My Thoughts on Age of Sigmar!

By far the most controversial release this year is the release of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle overhaul, Age of Sigmar.

News of this massive change in Fantasy has left the community divided, many take this as a fresh, new look of fantasy that has been long overdue. Others aren't taking the news so well, many would have seen the video of the guy burning his massive Dark Elves army, but there is and always will be stupid people out there eh?

But that is not the point of this article, after reading some of the rules and playing a few test games of Age of Sigmar, I will give my own opinion regarding this complete overhaul of Warhammer Fantasy.

Firstly the fluff has changed majorly, the Old World has ended and all we know and love has died... sort of. Age of Sigmar takes place after the events of the End Times, our story starts with Sigmar shooting through space like a comet, holding onto the core of the Old World, which happened to be made of a special metal called Sigmarite. From this Sigmar crafted a whole new plane of existence, completely free of Chaos. (nearly) Sigmar created 9 realms, each realm resembling a different wind of magic. (Fire, Light, Heavens etc) The ninth realm, however, was turned into an ashen wasteland similar to that of the Chaos Wastes on the Old World.

Sigmar somehow oversaw this slight nuisance and let it fester, believe it or not, the Chaos of the 9th realm broke through into the others and ravaged every single other realm excluding the realm of the heavens, the realm of Azyr. Here, Sigmars palace lies and is where he decided to make his last stand against Chaos. To aid him in this last stand he made an army of "Stormcast Eternals", these Stormcast were mortals that Sigmar found hiding from Chaos and were plated in Sigmarite armor, turning them into demigods. It is with this army, combined with the surviving forces of order, that Sigmar makes his push out of Azyr against the Chaos!

The rules of Age of Sigmar are completely rewritten from Warhammer Fantasy, there is no similarity. This new rule-set is far simpler than any other Games Workshop game system, this is made to cater more to people who are new to the hobby, who find using the To Hit/ To Wound charts frustrating. For a start Points are gone altogether, no more points! As of yet there is no official way of balancing armies. The basic way selecting armies works is the players roll off for who deploys the first unit, they do so, then the enemy thinks about what would be good to counter that and deploys accordingly. This allows for far more versatility in armies, and the complete disappearance of list writing means games will be faster and easier to play.

Many have and will complain that the lack of points allows for broken armies, and while this is true, it is not final, it can be countered. In old games of Warhammer Fantasy, when you saw your enemies army out and ready to go, there is nothing you could do to counter it, your list was written and there was no last minute changes, that was list tailoring. With this new way of army deployment, you can adapt your army to whatever your enemy decides to bring, for example: "Oh, my enemy put down a bolt thrower, I will put down some fast cavalry to counter that!" This then leads to your enemy putting down a unit to counter that fast cavalry etc.

All units and models now have pre determined to hit/to wound rolls that are consistent to matter what you are attacking. It doesn't matter if you are attacking a brick wall or a Dark Elf assassin, you will always be hitting on the same roll, same thing goes for wounding. This is obviously designed to make games simpler and quicker to play, there is no more asking your opponent what the toughness/ weapon skill of their model is.

The only thing that has stayed consistent with Age of Sigmar compared to Warhammer Fantasy is that each unit has their own movement value depending on whether they are mounted, dwarves, elves etc. Each unit has their own "Warscroll", which are available free to download from Games Workshop's Website. The addition of free rules was largely unexpected considering Games Workshops business model, though is much appreciated. The reason for these free rules, as far as I can see, is to enable more and more people to get into the hobby, an army book/codex was always expensive and now that the rules are free, more and more people will be likely to have games and at least, learn the rules.

The main rules are currently only 4 pages long, and are also available for free on the above link. Games Workshop has announced that they will be adding to these rules overtime, thus why they are not releasing a huge rulebook like Warhammer 40k has, yet.

Age of Sigmar is obviously a more light hearted game than Warhammer Fantasy, and I think such a change was ultimately necessary. The bland feel of Warhammer Fantasy has been greatly reduced in Age of Sigmar, partly due to the joke rules, but more due to the fact that Age of Sigmar has a far less competitive feel to it, no doubt this will annoy some people who play more for the tournaments and competitive games, though from a friendly gamer point of view, the new rules are a huge relief from the old rules.

