Topic: Age of Sigmar Faction Tier

[Lord of Winter and War]

So, the Honest Wargamer podcast, recently did a couple of shows, in which they tiered all the factions in Age of Sigmar. It's not a ranking, but the idea is if you were to go to a 5 round event, with eqally skilled players, how many games you could expect to win.

Based on my experiences, I agree with their choices, and I think it's very interesting. For folks who don't want to spend 4 hours listening to the shows (which are quite interesting, so I recommend it anyway), here is a quick summery.


The number, is the number of games you could win out of five.

Chaos

Mixed Chaos 4

Blades of Khorne 4-5

Disciples of Tzeentch 4-5

Maggotkin of Nurgle 5

Hosts of Slaanesh 3-4

Clan Pestilence 4

Clan Moulder 2-3

Clan Skyre 3

Clan Eshin 1-2

Clan Verminius 3-4

Everchosen 3

Slaves to Darkness 3-4

Legions of Azgor 3 (real Dwarves don't cast spells)

Tamurkan's Horde 1-2


Order

Mixed Order 3-4

Daughters of Khaine 5

Disposessed 3

Devoted of Sigmar 1

Order Draconis 4-5

Order Serpentus 1

Kharadron Overlords 2

Fireslayers 3

Stormcast Eternals 4-5

Scourge Privateers 1

Swifthawk Agents 2

Sylvaneth 4-5

Seraphron 4-5

Idoneth Deepkin 4-5

Wanderers 2

Free Peoples 3-4

Phoenix Temple 4

Shadowblades 1

Darkling Covens 2-3


Destruction

Mixed Destruction 3-4

Beastclaws raiders 2-3

Ironjaws 3-4

Moonclan Grots 3-4

Bonesplittaz 3-4

Gutbusters 3

Gitmob Grots 2

Greenskins 1-2

Spiderfang Grots 2


Legions of Nagash 5

Soulblight 3-4

Nighthaunt 5

Flesh Eater Courts 3-4





I find this all interesting, as most of the factions are in the better half of the skew. Anything 3+ I consider to be quite playable. The factions who rank lower then 3, are that way due toa few factors.


1) Cost of units

2) Quality of Warscrolls

3) Wizards/ Hero

4) Battalions


Also, just because a faction has a battletome, doesn't automatically make it great. Some factions, like Order Draconis/Pheonix Temple, are amazing without allegence abilies, due to the strength of thier units.



Order, is the most skewed of the grand alliances. the factions which score 1/1-2 just don't have great units/warcrolls to really compete agasint more powerful factions. I personally don't think Kharadron Overlords are as downtrodden as they are said to be, but they are in a rough place with fairly expensive units, which all pretty much have the same roll (shooting), in a non-shooing game. Mixed order is also quite strong, as you can cherry pick the best units the allaince has to offer, but you miss out on powerful allegence abilities.

Besides that, they have a lot of powerhouse factions.

Chaos is Fairly evenly spread. Eshin/Tamurkan suffer from either terrible units, or lack of options. Mixed chaos is quite good, as Slaves to Darkness work best being buffed by marked units, or mixed chaos is very good. Chaos Warriors, and Clanrats are amongst the best battleline in the game.


Destruction is lacking a clear winner, but they have a lot of possibly solid factions. It's expected Moonclan will be getting a battletome soon, and that'll help the faction alot.


Death is great, mainly because of how good their spellcasting is and summoning. Legions of Nagash summoning mechanic is absolutly amazing, and they have a fantastic assortment of spells in two lores, and they have some fantastic casters (Nagash and Arkan the Black come to mind). Nighthaunts are a great meta-busting army, as they ignore rend, are super fast. Grimgast Reapers are a standout unit.


Flesh eaters have some fun summoning tricks, but lack the power of LoN.



Anyway, what do you folks think?

[Irisado]

I have never believed in the concept of tiers and this review is not going to change my mind.  The fact of the matter is that every gaming environment is different and a tier system cannot account of that.  It bears little relation to how I have played over the years and while it may stand up to scrutiny at some tournaments, it may not hold true for all of them.  There is beauty in diversity, in my opinion, and attempting to homogenise the gaming experience by applying a universal tier system is, to my mind, misleading (too many variables are omitted or cannot be accounted for) and takes too much fun out of the game.

This does not mean that armies cannot be compared to each other and that some armies are clearly more effective than others under a given set of rules or under particular conditions.  To give each a number which applies universally, however, is not an accurate or meaningful comparison.

[Lord of Winter and War]

You can see not believe in tiers, but is doesn't change the fact that some factions are clearly worse than others. But, what I believe this showcases is the balance in the game.


If you look through this list, what I found most encouraging, is how similar most of the factions are in their rating. 40k, for example is an highly unbalanced game, where there is a small handful of clearly better armies.

In age of Sigmar, there is a much healthier balance to it, and I am really enheartend by that. Anything with a value of 3+ I consider above average, and 2-3 is a 50-50 average rating. Armies with 2-3 might lack some of the tools the more 'powerful' factions have, but can still do well if you play cagey and well. Because of this, I believe the vast majority of the factions in the game you can succeed with, especially with practice.

For example, I play Skyre, it was rated as a 3, but I just went third place at a tournament, and the second place army was Kharadron. Player skill, and luck is a part of it.

The few factions with lower ratings (1/1-2), really just suffer with less then stellar warscrolls, or lack of options, but that will probably change pretty soon.

 
So, really, in Age of Sigmar, the rule is buy what you think is cool! Except for a small selection of allegences, you can probably make any of them work, or at least enough you're not loosing every game you play.

[Wyddr]

So, really, in Age of Sigmar, the rule is buy what you think is cool! Except for a small selection of allegences, you can probably make any of them work, or at least enough you're not loosing every game you play.

Say the guy that crapped all over my Swifthawk Agents plan... 

I think the main issue here, as you suggest, is that not every army has a book or has had much attention at all--the game is still young. I'm hoping all the factions get some love soon. Especially Order, which seems decidedly lackluster in a lot of places.

[Lord of Winter and War]

Swifthawks are unfortunatly one of the few factions in a rough place. It's too bad, as a lot of those small order factions have phenomenal models, they just need new rules, or something to make the units pop.

But, on the whole, most factions are sitting pretty good. 

There are are strong rumours of a 'legions of Nagash/beast of chaos' book eventually coming out for the minor order factions. Maybe something like the survivors of Azyr, or free cities sort of thing. That would fill a lot of holes.

[Wyddr]

What I want out of Order:

-An "Order of Azyr" witch-hunter faction. Fold in The Devoted of Sigmar with a few new units and Battle Magi and stuff.

-Something that approximates the old High Elves, but with a new twist--Swifthawk Agents seem a good choice, or something similar.

-Freeguild troop models (i.e. Empire State Troops) that don't suck. I'd love to see a Free Cities army, but if I'm going to have to buy 100 guys in their pajamas, I'll pass.

[Lord of Winter and War]

The free cities are a combination of all the factions, and each has its own selection of each of the factions in them. They have rules for the cities in the Firestorm campaign. I think it'd be really cool to have a more fleshed out version of that.

I love the idea of a combined arms force of for the different races working together.

I think that could work well in allowing folks to bucket down on a race, or do combined races and still have some cool abilities to play with!