Core Battalion Rules Shake Up Matched Play Army Building in the New Edition

In the past weeks, we’ve shared the lore of Sigmar’s ever-hopeful Dawnbringer Crusades, witnessed a face-off between some truly frightening Wizards, and even announced when you can pre-order the dazzling Dominion box. We continue our barnstorming tour of the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar today with a look at how you can build your army for matched play games. To do that, we need to explain a few rules mechanics, including core battalions, first. Let’s dig in.  

The upcoming edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar retains the three ways to play the game – open, narrative, and matched play. Matched play is used most often for competitive situations, like tournaments. It presents a spread of army building challenges with a focus on balanced army composition and similar victory conditions for both sides. 

Battlepacks

Before you choose a mission, you need to figure out which battlepack you’ll be using. Battlepacks bundle together a suite of rules – introducing restrictions, determining the size of the battlefield, and dictating the number of units you can bring to the fight.

The Contest of Generals battlepack in the Core Book is one such option, designed for matched play. It’s been carefully crafted to make your games as balanced as possible. Take a look at this chart to get a sense of how it’ll work.

The Contest of Generals battlepack allows you to build your army using a new type of battalion, called a core battalion.

Core Battalions 

There are now two types of battalions in Warhammer Age of Sigmar. The warscroll battalions you know and love are for units of renown and represent a specific focus, a special leader, or additional training. On the other hand, core battalions are intended to balance out the various units in exchange for distinct abilities. 

Every army in a matched play event will have the same set of core battalions at their disposal, which further evens the playing field. So how does it work in practice? 

To take a core battalion, you just need to select the number of units from each required category – they’re marked out in black with the grey units being optional. 

Have a look at the icons below each type of core battalion – they tell you which ability you get for filling each one out. For example, if you take one Commander and two Troops to complete a Battle Regiment, you get the Unified ability, which grants one-drop deployment for the entire core battalion. This is especially important in a matched play game since the side that finishes deployment first steals the initiative.

Check out the other benefits you get for forming core battalions. 

Unit Size

In order to promote a more balanced army composition, the initial sizes of units are a bit different in the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar. 

Perhaps you noticed the line from the Contest of Generals battlepack that mentioned reinforced units? These units are simply double the size of the minimum listed in their Pitched Battle profile. If the unit has the Battleline battlefield role, you can reinforce them twice, making them three times the minimum size. Now you can still run large hordes as long as you don’t exceed the available slots for reinforced units. 

The new ruleset allows each unit to benefit from only a single command ability at a time, so you’ll see a lot more synergy with multiple units working together, instead of budding generals putting all their eggs in one basket. You won’t feel quite as compelled to ‘max out’ every unit to make them effective. 

As you explore these rules updates in the new Core Book, you’ll find they offer fresh opportunities for tactical nuance as gameplay evolves, presenting nail-biting ways to play with your models. Overall, the outcome of matched play games will be determined by clever strategies, and army composition will favour a balanced approach. 

Stop back tomorrow for another look at the Warhammer Age of Sigmar rules – this time covering the back-and-forth elements that will keep you busy during your opponents’ turn. Want to make sure you’re not missing any of these daily updates? Sign up for the email newsletter and we’ll send you all the latest news.