So this is the first in a series of posts that I am planning to do – aimed at newer players to Age of Sigmar – sorry to disappoint you Bowie fans but you can listen to that great song here.
This article will focus on the various Grand Alliances from which you can choose to collect your army from.
I will then do an article on each of the following:
- General Overview
- Force selection
- Deployment
- The Hero phase
- The Movement phase
- The Shooting phase
- The Combat phase
These articles will be from the perspective of a competitive player but will be applicable to any sort of game or gamer.
So let’s get started…
The first thing that you need to decide is which of the Grand Alliances you want to create your first ‘army’ from.
There are four Grand Alliances within AOS each containing many different races or themes known as factions. Some players prefer to play with only single faction within a Grand Alliance – others like to take a mix across several factions. In either case you need to create an army from one and only one of these grand alliances.
To help you on your journey I have listed the four grand alliances below with a brief description of what they are about and their strengths (from my perspective).
Order – Basically these are the good guys, they are comprised of Aelfs (Elves), Duardin and Fyreslayers (Dwarves), Seraphon (lizards), Free people’s (humans) and the poster children of Age of Sigmar the Stormcast Eternals (think space marines in 30/40k). This grand alliance has a good mix of abilities but is probably the one with the best ranged ability of all of them. So if you like good guys and the ability to shoot people – this is for you. The Stormcast and the Seraphon factions within this grand alliance also have some neat movement tricks.
You can get all of the warscrolls in one book for only £20.
Destruction – These are the forces that exist only to fight – they are not good but neither are they evil – they only want to fight and if there is no-one else to fight they fought amongst themselves. They are comprised of Grots (Goblins), Aleguzzlers (Giants), Oggurs (Ogres), Troggoths (Trolls) and Orruks (Orks). Whilst this grand alliance has the best ranged unit in the game in the form of the Thundertusk they are best known for being a full on combat grand alliance. The latest release is the biggest and baddest Orruks known as Ironjawz who are model for model equivalent to Stormcast Eternals but with more combat power. They also have some excellent formations that allow you to get into combat very quickly.
You can get all of the warscrolls in one book for only £10.
Death – Again like Destruction this is a grand alliance that is neither good nor evil – they are only interested in further the ambitions of Nagash the great Necronancer and harvest souls. They are comprised of all of the archetypal undead including zombies, skeletons, ghosts, ghouls vampires and necromancers plus several large monsters. This grand alliance is the smallest in terms of factions and warscroll range and has little shooting. It also is not fantastic in combat but it’s ability is that it can easily bring back casualties and even raise new units. This often catches out newer players that expect to destroy a weak looking enemy – however when that enemy regrows and your units do not you can easily lose the game through the process of attrition. So if you like the idea of a never ending shambling horde backed up by magic wielding heroes this is the grand alliance for you.
You can get all of the warscrolls in one book for only £10.
Chaos – These are the the ‘bad guys’ of Age of Sigmar, they are a diverse collection of warscrolls all with the sole intent of destroying everything that is good in the name of their dark gods. They are comprised of Daemons (Demons), Brayherds (Beastmen), Skaven (Human sized rats), The Legion of Azgorh (Chaos worshipping Dwarves) Warriors of Chaos (humans who worship the dark gods) and Monsters of Chaos. In a similar vein to the Order grand alliance they have access to most types of warscroll however if Order is better at shooting then Chaos is better in combat. This is probably the largest grand alliance of them all and unlike the others the command abilities and unit synergies work well across all of the factions. This means that if you like a bit of everything with a bias towards combat and want the most freedom in terms of adding things to your collection whilst remaining competitive then this is probably the grand alliance for you.
You can get all of the warscrolls in one book for only £20.
Hopefully that has given you some idea of the different grand alliances available within AOS and the flavour of each one. If you are still undecided then there is plenty more information available online about each one – however you are going to be spending a long time with these models so pick a grand alliance that works for you.