Today we’re diving into the new Reign of the Brute expansion for Age of Sigmar, chock full of new Armies of Renown, including a new way to play Kharadron Overlords.

What are Armies of Renown?

Reign of the Brute contains a new way to build your army for a handful of factions in the game. “Armies of Renown” are themed lists built around a particular unit or type of unit, in exchange for their own exclusive allegiance abilities. Each Army of Renown will name a specific keyword restriction you must follow for list building in order to be able to use it.

While Armies of Renown still count as part of their parent faction (effectively functioning as a brand new subfaction), there are some differences. Armies of Renown have their own Army Rules which replace the core battletome the faction comes from. This means you cannot use the following from the original battle tome:

• Battle Traits
• Command Traits
• Artefacts of Power
• Sub-factions

In addition, you cannot use the book’s original:

• Grand Strategies
• Battle Tactics
• Core Battalions (Core Rule and General’s Handbook core battalions are still OK)
• Warscroll Battalions (if in Narrative Play)

You can still use the army’s terrain piece, if applicable. Ultimately this means that the factions portrayed in Rise of the Brute are standalone. Since all the necessary Warscrolls and pitched battle profiles are freely available you do not need the original Battletome to play any of the Armies of Renown in this book.

Grundstocks or Bust

Kharadron players will be familiar with Grundstock units already: Thunderers and Gunhaulers. Add in all heroes that aren’t Brokk and you have the list of units for this Army of Renown. It’s not many! But it’s probably one of the better of the Armies of Renown here, and may even see competitive play. All these units become Battleline, though, which means you don’t have to try and squeeze in a certain number of Thunderers or Gunhaulers to meet requirements.

Expeditionary Enhancements

Since you don’t get your normal Kharadron enhancements your army instead gains access to a new set of Command Traits, Artefacts, and a Grand Strategy and Battle Tactic.

Command Traits

• Back On Your Feet – Your army gains 4+ Rally. Not just when your general is issuing the command either, just army wide. If you were worried about not having this on big blocks of Thunderers with the lack of code then well here it is.
• Entrenchment Expert – What’s better than 4+ Rally? Not dying in the first place! If your general issues All Out Defence then the unit gains a 5+ ward as well as the +1 to save, making Thunderers a very tough unit to shift going to 2+ save and 5+ ward.
• Grundcorps Technician – Once per game you can bring back one of your Gunhaulers! The catch is that you have to roll a 6+ on D6 with bonus equal to the battle round. So if you want to bring one back during the third battle round you’ll only need to roll a 3+ not a natural 6. It only comes back with a handful of wounds though but can help with the Grand Strategy below if that’s what you’re gunning for.

Of the three you’re really likely to lean into 4+ Rally or 5+ Ward and that will come down to your own plans and play style. The 4+ Rally lends itself to large blocks of Thunderers that will be retreating from any combat they do get stuck into to regen as many wounds as possible, but with that number of wounds restored capped to 10 you might not get the most use from it. On the other hand a 5+ ward simply keeps your units alive longer and can be used on Gunhaulers as well in a pinch. If you’re building out this list with a massive fleet of Gunhaulers you’ll take the last one of course.

Artefacts of Power

• Aetheric Nullifier – Voidstone orb? Who needs it! Your units wholly within 12″ simply ignore the effects of spells and endless spells on a 4+ whenever they’d be effected. Fyrelsayer players will be familiar with how strong this is to have, especially in this season.
• ‘Gimlet Gaze’ Scope – Very simply adds 9″ to ranged weapons. A great little boost to the simple Khemist that you’re definitely taking for an 18″ ranged weapon that can really hit what it wants.
• Grudgefire Rounds – Similarly great on a Khemist. These rounds go on one ranged weapon only and natural 6’s to hit deal mortal wounds equal to damage. Khemists with their 3D6 shots makes this highly variable but a few mortal wounds is always nice to have!

Out of the lot the Nullifier is a pretty clear winner if you’re writing an all-comers type list for when you come up against those debuff and damage spells. Otherwise I’m a bigger fan of the Scope of the Rounds, that extended range (especially shooting twice maybe!) on a Khemist’s gun will help clear and sweep while keeping him at a safer distance.

Grand Strategy

Mission Parameters 
It’s just the one Grand strategy, you need to have 1 unit of Thunderers and 1 Gunhauler left on the table by end of game. Not the easiest to score, but also if you don’t have these alive at the end you’ve likely lost anyways and these 3 points aren’t actually going to save you. Definitely something you have to think about in list construction, you might prefer one of the General’s Handbook options instead.

Battle Tactics 

Blow Them Away – Kill a unit using the Grudgesettler Protocols battle trait. That’s the name of the trait that lets you shoot a second time. With enough units this should be pretty easy to set up but runs the risk of over-killing before shooting that second time, or just not rolling any 4+ on what’s in range.

No Safe Haven – Pick an objective controlled by the opposing army. Control it with a unit that was set-up by a Gunhauler moving. This is what you’re already trying to achieve anyways, very easy to score.

