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.
If there’s one thing I really do appreciate about Stormbringer, it’s giving a second chance at life to a load of Warhammer Underworlds warbands. I’m kinda surprised that never got a little limited run magazine like this, as the variety and quality of those sculpts is off the chain. If you couldn’t guess, we’re getting another one of those this week – keep reading to find out who!
The Narrative Materials
Our sole narrative article this week concerns magic, and how each relates one of the Mortal Realms. Each boxout is accompanied by an illustration of a different wizard, all classic Dave Gallagher pieces that accompanied the Empire Battle Wizards kit from ye olden days of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. These spells are pretty sensible for the realm they come from. Azyr’s celestial magic is as much about metaphorical illumination through foresight and prophecy as it is calling down lightning. Aqshy’s fire magic is your classic fireballs and burning weapons or a more romantic read, stirring of fire in the hearts of warriors. Chamon’s metal magic is alchemy or turning enemy weapons to lead, causing them to rust away or turn into molten metal. Ghur’s nature magic is bestial aggression or summoning the spirits of nature to battle. Ghyran’s life magic is healing or rampant plant growth, like tangling vines or thorns springing out of the ground. Shyish’s death magic is more in the line of classic necromancy, draining life forces and the like. Hysh’s light magic can also reveal truths and prophecies, or just seal a dude in a prism like at the end of Superman 2. Last is the magic of Ulgu, which is shadowy, tricksy magic, all about fog and illusions. Really, I was just happy to see some classic Dave Gallagher art show up again, as he doesn’t really do much ‘hams art at this point.
We next learn about Mollog the Mighty, a Dankhold Troggoth special character of some renown. His years-long slumber was disturbed by Skaven, and he now wanders the Mortal Realms in search of a good nap. As a fellow cave-dwelling weirdo with bad posture, numerous attendant little creatures, and a desperate need to sleep, I feel deeply seen by this little Trogg.
Mollog lazily trudged along his path, scratching his backside and yawning as he trundled forth. A loud bark and a wet squish accompanied his next step, and mid-yawn he noticed that he was amongst a herd of Squigs, one of which he had just stepped on. He blinked, one eye at a time, and it slowly dawned on him that he was in the middle of a column of Gloomspite Gitz, marching towards one cave, raid or another. Maybe if he marched alongside them for a while, he could find a good place to sleep.
The Hobby Materials
As you may have guessed from the Battle Record and the Campbell Ramble Preamble, Mollog’s Mob are the models included in this week’s issue. These models are an absolute delight, possessing a whimsy that few releases outside of Blood Bowl can match. Mollog himself is a lumpen take on the Stone Troll/Troggoth aesthetic, covered in mushrooms and little details that mark him out as a Gloomspite unit. His little critters are even more fun, showing some of the more wackadoo ecology of the Mortal Realms, with a sentient mushroom, a flying batsquig, and a stone stalagsquig.
The assembly instructions for these models are pretty brief, as they’re a set of Underworlds minis who really only go together one way. There are some cute little narrative sidenotes in there though, which is how I know the Spiteshroom disorients its enemies by singing nonsense at them. The paint instructions, however, I found to be lackluster. We just don’t have the paints required to get these models done to a satisfactory level yet, and the main color it directs us to use – Barak-Nar Burgundy – doesn’t fit with Mollog’s scheme at all. It’s a shame, but I think we just don’t have the paints we need yet. I do enjoy playing the hidden object game of finding all the weird mushrooms on Mollog though. By my count, it’s seventeen.
The Gaming Materials
Mollog’s rules are pretty wacky, and they continue to be in AoS4 where he’s sadly been relegated to Legends status. He’s absolutely better suited to a skirmish game like Underworlds or Warcry where his bevvy of little weirdos can better distinguish themselves. We’re encouraged to take him in this week’s mission, as well as the Beast-skewer Killbow or Man-skewer Boltboyz, who both get tactics pages. These boil down, predictably, to “stand back and shoot stuff and don’t let your opponent charge them” which is generally pretty good advice for any shooting unit.
This week’s mission is Shiny Bitz, where shards of Chamon’s realmstone are empowering our rank and file troops. These empowering geodes give our Stormcast Vindictors and Hobgrot Slittaz a Damage bonus, making their weapons Damage 2. It’s not a huge twist, but I like anything that encourages players to take regular ol’ dudes as opposed to the big monsters and elite units that usually take center stage. The mission is otherwise what you’d expect, with a wide deployment zone, three objectives, and a hold one, hold two, hold more scoring system.
Final Verdict:
In a maddening turn of events, you can’t even buy Mollog’s Mob anymore, so this characterful and distinctive band of weirdos will be unattainable to most. Warbands of their ilk tend to run around $42-$44 with a bunch of cards included, but $13.95 for a quartet of characterful models such as these is a bargain, in my opinion. The lore section is light this week, and I wasn’t wild about the hobby section either. If anything, the hard to find and genuinely delightful models here buoy an issue that isn’t doing all too much otherwise, and make it one worth obtaining.
See you next issue, warhams.
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