Another year another set of Battleforces for your Christmas Shopping list. Age of Sigmar is getting 4 this year: Soulblight Gravelords, Hedonites of Slaanesh, Lumineth Realm-Lords and Ossiarch Bonereapers. We’ll break down the cost versus buying each unit individually, and whether you’ll get a ton of use out of the contents.

Soulblight Gravelords – Revenant Legion

Contents MSRP: 184.5 GBP / $290 USD

Value saved: 34.5 GBP / $80 USD 

Contents:

• 1 Vengorian Lord
• 20 Deathrattle Skeletons
• 40 Deadwalker Zombies
• 5 Blood Knights

Holy moley this is a good deal. Almost everything here is absolutely worth taking and has competitive viability. The Vengorian Lord is one of the more powerful units in the book, granting a reduction in rend to enemy units it is in combat with and being a solid combat monster in its own right. Deadwalker Zombies are considered the choice battleline, with their nasty 6″ pile-in and ability to inflict mortals on 6s. The fact you’re given 2 boxes is extremely welcome. Finally the Blood Knights are a powerful hammer, fast, able to inflict a ton of damage and resilient in their own right.

The Deathrattle Skeletons are a bit of a miss, but not entirely. While I don’t care for them as much as Deadwalker Zombies or Dire Wolves I think they have value, especially if you intend to play a more casual game. Get a Necromancer or Wight Lord to go with them and they’ll hold their own just fine.

Final Verdict: Must-buy

Lumineth Realm-Lords – Vanari Shining Host

Contents MSRP: 199.50 GBP / $320 USD

Value saved: 69.50 GBP / $110 USD

Contents: 

• 1 Vanari Lord Regent
• 1 Vanari Bannerblade
• 1 Starshard Bastilla
• 10 Vanari Wardens
• 5 Vanari Dawnriders
• 5 Vanari Bladelords

It’s a rather eclectic mix of things. Including the Vanari Lord Regent but then using Dawnriders instead of Windchargers is certainly an interesting choice. It’s not that the regent only supports Windchargers or anything, but from a thematic point of view it’s odd. The regent isn’t even all that great, as hes not much more than a beatstick. Dawnriders also sort of fail to impress when the Windchargers exist.

The Starshard Bastilla is pretty alright, if it weren’t sharing competition with the Vanari Sentinels for a similar role. The Bannerblade is widely considered straight up bad. Lumineth really don’t need a Bravery buff.

The remaining stuff is quite positive. The Bladelords are good, bodyguards for your more delicate or important Heroes like Teclis or the Scinari Cathaller are extremely important if you have the space. The wardens are your bread and butter and youll be buying a fair number of them anyway so good start to include them here.

Overall the way I view this box that it’s quite good if you’re only interested in casual play. Almost everything in the box is matched by something else in the army that does the role better so this ends up feeling like a collection of second stringers. If you don’t care about an optimum build it’s a decent way to get a bunch of stuff together fast.

Final Verdict: Good Value

Ossiarch Bonereapers – Mortisan Tithe Echelon

Contents MSRP: 180 GBP / $300 USD 

Value saved: 50 GBP / $90 USD 

Contents: 

• 1 Mortisan Boneshaper
• 1 Mortisan Soulreaper
• 1 Mortek Crawler
• 1 Gothizzar Harvester
• 3 Necropolis Stalkers (or Mortis Guard)
• 20 Mortek Guard

Another solid set. For a new player I really like this box. First, the Heroes: The Boneshaper is a solid foundation to start from. Of the 3 generic Wizard Heroes I think the Soulmason is the strongest but the Boneshaper makes a decent follow up option.

The Mortek Crawler, Gothizzar Harvester and Necropolis Stalker are all excellent in casual to semi-competitive player. While I think the Crawler has fallen a bit out of favor as its 0 rend attack means it almost never hits, it does hit like a truck when it does. The Harvester is a bit too soft for a Monster, making it a liability in a ruleset that gives a VP for killing a monster he’s still a potentially excellent support piece for your Mortek Guard. Finally the Necropolis Stalkers are one of your best Hammer units, and it’s a constant debate about whether taking them or Morghast Harbingers are a better use for your points.

The Soulreaper is a bit too vulnerable for his own good so a bit of dead weight in this set. Still that’s only $30 worth, the rest of the set is worth picking up especially as a prospective OBR player. Get a Liege-Kavalos and some more Mortek Guard and/or Kavalos Deathriders and you’re off to a good start.

Final Verdict: Good Value

Hedonites of Slaanesh – Sybarite Blade-Carnival

Contents MSRP: 196.50 GBP / $315 USD 

Value saved: 69.50 GBP / $165 USD 

Contents: 

• 1 Shardspeaker of Slaanesh
• 3 Slaangor Fiendbloods
• 5 Slickblade Seekers (or Blissbarb Seekers)
• 10 Painbringers (or Twinsouls)
• 10 Blissbarb Archers (and 1 Blissbrew Homonculus)

This is a hard one to assess because as of this writing Slaanesh isn’t doing so hot. Slaanesh mortals even worse so. So whether you want this is going to hinge entirely on whether or not your interested in pursuing a Hedonites of Slaanesh Mortals army regardless of how well you’ll do on the table.

In that respect, it’s a pretty good deal, biggest discount by a good margin. If you want to play Mortal Hedonites this is basically a grab bag of a few different mortal units to get you started. I would go so far as to say buy 2 to double your savings because you’ll need to stack up on most everything in here anyway.

The Shardspeaker is an excellent Wizard, with a useful warscroll spell and can make your ranged attackers better. Which is good since you get 10 Blissbarb Archers, who pack a pretty solid shooting attack with the ability to run and shoot.

The Slaangor and the Painbringers/Twinsouls act as a hammer with a decent save and some strong melee attacks. I think the Painbringers are better for the rend, but Twinsouls doing 2 damage per attack isn’t too shabby either. The Seekers, which can also be built two ways, round it out with cavalry to snag objectives or pick off weak targets.

I wouldn’t say it’s a good box but that has more to do with the army itself being so dire. If you’re dedicated to starting the army go for it. Grab Sigvald and a Lord of Pain, and pad out your roster with more units and this is a good start. If not, skip it.

Final Verdict: Good Value/Skip

Are you grabbing any of the boxes? Disagree with our assessment? Let us know in the comments or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.