Age of Sigmar/Warhammer Fantasy discussion

[wander]

Whilst there is a thread for Warhammer 40,000 here, I decided to make a seperate thread for it's fantasy equivalent, since rebranded as Age of Sigmar for any players for that on-site.

With releases this year so far of the Maggotkin of Nurgle, the Daughters of Khaine and the brand new force of the Idoneth Deepkin (sea aelves!) with likely more stuff on the way, there's a whole bunch of stuff that is Warhammer that didn't until now have a place to chat on.

Recently I've dipping into the game myself with Path to Glory and also there is a local Escalation League kicking off (start at 500pts and then each progress adds another 500, until full 2,000pt games are being played).

In 40k I am a Nurgle player via the Deathguard and I'm wondering as a choice going forward on playing Nurgle Daemons (with maybe the odd Blightlord thing allied in), however I could also kick off Escalation doing Clan Pestilens. 500pts gives this;

Verminlord Corruptor - Hero (220)
20x Plague Monks (140)
20x Plague Monks (140)

Total = 500

Whilst I'm also a longtime fan of the Flesheater Courts, so a quick and easy line-up might be this;

Abhorrent Ghoul King (on foot) - Warlord (120)
Crypt Ghast Courtier - Hero (80)
10x Crypt Ghouls (100)
10x Crypt Ghouls (100)
10x Crypt Ghouls (100)

Total = 500

With options of bringing in other troops (with their courtiers) though mainly the Zombie Dragon/Terrorgeist for 1000pts onwards. The above list benefits from the Courtier to use it's Mustering special rule to bring back any Ghouls killed in the game with replacements.

Other thoughts for lists may be the Tzeentchian Disciples (as I love the Tzaangor models) or the Daughters of Khaine, which have an amazing line-up of beautiful miniatures now.

So, to kick the thread off past that, what armies do you paint/collect/play as and what are your current or future wishes for hobby projects for Age of Sigmar?

Also... Anyone collecting the new Idoneth Deepkin or have you fought against them yet?

Feel free to discuss here!

[HairyHeretic]

The last time I played any amount of Fantasy, my Chaos army consisted of mortals, beastmen and deamons all in the one list :) I think I stopped playing at all in .. 5th maybe? 6th? Quite a while ago anyway.

While some of the new models are really nice, I can't see myself ever getting back into Fantasy. Too many games and too little time as it is :)

[wander]

I get what you mean with games. I've been maining 40k with a bit of Bolt Action on the side, though every now and then I'd do a AoS Skirmish game to learn the rules some with my mate and get a feel for specific armies. It's easier when it's a handful of models on each side. ^_^

They brought back allies for Age of Sigmar at the end of last year, so that kind of Chaos army can totally be a thing and still keep all the Chaos special rules you want if you go for a specific Chaos God. :) (I have to ask if your old bois were Marked by a specific one ^^ ).

For a while they seemed to have squatted the Beastmen, which made me down (as I totally dig them), though it seems they were just repackaging and basing them for AoS from their old boxes as they seem to be available again now in the online store.

If I went Beastmen now though (I tried the mortals, now called Slaves to Darkness, before and did not like how not-at-all killy + squishy af they were), I'd likely go Tzeentch Arcanites and field a Tzaangor heavy force, both for ease of getting the models needed and more up-to-date and advanced special abilities to field them that way.

A quick n' dirty list for 500pts gives a Tzaangor Shaman as warlord and have his initial warband be 10x Tzaangor and 3x Tzaangor Enlightened (on discs because the discs are free and why the eff not, eh? ^^). Fairly elitey for 500pts admittedly, though Tzaangors are pretty damned killy and get 2 wounds each, which is nice. Plus you can turn the enemy into them to bolster any casualties taken... Plus Plus, I really love the beaky-faced blue goatmen 

[HairyHeretic]

The last army I can remember playing was Tzeentchian. Sorcerer Lord, 2 or 3 other sorcerers, all in about 8 chariots and a unit of screamers for annoying war machine crew. I put it together for a tournament when I realized I had somehow ended up with that many chariots. It wasn't supposed to be a particularly serious force, but I think I placed 3rd with it.

