Multiple Factions and Synergy

[alindahl]

I wanted to start a discussion about mixing and matching different factions.

 

With the advent of Age of Sigmar the Old World blew up and faction lines shifted.  Different categories formed and factions who wanted nothing to do with each other now find themselves allied under a common banner.  In theory the stout Duardin and flighty Aelfs can be found fighting alongside each other on the ground while Skinks on Terradons fly down from above.  And yet, it seems like people still tend to field units by faction line rather than by alliance line.  With the change in faction lines, the amount of strategy and varying army compositions has expanded infinitely!  How would a mixed Stormcast/Seraphon army stand against a Beastman army fielding Warpfire throwers and Warp Lightning Cannons?

 

Does anyone here like to mix up their forces along alliance lines?  What factions do you like to mix?  Have you found any particular synergies across faction lines that are extremely effective and/or fun to use?  What are some downsides to mixing it up?  And are there any restrictions to this mixing that anyone is aware of?

 

I personally want to see a Stormcast army backed up by Glade Guard.  Moving in with the Knight-Azyros, utilizing his Illuminator of the Lost ability to reroll the Glade Guards' hits.  That stacked with their innate abilities of Peerless Archery and Arcane Bodkins would make for a crazy strong shooting phase.

 

I would love to hear some other ideas!  

[Threejacks]

Having the four main factions now is one of the main things I love about AoS.There is now a ton of effective combos when mixing small faction detatchments together.

 

Combos I like to run is Stormcast with Bretonnians,SCE bring the facebeaters and the Brets bring the ranged and magic def...Trebuchets are friggen money in the game.

I like to run Bloodbound and Khorne or Tzeench Demons.Also have Archeon and his Varengaurd to build and mix in there along with a full Slaves to Darkness Cav Battalion.

 

Undead is very good in any mix,I still run my original End Times army with Nagash,its very nasty.

 

My recent builds I want to try out is adding 5 scrolls from the Collegiat Arcana,3 Battlemages(Bright,Gold and Amber) Luminark of Hysh,and Battlemage on Gryphon to a Stormcast force of mainly the Wardens of the Realmgate Battalion and my Extremis chamber of Fulminators and a Stormdrake Templar.

 

Because the game in its current form cant really be min/maxed,its hard to say that any set combos are dominant.And what comp systems show is that a good combined arms approach of having Monsters,troops,Magic and ranged is usually a solid army though some synergies can work well and make up for the lack of one or more of these aspects.

[alindahl]

I am super intrigued by the old Bret and Empire forces mixed with Stormcast for some reason.  The Stormcast definitely need help in the magic department haha.  And they definitely could use help in the shooting phase.  Judicators are good archers, but they don't have a great total number of attacks.  Who is going to bring 20 judicators or more using the current comp systems anyway?  Get some Empire or Dark Aelf wizards mixed with some Duardin artillery.  Ahh yiss.

 

I think I mostly want to focus on the Order Alliance for the time being.  I'm really not that into the other alliances atm.  As I collect more I want to focus on Stormcast, Seraphon, and Wanderers.  See what good combos I can find with those.  I would love to see a Stardrake hero leading an army of Saurus and Kroxigors.  But I will probably wait on collecting any Wanderers until they release the Battletome.

[Malakithe]

Rumors are sylvaneth are next

[alindahl]

Yeah.  I like the Sylvaneth, but they don't excite me quite as much.  Too much brown and green to paint haha

[KlawKnee]

I'd go red and ivory for my trees

Then again i wanted to use them with Be'lakor

 

Synergy seems to be ratty nurgles best, but its mostly about not hurting yourself.

 

My current list uses horror heros to neglect hit rolls on my screamers who targets monsters.. Something my rats had issues with. And since greyseers can summon it helps keep the party going.

[Malakithe]

True synergy though has to do with keywords which nurgle does the best apparently. Some factions don't need the keywords as much but when your unit has a 'target a friendly stormcast unit' its a bit harder to include other stuff. Unless you don't need those types of units or abilities

[alindahl]

I'm guessing the keywords will come into play more as the game progresses.  I agree that Nurgle does pretty well in that department. 

 

I'm very curious to see what the tournament rules in the General's Handbook are.  For example are we going to see restrictions on wizards?  If so, models which have unbinding attempts, but no wizard keyword are possibly going to be very helpful.  I'm also curious to see if there are going to be any restrictions on warscroll numbers from different factions.  If you look at some tournament rules (such as Adepticon 2016), the only restrictions they place seem to be that all hero/monster characters of 10+ wounds have to be from the same faction.  At least that is how I understand them.  The Adepticon rules use a solid comp system and a pretty reasonable set of restrictions, it wouldn't surprise me if the General's Handbook tournament rules look a lot like it.

 

www.adepticon.org/wpfiles/2016/2016waoschamp.pdf

 

Anybody very familiar with the destruction alliance at all?  The Fangs of Ghur army on the Games Workshop site seems crazy synergized.  Wasn't that the one that won the SCGT?

[Malakithe]

The spiders? Yep it won. It's cool cuz it was themed for the most part.

 

From what I heard it will kinda like 'spend x points on blah, get x points for blah' or something like that.

[Threejacks]

The winning SCGT list did indeed have 3 Arachnarok Spiders and several units of Spider riders,but he also added 2 Thundertusks or whatever one of those has the nasty mortal wounds ranged attack.Also the Arachnarok`s were configured to have the Shamans with the shrine on them.

 

Basically his list was a monster mash except in the rounds were he needed the troops to capture objective points,and I can imagine he ran those in small groups for maximum annoyance and board control.The Shaman on the Arachnarok`s gave him casters that could survive in the midfield for both casting and countering while the Thundertusks provided excellent ranged hard hitters along with solid melee when needed.

 

I was trying to get some idea of what armies he ended up facing in the post interview he did on Heelanhammer but could only get a very general idea.It would be interesting to see the actual lists he faced in the 6 rounds though,his list is solid and all but didnt have any summoning or teleporting abilities.

[alindahl]

Yeah I noticed that too.  Goes to show summoning and teleporting is not 100% needed to win haha.  Most of the time I have seen some very good controls on summoning in various tournament rules.  The armies that have summoning tend to need it imo.

 

Those Thundertusks and Stonehorns are crazy strong.  I've watched a few battle reports with them being used and the army practically didn't need anything else.  When it comes to those big hitters, you definitely need to get the charge off first, if not then you are pretty much guaranteed to take casualties before you even get a chance to do anything.  Either that or run away and have ranged units with rend and buffs on their shooting rolls.  It is definitely fun to see a composition with the tiniest and the biggest of the Destruction Alliance haha.  Would have loved to watch those battles.