Age of Sigmar is what happened when Games Workshop decided to end their Warhammer Fantasy Battle line of rank-and-file troop engagements and effectively make a version of Warhammer 40k ported into the Warhammer universe. I have currently played a handful of games using my Freeguild (old Empire) and some Stormcast Eternals.
My initial impressions are quite positive. It is no doubt 40k ported over into Fantasy, but they have made enough small changes to make it feel quite a bit different. Of course, there are also things that are direct copies, just like there always was, and some misfires in some of the changes they made.
The big thing is how easy it is to choose a matched point army. This is a good and a bad thing. For one, now you just choose squads in multiples of a unit, choose a weapon option, and done. No longer are you paying for command or weapon upgrades. Of course, on the flip side, it means that points are quite fixed and customisation options are very limited. All weapon upgrades have to be equal or offer something, meaning some of the nuance is lost (particularly if a weapon is just better than the alternative).
The other thing I really like is the theme. This is like a weird-steampunk/fantasy type setting. There is a mixture of weird fantasy factions and also more traditional factions. Steampunk airship-riding dwarfs and lightning-forge space marine clones march besides elf infantry. Unfortunately, this desire to split up armies into different factions (and Games Workshop desire to copyright names) meant that some armies have been split and don't really work as a stand-alone force.
My hope for the future is that the power creep stops a bit. There has definitely been a bit of a power creep, particularly around summoning armies and huge stacking buffs. The other hope is that they flesh out some of the factions a bit more to make them a more coherent force. But overall, I am very much enjoying my plays of this.
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