Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The winds of change have been sweeping through Age of Sigmar, and it is the turn of the Stormcast Eternals to feel their effect. A brand new Battletome is about to be released for them, and I managed to snaggle an early copy. Full review here but if you want to see the actual book (and, for this Battletome, you really do - trust me on this one), hope along to https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/review-battletome-stormcast-eternals-the-new-one/



So, is it any good?

Well, first off… the cover seems a little less detailed, a little less inspiring to my completely untrained eye than the first edition. Not really here or there and, it has to be said, entirely unrepresentative of the glorious art inside, but still… not completely awesome for what is a very important book in the Age of Sigmar line.

This Battletome follows the same format revealed first in Disciples of Tzeentch (so it has a lot more rules content, for example), and begins with the general background of the Stormcasts. However, don’t be tempted to skip past this bit of you have been following Sigmar’s soldiers from the start – there is new stuff in here.

The first thing that becomes apparent is that, again like Disciples of Tzeentch, the timeline has moved on from the Realmgate Wars (about fifty-odd years, I think). Sigmar is not just seeding the Mortal Realms with permanent outposts – whole cities are beginning to appear.

Second, there is a sidebar in this chapter that does a great deal to emphasise the reforging process Stormcasts go through, and its effects, with particular focus on how it affects certain Stormcasts in certain ways, which gives rise to different characters between Stormhosts. This will be important a little later on when we get to the rules section…

The different types of Chamber are covered in broad strokes at first, including the recently opened Vanguard Auxiliary Chambers – these are the guys who, in modern terms, act as recon and fast strike forces. So, finding the big barbarian horde then constantly hitting its flanks until the Warrior Chambers gather would be how they act in the field. They spend most of their time in the wilderness and rarely return home to Azyr.

We have four pages of the ‘timeline’ pieces, that often drop little hints as to what is coming next. The first couple of pages sum up the events of the Realmgate Wars, highlighting some specific battles for those of us who have played through the storyline. There are some hints that the Stormcasts are not always the great and noble heroes (the word ‘purge’ is used in one extract), and the new units (such as the Vanguard and Gryph-Hounds) make an appearance.

And then we get something people have been pining for since Age of Sigmar came out…

Proper maps!

These show areas of the Realms of Life and Fire, the realms straddled by Hammerhal, the first of Sigmar’s cities (and one that will be becoming more relevant next week, as it is the location of the new Warhammer Quest – I’ll see if I can do a review on that too!).

Plenty to get your teeth into on these maps, as both features not only locations but entire wars that we have not even heard of before!

I thought this spread was nicely done – we have seen the organisation of a Stormhost before, but never done this well. And yes, the eagle-eyed among you will have seen that new chambers have started to appear. Just what is a Logister Chamber, eh?

The next few pages break this spread down further, explaining the Warrior, Extremis and Vanguard Auxiliary Chambers.

Following that, we get into the real nitty-gritty, as we explore in some detail each of the units that are currently available for the Stormcasts.

And that includes the Vanguard Auxiliaries…

This section is going to be the meat of things for some of you, as it explores areas that have only been lightly touched upon up to now. For example, when the Lord-Veritant appeared, you could only really think ‘umm, okay, anti-magic guy’. Now, however, there is a healthy amount of background laid out for him (they have a real dislike of corruption and spend a lot of their time rooting out cults – again, the word ‘purge’ springs to mind…). The same applies to the Knights-Questor and Errants-Questor, both of whom are now set properly in the ranks of the Stormcasts.

Once you get past all the different units, the next chapter takes a look at the heraldry of the Stormcasts – basically a lit of ideas for painting up your armies.

Some of this we have already seen, such as how the tabards and buckles mark out specific retinues, but there is plenty of new stuff. Check this out…

As well as pages covering the Stormhosts we have all come to love (such as my own Hallowed Knights), Stormhosts from the Later Strikings are also featured. A few of these have appeared in the fiction before now, but others haven’t.

