New Player, New Army Decisions

[Sorceress]

So I am new to AOS, I have played 40K for more than a decade and almost played fantasy but never really got around to doing more than making a mordhime warband.

I find myself wavering back and forth over several possible factions and finding the right balance between fluff I can get behind and models/ rules I like is difficult. For a little background I started 40K with Blood Angels, and eventually moved into Thousand Sons both of which I do love, though I am not a fan of demons and avoid them totally in my 1k Sons. For fantasy the two armies I was most interested in where the wood elves. (I am a sucker for dangerous Fae and Elemental magic) My biggest hesitation with wood elves was in the painting, I am not great, my hands like to shake and so flesh tones and little elves are very difficult. My other temptation was Vampire Counts which I did build a warband of for mordhime but never really built  up, though I have a scattering of older models. I love vampires, did not love the idea of having to buy and paint a ton of extra models to summon mid game.

I like strong effective magic and flavorful characters, I tend to like more massed troops than big monsters, though some biggies are fun.

My current list of armies I am considering is a bit of a mixed bag.

Tzeetch Arcanites, I sorta accidentally already own this army, well most of it due to playing thousand sons. Not being a fan of tzeetch demons really puts a dampener on many aspects of it, especially in light of 2.0 with there summoning rules baked into the army.

Wanderers, This one is a outlier, I like most of the models in the line, and the idea of playing  a ranged army in a mostly melee game is appealing but they lack a true battle tome and I really don't think I can deal with the level of flesh and blood painting I would need to do to come close to this army. In addition it really isen't very magical. Most of the old wood elf magic made its way into Sylvaneth.

Sylvaneth, Likely with a early focus on gnarlroot, I am mostly  a fan of them, I already bought a start collecting box and the battletome to check them out. Lots of magic, fits in with my nature magic bent, it dose involve building and painting a good number of extra dryads for the branch wraith to summon, but I think I can deal with it. Not my favorite model line but it is interesting. I doubt I will play frequently and this is I have heard one of the more tactical armies out there requiring much more attention to positioning and the battlefield and I am unsure if that will make me a better player, or just destroy any interest I may have.

Stormcast Eternals, Actually Sacrosanct, I love that they have female models and the theme of a whole army of warrior wizards is very cool, it has a sorta pre herecy thousand sons or grey knight feel to it, but it dose feel slightly overly focused on demons and undead fighting, plus for all the fact they are a whole faction of wizards they have very few actual spellcasters in most lists, at least in comparison to others here. Fluff wise they also feel so shiny and hero like, tireless defenders and all that.

Legions of Nagash, likely a good mix of deathrattle, and legion of sacrament with a splash of soul blight for vampire goodness. The hordes are mostly easy to paint skeletons, and the magic is top notch and a part of the army, I likely have roughly a start collecting box worth of random models that I built for the warband or bought intending to expand it. (i am not a huge fan that most of there warscroll battalions are focused around a unique character, the one exception being deathrattle)

I tend to side with "the hero's" though usually the ones who are less than noble and righteous, or who do the right thing for reasons of there own. I think my biggest concern is that I will spend all the time and effort putting together a force only to realize I am not in the mood for them.

Advice and Insights are welcomed, I am happy and excited to get started with AOS. 

[AaronWilson]

In a totally non biased opinion, Sylvaneth have a fantastic model range and play a really unique game on the table. I'd 100% recommend them

[robinlvalentine]

4 hours ago, Sorceress said:

Stormcast Eternals, Actually Sacrosanct, I love that they have female models and the theme of a whole army of warrior wizards is very cool, it has a sorta pre herecy thousand sons or grey knight feel to it, but it dose feel slightly overly focused on demons and undead fighting, plus for all the fact they are a whole faction of wizards they have very few actual spellcasters in most lists, at least in comparison to others here. Fluff wise they also feel so shiny and hero like, tireless defenders and all that.

As a new player collecting a Sacrosanct army, I just want to clear up some misconceptions you've got here:

-They're really not that focused on ghost-busting - they just have a couple of little bonuses against undead and chaos. They're more than capable of holding their own against other armies, and lore-wise often do 

-They've got loads of spellcaster heroes to choose from, and even an entire unit of wizards (Evocators). Even hyper-competitive SCE lists often feature a Lord-Arcanum and a Knight-Incantor, and for normal play (i.e. not gimmicky Gavriel Sureheart lists and the like) you could easily field many more than that.

-While Stormcast definitely are the knights-in-shining-armour faction, GW has put a lot of effort into giving them more personality in this edition - I'd say they're more 'human' than your average Space Marine at this point. Plus the Sacrosanct have their own really interesting storyline - they're on a quest across the realms to discover the secrets of true immortality.