[wander]

That's pretty neat. :)

If I went with ol' faithful Nurgle, I'd do Daemons as mentioned and have a Herald (unsure yet what one now there are multiple types), a squad of 10x Plaguebearers and 3x Plague Drones for the board coverage. A more proper sized army would of course have larger numbers of units, though the crux of my list would be that.

Summoning as a mechanic has had some changes in Age of Sigmar, whilst it was done like a magic spell, the rules of doing so becoming the 8th edition 40k psychic power activation (beat target number on a dice roll), it's basically a way to deepstrike troops already in your army list you may keep in reserve in matched play. If doing Narrative Play or playing Path to Glory (I adore Path to Glory), you can spam in units from thin-air as long as you make the summoning roll. It makes sides that use it (like daemons, the Seraphon or Flesh-Eater Courts) pretty horrifying to face, as each turn you can summon in a fresh unit if you make the spell roll for potentially an unending zerg-rush.

That's part of what makes Flesh-Eaters fun;
Having the Ghoul King summon in a new ghoul squad each turn past what's on the table at the start, then when they take fatalities, the Courtiers can muster the numbers back up. Have the original Crypt Ghoul units act as a meatshield/tarpit so the Hero models of the King and Courtiers don't get ganked and then when the new Ghouls show up, throw them at the enemy too. Spare units can go chase up the objectives and the beat-sticks come in from any Crypt Horrors and Crypt Flayers, along with the Zombie Dragon which has little reason (outside of the small scale 500pt games or Skirmish matches) not to be an auto-take. 

[MiaKage]

I used to play Wood Elves, who were re-labeled at the wanderers now? Still sad that the lore is non existent for them 

[wander]

Yep, they're Wanderers now. They got a bit of love in the new General's Handbook (including atop of relics etc, a neat special rule where they can exit a table edge and come back via one of your choosing), though yeah there's not much lore for them now, aside that Alarielle may be pissed at them and they're wandering the Nine Realms to put elven stones in each one, possibly to get back in her good graces.

One neat thing to do though is have some as an ally with another army (Sylvaneth is the most used option, they could also be a scouting party for some Stormcast Eternals) and give them your own fluff reasons for what brings a band of them to work with the other army. If you have a full 2000pt Wood Elf army, you could just use 400pts from that for a full Sylvaneth allied detachment, which if you have dryads/treefolk in your army anyway, would be super simple to do. Why are those Sylvaneth dealing with your Aelves? You decide. :)

I feel with the Idoneth Deepkin stealing the Scourge Privateer's 'Sea-faring Elf' schtick that some elements of the old elves may get shifted away, though the big Daughters of Khaine release with new models for it (the Khiterai and the AVATAR OF KHAINE!) gives some hope that some elements of them will be covered in the future. I feel worse for the Dorfs, as with the Fyreslayers and Kharadron Overlords, there's little reason to play Legacy Dwarf armies atm.

[Idej]

Been wondering when you all would start talking about Age of Sigmar.

I am not as knowledgeable of Age of Sigmar or Fantasy in general, but those Daughters of Khaine, Idoneth Deepkin models, and Vampire models do look sexy to me.

[wander]

Real quick of the rules is that most of them went on to inspire the changes in 8th edition 40k. The fluff, is fairly in-depth, especially in old Fantasy, though in Age of Sigmar it leaves some breathing room to allow you to make your own army/warband theme and go with Rule of Fun overall.

Essentially, in old Fantasy the End Times came, Chaos WON and the world crumpled in on itself when the Skaven decided to recreate their own version of Majora's Mask with a large magi-radioactive green moon. the main god for the humans, Sigmar (think Emps from 40k as Conan crossed with Odin and you're pretty much there) and the larger players embued by the literal winds of magic with the help of a flying space dragon remade their reality into Nine Realms, each embodying a wind of magic that specific now-deity embodied.

Some stuff happens with souls from the old-world and the races of old are reborn and reincarnate in the Realms, except the elves because Slaanesh gorged itself into a blob eating them all. Peace is lived for a time, then the Chaos Gods got hungry for more Reality and decided to crash the party and wreck this one too.

The last remaining trio of elves who are now Gods, were hungry for some sweet vengeance on Slaanesh, who was laying low as they got essentially obese from eating near every elf ever and couldn't do much. So the Elf-Gods booked it at the big battle to kick out Chaos before they could get their foot in the door to stop it shutting, deciding punching Slaanesh in the gut to hawk up dem elf-souls was way better than fighting cohesively with everyone else to keep Chaos the hell out entirely. Slaanesh lets out all the elves it swallowed whole, though a fair chunk are a little... off.

