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I started at the beginning of AoS, and while I have owned minis on square bases I've never played Fantasy. I can say that at the beginning of the lore and for quite a long way through it I much preferred Fantasy's world and themes, and in a way I still do - but not quite as much and there are some things I really appreciate in AoS. A lot of the things I really like in AoS didn't become apparent until starting a roleplaying game using the WHFB system but in the AoS world (it translates over relatively well for a low magic campaign if you're willing to make corresponding gods and places for the dead ones). What I once saw as the biggest downside to AoS (the open world where events struggle to feel impactful) became a massive boon when creating characters, cities, and stories; there was a much greater scope to make unique factions that could fit into the lore, and things were impactful in the scope of the story. While I have no doubt roleplaying in the Fantasy world is a lot of fun, you have a limit of what you can do that fits in with the setting, and a limit to the cultures you can create while still fitting in with the lore. If a city falls in AoS, maybe it doesn't mean much to the setting as a whole, but so long as the city's story was compelling then that shouldn't matter. For example, I wouldn't say Shawshank Redemption had a bad scope because what happened in that story had no impact on the world at large - the characters and their personal struggles were what mattered. From playing the roleplaying game I could get attached to the made up cities and characters and care about what happened to them; of course, GW (or anyone else outside of the game) doesn't know or care, but that's fine as the freeform setting lets you create something you personally can invest yourself in and do whatever you want with. At the end of the day, if someone was to ask me to read a book series in Fantasy or AoS, I'd probably choose Fantasy due to the more structured setting and the fact that I have no creative freedom over the characters in that book and so one of AoS's biggest strengths (room for personal creativity) isn't there. If someone was to ask me if I wanted to play a roleplaying game or create a narrative army in one of the two games, I'd nearly always go with AoS. At the end of the day, as the main point of AoS is to be a tabletop game, I think AoS's narrative is better suited to the medium than Fantasy. While structured deep lore is really fun and interesting to read, as soon as the lore becomes restrictive you limit the creativity of an inherently creative medium. This isn't always a bad thing, but I have recently found fewer restrictions more enjoyable.

I read this whole thread and I am going to say that you seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing like it’s a high school debate class. You can’t just keep referring to how you outline arguments when you never outline them in the first place. I know being cooped up at home makes coming back over and over easier but just give it a rest. It’s 10 pages now of you making these cyclical arguments about a fantasy setting. They become cyclical because it is just that; fantasy. please stop picking top talking points that people have complained about before and acting like you have made these eye opening claims. Sometimes it’s better to just admit that you might not be convincing people to your side of the argument and cut your losses. I felt like I was watching the talking heads on 24 hour news with the ‘I’m right because I am and you are wrong because of what I just said above’ nonsense. what makes this game and it’s setting so great is that it is a constantly developing series. Much like LotR it wasn’t a complete and coherent thought from the get go and that is what makes it fun For me to read the new background they come out with. Very few of the battle times were wholly written by the same person with different writers putting different things together in the finishEd product. Hell in the last 5 years I have seen more story development out of AoS than I did in 10 years of reading fantasy army books and novels. Though I suppose this whole post will be moot in the end as it makes assumptions based on what ‘I’ have read and doesn’t Make direct quotes for assemble and structure d argument. Which is off topic in the extreme I’m sure we can all agree.

I'm hoping for an August/September release, if not it could end up being November, Christmas. At the end of the day the safety of staff and people in general is far more important than our toy soldiers. If we enter another Lockdown I'm all for GW closing shop again.

Yeah I know that’s why I’m so upset! (I just bought a Secret horcrux Indomitus Judicar which now lives at my friend’s place 10 Miles away, just for safety)

MODERATOR POST Ok I've just cleaned out most of that minor spat. People are free to resume posting. NOTE its ok to disagree when interpreting rules that might have a vague wording or could be missunderstood. Disagreeing is fine, but lets leave out starting to make attacks on other peoples character or to start getting angry when people disagree with your viewpoint. Debate the rule and the point and leave personal comments out of it.