Example of a Warscroll

Games Workshop has been marketing this new release massively, far more than any other release I can remember. They are sending representatives to many wargaming conventions around the world to both spread the word of Age of Sigmar and answer questions about it. Games Workshop has a very conservative business model, so this communication with the fans was very unexpected. Last week, in the first White Dwarf concerning Age of Sigmar we even received a free Age of Sigmar model, something which hasn't happened in my wargaming lifetime. It is blatantly obvious that Games Workshop has invested a lot of money into this change and they are doing everything in their effort to make sure it pays off. They have even changed the iconic Space Marine and Aquila out the front of the Games Workshop headquarters in Nottingham!

But the purpose of this post is not to deliver facts, but for me to give my completely subjective and highly biased opinion, and that is exactly what I am going to do.

I think Age of Sigmar is the best decision Games Workshop has had in a very long time. Many people will disagree with me here, saying that the heart and soul of Warhammer Fantasy has been ripped out and jumped up and down upon by the new Age of Sigmar releases. But what I truly believe is that Warhammer Fantasy lost its heart and soul long ago, it had become very black and white, a game that followed such a strict set of rules that many people gave up on it after a while. At my local Games Workshop store, we would see a maximum of 1 Warhammer Fantasy game per month, compared to the multiple 40k games being played every day. It is not untrue that Games Workshop had neglected Warhammer Fantasy for a long time, but I think its neglect was justified as there is only so much you can do with one universe, Fantasy has been around for a very long time, and of late it had become same old same old, nothing new and exciting until the End Times came along.

Archaon (finally) Ends Warhammer Fantasy

After staying stagnant for many many years, the End Times and the eventual Age of Sigmar were very refreshing, making Fantasy interesting again for many people. At my local GW the other day, I saw many people actually excited this new release, something which rarely happens as this particular niche of hobby seems to be very pessimistic. Having this many people rearing and ready to jump straight into the completely fresh Age of Sigmar truly inspires enthusiasm within hobbyists such as myself, it seems Games Workshops marketing techniques are paying off!

One of the biggest complaints about Age of Sigmar is that there is no balancing system, and I agree with this, that there are most certainly going to people who go out of their ways to find ways to make their armies super powerful and nearly unbeatable. But let me tell you right now, no matter how well balanced any game of this type is, no matter if it is Age of Sigmar, Warhammer 40k or even Lord of the Rings, there are always going to be people who are going to find ways to break the systems. There is always the option to just decline a game against someone you know is in that particular gaming meta. While for some an undesirable option, simply denying a game means you will always get to play against other people who are playing for fun, not playing to win.

People say tournaments are going to be impossible with the lack of balancing, and for those of you who enjoy the whole tournament scene, never fear! As with 40k tournaments, tournament operators are going to find their own ways of balancing the rules to create a far fairer experience for everyone. One of the ways people are suggesting it might be balanced is using wounds, a completely reasonable idea. Others are already thinking of formula's which incorporate various aspects of a units statline to create a points system which can easily be used whilst in a tournament.

The issue of bases is easily resolved, Games Workshop has even released a statement saying that your models can be on whatever bases you damn well please, whether that be square, round or triangular, mount your models however you want, bases are irrelevant in Age of Sigmar so pick whichever base makes your models look best, I am about to start rebasing all my Empire halberdiers on 25mm round bases, I reckon they will look sick!

Ultimately, Age of Sigmar is a far more simple and quick way of using your models on the tabletop, with whatever flavor, color or size base you want. Your models are now far more free to do what they want and your army is more flexible and versatile. A whole new strategy has come from Age of Sigmar, one I cannot wait to start tackling head on, and I know many people share my enthusiasm.

There will be people that won't like Age of Sigmar, and that is fine, I can see that it is not a game for everybody, but it definitely caters for more people than old Warhammer Fantasy catered for and for that I think we are all grateful, having an influx of new hobbyists into your local GW or FLGS will bring about new opportunities and experiences for everybody.

Cheers,

Christian