Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 5: Deep Wars, the state of GW and supplements, and the decline in Malifaux model quality

Deep Wars is back!

Unboxing: Stormcast Eternal Lord-Celestant

The first few Stormcast...

Having played a few games of Age of Sigmar while proxying my Dark Angels as Stormcast Eternals, I was really impressed with some of their character models, particularly the rune sword and warhammer-wielding Lord-Celestant.  Despite being geared for close combat, he wears a Sigmarite Warcloak that gives him D6 shooting attacks which have the possibility of causing Mortal wounds.  What makes him truly impressive, however is his command ability (Furious Retribution), that allows himself and any other Stormcast Eternal within 9” to add 1 to all their hit rolls in close combat.  In my first few games of Age of Sigmar, he was able to boost the killing potential of a unit of Retributors, allowing me to tear through pretty much anything my opponent could throw at them.  After having so much fun using the Lord-Celestant in game (I had been proxying an Emperor’s Champion), I decided to get the model itself.

Age of Sigmar: First few games

It has been about a month since Age of Sigmar burst onto the gaming scene, like the burning radiance of Ghal Maraz.  With the freely available rules, new models (Space Marines in fantasy!), and a complete lack of point values for units, it was an exciting, if not slightly bewildering, time.  Now that the initial excitement has died down (likely due to the slow trickle of singular releases each week), and I have had a chance to play a few games, I decided it was a good time to tell you my current impressions of Age of Sigmar as a game.

Age of Sigmar: Initial Impressions of the Miniatures

The Age of Sigmar begins.

Warhammer Fantasy has seen a slow but steady demise since the release of 8th edition back in 2010. Although they released revised rules for most of the armies in the new edition, they tended to be sparsely updated versions of their previous books, to bring them inline with the ill-favored new rule set.  Interestingly, it took GW destroying everything in the setting through the End Times to renew people's’ interest in Warhammer (admittedly, I think the increased interest had more to do with them finally releasing truly exciting models and remaking old classics, accompanied with new interesting background and artwork, rather than the fact that things were ending, but I digress). Although people were excited about End Times, it inherently left fans uncertain what was going to happen to their beloved game, and we have all been in an uneasy limbo since the Warhammer world ended, waiting to see where Games Workshop would go. After months of vague rumors and unsatisfying teases from GW, pictures of their new game Age of Sigmar have finally leaked across the internet (thanks Lady Atia!).  While these pictures have left more questions than provided answers, they are quite striking, and I wanted to talk a little about my impression of the new models and the direction their design seems to be going.