From Spearhead to 2000 Points: Stormcasts, Sky-Dwarfs, and Our AoS Army-Building Spiral
We started with a pretty normal Age of Sigmar evening and somehow ended up in that very familiar hobby place: half list-building, half rules rabbit hole, half admiring cool models. Yes, that is three halves. That feels about right.
More Stormcast Eternals hit the table
Michał finished assembling the rest of his Stormcast Eternals, which immediately made the whole project feel a lot more real. Among the fresh additions were:
- Lord-Terminos
- Knight-Questor
- 5 Reclusians
- another 5 Liberators on top of the 5 already assembled earlier for Spearhead
That is the moment when a starter-box force stops being “some sprues we should get to eventually” and starts becoming an actual army.
We also spent a while looking at the individual kits and unit art, because honestly that is part of the fun with new AoS stuff. Lord-Terminos got a special mention, partly because the model is cool, and partly because single character pricing in this hobby can still hit like a hammer to the face.
Reclusians and the tiny mystery monks
One of the better moments in the conversation was when we noticed the extra little figures hanging around the Reclusians and briefly tried to figure out what exactly we were looking at.
At first glance, they looked like they might be some kind of separate mini-units. After a bit of digging, it turned out they are Memorians — tokens attached to the Reclusians rather than independent models.
And honestly? We love this kind of design. It is weird, characterful, and very AoS.
Rules-wise, the Memorians help the unit resist certain non-Core abilities through the Ruination Chamber mechanic, and then disappear over time as the unit suffers for bad save rolls. Very thematic, and also pretty spicy on the table.
That led us into one of those classic reactions:
Wait, that actually seems really strong.
Which, to be fair, is a sentence we say a lot while reading new rules.
Army terrain is still one of the funniest AoS concepts
Another part of the discussion drifted toward army terrain, because Age of Sigmar continues to be gloriously unapologetic about armies bringing their own weird nonsense to the battlefield.
The example that came up was Sylvaneth, with their trees and overgrown terrain pieces. We were talking about how these elements are not just decorative faction flavor — they can also affect cover, movement, and even deal damage or interfere with enemy positioning depending on the rules in play.
It is one of those things that makes AoS army-building feel different from just adding units until the points fit. Sometimes your faction identity includes a wizard, a monster, and a portable haunted forest.
Then the Kharadron Overlords air fleet entered the chat
On the other side of the table, Ender was looking at Kharadron Overlords and their ships, which naturally opened another army-building tangent.
There was a quick check on whether the different skyvessels were build options from one kit. They are not — they are separate models:
- Frigate
- Ironclad
- the smaller gunboat option
And yes, the price-to-model-size-to-points ratio on Kharadron ships remains a whole experience.
The especially fun bit here is that in full Age of Sigmar, these ships are not just centerpieces — they also interact with transport capacity, which means we immediately started talking about aerial dwarf deployment shenanigans.
A Frigate or Ironclad is already a statement piece. A Frigate or Ironclad that also delivers angry duardin where they need to be is even better.
Warcry snuck in too
Because no hobby discussion ever stays in one lane, we also dipped into Warcry for a moment. Ender pulled up some Kharadron abilities, including the Aether-Khemist, and it was easy to see why people like him in lists.
Reducing enemy attacks in an aura is annoying in exactly the right way, and a solid damage ability on top makes him feel like one of those support pieces that quietly does everything.
This was a nice reminder that when we talk about “building an army,” we often really mean building across a whole ecosystem of games. One collection can start in Spearhead, branch into full AoS, and still throw out ideas for Warcry on the side.
The Spearhead points reality check
Then came the part that always gets us: trying to translate starter forces into “real army” scale.
We started throwing around rough points values and quickly landed on the obvious conclusion:
2000 points in Age of Sigmar is a lot.
A Spearhead force is generally well below that threshold, and depending on the faction, sometimes well below it. In our chat, a few rough values came up:
- Skaven Spearhead around 600 points
- Skaventide contents at just under 1200 points overall
- the Stormcast half of Skaventide at around 1100 points
- Kharadron Overlords Spearhead around 740 points
That creates a funny but useful shift in perspective. Spearhead is not just “small AoS.” It is its own format, and if you try to compare boxes directly by matched play points, things can look wildly uneven.
Which then naturally led to the question: how is something like 990 vs 440 supposed to be fair?
And the answer is basically the same as always with boxed formats: because the mode is balanced around its own rules, not around equivalent matched play points.
Still, for army-building purposes, this is a great thing to realize early. If you start with Spearhead and your goal is 2000 points, you are not “almost there.” You are at the beginning — which is exciting, dangerous, and very expensive.
The social side: finding games vs making our own
At some point we also looked at local groups and places to play around Warsaw, including mentions of Warcry meetups and store spaces.
But the funniest conclusion from the whole exchange was also the most relatable one:
Why do we need a group that plays when we already have our own?
That really is the heart of it. A lot of this hobby momentum comes from having a few people to message when you assemble a unit, discover a weird rule, or suddenly realize your “small project” needs another 900 points to become a full army.
Also: Ironjawz Spearhead is on preorder
And because the hobby gods never allow us to focus on one thing for too long, the evening ended with one more bit of dangerous information:
Ironjawz Spearhead preorder has started.
Naturally, this is exactly the kind of news nobody needs when they are already in the middle of building Stormcasts, pricing ships, and checking how close they are to 2000 points.
Where we landed
This whole conversation felt like a very honest snapshot of where we are with Age of Sigmar right now:
- assembling forces from starter and Spearhead boxes,
- figuring out what weird tokens and faction mechanics actually do,
- comparing factions by vibes, points, and cool centerpiece models,
- and slowly realizing how much room there still is to grow each army.
That is probably our favorite phase of the hobby, to be honest. The stage where every new unit opens another possibility, every rules read-through creates three new ideas, and every box still feels like it could become the core of something bigger.
If all goes well, the next step is simple:
assemble more, paint more, and actually get some games in.