TMS

Do we have any educated guesses on the base size for vengorian lords/lauka val? 100mm round?

This certainly looks promising for tomorrow's show!

Excellent post! I have my own personal head-canon on the nature of chaos that nuances it a little more. I draw a close parallel to the story of Dark Souls where In the same vein I think of chaos as the most natural thing in the Warhammer world, being after all made up of emotions. However, it doesn't work well with rigid societies (it's in the name) and so it was denied, with everything regarding chaos branded as ultimate evil but sooner or later the dam breaks. Now, chaos is angry. Anyway, I hope you get around to the other gods as well!

@Neverchosen That sounds good. Roll with your ideas and see how they work out, tweak if necessary. A tip from my own experience though is that campaigns do need an ending of some sort, otherwise it'll just drag on and become everyday life, so to speak. Same as in sports, seasons end and then its time for resting and preparing for the next one. That makes a great point to introduce new players or armies if you're making it a long term thing and you can use it to dramatically change the setting if you want to. Make sure to end every "season" with some kind of grand finale! An idea I got when it comes to varying your army lists would be something like this... both players (assuming there's two of you) will create 3 army lists. The first will be a fast-moving flanking force made up of mostly mounted models (or just especially quick ones), the second will be a slower defensive line with lots of battleline troops and the third will be more balanced (and your big bad general can only be in one of them!). Without telling the other, mark down on a map (or just a piece of paper) which location each of your armies are moving to and then reveal this to each other. This will decide which of your lists will be facing off. The above is obviously quite basic and can be expanded with rewards for taking each location, making the different armies vary in size and move at different speeds on the map, having a small scouting force you can send out to discover what your opponent is sending where... there's so much you could do! But you should probably start out a little smaller.

@Neverchosen The point of narrative play is that you should be free to invent things to fit the story you want to tell in cooperation with your buddies. Matched play is actually a great starting point since it gives you the base which you can deviate from. It can easily feel like the wild west if you wing everything from the ground up. An example of a campaign I've tried to do before but unfortunately never run to fruition is a combination of army and skirmish scales. Here that could be Age of Sigmar and Warcry. Imagine that players have both an AoS army and a Warcry warband. The armies are fighting to control the area around the site where the warbands search for treasure. Success on the battlefield will stengthen the warband with fresh reinforcements while fortunes from the skirmish will strengthen the supply lines of the army until one faction is eventually declared the winner. I think that could be the base of a great campaign.

Some thoughts... Matched play is easier to discuss on forums since it is more rigid and set in stone, so to speak. Narrative campaigns and playstyles usually vary between player groups, making it more difficult to follow along if you're not familiar. Also, the common culture of going to a club and finding people to play with there is really only suitable for matched play. A closer-knit group of players is much better for narrative things, with more administrating and organization required rather than just showing up to play. In my experience, narratives and campaigns demand more work and attention but the rewards are also greater. It really does need a committed group of people, though.

The double turn is bad depending on the armies involved. My army can only run and punch things and is also fragile, so with a double turn I can't charge in willy-nilly since I'll only get to fight first in one place. Against strong magic or shooting you're in for a nuking. The power of ranged combat has gone up dramatically and the double turn works poorly with it. This must be addressed.

@Beliman You could also run Vlad in a GA Death army to get the actual ring as an artefact. I think I'd bump him up another wound or two to show his old status.

Ossiarch bonereapers from Chamon, although you'll only have the melee units aside from the mortek crawler/big gun.

@JackThorne That's certainly fair. 👍

I worry that you won't be getting any cannons or gunners for some proper pirating in the death armies. Have you considered using another army's rules with death-ified miniatures instead? Cities of Sigmar has lots of gun powder and Kharadron Overlords would let you have actual ships like the flying dutchman.

Two more things to keep in mind about double turns. 1) By taking a double turn you're also creating the possibility of your opponent getting a double turn next. You should always weigh the risk and benefits of taking a double turn, if you can do enough good to warrant taking the risk of getting doubled next. Sometimes it's better to just let the game flow in the normal controlled way. 2) The army you're fighting against makes a big difference. You really don't want to get doubled by an army with powerful magic or shooting. The combat phase alternates the fighting between players but the hero and shooting phases doesn't, so there you'll be slammed twice without getting to do anything at all about it. A good shooting/magic double turn can certainly nuke an army out of the game.

@Overread Yeah and I think it could be done in a way to cater to both ends. Some areas could be in focus and detailed with rich history while the true vastness of the realms provide the open canvas, creating both a micro and macro scale to suit your needs.

