Why do you like your army?

[Malifik]

I’ve been a lurker here for a long time and finally recently registered. I see a ton of topics discussing strategies for armies, how to cope with different metas, army lists, etc. But I don’t see a lot of discussion about what players actually enjoy about their armies and I thought this would be a good way for indecisive new players to be exposed to what makes each army fun or interesting, and maybe help them narrow down the search.

So, go ahead and tell us what makes your army fun and what you personally enjoy about playing it. 

[Barbossal]

Aztec Laser Dinosaurs riding other Dinosaurs.

[Acid_Nine]

I found with blood knights that my preferred way to play is heavy Calvary focused, and the image of fully mounted knights charging into infantry was something I absolutely loved since I saw the Rohan charge into orcs in the lord of the rings movies.

 

plus, after Dan Abnett's run with aquaman and being a fanatic of pirates of the Carribian, sea based armies and creatures are one of my favorite themes. So an army combining these two favorites with eel knights became my favorite faction of AoS; an eel based Idoneth Deepkin army, the first fully painted, based and original AoS army I ever had.

[Barkanaut]

Cool flying ships. And dwarves.

[Eevika]

Big dumb trolls just like me. I also love the idea of Goblins and Trolls working together.

[Waiyuren]

Mixed Tzeentch. Why I like it; Horde-melting mega spells and endless opportunities for converting personalised heroes.

Edited July 1, 2019 by Waiyuren

[Aloth_Corfiser]

About Wanderers:
The Models for sure, - currently I could not see myself collecting any other army ( Beastmen maybe). Otherwise just accept that you will most likely loose to Battletome-Armies. However it feels so much more rewarding when you actually manage to win something or grind towards a tie on points. The Underdog Feeling is maybe the best thing about them.

[Praecautus]

Khorne - in particular mortals. I have been playing khorne for 3 years or so. When I was looking to get back into the game I was browsing and came across a page which called then an engaging army to play. Which they are with all the synergies and buffs. They were/ are an easy army to start but also an easy army to get wrong. There is a huge number of models (mortals, daemons and Slaves) and ways to build the army - this makes them a collector and narrative players dream. There is a great let’s chat here and also the Facebook group I find very open.

But the moment I really got them was my first 2k game playing open war cards, with a single objective that needed to be taken and brought back home. I managed to win in a great game that involved a buffed up khorgorath running home with the objective while my opponent threw everything to stop it. Since then I have had a load of games and refined my list, made conversions and got lots of options. I’ve played a lot of armies, and would like to think won more than I have lost. I can’t imagine not playing them or a variant there or in the future.

[Skreech Verminking]

The backstabbing, betrayal, weapons to kill anything from goblins to god.

The way they speak-chitter.

What they see and think of other races, their way of warfare, hordes, and hordes of body’s overwhelming anything in their way.

their corrupted council, manipulated by something far worse., Engineering that seems impossible and risky to men and beardthings.

a danger that cannot be stopped and is lurking beneath everybody, waiting for the time to rise-scurry.

and last but not least “Warpstone” the substance of truly manifested chaos.

And this is basically the reason why I enjoy and have enjoyed the skaven for the last 11years

Edited July 1, 2019 by Skreech Verminking

[soak314]

I started 40k, and I started with orks, done up in Bad Moonz colors. I like yellow!

None of the other factions ever really clicked, and I just assumed that meant I liked orks the best.

That whole illusion shattered when I painted my first grot. I didn't like orks, I liked gretchin. The concept of using an in-lore and in-rules underdog to best someone in a game of strategic combat was intoxicating, and grots exemplified that playstyle and mindset.

When the Bad Moon Rising trailer dropped late last year, that was curtains for my 40k army. At that point I was already AoS-curious, and immediately went full Gloomspite.

 

[MrZakalwe]

The models and the story-line (even if it was dropped).

The High Elves were split up by their gods in the End Times and perished with the others but that's where the story gets interesting.

With the creation of the realms and the rebirth of the Aelves they spread across the newly created mortal realms and prospered, eventually Tyrion and Teclis returned and rejoiced at discovering their kin recreated. The returned gods recounted the glories of old. New kingdoms were raised in the image of what once was and thus began the Highborn's last golden age.

The rest is supposition but it's based on where T&T weren't and what they didn't do, and the logical consequences of this.