Josh Reynolds’ Gardus Steelsoul really got me into the novels and motivated me to get into all the other things I have read. Most of the black library books have regular people as primary perspective characters though most of them only last a single book other than Callis and Toll. All the Hamilcar Bear-eater short stories and the novel were fun reads and gave a humorous departure from the space marine heroics you get with most stormcast characters. Guymer’s Deepkin stories are interesting but typical elven pity parties.

If you're up for a little DIY and have extra maggoth heads around, I made my Beast of Nurgle out of a maggoth head and some sculpey (and some spare maggoth feet, although they aren't really necessary).

Nippon, Cathay, Araby, Corsairs, Exodites - all are regularly mentioned by GW and were/have been for years. Gotrek and Felix (poster characters in the Old World for visiting basically every faction) even went to areas of Cathay and such in some shorter stories. Meanwhile GW regularly reminds us of Exodites whenever they write about Eldar lore in a general sense Yet none have an official army for the 28-32mm games and the closest was Araby who got a Warmaster army. NEVER take mentions in lore to be fact. Even mentions of the Shadow Aelves and Vampires in AoS, whilst seeming to be perfect and dead-certain choices, are no guarantee that those armies will ever appear tabletop side. Sometimes plans get changed, or an idea proves impractical, or the powerhouse designer behind the idea leaves and no one else really knows what to do with it; or new other things come along and the project gets forever pushed down the line.

For me, AoS is the most flexible game system out there, and the lore has improved from the dark days of the first core book which was all over the place IMHO. I haven't played a better tabletop figures game which can be effortlessly played either as an epic confrontation with hundreds of miniatures, or just a dungeon crawler using Skirmish rules and one bit of homebrew looting. Sure the balance isn't there yet (will it ever be?), pricing is the same (a bit all over the place TBH), and GW do complicate things for themselves. But I've never felt so motivated to buy into a hobby like this, and I was a WFB player back in the day, I also played Epic 40k, Dystopian Wars, D&D and other role-playing games. I love my SF and Fantasy and Horror... but AoS is for me is the one game that has kept my interest (and my sanity during Lockdown). (Mostly) the minis are the best around, and the rules ARE simple and straightforward. What isn't is so simple, is the debate around the nuances of the factions/warscroll/allegiance abilities. They are complicated as heck 😄. But you know, I reckon AoS wouldn't be as interesting without them.

Monsters are cool. True. Not every game is cut throat. Also true. Neither of these is an argument against monsters being made to actually act like monsters in the game. Wouldn't monsters be cooler, even in casual games (which I exclusively play), if they were actually scary? Why does making monsters good make them less cool?

I got the flamers finished and based as well as the curseling done. The curseling was fun and got me thinking of doing some of the new chaos warriors if I could get my hands on some. Next is either screamers or horrors, I haven’t made up my mind yet.

