The broad arrangement of the book will be familiar to established Age of Sigmar players. The rules section is broken up like so:

• Core Rules – Much more comprehensive than previous attempts. This includes not only phase-to-phase gameplay but also list building, new generic artefacts, command traits, spells, and prayers. It also explains how to read technical documents like battle profiles and  battleplans. These aren’t included here, just how to read them, which is probably a good call. There’s also a “Player’s Code”, a list of good conduct for players to follow. It’s very corny but nothing objectionable and opening the chapter up with it sets things off on a good foot.
• Open Play – Probably the most overlooked game mode, there is more of an attempt here at making it like a more laid-back Matched Play. Rather than a laissez-faire, “Anything goes” approach players are given a recommended board size and point values (seriously, points in Open?!) but without the shackles of mandatory battleline. There’s also random charts for deployment and objectives. While still a bit of a snoozefest, it’s an improvement for players who just want to throw down and roll some dice.
• Narrative Play – Perhaps the biggest changes to the rules, this section has been replaced with the new and refined Path to Glory campaign which, folks, I’m telling you now is some stellar stuff. They’ve clearly learned some lessons from 40k’s Crusade rules and taken them a step further, creating a base set of rules that are surprisingly deep with a lot of room for growth. There’s warband rules, rules for designing your own stronghold and how to gain territory, and upgrades and battle scars. Like everything else, we’ll be exploring this more in depth in the coming weeks.
• Matched Play – The “core game” for much of the player base, this is presented similar to Open Play with more restrictions. Most of these aren’t new – the cap on Heroes, Behemoths etc. for a given point limit and how to choose a General all return. There are some new things here, however: Reinforcements are a mechanic that puts a limit on how many times you can increase a unit’s size beyond the minimum. The impact this change will have on army construction and play are yet to be seen but it’s all very clean and easy to understand. Rounding it out are three battleplans, which is a disappointing step down from 6, but of course the General’s Handbook will include many more.
• Conquest Unbound – A bit of a subset of Narrative and Open type games, these asymmetrical game modes allow you to model different types of atypical battles like Sieges, Subterranean Battles and battles with 3 or more players.

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