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.

We’re in the home stretch now, with just ten issues to go!

The Narrative Materials

Our first article concerns Nagash, the Great Necromancer. There’s a brief note that he was around in the World-that-Was as a puny mortal before elevating himself to godhood, but that’s a story that can fill multiple books. As the reigning god of Death in the Mortal Realms, he’s got his work cut out for him. Sigmar briefly had Nagash along in the pantheon of Order early in the Age of Myth (the stillness of death having an order all its own), but Nagash was back to his scheming bullshit and naturally stabbed the pantheon of Order in the back and went on to do his own Skeletor shit. It’s telling that the pantheons of Order, Destruction, and Chaos all have multiple gods, while Nagash is the sole god of his domain. The article closes on little boxouts of his various forces, but there’s more nuance than I expected in a bubble that usually boils down to “there’s skeletons in this one.” The Ossiarch Bonereapers were created solely to serve his purpose, and they’re pretty much programmed to be his loyal legions of militant bonebros. The Nighthaunt are his terror weapons, and the spooky ghost host with the most serve him largely because he holds the strings of each of their ironic punishments. The Flesh-Eater Courts kinda serve Nagash, in that he tells them what to do but their madness and delusion often misinterprets his orders and he can’t quite control them. Lastly, the Soulblight Gravelords grudgingly serve Nagash. As the only force under the banner of Death that could be called “clever”, they bristle under any leadership but their own and spend most of their time politicking at each other. Speaking of, read The Hollow King or The Last Volari sometime. They’re both pretty good, even if they hit some of the same beats; two remixes of The Monster Mash in 4/4.

It’s time for another Battle Record, and this one is about Ironskull’s Boyz. This pack of Ironjawz orruks are as archetypical as they come – mean, green, and none too clean. Gurzag Ironskull led his band of Orruks into the Mirrored City of Shadespire during one of their looting sprees and was trapped there for a while. Whether or not he got out is up to interpretation, as the sidebar about Shadespire is written in past tense. Anyway, let’s find out what he’s doing in our Waaagh!:

Gurzag Ironskull deftly pulled his choppa from the skull of the Kruleboy in front of him. The lanky, paler orruk fell to the ground in a pile of itself, the meager contents of its skull leaking into the earth below. Hakka and Bonekutta were tussling with a Kruleboy mounted on some swamp-beast, while Basha lived up to his name, cracking the heads of two Hobgrots together until there was nothing but yellow and red meat in his hands. Just then, a lightning-sheathed arrow flew past Gurzag, grazing his pauldron and ricocheting into the dirt. A gold-clad stormgit was standing on the crest of the hill before the Orruk brawl, bow in hand. Four more came out behind them, arrows notched and ready to spoil Gurzag’s fun. “Boyz! Form up!” Gurzag shouted, his own Ironjawz gathering around him. “We got bigger fish to fry!” With a mighty shout, he lead his close-knit crew of Orruks into the waiting bows of the Stormcast interlopers.

The Hobby Materials

This week’s models are Ironskull’s Boyz, the first Orruk warband from Warhammer Underworlds, before a million expansions when it was colloquially known by the far more memorable Shadespire. They’re a characterful and classically Orcy set of models, with a satisfying bulk. They’re a push-fit crew of minis that go together easily, and are also simple to paint, with just a few colors and textures each. The comprehensive tutorial here gets you a fairly box art-accurate black and yellow paintjob, though I wish it went into the weathering aspect more. We’ve gotten a few oranges in this magazine, let’s get some rust on there. Still, I have no complaints about these models and the tutorial is genuinely solid.

The Gaming Materials

In addition to a Warscroll for Ironskull’s Boyz, we’ve got some tactics articles for Stormcast Vanquishers and Vigilors. The tactics are basic but still apply. Vigilors are great for marking targets so the rest of your army can hit more reliably, and Vanquishers work as lawnmowers for chaff infantry units. I use both fairly regularly in my own Stormcast army for just such purposes, and they do their job admirably.

Our mission this week takes us to Firebrand Pass. Our two forces have been skirmishing over Sigmarite ruins as seen in last week’s battle, and with the fighting at a standstill, the forces of Destruction have seen if they can get around the Order-aligned defenses. In so doing, they discover a hidden mountain path where Sigmarite supply caravans were coming through. Such is the setup for this week’s mission: two armies warring over a vital supply pass. This isn’t reflected much in the mission, which is just a standard deployment on a standard map with similarly by the book objectives, and a bizarre meteor shower rule where stationary units suffer D3 mortal wounds each battle round. This feels like it would have been a great opportunity to utilize the mats that come in this magazine to make a long, narrow map that better reflected the story being told. The mission seems fine, just unrelated to the pages of story beforehand.

Final Verdict

We live in a bizarre time where it is easier to purchase Kevin Chin’s art print of Ironskull’s Boyz than it is to buy the models themselves. They’re not even in the Brutes and Bandits set for the seemingly on life support Warhammer Underworlds. I see them regularly go for around $35, but with the updated ‘Ardboyz models, I’m not sure how necessary they are. They’re a decent way to spice up a regiment of course, but they were more special when the only other ‘Ardboyz to stand next to were a (still excellent, if somewhat rigid) Black Orc kit from Warhammer Fantasy. If they’re worth $13.99 to you though, they are still a set of lovely models. The tutorial for painting them is good, even if it doesn’t contain much new info, and the bit of lore in here is snappily written. I just wish they went harder with the mission. That comes together for a middling issue, but there’s nothing wrong with the middle of the road, so long as there’s no oncoming traffic.

See you next issue, warhams.

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