Landy's Wishlist Wednesday
Hullo painting family! Hope everyone is having a safe and prosperous holiday season! Now that the fires are dying down, the Santa cookies have mysteriously disappeared, and the presents have been unwrapped, it’s time to enjoy the sweet sweet loot! Whether you got exactly what you wanted or there are still things on your list to get, there’s always a new release here or there that crop up around this time of year or end of year sales that pop up—so this week’s Wishlist has got you covered on one of the latest releases that has me giddy as a goat!
Truth be told, I haven’t had much hands-on experience with Age of Sigmar—I’ve seen a few large games played, I played a few games in a slow grow league in an attempt to get my mountain of Dwarves painted, and I’ve picked up a couple of boxes of models for various factions that caught my eye, but none have inspired me enough to go whole hog on playing the game. Part of it is because I miss the days of Warhammer Fantasy with the massed ranks of troops, huge monsters, and wizards slinging spells. Another aspect that seems to be missing from the current fluff for me is the lack of any sense of humor. After the world ended at the end of 8th edition and the start of Age of Sigmar in 2015, everything seemed to be consumed by a grim dark aesthetic. Some saw it as a welcome change from the Old World that often mirrored our own with tongue in cheek humor and parallels/parodies.
Some of my most memorable Warhammer Fantasy games were against goblin armies. One of my best friends bought, traded, wheeled and dealed for as many of the Battle For Skull Pass sets as he could to amass one of the largest gobbo armies I’d ever seen. Rank upon rank of Night Goblins made up the core of the army, and hordes of spider riders made up the cavalry sections that time and again consumed my war machine crews and flank units. And just when you thought it was safe to send your stout Dwarven Ironbreakers in for a charge, his units of goblins would unleash the hidden fanatics from among their ranks, addle their brains on mushrooms and unleash carnage on the charging unit before they even reached the goblins. But when that fanatic got turned around and plowed through his own unit it was just as hilarious and devastating! Speaking of fond memories, there was a time that a good portion of units fled off the table because of an errant fanatic and his spiked ball shenanigans—we quickly called the match and restarted the game anew!
It’s that unpredictability, mixed with wackiness and dirty tricks that seems to be lacking from the current age. Enter the Gloomspite Gitz. Now that goblins are gone (only in name), they’ve undergone a bit of an identity transformation. Games Workshop teased them Christmas day with a trailer for their leader, and today they unveiled some of the new minis. All I can say is wow!
The new fanatics look amazing—I was so fond of the metal minis, despite their tendency to have a small connection point to the base or have the chain break when they went to Finecast. Hopefully these guys won’t suffer from that, but something tells me the hard plastic will mean that pinning and securing the assembly won’t be too difficult. Even the Endless Spells are chock full of character and can probably pull double duty as terrain…(but won’t need to as you’ll soon see).
Skragrott is the new named character for the army, and I think between him and Snazzgar Stinkmullett, the range is off to a wacky and colourful start in the HQ department. And rather than leave the terrain to those crafty with foam and a wire cutter, GW even has plans for a terrain piece as well—talk about centerpiece! I can already envision an Armies on Parade board with one of these shrines with loads of gobbos pouring out from it.
And who could forget the Squigs? Those foul-tempered beasties are going to be back in a big way, with both new Squig Riders and Squig Herders. Back in the Old World they were as terrifying to see across the board as they were to field in play.
This release has stirred something in the dank moldy corners of my cave and got me champing at the toadstool to know more! It might sound trite or cliché to say, but I think this release is just the thing AoS needed to get me invested in the game again. In the words of Creedence Clear Water Revival:
“I see a bad moon a-rising, I see trouble on the way…”