Baron Klatz

Another year and glorious Anniversary for our epic game and setting in the Mortal Realms! More than happy to commemorate such an occasion with art focusing on the Realm of Beasts, Krondspine Elemental, and recent new heirs of the NightHaunt boatman, Skaven assassin and Lumineth Enlightener. Also having a Boingrot hero on bat Squig to honor the Gloomspites, Grand Alliance Destruction and the Anvil of Apotheosis unique hero maker. Rage on with the Era of the Beast for this epic setting! For Order! Death! Destruction! And Chaos!

They’re not dogmatic Templars but heroic Paladins for one.(though ruthless Vindicators and Excelsiors are there to mix it up like Astartes have the Salamanders for merciful marines contrast, though neither is the norm) They’re heroic, compassionate, even have cases when reforged countless times can hold onto their charismatic personality to be friendly and save the innocent of even different races and faiths, very big on accepting all peoples and beliefs(with many Stormcasts having gods besides Sigmar), know fear and can panic, and can take joy in drink, feasts or even love with some cases of having a spouse. Tropes wiki has a good Foil example: “ Foil: To the Space Marines, while their scifi counterparts are made from children often forcefully taken to be psycho-conditioned and genetically augmented to serve a doomed dystopian Imperium, the Stormcasts are all heroes saved from last stands where they fought to the very end against Chaos, then are magically empowered, and their main goal is to liberate the Mortal Realms from the grip of the Ruinous Powers. The Space Marines play their transhumanism to the hilt in that they usually tend to be considered as removed from humanity (by themselves and others), while the Stormcasts were once normal people and in many ways remain so still aside from how they're a lot more powerful than they were before. Stormcast have lost everything, know full well of the stakes (since they have experienced them), the concept of losing what they hold dear terrifies them, unlike the Marines who will wantonly throw away their lives.” I’d put them closer to DND Paladins + Order version Chaos Warriors + Dark Souls hollowed monster knights.

Not sure if they’re Josh’s work but the Sylvaneth tome also talks about the Rootking Duardin again which is very nice. (alongside the Ironbark elders going up to Azyr in friendship talks with Grungni and the Oakenbrows having alliance accords with Fyreslayer Lodges. Duardin x Sylvaneth pairings are the best ) @KingBrodd(you’ll probably like to read this bit next) Also cool to see some nods to both the old Gargant empires in Ghyran and Sons being Bros in the new Sylvaneth Tome: Traditionalists and other parts acknowledging their first big lore dump from the past: “Others believe they are the descendants of Behemat, a Zodiac Godbeast rumoured to live in Ghyran. Once mighty forest-warriors and woodland kings whose empires stood in every realm and stretched over the horizon. Coarse and slightly bestial, their pursued civilisation up to a certain point as they weren't partial to excessive clothing and lacked personal hygiene. -2016 Destruction Grand Alliance tome, Aleguzzler section.” AoS3 has been really good on referencing and even expanding on stuff from AoS1 which includes Josh’s ideas(see my older post on the Krondspine Incarnate being just like his Ghur horror creatures) and it’s fantastic to see.

