PlayFusion, popularly known for the well-received trading card game, Lightseekers; and the equally regarded role-playing game of the same name, recently released Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions, a new, exciting, and revolutionary fantasy trading card game that both fans of Warhammer and CCG players will surely enjoy. With its easy to learn rules and gameplay, even gamers new to the franchise and the genre can find delight in what the game has to offer. Often regarded as the next generation CCG, Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions lets players who own physical copies of cards scan their collection for use in the digital version.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions puts opposing players, each with his own deck of cards, in command of their own unique team of champions. As each champion pursues their own set of quests to obtain blessings, the outcome of each duel becomes even more difficult to predict. The champions, who have their own unique traits, perform combat actions through the various units, spells, and abilities at their disposal. With each battle, players gain experience and rewards that help them acquire new cards for their collection. As each player’s collection grow, so does his options to customize his deck in accordance with his tactical preferences.
As Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions was released in physical form as well, the digital game hardly has any tutorials to guide you on what to do, more so, on how to win a duel. There are helpful tips in the game and some tips as well on how to get the most out of it. Yet given that the mechanics and features of the Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions are unlike any other game, even experienced CCG players may initially have difficulty if they dived into this game without any guide whatsoever. Whether you’re one of those people or a gamer who is interested to test your strategic prowess in a CCG, our Age of Sigmar beginner’s guide can help you understand the game better and become ranked match-worthy in no time!
1. Familiarize Yourself With The Basic Rules And Mechanics
To better help you understand about the game we will be going through what you essentially need to know to be able to have a good idea about the game. As there are other mechanics in the game that may not be covered here now, going through each card you encounter, coupled with actually playing matches will help you figure those out on your own. Just so to set you on a good start towards your competitive journey, we will focus mainly on decks and phases as these two topics are the most basic you need to understand.
A. Deck Component And Deck Building
Each player needs to have his own deck to begin playing the game. There are pre-built decks available in the game but you will have to unlock each of them before you can start entering duels with other players. Later on, you will have to customize your deck and you will have to understand its basic components.
There are four Grand Alliances to choose from in Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions: Order, ChAge of Sigmar, Destruction, and Death; each with its own unique characteristics and play style. Once you have selected your alliance, you can now build your deck composed of 4 champions, 4 blessings, and 30 action cards for a total of 38 cards.
Your champions stand as the main important components of your deck. These cards will remain on the battlefield for the entire duration of the game. Champions may either be warriors, wizards, or warrior wizards. Each champion has its own cost as indicated by the number within the green circle at the right side of each card and the total points of your champions must not exceed 20 points. Additionally, unique champions, indicated by the (U) on the card, can only be used once per army while all other champions can be used up to twice. Champions have 4 quests they need to accomplish to unlock the blessing on the lane which they occupy.
The blessing cards are basically buffs or enhancement cards that can become unlocked in the battle once a champion completes his quests. Each blessing card in your deck must be unique, meaning you can only have one type of blessing per deck.
Action cards are essentially the arsenal with which your champions fight in battle. These can be any mixture of units that can be summoned, spells that can be cast, or abilities that can be unleashed by each of your champions. As the action cards are used for battle, you can only include action cards which can be used by your champions. As an additional restriction, you can only have a maximum of 3 of each action card. Champions are considered engaged when they have an action card in play on their lane.
Unit cards have classifications and not every champion may be able to summon each type. Each turn, Unit Cards rotate to determine the amount of damage they inflict as well as additional effects they may have. Once these cards have fully rotated, they are considered exhausted and will be placed on the discard pile. Spell Cards can only be used by wizards and may immediately take effect in play unless otherwise stated and when the card fully rotates, then it is discarded as well. Lastly, Ability Cards are cards that have immediate effects on the battlefield and these cards specify which class of champions can use them.
B. Phases Of Battle
Battles in Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions consist of four phases: the Placement Phase, the Battlefield Phase, the Action Phase, and the Draw Phase. With the battlefield divided into four lanes, every strategic placement of each card on each lane can be crucial to winning the battle.
The Placement Phase happens at the start of each battle with each player randomly setting each of their blessing cards face down on each lane of the battlefield. After deciding who player 1 will be, each player alternately place champions on their respective lanes. Player 1 will position 1 of his champions followed by player two, who will now place 2 of his champions. Player 1 will then position 2 more of his champions then player 2 will place his 2 remaining ones. Lastly, player 1 will position his remaining champion.
Once the placement of blessings and champions are done, the starting health of each player will be determined. Both players’ health will have a base value of 30 which will be re-calculated following the modifiers indicated within the red circle of each of their Champion Cards. The maximum value of each player’s health cannot exceed 35. After determining each player’s starting health, decks are shuffled and payer 1 draws 4 cards while player 2 draws 5 cards.
The Battlefield Phase is where every blessing and action card in play rotates to determine their next effect. This phase will initially be skipped at the start of the game.
For the Action Phase, the player can perform up to 2 actions per turn. These may be done through the use of cards in their hand or use Heroic Acts that a champion they control has. The player gets to draw 1 card for every unused action at the end of the Action Phase.
The Draw Phase is simply the phase when players get to draw cards from their deck as a result of not exhausting their action points during the Action Phase. This marks the end of a player’s turn.
