Age of Sigmar: New Army Construction Rules Look To Shake Things Up
Games Workshop is looking to shake-up the new edition of Age of Sigmar with changes to how and why you build your lists in particular ways.
In Warhammer: Age of Sigmar you could say the game really starts at Army Construction. You could argue it starts with which army you want to play but that’s one step into the process of building an army list anyhow. This is really where you have to start making choices and designing something you can bring to the table. What units you choose, how they fit together as a fighting force, and your overall battle strategy really start at this stage. Sure, you could just take stuff from your collection and throw it together and hope it works — sometimes it does! But having a theme or general goal/plan for the army can really help and give it some focus.
The focus here is to punch your opponent’s army in the face!
That’s why it’s interesting to see how Games Workshop is opting to shake this section of the game up for the new edition. In the current edition you start with a Core Battalion and go from there. You pick units to fill slots and get various bonuses and restrictions based on what you’re using. That’s not completely out the window in the new edition. But it is changing. Here’s how.
“Each regiment is led by a single HERO, and can include up to three other units – or four, if it’s your general’s regiment. These regiments represent the retinues, warbands, and chosen warriors who will accompany a leader into battle, so every HERO lists which units they can include in their regiment, as part of their battle profile.”
Forming Your Regiments
Right off the bat we can see some obvious changes. These Regiments look a lot simpler to form as they are just a single hero and three units (or 4 with a general). Also note that Reinforcing units has change in the new edition, too. You can no longer double-reinforce units. However you can reinforce as many units as you’d like in this new format.
This also means things like the Battlefield roles are gone. There are no longer Battleline, Behemoths, or Artillery options. Now you just take a hero and slot in units from their list as part of your army. It’s that simple.
Some heroes will have access to a larger unit pool than others…
Now, you may be thinking, “What if a I can’t take my favorite unit with my chosen hero?” That’s okay — you can still take units that are not a part of the Regiment. Those are now called Auxiliary Units and they come with some other restrictions.
“Auxiliary units offer a way to pick additional units from your faction, outside the confines of a regiment. There are no limits on how many auxiliaries you can take, but there’s still a cost – each Auxiliary unit is deployed one at a time (as a single ‘drop’) and the player with the fewest auxiliaries on their roster gets one extra command point at the start of each battle round. These are a crucial resource in the new edition, and scarcer than before.”
You can still take that “random” unit that might not fit the exact theme of your list. However, take too many and you might be giving your opponent the advantage in Command Points for the game. It’s certainly a trade-off.
Furthermore, you’re also going to be choosing your sub factions slightly differently. These are now called battle formations. According to GW, these “have been refocused around the fighting style of the army rather than their specific background.” I’m not 100% sure how that’s different that what we have now…but I’m curious to see what’s changed. Also, things like Artefacts of Power, Spell Lores, and renamed “Heroic Traits” (formerly Command Traits) are sticking around but with some tweaks. Prayers are now a Lore as well. And we’re also getting new “Manifestation Lores” also. No details to spill on those just yet, however.
Regiments – Yea or Nay?
These are some rather large changes when taken as a whole. Personally, I think the change to away from Core Battalions to these new Regiments is a good thing. I’ve written about the Battle Regiment Problem and I think this does a good job of solving that issue. It also does it without penalizing armies that fit into that mould cleanly. If you had a Battle Regiment army before you can easily carve that up and (hopefully) fit it in a new Regiment. And even if you can’t, you can still run that army with Auxiliary Units.
I also like how simplified these restrictions are with Regiments. However, I am also very curious to see what units heroes have access to. This does feel a little bit like GW pushing players towards specific builds based on Heroes. Depending on how broad they have been with those choices we could see a rather pleased player based or some very angry folks. To be a little on the optimistic side, it does sound like it’s leaning towards the former and not the latter…but we’ll have to wait and see!
What do you think of these new list building changes?
