Age of Sigmar Skirmish - The Ironjawz

The New Games Workshop™ has been doing some exciting things this spring - obviously hyping their 8th Edition 40k release - but also putting out skirmish rules for their mythological fantasy game Age of Sigmar.

This comes at a good time - lots of GW fans have been pretty excited about Age of Sigmar, and producing a skirmish set allows new people to try it out with minimal investment. The rules seem to be just like regular Age of Sigmar, you just take one dude instead of a whole unit of dudes.

I personally haven't touched Age of Sigmar since it came out - it was a huge mess, they deleted a great setting and story for something that most people couldn't explain to me, and sigmarines never interested me. I've heard a lot about Sigmar being good since the General's Handbook released, but I wasn't really sure about it. With 8th Edition 40k almost mirroring AoS in terms of rules, I started to think that it might be a good time to give it a shot.

I have a bunch of beastmen painted up but felt like they probably wouldn't do the game justice, as it seems like their rules are still from when the game launched. I picked up a box of Ironjawz, which are basically black orcs in Sigmar. I've been eyeing these models since they came out - they have really sweet armor, look vicious, and could be used for lots of stuff. They seem to have retained their Waaagh! aesthetic from the Old World, which is cool, as Orcs and Goblins were my first army ever.

I'll probably do some re-posing of the megaboss just because I don't like my characters to look exactly like everyone else's, and I don't really like the skull on his shoulder, so hopefully I can replace that.

Anyway, I'm going to try out Sigmar skirmish and small battles with the regular rules and see if it is worth playing. Just delving into all the army building etc. it seems like they've definitely put in work to fix it. I have lots of orcs and goblins I built for Kings of War that I'll try out in Sigmar too, and if they work I can use them for both.

It seems like there is still zany stuff - first turn 24" charges, lots of laffo unit interactions that cause tons of wounds, but maybe that's just the way GW is going. If everyone has it, maybe its just a new normal for their games. I have been really hammering on how good simple rules are for wargames, especially ones that come from major big box companies, so perhaps Sigmar will be that for me.

I feel like they still have work to do, in terms of shoring up 'factions' and making it easier to build a list. If I play Ironjawz, it seems like there are only about six or seven options for my list, with most of those being characters. I can play Destruction allegiance, but then my ironjawz guys aren't 'battleline', which means I have to use a ton of battleline units from other types of orcs and goblins (which is OK, I am planning out a Savage Orc / Ironjawz list with Savage Orc guys from Shieldwolf Miniatures that I have). It just seems confusing.

I picked up a copy of the Ironjawz tome, and it's a good buy. You don't really need it except for the battalion stuff, but the story in it does give me a better idea of what the Sigmar world actually is. I also picked up the General's Handbook, and GW has to be commended for it. They really made something good to help fix Sigmar and it seems they realized their mistakes with 8th Edition 40k.

My soon-to-be five year old has actually been asking to play games with my Warhammer guys recently - usually we do Tanks!, X-Wing, Dungeon Saga, or The Walking Dead, but I think Sigmar is generally easy enough that I may try it out with him as well. Skirmish will be where we start!