This year Age of Sigmar’s third edition arrived in the world and after years of not quite getting round to giving the game a try I thought I’d take the plunge. With my Stormcast army starting to come together and a couple of intro games under my belt these are my first impressions.
The Dominion Boxset
Whatever you think about Games Workshop their models are fab, so when temptation finally got the better of me and I picked up a boxset what I found inside was frankly brilliant. I think, like a lot of people, Yndrasta was a huge draw for me. As centre piece models go, she’s probably one of my out and out favourite models from any company from the past year.
The new Stormcast are a great aesthetic advance on their previous incarnations. I’ve loved the concept of Stormcast from their inception and each wave really does seem to get better. As a faction they have been a big part in me making the jump from watching the Mortal Realms develop from afar to deciding to make time to get some games in.
Playing the game
Full disclosure, I played a couple of games of first edition Age of Sigmar and something about is just didn’t click for me. I couldn’t really tell you what that was, but for some reason getting my first couple of games of third edition in was just so much more enjoyable. It may simply be a case of having a much more defined community around the game which made it easy to organise games with experienced, enthusiastic, friendly players who just made me feel welcome. This, to me, is huge. I find increasingly the community around a game is a massively important part of what I choose to play so this definitely made a difference.
Getting to grips with the complex bits
The core game rules for Age of Sigmar seem really simple, and this definitely makes for a great gaming experience for a complete novice. That being said, there does seem to be quite a bit of complexity in picking an army. As a Stormcast player not only is there a huge choice of units, but working through different abilities, battalion formations and synergies certainly takes some time. I think this is definitely going to be my “needs improvement” area for quite a while.
Complex but characterful
Whilst the list building element is taking some getting to grips with, I get the impression it allows a lot of unique lists to be created. There certainly seems to be options within the Stormcast army lists to create armies with a wide variety of play styles without feeling there isn’t the abilities and synergies to support them.
I’ve decided to go with a Hallowed Knights army and couldn’t be happier with their Stormchamber specific rules. In addition, the wider Stormcast options that allow me to include some Cities of Sigmar units are something I look forward to giving a try.
So where am I and what’s next?
At the moment I’m working my way through my first 1,000 points and absolutely loving how its coming along. My next 1,000 points is slowly getting purchased and I’m hoping my first 2,000 point battle, with a fully painted army, won’t be too far away.
The Wizard's Bookshelf 