/aosg/ Warhammer Age of Sigmar General

Other things worth noting:

1. Stormcast don't get a choice in becoming reforged. Sigmar decides they are worthy and they have no way to object to it
2. They don't remember their past lives
3. They don't even remember their past reforgings
4. Each time they are reforged they begin to develop more irregularities based on their lord celestant. Some stormcast became zealously aggressive, others became demure and sulken.
5. Each time they are reforged Nagash steals a part of their soul. Nagash believes he is the rightful owner of all deceased and is pissed that Sigmar is taking souls of humans
6. Stormcast know nothing but war. They do not know how to live aside from seeking and fighting chaos. They do not form cities, or build communities... it is an endless life of death and battle, and rebirth into the cycle. If Order ever truly defeats Chaos then the Stormcast will have no purpose, and that kind of knowledge can really fuck with people.
7. Relictors know the secrets of the reforging process. Other Stormcast regard them with suspicion and don't trust them.

We are in Act 2 of the Stormcast story and there are a lot of plot hooks for them to explore. Really excited to see how they develop.

I'm with you. Thought they'd be stupid until getting the starter box to split with a buddy a year ago. Then building and painting while listening to the Mortarch of Night audiodrama really showed they're more than just faceless robotmen. Plus a few headswaps with older Empire kits or certain others makes all the difference in bringing them to life.

>They are magically enhanced super soldiers, but they are still mortal and die like mortals. But when they die, their soul (including weapons and armor usually) are sent back up to Azyr (sigmar's home) in a bolt of lightning.
>there the soul gets reforged again just so it can be sent back down
>there is a drawback, however of the reforgings. They begin to lose their memories and personalities and eventually with enough reforgings they essentially become mindless anti-chaos automatons or golems. Sometimes this makes them more effective against chaos, but sometimes not. All fear this fate because it is essentially 'death' to a stormcast eternal.
>there is also some cases where chaos has some relic or weapon that can stop a sould from returning to azyr to get reforged. And the resources back in azyr are finite, so sigmar may not be able to keep this up forever.
>each defeat for a stormcast eternal brings them closer to true death and mindlessness, as well as each defeat means chaos victory, loss of innocent life, loss of realmgates, and vital territory etc.
So take space marines, but remove the corruptibility nature of them, and instead of being taken as children to become space marines, replace it with a full grown adult who wants nothing but vengeance on chaos and the means to achieve it before being 'enhanced'

I just think they are pretty awesome.

you forgot the part where Sigmar said "I got mine, fuck ya'll" and closed off Azyr, dooming an unimaginable amount of souls

Yeah there is that. However he did so because he needed to. He knew if he didn't close the doors to Azyr, then chaos would have invaded and it would have suffered the exact same fate as the remaining 7 realms. He didn't like doing it, but in order to build his new weapon, the stormcast eternals, and keep snatching souls for it, he had to shut off his realm, unfortunately dooming those left there. But the mortal races are resilient, and while a lot fell to chaos or turned away from his support, some remained loyal.

It was a tough decision, but made sense. Sigmar was damned if he didn't, and damned because he did.

My favourite thing about Stormcast:

Their armor and weapons disappear together with them to Azyr

Ironjawz like to wear the armor and bones of their defeated enemies. They respect the strength of the stormcast but cant wear them as a trophy because their stuff disappears when they die, so they paint their armor yellow and pretend its stormcast armor. This is why the default colour scheme is yellow.

>a prepubescent child taken from their family, given extreme genetic modifications and surgical implants, indoctrinated into dogmatic belief in an intensely xenophobic empire/morality/religion, and spends every waking moment working towards becoming one of the deadliest, most remorseless killers in the galaxy for their entire lives
>still more well adjusted human beings than the Stormcast Eternals

Huh.

To be fair, sigmar tried to rally the remaining order forces but after gorkamorka fucked off and he couldnt get to Nagash in time to help he decided the best thing to do was save at least 1 realm from chaos.

It was all fine when the gods worked together to fight chaos. Everything is the fault of the elf gods because they abandoned the pantheon to get their petty revenge on Slaneesh, which started the whole series of events.

How do nurgle rotbringers counter ranged? Ally in toads?