[Lior'Lec]

     Based on what you like I’d suggest either Sylvaneth or Wanders depending on which group of models you want more of. The two factions can ally with each other allowing you to intermix the two into something closer to an old WFB wood elf army. Whichever you choose just needs to have four units per unit of the ally. As a bonus both can also ally with stormcast meaning you could add a detachment of Sacrosant units as well.

[Lior'Lec]

7 hours ago, Sorceress said:

Stormcast Eternals, Actually Sacrosanct, I love that they have female models and the theme of a whole army of warrior wizards is very cool

     God I wish they would release female kits for the earlier Stormcast models; I’d even pay double want the standard box runs. It wouldn’t even need to be full units, one box to build two female Paladins, one to make two female prosecutors, a box with three female liberator/judicators combo kits... Not gonna happen I know, but I can wish.

[Overread]

Considering how massive Stormcast armour is you could probably get away just swapping heads! 

[Lior'Lec]

51 minutes ago, Overread said:

Considering how massive Stormcast armour is you could probably get away just swapping heads! 

     I’d kitbashed a squad of Sisters of Silence to serve as female stormcasts but the scales were just too far off for me. Then i tried the head swap like you say and while I wasn’t 100% happy I was willing to live with it... right up until I saw Blacktalon and Brightshield anyway. They come down just in between the sizes of the Sisters of Silence and the basic Liberator models. I keep teetering back and forth about buying a ton of the Brightshield models to fill in my army with but I know I won’t do it in the end. I still have three squads of Sisters so I may eventually go back to that idea if GW never produces strike chamber/vanguard female kits. 

[Sorceress]

is anyone else sorta annoyed that the soul wars box comes with such weird numbers of models for units. liked ohh these guys get used in groups of 5, here have 8 of them,  and these are in 3s, have 5.

odd given they could have given 10 and 3 and been good with that. 

[mikethefish]

They we're trying to keep the number of sprues down, and so that's why the wierd model count.

That being said, that is I why I never nabbed Soul Wars, despite everyone saying what a great deal it was.

[Sorceress]

my flags has a big sale tomorrow sorta tempting to decide suddenly. like i think soul wars is gong to be 90 whail supplies last. 

[Baron Wastelands]

You could get 2 boxes of soul wars, split with a nighthaunt player, or sell the nighthaunt, and go with sacrosanct. You will get 1380 points out of 2 boxes, with a couple of spare minis for conversion, or test schemes. They have the advantage of being comparatively easy to paint to a decent tabletop standard too, and this way it isn’t a huge financial outlay either. Not a bad starting force, add a bit of cavalry and you’re away.

[Future]

32 minutes ago, Baron Wastelands said:

You could get 2 boxes of soul wars, split with a nighthaunt player, or sell the nighthaunt, and go with sacrosanct. You will get 1380 points out of 2 boxes, with a couple of spare minis for conversion, or test schemes. They have the advantage of being comparatively easy to paint to a decent tabletop standard too, and this way it isn’t a huge financial outlay either. Not a bad starting force, add a bit of cavalry and you’re away.

Do the soul war model counts work out to have the correct number of special weapons if you do it this way instead of buying the unit boxes individually?

[Sorceress]

too bad i have no interest in night haunt. A part of me is still very tempted by undead, though that could just be the season rolling around to fall,  plus i think of the cross use i would get for dnd from a bunch of skeletons and undead monsters. 

 

i think i can safely eliminate wanderes and tzeetch from consideration lack of battle tome and models i don't love being virtually required kills things for me. 

[Cambot1231]

The flesh parts on the wanderers are so small that you can get away with a flat basecoat. Put more time into the armor and cloaks which only require a wash and dry brush to pick out details. Not the easiest but not the hardest to paint either. They look really awesome as they are taken off the battlefield heheh .... at least until their tome comes out.

[Lior'Lec]

@Future     The evocations have an alternate weapon loadout which isn’t included but no special weapons per say. The Sequitors have a few great maces but *if* I remember correctly only the five man unit has the proper number (3 including the prime) while the second doesn’t have any. At a football game right now so just going off of memory here. Castigators don’t have special weapons.

[Sorceress]

hmm it may be a decent option to get storm surges cursebreakers warband from shadespire, use the two regular guys to fill out the soul wars evocators unit and the leader as a leader of some sort. a knight incantor likely.

still sorta shimmery,  i watched 2+toughs review on the sacrosanct and i am still not sold on them. 

[AverageBoss]

Ya, as both a Stormcast and undead player, I bought Soul Wars, then almost immediately sold most of it off (kept the characters, chainrasps, and rulebook). I do not recommend it if your intent is matched play. It is actually the very first big starter GW has made that is not usable in all modes of play, which is a bit disappointing imo. The sprue argument also does not make sense, as they could have easily cut models out of the units that have too many, to add to those that have too few (-2 castigators, -1 stalker, +2 sequitors, +1 reaper).