~ I've got that Old Black Magic rolling in ~ Old School Arkhan conversion is done! Not the cleanest paint job ever, but I'm none the less very proud of this guy. Very much what I was aiming for. Arkhan’s really a corner stone of my collection, since the same dude can lead my Legions of Nagash, Ossiarch Bonereapers, and Tomb Kings, so I’m really pleased to have him done. I don’t really have a lot to say about him now that he is done, though. Process was a pain, especially redoing significant portions due to spray varnish frosting. Definitely need a better set up for taking these pictures. As for what armies he'll be leading, I'm working on a few small lists, including: Null Myriad EDIT: I wrote a bit about the other two lists, so might as well say my piece with these as well. Obviously before the Petrifex nerf I would have wanted to run Arkhan with them, and I'm honestly kind of kicking myself that I didn't have this model done for the OBR release. I started the project more than a year ago, it could have been ready by then, and then I would have had the chance to play Arkhan during a brief period when he wasn't just kind of bad. Oh, well. I guess you could still run team up Katakros/Arkhan lists in mortis praetorians, though I was always skeptical of that many points sunk into heroes, and in any event I don't own Katakros and probably won't for a while. So anyway, yeah, with the petrifex nerfed, if I'm going to be a filthy casual and run Arkhan at all it might as well be in his persional legion the Null Myriad. As for the list, after Arkhan and some Morteks and Kavalos to fill battleline there's points left over for exactly one of the OBR's many roughly 200 point special units. A Liege, Crawler, or Harvester would probably be the best choice, but I went with a unit of Immortis to deploy next to Arkhan in the hopes that they might help him survive the first turn. Their recent points decrease leaves the list with 20 points spare, but nothing really to spend it on. I suppose I could pick up the carrion endless spell, but I'm skeptical of casting bound spells with arkhan - they eat into his casting bonus, which is one of the main reasons to field him at all. So instead the list just sits on the 20 point deficit and hopes to pick up a triumph out of it. On the other hand, my Liege is more painted than my Immortis squad are, so I might waffle on this one a bit. ... Grand Host of Nagash EDIT: Legion of Sacrament EDIT: Obviously Arkhan, like any of the three classic mortarchs, is better off in a Grand Host army, where they don't have to be your general, and originally this post had such a list. But honestly, I'm so proud of this conversion that I don't care. He's the centerpiece of my army, he deserves to be the general even if it's a bad idea, and deserves to be leading his own personal legion. I don't play often enough to care about winning or losing anyway, especially during covid, so yeah, here's a revised list that uses the Sacrament rules and runs a Necromancer on a Balewind and a second unit of 5 dire wolves instead of the original list's wight king and 5 black knights. I already have the necromancer and balewind painted, and the second squad of dire wolves are closer to completion than any of my black knights, so this is a list that can be finished sooner, too. ... Tomb Kings (Grand Alliance: Death) I could technically run Arkhan /as/ Arkhan in the tomb king list, since it's a generic Death army, but 'arkhan on chariot' has officially counted as Settra/TKoEC in AoS since the compendium days, and Arkhan doesn't work so great outside of OBR lately, so yeah, exalted chariot it is. That said, TKoEC doesn't exactly work properly in 2e AoS either, but whatever. Short of a homebrew TK battletome, which I don't have the energy to write right now, there's no fixing it. I know Mengel Miniatures put a very nice homebrew tome together, but that was also never updated for 2e AoS, so, shrug. TK rules are awkward right now, but they've got a bunch of cool unique units so I still like to run them every once in a while. EDIT: As an interesting alternative to the above list, I could ditch the prince and the legionnaires to pick up another three chariots plus three necropolis knights, for a weird, fast, high recursion sort of list. That could be cool, but it would lack objective grabbing ability and board presence, and would feel pretty lopsided. Plus, while I have the parts to put together my necropolis knight conversions, actually making them would take /ages/, where as the legionnaires can pull double shifts in this and the legions of nagash list, which makes this list a lot more attainable. ... Maybe I'll throw together a proper project blog to work on one of the above lists. I haven't messed with that functionality of this site yet, would be a good excuse.

So my biggest frustration with the cities tome is that everything doesn't generalize. The dwarf heroes only buff dwarves, the general only helps humans. It makes it hard to actually field diverse lists since as soon as you commit one way, you are rewarded for committing more. Handgunners with access to a generals command ability are better than branching out into dark shards for example. So in thinking about opening up the field I'm left wondering, would it actually be broken if dwarves could buff elves with their command abilities and auras etc.? So I'm asking the hive mind to see what the most broken thing you all can come up with. The worst I can imagine: dwarflord +1 attack command ability on numerous blocks of fearless greatswords. Runelords giving rend to crossbowmen or darkshards (usually their weakness). Sorceress sacrificing humans for slightly more flexible +casting making battlemages obsolete. Longbeards grumbling about everything. They would definitely be slightly stronger. Sisters of thorn providing cover to ironvreakers for a 2+save wall. I think mostly this isn't broken though, and could've fixed just by increasing the cost of these specific units by 10 to 20pts or so or by capping benefits at +1 (like no stacking rune Lord rend). What are your thoughts? Broken? Better balanced? I kinda like the image of a free guild general on griffon charging into battle with a bunch of dwarves and elves with a command ability to match. That being said might actually reduce build diversity with it being even easier to just max out on the most efficient options.