Basically yeah, the mortal realms are expanding outwards in the void as pure creations of magic & cosmic debris(think mini Big Bangs) so the centers have had time to stabilize their magic and be safer places to settle while towards the expanding edges of free roaming crystallizing magic is where things get wild. Example: Hysh innerlands: there’s not really a night time and there’s floating crystals everywhere but there’s normal plains, deserts and oceans civilizations can build around. Hysh middlelands: the seas are starting to shimmer more and every rock and mountain look like symmetrical puzzle pieces but there’s still verdant grasslands and coastal cities living off glimmerfish. They can even ask the moons that phase in and out of reality to change the tides for them. Hysh Edges: yeah no, tread with extreme caution. The sea is pure solar energy shining across the cosmos, thoughts are mingling with blinding light and in the distance you can see what looks like sketches of objects and even cities drifting into shifting reality. An interesting note is the gods prefer setting up shop in the center of the realms and this is how travelers tell North vs South with a realm compass. They’re attuned to point to the gods so south is always towards the center with the gods & god-beasts of that realm gathering in mass and north is towards the edges. Additional note that the innerlands aren’t the exact same for every realm. The Realm of Death/Shyish is backwards thanks to Nagash’s Necroquake so now the wild parts are in the center with a death magic black hole and Realm of Metal/Chamon is countless sub-realms(think a hundred bubbles within a big bubble) with the inner realms more stable than the outer sub-realms/bubble realities. So you got more shake-ups how you can build around them. This bit though: You can pull that off in three ways(assuming a Ghur continent is the main focus) off the top of my head. 1. The Ghur continent is alive as an actual slumbering parasite that once gorged itself on a Chamon God-beast and now rests back in Ghur with rivers of mercury and minerals seeping from it’s skin. Dangerous prospect to live there on a creature that may wake up or just draw other monsters towards a sleeping meat field of it’s soil covered flesh but a massive supply of metals in a realm lacking them is too tasty an opportunity for your settlers. 2. A chunk of Chamon was dislodged in either a battle of god-beasts, machinations of the gods or another experiment by Teclis or Grungni in combining two polar opposite realms and seeing the results. The Chamon chunk has sentience however as a pseudo-elemental and formed rushing rivers around itself as a moat defense against the alien environment and foreign amber stone deposits that’s it’s trying not to fuse with and slowly be consumed by the Ghur realm. The rivers and bountiful minerals are nothing but boons to your intrepid colonies who use them as resources and travel, though tread cautiously on not antagonizing the vast elemental lest they find mining villages turned into silver statues or fleets assailed by flying sword swarms. 3. A mixed sub-realm between the two like the Twilight realm Uhl-Gysh between the Light & Shadow realms. This could give you more options how you want to build with a new realm that combines both the aspects of Beasts & Metal. https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Uhl-Gysh Wouldn’t have to be a vast sub-realm, you could make it something like the Orb Infernia that orbits the Realm of Fire with some key continents. https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Orb_Infernia All food for thought, very nifty region you have with cool faction ideas and I hope I gave some insight how you can continue growing it in the endless cosmic potential of the Mortal Realms.

Thank goodness. That “no teleport” battle plan would be a nightmare otherwise for the Kharadron. The reason made sense, super tight cave confines makes fancy teleports and airship maneuvers near impossible so it’s a straight up brawl in the depths. But this is the Kharadron Overlords, disintegration rays, orbital bombardment gun-satellites and Doctor Who Tardis physics of the airship cabins being noted their dimensions are manipulated so they’re much bigger on the inside than possible. If anyone can think of a way for metal dirigibles to swim through the ground to deliver troops and firepower to tunnel battles it’s them. 👨‍🔬 🧙‍♂️

Tbf it’s not crappy armor but usually stuff like otherworldly armor forged in hell that they looted and proceeded to beat into shape with nothing but their fists where even cannonballs are challenged by the hellsteel. Some Ironjawz even taking it a step further by wearing living chaos steel: ”Iron is Iron - Ironjaw Brutes of the Dethfist Warclan invaded the Daemon Pits of Gorrmurg, rampaging among its Soul Grinder pens. Tearing iron from the war machines, the Orruks hammered the daemon metal into armour. Even though the living iron continually tried to crush them, the Brutes took great pride in their new armour, as it just proved how 'super killy’ they must be.” but otherwise yeah, besides Ironjawz being a lesson in making sure you dispose of Orruk bodies properly unlike what chaos did which lead from them dominating Ghur for centuries to being overthrown almost overnight by the mega orruks all the killings created, there’s plenty of examples of Ardboyz marshaling themselves to the Ironjawz wars which should cause many mobs to be different as they can’t rely on pure brute power yet to stand alongside the actual Brutes so use Krule kunning but armored tactics focused to get by until the growth in becoming Gork’s fists as Mork’s hand closes. “In the Iron Shadow - Impressed by the strength of the Ironjawz, countless warclans gathered, hopeful to join them in their war against Chaos. The meanest of these formed Ardboy mobs, and marched into battle beside the massed armoured ranks of the Ironjaw Brawls”

