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 know how sometimes these columns are just me gushing about something old? It might take a minute to get there, but boy howdy, we get there.

The Narrative Materials

Our first article is about the Kharadron Overlords sky-fleets. There’s a huge piece of art here with their special character, Brokk Grungsson, and I’d forgotten how stupid his steampunk metal top hat was. These fleets are governed by the Kharadron Code, a founding document that dictates how these fleets are organized and operate. These ships are crewed by Arkanaut companies, duardin troops who work, live, and sleep in their sealed environmental suits. I can only imagine this smells appalling, but it means they can respond to a threat to their ship at a moment’s notice.

Aleguzzler Gargants get a Battle Record next, and the supporting text describes them as “huge, a bit dim and with a ranging hangover” which describes several of my convention pals every NOVA. Their primary motivator in battles is to find a hangover cure, because Aqua Ghyranis isn’t quite as potent as Gatorade, I guess. They often work as alcohol-fueled mercenaries, whether that’s for more mundane boozes from our more human-adjacent factions, to the exotic fungus brews of the Gloomspite Gitz. Compared to all the Murderdeathkill Skullmunchers out there, this is a pretty relatable motivation.

Ferdy The Big itched at his ankles. Little red orbs of teeth and hate – so-called “Squigs” were gnawing at his extremities. With a grunt he leapt in the air and stomped on the assembled pack of squiggly beasts, flattening half a dozen with a resounding pop. Ferdy guffawed at the sound and continued jumping up and down on the little buggers, until there was nothing left to pop.

The Hobby Materials

This week we get the first half of the Mancrusher/Aleguzzler Gargant kit, or as it used to be known, the Warhammer Giant. Although the sprue reads 2006, it still feels in so many ways like a modern kit. There are just so many goddang options here, from hands to poses to fun little details and gubbins you can slap on or around the base. I’m gonna use the scenic square base from this for one of my Empire artillery pieces, use the pointing skeleton as an objective marker or terrain detail, the running Empire guy as a fun little weirdo to just have on the table, and the squished goblin on the base of some other big monster or another. Giants have never been my thing personally, but I recognize that this was a landmark kit, and I even used bits from it in a model for my House Lakar Fusiliers, the bound psyker in Auto-Repenitant:

What I’m getting at is that this model isn’t just cool on the tabletop or fun to build or whatever, but is a genuine distillation of Warhammer to a single box – or in this case, pair of magazines. The options and extras were absolutely a sign of things to come, and it’s wild that something nearly old enough to literally guzzle ale in the United States has held up so well. I still have the April 2006 issue of White Dwarf, the occasionally maligned “giant issue” that accompanied this model’s release. No less than a third of the magazine is dedicated to this kit, sculpted by Brian Nelson and Seb Perbet and retailing for $45 USD. In one of many articles detailing how to build, play, and otherwise utilize this Giant, we learn the bit of trivia that the triple-sized 3-up of the model, initially sculpted in resin, had to be cast in a trash can and took four men to separate from the mold. The cow hanging from his belt is based on a photograph of a circus cow standing on a ball, turned upside down. The vulture is even a Lappet-faced vulture, which mostly lives in Africa but is one of the more instantly recognizable carrion birds. At this scale, you need to lean into it. If you couldn’t tell, I just forgot I was doing this review for half an hour and joyfully read an old White Dwarf from my youth, detailing a model that I honestly don’t even resonate with that much.

Back to this current-ish magazine, what’s unusual is how much freedom the hobby section gives you in your construction of this big lug. They might not have every option clearly displayed here but they sure got a lot in there. Considering how prescriptive many assembly guides are in Stormbringer, I appreciate them leaning into this model’s options. The other techniques it outlines are going to be very important for a model such as this – subassemblies and glazing. It talks about on-sprue subassemblies so you can paint a base or head separately, but I prefer having some crummy scrap bases around you can temporarily glue stuff to. That way, I can take a crewmember from a vehicle or whatever and hold them in a painting handle easily. Glazing is a technique that I can’t say I’ve fully mastered myself, but I appreciate the guide here. They focus on using thinned paints and Contrast paints to build up layers for a more intense color, but I like using them for color variation and tinting, like a red glaze on the nose and lips of a model. Still, both are useful guides and more than enough to get started.

The Gaming Materials

This week the Winds of Change are-a-blowin’, as our two armies clash over a newly discovered realmgate. The winds of Chamon and Aqshy are blowing, turning shoddy iron armor to steel and mundane weapons into red-hot magical weapons. This is reflected in the mission rule, where each turn the player who wins priority can take a +1 to wound or save rolls for the turn, and the other player gets whichever bonus they don’t take. It’s a fun back and forth mechanic, and reflects the narrative of the mission well.

Final Verdict

One Aleguzzler Gargant costs $75, and between this issue and the next you’ll be able to pick one up for $27.90, which is a hell of a savings. It’s an old model with some crusty moldlines, but I think it’s well worth the cost. Hell, if you just get this issue, you’re getting most of the fun basing and customization bits you can use elsewhere in your collection. The rest of this magazine is a bit on the slight side, but I think the hobby content is genuinely useful and the mission seems fun.

See you next issue, warhams.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.