Moar progress! Still have the armor to clean up and start on, and a few other details to start picking out as well!

'It won't be too long until we return to the Mortal Realms, and we know there's some pretty BIG things on the way when we do! Direct quite from WarhammerTv on Facebook!! Maybe an August release after all for the Sons?!

That's right! Darn it if anyone is getting free painting of models it should be the admin and moderators first - then the lowly membership!!

Don't forget that 40K got a new edition for existing fans, but Indomitus was never marketed nor expected to be sold to new gamers. So the starter sets make sense coming out fast. They are for newer customers just starting out in 40K.

Celestial Tome: The Jaws of Mork Here we go!, Squigs battalions!

I think the lack of damage dealing and lack of the 5++ wound/MW negation on the TTs is why Stonehorns are preferred. Despite their extra points they’re just so much better. However I’m for sure magnetizing a kit to have a Huskard TT as the prayer and potential ranged attack plus the mount trait to make enemies strike last seems very tasty. 2 FLoSH/ HoTT/ 3 SHBR. 2k on the dot. Boulder head of course. Yesterday I used: BloodGullet/Chamon FLoSH General w splatter cleaver/nice drop HoTT w plate of perfect protection Slaughtermaster, Ribcracker n greasy deluge Goremand 3x3 Fist clubs Gluttons 8 Ironguts 4 leadbelchers game 1 vs Legion of nagash w Magash, bunch of dire wolves , big chainrasp and scythe gheist units, vampire Sorcerer and maybe another hero of sorts. Over by top of turn two as I got the double turn. Avalanched through both wolf units turn one, then charged in with Stonehorns on Nagash and Ironguts into scythes. Impact hits alone almost killed Nagash as I rolled 9&10 for charge ranges there. He called it right there. Ironguts would have weathered some of the scythes but probably taken half the unit with them anyways. Game 2 vs Horrors galore in changehost. Tough tough fight. Horrors are ANNOYING! The teleport is also frustrating. Played the Blades Edge mission where if you go second you can remove an objective. He got ahead on points and ended 10–14. Pretty close. I forgot about my Chamon plate otherwise the HoTT might have lasted longer. Their -1 to hit locus is also rough. I charged the 20 pink horror unit and they still weren’t al dead by end of turn three but my big monsters were. So much shooting but they held pretty well. I think I should have split forces to go after the smaller units to clean them up fast and early while perhaps feeding small units to the big horrors to occupy their shooting. Big monsters are super good but can still be whittled and tarpjtted. The extra damage for charging is very important. Splatter cleaver though is awesome on the FLoSH. I got good mileage out of that. Gotta keep that on a good weapon too, so maybe the tyrant could also have that. A Huskard only punches and kicks, so the cleaver wouldn’t do squat on him. Slaughtermaster in the goremand was also super useful! However I think I might put a butcher or firebelly in their next time or just use the Mawpot earlier if I can. I kept my Slaughtermaster going forward to buff the monsters but then nobody was near the Mawpot to unleash the magic later on. I got a couple spells off. Not easy vs Nagash or Tzeentch! looking forward to next time, perhaps with Mournfangs and a Skal as well. The outflanking would have really helped in the Tzeentch game

Trying this again then, but more PC. The Prime’s comet strike is worded vaguely. Both interpretations can be valid by the way that it’s worded. Rolling a single D3 for the damage instead of for every unit gives you an advantage because you can change the result of the dice with the fates ability. My preference is that when I’m given a vaguely worded rule that can be interpreted in one of two ways, I choose the one that is worse for me instead of best. I think this is generally a good way to go when looking at rules that could go either way, and it might be a reason the TO rules to roll seperately for each unit. Finally, on the subject of other similar strike abilities in the book, the fact that they resolve damage on each unit seperate makes me feel that it adds strength to doing the same with the prime. The fact that no other language was used to qualify it, in my opinion, was both for the sake of brevity and also an assumption from the rules writers that it was clear how to do it without needing additional clarity. I agree after the subject’s been brought up that the rule could be worded better, and that it needs an FAQ if large pockets of players are playing it two different ways.