2) is objectively wrong, it differs from individual to individual.
3) see above
6) untrue. They don't get a say in it, but many of them do hope to see the end of the war and wish they'd be able to live with the human again.
7) Not true. They're regarded as knowing more than other, being shaman equivalent, but there is no distrust between them and other stormcast (unless it's on individual level due to other reasons)

Stormcast eternals are not brash uncaring anti-chaos berzerkers, they still excersize tactical thinking and battle acumen. While waiting to be cast down from azyr to the battlefield, they constantly drill and work on their disciplines of war. The leaders are accomplished generals and inspiring leaders even before their reforging. Their chamber organization is often compared to space marine chapter organization.

They are well adjusted dudes, but different from space marines they have memories and feelings of their past life, and aren't corruptible

Something to add that i don't know if a) everyone else missed this, b)they just forget it or c) im overthinking things. but another thing about the stormcast is that a couple of them were taken away by sigmar in the worst of times, actually ruining the 'heroes' people. The best example is in the book Warbeast when they reveal the reason why the two featured celestants were taken away.

>one was about to lead his people into a fight against skaven which was hinted that they could have won if the guy want spirited away.
>the other was taken just before he was about to give a speech about how they managed to war chaos away from this super advanced kingdom.

In short, Sigmar is also a giant prick.

>I actually find them more interesting than Space Marines, and way more interesting then Primaris Marines
could the bar get any lower?

Skaven?

Sigmar is a whiney baby who undermined the entire war against chaos and refused to fight while everyone else died. Then he used his lightning magic to eternally enslave to his will the souls of the mightiest warriors and encase them in magic armor. His lightning slaves are bound to his will and die at his bidding only to be reincarnated to suffer the same fate over and over forever.

SC aren't the good guys in the setting, they're the villains.

Careful not to cut yourself on that edge

>SC aren't the good guys in the setting, they're the villains.
Even following your own logic own logic that would SC make victims and only Sigmar himself the villain.

It's true though that it's not the best deal. I wouldn't want to be an immortal with that kind of fine print attached.

Sigmar can be a prick, he is a barbarian warrior good afterall, but he didn't see the age of chaos as an excuse to make the stormcast Eternals, he saw it as a necessity. He would have likely preferred to not make them, but his back was against the wall and he had to choice in face of a crumbling alliance and an unstoppable horde of destruction

With a this stormcast chat, are they as openly broken in fluff as space marines are in 40k?

I can understand them mowing down hordes of norse barbarians but can a chaos warrior in the fluff go toe to toe with one?

>warrior god
Fixed it for myself

depends what kind of chaos warrior you're talking about. The old kind, no. The new kind, yes.

I just kinda bitter that the Stormcast have replaced the Empire/Freeguild as the protagonist faction. The Freeguild doesn't have much going for it now, since there's nothing they can really do better than anyone else.

I feel bad for the Chaos Warriors. They use to be the scariest things the setting. Now they're just some guys.

I mean these kind/ Slaves to Darkness. Stats they seem similar to the Khorne ones but wondered how they fair in fluff now.

One of the main things I lked in old fantasy is that there was no blatantly OP race in the fluff. Like a Black orc or a skilled enough empire soldier could down a Chaos Warrior. Do Stormcast throw that out now and get 100:1 kill/death ratios or are they just "strong"?

AOS is high fantasy, everything is overpowered

So was old warhammer.

No warhammer fantasy was fairly well grounded in reality

AOS has 8 planes of existence with molten silver rivers and trees made of bone, it is much more fantastical

I like them but not enough that I'd want to swap WFB for them.

Nah, old warhammer is dark and gritty swords and sorcery. AoS is a high fantasy, or epic fantasy. Chaos in the old warhammer was overpowered in the fluff and an inevitable end to all things. Empire, Dwarfs, Elves, etc were all underdogs fighting a losing battle.

But really it all boils down to your perceptions of things.

Fair enough. I just don't think it's fair to compare them with what they replaced. I like to judge them on their own merits within the context of their own setting, and in that regard I find them pretty damn cool.

Has AoS produced any decent novels yet? Kinda interested in the fluff but I don't want to just trawl through rulebooks/wikis.

Stormcast are basically Chaos Chosen from fantasy, but with Order branding.

So yeah, a regular Chaos mook might be able to take one out, but it'd be a fluke or via overwhelming numbers.

Just because there is a peasant who is covered in poop does not mean one should instantly writes off the setting as low/middle fantasy. A large amount of very fantastical things happen and it has an epic scale. It's high fantasy. Bretonnia as an entity is an example of very textbook high fantasy stuff. It subverts and parodies many tropes by adding a layer of grittiness to them, sure but grittiness does not stop high fantasy from being high fantasy. It's only grounded in reality if you have the kind of GM that likes to jack off over parties of level 1 rat catchers. Old warhammer had a giant, fleshy mouth in the ground.