Beyond that, we are into the ‘hobby’ section, with lots of glorious miniatures, including the new Vanguards and Aetherwings.

So, that concludes the background sections, and I suspect more than a few of you have skimmed through everything to reach this point – the rules!

These begin with the Allegiance Abilities, something people have been crying out for with the Stormcasts.

Their Battle Trait is Scions of the Storm, which basically gives the whole army deepstrike, though you no longer have control over when they appear (and you are still going to be 9″ away from the enemy).

Command Traits follow, and they are a nice simple list that will nevertheless not have you pining for the generic Order table.

The Artefacts of Power are divided into Blessed Weapons, Enchanted Armour and Magical Artefacts. However, Totem Heroes also get access to the Treasured Standards list, while Lord-Castellants, -Veritants and Knight-Azyros can choose from Mystic Lights. There does not look to be anything desperately powerful among these choices (though tournament games may refine this somewhat), but the spread is a nice one that gives a lot of character to the army.

What is really new though are the Prayers of the Stormhosts. Every Priest in a Stormcast army gets one of these (in addition to their usual abilities), which makes me think that Lord-Relictors may become a thing quite soon. The prayers allows the Priest to pick from one of six choices, ranging from blessing weapons of a nearby unit (hit roll of 6 grants another attack – could be interesting on Retributors) to a Lightning Chariot that effectively teleports units across the battlefield.

Not enough for you Stormcast diehards? Well then, let me introduce you to the Steeds of the Celestial Realm tables. These allow you to pick one Dracoth, Stardrake or Gryph-Charger (from the new Vanguard Auxiliaries) and give the actual mount a trait. A Dracoth can become Keen-Clawed, for example (giving it Rend -3 on wound rolls of a 6), while a Stardrake can become a Thunderlord, extending the range of its Roiling Thunderhead.

I have a feeling some players are going to be spending a long, long time working out tricksey combinations on all these traits!

As with Disciples of Tzeentch, there are two new Battleplans for the Stormcasts and, as with Disciples of Tzeentch, no addition to the storyline to go with them. Come on, GW, some of us play Age of Sigmar specifically for this!

The Stormcasts also get some revised Path to Glory tables, which are all well and good, and can now focus on specific chambers. So, if you want to lose all your friends, you can now have a ‘pure’ Extremis Chamber in a campaign!

Finally, we come to the Warscrolls.

There are some old favourites in here, such as the Warrior, Harbinger and Exemplar Chambers, but there are also some notable by their absence – the Skyborne Slayers have disappeared (some might say ‘good riddance’).

On the flip side, there are also some new additions, in particular focussing on the new models, with three different flavours of Vanguard Battalions (the two Conclaves, with some added leadership, go to make up the Vanguard Auxiliary Chamber).

Some of the new Battalions are quite evocative – once you hear there is a Storm Vortex Garrison, don’t you just want to know what that is, eh?

However, I think the big thing for many players will be the Warscroll Battalions that cover specific Stormhosts, and this is where we begin to see the flavours of the different Stormhosts appear.

My own Hallowed Knights, for example, can ignore spell effects, run and charge a bit further, and can still give the enemy a smacking before they finally succumb to their wounds.

Other Stormhosts get similar coverage, including the Hammers of Sigmar, Celestial Vindicators, Anvils of the Heldenhammer, Knights Excelsior, Celestial Warbringers, Tempest Lords, and Astral Templars.

Yup, there is enough there to keep you going!

Unit Warscrolls for all the Stormcast units follow, but don’t simply skip these, as there have been changes – I have already noticed that the Knight-Azyros no longer acts as a beacon for Stormcasts coming down on lightning…

The four page rules set is at the back and, on the very last page, an updated Pitched Battle Profiles list.

Conclusion
If you are a Stormcast player, you and I both know you are going to be picking this up. However, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that this is a near-perfect Battletome. The art is good, there is a veritable tonne of background material, and the rules bunnies are going to be kept busy working out all sorts of different combinations of units, traits and Battalions, in a way that Age of Sigmar has not really had up to now. In short, ‘proper’ list building is going to start happening.