2. Unlock All Available Pre-Built Decks
After knowing the basic rules and having a better understanding of the game’s mechanics, you need to dive into battle to actually apply what you have learned and to start even learning more about Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions. Now unless you have physical copies of the cards that you can scan and add to your collection, there won’t be anything available for you to start a battle in the game. What you need to do first is to get yourself a deck of cards, which can be done, by unlocking them on the Proving Grounds.
The Proving Grounds has a simple enough qualification to reward you with a starter deck; defeat an A.I. opponent with your desired pre-built deck from any of the 4 Grand Alliances and that deck will be yours. Perhaps you may lose one or a few rounds here as you are still familiarizing yourself with all the basic rules and mechanics you have just learned. That is very much okay though as you will acquire experience at the end of each battle whether you win or lose.
For starters, take time to highlight and read through as many cards you see as possible, whether it be cards you control, or cards laid out by your opponent. As there is no need to rush through any phase of each battle, feel free to take it slow and absorb as much information as you can while slowly trying to develop your own strategy for the battle. You may want to look into what each of your champions can do, as well as take note of the quests they need to accomplish to unlock the hidden blessing in the lane they occupy.
Another important thing to consider here is how you would want to utilize the 2 action points you have in battle. By carefully assessing the cards you have in your hand, you will basically decide on between using some of these now or saving them for later. Deciding to use Action Cards in your hand is not the end of it though, as you will have to decide on which champion should use them, especially since most of your champions may be able to use the action card but then you may want to consider the quests of these champions as a priority in deciding which one to use the Action Card. Additionally, as the opponent will also be playing Action Cards throughout the battle, you will also need to consider how to counter their effect if you can, or boost the effects of your own Action Cards.
It may happen that after unlocking one starter deck you already feel that you’re ready to take on other players and start looking for a duel. Well, Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions won’t stop you from doing that and you can already dive into PVP as soon as you claim your first starter deck. However, to ensure that you are as ready as you can, and perhaps lessen the chances of you losing battles, the better course of action is to try an unlock the remaining starter decks.
As each Starter Deck belongs to a different Grand Alliance, each has its own unique traits and general strategies. Using and unlocking each of these decks will not only be beneficial for you in the sense that you will you’ll be able to better handle yourself with varying decks at your disposal; each deck you unlock means having more cards to be familiar with and, in essence, being better prepared for any type of deck you will encounter later on.
3. Customize Your Deck Or Decks
After unlocking all four starter decks and playing with each one a couple of times or more, you are bound to have more preference on one more than the others. With each level you gain using a deck from your chosen alliance, you will slowly acquire more cards for that alliance.
On deck customization, you can choose to create your own deck or just edit an already existing one that you have. For starters, given that you probably don’t have as many cards as you would like, it would be best to and edit an existing deck. This may seem all too complicated at first glance but fortunately, cards are divided by alliances and types so it will be easier to make some adjustments. As balancing each deck will prove to be the biggest challenge now, it is best to take note of the current deck’s statistical information and trying to keep the numbers close to how it was while adding and removing cards.
You will most likely visit deck customization as you unlock more and more cards that can be used on your deck. It will surely take time before you can say that your deck is in its final form, but one of the most exciting parts of every CCG games is actually gradually making these improvisations on your deck.
4. Regularly Practice With A.I. Opponents
As you make adjustments and improvements on your deck, you will want to test it first before engaging yourself in a duel against another player. As this will not only give you a good actual feel of how your new deck fairs in actual battle, there may be some things you forgot to consider while tinkering with the deck’s components. Again, given that decks from each alliance perform differently, you may want to consider putting your newly created deck up against each type of opponent before you head on to PVP. In any case, there is no time wasted here as there are tons of achievements that you can accomplish by doing this often. With each battle you play you move towards completing more than just one of the achievements so it’s worth practicing as much as you can.
5. Play Casual Games
With some practice battles to test and recalibrate your deck for a real battle, the next level of challenge comes from playing casual games. In here, you will be matched against random players who, more or less, are at the same level as you. You might feel lack some confidence at first, since you will be going against an opponent that does more than just spew out random action cards… theoretically. In any case you should indeed be more careful here as some tactics that work on A.I. opponents do not work on real people. Be sure to take time and look through some cards you might not have seen before.
6. Finish Missions And Check Progress On Achievements
There are Daily and Weekly Missions available in Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions and finishing these missions can be very rewarding. Most of these can be achieved through regular playing but you may have to take note of some and be sure to work towards completing them.
Another good source of rewards in the game are Achievements. There are loads of achievements in Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions that give you tons of rewards. Once you get the hang of most things in the game, and have ventured enough through its various game modes, it is advisable to look into where you are in terms completing certain achievements. As you are most likely focusing on one alliance initially, it would help at this point to try out decks from the other alliances as achievements can be earned from playing them as well.
7. Open Your Reward Booster Packs And War Chests
Depending on how much you play and how much you achieve, some of the rewards you receive, in the form of booster packs and war chests, might be initially missed. Remember to open them immediately as some of them may grant you cards that you’ll need to improve your favored deck. With regard to the in-game currencies you earn though, it is best to save up enough for an alliance booster pack instead of cards randomly split across all four alliances.
Well that is all we have for our Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions beginner’s guide for now. As this is a newly-released game that promises expansions in the future, perhaps more things will come. We hope you enjoyed reading our strategy guide and learned much from it as well. If you have additional Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions tips, cheats and strategies that we forgot to mention, be sure to let us know through the comment section!