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Current State of the Armies


Overread

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I figured this would be helpful to new and experienced players alike in keeping track of how the state of the game generally is and a track on what is likely to come in the near future from what GW has officially said.

GAME EXPANSIONS

Note I've listed this as expansions, however several of them are so widely used that they are considered core to the game in many play areas. 

  • Malign Sorcery.  Endless spell components are considered to be core to the game. Use of realm specific rules varies region to region, though generally quite well accepted in most places. 
    A single boxed set that contains:
    rules for Realm Spells, Realm Artefacts and Endless Spells. 
    14 warscroll cards
    13 endless spells (Balewind vortex is the "missing" Endless Spell model as it has its own box)
  • Forbidden Powers. Another expansion boxed set like Malign Sorcery. Endless spells and new terrain feature are generally considered core to the game. Mercenaries and new terrain feature rules vary region to region, but generally good uptake. Note set appears to contain less than Malign Sorcery, however most of the models in this kit are much larger.
    Rules for Greyfyrd Lodge Fyreslayers and Tenebrous Court Flesh-eaters - both mercenary company bands. 
    Model and rules for Penumbral Engine terrain feature
    4 New Endless spells
    Warscroll cards for new models and several new terrain sets (as listed on the GW store page)

 

Older expansions. These are often still valid to play, however as they were generally linked to time-limited events run by GW they are often not so widely used after their general campaign period. Model stats presented in them are likely very out of date though and I believe some battleplans have been reprinted in latter publications. The books can sometimes have lore in them which is often an engaging read for those after a bit more depth and understanding of the world and story of the Age of Sigmar

  • Malign Portents - mostly a campaign book with battleplans and some narrative battle systems. The rules for models are now present in the respective armies in the Battletomes; whilst the terrain feature is no longer sold by GW. Note currently GW only sells this in e-book format.
  • Skirmish - a rules set for playing smaller games with far fewer models. Whilst most new battletomes have details for their army for Skirmish within them, the original book is now out of date. GW reprinted updated rules in a White Dwarf issue in 2019 (need to edit in when I find which one) - note this WD might be a bit tricky to get hold of. It's hoped/expected that Skirmish might get its own updated book in time - however Warcry has somewhat jumped into its slot of the smaller format game right now. 
  • Realmgate Wars - some of the first campaign books to be released for the game. The story lore from them is already sold in books by Black Library. Meanwhile the stats and many of the rules are now very out of date. GW only sells these now as ebooks. 
  • Path to Glory - much like the Realmgate Wars this is another very early publication in the AoS timeframe and is now quite out of date. 

 

BATTLETOMES

Note: 

Old Battletome = earlier editions which have lore and warscroll cards; but have no allegiance abilities, pre AoS 2.0 rules
New Battletome = more recent release with AoS 2.0 rules, includes more depth and allegiance abilities and other extended content. 
 

Current count (note  includes all announced Battletomes) 
No Battletome - 0
Old Battletome - 0
2.0 compatible Battletome - 24

Grand Alliance Order:

  • Free Cities - combines Free Peoples, Dispossessed and Aelves - New Battletome, No Terrain, No Spells (however all universal Endless Spells get realm bonus as default)
  • Daughters of Khaine - New Battletome, No Endless Spells
  • Fyreslayers - New Battletome, Endless Spells and Terrain feature
  • Idoneth Deepkin - New Battletome, No Endless Spells, Unique Terrain
  • Kharadron Overlords - New Battletome
  • Seraphon - New Battletome - Unique Terrain
  • Stormcast Eternals - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells
  • Sylvaneth - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells, Unique Terrain

Grand Alliance Chaos:

  • Beasts of Chaos - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells, Unique Terrain
  • Blades of Khorne - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells, Unique Terrain
  • Disciples of Tzeentch - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells
  • Slaves to Darkness - New battletome, Unique Endless Spells
  • Hedonites  of Slaanesh - New Battletome, Endless Spells and Unique Terrain
  • Maggotkin of Nurgle - New Battletome. Unique Terrain
  • Skaven (All Clans) - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells, Unique Terrain
  •  Legion of Azgorh (Forgeworld Chaos Dwarves) - New Battletome 
  • Tamurkhan's Horde (Forgeworld Nurgle) - New Battletome  - WARNING Tamurkhan has been removed from sale from FW - army status at risk

Grand Alliance Death:

  • Flesh Eater Courts - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells, Unique Terrain
  • Legions of Nagash - New Battletome, 
  • Nighthaunt - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells
  • Ossiarch Bonereapers - New Battletome, Unique Terrain,  Unique Endless Spells

Grand Alliance Destruction:

  • Ogor Mawtribes - New Battletome - Unique terrain, no unique endless spells. 
  • Orruk Warclans - New Battletome - no terrain - no endless spells. 
  • Gloomspite Gitz - New Battletome, Unique Endless Spells, Unique Terrain

Forgeworld Armies - downloads for Rules found here https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Downloads#warhammeraos

 

Removed armies: Note these are armies no longer listed on the GW store for sale, they might have Generals Handbook rules, or they might have been consolidated into other Battletomes/armies. 

  • Brayherd - No Battletome, Allegiance Abilities GHB2018 - However army likely replaced now with Beasts of Chaos as unified force. 
  • Greenskinz - No Battletome - all models removed from sale
  • Gitmob (goblins) - No Battletome - all models removed from sale
  • Aelves - general listing (includes most of the old elf model lines and aelf lines from AoS) Now majority rolled into either Free Cities or removed from sale. 
  • Darkling Covens - GHB2019 rules only - however model line is in Free Cities 
  • Wanderers - akin to aelves above. 
  • Beastclaw Raiders - combined into Ogor Mawtribes
  • Gutbusters - combined into Ogor Mawtribes
  • Everchosen - now rolled into Slaves to Darkness

Consolidated future Battletome release rumours/hints:

WARNING = products likely and actually on last orders 

  • Realm of Chaos: Wrath and Rapture  - all models within are now on individual sale - very likely this box will vanish. 
  • AoS Forgeworld models have had quite a purge over recent months, it might be continuing so consider them "At risk" even if they aren't mentioned as being on last chance. 

 

 

Other Age of Sigmar Games:

The following are other games set within the Age of Sigmar:

UNDERWORLD:

A card and board format game which features small warparties of warriors adventuring and competing over small battlefields. The game features core packs which update every so often with a new edition (Beastgrave is the current edition). These contain boards to play on as well as warbands to play with. Many races feature their own unique styled warband which is sold with its own cards and rules. Launch periods often have custom card protectors and dice for newly released factions. 
A minor negative point is that many universal cards (can be used by any force) are often sold through different warbands so there's a bit of a "collect them all" aspect to the game. 

The models released in this have full rules for the full AoS game and can be used in it. Those which had battletomes published after the release of a warband will have the rules within the battletome; otherwise the rules will be included in the box and on the GW website under the rules tab for each warband on their store page. 

NOTE The GW store often shows two listings for many of these warbands. One on the "Underworlds" tab which has a slightly higher price and will have all the Underworld cards included. The other is on the army page for the warband under Age of Sigmar and will feature a slightly lower price but also no cards. Note some warbands do fall out of production when it comes to card supply; however the models remain on sale under their respective army page. Sometimes you can find "out of production" warbands with cards in retailers (3rd party and GW stores).

 

WARCRY

A skirmish game format which features its own unique set of rules and boxed game. The game works by using small warbands of warriors, either unique chaos themed ones or regular models from all current GW armies for the game. 

The game is sold through terrain packs which contain terrain features in plastic as well as card boards to play the game on. The terrain positions and design vary depending on randomly drawn cards which detail the setup of the game; the position for starting for both players; twists (unique variations to the rules/stats which can include wandering monsters such as chaos furies). 

Players roll dice and make choices on how to play through the battle. Games are short and brutal aiming for a quick to setup and quick to play game ideal for new people with limited budgets and for any gamer with limited time or after a different scale of combat. 

All models can be used in the regular AoS game (most Warcry unique models are all from the Slaves to Darkness AoS army

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No worries! I was genuinely curious.

I'm pretry certain Tzeentch was a few months earlier than the Overlords but oddly enough I'd describe it as being a 'new' style tome. It has such a huge selection of models, command traits, and relics and the like, whereas KO  reads more like an old one.

From what I understunderd KO are in much greater need of a new tome too.

anyways, I'll stop blocking up your thread

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50 minutes ago, Overread said:

@ZealousJ I might have made mistakes too - any corrections are most welcome! I was under the impression KO had a much earlier Tome and that Tzeentch were newer but I could be wrong. 

Disciples of Tzeentch came out in January 2017 while Kharadron Overlords were released in March/April that year. So yeah, DoT is a bit older. 

But I think its fair to qualify both as "old" as they where the last Battletomes to come out before the great drought between spring 2017 and January 2018. 