I'd love for this prediction to be true!! Gives us an AOS week then 40K then AOS etc.

My predictions for August are (in no particular order) Necromuna week New 40k starter sets week Underworlds and bloodbowl week Sons week Hoping its a AoS week today, I really want the khaine warband and the snotling bb team!

I think there's an error in the start day, unless it really starts today and lasts 8 weeks.

Thanks guys Lots of stuff here. The more I think about it, the more sold I am on Sylvaneth. I borred a friends battletome and core rules book and did some reading and then popped over the the order sub-forum and threw together an army list and will see what people say. After sitting on it for a while, I am moving away from Gitz. While I do want to learn new things, Gitz is a bit too far out of my ability range when it comes to painting for my perfectionism to allow. Plus I dont have the space for hundreds of models. Seraphon were an initial draw after getting really into lizard men in Total War a couple years ago. I got disheartened when I saw their range dramatically decrease with AoS, but then new things seem to be added fairly often. They certainly seem to be current GW favourites and I am probably looking at some easy wins against my friends if I went with them - especially with coalesced. But... there is just something not sitting right with me. And I dont know what that is. Almost like a part of me is rebelling against the idea that I SHOULD want to be Seraphon, and I SHOULD want easy wins. And they can do everything that Sylvaneth can do, but better. And yet, the idea of teleporting and summoning tree folk excites me, while teleporting and summoning sentient lizards does not. I will continue to think.

I would recommend reading some non-gods related books. I had more fun reading more grounded stories than following the great gods playground: Spear of Shadows, Dark Harvest, City of Secrets, Callis&Toll, Code of the Skies, etc... Even if there are some Gods in this books, they are just "special guests" because the whole story follows small individuals that I personaly find more interesting than the Big Dudes. The worst part for me is not having miniatures or batallions to play with them (I need a batallion to play as Borri's fleet!).

Give us the Sons GW you cowards

Upset that it took ten pages for someone to reference the shawshank redemption. My only real issue with AoS outside of some glaring rules issues is that I can't connect to any of the characters they created for it, nothing I read makes me want to go find out more. In contrast to that when I read my first snippet about nagash I went and found out everything I could and followed it all the way through

Oh they are lots of fun, especially if you give up the idea to be competitive forcing rosters within one battalion. Just mix and match what you like and is pure mayhem. And the rockgut are actually quite good!

Been wanted to use the old dwarf lord on a shield since AoS came out

Cleaned up the Warden Commander! Another Warden is drying and in line for highlights. I think at this point, I'm ready to begin assembly line painting the Wardens.

Like every debate, there will always be people who are not willing to consider an alternative viewpoint and/or those who will try their hardest to persuade them out of, either feeling their opinions are right, or because they want that person to enjoy the aspects of the hobby that they currently do not like. None of those people are wrong but some of them will not enjoy the debate and get very little from it, other than a bit of rage/stress/anxiety etc. And like all of these debates the trick is to realise which you are and they are, and decide it is sometimes not worth arguing over. Some people will never be convinced no matter how convincing the argument. Heck, some people even think Covid-19 doesn't exist.

