This month is bringing a massive host of updates to Age of Sigmar as the setting transitions to Ghyran, the realm of life. Each army is getting two whole pages of additional rules including optional alternative warscrolls for you to use in your games and we are very excited about all of it! Before we get stuck in, a thank you to Games Workshop for providing us with these rules as an early release to review.
It’s time for the Gloomspite Gitz and I am incredibly excited about these two pages giving buffs to lesser-seen units through spells and battle formations as well as alternate warscrolls for both flavours of fanatic. The spell lore, especially, is an upgrade to the army. This is also just what I’ve been wanting, ever since seeing that picking a Spell Lore was part of your list building I was incredibly excited for the potential of having multiple to choose from! Glad that we finally have that choice now post-battletome.
Lore of Frazzlegit
Just a quick note to say that these all cast on a 6 which is amazing. Gitz don’t have too many spellcasters so having some lower-value spells to make use of is fantastic, and makes them very castable as Magical Interventions, too, which I’m sure you’ll be using. While the name implies that this is made for, and to be used by, Gitmob heavy armies there’s no actual keyword restriction on it working just for them, it’s very permissive for just about all Gloomspite units and I think will be the more popular pick over the book’s lore. I’ll definitely be using this one from here on out in my squig/trogg mixed army with Skragrott. Losing out on a hard-to-cast teleport with too-many-restricitions is fine and worth it for what you get here.
Bright Fright
The Unlimited spell of the lore has you pick any 3 Gloomspite Gitz units within 12″ of the caster to immediately use a Retreat ability without taking any mortal damage. Fantastic. I would say no notes but I have a few. The first being that it’s an unlimited spell that doesn’t require you rolling additional dice to see if it actually does anything, like changing the moon facing in the normal lore. Important to note, though, that this does not suddenly allow you to charge later in the turn; the Charge ability can’t be used in the same turn that a Retreat ability is used. This is the one spell that is clearly designed for Gitmob since during their moon-facing turns they can use Retreat abilities and still Shoot and Charge later in the same turn. Getting to do that with Snarlpacks, Sunsteala Wheelas, etc is going to give you an insane amount of movement and manouverability.
Using during a Magical Intervention when you really don’t want one of your units in combat to be hit later that turn is also very good. That’ll be a little more situational but getting to make large moves with units out of combat in the enemy turn is very strong for board control and not dying.
Gitspeed
Sorry trogg players, this one ain’t for you. It creates a 12″ aura from the caster giving all non-Troggoth units +2″ move. What is this great for, though? Squigs. Wolves too since they’ve got an upgrade with the battle formation below, but my mind here is mainly on squigs. Getting squig herds to 5+D6″ (or flat 9″ under the moon) and bounders to 8+D6″ (or flat 12″ under the moon) is very, very, good. Add in a squigboss and you easily have a massive block of squig herd bouncing 12″ across the table before charging in; or getting to use the crit mortal ability instead while already having increased speed.
It’s a great spell to cast from a shaman on chariot, though, for a larger presence with its bigger base and zooming around your backline handing the buff out to more of your units.
Also consider giving Stabbas a 7″ move before toeing on to an objective with one guy in their new battleformation; that’s an easy 13″ move with an auto run to go and grab an objective your opponent may have thought was safely theirs.
Gaze of Glareface
A debuff spell casting on a 6? And at 18″ range? Love to see it. Trogg players, you’ll love this one. One enemy unit within range cannot use Run abilities and halves the range characteristic of all of their ranged weapons until the start of your next turn. Turning off the extra movement that any run+charge units can get is great and it can really ruin people’s plans for battle tactics, too. Halving the range of an enemy’s weapons though is amazing especially on those that can normally run+shoot. Many of the game’s ranged units only have an 18-24″ range so neutering that down to 9-12″ means they have to get much closer if they want to hurt you. Trogg’s main weakness right now is shooting so having a way of giving them extra protection at range is fantastic.
It’s not going to come up every game, of course, as there are plenty of armies out there not making use of shooting at all…but the other two spells in this lore are plenty good and worth taking.
New Battle Formations
You get two whole new battle formations to pick from which do not replace any of the existing ones. The first is for you wolf lovers and the second for those running hordes of Moonlan units (not you, squigs) to take objectives much easier.
Sunbiter Pack
During every single combat phase you pick up to 3 Gitmob units that charged that turn and give a point of rend to Companion weapons of those units. Working every combat phase on a turn that the unit charged means that Counter Charge is very strong with Snarlpack Riders since they’ll have Strikes First as well. Getting to throw 18 damage 2 attacks now with rend at an enemy unit before they get to attack is very good. I expect this to be the default Gitmob army formation going forwads.
