Age of Sigmar 3.0 FAQ: Gloomspite Gitz

GW released a bombshell of new FAQs on Friday, covering errata for the core book and lengthy FAQs for each faction. And as always, we’ve got you covered with the rundown of what’s changed and what it means for your games. In this series of Hot Take articles, we’ll be covering the changes and our initial reactions to them but for more detailed analysis, check back over the next two weeks as we dive deeper into how these changes affect the game and its factions.

Gloomspite Gitz are probably the faction everyone loves aesthetically, but not so much tactically. For whatever reason, the army always seems to suffer in some way with how certain mechanics in AoS work, or simply just don’t possess the right synergies or powers to be effective. While a lot of Batallion updates in White Dwarf tried to help address some of these issues, Gloomspite are still in a pretty mediocre place as we enter 3.0. 

Judging by the FAQ, this isn’t likely to change, sadly, as the FAQ is one of the longest of the bunch, but is instead almost entirely devoted to how their Bad Moon mechanic works, which is maybe a bad sign if your new edition FAQ is devoted to explaining a nearly 2 year old mechanic. Anyway, let’s take a look at what the FAQ has in store for everyone’s favorite (smaller) greenskins.

Squig Herd and Herders – Credit: RichyP

The Good

  • Bad Moon is, hopefully, finally explained? The weirdest part of this FAQ is how much time is spent explaining the Bad Moon mechanic. That said, maybe this will help make it more clear and easier for players to understand.
  • Loonshrines can Garrison up to 30 grots. This is a really nice change, as it makes the horde army style of Gloomspites benefit from their terrain. Of course, this is a little hurt by faction terrain changes in general, but it is nice.
  • Squig Hoppers can be Battleline for Loonboss with Giant Cave Squig. Always nice to see expanded Battleline options. 

The Bad

  • Faction terrain set up. Gloomspite are a horde army in most cases that rely on Grots, and while the garrison change is cool, the terrain being set up likely far back in your line (or vulnerable to monsters otherwise) makes it a little harder to make use of well. 
  • Gloomspite still lack a lot of good synergies. The various factions within Gloomspite still don’t quite work together, and the army as a whole has some issues. This FAQ really does nothing to strengthen the army at all, and it is unlikely to be a priority tome in 3.0. 

The Ugly

  • Fuck you, Gobbapalooza. For whatever reason GW designed one of the coolest looking boxes of goblins and then also continually shitcans them for no reason. They can’t have any Relics or Spells. 

Well, let’s just be blunt: Not a lot of great stuff here for Gloomspite at the start of 3.0. All of the current issues are still here, and there don’t seem to be any answers to how 3.0’s rule changes will address those (or, more likely, how it will make some things worse for the army overall). There’s also a doubt that Gloomspite will be a high priority tome update for 3.0, but we’ll have to wait and see what sort of roadmap is on the horizon. For now, it seems like Gloomspite will have to win on their aesthetic charm and whimsy rather than tactical might, but there’s probably a good chance that’s why you were playing them anyway, so keep on eating those shrooms and have fun with it. 

If you have any questions or comments please post them below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.