These battleforces are just the beginning for Age of Sigmar. If you’re starting a new army with one of these, here’s what to buy next…
We’ve covered the value of the Battleforces for AoS already. If you haven’t seen what’s coming in each box yet be sure to check it out. As for what to buy after you grab one of these Battleforces, here is what we feel like you can’t go wrong with. Again. These are just suggestions and you are obviously free to pick whatever you want your army to have.
Stormcast Eternals Exorcism Soulstrike
This Battleforce is actually loaded with newer units available to the Stormcast. With a heavy theme on the Sacrosanct chamber/spells, here are some other popular options to throw in!
Assuming you want to build a 2,000 pt list, you’ll need three Battleline. Three squads of Liberators are what you normally see on the table because of their chunky 2-wounds and 4+ armor save.
Liberators are sold as a box of 10 for $62 and while you only need fifteen to flesh out three minimum Battleline in-game, it might be a good idea to have two units of five and one fat squad of ten. You’ll be spending $124 in total for two boxes there.
Because most of your army focuses on boosting up their melee potential with Empower, they’ll be trying to get stuck into combat. A firing line with some of the best shooting units in the game is always a good option. Plus, if you have a tight wallet after droppingng cash on the Battleforce, the good news is that the Celestar Ballista is only $25 on GW’s webstore.
Skaven Corrupting War-Swarm
The Skaven box pulls from every clan in some way except Moulder. And while Moulder has some awesome Monster/Elite options, Skaven is an army where you want to fill out with numbers first.
Depending on which way you want to go, Clanrats and Plague Monks are both good options. It really just depends on how you want your army to synergize. Both of these boxes are $35 for twenty models. But you’ll need at least two more boxes to really start seeing combat effectiveness from either side. You’re looking at $70 there.
These units are mostly for screens and if you’re a fan of Skryre, Stormfiends are absolute mortal wound monsters. They’re relatively cheap for the points in terms of combat effectiveness and are a great option to keep bubble wrapped with smaller rats. These come in a box of three for $65.
Nighthaunt Court of the Craven King
The Nighthaunt box actually comes with three Battleline necessary for a 2,000 pt list. Albeit there are better options than others, the main focus is going to be on characters here. Kurdoss is an awesome hero. However, he only wants to get into combat and kill enemy heroes/General. With that said, there’s going to be times where he gets his butt handed to him. It’s just the reality of the game.
Nighthaunt is also a faction that gets exceptionally better with careful hero selection. The two units you really can’t go wrong with are both force multipliers. The first being a Guardian of Souls. GW doesn’t have any of these on their webstore individually but you can find them on eBay for around $25. He’s great because he lets you add 1 to all wound rolls for friendly units within 12″.
The Spirit Torment is the Captain of the army coming in decently cheap at 120 pts. He lets friendly units around him reroll 1’s to hit and is sold for about $6-$7 on eBay.
Gloomspite Gitz Caveshroom Loonz
And lastly, there’s the Gloomspite Gitz box which is probably the most awkward of all the boxes. It’s awkward because you get two unit options to build. Either Squig Hoppers or Boingrot Bounders. The obviously better option to build is the Boingrot Bounderz. Squig Hoppers are just outclassed by them. However, if you take your Loonboss on Mangler Squig as the General, you can take Squig Hoppers as Battleline. But ultimately, they’re probably the worst Battleline option for the army to take.
Then you also get a regular Loonboss on-foot. He has a command ability that works only on Grot units. It just so happens that Squig Hoppers, Boingrot Bounderz, and Fanatics don’t have the Grot keyword. Speaking of Fanatics, they can only be deployed if you have a Moonclat Grot unit (i.e Stabbas or Shootas unit). Essentially, he’s a wasted hero option unless you buy into three boxes of Moonclan Grots (which is what we recommend at the minimum).
Moonclan Grots boxes come with twenty models for $35. However, most armies run about 100+ Grots in their list so you’ll want to buy about five boxes to really get started off on the right foot. If you plan on taking your army in a different direction like Squig-themed exclusively, this box is great. And lastly, the Troggoth option is good, but definitely not worth the buy if you want to build an all-Troggoth force.
Ultimately, if you don’t plan on building a Squig army off of this box,you’ll be off to a very weird start. You’ll probably have to spend the most money branching out from this box from all the others.
What do you think about these Battleforces? Which one will you be getting? Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group, and sign up to get your free hobby updates newsletter (with discount coupon codes) each morning as well!
About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, King of sprues.