And of course you’ve got that massive four chariot unit of sunsteala wheelas throwing out 24 attacks now with rend. That’ll actually start punching holes through most enemy units! With how fast these units move, especailly if you get an extra 2″ move on them, you can strike where you like to pick and choose what you’re picking up and now with rend actually will, too.
Gittish Tide
For all your non-squig Moonclan lovers out there. Have 120 (or so) stabbas/shootas and don’t know what to do with them? Whack them in this battle formation and watch your opponent question if they can kill enough to actually matter about scoring enough points. I mean maybe they can, they are still just stabbas…but it sure will be easier for you to score.
One of your units and the end of any turn gets to add 1 to the control score of their unit for each model that is not contesting an objective. That means you can have 1 lonely, singular, stabba in a block of 40 toed onto an objective and count as 41 (that includes your banner bonus) to control it. This is only with one unit, mind, so you’re still needing to have more bodies on other objectives, but it sure will swing those important points. Keep that unit of stabbas safe behind a wall of rockguts and you’ll easily take and keep the point for a long time.
But, do you choose this over the extra pile-in and mortal damage of the normal Moonclan battle formation? Hard to say. There’s been plenty of games and times where you wish you could do just that small amount more damage to an enemy unit and losing out on those couple of extra mortals is not as small as it may seem. That extra pile-in move with multiple units was often enough to get you onto an objective also, anyway, so is this needed? Needs to be played to be seen. It’s certainly amusing. If you’re out there running massed Stabbas/Shootas please leave a comment or email or something to let me know how you get on with this battle formation after trying it out in a few games.
Alternate Fanatics
With all of the alternate warscrolls these are entirely optional to use. You cannot use both types of Loonsmasha or Sporesplatta in the same list, but it does give you a new option.
Loonsmasha Fanatics
This feels kind of like a side-grade, and maybe a small upgrade(?), over the normal warscroll. They are much easier to place from units and now can be deployed in any charge phase with what is effectively an immediate charge move that can cause some mortal damage on the way. Remember that if you’re using it in your opponents turn it will be after they’ve made all of their charges so they’re not going to be acting as roadblocks or anything. A nice addition is that they can come out of any Stabba or Shoota unit, of any size, they don’t have to be 10+ models so as long as you’ve got one little guy left hanging around he can unleash a bunch of fanatics if you so wish; that could be really, really, funny actually. During your own turn you can use it after making a charge with your own units, too, giving a nice added bit of movement to them, unleashing them to hit enemy models hiding behind screens.
After the fanatics are let loose they make a 2D6″ move that can move through enemy models and can end in combat, rolling a dice for each unit they passed across and end within combat range of doing D6 mortal damage to each. That’s not bad at all. The only downside here is that they’ve technically lost some attacks going “down” to a flat 3 instead of D6 (statistically 3.5 attacks per model) and do not have Strikes First, either, making them riskier to use in your opponent’s turn.
All of that said, I think this really is the better pick and they’re still just 110 points per 5 so you’re not paying any extra for them either. This is easily the more fun option, at least!
Sporesplatta Fanatics
Now this warscroll, in my humble opinion, is less good than the normal one depending on how you’ve been using them. They are 20 points cheaper at a measly 70 points per 5 models which is what keeps them as an attractive option.
They do not give an aura of +1 attack. That’s the downgrade here.
The good parts though? They move to flat 2 attacks from D3 making them more reliable if you want to hit things with them, they cause the same -1 attack to enemies in combat range, and their extra move ability is end of any turn instead of before the game starts, which is much better. Only one unit per army can make the end-of-turn move which is a bit restrictive but it’s unlikely you’re taking more than one unit anyway. That end of turn move can mvoe through the combat ranges of enemy models (not through enemy models, mind) and can also end in combat. What it can do is pull your sporesplatta unit back out of combat after charging in to cause the -1 attack; they have to of course survive the round of combat, but it’s an amazing debuff and at 70 points you won’t be made about just using them to fill an odd gap in your list.
It’s All Comin’ Up Frazzlegit
These are, simply put, just all great to see. Amazing to have a new spell lore to choose from and actually feel like a choice. Love to see parts of the book not seeing as much play getting some boosts to start seeing the table more often. All just great stuff. The only complain I have? There’s not much here for spiders, which could have been nice either with an alternate warscroll or something that is going to help them step up a bit. The spell lore helps them a bit, admittedly, getting those massive arachnaroks up to a 12” move and giving some retreat flexibility on very fragile units. When I’d heard that there were going to be alternative warscrolls I actually assumed it would be some spider scrolls rewritten and was very surprised to see it was both of the fanatic ones instead.
By any means it’s two free pages of additional rules to use and what is here is very good. Very much looking forward to seeing what the other armies are going to get!
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