The only thing that would stop me giving this book a 10/10 is the lack of storyline to the Battleplans which would serve to place them within the overall storyline. Come on, GW, just give me a page or two for each, and I will declare one of your books to be a Perfect Work!



Warscroll Cards
The Battletome is not all the Stormcast players are getting. At long last, after countless requests on forums for them, Warscroll cards are now a thing.

At long last, surely, we have an easy-to-read reference right on the battlefield.

I don’t think so!

This card is entirely representative of the rest in this set. Nice big cards, with the smallest font known to graphic design to spell out the rules.

Now, I can see why they did it – a standard format that would cover every unit in the game, no matter how many abilities it has (gives hope for more cards for different armies). But even the likes of the Stardrake fill up less than half the surface area of these cards.

Honestly, I cannot really get across to you just how small the text is. I have decent eyesight (for my age), and I don’t automatically focus onto them.

This, it has to be said, is a bit of a Fail.

However, you do get these counters, which I think some players will find useful – and they have been printed on the thickest cardstock I think I have ever seen for counters like these. Gives them a nice feeling of quality.

But at some point, you are going to go back to the Warscrolls. Why have text so small?

Yeah, that just confuses me.

In summary, big thumbs up to the Battletome, but what the hell was someone thinking with those Warscroll cards.

Cool! Thank you for the write-up. Definitely excited to get my copy soon and get to work on my Knights Excelsior.

Really great review Matt.

I have to say, the more I see of this the more disappointed I am from a competitive standpoint. Most of the new battalions are worthless in 2000 point games. The celestial hunting pack is 1880 baseline and includes no battleline units and doesn't make anything part of the battalion battleline either so unless order gets a battleline you can take for 40 points it's completely unusable.

For narrative and open play gamers this book looks to be pretty awesome, from a Matched play perspective it's pretty abysmal.

Thanks for the review. I can't wait to get mine this weekend!

ERJAK wrote:I have to say, the more I see of this the more disappointed I am from a competitive standpoint. Most of the new battalions are worthless in 2000 point games. The celestial hunting pack is 1880 baseline and includes no battleline units and doesn't make anything part of the battalion battleline either so unless order gets a battleline you can take for 40 points it's completely unusable.

For narrative and open play gamers this book looks to be pretty awesome, from a Matched play perspective it's pretty abysmal.

I get this, I really do, but honestly it seems the mega-battalions aren't so good as it's a big deal to not have them available for Matched Play (it would be another story if the army was really subpar without them), and to be even more frank I have no problem with some things being better for Open/Narrative play, in the hopes it will convince people that those playstyles aren't second-class citizens and maybe try it once in a while.

My issues with stormcast are that for the most part every stormcast player I know is frothing at the mouth to be able to play a deepstriking alpha strike army.

And that playstyle is abysmal. Its basically setting up across from your opponent and then taking it in the chin as they dictate the entire battle with little to no response from you.

 auticus wrote:
My issues with stormcast are that for the most part every stormcast player I know is frothing at the mouth to be able to play a deepstriking alpha strike army.

And that playstyle is abysmal. Its basically setting up across from your opponent and then taking it in the chin as they dictate the entire battle with little to no response from you.

Hopefully we'll end up with same ways to counter it in the future, but I agree that even only coming in on a 3+ and needing a good charge roll to get into combat on the turn they arrive, this is a really powerful ability. My advice would be to spread out as much as you can to limit the area in which the Stormcasts can arrive.

 auticus wrote:
My issues with stormcast are that for the most part every stormcast player I know is frothing at the mouth to be able to play a deepstriking alpha strike army.

And that playstyle is abysmal. Its basically setting up across from your opponent and then taking it in the chin as they dictate the entire battle with little to no response from you.

Still learning how to play. If they do Deepstrike, they can't move during that turn correct? Can they run or shoot or assault that turn?