Chaos seems to be making massive progress taking over every Realm and splitting them between each other and whilst Slaanesh was MIA, the Skaven god the Horned Rat takes Slaaanesh's place in the four. Though the resident Champion of Chaos Archaon doesn't think much on him and told him where to go when the Chaos Gods were telling Archaon they'd totally have his back and let him join the club of Gods if he wanted. Archaon's too cool for that jazz though. He also costs 700pts as is and doesn't afraid of anything. Want the most elite army going? Field him and an entourage of 3 Varanguard for 1000pts! 

Sigmar hasn't given up though and takes the souls of mortal heroes that kicked ass in the Chaos Wars and makes them into his golden bois, the Stormcast Eternals and they use the Realmgates in each Realm (think Star Gates and that's exactly it) to spew forth from Sigmar's crib to lay some elitey smack-down on Chaos. They're joined then by the Slaan survivors from old Fantasy, who managed to jump on their Slaan pyramid spaceships and avoid the End Times entirely. They have new Slaan magic that summons up 'Seraphon', which are basically Anti-Chaos Daemons that look like the lizardmen of old.

Dwarves that were sorta hanging about see some coin in this and decide to go Merc for Sigmar in this venture of kicking Chaos in the teeth, the Orcs are still about and decide all this fightin' Chaos would be "a roit laff n' no mistake bruv" and when the Stormcast serve Khorne's boys some, the next stop happens to be the Realm of Life, where Nurgle is creepin' on former wood-elf turned Treelady Goddess Alarielle (as Isha being his missus may or may not even be canon right now also Isha in old fantasy is part of Alarielle, long story don't worry about it). She's another large scale model of LoW pts, rides a massive beetle, looks cool as really cold things and rules over not only the Realm of Life, though also the Sylvaneth, which are old timey scary fae dryads that also happen to be what happens when she decided to collect up some wood-elf souls when the End Times were occuring and plant them like seeds to see what happens.

Also recently Nagash, god of Death, had been plotting to expand his Realm ownership too. He's 800pts to field, will lose you friends to deploy and fielding him with 6 of his Morghasts is a legal 1,500pt army. Morghasts have 6 wounds each and look like this;



That's a quick rundown of the premise of the fantasy lore as it stands now, where a beer n' pretzels miniature battlegame has literal Gods as your Lords of War. 

[MiaKage]

Yep, they're Wanderers now. They got a bit of love in the new General's Handbook (including atop of relics etc, a neat special rule where they can exit a table edge and come back via one of your choosing), though yeah there's not much lore for them now, aside that Alarielle may be pissed at them and they're wandering the Nine Realms to put elven stones in each one, possibly to get back in her good graces.

One neat thing to do though is have some as an ally with another army (Sylvaneth is the most used option, they could also be a scouting party for some Stormcast Eternals) and give them your own fluff reasons for what brings a band of them to work with the other army. If you have a full 2000pt Wood Elf army, you could just use 400pts from that for a full Sylvaneth allied detachment, which if you have dryads/treefolk in your army anyway, would be super simple to do. Why are those Sylvaneth dealing with your Aelves? You decide. :)

I'll have to pick up the new handbook! My army is 95-98% wood elfs, I have one tree man (old metal model) and 20-30 dryads, and 6 custom treekin. I was never really big on the tree spirit side of things, and don't really care for the sylvanith.

Alarielle wasn't a wood elf, she was the high elf queen. Ariel was the wood elf queen, who fused with Alarielle before dying from being poisoned, and was the avatar of Isha.

[wander]

If you want to play Age of Sigmar with points, rather than fielding freeplay or narrative games, the General's Handbook 2017 got you covered, it has points for every valid unit you can play, the rules for allies, relevant stuff for armies that don't have battletomes currently (such as the wood elves/Wanderers) to keep them competitive and in general is the way to go for playing with points again, like Old Fantasy had and 40k uses.

I believe to keep the synergy rules for the Wanderers keywords on your battlescrolls (read 'unit statblocks'), a normal 2000pt army can have 400pts of allies.

