A Beginner's Guide to Age of Sigmar 

Im not gonna lie, "Dinosaurs ruled by magic frogs who live on spaceships" could be what tipped me over the edge and into this game again!

ngl i do find the people saying Fantasy was a massive and huge part of GW kinda funny when it’s been reported that it would sell less in an entire year than one space marine codex lol

Only 5 minutes in but this is already fantastic. Great work mate, loving it.

I also love the fact this setting doesn't take itself so seriously all the time which makes a nice change. You have things like a dwarf with mustache guns and a top hat, or a sea elf that has a random helpful octopus doodling something with a "sea elf pen" - Its funny stuff.

I do like how AOS art is now les cartoonish, but still much more colourful than grim dark art

This is super insightful :o

Absolutely top-tier video! I've been playing Warhammer Fantasy for 25 years, and it has never been better than this. I really believe that is due to creators like you who have fostered this incredible community into something wonderful. That so much of this has been done in the face of obstinance and opposition from GW is a testament to your perseverance and the strength of the AoS community. Thank you!

I think in an introductory video like this it's worth calling out that, at least in the current edition, the game is very much designed to play at 2,000 points, and doesn't scale down particularly well. The core rules and GHB all imply that 1000 points is just as good, PtG even implies 600 plays well, but they really don't. Units and combos that are merely strong at 2,000 points can be utterly, unfairly dominating at 1,000 or lower - a problem made worse by the table size getting cut in half, meaning you really can't avoid even relatively slow death star units and formations. Rock-Paper-Scissors style advantages that give one faction an edge over another at 2,000 points can render games so lopsided as to not be worth playing at 1k. The priority roll, with its double turn possibilities, that keeps 2k games exciting and unpredictable reduces the outcome of many 1k games to a single die roll. You can't punch back with your second wave after a double turn saw your first wave destroyed if you only had enough points to buy a single wave of units in the first place. All of these together mean that 1k games are less balanced, less interactive, and, if played competitively, less fun. And yet, inevitably players are going to start with small point games. That's just the nature of collecting an army. It's really unfortunate that the game still puts its worst foot forward when making new impressions. Hopefully 4e AoS incorporates something similar to 10th ed 40k's Combat Patrol - a gameplay variant specifically tailored to smaller introductory games. In the mean time, being up front with the problems of low point AoS games helps new players see it as a learning experience for the game mechanics alone, and save judgement on issues of balance, tactics, and so on for when they're playing the full version. Calling the issues of 1k games can also be an effective reminder to experienced players to softball their games against new players - 1k games aren't real, there's no pride on the line, and in particular your 2k power pieces don't really belong there. Negative feelings about the double turn - common in new players after playing a 1k point game (or two, or three) where the outcome came entirely down to a single die roll - are in particular reduced when they understand that it's a mechanic that plays very differently at the full game size.

I just got into Warhammer recently (because I like miniatures and worldbuilding) and heard about AoS like one week ago. Thanks for this, I feel like I'm taken seriously as a person thinking about getting into this hobby.

One of the best things I ever did was go halves with a friend on the soul wars box. AoS is fantastic fun to play and the community is a lot more chill than the 40K one. I love my nighthaunt, soulblight gravelords and Seraphon armies. Great video.

Here it is!! Honestly, as someone who is new, having videos like the Battletome reviews makes things a lot easier, especially when you already have a spend time learning the phases, tactics, universal abilities etc. Maybe a guide on things to remember or keep track of during battles could be handy! Honestly, the main thing I'm here for apart from the AOS analysis is your humour and style of video, so I'm happy either way! I would absolutely love to see you do your flavour of Battle reports or in depth lore explorations though 🔥

Just painted my first model (a skaven warlock bombardier) I can’t wait to get into the hobby. Its amazing to know the community is very friendly and inviting. I’ve been into Warhammer since vermintide 1 and tw Warhammer 2. I’ve spent the last 4-6 years learning the lore, but I’ve been scared to go out and actually take the jump to playing the tabletop and going to conventions. The more I see about the hobby the more excited I get, thank you for the encouragement and the info on the game!

Fantastic work as always! As a fairly new player this was very helpful and I'm looking forward to the next in the series!

Thanks for making this, Rob. Great content, as always 👍

Excellent video! I am very excited for the rest of the series. Thank you for putting this together! I am new to AoS and I am really looking forward into getting more involved this year.

Beautiful illustrations, funny, and thoughtful insights. 10/10 on this one.

Rob, your content is always an absolute pleasure to observe. Keep up the good work!

Great video! Love the format and the passions you have for the game shows through, keep it up!

Great video, been into 40k for ages dipped my toes into sigmar collecting for FEC but yet to play any games of it and this was a great overview of what to expect

Brilliant video as always Rob!

Hi, I am a middle aged woman trying to learn about AOS because it's something my son wants to get into and i want to support him. I know next to nothing and your video was very helpful!

Commenting to feed the algorithm on bombad content. Thanks my dude for all you do

A someone who has followed AoS from day 1 but never actually played a game and recently just got a mate into it to actually start with, this video has been great. In fact, all your content has really stood out as being a cut above. Great job man and thank you for all the hard work and helping us new guys get into the hobby. Looking forward to more videos!

