Coming back to AoS

[wakadaka]

So I used to play fantasy with lizardmen and then quit a while and was looking to get back in. I wanted to start up again with a fresh army and have always wanted to try an Elven faction or Chaos dwarves. I'm not looking to be super mega-competitive, just a fun army to durdle around with at my local shop. 

 

So my questions are how are the three main elf factions playing right now? And also I noticed they split up a lot of the elf faction into many subfactions, are we allowed to use units from multiple subfactions as long as they hold the same allegiance? 

 

Thanks for the help!

[Hyperion]

If you are set on elves I would try and wait just a little bit longer.  There is supposedly a new elf faction in the pipeline 

currently you could play all the elves under an order allegiance if you’re doing matched play (with points) or stick to a specific elf allegiance and plug in up 20% of some other elf’s.  For example: do a wanderers (old wood elves) allegiance for a 2000 point game with up to 400 points of any other order faction.  

I’d suggest getting the generals handbook if you want to use points.  It does a good job of explaining everything. 

[Elmir]

All Aelf factions fall under the order banner, so you could always combine them in a Grand alliance: Order army. This can actually be really powerful... it was an unexpected Grand Tournament winner lately even. So if you want to combine different Aelves together, you can perfectly do so. 

If you want to go for a specific sub-faction, it'll be a bit trickier. In the General's handbook 2017, the following Aelf factions actually have faction specific rules (Somewhat being made more "official" in a way):

- Darkling Covens (Mostly Dark Elf infantry and sorcerers)
-Wanderers (Wood Elfs essentially, minus the treekin who became Sylvaneth)

All the rest is still a bit up in the air. There's another Aelf faction on the way right any time soon, but if you do want to start with something, going the route of Darkling Covens or wanderers for now seems safest imo. 
 

[Twitch of Izalith]

I'm playing 2 dark elf sub factions regularly - Darkling Covens and Daughters of Khaine - and using the other subfactions as allies (scourge privateers, shadowblades & order serpentis)

Both are competitive at a casual games with mates or club level but start to struggle if you try and build an all comers, all battleplans GT winning list.

Wanderers are pretty good with some Sylvaneth (Tree People) allies and the army ends up looking like a Warhammer Fantasy wood elves army! Again, competitive at a casual level.

I started playing AoS in March this year after playing warhammer fantasy on and off since 3rd edition and I think I went for the Dark Elves because it was something familiar. To be honest this may have been a mistake because I din't really "get" Age of Sigmar and how awesome it is until I had some games with a fully fleshed out army with a recent battletome. I still run the Dark Elves but I also play Khorne and i'm almost done painting up a stormcast army. Those armies allow you to play the game with everything "unlocked" and would have been a better place to start I think.

So If you can find an army you like from the more developed factions it might give you a better introduction to the game. 

 

 

[wakadaka]

Thanks for the advice  I do admit I was looking into the the darkling coven and wanderers however I get what your  saying about choosing a force with a bbattletome. so far I did take a look at what battletomes were out and the only ones to really peak my interest was the ogre one just because they were also an army I wanted to try back in the day. How do they play now? Also how do chaos dwarves play in age of sigmar also?

[Taketheskull]

I've always considered Sylvaneth to be the AoS wood elf faction, the revenants have pointy ears after all.

They are also a proper AoS faction, as far as rules go, and have a fun play style with forest-related teleport shenanigans.

[Yeled]

As a Wanderer player I have to agree with @Twitch of Izalith.  As much as I love Wanderers and elves in general, it's hard to recommend them since so far they've not gotten a lot of support from GW. They can be effective at a casual level, so it may be fine for what you want. But I have to admit to feeling a bit of regret in choosing an elf faction when I, like you, came back to AoS. 

 

I think he said it well when he said he chose his Darklings and Sisters when he didn't really "get" AoS. I feel the same way about my Wanderers. I still have a lot of fun with them, but in some ways I think they represent the old and not the new. I suspect GW will never really expand them or update them. They will move on to new, different elves and tree people. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think knowing what I do now I wouldn't have started collecting Wanderers. I would have embraced a new faction so I could really experience the game as it was meant to be experienced.

[Guest]

If you're more interested in theme than competitiveness and are open to mixing unlikely factions together, you could consider starting a 'great cities' army. In the AoS setting there are several great cities in which various different races and factions live (and fight) together in relative harmony. Take Anvilgard for example - it's centred around factions that would once have been part of the Dark Elves army (Scourge Privateers, Darkling Covens, Order Serpentis), but can also include Stormcast Eternals, Dispossessed (duardin/dwarves), Freeguild and Devoted of Sigmar. There are other cities that include factions formerly belonging to the High Elves and Wood Elves, each with their own distinct identity and visual theme, and game-wise they all have a unique special rule that binds them and allows you to do something a little bit different on the tabletop.