New Player for 4th Advice: A Thread

[HCMistborn]

Hello all, I was advice to ask over here for advice. Since this will probably be a popular question over the next few months I thought I would create a shared thread for these questions to gather. Instead of having a bunch of different threads and posts, we can have one shared one. So while this first post includes me asking for advice, this can be a gathering spot to help answer questions where we can. 

 

I am looking to get into AOS finally with the new edition, and was hoping for hobby advice on which one to choose. I will eventually do all of these ideas, but let me know what you all think is best to start with. I am leaning  towards the Cities, simply because they are the lowest risk of replacement or losing rules. Right now, we can run a full army of Prosecutors, but who knows in 4th?

1. Stormcast Angels: Everything with wings. Prosecutors, Yndrasta, Celestant Prime, etc. I really love how these older models look, and the new CGI ones from the trailer look even cooler. 

2. Skaven Skryre: I love Stormfiends and Warp Lightning Cannons, and these seem safe to buy while other skryre units will be getting a glow up in the new box.

3. Cities of Sigmar: I really like the new dawnbringers, and want to paint them using a 1980s fantasy art style that inspired me in my childhood. These models are for sure safe, brand new, and will probably get only a new character or something in 4th. 

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Good thread! It will probably be useful to a lot of people in the lead up to 4th.

My general advice would be this:

• Actually wait until the new models and rules are released. I know you are hyped about the game and want to start now, but delaying gratification for two months will help you make decisions that you will be much happier with long-term.
• Buy armies for aesthetics first. It's the most important thing for long-term enjoyment of the Warhammer hobby.
• Don't buy into factions or models just because you are getting a deal: If you only kinda like Stormcast, don't start a Stormcast army just because they are cheap. If you only kinda like Liberators, don't buy 20 of them because they are on sale.

 

As for your specific questions:

19 hours ago, HCMistborn said:

1. Stormcast Angels: Everything with wings. Prosecutors, Yndrasta, Celestant Prime, etc. I really love how these older models look, and the new CGI ones from the trailer look even cooler. 

2. Skaven Skryre: I love Stormfiends and Warp Lightning Cannons, and these seem safe to buy while other skryre units will be getting a glow up in the new box.

3. Cities of Sigmar: I really like the new dawnbringers, and want to paint them using a 1980s fantasy art style that inspired me in my childhood. These models are for sure safe, brand new, and will probably get only a new character or something in 4th. 

All three of these armies are probably good. For Stormcast and Skaven, you should for sure wait until at least the contents of the new starter box are known before making any big decisions. If you want to get started now, you can get Yndrasta and the other units from Dominion very cheaply on ebay, to the point where I would personally not even feel bad about them becoming "obsolete" in the next edition.

For Cities, I would only recommend them to people who have some experience painting and have an idea of what painting a horde army means. You are easily looking at 60+ models in a normal Cities list, and they kind of demand a somewhat clean paint job, unlike Skaven. I know that if I had started with Cities as my first army, I would not have finished more than one unit of Steelhelms before quitting. But your mileage may vary. If Cities are the army you are most excited about bar none, then start Cities.

[HCMistborn]

I really appreciate both the general advice and the specific advice! I am not too worried about the painting of Cities, I am new to AOS but not to wargaming. I have a Bretonnian army and several ASOIAF armies. These do look very detailed, but I think my plan of doing a dark 1980s style painting styles would apply to them well. I had considered doing Darkoath for this style and leaning into a Conan style for them too, but who knows when the Darkoath set will be out and if it will be available for long.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

38 minutes ago, HCMistborn said:

I really appreciate both the general advice and the specific advice! I am not too worried about the painting of Cities, I am new to AOS but not to wargaming. I have a Bretonnian army and several ASOIAF armies. These do look very detailed, but I think my plan of doing a dark 1980s style painting styles would apply to them well. I had considered doing Darkoath for this style and leaning into a Conan style for them too, but who knows when the Darkoath set will be out and if it will be available for long.

I don't even want to say that the new Cities units are especially hard to paint. I think if you have some painting knowledge and a plan, you can paint them pretty quickly. I was actually somewhat positively surprised with them when I painted my dudes. For somewhat established hobbyists, it's a very doable army. If you have the experience, I think you can feel secure starting Cities right now. Especially the Spearhead box, which we know will get support and actually be playable on its own in 4th.

