Age of Sigmar FAQs Round-up

Hey all, on 24 July Games Workshop released the latest round of Age of Sigmar FAQs, errata and commentary for Warhammer Age of Sigmar Second Edition.  These FAQs are comprehensive – over 50 PDF files for each of the main books, expansions, & factions.  To make it easier to digest, I’ve compiled all the current Age of Sigmar FAQs into one single PDF that is text-searchable and bookmarked so you can jump to the file you need.

While the suite of FAQs was released on Second Edition launch day at the end of June, the FAQs have now been updated to address a small number of negative play experiences which emerged in the first month of the new edition.  In short, the most recent FAQs fix the emerging problems.  In this post and podcast episode, I cover the main things you need to know from the 24 July FAQs.

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Age of Sigmar FAQs

As I mentioned in the introduction, I’m not going to go through everything you need to know in all the FAQs, just the most recent changes on 24 July.  The Age of Sigmar FAQs are split into errata (normally changes to scrolls) and designer commentary (answers to questions) and cover 50+ different files.  If you want a full rundown I highly recommended checking out Warhammer Weekly on YouTube, who have done deep-dive sessions on all the FAQs.

The current FAQs have removed a number of negative play experiences that emerged at the Age of Sigmar Six Nations where particular rules mechanics and combinations were pushed beyond what was probably intended.  The most obvious talking points were command ability stacking, the power of Lord Kroak, and the obvious strength of some of the Endless Spells and Malign Sorcery artefacts which created “auto-include” choices.   These have all been addressed.

Command ability stacking

With the new edition of Age of Sigmar, there is much more freedom to use command abilities – you are no longer limited to just using your general’s ability and have a new resource of command points to spend.  Its an enjoyable new mechanic but a couple of things slipped through whereby you could produce absurd results by stacking the same command ability multiple times on the same unit.  This issue has been dealt with by either:

•  completely rewriting the ability (see Grot Warboss);
• limiting the ability so that it can’t be used on the same target more than once in the same turn; or
• limiting the ability so that it can only be used once a turn.

Malign Sorcery

Let’s start with the early auto choices in Malign Sorcery – Banishment, Lens and Portal.  They have all been tweaked to try to make them playable, but not super powerful.

• Banishment (Hysh spell)
  • Old Rule – Cast on 8 – pick an enemy unit within 12” of the caster that is visible to them. Remove that unit from the battlefield and set it up again on the battlefield, more than 9” from any models from the caster’s army and more than 24” from the caster
  • New Rule – still 8 and 12” but now opponent must remove it and set it up again more than 24 and 9” away– opponent picks where unit goes.  Still useful for forcing units off objectives or out of combat
• Lens of Refraction (Hysh artefact)
  • Old Rule – Each time a friendly unit within 6” of the bearer would suffer any mortal wounds from a spell cast by an enemy wizard roll a d3 and reduce the number of mortal wounds suffered by the result.  Basically you could make a large portion of your army immune to magic.
  • New Rule – once per battle round the first time a friendly unit within 6” suffers any mortal wounds, roll a D3 and reduce number of mortal wounds suffered by the result
• Portal (Endless Spell)
  • you can only cast through the Portal once per phase – no more spamming large numbers of spells through the portal; and
  • Endless spells can’t go back and forth or move again once sent through the portal. 

Other important changes and points to note with Endless Spells are:

• in order to cast an Endless Spell you need to know the spell and pay the points for it in your army list – no stealing from others;
• range buffs don’t increase the range in which Endless Spells can be set-up;
• you can’t set-up an Endless Spell for the first time through a Portal (or use any other way of changing where the spell is set-up from)
• Geminids no longer can affect the same unit if you move both of the pieces over the same target
• Mortahi’s Iron Heart of Khaine doesn’t work against Endless Spells when they move at the beginning of the battleround;
• unbinding distances are measured to the caster.

Lord Kroak

Lord Kroak received a lot of press in the first month of Age of Sigmar Second Edition because he was able to easily do 50-100 mortal wounds in a single magic phase.  This high damage output was because he can cast his Celestial Deliverance spell up to three times (warscroll rules trump core rules) and had several ways to increase his chances of casting (command ability re-rolls and Astrolith Bearer) and his range (balewind and portal).  All these elements have now been tweaked:

• Celestial Deliverance is now harder to cast (8, 9, 10), hits fewer units, in a shorter range and with less damage;
• Kroak’s command ability generates command points now instead of re-rolls; and
• Astrolith Bearer ability doesn’t stack.

Sylvaneth Wyldwoods and Double-Pinning

Before rounding out the rest of the changes, it is important to highlight two points which have caused a large debate out of these latest Age of Sigmar FAQs.

• Sylvaneth Wyldwoods now block line of sight (relevant for shooting and magic) unless the units concerned fly.
• Double-Pinning: If a model is equidistant from two enemy models (for example, two enemy models in base contact) it must remain equidistant or more closer to both models when piling in.

The Wyldwood change fits from a verisimilitude perspective but gives the Sylvaneth player the ability (against some armies) to screen off parts of the board or camp on objectives.  This ability is naturally limited however by the amount of terrain pieces on the table.  A well-populated table will not allow a large number of places for Wyldwoods to go.

On double-pinning, I like the change for base contact in combat, I don’t like it if (*not if, when) people create equidistant crescents around an enemy model to pin it in place from 3″ away (safely out of the reach of its weapons).  Check out this Warhammer Weekly episode for a fuller discussion.

Other Age of Sigmar FAQs points to note

Some other Age of Sigmar FAQs points to note are:

Army-building and Allies

• its now clear that if you have a “Battleline if” unit which is conditional on your army being a particular allegiance, you cannot use other allegiance ability (for instance, using Judicators as Battleline you can’t use the Order abilities);
• Allies has now been defined as any unit that doesn’t have the keyword of the army’s allegiance (excluding Endless Spells and Scenery).  This means it is now super clear that units included in mixed-faction battalions from outside the main faction don’t get spells, artefacts etc.  However, these units don’t count towards the ally limits in matched play;
• the Everchosen battalions (Plaguetouched, Fatesworn etc) no longer will be seen in Nurgle, Tzeentch, Khorne or Slannesh matched play lists at 2,000 points because the battalion and all its units count as allies;

Scenarios

• Named characters don’t have artefacts for rules purposes (so non-wizard named characters can’t capture objectives in two of the GHB18 scenarios);
• The Places of Arcane Power scenario has been changed so that the hero or wizard has to stay near the objective to hold it and can’t just capture it and move away.

Death

• Curse of Years auto wipes a unit when the roll gets down to 1 but mortal wound saves are allowed against damage from Curse of Years

Order

• Deepkin ships can no longer be placed within 6″ of an objective or closer than 6″ from another shipwreck.  So no building walls any more but you now get to place them after territories are decided to compensate.
• Seraphon – Rippers are now D3 additional hits (but don’t generate further hits after that).
• Seraphon – Engine of the Gods edited to make sure summoned units can’t move after they are summoned.
• Seraphon – Starseer “guess the number of re-rolls” game has now been removed and the new command ability just generates command points.
• Stormcast – Evocators get Lore of Invigoration and the command abilities for Anvils of Heldenhammer, Celestial Vindicators and Hammers of Sigmar have all been amended to stop stacking abuse.

Correction – on the podcast I said that Tzeentch and Khorne can now mix-and-match artefacts between daemons, mortals etc.  They can’t.  Sorry.