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 just saw a headline of “Space Marine 2: 8 Tyranids Confirmed” and I dunno if you’ve seen the trailers but there’s a lot more than eight Tyranids in there, and if you only got eight bugs to kill it’s gonna be a pretty short game. You might think I’m being obtuse, and you’d likely be correct, but I’m technically a games journalist and we got standards.
The Narrative Materials
As one may have expected from the general trajectory of the last few issues, we’re still in Sylvaneth territory. We learn a bit about their general motivation, written more directly than the narrative bits we’ve gotten so far. Their main goal is to protect the woods and natural landscapes of the Mortal Realms, and restore life to the more Chaos-blighted parts of it. They’re not particularly choosy about who it is that’s cutting down their forests though, so whether you’re a marauding Chaos barbarian or just a humble woodcutter in a Sigmarite village, you’re equally at risk for getting turned to fertilizer by the Sylvaneth. There’s sort of a folklorish fae element to that which I like, even if it’s largely there to justify why your two “good guy” armies might be fighting each other. Think of it as nature taking revenge on civilization for what its done and their motivation makes a lot more sense.
Relatively hot on the heels of issue 35, we get another installment of Venom, the story following Golmrog City-Eata. When we last saw him, the Kruleboy boss was shackled before Skragrott the Loonking in an attempt to gather allies to his cause. That doesn’t quite work out, and instead the grot boss makes Golmrog battle a bunch of idiots in a gladiatorial contest. Golmrog kills a Loonsmasha Fanatic by throwing his own attendant grot at them, bashes a squig herder over the head with his manacles, and punts a Squig like a football. This is funny to Skragrott, who gives him a vial of mysterious poison to take home and tells him to get out. I won’t say this story has me gripping my seat, but it made me chuckle and sold the goofiness of the Gloomspite Gitz.
As we have no new models this week, we don’t have a new Battle Record either. However, we get new naming tables and campaign stuff for our collections. These let you roll up Sylvaneth names like Rithwyne of the Rootway, Dawnbringer Crusade names like Stonefist’s Protectors, and the Waaagh! objective of Thumpin’ Stormies. There are cute little recruitment posters dotted throughout, with helpful reminders that funeral expense claims are limited to one per soldier, and that this Waaagh! was the boss’ idea and not yours.
The Hobby Materials
It’s been a minute, but we’ve got another paint issue on our hands. This particular package contains Reikland Fleshshade and Athonian Camoshade, two Citadel Shade paints best used for, well, shading your models. The pot of Reikland had popped open in transit, leaving a sort of sticky caramel of dried wash on various parts of the magazine. After cleaning the pot out, it’s still liquid and mostly fine, but I wasn’t thrilled about the spill. Shipping mishaps aside, Reikland Fleshshade is one of the most enduringly useful paints Games Workshop produces, finding its way onto the skin of every human-colored model I paint, as well as being a brilliant shade for gold details. Athonian Camoshade is slightly more situational, but I use it for a muddied green wash on basing details, rocks, dirty cloth, or less saturated orc/orruk/ork skin. The paint instructions have us going hog wild with these two colors across our collections, quickly getting shades on our goblins, orruks, Stormcast, and Sylvaneth miniatures. They aren’t too comprehensive in their direction, as going back and writing a step by step process of where to shade 38 weeks of miniatures would likely take the entire magazine and then some.
The Gaming Materials
This week’s mission is Enchanted Ruins, which takes advantage of the Mysterious Terrain rules explained in this issue. Now, these have been excised from the 4th edition of Age of Sigmar, but I think can still be fun in a more controlled/narrative environment. The narrative here is that a force of Stormcast Eternals have heard of a powerful ally nearby, and this scouting force is trying to find them. In their travails they encounter a largely goblinoid war party among a ruined city magically coming to life around them. Said grots of all varietals don’t want the Stormcast to make nice with the Sylvaneth they’re trying to reach, because an allied force of Stormcast and Sylvaneth would likely defeat them. The mission itself dictates which terrain piece has which Mysterious Terrain trait (dictating these is better for narratives than just rolling them randomly, in my opinion) and otherwise it’s just a pitched battle over a pair of central objectives. It’s not a wild mission by any stretch, but if players are expected to use these newfound/now obsolete terrain rules, this would be a pretty decent controlled environment to do so.
Final Verdict:
Each of these paints will cost you $7.80, so in a rare move for a paint issue, you’re actually saving some money! That $15.60 combined price is a smidge over this magazine’s $13.95 cover price, and the paints included are ones you’ll absolutely find use for. The narrative sections are enjoyable and the hobby section should be useful for shading your collection of models. Paint issues are seldom the most exciting, but this one’s pretty solid, for both its value and content.
See you next issue, warhams.
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