This is my go-to link for army building, used to be a fan-made thing, then as so many people were using it, Geedubs grabbed it up for their Warhammer Community site;

https://www.warhammer-community.com/warscroll-builder/

It lists points and legal configs for 2000pt armies, lets you know how many models are in the unit you pick, with wounds and lets you mark up allies for easy reference.

400pts nets you a Treelord and 10x Dryads (370), or you can get 30x Dryads and 5x Revenants (either spite-revenants or tree-revenants), which totals 350 (fielding the 30 Dryads as 1 unit nets you the blob-bonus for fielding a larger unit and saves you 30pts). You lose the Treelord, though most of your Sylvaneth models are used that way (using your custom treekin as a unit of Revenants).



My bad on Alarielle.  I forgot and as she's now with the Sylvaneth as their big Hero, I always tend to think of her as wood-elf now. 

As an aside, she's 600pts to field, so too expensive for allies, though with her synergy you want her in a Sylvaneth-main army anyway.

[MiaKage]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

LEADERS
Waywatcher (100)
- General
- Command Trait : Eagle-eyed
UNITS
30 x Glade Guard (360)
30 x Glade Guard (360)
20 x Eternal Guard (160)
10 x Wild Riders (280)
10 x Waywatchers (160)
10 x Wardancers (120)
20 x Dryads (200)
- Allies
BATTALIONS
Waystone Pathfinders (240)
TOTAL: 1980/2000 WOUNDS: 145
LEADERS: 1/6 BATTLELINES: 3 (3+) BEHEMOTHS: 0/4 ARTILLERY: 0/4
ALLIES: 200 / 400

Based on what I can think of off the top of my head, and having no idea what the relics are for lords, this is a quick list I threw together. I also have Orion, but I've never got to use him in a game, so not sure if he's any good.

Has there been anything new about Araloth? Last I heard, he took a group of Wood Elves and escaped the End Times and became a god. o.o

[wander]

One thing I'll say is the Battallion 'Waystone Pathfinders' you picked there is basically extra points you spend if you meet prerequisite unit choices to get extra special rules. I don't have the Order Main Faction book that particular battallion is in to say if you meet those or not. The warscroll builder sadly doesn't mark either way if you legally cannot have it or if it's okay.

The Araloth model itself now functions as the nameless 'Nomad Prince' model.

As for the lad himself, sad news. Whilst he did leave the End Times thanks to Lileath to start a new reality with her chosen few and the Bretonnians who came along to be the new Asuryan and Human Pantheon respectively, Be'lakor happens to learn of the pocket dimension where they all went, let's the Chaos Gods know and the pocket reality gets easily destroyed, slaying Lileath, Araloth, their daughter and squatting the entire Bretonnia faction from AoS.

Happy news; In White Dwarf when the Seraphon were introduced in a battle report Be'lakor is slain by Ripperdactyl riders dropping rocks on his head. Battle Reports tend to go toward forming some fluff of past events and are mostly canon, so there was some skub about Be'lakor going out that way and if he may have been 'teleported away to safety' ala the legendary fight between Abaddon and Eldrad Ulthuan from 40k back in the day. 

[MiaKage]

Boo, that's not cool! That means the Wood Elves that I love are officially dead , also dunno why they introduced Araloth if they were just going to off him immediately after.   

I have enough models that I think I could probably make a legal Waystone Pathfinder list, still need to pick up the 2017 book anyways, hehe.

[wander]

Back in the 2016 General's Handbook (now out of print) I'm sure they gave points for Araloth, as you could field him using the rules from the free Wood Elves legacy pdf. The main fluff reason why you could field models of characters including those who actually died in the End Times event was due to many heroes being reincarnated in the Nine Realms. Now though his model is called 'Nomad Prince' and has slightly changed rules.

Because I like helping out, here's the Wood Elves pdf for you to save. :)
Note the units don't have point costs, though you get them in either the General's Handbook or via the Warscroll Builder link above. Note you can totally field Araloth as given in this pdf in a Freeplay or Narrative match, as they don't use points and are more like doing recreation battles from the lore or just fielding whatever you have to have fun times.

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Compendiums/warhammer-aos-wood-elves-en.pdf

[MiaKage]

Thanks! I actually have the app on my phone, but I think there are a few differences in keywords from what I've seen in that pdf.

I'm actually curious, did any named characters make it through
the end times?