Saying AoS is high fantasy (and warhammer isn't) because it is on a cosmic scale makes something like the Avengers high fantasy, which is technically correct but I'm sure that we can both agree that when people talk about high fantasy they don't mean something like the avengers.

Is right though. These are nebulous definitions in the first place and it's ultimately pretty pedantic for me to get on your case about it. It's just relevant when comparing the two to register that they are both high fantasy.

Warbeast got nominated for an award. Havent read it yet, but it gets recommended among the aos community just about as much as eisenhord does among the 40k community.

Also city of secrets is a book about a witch hunter rooting out chaos in a human city. It's a book where stormcast eternals are not the main protagonists.

Another book is coming soon which is like a ragtag group of heroes on a quest from Grungni. No stormcast heroes

AOS isnt just on a cosmic scale, its far more whimsical and fantastical.

It was rare for the common person in WHFB to see magic or dragons. In AOS these are extremely common things. Hammerhal is a city that exists in TWO DIMENSIONS and literal gods like Alarielle and Nagash are walking around with mortals

Its like comparing Warcraft 1 to Legion. Even though both have orcs and magic, it is very clear that one of them is far more grounded in reality and the other takes far more liberties.

>it gets recommended among the aos community just about as much as eisenhord does among the 40k community.

That's pretty high praise if true. I don't rate Thorpe at Abnett's level as an author but I'll definately give that a read, the witch hunter books sounds good too, I wasn't aware there were 'civilian' areas to AoS, I thought it was all heavenly hosts and daemonic hordes wall-to-wall.

warhammer-community.com/2017/07/30/two-new-codexes-coming-next-week/

how frequently are battle-tomes released for AOS?

Thats all I really needed to know. Thanks user. At least the best of the Warriors, the Chosen, can still duke it out with stormcast in fluff. Means sc still arent SM tier as such.

they're more comparable to elite battleline units, and their weapon options are more balanced than they were in 8th

unfortunately WoC/Slaves are overlooked because Tzeentch and Khorne have sweet rules/allegiance abilities

they're comparable to liberators basically, but an 8th edition WoC army would probably get smashed by a stormcast army because there's way more rare/special units used in AoS

We got 3 in the first 3 months of the year

Probably going to get at least a Nurgle, Deathrattle, and maybe an elf battletome by the end of the year

Thanks but to clarify I meant solely from a fluff perspective. Like...standard stormcast and chaos warrior meet. Both charge into each other.

Is it a curb stomp ala Space marine tactical squad member vs a gaurdsmen or more close like a space marine vs a chaos space marine?

Stormcast were created to combat Chaos warriors. They're hopped up on Sigmarjuice in the same way Chaos warriors are on Chaos. They're comparable.

Depends on the level of the Chaos warrior really, since in Fantasy that varied from 'Norscan who was important enough to get plate armour' to the "proper" Chaos warriors who were gifted hell-forged plate by the Gods themselves and were essentially sealed inside and fused to it for the rest of their lives. Stormcast are the Order counter to the latter and outclass the former.

Rate my stormcast

I meant the hell forged armour variant. You know, the tin cans.

How do nurgle rotbringers counter ranged? Ally in toads?

Yeah, that's essentially a Spehs Muhreen vs Spikey Spehs Muhreen battle, but without the 10k+ years of experience for the spikey. They're evenly matched.

I know it was mainly butthurt over WFB being squatted that generated the memes but they really are just Space Marines: Fantasy Edition. They're big, they're brave, they can get into fisticuffs with 7ft tall Chaos dudes with a 50/50 chance of success and they're easy to paint.

Solid. Cheers. Ya I got that impression but they seem tragic from the above posts. Bare concept same of elite warrior but some poor normal person's spirit stuffed in golden suits of armour.

the GW marketing gorilla is full steam ahead on 40k

Age of Sigmar was a chance to revitalize dying WHFB sales, if the experiment failed they would have just scrapped the molds and been happy with it. The fact that AoS was an overwhelming success was a pleasant surprise.

With 40k GW isn't making any such gambles. 40k is the money maker, 40k is the breadwinner. In AoS's prime it was making up almost as much sales as 40k. There's no doubt in my mind that this massive space marine release has shattered any sales goals for any tabletop game except maybe magic because there's no point to magic except to buy more.