The Age of Chaos was to end this- as enclave after enclave, land after land fell, those that remained realised too late that they had been abandoned, they had gods but none that would aid them when they needed it most. When the hordes of chaos crushed the glittering kingdoms created in the image of remembered glory Tyrion and Teclis were nowhere to be seen.

Those that fled to Azyr were all that would survive. 

Long ages the gates of Azyr remained closed while Sigmar and Grungni forged the Stormhosts, the remnants of the Highborn splintered and searched for other powers- some turned to the Ur-Phoenix, pledging their lives and souls to something they do not understand - and after joining can never question, while others formed martial cults around the icons of the past (the white lions, and the dragon lords) but none of these are the actions of a people that believe they have a future. 

With the reopening of the gates and the realmgate wars the various cults and factions of the Aelves travelled with them and then came the next great neglect from their gods. Teclis desperate to recreate the Aelves of old spawned the deepkin before turning from them like he did from the Highborn.

So that's where it leaves the Aelves in the mortal realms at the current stage of the story, these wouldn't be the glittering hosts of the old world, arrogant and used to fighting from a position of overwhelming superiority -instead the Aelves of this age would be a desperate and broken revenant of their former glory clinging to existence andf trying to claw a future out where they can. But ultimately they are the same Asur of old, the speed, might, and arcane prowess but pushed to the wall and forced to make difficult choices, and drawing power from sources best left well alone.

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by MrZakalwe

[SirPug]

I just love the endless narrative possibilities one can so with armies.

I have heavily converted/kitbashed Norse themed khorne mortal army.

[Dreadmund]

As a nurgle player:

Love the sculpts (apart from epidemius). Good mix of humour and body horror on the models makes for some really fun things to paint which rewards variety. I don't want to paint 30 identical foot soldiers in immaculate, matching armour I want to paint a bunch of lumpy wierdos who have wear whatever was to hand at the time. Also they're supposed to be messy so if you make a couple small mistakes while painting that's fine, it might actually make them look better.

In game they're super tanky, resilient and brave. I love to play tanky things in most games, it's just a personal preference. It's nice to watch an enemy's best efforts to remove you neutralized because of your buffs and it gives you a little bit of wiggle room to make the occasional mistake as a new player (and I still have a lot to learn so that's great for me).

Nurglings. So cute.

[AthlorianStoners]

I play Beastclaws for their lore potential and play style. 

I always thought there was the option to expand the BCR lore into something tragic. 

Wandering warrior tribes, cursed to forever run from a cold winters death, being forced to pillage and raid to survive. 

[chord]

Stormcast because I've always been of fan of Paladin's in fantasy games.  And they are (were) the closest thing in AOS

[InSaint]

Daughters of Khaine makes me feel like a strong independent woman even though I am a man 🤣

Morathi needed no Nagash or Sigmar, she forged her own empire and is probably on her way to godhood

It is also reasonable to say Teclis, Tyrion and Malerion owed it to her for being able to reclaim aelven souls

And they are at the top of the meta

Edited July 1, 2019 by InSaint

[SafeguarDD]

I play Flesh Eater Courts for the pure narrative potential. I spent a lot of time adding little bits and bobs to the models to set them apart. 

[Charleston]

Slaves to Darkness:

I love the grim "bad guy" flair of the old Chaos Warriors. Faceless brutes, clad in heavy metal plates, marching relentlessly toward the enemy. They bring death and havoc to their enemies in exchange for power and glory from the gods. The cost for power they pay is high and only the mightiest of them, who have accumulated enough power, seem to have something like a personality. Yet they are all exchangeble. If one Lord fails the Gods, the next one will take his place.

Come on, this is epic and althrough gameplaywise the army makes my heart bleed because it is so bad, the lore and fluff is just amazing. Also I get goosebumps from most of their artworks from old whfb times! The Everchosen as the next logical step are also awesome and cool

Stormcasts Eternal - Hammers of Sigmar:

Well, I have to admit it: I started SCE as a cheap and easy to play army to have something to cheer me up from the loses I´ve had with StD. As it was never supposed to be any big project, I went for Hammers of Sigmar, because I like having Matching Stuff and when most Art depicts an Army in the same colors as yours, there is some satisfaction behind it.

