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.
You ever see an army and think “this isn’t for me, but someone out there is doing backflips over these right now”? That’s Kharadron Overlords, banking on two tastes – Dwarf and Steampunk – which are firmly not my thing, but are absolutely someone else’s chocolate and peanut butter. Unfortunately, I’m allergic to peanuts.
The Narrative Materials
This week we’re introduced to the Kharadron Overlords, a faction of Duardin (If you knew them first as Dwarfs its time for you to take your blood pressure medication) who dwell in technologically advanced skyports throughout the realm of Chamon. They live in a profit-forward meritocracy, and generally sell their services as mercenaries, miners, or explorers to the highest bidder. They do this from the decks of their flying skyvessels or floating around in bouncy dirigible suits. All this technology is powered by aether-gold, the lingering exhalations of the Duardin mining and smithing god, Grungni. They’re essentially a libertarian power fantasy, with a sort of technology-and-money-first ideology that seems ripe for some satirical storytelling or commentary. I’m yet to encounter much of that, but they haven’t featured in the AoS books I’ve read thus far.
We get a piece of fiction next, Path of Glory. It details a clash between Stormcast Eternals and Slaves to Darkness, told from the perspective of a Chaos Warrior, Revna. She philosophizes about how the Stormcast pledge fealty to a pretender god for the reward of being trapped in a cycle of life and death, unlike her Chaos-worshipping kin who trade their souls for something more immediately substantial. While the Stormcast are presented as almost clockwork-like in their unity and grim demeanor, Revna is hooping and hollering and weeping with joy as she gets into combat. It’s not the most exciting narrative but I like the look it gives into these two diametrically opposed but functionally similar factions. I’m also a mark for Big Dudes with Big Weapons and Big Thoughts in Big Armor.
Lastly we have a Battle Record for this week’s model, the Kharadron Overlords Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit. These flying artificers are one part mechanic and one part gunslinger, their rivet guns and welding tools being just as good at mercing dudes as fixing airships.
Thrør Khring floated ahead of the sky-fleet, keeping an eye out for lurking ambushes from the skybound Gloomspite Gitz. His beard itched under his suit; he liked to stick by the ships under his charge, and being this far from them made him uncomfortable. A series of bangs rang out behind him; a pack of Grots on flying Squigs had broken through the clouds above and ambushed the fleet – They came from behind! Thrør pulled a rapid U-turn and flew back towards the ships. He would get to stay close to his charges after all.
The Hobby Materials
This month we get an Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit, a Kharadron Overlord Hero who can bounce around fixing stuff and shooting dudes. Despite his solid Duardin core, this model is fiddly. There’s half a dozen little dentist tool arms sticking out of his sides, separate muzzles on his guns, and it’s all sitting on a flight stand with an embarrassingly small contact point. I’m no fan of flight stands in general, but the modern curved ones in Warhammer kits are especially bad, especially on a model this top heavy. A lot of folks instead build up bases to represent their models in flight, myself included. The paint tutorial will get you most of the way towards getting this model ready for primetime, but as is often the case, it lacks contrast and looks muddy. They just layer metallics and hit em with a wash, while I’d want to highlight or drybrush them up to give this model a bit more pop. Maybe we’ll get some more colors to dress this up later.
The Gaming Materials
Alongside the expected rules and tutorials for our new blimp boi, there’s some tactics pages for Sylvaneth Heroes. The Arch-Revenant should be used as a character assassin, yeeting forward to take out opposing Heroes. The Branchwych is fragile, but decent in combat and can cast some spells. It’s nothing stellar but I enjoy these little articles. We finally have a mission: Valley of Fire. The traveling Stormcast and Sylvaneth force are meeting in this valley to negotiate further alliances with the Kharadron Overlords, and our new Endrinmaster is here to make the deal. This valley is also a storage area for loads of volatile ammunition, and the Orruks and Grots are on their way to raid it. Seems like a poor place to have negotiations, but I’ve made enough dubious deals in Dunkin’ Donuts parking lots that I can’t really judge. Anyway, these caches of ammo are represented by this mission’s objective markers, which allow units contesting them to reroll 1s on shooting attacks. I’ve played plenty of scenarios with ammo dumps or whatever that hand out this sort of bonus, and I think it’s a pleasant, lightweight thematic modifier to a game.
Final Verdict:
This doughty dirigible dwarf demands 42 dollars, so as per usual, this $14-ish magazine presents a tremendous savings on the diminutive duardin dude. The rest of the issue is pretty solid, with an enjoyable mission, good lore segments, and a serviceable paint guide. That last piece is somewhat dependent on the paints we’ve been supplied thus far, and that tends to be the limiting factor when we keep switching between factions. All told, I enjoyed my time with this issue.
See you next issue, warhams.
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