Age of Sigmar Stormbringer – What’s next?

In case you're starting collecting Age of Sigmar miniatures with the Stormbringer magazine series, either by buying individual issues or being a subscriber, it'll take a few months until you have enough for a full scale match of Age of Sigmar. So what to do in the meantime?

First of all, the magazines cover some rules for an entry level gaming experience, and that's - especially for newcomers - a reasonable way to start with. But if you're already familiar with wargaming that might just not be enough for the beginning. Obviously, as you are not restricted to the content of the magazines, you can just drop by your local gaming store (Warhammer or independent) and pick up some more miniatures, like a Start Collecting or Vanguard box.

I wouldn't recommend going for the Warrior starter set of Age of Sigmar, while it is still a proper deal, you buy the content of the first three issues and you can get that for 10 EUR via the subscription instead of the 40 EUR RRP Games Workshop sets the price for.

Interesting additions for an early boost your ranks would be the following two kits:

Vanguard: Orruk Warclans Kruleboys at 110 EUR
The characters are from the Dominion boxed set and not available individually, but the units are the regular multiparts, meaning for example that the Gutrippaz give you the hand weapon options as well and not just the spears. The three units excluding the characters are already at 117,50 EUR retail if bought individually, and you can grab the Vanguard kits from independent stores between 10 to 20% off, giving you an additional option for savings.

Start Collecting: Stormcast Eternals Thunderstrike Brotherhood at 75 EUR
These are the Stormcasts from the old starter set and at 75 EURs still reasonably priced. You get a lot of core units, with a proper mounted character and boost your ranks at a moderate price. An option would be to find old stock of the inital starter set from 2015. These are fixed position models and not as dynamic as the most recent ones, but as mentioned above to boost your ranks more than appropriate.

These are recommendations for bulk, not for meta. You will simply have a larger collection, with neat looking miniatures. Regarding their effectiveness (which can change with updates, erratas and new editions) we're not doing any recommendations.

Anyhow. If you don't intend to boost your ranks this early on, but want to continue with the content of the first few issues, there are two rule sets to keep an eye on. The discontinued Age of Sigmar skirmish is interesting, as it provides you with rules for battles with a handfull miniatures on each side. But the more current variant, and even available for free would be Warcry.

(Pictures from our visit at Fantasyspiele Würzburg)

You can download the rules for Warcry from the Warhammer Community page for free, including the various factions.

The first three issues already give you a solid warcry warband of Thunderstrike Stormcast

• Knight-Arcanum 205 Pts
• Vindictor Prime 170 Pts
• 4x Vindictor 540 Pts

Or a Kruleboyz Killamobz warband.

• Killaboss with Boss-Hacka (either Skareshield or Rusting Flail) with 180 or 190 Pts
• Stab-Grot 45 pts
• 10x Gutrippa with Wicked Stikka 750 Pts (you could probably declare one as the Gutrippa Boss with a wicket Stikka at 145 pts)

This would even be quite balanced for the beginning, and will give you more options over the release of the upcoming issues. And is not limited to the Stormcasts and Kruleboyz, as the total release of Stormbringer features Gloomspite Gitz, Kharadron Overlords, Ironjawz and Silvaneth as well, all providing you with at least basics for Warcry until they reach Age of Sigmar size.

And this is something that would really be a nice project, so I'll try to build a Stormcast Warcry warband, as I already have quite the terrain collection from the various boxed set.