Yeah, I honestly can’t stop at kits. Dead stop, anything before End Times needs a Lumineth level make-over & overhaul.(yeah it’ll stink at first to reset the current old large lines back to rosters which are 7 units and 7 heroes but AoS needs that foundation to finally build up from.) 1. Out with the human pajama party and make proper heavily armored humans with enough glowey weapons, steampunk tech and ensorcelled trinkets on them to tell you they come from a magical realm. 2. Seraphon need an roster overhaul but design-wise just give them a glow-up with better looks and plenty of magic crystals & smooth sci-fi armor like the Starblood Warband for those sweet Stargate vibes. 3. Skaven….anything that looks like it’s coming to steal your bananas take it behind a shed.

That’d be a fun change to do something unique with them as Ard Kruleboyz(maybe something a little more neutral like Krule Ironz). Ardboyz lore is already that they’re on the cusp of growing big enough to become Ironjawz but aren’t nearly as strong yet to bend steel(usually chaos hellsteel) with their bare fists so use forges. “Ardboys are units of Orruk warriors of the Ironjawz warclans that are composed of tightly packed ranked orruks from other breeds that are not Ironjawz Ardboys form their own mobs and fists within the Ironjaw warclans and unlike most Orruks believe in discipline, thus they have banners and drums to fight in ranks or march in lines. Most Ironjawz think Ardboys are a bit funny and do not consider marching to a drum to be relevant to smashing skulls but do admit that they know their stuff when it comes to war. Ardboys are led by by their own bosses who lead their boys into the fray with deafening yells. These bosses embody the both the brashness of the Ardboys and their pride at getting to fight beside the Ironjawz. In imitation of the Ironjawz, Ardboys plaster themselves in armour and tote Ardboy Choppas, which can be two-handed or paired with Smashas or large Orruk-forged Shields. While strong enough to break the spine of a man one-handed, they cannot beat iron into shape with their hands like the Ironjawz and instead they forge it from salvaged iron, displaying surprising skill for their race.” A change to “KruleIronz” would give them both the Kruleboyz-like smarts to fight disciplined and forge their weapons but the Gorky drive to put muscle on their lanky(but tall, Kruleboyz average 7 to 8 feet) frames and swell out to evolve into massive Ironjawz. A breed of orruks yet to choose their path between Ironjawz or Kruleboyz. would be a nice link between the different breeds of orruks as a shift through Gorkamorka ideology and get rid of the old Black Orc look to be something new like Kruleboyz covered in plate armor that can be a mix of the jagged armor they like(maybe a bog devil motif with horned helms imitating Kragnos) and smoother armor but with visible fist imprint/dents showing they’re practicing using only their fists to shape armor instead of wimpy forges.

The true star here is the Mustori: Give us them as new models, GW. Your public is waiting. We promise to be responsible and not let the Tauralons play too rough with our beloved celestial ferrets! “Tauralons hail from the Aetheric Void, where they prey upon magic-eating void-shoals that also reside in the Void. Entire flocks have taken to roosting upon the Sigmarabulum. They chase passing meteorites and shooting stars for sport, headbutting them between one another. Though if they find a more interesting target, such as Mustori and astral projections of Lord-Arcanums, they will knock the meteorites toward them. Lord-Arcanums that survive this game with their spirit intact and join in by sending the meteors right back again can win the respect of these beasts, this is often the method used by Lord-Arcanums to convince Tauralons to become their mounts”

If you send a response then also mention they’re missing their Fyreslayers allies right now too. The Ironbarks and Sylvaneth of Aqshy need their duardin friends. 🔥🌳 (the better Mortal Wounds output and Warded infantry/Magmadroth is useful too)

Yeah, just like the other updated armies to 3.0. Interesting they got mentioned among the other looked at armies tho: ”“There are a handful of factions, including Sons of Behemat, Fyreslayers, Beasts of Chaos, and Maggotkin of Nurgle that are also currently outside our target win rate, but we’re going to take a bit more time monitoring to see how they are affected by the shifts introduced by the new General’s Handbook – stay tuned over the coming months for more updates on this.” If I had to guess at changes it’d be finally making the Flamekeeper a Priest keyword and a big Ward buff like increasing the save and range that the Magmic Battleforge & Battlepriest give. Maybe also add that Musicians increase Rally chances.