But I think for beginners, they would be difficult to paint. I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to attempt to paint them using the normal GW approach. I remember getting defeated by painting 20 skeletons when I started out, and they are literally the easiest thing in the world to paint, haha.

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

My simple advice on picking an army: imagine that the whole of Age of Sigmar is a movie or telly show. Who would be your favourite character? That's where your allegiances should be.

And for gods' sake don't worry about whether your army of choice will win you more games. That way only mediocrity lies. 

[Satyrical Sophist]

1 hour ago, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

My simple advice on picking an army: imagine that the whole of Age of Sigmar is a movie or telly show. Who would be your favourite character? That's where your allegiances should be.

And for gods' sake don't worry about whether your army of choice will win you more games. That way only mediocrity lies. 

About the only thing I’d add to this is to think of a sort of high level army play style. Rules can change a lot edition to edition, or even just battle scroll to battle scroll, but the top view often remains the same. If you like super aggressive brawler lists, but also the look of say Tzeentch, then you might want to be careful. You can always play atypical builds, but there is much more likely to be a pain point if you are going against the grain.

[HCMistborn]

3 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I don't even want to say that the new Cities units are especially hard to paint. I think if you have some painting knowledge and a plan, you can paint them pretty quickly. I was actually somewhat positively surprised with them when I painted my dudes. For somewhat established hobbyists, it's a very doable army. If you have the experience, I think you can feel secure starting Cities right now. Especially the Spearhead box, which we know will get support and actually be playable on its own in 4th.

But I think for beginners, they would be difficult to paint. I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to attempt to paint them using the normal GW approach. I remember getting defeated by painting 20 skeletons when I started out, and they are literally the easiest thing in the world to paint, haha.

You make a great point about the Spearhead box, as presumably those models will be perfect for the new spearhead game mode!

[Satyrical Sophist]

38 minutes ago, HCMistborn said:

You make a great point about the Spearhead box, as presumably those models will be perfect for the new spearhead game mode!

That box is really solid I have to say. I'd definitely have picked it up if I didn't have at least one of everything but the cannon. Rules wise, currently, the cannon isn't amazing, but its pretty alright and the model is great. Who knows next edition?  I'd like to get the spear head ready myself, just need to decide whether it makes more sense to grab a cannon separately or if any lists I'm looking at would want two marshals. 

[HCMistborn]

9 minutes ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

That box is really solid I have to say. I'd definitely have picked it up if I didn't have at least one of everything but the cannon. Rules wise, currently, the cannon isn't amazing, but its pretty alright and the model is great. Who knows next edition?  I'd like to get the spear head ready myself, just need to decide whether it makes more sense to grab a cannon separately or if any lists I'm looking at would want two marshals. 

I found a couple of the starter boxes online for $170 USD, which even with the old battletome is quite a savings over buying separate. 

[Gitzdee]

Never buy minis for rules, they change, a lot.

I think most people know this but it cant hurt to mention. A lot of the CoS range still consist of older models, mostly the duardin and aelves. Expect them to get replaced/removed within a few years. Cant really go wrong with the Dawnbringer stuff.

[Draznak]

20 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I don't even want to say that the new Cities units are especially hard to paint. I think if you have some painting knowledge and a plan, you can paint them pretty quickly. I was actually somewhat positively surprised with them when I painted my dudes. For somewhat established hobbyists, it's a very doable army. If you have the experience, I think you can feel secure starting Cities right now.

To talk about my quick experience with recent CoS minis, despite the fact that I've been painting for a long time, I hit a wall painting the launch army set, and particularly with freeguild cavaliers.

I'm a slow painter, in Eavy Metal style (but without the talent that goes with it ) so it took me an awfully long time to paint them (5 weeks for 5 riders... 4 months for the whole box oO). Although I really like CoS minis (they're probably my favourite range in AoS at the moment), I'm switching to Soulblight now because the ratio of minis appreciation/time/speed of painting is much better for me.

Finding the right balance between time invested, rendering requirements and minis appealing (gameplay is secondary for me) is really not easy sometimes !

[HCMistborn]

36 minutes ago, Draznak said:

To talk about my quick experience with recent CoS minis, despite the fact that I've been painting for a long time, I hit a wall painting the launch army set, and particularly with freeguild cavaliers.

I'm a slow painter, in Eavy Metal style (but without the talent that goes with it ) so it took me an awfully long time to paint them (5 weeks for 5 riders... 4 months for the whole box oO). Although I really like CoS minis (they're probably my favourite range in AoS at the moment), I'm switching to Soulblight now because the ratio of minis appreciation/time/speed of painting is much better for me.