[wander]

The app is actually more up to date, so always refer to the keywords and rulings there, the pdf was initial release and things have been errata'd and playtested since then. :)

A fair few characters made it through, the main ones who did became the new Gods of the setting, though there are an odd few out there still. Morathi has made her return to the setting as the leader of the Daughters of Khaine for example and is a playable character (with updated models, she can turn into a huge Gorgon-styled centre piece model).

Pretty much all of Chaos' characters made it, given they won the battle over reality last time. I'd have a time trying to find every character and seeing if they're still playable though, most aren't and their model now is used for a generic commander now though.

The Order faction has only a few, Lord Kroak being the lone lizardman character to make it into the Seraphon army for example. The other Order characters to make it are Drycha who is now with Alarielle in the Sylvaneth list and Durthu made it to join them too. The Twilight Sisters are technically still legal too as they got supported with points, however good luck finding a model of them or a player that'll let you use their ancient warscroll stats.

I haven't looked through Destruction or Death characters, though I assume a similar small handful was kept for them too. I know from the Death faction that the Flesh-Eater Courts have no special characters whatsoever. Though they belong to the same Grand Alliance as Nagash, who does have a model and is playable, though best kept for bigger games due to how expensive points-wise he is.

[Mfable]

A Warhammer store recently opened up down the street from me and the owner convinced me and my girlfriend to start getting into Age of Sigmar. I bought her a Vanguard Brotherhood box to start her off, but I don't have an army of my own currently. I was going to play a Death army, but decided I would rather play Seraphon instead. I just need to save up to get an army.

Did you see that they announced a new edition of AoS?

[wander]

I did see. I think it'll consolidate a lot of the stuff General's Handbook etc has added to the game into the second edition, as it seems that the current battletomes released will still be useable, which is great... As I still need to pick a tome up for the escalation league happening in my store (which is probably a gateway drug into 2nd edition in all honesty).

I'm leaning heavily to start with 500pts of Clan Pestilens; grabbing a Verminlord Corruptor (a nice big model, a wizard to unbind enemy spells and a neat 13" ranged spell 'Plague' that's cast on a 6+ on 2d6) accompanied by two units of 20x Plague Monks (they start at Bravery 9 due to the army's strength in numbers special rule, plus the squad leaders, banners and musicians give some awesome buffs to throw buckets of dice for attacks at the enemy). Their one weakness is they auto-fail armour saves, though they're an offensive army not defensive. Makes playing to Objectives sucky, though I plan in battles to line the one unit up as a meatshield to absorb hits and counter-charge as needed, as 100 attacks from a full single unit in a charge should kill pretty much anything due to sheer number of dice, even though they're 4+ to hit. ^^'

Seraphon are awesome for the ability to keep units behind in reserves and summon them in if you have a Slaan amongst your Heroes. If you're playing freeplay or narrative play, you can summon more dino-men out of thin air and don't have to worry about spending points to buy your reserves beforehand. ^^ I personally dig their pterodactyl riders (there are two different types), they make awesome cavalry that are fairly killy to boot.

Flesh-Eater Courts from Death have a similar mechanic, where you can summon new units, then with the Courtiers ressurrect any fallen, which is neat in matched play as bringing back dead models doesn't cost you in reserve points, so they're pretty unkillable (Necrons in 40k have a similar ability).

I don't know much on Stormcast Eternals (which the Vanguard Brotherhood are a part of), though they're pretty tanky due to massive armour saves and Bravery (so they ain't fleeing any time soon when they take casualties) and fairly killy though somewhat more elitey (meaning less numerous) than other armies on the whole to make up for it. They're also fairly easy to paint too.

[Mfable]

I was reading through the Vanguard Brotherhood Warscrolls a couple weeks ago and they are super mobile. Many of them can be set aside and deployed on later turns within a number of inches of any side of the table, the larger units can move through enemy units, etc. I am not looking forward to playing against them.

After Seraphon, I might go Clan Pestilens and/or Demons of Nurgle.

[wander]

Yeah, the Stormcast are known for being pretty mobile. They're elitey though, so every casualty will hurt them. I linked above the warscroll builder which gives points for every model, unit and battallion formation special. I'd probably recommend a good ranged blob army to see what they can do. Kharadron Overlords are a tough army to play for new players due to how their transport airships work with them, though they happen to also have good armour and good ranged ability. Fyreslayers are also tough as nails, though you need to know what you want out of them when making a list for them.