If we get Lumineth vs Gloomspite I’d like to see the magical Zaitrec moon people shown off in the box as they have Alarith sized beef with Da Bad Moon. “The people of Zaitrec don't fear the night, as they revere the ethereal moons of Hysh, waxing and waning as they phase in and out of reality. A Zaitreci may talk to the spirits of these distant moons like to a close friend, asking them to share their knowledge and wisdom with them. Lunar symbols can be commonly found on robes or armor worn by the people of Zaitrec, while those most closely to the celesital spirits sometime wear a crescent-shaped halo above their heads. Many of the spire-cities of Zaitrec claim one of the ethereal moons as their patron, but none is as revered as Celennar, the True Moon of Hysh. Many Aelfs travel great lengths for a chance to gain some of the Lunasphinx wisdom. Those approaching the duo often spare Teclis little attention. "Better to learn from the source than from the mouthpiece" is a common sentiment among the Aelfs of Zaitrec, much to the irritation of the Arch-Mage. While the Lunar Cults of Zaitrec revere the moons of Hysh, they fear and hate the Bad Moon worshipped by the cave-dwelling Gloomspite Gitz. Many grand rituals and spells have been woven to ward of the malicious moon, but still it moves across the skies of the mortal realms as it pleases.” Some have pointed out the hand is pretty meaty. Gutfort Gutbuster Grenadiers maybe? Oooh. Those would be pretty cool. the Big Yellers clans of the Realm of Metal have a similar caste system like that in their mechanized fortresses but instead of spikey armor the richest get flashy outfits and drive reverse-engineered Piston-legged Cogforts they outfitted with ballista and giant mecha-choppas to hack down defenses and monsters. “Big Yellers prefer bright colours and loud sounds over stealth and subtler forms of intimidation. Their laziness mean they spend a lot of their time tinkering with their weapons carrying out "kustom modifikashuns". Thus their Deffspikerz are able to wield superior missile weapons, which also solves the issue of having to walk up close to the enemy. However when the effects of the Waaagh! reaches its height Big Yellers can be motivated to break into a run, albeit for a small time. The wealthiest of the Big Yellers travel in captured Cogforts which have been heavily modified. These contain firing gantries armed with beast-skewer killbows and massive winch-driven mega-choppas that can smash defences and cut down giant monsters.” https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Big_Yellers

I’m more worried for our celestial scaled brethren the Seraphon.(we got a ton of amazing options already that just got better) That rumor that they might lose scaley skin is a bit unfortunate if it comes true. Storm and Star must stand United in these tumultuous times. Also I bet they won’t touch Krondspine but just use it to make the rumored spider one more juicy. Defensive bonuses and Realm webbing to stop the wild troop charges as big counters could make a fun elemental kaiju war. Fyreslayer tome is already hinting at new wild volcano elementals stirring beneath the priesthood Lodges so it’s likely gonna be a very long term thing to keep pumping out new kaijus everywhere as this arc’s Endless Spells.