While the project started as a quite "loveless" one, I started to like them more and more with every single model painted and every single game played. It´s just a nice thing to play the good guys, with the new lore that shows how Stormcasts pay a high price for beeing reforged the army turned from a bunch of prince charmings with golden fetish masks into an army of individuals that one can greatly empithize with. Also Gameplay-wise I am really a player for defensive armies that can take a beating. I really dislike removing models too fast and Hammers of Sigmar are great for this due to 6+++ sheningans and "Return a unit of Sequitors or Liberators on a Roll of 5+" CA´s. I have not finished painting them due to exams but boy, I am eager to swing the brush as soon as the time allows it!

Khorne:

Well, what started as some buff-heroes and was never intended to be an own army became a quite nice sice project. I like to play Khorne even when I don´t do so with a lot of sucess in my local group. It is an army that does an great job at beeing the bad guys and even when they loose, it feels like the army contributed a lot to the narrative feeling of the game. Also Khorne allows some nice variations in listbuilding and has a lot of "hidden" Warscrolls that can be used, like Slaughterbrutes or Soul Grinders. Even when not beeing very competetive, such units are always a nice to thing on the table as they are rather rare and nice to play with/against.

[bsharitt]

For my Nurgle, Nighthaunt/Death,(now) Gloomspite, and KO armies, (along the random models I don't have armies for) they were picked purely because I really like the models. Game play didn't really come into it getting them initially, it does have some effect on my current feelings towards a particular army, though it's less about being the best and more about being the most fun to play. Even though I've always been a huge Dwarf fan, I have to say the KO are far from the top of my liked list and are practically a display only  army at this point. I probably have the most fun playing my Gloomspite Gitz army even they they may not be my best army on the table top, but when I lose with them it's always very thematic and generally, which is more than I can say for the KO(Dwarfs with bad leadership and bristling with guns they can't shoot reliably).

[tripchimeras]

Deepkin: The last battle in the Aquaman movie, yet somehow taking place on land...  It is like the embodiment of how GW's has embraced the ridiculous and insane with AoS in a way they never did in WHFB.  It took me a while to adapt to the tone change, but now I love it, and I feel like Deepkin are one of the armies that best embodies this insanity.  Also that sea turtle, Eidolon, and shark are just the coolest models to me (too bad they aren't good).

More practically I played flying circus high elves in 8th edition, and Deepkin are very much that same playstyle in AoS imo.

Edited July 1, 2019 by tripchimeras

[Zamik]

I like my Khorne army because I love the over-the-top bloody barbarian aesthetic; and because in the lore every Khorne hero is trying to outdo or outright kill every other Khorne hero, so it's like a really cutthroat corporate culture, with Mighty Lords having to wrangle a bunch of dudes who hate him and want him dead so they can get his boons from Khorne etc.

Playing Khorne just always makes me think of that scene from American Psycho, where they're all showing off their business cards to one-up each other, only in this case they'd be showing off actual skulls!

[Overread]

One of my biggest problems with wargames is that I can very easily get behind the story and narrative to almost any force! Even those I don't like "the best" I can still easily get swept up by the story and theme of them. 

That said there's a few armies that I do collect:

Daughters of Khaine - what sparked my interest in AoS and got me back into the game (or at least into the model addiction). First there are the models, Morathi's transformed form and the Khinerai are utterly outstanding models - powerful winged harpies and then the massive snake harpy queen in all her huge glory! Epic sweeping wings that really stand out compared to many of the others GW has made over the years; the khinerai are really expert models in posing design, not even a flight stick and they appear to be in powerful flight ready to bring curved blade or spear to bare against their enemies. 

I also love the melusai who to me give a wonderful greek mythology feel to the faction when combined with the khinerai. Bloodstalkers are Medusa ripped right out of the old greek myths; snake women with deadly bows and eyes that can turn man and beast to stone. 

Meanwhile the faction as a whole is an army of shadows and stealth mixed with the art of a dancer. Witch Aelves who dance over the battlefield, dodging blows with a speed and dexterity that defies belief; only to them slide right up and slip deadly sharp blades keep in between cracks in armour to deliver swift death. Efficient, powerful and with a dancers beauty of bloody death dealing. Indeed with their worship of the God of Murder and their fetish for harvesting hearts to power their magics they embody a hint of classic vampirism without any of the burning in the sun. Indeed right now I'd say they are more bloody and blood driven than the vampires of the setting who appear to be somewhat in the background compared to the rattling skeletons and ghostly bedsheets of Nagash's armies (I'm kinda hoping that GW might give Vampires their own proper army within Death at some stage). 

