Big changes are coming for Battlepacks, Battleplans, and the seasonal General’s Handbook Rules For the 4th Edition Age of Sigmar!
GW has promised that 4th Edition AoS will bring many changes to the core rules, battletomes, and modular rules. However, you’ll still need to have different missions and Battlepacks to keep the game moving forward! These are some decent changes that don’t seem too hard to adjust to in the new edition.
New Battlepacks, Battleplans, & General’s Handbook Rules For 4th Edition AoS!
Here is the latest on 4th Edition AoS from Warhammer Community.
- Different missions and Battlepacks are still required to keep the game moving forward.
- The First Blood Battlepack is in the Core Rules for the new edition and uses all the Advanced Rules modules found therein.
- The launch set will include all battle plans, battle tactics, and the 2024-25 Season Rules.
- The General’s Handbook 2024-25 features 12 battleplans reimagined for the new edition based on the past eight years of competitive play.
- The underdog gets a chance to chip away at their foe in all the Battleplans with twists.
- Season Rules provide extra tactical challenges in the form of new rules that may alter how you approach building lists or your strategic decisions on the table.
- Terrain rules are still in place, which is great for competitive games.
Players will need something to fight over in 4th Edition games of AoS, and the battleplans and packs let you do just that. These will give you different deployments, objectives, and how the game will play.
First Blood has a choice of three battleplans, for games that last four battle rounds. You’ll need to score more victory points than your opponent to win, and the scoring here is simple: at the end of their turn, a player scores two points for holding one objective, two further points for holding two or more objectives, another two points for holding more objectives than their opponent, and four if they scored their battle tactic.
This is a pretty simple way to score, and we assume things will get more in-depth later, but you want to hold objectives and more than your opponent every turn!
First Blood Battlepack
In the First Blood Battlepack, each battleplan comes with a different objective layout and a unique twist – a rule that can alter how you score victory points, provide the underdog (the player with fewer victory points at the start of the round) with a boon, or both. In the Stake a Claim battleplan, for example, the twist allows the underdog to choose an objective and prevent it from being controlled for a round.
For the first time ever, all of your battleplans, battle tactics, and the 2024-25 Season Rules will be included in the launch set, so you’ll have everything you need to start playing matched play games right away.
The twists are pretty interesting, and getting rid of an objective from the turn is huge! However, maybe the biggest thing is you will get all the rules in the launch set! This is huge because you won’t have to shell out cash for rules if you get the launch.
General’s Handbook Rules 4th Edition AoS
Matched Play Tournaments use the framework presented by The General’s Handbook, and it’s a great way of standardising events worldwide. It also provides extra tactical challenges in the form of Season Rules, which may alter how you approach building lists or your strategic decisions on the table.
The first of these books for the new edition of Age of Sigmar is the General’s Handbook 2024-25. It features 12 battleplans plucked from the past eight years of competitive play and reimagined for the new edition, as voted for by the Warhammer Studio, playtesters, and tournament organisers – a thrilling trip down memory lane for veterans, and a guarantee of robust battleplans for new players.
If you’ve been playing the game, it seems like the GHB will be pretty similar to what it is now. The first GHB for 4th Edition will have 12 Battleplans from the past eight years. While they are old Battleplans, they will be revamped for the new edition.
Battleplans
Each game in this battlepack runs for five rounds, and each battleplan explains the scoring rules and any twists that might be involved. Border War, a firm favourite from 2016, is back and gives us a glimpse at how scoring works in the new General’s Handbook.
The underdog earns a little more bite when they attempt to contest the enemy’s home objective, and caps the scoring from objectives at six per turn. Battle tactics score four victory points on every battleplan here – this new scoring split makes battle tactics very important, so taking priority for the double turn becomes an even tougher decision. For each battleplan in the General’s Handbook, your victory points each round will add up to a maximum of 10, for a total maximum score of 50 points per battle. This makes scoring easy for event organisers to keep track of.
This is an old favorite with plenty of scoring separation. Now, being the underdog will give you a huge advantage, as adding one to your hit rules when charging and contesting an objective is just great.
The Vice (from 2021) shows a variation on how scoring reaches that fixed 10 per round, as its objectives converge on the centre thanks to the twist, which also gives the underdog a chance to chip away at their foe.
As you can see, there are still going to be rules for terrain, which is great for competitive games.
Season Rules
The Season Rules add extra nuance and theming to your games. For the 2024-25 Season, which kicks off with the release of the new edition, the defining rule is Honour Guard. This rule lets you pick from one of three powerful abilities to give to a single ‘honour guard’ unit in your general’s regiment. Since these abilities are chosen during the deployment phase, you can use them to adapt to your opponent’s roster.
It looks like they will keep doing seasons, which will allow the pace and feel of the game to change without making huge changes. This rule lets you keep your General safe from enemy units and make them far harder to hit!
The new Battlepacks, Battleplans, and General’s Handbook Rules for 4th Edition AoS promise to bring exciting changes to the game and provide players with a fresh new experience. Whether you’re a veteran player or new to the world of Age of Sigmar, these updates will offer a wealth of new challenges and opportunities to explore.
GW Confirms New AoS Edition, Free Rules & Release Date
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