They can shoot and assault on the turn they come in. So basically no matter what you do they are going to teleport in front of you and charge. They in essence dictate the entire game and the other person basically watches.

I hated this in 40k when it was a thing too for the same reason.

As much as you may have hated it, it drove the purchasing decisions for many players, including myself. I spent a considerable amount of money for an army with a certain play style only for that play style to promptly be removed.

My $40 for a knight azyros kit? Now worthless. They didn't increase the speed on any of the units which I spent hundreds of dollars on, and removed my ability to get them into combat quickly.

This isn't a video game where you can nerf and rebalance at will, where everyone paid the same amount of money and the rebalance can change which character you pick or the army you use each day. Instead, people made significant monetary and time investments based on the rule set, only to have those rules changed on them.

You're right I know a ton of people that bought an alpha strike army specifically to play an army that can dictate the game the entire time and whose opponents can only stand there and watch.

I still hate that type of game and feel that it drives more players away than it does bringing in.

This may be for me where I look for a different ruleset. I know I've said that a couple times in the past and have sat back and watched to see if it was that bad, and I've been borderline since the GHB dropped, but the thought of having to face an entire alpha striking stormcast army may be the step too far.

There's being able to get a unit into combat quickly. Then there's getting a unit into combat without the opponent being able to respond at all.

To MongooseMatt: Thank you for the review, it is always appreciated and I enjoy reading your battle reports as well. But in this case you buried the lead that the most popular stormcast battalions and abilities were drastically changed and made less powerful.

Ill probably pick thisbupfor my son to go with his Starter set on his birthday, and ill be the one to help him though it. From what I've seen it looks like there was an attempt to balance the power of Stormcast. People who like Submarines may not like I, but its what GW is doing.

I don't have any issues with it, of course, play in Seraphon.
Hoping for a rerrlease of my own tome in the line of this one and DoT.

Great review Matt, glad to know that investment will be worth it.

Bummer about the cards. Looks like they just simply printed the existing pages straight onto cards, without any reformatting. When you shrink size from an 8.5x11 to whatever size those cards are (assuming around 3x4), you're going to make "normally readable" fonts (12pt) microscopic. Doesn't bode well for the future of cards.

 auticus wrote:
You're right I know a ton of people that bought an alpha strike army specifically to play an army that can dictate the game the entire time and whose opponents can only stand there and watch.

I still hate that type of game and feel that it drives more players away than it does bringing in.

This may be for me where I look for a different ruleset. I know I've said that a couple times in the past and have sat back and watched to see if it was that bad, and I've been borderline since the GHB dropped, but the thought of having to face an entire alpha striking stormcast army may be the step too far.

There's being able to get a unit into combat quickly. Then there's getting a unit into combat without the opponent being able to respond at all.

If you don't get to respond, that's due to poor deployment. The stormcast deepstrike is now incredibly random and they could ALWAYS drop an entire army into your face, basically ever army can in fact be in your lines turn 1 regardless. Stonehorns can go board edge to board edge, Ironjawz are just short of that, thundertusks have 30+ inches on their 6 mortal wound shooting attack, sayl the faithless and clan skryre can both put 6+ stormfiends into your face turn 1, sylvaneth can teleport around the board like nightcrawler, death can drop mournguls or morghast harbingers 18+ inches away and charge, cloak of mist and shadows on a zombie dragon is like 40 inches of movement, the abyssal terror lord, necrotekt, and settra can put thinfs into your deployment zone before you can react.

Tl:dr if you never played teleport lists before, you certainly won't have to now.

Man, I think I'm sold on which will be my second AoS army. The VANGUARD CHAMBER STRIDES TO WAR!

I'm really thinking of a mostly Vanguard force myself. Lord Aquilor, some Palladors, Hunters, maybe some liberators to hold an objective, thinking two Knight-Venators.

ERJAK wrote:

 auticus wrote:
You're right I know a ton of people that bought an alpha strike army specifically to play an army that can dictate the game the entire time and whose opponents can only stand there and watch.

