth. If anything as GW gets more AoS amies out I expect the older legacy stuff to go. Some armies kind of return like the daughters of khaine, but they are very different to the point they may as well be new. 

If you don’t care about that then do whatever but don’t be disappointed if they are phased out as more new armies are added. 

What have I been talking about that is legacy? I have been looking at all of the Start Collecting! boxes on GWs website.

[Barkanaut]

5 minutes ago, Jmarsh56 said:

What have I been talking about that is legacy? I have been looking at all of the Start Collecting! boxes on GWs website.

Sepharon and slaves to darkness. All death factions and all destruction except iron jaws. Nurgle and stormcast are definitely new. Not to sure what other chaos is new but skaven is legacy. 

Idoneth Deepkin get revealed in a week and there are rumors of a new death army coming either late this year or early next. No idea how reliable death rumor is. AoS gets about 2 sometimes 3 new armies a year so who knows what’s around the corner. At some hitherto unknown point they will do "golden" elves but for sure not next year. 

I will say that some legacy factions are so popular I think to only a matter of time till we see them translate into proper AoS armies the sepharon and skaven being popular. 

[Jmarsh56]

Oooohhh, as in it hasn't gotten a new lore/rules look (battletome?). Ok that makes sense now. I was under the impression that, eventually, we could expect to see more of them. And didn't Seraphon get one or is that just an old one I keep seeing?

[Barkanaut]

11 minutes ago, Jmarsh56 said:

Oooohhh, as in it hasn't gotten a new lore/rules look (battletome?). Ok that makes sense now. I was under the impression that, eventually, we could expect to see more of them. And didn't Seraphon get one or is that just an old one I keep seeing?

Old factions got battletomb but honestly they are more just to keep people going since GW can only make so much. AoS already only gets 1/3rd GW time. So once they have 20 completely new model ranges you think they’ll shower the old ones with anything? Nope. They will struggle to even update the new ones. AoS is very new setting so it doesn’t have quite the selection old fantasy did. Just give it time. Granted probably new versions of skaven, sepharon, golden elves, and chaos gods are all safe bets to get AoS army releases.  At the same time AoS likes doing completely new armies as well so who knows how long you could be waiting. 

 

‘’If a faction has a battletomb and has new mini’s released in AoS that were made for this game it is a "new" army. If it was made during warhammer fantasy days and only has a battletomb for age of Sigmar it’s legacy. 

‘There used to be warhammer fantasy b4 AoS. Back then sepharon were lizardmen. Not sure if you knew that. So some AoS armies are just rebranded and refluffed fantasy armies. 

[TheOtherJosh]

For starters:

You can start really small if you start out with the Skirmish rules. (potentially a force as small as 3 units.)

If you don't like how a force 'looks' then choose a different one. (this is key ... you'll end up building and painting many units by the end.)

You don't have to stick with just one army. Your 'first army' is just that your first army.

For a 'quick overview' on how the forces play, I'm going to recommend this thread:

Khorne Bloodbound (now known as 'Blades of Khorne' or a 'Khorne Army') do have a substantial Cavalry force available in the Juggernauts. They also have fast attack daemons in the Flesh Hounds.  They can mix with any units in Chaos that can follow Khorne (which includes Slaves to Darkness).

Disciples of Tzeentch (better known as a 'Tzeentch Army') is an alternate as well, with a wide variety of models and can take the same 'Slaves to Darkness' units (only these follow Tzeentch). They have ranged more attacks available than Khorne and are consummate magic users.

Alternately, you have DEATH ... the Legions of Nagash have just been released. Lots of casters (not much ranged weapons) but plenty of cavalry. while there are a number of older models in the force, they have a completely new rule book. (This includes Vampires (Soulblight), Ghosts/Spirits (Nighthaunt) and Skeletons (pretty much most of the rest). The models are overall relatively recent, and with a new Battletome you're pretty set. I would hazard an opinion that they're as good, if not better in some circumstances at Magic than a Tzeentch army. With a boatload of necromancers and undead ... they're a force to be reckoned with.

The Flesh-eater courts are an older battle tome, but could also be brought in as allies to a Legions force ... 

But at the end, you have to find a force that you like the models that are available, and you'll be good to put together.

I actually started my forces by getting a Silver Tower boxed set, followed by a Start Collecting Daemons of Tzeentch. (Which gave me all of the exotic adversaries for the board game.) And a pretty reasonable starting Tzeentch Army. I liked the looks of the models, and I've enjoyed painting the sets. And on top of that it gave me a coop board game to play with friends (a randomly generated dungeon crawl at that ...) and got a nice expansion with Shadows over Hammerhal (a board-game with a GM, much like DnD where you use models from the Age of Sigmar line as both Adversaries and Heroes in dungeon crawls.)

A start collecting box (that you like the look of) is an excellent starting point for an army. Especially if you play a 'Path to Glory' campaign with your friends.

Once you figure out what you're going to get, come join us over in the Painting and Modeling side of the forum at 'The Painting Table': 

http://www.tga.community/forums/forum/27-painting-and-modelling/

And join in on the Monthly Painting (and Building) Contract where you can showcase your progress and be inspired by other gamers who are building stuff too.

Welcome to the hobby!

[AthlorianStoners]

I dunno if you’ve looked but 1d4chan give some fun and easy to understand breakdowns of the factions. By no means the defnitve resource, I still found it very helpful when I started.