I can recommend some good army choices if I know what playstyle you enjoy... Of course the only way you'll know that is to have experience in the game though. Honestly, I'd say have fun playing with what you got, then when you know what sort of unit you need, look into getting your faction's battletome or I can recommend another army that may be more what you need depending on what you're after. :)

Each army on first glance is mostly the same, so you're pretty fair to get whichever models look coolest for your first game (honestly when assembling and painting your doods, you're gonna want an army you like the look of or are excited about to be motivated to do it over and over again with your main battleline blobs). It's when you look at the special rules that armies get (most are in the General's Handbook, due to the older battletomes not including special army rules, warlord traits or artifacts, which later tomes did, the Handbook got everyone equal in that regard) that you'll see that the army's fluff and schticks will be more obvious.

[Tolvo]

I've been wanting to learn more about AoS. I know some people are really mad about it but I am sorta into Warhammer Fantasy after getting into it through the Total War games. Is AoS just getting a lot of negative backlash for restarting?

[wander]

Pretty much, Tolvo. That it began removing the points mechanic and did a whole 'play whatever models you want!' thing when it first came on the scene didn't help either. The rules were also pretty simplified, though I find it about the same in complexity as 8th edition 40k, if not a lil more now as you need to remember much of your units special rules when you play. Tomb Kings and Bretonnia are squatted entirely, though a whole load of brand spanking new armies have now joined the roster to make up for that.

Now we're a few years into the new setting and the lore is growing the beard again slowly... What was originally a generally blank canvass of the nine realms to do narrative freeplays on your terms has gained back the points for Matched Play (8th edition 40k cribbed the term from AoS infact) for balanced gaming (GW went to tournaments that formed their own mechanics for army balance and took notes, then playtested a whole bunch and released them in the General's Handbook supplement, which gets updated every year) and forming up proper army lists with a nice alliances mechanic thrown in, whilst adding a lot to the nine realms and factions to really give your armies character again.

It still gets slack for those butthurt over losing the old setting and lore, though the new stuff I think actually gives a lot more room to do 'Your dudes' armies whilst there are a few campaigns that have pushed the narrative of the setting onward. Also you'll find those still butthurt at this point aren't actually playing the game, or did so in it's early days when it was admittedly reduced to a 'beer and pretzels' throwdown with whatever models you and your mate had at hand.

The Warscroll Builder I linked above for building army lists with points and Geedubs happens to print the warscroll statblocks for every model and unit as free downloadable pdfs on each model and unit's page on their site. If you want the cool extra stuff like the army fluff, warlord traits, artifacts and other special rules you'll still need to buy the army's battletome (or grab the General's Handbook for older battletome releases and legacy armies) though you can effectively get all the units rules for free, legally from Geedubs and make an army list for free on the Warscroll Builder. Need the models? Geedubs does 'Start Collecting' boxes which are bloody bargains when compared to getting the models seperately and gives you a good starting mix of things to play right away.

Also I posted above a pretty irreverant take on the lore as things stand up above too. 

[MiaKage]

It still gets slack for those butthurt over losing the old setting and lore, though the new stuff I think actually gives a lot more room to do 'Your dudes' armies whilst there are a few campaigns that have pushed the narrative of the setting onward. Also you'll find those still butthurt at this point aren't actually playing the game, or did so in it's early days when it was admittedly reduced to a 'beer and pretzels' throwdown with whatever models you and your mate had at hand.

I'm still butthurt over what they did to the Elves >w< , but the game itself looks a lot easier to get into and play. I've played a couple games right after it came out, but it's been ages since I had a chance to play the updated rules. One thing I miss from the old system is the movement trays and how everything moved in a formation. The way cannon balls worked as pretty fun too.

[wander]

Well, the elves are still around, as the old factions (they're all supported in the General's Handbook) plus updated Daughters of Khaine (the new Khinerai models are damn awesome) plus the Idoneth Deepkin are pretty cool. :)

The rules are still the same, just points have been added in and a few little plug-in things can help augment your game as you like it. 2nd edition may contain more optional rules.

I'm a 40k player so the round bases actually give more freedom of movement IMO, like you can form battlelines in more tactical formations than blocks.