I still hate that type of game and feel that it drives more players away than it does bringing in.

This may be for me where I look for a different ruleset. I know I've said that a couple times in the past and have sat back and watched to see if it was that bad, and I've been borderline since the GHB dropped, but the thought of having to face an entire alpha striking stormcast army may be the step too far.

There's being able to get a unit into combat quickly. Then there's getting a unit into combat without the opponent being able to respond at all.

If you don't get to respond, that's due to poor deployment. The stormcast deepstrike is now incredibly random and they could ALWAYS drop an entire army into your face, basically ever army can in fact be in your lines turn 1 regardless. Stonehorns can go board edge to board edge, Ironjawz are just short of that, thundertusks have 30+ inches on their 6 mortal wound shooting attack, sayl the faithless and clan skryre can both put 6+ stormfiends into your face turn 1, sylvaneth can teleport around the board like nightcrawler, death can drop mournguls or morghast harbingers 18+ inches away and charge, cloak of mist and shadows on a zombie dragon is like 40 inches of movement, the abyssal terror lord, necrotekt, and settra can put things into your deployment zone before you can react.

Tl:dr if you never played teleport lists before, you certainly won't have to now.

This is a great summary and described the best reason for running a teleporting stormcast army: you could get in the face of the ironguts/beastclaws/tombkings/ironjaws before they could charge you and do mortal wounds on the charge in your deployment zone. Now the Stormcast will be scarecrows in shiny armor ready to be run over by these factions. I couldn't stand being charged and having half my models wiped out on the charge by ogors before, guess what is about to happen now that I can't get in range to charge them first. The teleporting battalions (which were quite restrictive in what units you could take) was the only movement the otherwise slow stormcast had and the only way to avoid being charged by these armies.

At least the person facing a warrior brotherhood could do damage with their first activation, these destruction armies do enough mortal wounds on the charge (before combat phase) that stormcast won't get a single full strength unit to attack back....

Hey matt thanks for the review I have a question the Lord Aquilor is the no helmet option is it female? I just noticed it in an image and it does not look like a dude going by your image.

 auticus wrote:
You're right I know a ton of people that bought an alpha strike army specifically to play an army that can dictate the game the entire time and whose opponents can only stand there and watch.

I still hate that type of game and feel that it drives more players away than it does bringing in.

This may be for me where I look for a different ruleset. I know I've said that a couple times in the past and have sat back and watched to see if it was that bad, and I've been borderline since the GHB dropped, but the thought of having to face an entire alpha striking stormcast army may be the step too far.

There's being able to get a unit into combat quickly. Then there's getting a unit into combat without the opponent being able to respond at all.

I'd play it out first, especially with the Azyros nerfed (rightly so) and Skyborne Slayers apparently gone, the deep striking Stormcast army has gotten easier to run but considerably worse overall (as the most exploitative options are gone).

Plus, it could be worse. It could be Skryrefyre

Good thing GW starts to produce warscroll cards, and hey I am happy to see SE get more love, because that means my Khorne army gets more love with more focus on the details.

That said, it's a blunder not to look at how other companies designed their cards. It's either amateurish work or an arrogant attitude towards the 3 editions Privateer Press has worked on Warmahordes. And AoS failed there.

I look forward to see the AoS designteam show more interest towards the other subfactions. We get it, stormcast eternals and Bloodbound are the poster boys, and at least one of these factions looks great aesthetically.

About the warscrolls I am happy to see them getting some attention, and getting adjusted, patched if you will. This is what the app allows you to do.

Where do you gather Lightning Strike now works on 3+? Which, if true, is a good fix to an overpowered ability.

Waaargh wrote:
Good thing GW starts to produce warscroll cards, and hey I am happy to see SE get more love, because that means my Khorne army gets more love with more focus on the details.

That said, it's a blunder not to look at how other companies designed their cards. It's either amateurish work or an arrogant attitude towards the 3 editions Privateer Press has worked on Warmahordes. And AoS failed there.

