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.
With a pair of bonus issues down and 40 gone by, we’ve officially reached the halfway point of our journey together, dear reader. What terrors, treasures, and tribulations await us in the latter half of this weekly endeavor? One could always Google the contents of Stormbringer and find out, but that’s the coward’s way. Now, let us continue with our weekly Warhammer walkabout.
The Narrative Materials
Our first article concerns those spookiest of boils, ghouls, and non-boo-nary individuals, the Soulblight Gravelords. These are your classic undead, Warhammer Fantasy Vampire Counts/Spirit Halloween-esque vampires and skeletons. Vampires are afflicted with the Soulblight curse, which gives them power in exchange for endless bloodthirst, and their armies are magically animated corpses who do their bidding. These vampire bloodlines are organized into dynasties, each of which have their own motivations, cultures, and ways of war. None get a ton of detail here – Vyrkos possess an animal savagery, Kastelai are the most militant of the lot, and Avengorii are the crazy ones – but it’s a wide canvas to paint your own picture with this faction. Care is taken to let the reader know that the life of a vampire is one of intrigue, politicking, and backstabbing between all the exsanguination, and it’s not the only article I’ve read where I thought “Huh, I kinda wish these were the badguys in this magazine.”
Now it’s time for a different, crunchier flavor of undead. Next is a breakdown of the Feast of Bones, the 2019 box set which accompanied the release of the Ossiarch Bonereapers. This chronicles the diplomatic breakdown between the Kahruk Kin-Eater’s Ogor Mawtribe, the Tarkan Warglutt, and the Ossiarch Bonereapers under the command of Vokmortian, Master of the Bone-Tithe. Between all these proper nouns, we get the following: The Ogors had a deal with the Ossiarchs called the Pact of Bones. The Tarkan Warglutt could wander he Endless Boneyard, eating their fill, so long as they left the bones to the Ossiarchs. It’s like when your one friend is happy to go halvsies on dinner if they get the pickle from your sandwich that you probably weren’t going to eat anyway. Unfortunately, the Ogor warleader, Bulgo Spinecrusher, was overthrown by his son, Kagruk Kin-Eater, who broke the uneasy alliance and started chomping away at the pickles bones of the dead. Thus began this battle of bone and blubber. Over the course of this conflict, the Ogors gain the upper hand, and ultimately blow apart a canyon occupied by Vokmortian and his remaining Bonereapers, burying them unalive.
The bulk of the narrative section from here covers Sigmar and his history. It’s familiar ground that can’t help but feel familiar at this point, but I’ll cover the highpoints. Sigmar Heldenhammer (A god with a last name! I always forget he’s not a mononym like Cher or Bono) united much of humanity under one banner in the World-That-Was, then wandered off like David Carradine in Kung Fu. After dipping from rulership, he became venerated as a god. The powers of Chaos coveted this world, and sent Archaon the Everchosen to blow it up. He did, and the core of the world was all that remained – on that hunk of space metal clung Sigmar, and he rode it across the Aetheric Void. During his astral travels he befriended Dracothion, the Great Drake, and together they slew monsters, met other surviving beings from the World-That-Was, and formed the Pantheon of Order. Said Pantheon drove Chaos back and established civilization across the Mortal Realms, only for the alliance to splinter and for Archaon to muck it all up again. Sigmar retreated to Azyr, locked himself away for a while, and came out swinging with his army of Stormcast Eternals, establishing the Age of Sigmar. We’ve covered this content before aplenty on Goonhammer if you want to read about the Age of Myth and Age of Chaos – it’s all fairly abstract (as befitting a clearly constructed creation myth) so it helps to have that grounding.
Lastly is a short article on the Spirits of Durthu, the giant wooden guardians of the Forest. These Sylvaneth monsters are living trees, named for Durthu, the Treeman Elder of Athel Loren in the World-That-Was. They’re often lifewards of Sylvaneth leaders, and Alarielle the Everqueen even keeps a grove called the Sons of Durthu as her personal bodyguards. Now we get to use our naming tables from last issue to fill out the Battle Record here:
Koranath of the Leafkissed Vale practiced his sword swings, alone in the Garagevale glade. His massive swings went unnoticed by the wildlife, sparing him the mortal-like embarrassment of being watched while swinging a sword alone in a clearing. He quite liked the tree cover in this place; the dappled sunlight poring through the canopy warmed his bark, but not too much. It was far preferable to the scrap-strewn plain in Chamon he first sprouted from.
The Hobby Materials
So here’s a fun bit, the GW webstore still refers to this model as Durthu, the Warhammer Fantasy character. This kit’s fascinating, because it’s a 2014 release from the final Wood Elves army book in Warhammer Fantasy, but it dictated the aesthetic for the Sylvaneth range in 2016. It still “feels” very Age of Sigmar in style, especially compared to the Trish Carden Treemen of old – which she’s very much still making! This kit’s got a few options, but the instructions here are only for the Spirit of Durthu, not for either Treelord variant. There’s also a ton of cute little critters you can pop on here, none of which are part of the instructed build but you could absolutely go nuts with them. I didn’t notice til I was finally going over the sprues that there’s no fewer than sixteen skulls on him too, which feels like a lot even for a Warhammer model. Still, I think this kit is a beautiful centerpiece to any Sylvaneth force, and this particular variant is the most iconic assembly option. The instructions are detailed and considered, encouraging hobbyists to take their time and work at a steady pace with this challenging model. It’s a decade old at this point so mold lines can be a bit of an issue, and you’ll really want a sharp knife to clean them off the delicate branches of this big birch boi.
The Gaming Materials
We get a handful of tactics pages this week, which I find cute. They let us know that Stormstrike Chariots are fast vanguard units that should harass weak units, single out characters, and zip around the battlefield. Gryph-Hounds are also good advance units, screening out reserves, dashing in and out of combat, and generally trying not to die with their weak saves. Destruction players learn how to use Hobgrot Slittaz, focusing on using them as harassing units to support your better melee troops, or screens with some shooting. Marshcrawla Sloggoths instead should be used as anchors of your line, taking advantage of their durability and support abilities.
Naturally, we don’t use any of these units in this week’s mission, Out of the Shadows. The Stormcast-Sylvaneth alliance have discovered a realmgate, but the forces of Destruction are sneakily in close pursuit. This plays out as a pitched battle, with an objective in each deployment zone and one in the center, assumedly representing the realmgate. There’s standard points awarded for holding one, two, or more objectives than your opponent, with the twist that your own objective does not count. This encourages aggressive play, which I think is well suited to Age of Sigmar’s focus on melee combat and makes for a more interesting game.
Final Verdict:
The Spirit of Durthu/Treelord kit costs $79, and you’re getting half of one for this issue’s cover price of $13.99. Taking both halves together, and you’re spending $27.98 for a $79 kit, which is a hell of a deal. Even if you already have one, there’s a few options you can take which can round out your force. It also helps that it’s a great kit with a load of presence on the table. Model aside, this issue is packed with fun narrative material and a decent mission to top it off. While you’ll need to get next week’s issue to make the most of it, this is a damn good issue in its own right.
See you next issue, warhams.
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