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.
Somehow, in my brutal Grotmas grind to get a video out every single day, I’m finding the time to Bring Storm to you, dear reader. Sleeping is a different matter entirely.
The Narrative Materials
Opening this issue was like getting blasted in the face with a high-beam, as we enter the Realm of Light. Hysh is a bright desert realm, its sands forming runic patterns and its sun never quite setting. Hysh’s landmass is broken up into the Ten Paradises, ten continents as beautiful as they are symmetrical. The realm itself regimented and orderly, its illuminating magic taking on a poetic note as it also enlightens the mind. Just don’t look outside these bustling centers of learning that its people cram themselves into, as the deserts are littered with Lumineth ruins that Orruks and Chaos-worshippers call home. Hysh’s realmstone is aetherquartz; crystals of pure light that can enhance magic, and we’ll be talking plenty more about that later.
We have a foldout on the Armies of Hysh that seems like a natural next step to cover. First and foremost are the Lumineth Realm-Lords, the Age of Sigmar take on the High Elves of old. They’re the best at magic, the best at war, the best at city building, and the best at personally kicking my ass nearly every time I play against them. The Cypher Lords are letting the word “armies” do a lot of heavy lifting, as they’re the Hysh-themed Chaos warband from Warcry who have since been relegated to Legends. Far more convincing is the Hedonites of Slaanesh in this section. Their excess and madness make them a great foil for the orderly aelves, and Slaanesh is seemingly always the mortal enemy of aelves, regardless of the setting. Lastly are some Sigmarite forces from before the Cities range refresh, so we get some cute pictures of old Empire and Elf models to go with them. Settler’s Gain is the greatest City of Sigmar in Hysh, a meritocratic society with learned wizards at the top, regularly going to war in Luminarks of Hysh. Last are the Tempest Lords Stormhost, drawn from nobility who resisted Archaon during the Age of Chaos. By their nature that makes them a smaller, more elite Stormhost. Lastly we have a lovely map of Hysh’s Ymetrican Geosegment, one of the Ten Paradises we were talking about earlier. Those giant runes in the sand I mentioned were burned there by the Lumineth to seal away various secrets and vaults – vaults that the forces of Chaos are looking to plunder. There are a few points of interest on this map, but my favorite is the Pit of Cathartia, a landfill of spent aetherquartz crystals that’s radioactive with psychic energy. Magic hazardous waste disposal sites are severely underutilized in fantasy settings, and too few wargames have a “This is Not A Place of Honor” special rule.
The hazards don’t end there though, as it’s time to learn more about Chaos cults and how to avoid getting caught up in them. It’s written from the perspective of a mad would-be witchhunter, encouraging the reader to suspect everyone and everything. If you catch your neighbor with a book, that thing could be full of arcane and evil knowledge! Best to kill them and burn it without opening it, lest you get corrupted too! I mean it could just be a dictionary or road atlas, but better safe than sorry. Of course the evil doesn’t end at cults, there are vile ratmen beneath the cities as well. But the Skaven don’t exist sorry, wrong Warhammer.
The Hobby Materials
This issue doesn’t have any models, but it does have pots of Stormhost Silver and Ogryn Camo paint. Stormhost Silver is a bright, pure silver, excellent for highlights but probably too bright for much else. I have problems with it separating or getting chunky on my palette, but I usually like it, and use it on nearly every model I paint. Ogryn Camo, similarly, is a color made for highlights. Its light khaki-green is good for highlights on all flavors of Orc/Goblin/Orruk/Grot/Ork/Git out there. There are a few examples of how to perform these highlights and they look good, elevating the paintjobs of some older models from our collection.
The Gaming Materials
We’ve got Battle Traits for Sylvaneth and Gloomspite Gitz, explaining how their army rules work. These guides have some illustrated diagrams that I think would be pretty helpful if they weren’t an edition out of date. There are also tactics articles for Zarbag’s Gitz and Moonclan Shootas with some generally good advice that still rings true now. Turns out Goblins are always squishy, numerous, and kinda shitty in every edition of every game, and that’s one of the reasons I love them. What makes this funniest to me is that the diagrams in these articles usually have 3D renders of models, but since the Moonclan Shootas are old Night Goblins from Warhammer Fantasy in like 2006, they don’t have 3D renders available. Instead they are just photoshopped plastic models tinted green and placed on top of rendered bases. I mean this in all sincerity: graphic design is my passion.
Lastly is our mission this week, Essence of Genius. The Orruk Killaboss’ forces are starting to fight amongst themselves, so he’s sending them out to take out their aggression on the enemy before his army falls apart through infighting. The Order forces are instead on an expedition for a buried stash of aetherquartz. I doubt the Lumineth would be all too thrilled about that, but Teclis ain’t here to tattle. The magical radiation from that aetherquartz is affecting our heroes, however, and its effect in-game is to let one hero on an objective issue an order for free each turn. It’s not exactly an earth-shattering mission, but it’s a pleasant little modifier on a pretty standard mission.
Final Verdict:
The two paints in here add up to $10.65, slightly higher than I expected because I forgot they raised the price on metallic paints some time ago. The hobby information isn’t all that valuable, as painters can probably figure out where to highlight their models based on photography and context. The mission isn’t too special either, but the lore section is especially meaty. If a reader wanted to learn a lot about Hysh, this does provide a solid crash course, but this instalment does carry the typical burden of a paint issue. The value just doesn’t stack up when previous issues offer a $45 kit for 66% off or whatever. That’s nothing against the written content here itself – I do find it largely informative, charming, and entertaining – more that in a magazine run packed with bangers, this doesn’t quite stack up.
See you next issue, warhams.
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