I look forward to see the AoS designteam show more interest towards the other subfactions. We get it, stormcast eternals and Bloodbound are the poster boys, and at least one of these factions looks great aesthetically.

About the warscrolls I am happy to see them getting some attention, and getting adjusted, patched if you will. This is what the app allows you to do.

Where do you gather Lightning Strike now works on 3+? Which, if true, is a good fix to an overpowered ability.

It's the Battletrait called "Scions of the Storm" all units can be placed in the celestial realm, and each turn will arrive on a 3+.
Various battalions have an ability called "Lightening Strike" but it is the ability to modify the Scions of the Storm roll by +/-2, giving you a bit more control on when they drop (though if you roll a 5 or 6 you have no choice but to deploy them).

I got to read the Battletome in my local GW yesterday.

That is the best solution I have heard so far, gj GW.

Thanks so much for another awesome review, MongooseMatt!

Definitely on my "to buy" list.

Well, first off… the cover seems a little less detailed, a little less inspiring to my completely untrained eye than the first edition. Not really here or there and, it has to be said, entirely unrepresentative of the glorious art inside, but still… not completely awesome for what is a very important book in the Age of Sigmar line. 

Yeah, that's really weird. Sub-par on the outside, amazing on the inside?

Maybe something happened to the artist and they had to make do? (I'll snoop around on the art sites...)

And then we get something people have been pining for since Age of Sigmar came out… 

Proper maps! 

Huzzah!!

My own Hallowed Knights, for example, can ignore spell effects, run and charge a bit further, and can still give the enemy a smacking before they finally succumb to their wounds. 

That's my boys, bad@$$ to the end.

 I’ll see if I can do a review on that too!). 

Here's hoping!

I thought this spread was nicely done – we have seen the organisation of a Stormhost before, but never done this well. And yes, the eagle-eyed among you will have seen that new chambers have started to appear. Just what is a Logister Chamber, eh? 

Hmm, very interesting. If it's a new chamber it might mean Sigmar is refining his army so a branch focused on making sure his forces don't get thrown off-course like previous stories had shown? (Basically like advancing from sailing ship which is dependent on elements to steam ship)

As with Disciples of Tzeentch, there are two new Battleplans for the Stormcasts and, as with Disciples of Tzeentch, no addition to the storyline to go with them. Come on, GW, some of us play Age of Sigmar specifically for this! 

Drat!

This card is entirely representative of the rest in this set. Nice big cards, with the smallest font known to graphic design to spell out the rules. 

Double drat. (Though far less damning. I need my fluff fix!)

Matt,

Once again and to echo others, thank you for the well organized and informative review. I follow your gaming blog (your painting output alone just shames me to death ) and really appreciate the efforts you put into sharing your expierence and toughts with the wider community. You are definately a positive community contribuator.

As you mentioned, if you already play Stormcast, it is a must buy, but it sounds like it is good for anyone who is keen to stay engaged in the AoS world.

I agree with you that GW needs to keep committed to the narrative option by providing background to go with the battle plans. Your blog is proof of how good they can be and for GW a way to encourage sales of models that might be under represented in matched play due to the constant pressure to field optimized lists.

Disappointed to hear about the warscroll cards. It definately sounds like a questionable decision on font size and layout made this a missed opportunity. I missed my chance to pre-order and was going to see about being at my local GW at opening to snag what will likely be one of the very few unreserved sets, but it sounds like maybe I if I don't get a set that I am not really missing out.

Again, keep it up sir. Looking forward to your future blogs and reviews.

Very disappointed with the cards.

Go to matts blog and lookmat the pitched battle profiles.

Judicators are not battle line anymore.

 Crazyterran wrote:
Go to matts blog and lookmat the pitched battle profiles.

Judicators are not battle line anymore.

They are Battleline only for pure Stormcast forces.

Is the Covenant Chamber also a new thing? Also I wonder if we will get new units for the other chambers as well.

Yarn storm casts now have chapter tactics? Just great just effing great.