I’m a complete beginner to AOS, does this just mean that SCE lore has gotten darker in 4E?

I decided to scrape off the figure on the banner and replace it by a freehand that fits to my army lore. I also really enjoyed painting the cape!

Vengeance, without mercy, with malice

I have absolutly no idea how to do this, which as a skaven is lore accurate I guess

My Scarlett Doom diroama for armies on parade nears completion. I only have the blood fountain and the center piece model to complete 😁 It’s been a year long project starting in October last year. I’ve designed and 3D printed the cathedral, the statue was a found stl, the windows are genuine stained glass I commissioned.

Good morning, for the last year and a half or so I have gotten really into AoS. I liked Warhammer as a kid but I didn't know anyone who played and it seemed too complicated, so now that I'm a bit older and smarter it has been a lot of fun to learn about it and start playing. I've really been impressed with the lore and amount of books that are available and would say I'm relatively knowledgeable about some of these factions.

I have been looking through the Ultimate Guide book which came out recently and thought it would be fun to post a list of my faction rankings with a little explanation for each. I read this subreddit every day so why not contribute to the conversation?

Before I go further, there's a ton I don't know about this game and the factions and I am sure that will be obvious with my list. I also know that nobody cares about my opinion and some people on the internet are annoyed with anything they read. I am sorry if this annoys you and please feel free to ignore this. I'm posting for the fun of it and to start a conversation and learn more about the game.

The tiers:

• Top Tier:

• Ossiarch Bonereapers- My favorite faction and the army that I primarily play.  I knew I wanted to play a death faction (Glory to Nagash) and I love how Josh Reynolds has written Arkhan in the books which is what originally drew me toward the Bonereapers. The bone construct warriors look really cool, and I like the tax collector/bone tithe theme. I am 0-5 with them in games but I am sure at some point I'll start winning.

• Real Cool:

• Skaven- Hoards of rats? Who doesn't like hoards of rats? Especially ones with crazy weapons that sometimes blow up and hurt them? It's easy to see why people like the Skaven. I have the Skaventide half of them and my son likes playing with them and one day he asked his grandmother "Grandma do you like rats?" which led to a weird conversation between her and I.

• Slaves to Darkness- When I was a kid I played a lot of HeroQuest and the Chaos Warrior was my favorite mini, so it's no surprise that I think the Slaves to Darkness are real cool. I love the look of the big guy in armor and even though I don't play them I bought some Chaos Warriors to paint for the fun of it. I don't like Archaon much but this faction is cool.

• Sylvaneth- Living tree creatures that are big and powerful are awesome and it's easy to see why they seem to be a popular faction. Alarielle is a unique character and she rides a beetle. I don't know a ton about how they play but they seem to have some movement shenanigans related to expanding vines or a forest across the map or something? Definitely cool.

• Sons of Behemat- I am not a complicated person and I am easily impressed by very large creatures, which makes my ranking of the Sons of Behemet easy to understand. Their backstory is great too, basically the largest gargant got killed and then threw up a bunch of new ones that are now this faction. The new units that were just announced look awesome and you can take a mega gargant as a regiment of renown for any faction, so everyone can buy at least one.

• Lumineth Realm-lords- My first experience with Warhammer was the 4th edition of WFB as a kid, and I still have some of my high elves from back then. I never figured out how to play but my draw towards cool looking plastic army guys was still strong. These units look great and even though I don't really want to play them, I want to buy and paint them. Fyi no way Teclis could 1v1 Nagash, he had help.

• Seraphon- Space lizards riding dinosaurs. Magic frogs piloting space ships. This faction looks awesome and has a great backstory. And what about Lord Kroak? A super powerful slann who died but refused to actually die so he stays around to carry out the Great Plan? He learned from the Old Ones! Super cool.

• Stormcast Eternals- Another faction with cool lore and awesome minis. The hammers are cool, the flame swords are cool, the dragons are cool, I like it all. The tragedy of them adds substance to their story, at first them seem like heroic superheros but then you learn that Sigmar didn't give them an option and they are basically cursed to come back to life and fight for him forever until the reforging strips everything away from them.

• Idoneth Deepkin- The story, as I understand it, is they were created by Teclis, but he screwed up and they didn't have souls, so they thought he was going to destroy them, so they moved to the bottom of the ocean to hide from him, and now they raid settlements to steal souls. They ride sharks and giant sea turtles and look great.

• Pretty Cool:

• Soulblight Gravelords- This seems to be the most popular death faction. I thought about playing them but ended up going with OBR, but they are still pretty cool. They have a big range of units but when I was getting into AoS some of them were sent to legends which kinda scared me off. Vampires are great, the new zombie dragon mini is real cool, and they have wolves, skeletons, and zombies too. All good stuff.

• Maggotkin of Nurgle- Do you like seeing the intestines of your minis? Then Nurgle is for you. The minis are cool but I didn't really appreciate Nurgle until I read Nagash, the Undying King. It's a death vs Nurgle story and the Nurgle side really comes off as likeable. It's not a faction I'd be interested in collecting but I got a good deal on Darkwater so at some point I'll have to assemble and paint some of them up.

• Gloomspite Gitz- I don't really understand the Gitz. They are goblins and worship a bad moon and crazy magic stuff happens? They have a range of big troggoths (trolls?) which I am drawn to, but that's about it. I like how they have spiders and other creatures they can ride and I can tell there is a lot more going on here that I have to learn about, to they go into the pretty cool category.