That was positively heartwarming:) I’ve been playing the game since 2015 and still learned so thing new from this! I’ll be sharing it with my buddies on the morrow :) thanks!

This is one of the best videos on AoS I've ever seen. Great job.

Best table top gaming video I have ever seen. Well thought out. New subscriber for sure.

Great video, as someone considering starting an AoS army I found it really useful.

One of best videos of its kind. Hope it was here before i was starting :)

Great video Been playing since AoS launched Quite the rollercoaster Your 1 minute lore analysis is concise and 100% accurate New lore is a mix of Norse cosmology, Tarot, some bits of Hermeticism, and Greek epics built using the Copyrightable ingredients of the Old World ((that'd be the only bit I would add)) Between you and HeyWoah, I don't know who does a better 5 second summary of each faction Well done sirs!

this is great. my gaming group just got 3 new players this week so I'll definitely be showing them this

Great edit/production value. Very slick.

Fantastic video, thank you, please keep them coming

Great video. I will use this as a starter video for any new players I meet.

Love this style of video essay type stuff!

Love this content mate, stumbled by your channel on my great escape from meta chasing 40k into the mortal realms. Well earned sub!

One thing the internet is woefully lacking in, given how FASCINATING the topic is, are oral histories of the birth and evolution of AoS. Great video.

Best AOS overview video ever! Best advice on list building for new players. Choose at least one leader, three battleline, and use 2K points and then have fun.

Another belter keep em coming dude ❤

Finally watched it….hands down the best video you have ever done. Pro quality

Great video. Thanks for the community

Amazing video Ron! A fine mixture of education & entertainment: call it edutainment ;). Really liked the segment about our community laying down the foundation for current AoS: the peoples game.

This is a great introduction to AoS! I think something that is sorely missing is a good guide on how to actually start playing the game from a point of 0 knowledge - i.e., when neither player has any experience with AoS, and you don't have a local community to learn from, so your videos are standing in as proxy. The list building video sounds really useful in this regard, for instance. I think AoS is also desperately missing gameplay to onboard new players as well - 1000 points is a lot of army to buy just to try the game at a reasonable points level, and it's still very overwhelming at that point. Something as simple as a set of scenarios similar to how a board game tutorial works to introduce mechanics, and a starter battlepack with easier rules perhaps modified slightly to make lower point games work, would go a long way to fix this. The partworks magazines (mortal realms, stormbringer) seem to do an okay job at this, but lock you into certain factions and aren't widely available, so it would be great to have an alternative:)

Love your army descriptions…. I wanna play them all!!! You made me laugh on almost all of them!

Wicked video, can't wait for the rest. 👍

I'm a relatively new player who's trying to rope a few friends - refugees from other games - into this new world I've found that I already love. This video is a great affirmation for getting into AoS for me, but also going to be what I share to get mates into this with me!

Thank you for this, I’m super curious about miniature war gaming so videos like this are helping me figure out where I should start.

This was amazing. Great stuff.

Great video! A comprehensive rundown.

Gotta say I love the interview bits, I think I've said this on another video as well lol. Good stuff

Great video Rob!

Great vid, love your live stream stuff but think the pre-recorded/ scripted videos some of the best out there!

Great job on this chief!

I love the ad read! Keep it

Fantastic thanks for this rob

Your videos are incredible! They have it all, comedy, tactics, guides, everything! It's perfect, thank you for constant video creation! ❤🎉 hope all is well at the Honest Wargamer studios and household! 💚💙💜❤ another banger!🔥

Love your optimism my dude! Glad I found this channel. I'm part of your typical Warhammer Fantasy player returning to the hobby after years of not playing when GW ended my game of choice and made my many Fantasy armies I had invested so much time and money into obsolete. Ironically, Old World coming out is part of what brought me back, but I had a few boxes of AoS that I received as gifts from my wife over the years being away that I wanted to get painted to warm back up and listening to videos and getting excited about AoS actually has me more invested in this game. But I do plan to play both.

Really really great video, it inspired me a lot, thank you very much my friend! You have gain one more subscriber, another honest wargamer:)

Great intro video Rob & Team, will keep this on quick draw to send to all of the AoS curious types.

Awesome work

You are a treasure Ron , well done !

Excellent and informative video. I've been playing since the beginning of AoS and love the game. I struggle with strategy and tactics and would love to see videos covering these aspects.

Great well made video. Helped alot!!

They only "blew up" the IP because they couldn't copyright "Dwarfs" or "Elves" and took the most convoluted route possible to just changing the names of things. Guaranteed when Old World starts getting pumped out all the different types of "Elves" and "Dwarfs" and etc. etc. will have "Proper" names. Watch, they'll even try really really hard not to call the Empire the Empire and focus as much as possible on specific regions.

Good one Rob: sharp, witty and clear - as usual 🙂

Fantastic video! I would love to play the game but it isn’t possible for me to play on a regular basis. Therefore, I will paint an entire Deepkin army that will proudly be displayed in my house until I can play…someday 😭

After a year of playing I often still feel new... this is excellent, cheers dude. Would be good to see a masterclass on best strategies for deployment!

