The 4th Edition of Age of Sigmar Has A Sound A Lot Like A Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game

We are gradually receiving details about the upcoming Age of Sigmar edition from Games Workshop. However, rather of giving us stunning 360-degree views of the new Skaven models as we all desire, we’re instead receiving dull updates to the rules. Well, so maybe that’s not dull to everyone, but that’s undoubtedly not the aspect of the game that most appeals to me.

But the most recent Warhammer Community update had me sitting up in my chair and paying attention. The traditional unit types—Battleline, Behemoth, etc.—are being replaced in Age of Sigmar 4th Edition with a regiment system. A move that sounds a lot like the rules for the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game is the ability for each Hero in your army to command a certain number of soldiers.


My age group’s involvement in Warhammer began because of The Lord of the Rings. The legally licensed skirmish game from Games Workshop featured gorgeous models, simple rules, and capitalized on the early 2000s global Ringmania phenomenon. Before long, gamers making their way into Games Workshop stores found themselves transported to a distant fantasy land, or the far future, and the rest is history.

Still, this is one of the best skirmish systems the firm has ever produced: the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. The game feels balanced whether you’re playing a little 300-point match or reenacting the Battle of Pelennor Fields with a dozen Mûmakil and numerous heroes since it scales perfectly at practically every point limit. It can only be good news that Age of Sigmar appears to be borrowing ideas from this book.


Each regiment in Age of Sigmar 4.0 is led by a Hero and can contain up to three units (four if the unit is your General). When the combat begins, all of these are released at once as a single drop, and the player with the fewest drops wins an enormous benefit every battle round: an additional Command Point. Auxiliary units are also an option, but they will drastically raise the quantity of drops and lower the chance that you will receive that Command Point.

Although the specifics are unknown, this method appears to strengthen elite forces and harm horde armies.

There’s more, but this is already contentious. Heroes are limited to using only units in their regiments that fit the given theme. It makes perfect sense that “a Vanari Bannerblade can include any Vanari units in their regiment” in the example provided in the article. To switch the example to Skaven, which I am currently obsessed with for obvious reasons, a Plague Priest can take all those broken animals of Clan Moulder, a Deathmaster Eshin can take assassins, and a Warlock Engineer can take all those Pestilens units. But a Verminlord is undoubtedly strong enough to take down any army unit.

As someone who values flavor above everything else, I appreciate that this will compel armies to adopt a slightly more themed aesthetic. The restrictions imposed by this approach will probably be resented by tournament players, and it will be interesting to watch how the meta changes. Though it wouldn’t be a significant change from the existing tournament scene, I am concerned that there may be a few broken combos that can be abused.


You still have time to enjoy yourself with your troops. In the Warhammer Community article, a product developer for Age of Sigmar 4th edition who goes by just Ben describes an immensely entertaining Skaven list that you can still use with the new rules. We won’t stop you if your list consists of just one hero and a horde of Doomwheels flying around and doing devastation!”

In my opinion, AoS should fully embrace this shift. Only their regimental heroes should be able to enhance units. Deployment need to require them to be near one another. Depending on the regiment’s theme and hero, they might even receive specific rules similar to those for Warhammer 40K’s detachments. Players in tournaments can’t even be upset about it because, as far as I know, they have already stopped reading. Still, it sounds like fun.