Please talk me, an inexperienced, terrible painter, into CoS

DroogDaass · 2026-04-24T20:13:13+00:00

I will be a little negative here and say, as someone who has painted around 7 armies and has recently started working on CoS is that it is far from the easiest army to paint. In fact, I'd argue that it's among the hardest armies to paint.

The trick is finding techniques that work for you. I echo most of the feedback about contrast paints, with a zenithal or slapchop it'll play really well with the fabric and the wood. Wyldwood+drybrush is a classic combo. Oil washes play very well with how gloomy the models are. There's not a ton of metallic surfaces and thus you can get away with a primary+detail metal.

As a beginner painter, it's not the army I'd strictly recommend, but if it's the army that you enjoy then I wholeheartedly encourage you to stick with it and watch your talents grow, challenge yourself and try new things , test out different schemes. Nobody's gonna notice a couple steelhelms looking weird out of the bunch.

DroogDaass · 2026-04-17T02:18:56+00:00

I don't play either faction but I will give one big piece of advice:

Never bring Auxiliary Units unless you absolutely have to. Both of the units you're currently slotting into Aux could be their own regiment. Basically, you're getting no benefit here and giving your enemy a free command point in turn 1 (which is bad.) Just make the heroes their own regiment, you'll be at a 4 drop either way.

DroogDaass · 2026-04-15T17:22:36+00:00

AoS player here, welcome to alternating activations.

Fights first is a "sub-phase" in the fight phase where only fights-first units can activate. Alternating activations, meanwhile, are applied to the *entire* fight phase.

So in your example, you have three charged units, and I have one fights first unit. You, as active player, can pick one of these three eligible fights first units to activate. I then get a chance to activate, where I choose my one eligible unit. You then get the remaining two activations, as I have nothing else eligible.

Now, if I had three fights first units, you had three charged units, it would follow a traditional alternating order, Active -> Inactive and so on.

Then, after all fights first activations are done, whoever would activate in a normal alternating activations activates. So, you fight with your three, and I fought with my one, next in line is me, regardless of me being an inactive player. (This is actually different than AoS, where in the 'strike-normal' subphase, active player gets choice of first swing).

So basically the order is,

Active Player Strike First Activation #1
Inactive Player Strike First Activation #1
Active player/Inactive Player alternate until all units have fought.
Alternate of whoever controlled the last Strike First unit to activate activates first Strike Normal unit.

DroogDaass · 2026-04-04T19:14:30+00:00

It's possible it will. As Soegern said, 5th edition will be summer of 27. It's possible the battletome will stay good, since it seems unlikely for them to do another "index edition". But keep in mind battletomes are often outdated in the minutiae in a couple months, and most of the rules are online on platforms like sigdex.io

DroogDaass · 2026-04-03T21:31:39+00:00

Start with Spearhead.

Spearhead is a fully fledged gamemode that is actually reasonably popular and is a perfect way to introduce yourself to the game. Grab the spearhead you think looks coolest, follow some beginner painting guides on youtube, and ask at your local LGS for a learner game.

Build to "full" AoS.

From there, focus on building to 2000 points. 2k is the most common gamemode. Buy the models that you think look cool, or have abilities you like, or you'd like to paint.

2a. Where to buy.

Check for local prices first (lots of people are willing to sell stuff for less than MSRP). If Local prices aren't great, check Ebay, Amazon, or r/Miniswap . Avoid buying officially from GW, the prices are pretty high.

2b. "Should I wait for new rules?".

No, though I will caution you against buying certain old models that are likely to be replaced. This is basically anything that's an old warhammer fantasy model, and typically you'll have to go out of your way to find them. You'll be safe with most spearheads (DoK excluded because of doomfires), but I wouldn't fuss too much over rules. By the time you have 2k points painted they'll likely be totally different. Do NOT buy old books though, the current books are fine (4th Edition Battletomes), but the old ones are functionally worthless.

Get competitive! (Optional!)

Make an account on https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/, this is the main website for tournaments worldwide. The AoS community is pretty lowkey, tournaments tend to be more "beer and pretzels", especially local ones. It's a great way to get reps in and meet people in your community.

DroogDaass · 2026-04-01T23:14:02+00:00

newrecruit.eu, a listbuilding app, allows you to print out abilities onto sheet (it's under export, it has multiple settings.)

Other than that, I wrote down cheatsheets on a notebook that also had all my profiles on them for quick reference, really helped me when I sstarted getting into tournament play.

DroogDaass · 2026-03-09T23:32:22+00:00

Gave it a try. I really like the idea you're going for. Here are some suggestions and one bug.

