Your first month of Age of Sigmar
The hobby has three phases: building, painting, and playing. Most people love two and tolerate the third. Here is what to actually expect in your first 30 days.
By Colin B. · Published June 5, 2026
Age of Sigmar asks more of you upfront than almost any hobby you can name. You have to build the models, then prime them, then paint them, and only then do you get to play the game. Most new players underestimate this. The box looks manageable. Then you open it, count the sprues, and realize you’ve committed to 40 hours of work before your first real game.
This is not a reason to stop. It’s a reason to know what you signed up for.
Here is what your first month actually looks like.
Week one: the build
The Warrior Starter Set includes two warbands on plastic sprues. A sprue is a frame, and the models are attached to it by thin gates that you cut with a clipper. Your first job is to assemble your models.
Before you cut anything, watch the assembly video for your specific kit on Warhammer TV. This sounds obvious. Most people skip it and then glue a shoulder pad on backwards and wonder why the arm doesn’t fit. Five minutes of video saves an hour of frustration.
Two tools you need:
- Plastic clippers (side cutters), to remove models from the sprue
- Plastic cement (polystyrene glue), not super glue. Plastic cement melts the surfaces and fuses them permanently. The join becomes invisible. Super glue leaves a white residue and a weak bond.
Cut each piece as close to the model as possible. File down the nub with a hobby file or the back of a knife. Hold the join for sixty seconds while the glue sets. Don’t rush this.
Your first assembled model will have small gaps and some rough edges. This is normal. Your tenth will be clean. Your hundredth will be invisible.
Week two: prime and base coat
A painted model without primer will chip. The paint has nothing to grip on bare plastic, and it will flake off the first time you pick the model up with a slightly sweaty hand. This is not optional. Prime everything before you paint anything.
For beginners using Contrast paints, the primer should be light grey or white. Citadel Corax White spray is the standard choice. Spray from about 12 inches away in light coats, rotating the model. Don’t try to cover it in one pass. Two thin coats are better than one thick one.
Once you’re primed, Contrast paints work as follows: brush one coat over the primed surface and put the model down. The paint flows into recesses and pools in crevices, creating shading automatically. It looks wrong while wet. Give it 20 minutes to dry. Then look again.
It looks like you know what you’re doing. You don’t yet, but you’ll take the credit.
For your first model, pick one Contrast color per surface: one for the armor, one for the cloth, one for the skin. Don’t try to do 12 colors on a single Stormcast Eternal. Three colors finished looks better than seven colors started.
Week three: washes, basing, and detail
After your base colors are dry, apply a wash. Nuln Oil is grey-black, suited for metal and dark armor. Agrax Earthshade is brown, suited for skin, leather, and warm-colored armor. Brush it over the entire model and let it do the work. Don’t try to guide it. It flows into the recesses, adds depth, and makes a two-color model look like it took three times as long to paint.
Basing is the step most beginners skip and then regret. The base is what grounds the model visually. A painted model on bare plastic looks unfinished even if the paint job is excellent. Apply some texture paint (Citadel Technical Astrogranite is easy and fast), let it dry, then drybrush it with a light grey. Done. Your model is now a finished miniature rather than a painted toy.
Once your first unit of five or ten models is complete, stop and look at them together. They should look like a coherent force, not individual experiments. If they do, you’ve learned the fundamentals.
Week four: your first game
With even half your Warrior Starter models painted, you can play your first proper game.
The rules can feel overwhelming at the start but settle quickly. The core loop is simple: move your models, shoot if you have ranged weapons, charge into combat, roll dice for attacks. The complexity comes from the special abilities on each warscroll (the unit’s rule card), which you’ll learn organically over the first five games.
A few things that trip up new players:
Coherency. Each unit must maintain coherency: every model must be within a set distance of at least one other model in the unit. Break coherency (usually by spreading too wide) and you have to spend your movement correcting it.
The priority roll. At the start of each battle round, both players roll a die. The winner decides who takes the first turn that round. This single mechanic means every game has a different rhythm.
Command abilities. Most armies have special actions (run and shoot, redeploy, rally to recover wounds) that cost command points. New players forget to use them. They change outcomes significantly.
Don’t try to optimize in your first five games. Play through, make mistakes, and notice what happens. The game rewards players who understand what their units are for, and that understanding comes from playing, not from reading.
What to do after week four
If you enjoyed all three phases (building, painting, playing), welcome. This is a deep hobby and you’ve only seen the surface.
If you loved painting and found the game secondary, look into the painting side of the hobby more seriously. Competitions like Golden Demon exist specifically for painters. Vince Venturella’s Hobby Cheating channel on YouTube is the most technical resource in the hobby.
If you loved playing and found painting a chore, commission painters exist. Yes, it costs money. Yes, it’s worth it for some people. The game is the point; the painting is the path to it.
If you loved everything, start thinking about which full army you actually want to build. The Vanguard box for your chosen faction is the next purchase. Pick based on aesthetic, not tier lists. The meta changes. Your painted models are yours forever.
Ready to buy? See our Age of Sigmar gear guide for the starter sets, tools, and paints worth buying first.