I set myself a 4 month window to finish my stormcast project to the point it’s at least a functional 2K army. This is my halfway progress:

So I disagree at bit on the problem with monsters. The core of the issue isn't necessarily the monsters themselves. Most consider degrading statlines to be a good thing for the game. The current problems plaguing monsters is more to do with the battleshock phase being broken. If battleshock was truly something to worry about, then monsters would be functioning as intended. Because while they do degrade in output as they take damage just like infantry would, they are exempt from any followup consequences. Right now battleshock immunity is too easily accessible to the armies where it matters most. If I had to truly worry about losing an additional 7 infantry after taking 10 wounds, then monsters would become A LOT more appealing. Yea I might take 10 wounds in the fight, but I don't have to worry about running away! I think there is hope on this front though. Notice that in 40K battleshock was completely overhauled and the auto-pass ability was limited to once per game. When AOS 3.0 drops I imagine it will be a copy and paste.

So i made a troggoth hag kitbash using one of the maggotlords and spare dankhold bitz and wanted to share it. It is real easy to recreate and probably alot cheaper than the fw model.

Looking to sell my Stormcast army in order to fund new conversion and painting projects, I understand people like to haggle but the listed price is all I'm willing to part with it for. The army is also on ebay so if it sell there first I will remove this post, thank you. £350 plus £12.50 tracked postage (or collection from Nottingham) Containing: One Templar on Stardrake conversion (ruined wall basing needs painting) One Lord Relictor Conversion 3 x Prosecutors with Javalins (Prime has a trident) 3 x Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike Bows 3 x Vanguard Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows 2 x Fulminators converted to ride Gryph Chargers 2 x Concussors converted to ride Gryph Chargers 1 x Lord Aquillor 2 x 5 Vanguard Hunters (Prime and Astral compass in each unit) 10 x Liberators (Hammer and Shield, Prime with grand hammer, second model with grand hammer) 10 x Liberators (Sword and Shield, Prime with Grand Blade, second model with grand blade) 15 x Protectors (Including one prime, converted helmets) All models provided as photographed.

Personally I think you need an extra Ironblaster to capitalise on the Trophy Rack and Underguts ability. I’d drop the Gnoblars to save 100 points and switch from Goremand to Gutguard to trim the extra 20 points and get a third cannon in.

Is it written "roll for each unit" on the warscroll ? If yes, then proceed as the TO says. If it's written "does D3MW in a D6" then you do as I said. A good comparison is the Stardrake warscroll. It does say you have to roll for each unit. The Prime's one doesn't.

Finally started on my first Lumineth models and man, I think I've found my paint calling in life! Definitely not the best lumineth painter, but I find these guys waaay more fun to paint than my Idoneth lol. Here are my warriors of Ymetrica, who are currently being depicted as being out on campaign for the last several decades. I still definitely have some clean up to do on the Warden Commander.

Since when did this topic become another (yawn) Age of Sigmar vs WFB? With Lockdown I feel like I've been catapulted back a few years 😂

Just want to note that we get things wrong most often when we consider single changes out of context. Undoubtedly if GW decides to reduce or remove battleshock immunity it will have a large impact, but assertions that it will make certain units "unplayable" just don't make sense when we have no idea what other rules changes might be coming as well. As a brief aside, the reason why I am so strident about this point (and you've seen me raise it again and again on this forum and in this thread) is that I've studied thinking and decision making quite a bit. Human thought is both aided by and plagued by systematic heuristics and biases. We do better at reaching an accurate analysis if we understand those heuristics and biases and then actively try to account for them in our thinking. One such heuristic is the "Anchoring and Adjustment" heuristic, in which we tend to "anchor" on an initial idea and then "adjust" from that anchor point. Where your anchor is placed really limits the likelihood that you will sufficiently adjust for new information if the initial anchor point is incorrect. By trying to analyze things with limited information we are willfully setting our anchor in the context of incomplete information, therefore increasing the likelihood that we will insufficiently adjust in the future when our information is more complete. TL;DR: You're much more likely to reach a quality conclusion if your first impression is also high quality, so try not to make a first impression when you know your information is incomplete.

@Grdaat you Are aware though that OFFICIALLY AoS is the continuation of WHF? You make a lot of claims that are plainly untrue or badly researched (there‘s an explanation how the winds of magic turned into the 8 realms, there is no disconnect just a continuation). making the Argument that it is totally different because it evolved while denying that it is a continuation is a contradiction. this will be my last word on it since debating about given facts is nonsense.

