Age of Magic faction review: The Horde
The Archetype
SAGA Age of Magic doesn’t define your armies for you, but gives you a theme to follow. The Horde lets you put down lots of models on the table (or just a few, if you wish!).
Any army with lots of models and or a tendency towards great weapons will be at home here.
The options
Levies in The Horde have no options. They always come with bows. Warriors and Hearthguards both have the options of having great weapons, being mounted, and being mounted with bows. Thinking of the various fantasy armies out there, this gives you a lot of options, from a goblin wolf army, to wood elf cavalry, to human berserkers and more.
The Lieutenant in The Horde doesn’t receive a special ability but instead gains 2 aggression compared to other Lieutenants. Works for me.
At the bigger end you get access to creatures and monsters, and also chariots. Note you can only ever recruit one monster, so if you have multiple giants another list might work better for you.
The Battle Board
Your abilities are based on getting into combat and performing well once there. Let the Blood Run allows you to activate 2 units to charge, while Rage grants extra attack dice. The Me First! ability gives a bonus to a charging unit as long as it’s your first activation, while Follow my Lead! can give you a catastrophic advantage over your opponent.
Fight early, fight often is what your Battle Board wants you to do.
Models
Armies with chariots and mounted bows will thrive here, as will armies with plenty of berserker type troops. A classic Warhammer goblin army, with chariots, wolf riders, and lots of goblins with bows will thrive here, and you can even turn your old fanatics into warriors with great weapons.
An Ogre Kingdoms list would do okay here if you were happy to leave warriors and hearthguard at home and take your ogres as creatures and your gnoblars as levy.
For those coming from Lord of the Rings, a Misty Mountains army will find itself a home in this list, as would a Harad army (minus those mumakil).
If you’ve ever wanted to take your Celt army into the realms of fantasy, this list is probably for you too.
Sample army
It amused me to make my sample list for The Horde have such a low model count. The theme I went for here was goblins and their wild warg allies. Fully 5 of my 8 points are therefore spend on wargs taken as bipedal creatures. These come 2 per point so again my War of the Ring trays come in useful.
The other points were spent on 2 wizards, seen on the right, and 1 point of warriors with great weapons. Along with the warlord standing alone on the left, this gives a fair amount of punch to the army, at the cost of leaving it vulnerable to armies with lots of ranged attacks.
This 8 point army contains 21 models.
Other faction reviews
Scent of a Gamer 
Ooh, I might have to have a look at this! Thanks for the review!
LikeLiked by 1 person
No worries, I will do each faction in turn over the next few weeks. They are all quite varied and provide interesting options to people with collections of miniatures
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Age of Magic faction review: Undead Legions | Scent of a Gamer
Pingback: Age of Magic faction review: The Otherworld | Scent of a Gamer
Pingback: Age of Magic faction review: Masters of the Underearth | Scent of a Gamer
Pingback: Age of Magic faction review: Lords of the Wild | Scent of a Gamer
Pingback: Age of Magic faction review: the Great Kingdoms | Scent of a Gamer