You smashed it. It's a great introduction to the game for any newcomer.

Awesome video. New to the hobby and trying to understand the difference between 40K & Age of Sigmar. This really helped.

Great intro guide. In terms of learning, love the "concept" video you made and the list masterclass. I guess like any sort of videos that get us to understand how people think is higluly valuable. May it be about core concepts or a specific army.

This is a great video & describes everything I feel about AoS. Maybe as a side project to this get a couple of new people to start & play, so people can see how it’s played maybe (if your brave enough or mad enough) start a mini slow grow league.

Great stuff man.

This video is bloody excellent.

Great video. More like these, please!

Ibwas already playing the game, and juat needed somwthing to listen to while painting. The way you described the factions was amazing.

Great work, If I was a new player i would love it. I still do because i know how much helpful it's gonna be for people joining the hobby !

Mate, as a newb myself this is brilliant. Positive and encouraging. Just what we need 👌

Thanks for the video! I really really enjoyed it. I've been hesitating in getting into anything WH, however this video helped me get a much better view of the whole ecosystem... so maybe it's time for me to start :)

I'm looking forward to more of these style videos.

Love this ❤ More of this! Wargaming needs more people reaching down from the top to help please have better experiences and more fun.

Excellent video 😄👍

Thank you so much for your video. As a former fantasy player who wants to get back into the hobby, I had quite a hard time with AOS. This really helped. Also, Subscribed for the calamari cavalry. Keep up the great work =)

Mr #1 content creator. Just shared with my brother in law who is just starting up. WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT YOU

I love your anthropology of the game and the metagame!

thanks for this great video. i played warhammer fantasy during the 90s and got curious again around 2015 after my telling my nephew about how cool warhammer fantasy was. when i found the the gw shop i was pretty suprised to find this age of sigmar. during this time there were only grand alliance books and 4 page rules, no points. but i got really curious. unfortuntelly i couldn't convince my nephew and friends to play regularly but i played quite a few pickup games in the stores or took part in a handful small tournaments. my last AOS game was about 5 years ago and i was curious on how the game developed. this video was exactly what I was looking for. I always was a AOS player at heart and can't wait to play another game. I have a huge grand alliance death army out of which i should be able to make a good 2k points list for vampires or flesh eater courts. looking forward to play again. great video!

Amazing video❤

Fantastic video!

"Invested in financially" is one way to put it. I worked at a popular hobby shop in the early 2010s, just before AOS came, and the WHFB stuff sold very badly, as in "we didn't know what to do with them, and GW sales reps demanded we take in more stuff so people would buy them somehow" badly. Back then, the game was at the point where it demanded bigger and bigger armies, and people responded by buying 3rd party models that were cheaper. Was a complete reboot bold and radical answer to this problem - absolutely. But it probably saved GW in the long run.

Great video! Personally, I like Warcry more, because a) smaller armies, b) easy and quick gameplay, c) easily teachable, d) free rules and free compendium (army book containing all races) to download on the official Warhammer Community site and e) the small warbands allow you to name each model, so that stories get told more easily. There’s something very satisfying about Bob the ghost (Nighthaunt), who managed to kill a stormcast in each of the previous matches, so that, even if it has the same stats as another unit, but it feels more dangerous or capable. And you can make your warband as varied as you want (my Beast of Chaos have a little goat with spear, a little goat with spear, a little goat with a bow, a big goat with two-handed axe, a minotaur, leader with 2 axes, etc.) I like the flexibilty of buidling your warband a lot!

I need to learn more about it :D

You're an absolute baller. Amazing production Rob

Hey man, great video as per usual. Just on that last bit at the end about what I want to see. I would love to show my mates a video showing clever moves, outplays, strategies, or neat tricks in AoS. I feel like many of the early games I played with my mates were center of the board slugging matches without much going on upstairs. Now that I've spent more time playing and engaging with the game I can see way more depth in the game but it's hard to show my friends whose only experience so far is i move all my guys in to all your guys at 750pts. I feel like being able to say 'hey check out this video by the "slap chop guy" it shows of some really cools moves' would really help entice them in. Cheers man, banger content.

Really cool video! As much as i miss Fantasy, AoS really has become a brilliant game with very fun armies. Thankyou Rob!

Lovely video. An idea for a future series might be on how to start collecting each army, as a new or returning player. It doesn't have to be one video for each army. It could be a video for each grand alliance, and splitting Order and Chaos into two videos. Just an idea. Best of luck!

Great video!

You are becoming an absolute pillar of the AoS community on the internet. Good, professional content to create some buzz. Now we just need an active lore channel (and some more lore to actually put on it) 😅

Nice one, Rob.

“Overthrow of all decent behavior. “ I laughed quite a bit about this.

Great video! I was initially a bit perplexed why AoS had built such a hardcore following in the years since it's (for me) off-putting debut but this video does a great job explaining many of the reasons. The only obstacle to me now is that the idea of moving a regiment of 40+ goblins on round bases kills my soul haha.

Thanks

Sigmar bless you rob! Another awesome video ❤