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.
I love it when these issues have the biggest, meanest dudes in the entire setting on the cover and the opening pages, but have one of the smallest li’l guys inside. What particular giant dudes and little guys, you wonder? Read on to find out!
The Narrative Materials
If you couldn’t tell by the preamble and the massive image above this, we start this week on Kragnos, the End of Empires. He’s a god of earthquakes who embodies Ghur, the Realm of Beasts. He also definitely looks like an attempt to redo Beastmen that kind of got sidelined into its own thing. There’s not much more to say at the start aside from “he really likes smashing stuff” and we get a brief timeline of his rise, fall, and return. In the Age of Myth he was one among many Drogrukh, a race of centaurs of which he is now the last. As he got bigger, stronger, and meaner, he attracted the worship of entire orruk tribes, and through their offerings of realmstone he only grew in power. Kragnos and his krew waged war against the Draconith, before Krondys and Kazarai kicked his butt and stuck him under a mountain, where he remained until Alarielle’s Rite of Life woke him up. Now he’s back, and he’s pissed at all the cities and castles that have popped up around the realms. It’s not a super compelling story, but now we know a thing or two about the big lug. It does make me wonder if we’ll get more primal god characters embodying the other realms, but maybe I’m wishlisting and I just want them to make that big crow from Dark Souls for the Realm of Death.
We’ve seen what’s above the mountains, but now it’s time to go below into Blight City, the extradimensional subterranean city the Skaven call home. This malevolent metropolis is built on top of a huge hunk of warpstone, and pipes directly to the Mortal Realms through Skaven Gnawholes – no realmgates required. These Gnawholes are dug by giant drills, mutant laborers, and plagues that eat away at reality itself, and collapse as often as not. The Skaven worship the Great Horned Rat, halfheartedly referred to as the fifth Chaos God in other publications, but allowed to be his own thing here. This Big Horny Boi is all about schemes, treachery, backstabbing, plagues, and other nasty business, and is empowered by Skaven doing the same. Said rat-folk worship the Great Horned Rat more out of fear than anything else, and hope that through being especially sneaky and murderous they’ll get some favor from the big cheese. Skaven are one of those things that are so distinctly “Warhammer” that it’s a shock Age of Sigmar has taken so long to truly embrace them, and they definitely fit in that Venn Diagram of Just a Little Guy/Murderous/Frightening/Funny that goblins do. In other words, I’m here for these little jerks.
Closing out our narrative section this week is a Battle Record for the Fungoid Cave-Shaman, grots who get high as balls on mushrooms and tell their fellow gitz that their visions are prophecies. Whether they’re right or wrong, who’s to say?
Gyll Da Slimy was in one of those moods. The Cave-Shaman’s good graces came and went with the waxing of the Bad Moon, and tonight it was definitely waning. He sat there grumbling about his schemes, only stopping to take a nibble from the mushroom growing out of his head. Boss Gretch came up to the thinking git, here to give him a thumping if the Cave-Shaman hadn’t come up with a fresh prophecy yet. What good’s a wizard who can’t tell ya where the good loot is? Just as Gretch was about to disturb his wizardly subordinate, a puff of spores erupted from the cave floor, filling the Gloomspite Boss’ lungs with toxic hallucinogens. As the grot lay foaming at the mouth, Gyll smiled. With the boss dead, now he’d be in charge – just as Mork planned. That was proper sneaky, or so the mushroom growing out of his head told him.
The Hobby Materials
This week we get the Fungoid Cave-Shaman, one of the characters released for Malign Portents back near the end of 1st edition Age of Sigmar. This model preceded some of the wackier aesthetics of the Gloomspite Gitz range, but I’m glad they dialed it back a smidge for most of the general release. This model’s got character for sure, but they are a lot, and the sculptors fired a shotgun blast full of fungal textures all over it. It’s not a complicated model to assemble, but pretty much every point is covered in some sort of sharp or textured detail that’ll be uncomfortable to press on during assembly. Wisely, painters are encouraged to basecoat this model black instead of the typical green that most Stormbringer guides recommend for orruks and grots. The paint guide walks us through the riot of colors required to paint this model, and even with just some basecoats and washes, it makes for a more than passable grot. I still think the model’s a bit much, even as much as I love goblins.
The Gaming Materials
Multiple mystical ley lines converge in this week’s mission, Arcane Empowerment. Whoever can seize this meeting point of magical energies will be able to conquer Ulgu itself, and naturally wizards are drawn to it like moths to a flame. Our new Cave-Shaman leads a mob of grots and Kruleboyz against the Stormcast Eternals and their single Sylvaneth pal in a pretty simple three objective mission. The twist is that wizards all get +1 to cast. I personally would have liked it if this was tied into the map somehow, like +1 to cast near terrain or objective markers or something. As-is, it’s not really enough to make this an especially interesting mission.
Final Verdict:
The Fungoid Cave-Shaman (or, given his proper title, Snazzgar Stinkmullett) is a $42 miniature, so getting him for 66% off with this issue’s $13.99 cover price is a great deal. He’s a cheap wizard for any Gloomspite army, and a frankly bonkers miniature to boot. The lore section is pretty solid, fleshing out one major character and another major faction we haven’t gotten to read too much about yet. Really the only drawback this week is a fairly vanilla mission, and while I don’t personally love the Fungoid Cave-Shaman, he’s still a fun mini and one that should find its way into a bunch of Gloomspite armies.
See you next issue, warhams.
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