POINT IS: GW isn't playing nice with this 40k release, 40k means money and new books means model sales. They don't care about books unless books sell models. So you can bet your sweet ass that 40k Codexes are being shit out like no tomorrow while a lot of AoS is still using grand alliance books after 2 years.

Also notice that the 40k books are REQUIRED, none of this "download the rules online" bullshit.

looks good for a simple tabletop mini.

You've also put a lot of effort into the base! Keep going and work on getting those edge highlights even more crisp.

Overall I rate it a 10/10 gaming piece and a 9/10 progression piece. For competition painting it's a 4/10.

Can't wait to see more of your army/collection

Been wanting to get started with age of sigmar, Dwarves mostly.

But I don't like the look of those Fire dorf guys, so how are the dispossed?

The worst part is they're aware of the horror of their reality, they can sometimes remember fragments of who they were before reforging and they can see their fellow stormcast degrading with each reforging. Each lost stormcast returns to them different. Death takes its price even from the undying.

They have some great warmachines, great shooting, and some insane heavy infantry including some stout mother fuckers who ignore rend.

They're gruesomely good. Probably the best faction without a book currently (imo) and assuming you're doing things like taking skaven and mixing in new tzeentch/khorne stuff or whatever.

So I don't have a lot of cash right now so if I could start with any unit what would it be?

I'm looking at the Ironbreakers right now, they seem pretty boss and their stats look good.

Nah there are still mortal villages and goblin tribes and shit. It's just that GeeDubs is heavily promoting the HEAVEN VERSUS H E L L FIGHT!!! stuff. Gets more kiddos with disposable income.

Ironbreakers are a tarpit. They are difficult to take down by most stuff, unless it dishes out mortal wounds.

My favorite untis to play with are irondrakes (shorter range than thunderers, but are tough and hit really hard), hammerers (like irondrakes, but melee), and longbeards (you must have at least 1 for battleline, the rest can be warriors. But longbeards actually buff shit for a battleline, theyre good).

In GHB2 you will be getting allegiance abilities which is exciting, but that means to take a cannon or organ gun or cogsmith, you will need to spend ally points on that.

If you're short on funds the best way to enjoy warhammer is to buy one box, build one box, paint one box.

You won't exactly be jumping to the gaming table (unless you pickup skirmish) but it's a start.

Another option is calling up gaming stores, some brick and mortar stores still have battalion boxes for MSRP which are a great starting point.

This. It's a hobby, and a labor of love. You will be spending more time on the hobby than gaming, so be sure it's an army you want to build collect and paint. But don't expect to get a 2k pts list in one go without spending hundreds. Take your time on it

Going mega budget for AoS and looking at the Grotmob for skirmish. How does this sound for 50 Renown?

- Skrabgut Shroomboom / Grot Shaman
- 1 Troggoth
- 2 Wolf Riders
- 14 Grots

Also while I am aware the book is Gitmob and not Moonclan, assuming I make it clear I am using the Gitmob rules, would many mind me proxying the shaman and grots to their night gobbo variant?

Why not use the moonclan grots? At least utilize their nets and stabbas. Your shaman should be focusing on either armoring the troggoth or buffing the wolf riders anyways.

The moonclan grots arent listed in skirmish only the normal ones as its under Gitmob grots. Which in hindsight makes sense as fluff wise they hate to leave their caves.

Ta I got that. Troll/Trog is meant to be my hero buster or stormcast/chaos warrior beater. Wolf rider to harrass from range with shaman either buffing troll or blowing up units with magic.

Uh... moonclan are listed in skirmish my guy. They are right under Death. Death only has the top fourth of that page.

The Pdf or my phone is buggered. It had Grots but no header on the panel above, was just blank. Oops, thanks a bunch for pointing that out. Well, in that case that makes my life a lot easier.

Guess proxying the gobbo shammy with night gobby is pretty inconsequential then.

Cheers again bud. Hope getting pick up skirmish games is a thing in my lgs.

Warbeast is good and one of the best AoS novels, but it is absolutely not this setting's Eisenhorn. So far I'd said the best AoS novels have been Lord of Undeath, Warbeast, and the Pestilens book. City of Secrets has a really great setting and offers a deeper look into the average person's life in the Mortal Realms, but the actual story really isn't that great.

Hellcannon is your best bet. Chaos doesn't really have too many ranges options unless you're Skaven or Tzeentch.

