Age of Sigmar review

Warhammer world is dead long live Sigmar!

So Games workshop has rebooted Warhammer fantasy battles in to Warhammer Age of Sigmar. How do you start a reboot? Well Games workshop think you just destroy the world and that's what they did. The Lore starts with the warhammer world being destroyed by chaos and Sigmar flies through space on the solidified core. Age of Sigmar introduces the seven realms with the black and white armies. Races are evil, good or neutral. This works Orruc (orcs) like destroying everything they have no side so neutral, Skaven are evil (Duh) and Humans are good. It works well Chaos heroes are no longer people that will save a realm for their twisted morality but conquer and enslave ie. the Blood reavers will give their captors a choice join them or join them FOR the feast. That's right they will straight out cannibalise anyone who refuses. Aelves (Elves) have forgiven Malekith, you know the one who raged and endless war against the high elves for years, now he's the phoenx king. The lore has added more twists and turns than a roller coaster while maintaining this very clear morality. Some names have changed but seeing as this has no real impact, it's not worth worrying about.

What about the models in the box? What are the like? Well they are absolutely beautiful. With great detail and amazing poses. You get the Stormcast eternals Kind of like warhammer space marines. I really can't think of a better comparison. They even have jet pack troops in the shape of the prosecuters and the main hero has a Dracoth mount a kind of wingless dragon.

The other army is chaos one Khorne this models are just as gorgeous. You get a massive beast in the shape of the new beast Khorgarath, which the sculptor manages to emobody oll the anger and hatred of Khorne in a single model. The Chaos Lord gets a flesh hound companion. So much detail has been put into each and every model.

Since battle of skull pass Games workshop have been putting in bigger and better models. I'm glad they kept it up as with Kings of war just around the corner and halo battles out in a few weeks. They needed to push the boat out.

Now for the important part. What is it like to play. Now a proper review needs a full out review. So I did this in three parts. First part is the models in the box using the age of sigmar battle warscrolls.

Stormcast vs Chaos: The rules work well enough for a novice to start. Adding a nice bit of narrative, immersing you into the battle. They were well balanced armies with The Lord Reltictor holding back the Khorgaroth for a turn. Before sacrificing his life and head for the win. The Chaos lord was made short work of by the Lord Celestant and his Dracoth. After turn four the storm cast eternal had defeated the devout of Khorne. It was simple to use and fitted a small battle.

Second battle was between High elves and Skaved using the Warscrolls downloaded from the Games workshop site. First issue we came across regiment organistion. Is it rank and file or skirmish rules? We went skirmish as that is how we played the first game. This come to our second issues large regiments. Any regiment of more than fifteen starts getting confusing and a hassle to use. So if you are going to use older models I would say keep the regiments small and sweet. This time the skaven over ran the high elves in a decisive victory as not one man stood at the end. It seems that horde armies have a definite advantage in skirmish games.qQickly and easily overrun an enemy postion.

Finally can Age of Sigmar be used in large battles? Well yes it can. We used the four armies from the previous battles. Stormcast and Aelves vs Chaos and Skaven. Each army being around 2000 points as per old rules. There is yet to show a way to mark army size in the new rules, like the point system. Once again the hordes of skaven easily overran all lightly armoured troops but when they hit heavily armoured troops. They had trouble relic hammers just squish many ratmen as possible. The griffon and it's flight ability became nigh unstoppable swoop charging the blood reavers, leaving nought but red stains. So yes the rules can easily cope with large scale battles. As long as you keep regiments less than fifteen then you have very few issues.

At seventy five pound for the box is it worth getting? Only if the one of the two armies interest you. If not the rules can be downloaded for free as can the warscrolls. The lore book is intriguing and adds so much to the story. But it's not worth spending seventy five quid for. Down load the rules and get playing age of sigmar is fun and good evolution of warhammer fantasy battles.

I can see what Games workshop were trying to achieve a game you can play with a few models and started with a single miniture each. But then I can see why veterans were annoyed. Because it seems there collections will be useless. But I can say that is not the case. You can make huge armies, with many different boxes as long as they are on the same side and a little imagination. Age of Sigmar has opened thegame to a bigger audience while keeping it's veterans at it's core.

Warhammer world is dead long live Sigmar!

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