Thunderous Claim – Pick an objective you don’t control, your opponent doesn’t need to control it either. Control that by the end of the turn if you’re contesting it with at exactly 2 units of Thunderers. No more, no less. It’d be very easy to choose one objective that’s in No Man’s Land to score this on early.

Overall these are pretty solid tactics with an OK grand strategy. You’ll happily score at least the last 2 tactics in every game, possibly the first as well if you set yourself up right and are careful with the order of your shooting!

Playing the Expeditionary Force

Without getting any of the normal Allegiance abilities this means that the Expeditionary fleet won’t have access to the Code or great endrinworks. Your Gunhaulers also don’t get any of the unique ship orders; no flying high for these little vessels. So what do you actually get? An incredibly mobile force of heavy gunners where every unit has a 50% chance of shooting a second time during every one of your turns. That’s a lot of guns. This also triggers each time they fight, however you’re not really running this list for its combat threat, there aren’t any skywardens or endrinriggers. The second time the unit attacks/shoots it is at a -1 to hit though, so if you used All Out Attack earlier you’re just hitting back on your normal profile. This also works after you’ve used Unleash Hell…

With no transports (and no rules for them, anyways, without allegiance abilities) your Gunhaulers gain an ability to move a unit with them when they move. Only one unit, however, and only units with a wounds characteristic of 6 or less. That’s wounds characteristic meaning it doesn’t matter how large your Thunderer unit is, they can be transported. The way it works is nice and simple at least: when a Gunhauler makes a normal move or runs you can choose a unit wholly within 3″ and then after the Gunhauler finishes that move set them up wholly within 3″. They can’t charge after which is fine because you weren’t going to be charging with Thunderers anyways. What this does mean however is that you can’t have a hero like a Khemist scurry across the table in a Gunhauler alongside the Thunderer unit, he’ll have to take his own Gunhauler to get there if he wants to keep pace. The transported units also don’t count as having run if the Gunhauler did, so feel free to shift a little boat right across the table, miss out on its own shooting, for the sake of getting Thunderers into a very effective range.

Gunhaulers are zippy little things without Fly High anyways. Each one once per game can add 6″ to their 12″ movement and still shoot since it’s not a run. With an 18″ move before getting your own unit out that can still move after if they didn’t move before! You can very safely deploy pretty far back in your territory and get into range turn 1 to do as much damage as possible before moving on to another target. To be able to get into range of a really good target it would be worth auto-running 6″ turn 1 to get a Gunhauler with 15 Thunderers 24″ across the board.

Example List

It’s incredibly simple: 2 big units of Thunderers being buffed by a Khemist each turn who ride in their own Gunhauler each. It’s also a 3 drop list so it’s not out-dropping every list but with the amount of free movement that won’t be an issue. A small unit of 5 Thunderers hangs out at the back and tries to help score the Grand Strategy by not getting stuck in and dying if everything goes horribly wrong. You could swap these out for a third hero, a Navigator sitting in the back slowing things down could be really useful as well.

Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords
– Sky Port: None
– Grand Strategy: Mission Parameters
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Aether-Khemist (100)*
– General
– Command Trait: Back On Your Feet!
– Artefact: Aetheric Nullifier
Aether-Khemist (100)*
– Hand Carved Nullstone Icon

Battleline
15 x Grundstok Thunderers (480)*
– 3x Aetheric Fumigators
– 3x Decksweepers
– 3x Aethercannons
– 3x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 2
15 x Grundstok Thunderers (480)*
– 3x Aetheric Fumigators
– 3x Decksweepers
– 3x Aethercannons
– 3x Grundstok Mortars
– Reinforced x 2
5 x Grundstok Thunderers (160)
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 120
Drops: 3

Oops All Gunhaulers

This is also an option. I’m not sure if it’s a good option, but it sure is an option. You get 7 drops with 11 Gunhaulers and a Navigator. Realistically you can take just about any hero you want here, I like how the Navigator can ping a few mortals at range and slow some things down to keep your boats safe. Half of those 11 ships get to fire twice each turn too giving you a lot of cannon balls.

Allegiance: Kharadron Overlords
– Sky Port: None
– Grand Strategy: Mission Parameters
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Aetheric Navigator (100)*
– General
– Command Trait: Grundcorps Technician
– Artefact: Aetheric Nullifier

Battleline
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon
1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (170)
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 115
Drops: 7

Seeking Aether Gold

Overall this is actually a really solid Army of Renown considering what you lose from the Kharadron book. It forces a weirdly different playstyle of cheap mobility for very chunky and hardy Thunderer units. If anyone actually owns 30+ Thunderers and a handful or so of Gunhaulers I think this could see some legitimate play. Being able to fire twice with Khemist-buffed units is no joke at all, especially since they can proc that on Unleash Hell.

Now, is this fun to play with? I really don’t think so. What the army does is reward you for sitting far back turn 1 so you can’t get alpha striked before then performing what might be the best alpha strike in the game now. There’s a very good reason Thunderers already went up in cost and giving them incredibly cheap transports to get into range with their guns has just brought them back onto the scene. I look forward to reading about some sort of horrible list in Competitive Innovations in the coming weeks, just to see what it really looks like.