Looks like a super exciting weekend of Age of Sigmar goodness is coming!
The Everqueen herself, Alarielle, has finally awoken to the abuses of Nurgle, and has brought the forests alive to battle the plaguefather. Something that has kinda been in the background for what feels like an age, but is in fact only a year or so, is now brought to the fore as the Realmgate Wars conclude in explosive style!
Okay, so enough with the hyperbole, this weekend’s pre-orders look ridiculously good. So good, in fact, I may have to start selling organs to fund it all. First of all, it’s Sylvaneth week. We’ve seen releases for these guys back in the day, though it was only a case of re-packing existing kits for sale. Now, we get new kits, with a new Battletome, and all of the usual pomp that comes from these things. I’m really excited by all of this!
The kits themselves, first of all, look amazing. Starting with the woman of the hour, Alarielle looks fabulous. At £80, of course, she should look pretty amazing! Riding into battle atop a wardroth beetle, that part kinda looks goofy, but it’s the kind of goofiness that we’ve come to know from Age of Sigmar and, I feel, it’s the kind that we now love. She’d look distinctly underwhelming just as an elven lady when put among kits like Archaon and the Maw-krusha, so I guess we knew she’d be riding something, but yeah, I think this one is fine!
Next up is “Drycha Hamadreth“, something that looks like a wooden dreadnought, and follows the main theme for this release, namely of spirits trapped inside trees. Drycha has come a long way since her original model, and while I think this looks the silliest of all the releases we’ve gotten this weekend, I may well end up picking up a box at some point over the summer. I very much want to bulk out my existing Dryad forces (and get round to actually painting my Treeman!) so it’ll be nice to have at least one of everything.
The last single model we have in this release is the Branchwych, which looks very much like a Dryad champion, wielding some kind of scythe. Looks okay, though seems a little weird to see trees wielding weapons.
However, the two army kits from this release also follow this trend, so maybe it isn’t so weird, after all! First up are the Tree Revenants, spirit/trees who have a lot in common with Prince Nuada from Hellboy 2. Part tree and part spirit, they seem to be the new style of infantry soldier for the Sylvaneth army, though hopefully the Dryads will continue to form the backbone of such armies for a long while yet. I do like the look of these guys, though I think I prefer the alternate build of Spite Revenants, who are more malevolent-looking, and merely use their claws rather than actual weapons. Might be nice to have a band of five, just to add a bit of spice to the look of them!
Finally, we have the Kurnoth Hunters, who look to be the elite choice for the army. These guys can be built with swords, bows or with sickle-scythes, but they’re nonetheless trees wielding weapons. As silly as that sounds, I still really like the idea, and have pre-ordered a box as I think it might be nice to get some archers – I’m looking to do an alliance of trees and Stormcast, so I think it could look great to have these guys supporting my Judicators! That said, the sword-wielding option also looks good, so might be worth getting some more for those. We’ll see.
In addition to all of this wooden goodness, we have the Battletome, which features a whole host of army customization options – something I’m particularly excited for is the relics and the “historical battalion”, special rules for a Stormcast/Sylvaneth army. Should be really exciting, that one!
I’m surprised that All-Gates is published as the final tome in the Realmgate Wars series, as I thought they would be just going on forever like this. However, it makes me think Games Workshop is planning to launch a new campaign for the second year of the hobby, which should be really exciting to see!
We also have a new Sylvaneth collection of short stories, and a painting guide, but perhaps the most eagerly-anticipated release of the entire Age of Sigmar line is also up for pre-order this week, the General’s Handbook! Yes, points are coming to the game, which I really don’t find that interesting at all, but it seems that’s going to be the only way that you’ll be able to get a fair game in at your local store. I’m a bit sad, because I really liked the social contract of arranging a game, but obviously most people either can’t or won’t play fairly, so need a framework to constrain themselves. But I do see its value for fair tournaments, so I guess there is that. I’ve volunteered to take part in a local tournament, actually, so I’ll hopefully get some battle reports or whatever written up here in the coming weeks and months…
That looks to be it for the new releases for Age of Sigmar this week, though I think you’ll agree, it’s a pretty bonkers weekend of stuff! I’m really excited for pretty much the whole lot, anyway!
Before I close up this blog, though, I just want to point out that the new Gorechosen boxed game is also up for pre-order this weekend, not due for release until September. I find this really interesting, as they did a similar thing with Lost Patrol. Makes me wonder if the releases of previous games have made them a bit more wary, and they’re testing the waters rather than going for big-splash releases. Execution Force seemed to do extremely poorly, while Betrayal at Calth and Deathwatch Overkill seemed to fare much better overall. Rather than risk holding excess stock, maybe they want to see how popular it would be beforehand? At any rate, I’ll probably get it, though at least this way I can plan ahead somewhat!
spalanz.com 