The Gloomspite Gitz are overdue some love. There are some things that the army really needs both ruleswise and to improve or round out their model range. I trust Games Workshop with the rules side, as I don’t think there’s been a bad book yet for this edition of Age of Sigmar and many have also been quite interesting as well.
I love where the game is, and I have hopes that the Gloomspite, my Gloomspite, have a great book to look forward to. The reveal this morning contained a road map that suggests that we won’t have long to wait to see how justified this excitement is:
As an aside, and before I get on to just fanboying over the other Gloomspite reveals, what do we reckon the unrevealed books are? Let’s assume there won’t be a new army thrown in there at the moment, a la Votann. The two Chaos books in spring will, after the release of the Beastmen book in winter, likely be the Blades of Khorne and Hedonites of Slaanesh.
There are two Death books listed. Grand Alliance: Death is the most neglected of the factions in this edition, so there has only been one Death book released so far. This leaves a trio of possible armies to receive a new book. Namely, these are the Ossiarch Bonereapers, the Flesh-Eater Courts, and the Soulblight Gravelords. If we’re going to speculate based on the need for a new book, then these two books should really be for the Flesh-Eaters and Bonereapers. That doesn’t mean much though, what with the Sons of Behemat getting their new book before the Gitz and Lumineth having had 3 books since their relatively recent release.
For the order books, they are in the same position as the Death factions with 3 armies in need of an update, but only 2 books currently scheduled. The Kharadron Overlords and Seraphon are, to me, the likeliest candidates. It’s not often that I look to a new book with the hope that the army is toned down a bit, but the dominance of Seraphon needs to be at least somewhat tempered. I do think it will be these two armies as the remaining, third army from Order that is awaiting an update are the Cities of Sigmar. These appear to be set to be replaced by the Dawnbringer Crusades and I get the impression that these are a bit farther off. I could be wrong. I usually am.
Back to the Gitz!
I know it’s such a minor niggle, but this is the oldest book in AoS at the moment. Surely a little art refresh for the cover would have been nice. I dunno, I just don’t appreciate the perceived lack of care or effort that this represents. I’d say it doesn’t fill me with confidence about the attitude of Games Workshop towards the army, but the other books with lazy duplicate covers have still been good. As I said, it’s a minor complaint.
I hope we see a fundamental change in how the army’s core rules work. I don’t have a huge amount more to say until we start getting some proper previews, because there’s just not much to go on yet.
What we do have are some new miniatures in the form of some wolf riders:
Goblin Wolf Riders have long been a staple of the Orcs and Goblin range, but they’ve fallen away since the launch of Age of Sigmar. They’re no longer part of the Gitz army themselves. This isn’t really a surprise. Firstly, the old wolf sculpts were pretty chunky and really showed their age, and also the Gitz are largely made up of the old Night Goblin and Forest Goblin ranges, whereas these came from the Common Goblins. That said, we did get an update of sorts to the concept in the form of a Warhammer Underworlds warband, Rippa’s Snarlfangs. These became a popular addition to many a destruction army for a while, thanks largely to their cheap point cost and their decent mobility.
The new Wolf Riders follow the design cues of Rippa’s Snarlfangs, and that’s a good thing. Well, up to a point. I like the idea of the unit, and I’m likely going to pick them up, but I’m a little concerned about their visual style as part of the larger army. As a single unit, they are quite different in appearance to the Moonclan Grots, the Spider Riders, the Squig Herders and, of course, the Troggoths. There’s not an obvious, visually-appropriate part of the army for them. It’s possible that these are the first models in a new section of the army, of course. If they’re not, it would be a bit like if we have gotten jus a single Kruleboyz unit to place among your Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz; nice model, but out of context.
I’ll be grabbing some either way, of course.
In addition to the AoS-centric reveals, there was also a reveal of some pretty awesome Warhammer Underworlds miniatures:
Fantastic. These are gorgeous models. I hope these come out a lot sooner than the book because we’ve got an Underworlds event coming up soon at our local club and I really like the idea of using these chaps for it. I also love the theme, of these Grots ith delusions of grandeur and nobility. They’ll fit in well alongside Skragrott and some Boingrot Bounders.
Suffice it to say, I’m pretty hyped. I’m also delighted that I feel pretty good about my own Gloomspite army at the moment, so I can hopefully really make the most of this new book when it arrives. Hype!
All of the previews are available on the Warhammer Community website:
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