Best of luck to you mate. Moonclan grots are exactly same price as gitmob. Remember, you get three nets for every twenty grots. Keep them close to that troggoth to make that big lug almost untouchable. Consider a Leadbelcher after a few games for "good" ranged attacks.

Good luck. Have fun.

Thanks man. So does that mean with 14 grots, less I get 6 more I get 0 nets? Dont have ghb on hand as i was told to wait.

But ya that sounds like a solid plan. Will feel cool having the troll barge through units and tank hits.

Shamam and wolf pair pelt from range. Just pray I dont run into a gunline.

>nothing they can really do better than anyone else.
Actually being manly and having moustaches, tanks and guns instead of sissy lightning magic.

Decent. If you want to improve take a small brush and clean up your highlights a bit (this also has the bonus of making them look crisper and thinner) with your original layer or base colour.

You can get the three nets in your 14. You just can't have more unless you hit 21.

So if im reading the rules right, in the combat phase, if its my turn, both my opponents unit and my unit attack at the same time?

Or is it exclusively my units for my turn?

you alternate making attacks for any unit who hasn't activated yet

Goddamn thats great! My only worry now is if I encounter a chaos lord hero. Looking at his stats he can even kill my troll in one combat phase. I assume I just bomb him with arcane spell, troll puke and my archers but not sure if that would be enough.

Ok so say my Unit A charges his Unit B in my turn.

Unit A attacks and wounds, then Unit B does the same straight after?

Like if my varangaurd charge a unit, do I get to roll first? If so if I wipe out his unit does he still get to retaliate with his own unit even though its dead?

Or how does it work?

Best bet is hit him with Arcane Bolt and hope you roll three MWs then hit him with troll vomit. Have the troll and the nets charge him. He will have to divide his attentions but his attacks will be -1 to hit the grots and -2 against the big guy.

If the unit is wiped out before their chance to attack, they do not get to retaliate unless they have a rule that says otherwise

For what you're talking about, yes.

But you need to be aware that it's "I go, you go, I go, you go", so if you charge two units (Unit A and Unit B) into two separate enemy units (Unit C and Unit D, respectively) you'll get to attack with Unit A or B, but the one you choose to attack with second will be taking hits before it gets to swing. I mean, if your opponent has any sense.

Cheers for the advice man. Now I just need to brush some dust off old gobbos.

>actual story really isn't that great
That's coz it was written to coincide with the tzeentch release; ergo, it was partly just to show off tzeentch in the fluff, not the freeguild or the order of azyr.

lets say you have units ABC, and your opponent has units XYZ and they're all within combat range

If it's your turn during your combat phase, you'd attack A to X, after that unit attacks, he could choose to either attack X to A, or maybe he wants to attack Y to B instead, or maybe Z to C, then you go back and forth attacking with units until every unit has attacked once.

Deciding which units to activate and when can put you at a tactical advantage, so make sure you're attacking their high-damage units before they get a change to attack with it

The more high-levelled ones, yes.

I didn't know Carnac played AoS

AoS current edition is about to die, next edition is coming hopefully with a more balanced rule set and new units to armies that aren't SC.

Settra returns to reclaim the Realm of the death

How big will settra's new chariot be?

Thinking of making a seraphon army where my regular troops are all painted up as ghostly spirits while only the leaders are physical beings.
Thoughts? I haven't read too much of the new lizardmen fluff, but that's what came to my mind first.

As big as the vampires chariot, with eight horses all of them bathe in gold, a chariot with golden and resplendent ornaments, with wheels made of fire and a golden skinned Settra conqueror of Death itself!

The last we heard from him, he was just a head being talked to by some strange voices right?

They're also much more heroic than the Stormcast. They don't have magic anti-Chaos armour and weapons, they're not supermen, and they don't respawn. When the Freeguild march out all they've got is their grit, determination, and regular-ass steel to fight the unending hordes of gibbering monstrosities trying to enslave/kill/rape everyone. And when they die they stay dead, but they go out and fight anyway knowing all too well they may not be coming back.

Yeah the setting where the polar regions are hellholes with oceans of blood, and mountains made out of fingernails, the magical islands that move places, where a race of ratfolk can make anything they want with magic technology and so forth was really grounded.

Parts of the WHFB as a setting was grounded. And parts were totally over the top. That was one of the things that made it great, but the people who keep insisiting that WHFB is this mud and blood setting just have tunnel vision for the things they like.

That's actually a pretty good bit of SC art, which is few and far between for GW.

>when they die they stay dead
Unless sigmar gives them a hammering or five.