As @InSaint also notes above I also like the strong independence angle for the women within the aelf forces that DoK brings; even if Morathi has twisted them beyond such into the realms of near insanity with her hatred of men. Warlocks withered and weak and yet powerful of spell are cast upon the battlefield upon strong steeds; bound to Morathi yet willing to sacrifice themselves all the same to ensure victory. It's an army I hope GW grows in size and diversity, I'd love to see some more of that greek mythology appear within the army; a few more beasties and such and heck some shadow beasts/spells to twin with Morathi's earliest days within the mysterious Shadow Realm

 

 

Skaven - one army that I wanted to collect way back even in the Old World days and was scared away by teh sheer number of slave rats one needed and that was before adding more clanrats on top. I love their manic actions, their near insanity, their mad science that is born of the 80s and 90s era. Heck they run around with what is basically radioactive material and play games with it building machine guns, steam powered abominations of flesh, mine controlled giant rats, massive chain guns, weapons taht rip through reality - heck they've got a doomwheel. It's a freaking exercise wheel that fires off lightning and minces into the enemy. 

Skaven are, to me, just a pure "fun" army in all those mad insane ways. They also embody a bestial army to my eye - with monsters like the abomination through to the foregeworld wolf-rates (fantastic resin models!) 

Slaanesh - I've always had a fondness for a more "bestial/animal" army and whilst GW has still yet to give me a wood elf army that comes close to cutting it (they nearly got close with their deer/stag riders but then end-times happened). So I've often had a desire to build a demonic force as I feel that they embody that aspect to some degree. Khorne has his hounds; Nurgle the Beasts - but overall it was Slaanesh that I liked the most all round. In some ways they are similar to the DoK in the core of their army being broadly of female-ish style (or full female for the old metal deamonettes and seeker riders). There's that element of grace, yet in Slaanesh there's also a purer brutality and wicked edge. Claws tipped arms, spikes and blades upon the body; twisted mounts that appear like little dragons and yet have tongues that lick out to numb all senses. Then the prize of the faction - fiends! The older metal ones almost insect like with their huge eyes and claws; whilst the newer take on an almost more dragon style appearance with their raised spines along their backs and the horns atop their heads. Super long bladed claws; tails like whips - just awesome. 
There's also that influence of the 300 film creeping in - with the new Prince and his riding deamonette; through to the "come at me" pose of the new Greater Demon. 

I also plan to take Slaanesh further and in time add some of the mortal followers - I've really loved the stories such as War Queen (novella) and the barbarian style take on chaos worship that the story inspires. Far more engaging (to me) than the pure "mindless" chaos worshippers who are crazed to the dark gods. Instead the modern slaves are shown to be not as much slaves as they are a people with hopes, dreams and desires beyond worship. Indeed you can see the gods fighting for their worship and adoration; competing with each other to secure those mortals to then go to war. So I'm very interested to see how Warcry shapes up and how it develops as well as the update to Slaves when it comes. 

Also, because for some reason GW doesn't like dragons enough and my other armies can't take them (ok DoK can bring in a dark dragon ally at least); Slaanesh gets to bring WARPFIRE DRAGONS! 

Edited July 1, 2019 by Overread

[Scythian]

Throw the kitchen sink at me,  my Hearthguard Berzerkers are still getting their 4+ ward save. 😜

[Aden]

Bretonnians - A life of training culminates in knights who bring all their splendor to battle. Then add the grail -- they're the Captain Americas of the Old World. Skilled warriors are many but who more noble, more seasoned than the grail knights? Able to go toe to toe with the biggest Warbosses and the powers of evil and chaos. Might for right. 

Fyreslayers - I was looking for concept art and saw this guy and it captivated my imagination. It was everything a dwarf barbarian should be -  metal but naked. At once fierce and sophisticated. Then I read Eight Lamentations, and thought these guys are the Wolverine faction.  No size, no odds, no skills will deter me from fighting you and reveling in my death. What more intoxicating mix of honor and brutality.

Free Peoples/Ironweld/Devoted/Collegiate Arcane - In this crazy life, they're the downtrodden, the threatened, and the marginalized. But hope springs eternal, and in them it's in their spirit, their wit, and their determination. What're more satisfying than overcoming with that?

 

[Kramer]

For me it’s always been (and probably will be) models first, (conversion) project inspiration second and playstyle last. If it hits all three you can be pretty certain that over time I’ll end up with a small force of them. 😂