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.

This is it – the penultimate issue of Stormbringer! Who cares that we’re in our second year of Age of Sigmar 4.0, let’s keep riding out this 3rd edition intro magazine til the wheels fall off!

The Narrative Materials

Much like our last few issues, we wrap up another story – this one being The Gathering, Claggit Blacktongue’s goblin adventure. This one too started way, way too long ago for me to remember, with little follow up to speak of. Claggit’s warband encounters another Grot warband, and after much chest-puffing and partially truthful boasting, is informed that there’s a big scrap going on in Ghur. Claggit leads his merry band of idiots into a Stormcast cordon, and sacrifices most of his force in a diversionary attack as he slips through the Realmgate to Ghur. As the saying goes, all roads lead to [UNNAMED SIGMARITE CITY].

Next is an article about how WAAAGHs are formed. A particularly tough/charismatic/large Orruk gathers orruks around himself like a gravity well, and the stronger he becomes, the greater his draw. These forces include infantry with melee and ranged weapons, monsters, heroes, and combinations thereof. Almost like that’s what we’ve been collecting for 79 issues now! Imagine that.

Last we get to learn about the Kruleboyz special character, Swampboss Skumdrekk. He’s a powerful fighter, and clearly captures folks and stuffs them in his cages, but there’s a bit more to the character than that. He’s a gambler and a zookeeper, collecting monsters and keeping them in his Murkvast Menagerie. This drained mangrove swamp, aside from having a delightfully alliterative name, is home to a collection of critters, his favorite of which is Sloppklaw, the Sludgeraker Beast he rides to battle. The monster is old, senile, half-blind and extremely violent, yet Skumdrekk keeps him around anyway. Never have I related to an Orruk more. Let’s roll up his battle record:

If there’s one thing Skummdrekk hated more than a cheat, it was an honest gambler. In his eyes, the most honest were the followers of Sigmar, and settling in Skumdrekk’s territory was the greatest gamble of all. WAAAGH! Gnashrippa was already tumbling through this particular corner of Garagevale, and Skumdrekk figured they’d be as good an ally as any against this burgeoning little settlement at the edge of his swamp. The only challenge would be holding Sloppklaw back from charging into his favorite prey.

The Hobby Materials

Closing out our Stormbringer collection is part one of two of Swampboss Skumdrekk, a Kruleboyz hero who I wasn’t even aware was a special character. I’m kinda surprised it wouldn’t close out on a Stormcast hero, saving Bastian Carthalos for issue 80 or something, but here we are. We only get half the kit this week, along with instructions for putting the big bad boi together. It calls out the gibbets and Skumdrekk as subassemblies to paint separately, and I can fully get behind that. He’s an examplar of the Kruleboyz aesthetic – a cruel, rickety, repulsive, mancatcher riding a cruel, rickety, repulsive monster. It’s a model that’s definitely not for me, but I can’t deny that it’s representative of the faction at large.

The Gaming Materials

We get a tactics article on Stormdrake Guard, which feels more like filler than ever – an entire page of the magazine is given to a render of Stormdrake Guard charging into some monsters. You see, you should charge with these guys. Not only should you charge with these guys, you should charge into other big targets. I’ve now written more than they did on the page I’m describing.

This mission seems made for our recently acquired Stormdrakes, as we are ordered to Sally Forth. A covert patrol of Order has snuck out of the besieged City of Sigmar, tasked with reconnoitering the enemy force outside, and springing a surprise attack. The forces of Destruction don’t want these goody-two-shoes Sigmarites to get back with that information. The Order player splits their army into thirds – a hero and two units each – and designates them as groups 1, 2, and 3. Rolling a D3 at the start of each Battle Round, the corresponding group arrives in their corresponding zone, rerolling if that group has already arrived. Their mission is to nab objectives from behind the Destruction line, and while the attacking Orruks get to start the game with their whole army on the board, they’ll be running back to catch the newly arriving forces of Order. It’s an interesting take on this sort of mission, and I like how well it reflects the narrative.

Final Verdict

Swampboss Skumdrekk is a $62.50 miniature, so nabbing this issue and the next to get him for $27.98 is a hell of a good deal. You obviously don’t need more than one of him, being a special character and all, but this is a great way to get him cheap. The hobby section will be important for putting him together, and the mission is genuinely novel and seems like it would make for a solid afternoon of gaming. The narrative section is a weak point, with a reasonably amusing conclusion to a story I’d forgotten preceding an entirely too-surface level view of a WAAAGH! for this stage in the magazine. Still, it was interesting to learn a little more about Swampboss Skumdrekk, and give the gnarly, beautifully sculpted model that partially came in this issue a bit more context.

See you next issue, warhams.

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