Stormbringer is a weekly hobby magazine from Hachette Partworks introducing players to Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. In this 80-week series, our intrepid magazine-receiver will be reviewing each individual issue, its included models, and gaming materials. A Premium US subscription was provided to Goonhammer for review purposes. If you want to follow along at home, US Customers can check out Stormbringer here.
Hope you like magic, monsters, and more besides, because we’ve got a great issue of Stormbringer this week! Let’s finish this template-mandated preamble that I imposed upon myself and get to the magazine.
The Narrative Materials
We’ve got a heartier narrative section than usual this week, and we start big with a section on gods and godbeasts. This article is by no means comprehensive – we get a few of the big players with Sigmar, Alarielle, Nagash and Grimnir (RIP), but there are many, many more in the setting. Nobody gets more than a sentence or two, but the evocative art is more important and better at telling you what Fangathrax’s steez is than any flavor text could.
The scale stays large as we have another article on monsters. Like the last installment in this article series, it’s written in-universe by a human adventurer. It’s full of advice on how to survive amongst the beasts of the mountains, from the ever-helpful “you don’t have to run fast, just faster than the other guy” to more specific and fantastical advice. It’s all presented with a gallows humor that I quite enjoy, lending a ground level perspective to behemoths like Magmadroths and Stonehorns.
There ain’t no brakes on the beast train, and we’re on to Armies of Ghur, an article about how battles are fought in the realm of beasts. Beastmen and Ironjawz absolutely thrive here, while the Cities of Sigmar are holding on tenuously at best. We get to see how these factions are arrayed on a centerfold map of the Ghurish Heartlands. This is exactly the kind of map that spurs the imagination with visions of battle and adventure. In addition to key locations like Excelsis and Beastgrave that get their own boxouts, largely unexplored swathes of the map have names that should plant seeds in one’s imagination. What does The Screaming Gate look like? What was Brenndt’s Last Fight, and what makes it so notable as to be on the map? Is Ramhut’s Spine a mountain range, or the literal spine of a giant, long-dead godbeast? This is the kind of stuff I would have pored over endlessly as a kid, visions of adventure enveloping my mind.
We next have a Battle Record for the Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-Grot, along with a description of what they’re all about. These shamans utilize the land to brew powerful poisons, and summon putrid swamps along magical leylines. This is a pretty central plot point to Realms of Ruin, and frames these support characters nicely. Now, let’s roll up a Battle Record:
Broila stirred his pot vigorously, ensuring none of the toxic worms and bitterroots within burned to the bottom. Hunting for these on the battlefields of Garagevale was no simple task, even within the mouldering compost heaps just beyond the moors. Mordokk Grot-Eata emerged from the swamp nearby, arms outstretched in commune with the swamp itself. He retched up a slurry of leeches and bogwater, a look of transcendent bliss on his bestial face. Broila stopped his stirring for a moment, gazing at the Swampcalla Shaman with wonder and reverence. “Oi! Don’t look at me dat way, or you’ll learn why dey call me Grot-Eata!” bellowed the sopping prophet. Broila looked away and cast his gaze down into the pot, and began to stir with renewed vigor.
The Hobby Materials
The included models this week are the delightfully characterful Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-Grot. The Shaman looks every bit the swamp-dwelling weirdo he should be, and the Pot-Grot shares the same expression I have when I’m making soup. The miniatures are wonderfully layered, with each piece in their simple construction adding another layer of depth and detail. I fear that it may be too much, especially considering that we only have a Citadel Starter and Medium Base brush at this point. I’ve been using that Base brush recently for my basecoats and some drybrushing and I’m continuing to like it quite a bit. However, it is very much not suited to detail work, and the paint guide shows this. It assures us that things look messy now, but we’ll clean them up later. I appreciate the humility in showing a messy work in progress shot like this. Painting is hard, and showing just the highlights (pun somewhat intended) sets an unrealistic standard for beginning painters.
The Gaming Materials
We’re learning about magic and mortal wounds this week. Casting and unbinding spells are illustrated with a graphic of two wizards doing a Dragonball beam struggle, which I find charming. The spells they use to teach these concepts are the simplest – Arcane Bolt and Mystic Shield. We put them to the test in this week’s mission, Arcane Assault. Our new Swampcalla leads a group of 10 Gutrippaz while a Knight-Arcanum and 5 Vindictors are there to stop him. Both varieties of line troops have new rules introduced which let them cause mortal wounds on 6+ to hit. The last model standing in this mission wins. Personally I’d have rather gone for a mission where you just had to defend your wizard, but it’ll do.
Final Verdict:
The Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-Grot are only available in the Harbinger, Extremis, and Dominion sets. Resultantly, the best I can do for the cost breakdown is the general guesstimation of a character model this size with or without a little guy. Those usually run in the $35-$40 range, which makes the cover price of $13.99 feel pretty good. The rest of the issue is a fun read, with a monster-sized lore section full of art and maps, plus a decent learning mission where we use our newfound magic powers. We’ve got a strong issue this week, folks.
See you next issue, warhams.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. And if you want regular updates in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.
