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.

Did you know the realmstone of Aqshy, the realm of fire, is sometimes known as ragerock? Chamon’s realmstone may as well be called nu-metal if we’re getting that silly with it.

The Narrative Materials

We’re posting up in Aqshy, the Realm of Fire this week, with all of our narrative content focusing on that spiciest of realms. It’s one that’s gotten more love than most – battles on hellish surfaces with erupting volcanoes and burning skies makes for some evocative imagery, and looks great against the gold and blue of the Big Damn Heroes of the Stormcast Eternals. We get a big ol’ map of the realm, which I always appreciate. When you’re working with something so abstract, magical, and divorced from our own reality, being able to point at a map and identify where things are is huge for making a setting feel real. Among all the evocatively named places like The Scablands (gross), Hammerhand Coast (I know that guy), and the Isle of Trysts (hot), I was happy to see Edassa, square in the middle of the map. Realmslayer, the Gotrek book tailor-made to get Warhammer old heads into the Age of Sigmar, had a surrogate Felix named Jordain from there, and it was cool to see his home here.

What I appreciate most about Aqshy isn’t just its landscape of skull pyramids, snow-capped mountains and steaming/burning jungles, but its emotional effect on people dwelling there. In a feat of romantic fantasy writing, people from the realm of fire don’t just like using burning weapons and fire magic, but have emotions that run hot as well. Aggression and hotheadedness are the words of the day, and generals who can bait out that unfettered fury from their enemies often gain the upper hand. It’s something the writers of Age of Sigmar attempt often with mixed success – folks from the realm of light are literally enlightened and those from the realm of death are morbid and depressed – but what is the dominant emotion of the realm of metal? Does everyone from the realm of beasts adhere to a paleo diet? Not all these emotions and mannerisms map onto tabletop wargames super well, but it works here in Aqshy.

The Hobby Materials

As we now have the second half of our Aleguzzler/Mancrusher Gargant kit, we can use the previous issue’s instructions to build the big lug. The focus of this issue (and the bulk of its pagecount) is turned towards how to paint this gargant. Ample opportunities are there for customization, and painters are encouraged to be creative and paint all the little details however they’d like. Paint spots on the hanging cow, decorate each battered shield with whatever heraldry you’d like, give the Gargant a different skintone, go wild. Funnily enough the model on the cover is still very clearly the one from Warhammer Fantasy, with a shield strapped to his arm with “KARL FRANZ” scrawled in a gothic font. I suppose that’s as much a trophy of days gone by as anything else.

The Gaming Materials

In addition to a Warscroll for our new Gargant and some general tactics for our Kharadron units (stand back and shoot; heard, chef) we’re introduced to a new narrative battlepack. Following up on the realmgate from last week, we’re introduced to a mini narrative campaign: Flame and Fury. The campaign rules are extremely light – if you take a unit that died in the previous game, your opponent gets an extra command point at the start of the battle. Since these points are use it or lose it, that’s pretty insignificant, especially since the first turn doesn’t have as many opportunities to use them. Back to last week’s mission and the setup for this campaign – that battle ended in a stalemate, with both sides retreating, but an Orruk scouting party later entered the realmgate under the cover of night. The gate took them to the realm of fire, at which point they quickly ran out of water and decided to turn back. An Order scouting party stood between them and the gate, and now we’ve got our setup for a small battle. Since it’s Aqshy, there’s naturally a volcano erupting, and on each turn, every unit in a random table quarter takes a Mortal Wound. This could be every quarter or none as well. It’s a minor modifier to a small and otherwise pretty vanilla game.

Final Verdict:

This issue isn’t the deepest on lore, gameplay, or even hobby content, but you’ll need the second half of the giant kit here if you want to finish your Aleguzzler. As I mentioned last week, you’re getting a $75 model for $28 all told, so it’s a banger value there even without the magazine’s contents. Said contents are still solid, albeit light.

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.