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.

I’m writing this on my phone while my life is in boxes and a sick cat is on my lap. I don’t normally get too vulnerable in this august series of reviews of a magazine for twelve-year-olds, but after canceling several gaming events due to the needs of the aforementioned moving boxes and terminally ill pet, I needed somewhere to spill at least a few of my guts. Honestly, after cramming a bunch of these reviews in one week to buy myself some breathing room around moving, instead of getting sick of Age of Sigmar and Warhammer writ large, I want more than ever to spend a sunny afternoon where the only casualties are little plastic goblins and the greatest consequence is maybe having one too many daytime Rainiers and going to bed early.

The Narrative Materials

First up is an article on Ironjawz, the orrukiest orruks to ever orruk. While they’re firmly on the “brutal” side of “brutal but kunnin”, they’re not without some nuance. What passes for ironiawz diplomacy is mostly threats and coercion to get other orruk clans to do what they want, but that’s just politics, baby. If anything, it’s more honest than the backhanded dealings of aelves or duardin mercenary tendencies. We get a little bit of detail about their equipment, namely that their weapons seem more about making a mess than making a swift kill – pretty obvious when you see all the teeth and doodads bolted onto their gore-hackas. Last is a bit on some of their warclans, the large groups they generally gather under. Ironsunz are the box art scheme, their yellow armor and hot rod flames exemplifying the flashy nature of this ghurish clan. Bloodtoots are instead more nomadic, passing from realm gate to realmgate in search of another fight. Last are Da Choppas, who get no points for creativity, but are more concerned with vandalism and having a good laugh than anything else. 

Next is another in-universe piece by Hermann Splott, examining the anatomy of grots. These articles vary from kinda gross to very funny, and are dropping with contempt for their subjects. Hermann, as a scholar, is disgusted and confused by the different varietals of grot and their impossible biology – how do they eat these poison mushrooms and survive? What about the grots who are more mushroom than goblin, taken over by parasitic fungus? He tries to find out by eating a mushroom himself, and the article turns to word salad as he starts tripping balls. I had the kind of sensible chuckle reading this one that you can only have when a cat is on your lap and you don’t want to disturb them, which was exactly the case

This dense narrative section continues onward, with a piece about the ~four~ five Chaos gods. This piece is even numbered as “CHAOS 10” and I would bet my entire backlog of models accumulated through Stormbringer that each of these has been defined many times, and I’m going to assume that you, dear reader, are a smart enough cookie to remember who the Chaos gods are, and each of their respective steezes. The only note here is that The Horned Rat is defined as a god of hunger and cunning, and that opens some potential up. Those are human qualities, and I think there’s some room there for humans in-universe to follow the Horned Rat. Honestly, one of the reasons I feel that they’re kind of a tacked-on Chaos god is that they don’t have any representation out of Skaven, who’ve been following the Horned Rat since Warhammer Fantasy. 

The Hobby Materials

Same as issue 65, we get a Guardian Idol terrain piece. It’s a good piece of scenery that makes a statement and adds some visual interest to the battlefield, but I don’t need to repeat myself here – it’s the same as last time, with the same tutorials to boot.

The Gaming Materials

A recent disturbance in the magical leylines of a city of Sigmar have been causing the arcane shield protecting the city to go on the fritz. A wizard (presumably with Sigmarite General Electric) heads out with their retinue to check out the disturbance, where they find a shaman of Destruction causing a ruckus. Such is the setup for Lines of Power. The setup is reflected well in the mission, where our new Guardian Idol protects the center of the board, and the four objectives are diagonally paired to represent these ley lines. These obliquely arranged objectives are paired, so if you control the diagonally opposite objectives, all your models on them get a 6+ ward save. It’s a cool mechanic, and a thematically satisfying mission.

Final Verdict

My cost analysis last time was a bit of a shrug, since Guardian Idols go for up to 60 bucks a pop on eBay and then like, so $13.99 for one feels fine. The rest of this issue was an absolute joy though. It had a great mission and tons of background material. I always appreciate the perspective shift of having in-universe pieces alongside the more objectively written ones. Maybe it’s because it was well written, maybe it’s because I had a cat on my lap providing an island of calm in an ocean of chaos – either way, this has been one of my favorite issues of Stormbringer to date.

See you next issue, warhams.

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