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Ahh true, however they've got nothing on the GW store now so I think its safe to say that, barring a big release, they are gone. I could see GW bringing them back with a new expansion to Gloomspite oneday. 

 

However both the loss of Greenskins and Gitmob does make one wonder at the future of many of the Aelves who are all lumped up at present. 

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7 minutes ago, Overread said:

Ahh true, however they've got nothing on the GW store now so I think its safe to say that, barring a big release, they are gone. I could see GW bringing them back with a new expansion to Gloomspite oneday. 

 

However both the loss of Greenskins and Gitmob does make one wonder at the future of many of the Aelves who are all lumped up at present. 

Lion Rangers and Swifhawk are in  bad place.

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2 hours ago, Thiagoma said:

Lion Rangers and Swifhawk are in  bad place.

If we look away from Island of Blood no longer existing, I’d argue that Swifthawk is in a better place since GHB18. It made both Shadow Warriors and Spireguard into battleline if its allegiance is chosen. You know, so you can actually make an army of them. 

Come to think about it, having the absolute bare bones is no comfort at all...

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This might use a crude power approximation so new players know what they‘re in for if they choose for example Kharadrons

 

sth. Along the lines of:

(very weak, weak, medium -, medium, medium +, strong, very strong)

power approximation

KO - weak

Bretonnia - Very Weak

LoN - Strong

SCE - Strong

FeC - Medium

DoK - Very Strong

Seraphon - medium +

Beastclaw Raiders - medium -

IdK - Strong

 

etc.

Edited by JackStreicher
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I shied away from power relations because I find that such topics can get quite heated and varied depending on who plays what army. I think it also confuses the issue for some thinking that a certain army is designed to be strong/weak when it really the result of balance which might be changed at any point.

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37 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

This might use a crude power approximation so new players know what they‘re in for if they choose for example Kharadrons

 

sth. Along the lines of:

(very weak, weak, medium -, medium, medium +, strong, very strong)

power approximation

KO - weak

Bretonnia - Very Weak

LoN - Strong

SCE - Strong

FeC - Medium

DoK - Very Strong

Seraphon - medium +

Beastclaw Raiders - medium -

IdK - Strong

 

etc.

Tiers used to be the WFB way of expressing this.

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You might want to distinguish between 3 grades of battletome. The old no allegiance ability battletomes like Fyreslayers and Ironjawz. The "medium"? aged battletomes that have allegiance abilities but are clearly written for 1st edition like Blades of Khorne and Beastclaw Raiders. Finally the new battletomes that are written for 2nd edition with full allegiance abilities (Nurgle to current basically). 

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Under Chaos add Legion of Azgorh (Forgeworld Chaos Dwarves) thier PDF from Forgeworld was updated for AoS 2.0, including allegiance abilities, battle traits, a unique spell (fireball from Aquishy spells regardless of realm) 3 command traits, 3 artifacts of power and 3 warscroll battalions. Thanks!

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3 hours ago, Lobeau said:

Under Chaos add Legion of Azgorh (Forgeworld Chaos Dwarves) thier PDF from Forgeworld was updated for AoS 2.0, including allegiance abilities, battle traits, a unique spell (fireball from Aquishy spells regardless of realm) 3 command traits, 3 artifacts of power and 3 warscroll battalions. Thanks!

Also, Tamurkhan Horde as a Nurgle addon with new allegiance abilities.

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12 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

This might use a crude power approximation so new players know what they‘re in for if they choose for example Kharadrons

 

sth. Along the lines of:

(very weak, weak, medium -, medium, medium +, strong, very strong)

power approximation

KO - weak

Bretonnia - Very Weak

LoN - Strong

SCE - Strong

FeC - Medium

DoK - Very Strong

Seraphon - medium +

Beastclaw Raiders - medium -

IdK - Strong

 

etc.

Legion of Nagash not rated as Very Strong? Have you seen Nagash with 3 battlelines of maxed out Grimghasts 

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I see two ways to compare objectively.

First: To compare armies, you should not only review their strongest composion possible, but also their avarange potential on an competetive level. That needs a lot knowledge about all battletomes and their strength. 

Second: Different game sizes mean different strength. Some Armies shine on 1000p, while others prefer 1500-2000. A few are very strong on any cap.

Terrain and endless spells are not important for the armies strenght itself. 

For example. I see LoN very strong. Especially on small games it benefits from the smaller battlefield, what makes graves much stronger. 

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