Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Skirmish Book

So after so many months, the book finally arrived (a computer error misplaced the order, but now it's all resolved) and I've had a chance to finally look over it, see some games played and am ready to give my own personal thoughts on it.

The Rules

Fairly simple, they use the normal Age of Sigmar rules with a few alterations. These include treating each model as being it's own unit (though any banner or musician effects only work for those same warscroll models if they are within a 6 inch radius), being only able to select the Grand Alliance allegiance for the warbands allegiance abilities, units cannot be summoned or destroyed units cannot return to the field (so a skeleton banner that returns D6 models doesn't work in Skirmish), the warband takes the battleshock test and some altered options for the General. Overall, a good foundation for a skirmish game.

There are six scenarios in the book, each with their own mission objectives. The rules can even be altered a little to use other scenarios in other books or you could just change a few things in the ones in the book to add in new challenges. The overall message seems to be focus on just tailoring your games to be enjoyable.

The Campaign

So to help flesh out what you can do in AoS Skirmish, there is a campaign thrown in to show how you can set up your own games. Looking at it now, the Shadespire campaign makes the new Shadespire boardgame feel less original as far as expanding the AoS universe goes. Still, it has a great set of lore for the location and rules to grow your warband and reap the rewards. It's no Mordheim, but it's still set out for you to have some fun with your collection and models.

The Warbands

So this section I do have some issues with section. First off, no site pdf with options for adding other units from the Bretts or Tomb Kings? Really? Plus there are a few models that I feel might cause some players problems if they are not prepared to face them. One example are Nurglings, as with a fairly average point cost, the problem comes from having five wounds and if you don't waste it in a single turn, it is restored to full health. Given that each model is its own unit, I can see some players being put in a situation where that could prove to be a very difficult situation to over come.

There also seems to be a big gap for the number of unit options available to some factions. Death gets at least half a page worth of options, with Destruction getting around a full pages worth. Chaos gets slightly under two pages while Order gets somewhat over two pages of options. As such, it wouldn't be too hard to see players from the Death and Destruction factions being somewhat annoyed at this, given that things like Tomb Kings and even the various Moonclan Grots (Squigs in particular) are very limited. Perhaps an updated list later on could help, but so far nothing has happened beyond the release.

Conclusion

I'll give this, it certainly lays down a good foundation for a future game. Personally, I'd love them to expand upon this to really create an expansive experience. Fans have already taking these rules and expanded upon them with an almost Mordheim style game and GW should look at expanding this game type to follow something similar. Throw in a pdf with the other factions mentioned above and you could start having some real warband fights. An Age of Sigmar version of Mordheim is not impossible and would certainly help make the series more accessible to future players. As for the book, it is still very much available to everyone and makes dusting off the old models in your collection and giving them life a viable option. It is also a great starting point into building an army (with obviously Path to Glory being the next step up with the General's Handbook being the top of the army collection path).

As a person who likes these style of games, it suits me quite fine. While Malifaux is clearly the more strategic and more exciting game, the dumb fun to be had in this is clearly something you want to play if your just having something more casual to muck about with. Heck, it even works with Triumph & Treachery so you can play their scenarios with multiple players, making a real mess of the battlefield for extra fun.

That said, if you don't like small skirmish games, you'll probably skip this, but if you do like them or are just getting into Age of Sigmar, then this is a great little book to have (that and it is fairly cheap too).

The Unfortunate Update

So I haven't done much on here (or anywhere for that matter) for the last week or so. This is the unfortunate effect of suffering a real depression low. It's been so bad it has limited my ability to do many things and drained me of any real motivation. I have begun a series of steps to help improve this (I hope at least) and trying to write again is one of them. Unfortunately all I can do is write this apology update as trying to think of anything else to write at the moment has left me rather blank and I'd rather not go on about depression as it just brings this Blog (and myself) down.

Will try to get more positive stuff up in the future, but if you don't see many updates over the next month or so, this is probably why.