Finding the right balance between time invested, rendering requirements and minis appealing (gameplay is secondary for me) is really not easy sometimes !

This is great advice, addressing the big picture. Someone may love a factions look but not have the time to invest in painting highly detailed miniatures. There are so many layers that go into choosing the right project at the right time.

To add to this, something I have learned over the years is that just because now isn’t the right time doesn’t mean you will never do it. I would always get paralyzed by choice, eventually I realized that it’s never which project should I do, it is which project should I do first? I can always choose to do a project later when I have more time. 

[Draznak]

4 hours ago, HCMistborn said:

To add to this, something I have learned over the years is that just because now isn’t the right time doesn’t mean you will never do it. I would always get paralyzed by choice, eventually I realized that it’s never which project should I do, it is which project should I do first? I can always choose to do a project later when I have more time. 

That's another excellent piece of advice that should be repeated often, myself included !  

To use my CoS example again, just because their minis terrify me now doesn't mean I won't attack them in the future. Having a baby also plays a part in reducing the amount of painting time available... But fortunately these little beasts grow up eventually !

[Sception]

Advice for new players:

1. on choosing factions:  Choose your first faction for aesthetics, lore, and play style rather than competitive power.  A warhammer army takes a long time to put together and paint, while GW publishes balance tweaks for their main games on a regular basis.  Chances are the competitive meta will have changed significantly between the time when you choose a faction and when you have a standard game size painted for the table, but the models, lore, and overall play style of your faction will still be there.
    
2. factions to avoid:  all the above notwithstanding, if you're tempted to start chaos beastmen or orc bonesplitters maybe hold off.  There are persistent rumors these armies might be re-imagined into something completely different or even dropped altogether in 4th edition.  I don't personally believe those rumors, but better safe than sorry with your first faction.
    
3. on low point games: AoS up to this point has been balanced around 2000 point games, and scales down poorly.  Of particular note is the infamous double-turn, which in 2000 point games keeps outcomes exciting and unpredictable but can reduce the outcome of smaller games to a single die roll.  4e is /attempting/ to address this with changes to turn priority and a separate 'spearhead' format for small games, but 2nd and 3rd both attempted to address this issue and failed so odds are against 4e succeeding here.  The main point is that, as a new player, you'll inevitably play a lot of low points games while you're learning the rules and building up your army.  Just try not to get too hung up on the outcome of those games.  They're for learning the rules for the game and your faction, not for refining tactics or making overall competitive assessments.

Otherwise, there's not a lot of specific advice to offer with how little we know about the upcoming new edition yet.  I'd suggest choosing a faction with a spearhead/vanguard you like and work on getting that together to start learning the game with the upcoming 'spearhead' small game format, except that the 10th ed 40k version of the same, combat patrol, kind of fell flat.  It's entirely possible spearhead might follow suit, in which case you might only want to pick up the vanguard/spearhead for your faction if you happen to like the specific units in it.

[HCMistborn]

I really hope they don't get rid of Bonesplittas and Beasts, they are such cool factions. I feel like they are suffering from old model syndrome. GW wants to cut them cause they don't sell as well, but they don't sell as well because they are ancient. 

[Gitzdee]

6 hours ago, HCMistborn said:

I really hope they don't get rid of Bonesplittas and Beasts, they are such cool factions. I feel like they are suffering from old model syndrome. GW wants to cut them cause they don't sell as well, but they don't sell as well because they are ancient. 

Ah yes, the eternal GW problem XD.

[Skreech Verminking]

On 3/27/2024 at 8:30 PM, HCMistborn said:

I really hope they don't get rid of Bonesplittas and Beasts, they are such cool factions. I feel like they are suffering from old model syndrome. GW wants to cut them cause they don't sell as well, but they don't sell as well because they are ancient. 

I mean currently the removal of the bonesplittaz is a wishlist and rumor of some people.

I wouldn’t count on them being removed.

although neither would I count on them staying.

if I had to compare them to a faction, I’d say they have about as much of a chance of staying in aos as do the fyreslayer dwarfs

[HCMistborn]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/04/terrors-of-the-countryside-how-badgers-and-geese-joined-the-gnome-blood-bowl-team/

 

Okay here is the real question, what army can I play/proxy these guys as?