Well note that those areas the Marauders are in are just the habitable innerlands still, like the StD tome shows the Aqshy Great Parch and that a good 80% of it is still barbarian controlled. That’s what Cubicle7 used when mapping out places like Khul’s Ravage. It’s not saying the uncharted parts of the Realms are also wastelands as even Chaos had a hard time expanding that far out when native resistance and supernatural dangers are everywhere like Ghyran’s endless forest continents that extend into tree volcanoes with molten sap and lands that break apart as they teem with new life being birthed and bursting through the ground or Chamon’s countless sub-realms of golden oceans & clockwork moons. Chaos mostly settles in the safe innerlands, some sub-realms or on moons like Ghyran’s which are infested by Maggotkin. That still leaves a vast majority of the Realms unexplored/untouched and what crazy new lands and races they hold on their infinitely expanding scope. Edit: oh also we do see Chaos making cities and reusing fortresses to command and make forceful treaties with the nearby kingdoms and villages around them like in “Hammers of Sigmar” and “Scourge of Fate” Edit: oh yeah and “Garden of Mortal Delights” has a Slaanesh island fort in Ghyran focused more on capturing Sylvaneth to grow into exotic fruit trees. Tzaangors also build twisted dark libraries which is why they look down on the others who only destroy civilization.

Yeah, if not a 20 blob for more weight, using shield Vulkites in 10 man domination forces can be great for grabbing targets, distracting attention while leaving your list open to grab more Bounty Hunter options.

There hasn’t been hide or beard hair mentioned/seen of him in any recent updates since Broken Realms(well before even that since that was Grungni in disguise) I think it’s likely his next appearance will be another wacky White Dwarf anniversary model and won’t be significant for some time yet.(I’d imagine Dispossessed updates happen with Dawncrusaders. I’m betting Ironweld units since that seems their go-to for work in the building, mining and artillery defense of the free cities)

My money’s on Kharadron since they got a white dwarf that can turn into a StD battletome situation too and would be way too easy to cross promote Votann with more flying sci-fi duardin and some robots of their own like the cogmunculus. They turned away Grungni as they don’t personally see a reason to need a glorified spirit(as what they see him as) when progress has always worked but there was mention of working closer with the Lumineth to solve the current Realms problems so besides the unused lore stuff like the aether mine-layer ships, shield ships, Red Marines, steam bi-planes and the like there’s possible light magic zephyr boosted stuff they could throw out for quicker response crafts to all the emergencies around their aerial empire(if the light magi-tech stuff looks compatible with the streamlined 40k mech stuff all the better for kitbashing)

He clarified that was only a few of the higher ups and many others pushed for another take especially by Malign Portents. Besides there’s nothing wrong with branding. Age of Sigmar = Age of Reconquest which AoS has been about from the start of the Realmgate wars and continues with the Dawncrusades while literally everything from Sigmar’s Ghal Maraz, his twin-tailed comet icons to his Stormcast are the iconic images of Warhammer’s fantasy universe: That’s just solid sense to have something at a glance tell you what franchise it belongs to like Astartes do. That all aside, this lore bit from the new Skaven tome: ”Not long after the onset of the Era of the Beast, seers from the mountain-city of Tempest's Eye sighted banks of ill-looking green stormclouds on the horizon. Kharadron privateers were sent to investigate, only to find themselves swarmed by warp-blimps of the Clans Skryre. Though the duardin fought back stubbornly, they could not stop the true threat: immense warpstone bombs lashed to giganting doomrockets, which arced down to strike Tempest's Eye in a series of catastrophic explosions. Two entire levels of the city were obliterated, while others were dragged into the air on tides of unstable magic. The Battle of Tempest's Eye rages to this day, waged on solid ground and in the warp-ravaged skies above.” So now the city of Tempest’s Eye has been literally ripped in two between the city parts floating in the aether and the city remains on the mountain top that have Kharadron privateers doing their best with their allies to defend both parts of the city in a aether war. Could be just a future set-up of an Season of War flying unit focus in Aqshy or could be the slow move away from the pre-established CoS cities to the 7 new strongpoint ones in each Realm.(in this instance Tempest’s Eye changing hands to the Vindicarum or some other Chamon city heavily mixing freeguilders with Kharadron and a new Stormhost like the change from Anvilgard to Misthavn. I’ll miss the Tempest Lords here as natural noble fliers but I gotta admit Kharadron ships carrying zealous golem-like questors who want to go into hopeless battles so they reforge further as the ships fly alongside sorties of magic Chamon flying swords from the Lord of Blades would be pretty metal) Tempest Eye’s future could be pretty fun too after Order wins the battle, going from a simple mountain-top skyport to a chained down skyport onto the mountain below as the floating city port is literally held up by a Tempest of magic.