There's an interesting dichotomy between the openness and closedness of a setting, in something I'll call weight. An open setting truly is free but provides little weight, and vice versa for a closed setting. What's better comes down to personal preference but integrating my own story into an established area and timeline motivates me much more than something where I'll have to come up with the entire frame as well, making it somehow feel more... intangible? I could provide you with a timeline of happenings and places unique to my Fantasy army and you would be able to follow along on an official map of the old world and cross reference it with established major events. This kind of weight gives it more merit in my eyes and I hope AoS will eventually offer the same opportunity.

Yeah, I don't know what's up with that. The one on GW is the same as it was in that old Grand Alliance Death book. The warscroll in the LoN book has the new CA.

I'm torn, to be frank. Keeping a long story coherently short, I like AoS as a game but dearly miss the setting and the look of Fantasy. I play both games with separate groups and while AoS is the more vibrant and alive I play it mostly with metal and plastic miniatures from the 1990's and 2000's (peak aesthetics). I use square bases coupled with some nifty magnetized converters to turn them into rounds which has worked great so far. Going back and forth between AoS and Fantasy isn't a big issue since the two don't step on each others toes as games, especially not since I can still use the same miniatures between them. I'm still waiting to be swept off my feet by a new AoS release which could pull me wholly into it but the current miniature trends don't capture me. The future Old World project is also interesting of course but it's too far off for me to get invested in.

@El Syf, that's the old CA for the coven throne. The new one gives re-roll of 1s on hit, wound and save rolls.

@Thamalys I would post the image I've seen but it's forbidden here. If you're in the Death Grand Alliance group on facebook you can find it there. It's a picture of the new GHB page, certainly looks legit.

I've seen a possible leak of points changes for us and they looked like this... Blood knights -20 Coven Throne - 20 Prince Vhordrai - 20 A nice little sprinkling, I suppose. Those 20's saved here and there can end up in new combos that couldn't fit together before. 👍

@Pompe I'm glad to hear something inspiring like that. I want to give StD a go because of those sweet models and if you can make it work I'm sure I can too. 👍

I think @Dead Scribe is right about tuned lists being the best default expectation to have if you're playing in an environment where you show up to a gaming club and just get on with playing. That way there won't be any mismatches. GW games are also broken enough that if you let a group evolve on its own the players will eventually find and gravitate to the stronger choices. To change that natural course requires a drive by the entire group. Setting up good games with less powerful lists requires more effort and interaction between players, typically in a smaller and closer group. It takes time to find a common ground where everyone's happy but I think it's more fun in the end that way as I'll end up being able to play with everything in my collection as opposed to only 10% of it.

Like @Dead Scribe says, there is definitely skill on display at high levels of play in Age of Sigmar. I think it works well as a competitive game, albeit one with lots of randomness - which in itself is a skill to manage consistently. I'm friends with a circle of players who frequent many tournaments and it's inspiring to see them theorycrafting about ways to counter new strong elements as they come into the game. Instead of complaining about things being broken they instead search for solutions and try things out, sometimes starting new armies as they see fit. They show up to play with strong lists and no one's sulking about the results, it's only back to the drawing board and have another go. They're certainly very dedicated to the game and will run rings around you if you're not prepared. With the rate of GW's new releases it seems like there's always something new and exciting coming along, always another challenge over the horizon. Where they lose me is when new armies become too strong for older ones to keep up with. I'm the kind of guy who finds something I like and try to stick with it, planning out conversions and making lots of personal touches. I like a good tactical challenge but eventually it starts to feel futile fighting the new strongest kid on the block. I identify myself as a (rather picky) collector as much as a gamer and I don't feel inspired to start a new collection just because I need it to play stronger lists. I'm quite lucky though as I've also got a group of players who like taking a more relaxed approach to building armies and I now spend more time gaming there. So in my way of doing things, AoS is a terrible game for competition - if I play in a competitive environment I'll be spending my time and money building an army that will eventually become outdated and when I don't change along with the game it'll go sour. However, if I instead view the game as a changing scene where good armies come and go and I follow suit it'll be a constantly evolving journey to identify the strongest options and take advantage of them. In a group of people doing the same thing it'll definitely be a lot of good fun to do.

My approach is to build a larger collection that allows for lists to suit all situations. I aim to have atleast one of everything that an army list offers, with multiples if I like 'em, and if something just doesn't look good to me I'll find a way to convert it somehow. I'm a little extra picky though since I always consider if something's going to look good on the shelf, so the composition of the collection matters to me. You'll want to be sure that you're going with an army you really like, you will be spending a lot of resources on it in this way.

@Baron Klatz, I think blood knights at 200p for 5 are fairly priced but they really like the command abilities available in LoN to get some re-rolls. They're better than the typical cavalry at grinding past the charging turn and a hidden quality is that they get a 2+ save while in cover against enemies with no rend. Try them out!

I've played Soulblight pretty much exclusively since summer 2018 and have had decent success. The allegiance makes blood knights into battleline, giving you a true cavalry army. I can recommend them as a niche pick.