I totally agree @Freddy25 ! And I only work on the "competitive" armies as I want to search for how to work with the army synergies and those seem more apparent with the Battalion Warscrolls. Those give you a nice base to work with. But I agree that you should go for models you like, be it within a Battalion or totally random. If you understand the game you can have fun either way!
I sort of agree as I collect models I like no matter what faction but @Tip4Tap did say he is competitive and loves winning so I think the guys have pointed him in the direction of an army list which could achieve his goal, being totally new to the game can be daunting and looking at all the gorgeous models in the Order faction you could soon get lost in a swamp of new models.
While I do agree with both of you guys the sole reason I play warhammer (as I stated in my post before) is because I have a genuine love for the game and GW. I have been playing 40k for ten years and in that time I have gone from playing on my friends pool table with our own version of the rules to attending events across the country. The current group of guys I play with regularly are a great bunch. We all however, have a desire to do well and be competitive. I don't mind getting beaten, thats part of warhammer and I am a really good sport. I love learning new tactics and strategies to test out. I have tried so many different weird and wonderful builds over the years! Plus my main army (pure Grey Knights) is insanely underpowered right now its hard to beat anyone. Plus we all tailor our lists to beat each other. We are all good friends and talk together before we play a game, therefore, if we want a chilled game then we will just play a weird and wacky list for fun. When it comes to AoS I have no idea whats good and whats not. The guys at my local GW bring some pretty mean lists (I think). For example Archaon, Nagash and pure Bretonnian knight lists are considered normal. I have no idea if they are good or not. However, I do want something that can compete well against those sort of things, because if they are the normal stuff they bring to the local GW, what do they bring when they go to events? Fun is the most important thing in warhammer but for my local group fun is competing, plus we all go to events together so we test our lists out together.
No offense! On your position... Yes, and no. You've made good points, but advices vary if we've been asked for competitive play. While it's true that all armies are now competitive and there's no more the gap we saw in 8th, there are some lists stronger then others, and this will bring (sadly) to a repetition of strong builds. Just to make an example, in the only AoS tournament i saw (based on point-buy system), there were 3 lists of skaven. All were based on a large use of jezzails. It's pretty much the nature of the game: you cannot have units with perfectly equals performances... sure, you can have variations, and i can give you a strong defensive list, based entirely on skinks, but if you are buying temple guards, then the advices will verge toward (more or less) the same combo. But this is for competitive play, aka the units and the synergies that are objectively stronger then the other combinations. If your meta doesn't like to optimize (as mine), then really it's "Get the models you like most." Because they all work and and they all can let you win... and that's amazing, and this is a thing that was not possible in 8th.
Actually I think that's only part of the beauty of the game. The real beauty, I think, is that you can build whatever cool army you want (like my Eshin army, Ghoul army, etc) and if you want, you can be competitive too if you like. You can absolutely do anything. That's why whenever I talk to a new person about tactics, I try to remember to always say "feel free to disregard tactics for fielding something you just like instead." The beauty of the game is that its so broad in how you can approach it. Trying to focus on just the customisation aspect is almost as bad (almost) as focusing on just the competitiveness. But with enough time to build armies, you can do both quite easily.
Honestly those lists sound quite weak, I'm willing to bet that they took those list thinking "let's get the most powerful units and spam them" which is basically another way of saying "I have no idea how to properly play this game," and will leave them with no synergy or adaptability, making it easy to turn the tables on them. The Brets in particular sound awful because a pure Knight army with no support would just die.
Well as I've never actually played a game I have no idea whats strong and whats weak. I have no idea what goes well with what. So far these are just a few examples of the lists I've seen. I was just talking with a friend of mine who plays Brets and he said his main army composition (depending on how many wounds he is playing) is something like 30-36 Knights, 20-40 peasant bowman, a paladin, fay enchantress, Damsel of the Lady and King Louen Leoncoeur. He says it works really well together. Obviously I have no idea but I am going down to my local GW tonight to see him in action. He's going up against a goblin list which is made up of mostly spiders I think. Should be a lot of fun!
Oh just a random question, does anyone have any idea of GW's schedule for AoS 2016 releases? I really can't wait to see what happens to all the other armies after they gutted the Tomb Kings.
I answered in the other thread but, Ahhh that question, the answer is a close guarded secret but I can tell you this, the factory at Nottingham works 6 months in advance of release date and the shop staff "learn" about a release on a Friday before release on Saturday (some may learn before this but keep very quiet) Leaks do come around on certain websites.
Still waiting on the "Steampunk" dwarfs that is somewhere up in the air, but also small rumours of free people coming and still some rumours of Aelfs. No word yet about Destruction. (As far as I know)
I'm eagerly waiting to see what they do with both the free people and Aelfs. They are the two factions I am most looking forward to. It'll be interesting to see what gets cut, as the elves especially are very popular. They are rolling all the elves into one faction right?
There was a trend to think they would, but also heard it the other way around.. as we have 3 distinct deities now.. Malerion (DE), Tyrion and Teclis (HE) and Allariele (WE) so it could also well be 3 different armies as we already knew them, though DE now in the Order side of things.
I read somewhere there would be a savage orc army coming out this year (after some digging, I found it on a January post on Bell of Lost Souls; http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2016/01/the-next-age-of-sigmar-factions-are.html). In the same post the "steamhead duardin" were mentioned to be released this year as well. Note that they're pure rumors though! (Although they were right about death being next up after Fyreslayers...)
Honestly with the way GW are I'd be shocked if all three Elvish factions survive completely/the way we know them! I've just read several posts from a variety of different forums with people seeming to think that Brets and Empire will either be joined together or cut completely! That would be a shocker.
I doubt they'd cut elves - people get emotional about elves. Regarding Empire and Brets, I think they will be merged; if you look at their current warscrolls, they already have a lot of synergy. But I doubt they'd be cut completely; although I think Brettonia may see the guillotine, considering they haven't been updated since 6th.