As for playing less than righteous heroes, that can fit any of the armies you listed based on your own personal fluff (there is a big window there). A Vampire that uses necromancy to protect the people under his rule could be the basis for an undead army (and has happened in WFB). On the Stormcast front there is the Hollowed Knights stormhost. Even the leader of a Tzeentch cult might be doing so for good reasons (there was an AoS story of a guy who joined Khorne to avenge his family as an example).

[Skreech Verminking]

22 hours ago, Sorceress said:

So I am new to AOS, I have played 40K for more than a decade and almost played fantasy but never really got around to doing more than making a mordhime warband.

I find myself wavering back and forth over several possible factions and finding the right balance between fluff I can get behind and models/ rules I like is difficult. For a little background I started 40K with Blood Angels, and eventually moved into Thousand Sons both of which I do love, though I am not a fan of demons and avoid them totally in my 1k Sons. For fantasy the two armies I was most interested in where the wood elves. (I am a sucker for dangerous Fae and Elemental magic) My biggest hesitation with wood elves was in the painting, I am not great, my hands like to shake and so flesh tones and little elves are very difficult. My other temptation was Vampire Counts which I did build a warband of for mordhime but never really built  up, though I have a scattering of older models. I love vampires, did not love the idea of having to buy and paint a ton of extra models to summon mid game.

I like strong effective magic and flavorful characters, I tend to like more massed troops than big monsters, though some biggies are fun.

My current list of armies I am considering is a bit of a mixed bag.

Tzeetch Arcanites, I sorta accidentally already own this army, well most of it due to playing thousand sons. Not being a fan of tzeetch demons really puts a dampener on many aspects of it, especially in light of 2.0 with there summoning rules baked into the army.

Wanderers, This one is a outlier, I like most of the models in the line, and the idea of playing  a ranged army in a mostly melee game is appealing but they lack a true battle tome and I really don't think I can deal with the level of flesh and blood painting I would need to do to come close to this army. In addition it really isen't very magical. Most of the old wood elf magic made its way into Sylvaneth.

Sylvaneth, Likely with a early focus on gnarlroot, I am mostly  a fan of them, I already bought a start collecting box and the battletome to check them out. Lots of magic, fits in with my nature magic bent, it dose involve building and painting a good number of extra dryads for the branch wraith to summon, but I think I can deal with it. Not my favorite model line but it is interesting. I doubt I will play frequently and this is I have heard one of the more tactical armies out there requiring much more attention to positioning and the battlefield and I am unsure if that will make me a better player, or just destroy any interest I may have.

Stormcast Eternals, Actually Sacrosanct, I love that they have female models and the theme of a whole army of warrior wizards is very cool, it has a sorta pre herecy thousand sons or grey knight feel to it, but it dose feel slightly overly focused on demons and undead fighting, plus for all the fact they are a whole faction of wizards they have very few actual spellcasters in most lists, at least in comparison to others here. Fluff wise they also feel so shiny and hero like, tireless defenders and all that.

Legions of Nagash, likely a good mix of deathrattle, and legion of sacrament with a splash of soul blight for vampire goodness. The hordes are mostly easy to paint skeletons, and the magic is top notch and a part of the army, I likely have roughly a start collecting box worth of random models that I built for the warband or bought intending to expand it. (i am not a huge fan that most of there warscroll battalions are focused around a unique character, the one exception being deathrattle)

I tend to side with "the hero's" though usually the ones who are less than noble and righteous, or who do the right thing for reasons of there own. I think my biggest concern is that I will spend all the time and effort putting together a force only to realize I am not in the mood for them.

Advice and Insights are welcomed, I am happy and excited to get started with AOS. 

I see you have forgotten to mention Skaven.?

you want an army which can even surpass the magic ability of Tzeentch?

than Skaven are your thing, we not only surpass them in magic (warpstone is a hell of a drug) but also in numbers, technology and more.

Our core of Stormvermins and Clanrats are rather cheap and easy to paint.

we even have Stormfiends and Hellpit abominations, which will look great in an elite horde army Yes-yes.

so start your skaven army today.

 

 

 

[Sorceress]

i remeber the old Sylvania story and how despite everything vlad and manfred where among the more stable less oppressive leaders they had over the centuries. 

part of the reason i am tempted to just go with undead and be looking out for mortals if only due to them being food and entertainment.

perhaps even a undead army from the realm of life

[Sorceress]

Ok so after much deliberation, until i have my next crisis of faith i will be working on sylvaneth and undead, cause with me it always seems to come back to vampires and fairies.