Definitely excited but personally I can wait. AoS2 is in a really good place right now and I think worth building off of for at least another year or two with more rule experiments like they did with Realmscapes. Edition changes are hype but exploring what we have with continued updates is fun too and give them more time to cherry pick the best ideas to roll into a new edition for more efficient improvements and increasing the narrative possibilities in the realms.

I think battleshock immunity should just go away entirely, except for in extremely conditional circumstances. Such as a Sylvaneth being near Alarielle in a forest in the realm of Ghyran lol. But seriously, let support characters offer modifiers and rerolls. Never immunity. Note in that 40K battleshock is actually LESS important because the meta power armies generally run smaller squads. And they cracked down HARD on battleshock immunity in 9th. So this just leads me to believe that AOS 3.0 will be the same. And with the insanely fast turnaround time of 8th to 9th I imagine AOS 3.0 isn't that far away. I know that there is a bit of a cultural difference but most 40k players I know are great dudes and fun opponents. And in general they are even more involved in the fluff than AOS players are. Don't let a minority of whiners on the internet ruin your opinion of 40k players in general! But I will say this. 40k has a larger community than AOS because 40k players show up to events. Or at least they did Pre Covid. Its easy to pick on them because of their passion. But if AOS players got out of their hobby rooms more often we wouldn't have to worry about being overshadowed by 40k so much!

I think that nobody can't deny that AoS is the continuation of Fantasy. Of course AoS is really diferent form the Old World but that's a plus, it would be hard for me (as a fan of the Old World) to be a simple copy. If we want to look just for the diference and why they are diferent, that's fine, but in my opinion, it's a bit pointless. About AoS characters, I think that there isn't any carbon-copy from Fantasy: Some were addapted because they had miniatures and the lore just shoehorned them. Others are just a link to the past and they were used with that in mind. Others are completely new and they didn't have any type of release in Fantasy. Others are an evolution (or had a new development than before if you prefer or you are just salty and don't accept AoS As an evolution). etc... You get the point.

I think that you point to one of the greatest strengths of AOS: which is no matter how inefficient my build may be, it is still possible to be remotely viable. If I play Beasts of Chaos I may be at a disadvantage but I can build my army with Gors, Minotaurs or Dragon Ogres and still be able to play and impact the game. A Cities of Sigmar player can freely choose to play just Aelves, Duardin or Humans and still easily win a match or can mix them together and still easily win a match. Whereas I remember in Fantasy having a unit of chaos knights that could only be defeated through spells or artillery and thus required a direct counter. This limits people's ability to play what they want and build thematic lists to even be able to enjoy the game. True certain builds in AoS can and will dominate certain army lists and become the obvious choice for competitive meta players, but they are not a prerequisite for building an army (except for battleline). I am always surprised to see in AoS how many armies can function with limited to no magic but also how many can go pure magic without breaking the system.

The "everything can damage everything" theme works better in aos due to combat phase turn priorities. The Knight vs 60 grots that can barely touch it is fine in 40k. In AoS, everything should be a threat, and how you decide to use your activations should matter. Should I activate my zombie dragon first to wipe out as much chaff as possible or do I take 2nd priority, try to win the other combat knowing my dragon might get bogged down by grots and reverse snowball to an early death because he took too many wounds too fast and was too weak to take them out efficiently? The other reason chaff needs to be competent in this game is because we lack the unit variety of 40k, where it's okay if the grots can't damage the Knight because i can shoot rockets at it with my other units and maneuver some power claws to close in as it clears out the chaf. In AOS, a lot of armies are 100% infantry. If i can't damage your hero with anything other than my hero we have a pretty silly game.

I hated Warhammer Fantasy so much at the end... Really, what a horrible game experience. BUT: I really love AOS! A beautiful game... Well, except the internal balancing of Battletomes.

Age of Sigmar is a much better game than Fantasy ever was imo.