Poor Cubicle7, they worked hard on his art too. I do wonder if it’ll be some kind of Gutfort fortress master instead if that’s how they tie-in. Back in the early Realmgate Wars when the Ogors finally appeared in a novel it was a formation of jagged shield-bearer Ogors that went shieldwall to shieldwall with the Stormcasts. Gutfort master could have one of those massive shields and be defensive to the Beastclaw’s offense as a way to differentiate the two Mawtribes. Could make a nice callback as we also got the Lady of Vines who was also from AoS’ start. That’s my safe bet. Hopefully with another new troggherd unit in tow(like on the GHB cover as someone noted) but if it’s Gallet focused too then could get a banger of a new spider-grot. Maybe one in the throes of divine mutation from their spider-god like Soulbound depicts:

Nah, battleline changes too many things like battleline Magmadroths losing their behemoth placing so you can take more. So you’d need to meet the conditions and make them battleline on the field for them to count. As for bounty Hunter I think Fyreslayers can be in a good place since our battleline Magmadroths can take it(no longer behemoth and too big to be GV), our 2 wound & heavy warded doughty infantry can absorb a lot of hits and Rally back with Battlesmith while Hearthguard, Berzerkers & Doomseekers can go on the hunt themselves.

I think just cheaper Endless Spells. Seems that’s the only tweak 3.0 factions with tomes get right now. Looking like a nice way to quickly wipe any MSU dominion battalions with a magma invocation so our Bounty Hunter Hearthguards (and Lofnir Magmadroths?) can carve up the enemy to teach them not to contest Grimnir’s children in the underground if they want to stay out of the oven. 🔥

Tbf, we haven’t gotten the actual lore on that battalion yet. With them actually called “Headhunters” that target the strongest my guess is they’re supposed to be more tribal in nature and using venom weapons from the local giant insects & spiders since poison weapons in-game increase damage or cause mortal wounds like with the spidergrots. With how sacred those giant insects usually are to tribes that Spidergrots see the largest as gods it’s likely “only use on a strong victim” handwave like with the Bonesplitterz hunting the mightest beasts to absorb their power.(favorite bit there is those swimming after the 12-headed megalodon god-beast to try and kill it. What mad lads)

Yeah I call misinterpretation. Everyone saw “Infantry focus” and assumed hordes because that’s the older mindset of how GW liked it’s infantry(especially in 2.0) buuuut that article was pretty clear this is an elite infantry battle. “Veteran” infantry, pictures of only hulking big bois, Bonds of Battle benefitting mostly 32mm and bigger bases, lore talking about seasoned survivors. It’s kinda going along with 3.0’s heavier skirmish focus as a whole like the recent Skaven rules making self-heal units instead of overwhelming swarms like before. And now even Deadwalkers look better in MSU units for capturing points.(maybe that’s why zombies are the last real swarm unit we’ve had. Dead concept that’s just shuffling along 😛) I am looking forward to how wild this will be with multiple ways to ruin somebody’s force. Feels like in the growling tunnels of Gallet nobody is safe.

Huh, I wonder if they new tome will make Chosen battleline? Seems almost 100% with how Stormcasts have Paladin battleline now. Would make for the next best Chaos small elite army. Varanguard + Chosen with whatever extras you want to fit in and march out with your apocalypse demigods.

Yeah that’s a slippery slope from streamlined to horribly watered down I’d rather not have them mess with because that’d flip the table on the whole game and kill a lot of flavor which many other wargames already sacrifice for balance. Even as a Stormcast player who benefits from 2 row pile-ins I don’t think it’s worth making the entire game start from scratch to address a fundamental design(reach vs power). Just give a lot of the 32mm-60mm units 2” reach attacks on average if they lack a pole-arm option. Just one changed value that many wanted for their big bois, simple as.