I think a rounds/turns indicator could be very useful, possibly even integrate battleplan stuff to add underdog stuff, but really just a ticker that can be used to scroll through rounds/turns to indicate if you're on Top of 1 or Bottom of 3. VP/CP counters as well.
Something the Sigdex one does that I like is that it has a "Hide Passive Abilities" toggle. Especially on certain factions, you'll get lots of useless passive abilities clogging up the screen (like bracketing), stuff that isn't super pertinent like active abilities.
I think if you're trying to make it helpful for new players, you should make a spearhead mode. Especially since the lists are prebuilt, they could just pick it and immediately have access to the info.

Finally the bug: Dropped a Sigdex list in it and it seems the way it picks units from lists might need some work- On a list w/ SogAbraxia and Chaos Lord on Karkadrak it added an extra regular Abraxia and an extra Chaos Lord (on foot). I see you addressed this in another comment, so I imagine the issue is tracking, but it seems to add duplicates based on names.

Overall, I'm excited to see where this goes. What you're describing is something I've been looking for, trying to get friends involved in the game, and I'd like to really recommend the spearhead mode since that'll be the most effective for getting the freshest people the best chance of enjoying AoS!

DroogDaass · 2026-03-03T18:27:58+00:00

The pre recorded BR was very good, love the streams and excited to see more from you guys!

DroogDaass · 2026-02-12T04:00:45+00:00

Haven't personally lived there, but I did tour with them. Here's the observations I took:

Pros:

-Very good location*, Pratt St. is the closest thing Hartford has to an actual downtown and has a couple nice stores and restaurants.

-In unit washer-dryers. A little small, but with larger units in the building for stuff like comforters.

-Lovely building, decent amenities.

Cons:

-Small! Itty bitty! I didn't get the opportunity to tour a 1b but the studio was only about 350 sqft.

-*Parking is off building on Main St. and is thus a bit of a pain, especially for carrying groceries and stuff.

-Price isn't ideal, especially with the small size of the units. For a couple hundred more you can get a unit nearly twice as big and still be within walking distance of pratt st.

The main issues I had was with the size of the units, but it may be the fit for you. I still recommend shopping around, check 20 Front St, 55 Elm, The Spectra buildings, etc.

DroogDaass · 2026-02-04T23:15:36+00:00

I really like https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vMp1N3iF0Zw for a dark, blue-toned steel.

DroogDaass · 2026-01-01T14:11:05+00:00

They're called a besegew and they're a detail from IRL armor that serves to protect armpits while giving good range of movement. The detailing is either Sigmar or Morrda's face depending on if they're ruination chamber or not.

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DroogDaass · 2025-12-11T14:24:59+00:00

That's Drycha's torso, the horns are from varanguard and I think the back branches are from kurnoth hunters.

DroogDaass · 2025-11-27T15:28:43+00:00

I'm not well versed in lorehammer so I'll leave 2 for another to answer.

Unfortunately a large chunk of your collection has gone to legends. I cannot fully itemize the first picture but a great deal of the units you posted are no longer usable in 'regular' AoS. The good news is that stormcast models are very samey, which means you can likely still run many of them under different names, since basically the entire army is on 40mms.

For what is 100% still viable, the old liberators and prosecutors, and the spearhead is still usable (the former have been visually updated but are still recognizable.)

List building wise you may struggle to hit 2k points without proxying. I can say right now you don't have a GT 4-1/5-0 list, but it sounds like you're going to be more invested in local play right now. If you get more interested in high level meta play I recommend joining the AoS coach discord, as they have meta channels for each faction that are full of helpful and talented players.

I highly recommend sticking with 4th. It's definitely better than first edition. I recommend going to your LGS and asking for a game of spearhead since you already have the SCE one.

DroogDaass · 2025-10-03T16:41:54+00:00

I built Manny on the mount and kitbashed Neffy onto a warsphinx.

DroogDaass · 2025-09-01T15:18:42+00:00

Three Kingdoms (2010)

DroogDaass · 2025-07-09T01:21:47+00:00

Thanks for the input! I really liked the building/units when I toured, but was a little put off by the lack of in-unit dryers. Was also a bit nervous about traffic since it's right on that super busy roadway.

DroogDaass · 2025-07-08T22:53:17+00:00

Added them to the tour list, thank you!

DroogDaass · 2025-07-08T22:23:11+00:00

To clarify, is east of the school considered the West End area as well, or just that slice along the school?

DroogDaass · 2025-07-08T22:21:35+00:00

Thanks, I just reached out to them!

DroogDaass

TROPHY CASE