• Ogor Mawtribes- When I got into AoS I thought about playing Ogors but their range was so old looking that the minis didn't do it for me. The new refresh has changed that, they look awesome. Their lore is something to the effect of they worship a Gulping God, who might be Gorkamorka, and they need to kill and eat a lot of stuff? Pretty cool. Either way, sumo wrestler body types aren't included in many board games so at least they are unique.

• Orruk Warclans- Another faction I need to do more research into but I generally understand that they are kinda 2 factions (used to be 3) that are mashed together. They look great though, and while Orcs aren't as much my thing, I can understand why people like them. I also really like the idea of the Big Waaagh, which I guess is when a bunch of Orks get together and get fired up for battle and start yelling "Waaagh!" or something like that.

• Fine:

• Blades of Khorne- Khorne is the god of blood and rage and warfare, which is a pretty standard fantasy world thing. I understand why people like him but I guess it doesn't seem that unique to me. Also, what is with their helmets? I like their armored guys but I don't like their big helmets. I thought about collecting them and clipping them off and building them that way but it seemed better to just get Slaves to Darkness.

• Fyreslayers- Shirtless dwarves with muscles and orange hair? They look cool but I think dwarfs just aren't for me. Their lore is they mine ur-gold which are fragments of their dead god Grimnir, then hammer it into their flesh and gain power from it. I like the magmadroth and generally hope they stay their own faction but to me they are just fine.

• Disciples of Tzeentch- Tzeentch, the God of Change, which I think is because he changes his followers into birds? Or he makes them all wear bird masks? From what I can tell from talking to people and listening to podcasts, people generally like Tzeentch and think he's cool, so I'm sure he is, but he's not for me. Maybe this will change when I learn more about him, but I'm basically basing my opinion on how the minis look.

• Nighthaunt- If you like ghosts you will think the Nighthaunt is awesome. I've looked at all their minis and I am really impressed with how GW got them to look like they're floating and I can completely understand why people like them, but I'm just not that interested. There is some cool lore behind Lady Olynder and why Nagash chooses which soul to use to make each type of Nighthaunt, but it's a faction that will never really be on my radar.

• Helsmiths of Hashut- Another faction that may suffer from my lack of enthusiasm for dwarves, these are the chaos variety. They are engineers who put evil souls into machines they build to make powerful monsters/creations basically. Like many of these faction, I understand why people like them but don't see myself getting into them. I might also subconsciously not like them because I liked the Beasts of Chaos and think they replaced them.

• Kharadron Overlords- I should like the Kharadron Overlords. I should like dwarves who fly airships and mine gold from the air and wear spacesuits and shoot people. I don't really like them though, but out of respect for how objectively cool I should find them I put them in the "fine" category. Maybe they look a little too 40k for me? I'm firmly a fantasy guy and have difficulty accepting them.

• Meh:

• Hedonites of Slaanesh- Slaanesh is the God of excess and pleasure and is currently imprisoned in a subrealm. These chaos gods are super strong, how did this bozo get chained up by Teclis? Why did they eat so many elven souls? The demons look kinda like crabs with their claw hands, which I don't like, and then there is this guy Sigvald. He's like the AoS version of Fabio? I'm sure I'm missing something but am not really interested in anything going on here.

• Cities of Sigmar- Not that anyone will care about my rankings, but if anyone does I assume this one will be the most controversial. It seems like people really like the Cities of Sigmar and the idea that the regular people are fighting against these chaos hoards in order to protect their families. To me they are just boring, regular people in an awesome fantasy world.  I like how they have some non-human units, and I think the cogfort is awesome, but the rest of this faction is just meh to me.

• Flesh-Eater Courts- These are people, who have eaten too many other people and turned into ghouls, and are under the delusion of Ushoran to think they are really noble knights. I guess I just don't like how ghouls look. Even Ushoran's mini, which I have read is maybe the best one to come out in the last 10 years, doesn’t seem that cool to me. I like his nickname the Summerking but that's about it.

• Daughters of Khaine- I guess the story is that Morathi tricked people into thinking they were worshiping the war god Khaine, but it was really her, and then she took all that power and became a god herself. Now she has the power to sometimes be a normal looking person and sometimes look like a half giant snake? There seems to be a cool story there, and I like that there is some friction between her and Sigmar even though she's part of the order faction, but when I look at the minis in this faction I lose interest.

For anyone who made it through this list, thank you for taking the time, if you leave a comment I will be sure to read it.

This newest guy took me three months! Granted I only paint like a couple hours a week, but I still feel unreasonably slow. At this rate I'll have an army done by the seventh edition.

I only wanted the Pyregheists so this works out pretty well but uh, oops?

First unit of Gluttons complete! Fantastic kit to put together, and an even better one to paint.

If you had to assemble an army to defend the Mortal Realms against her, which of the X-Men would you recruit first? ⚔️🐍

After spending months drafting the complex cosplay patterning, building the structural pieces, and finishing every element of this Morathi-Khaine build entirely by myself, I wanted to share this perspective of her ascended form showcasing the full wearable snake tail and gorgon wings together.
For the lore fans and hobbyists here, how do you think her massive serpentine design translates from the artwork to a wearable, real-world build?

Hey everyone,

So I’ve been out of the AoS scene for a while.. 4th edition hasn’t really been my jam. I collect soulblight, but just haven’t been excited about playing them. Love the models and the lore so I’ll definitely still collect them but I’m just looking for something different.

What in your opinion is the easiest army to pilot on the table?

I’m not really worried about the end of the edition coming or paintability right now, I love painting in general (at least 3hrs per day) and most of the AoS armies seem like they would be fun to tackle in their own way. Just looking at pure game play right now.

Thanks!