And it’s here… ready to smash face and take names. But has it worked?

Games Workshop has released an article and the Battlescroll Update for Age of Sigmar at the end of this year.

Despite COVID there has been a lot of tournaments in the UK (probably due to the pent up demand) with many 64+ player events occuring and some even bigger ones available. The USA has also seen some big tournaments and hopefull Oz & NZ will be able to have a few in the new year.

First up, the document:

Games Workshop are good at art and presenting things with pretty pictures and the Battlescroll shows that this is not just for battletomes and core rulesbooks. Well done GW.

Generic Changes

Heroic Actions – Heroic Recovery

Well I didn’t see this one coming, but it is a welcome change to reduce the healing of some heroes… especially those on monsters. I’m not sure it helps a huge amount to stop shooting and magic casting heroes, but it does mean if you can pin Nagash in combat he loses at least one of his healing abilities! A good change

Unleash Hell

Hurrah… Unleash Hell is reduced. Not what I’d hoped, but reducing it to units within 6″ and models within 6″ does at least mean the positioning of chargers can impact this, and no more defend in ridiculous depth. Shooting is still good… but this takes the edge off a little bit.

Amulet of Destiny

It appears that the Amulet of Destinies sold throughout the mortal realms have had a software update and they now only stop wounds on a 6+. This is much better, and at least makes you think during army building. It does hurt the armies at the bottom of the Meta that relied on it, but hurting the Maw Krusha & Gargants is no bad thing – and I say that as a Destruction player. Another change I’m happy to see.

Alliance Changes

Each Alliance has a change to their God characters, with buffs for Alarielle and Morathi-Khaine (more spells), a change to Archaon & Nagash, a significant nerf to collation troops following the Maggotkin of Nurgle release… and one for me – improving Kragnos!

As a Destruction player I’ll review Kragnos changes below, but for the others they seem like small changes which mean that collation has been hit hard – including Cities of Sigmar – and Nagash can now be part of Nighthaunt – probably a good thing.

Kragnos New Warscroll

Those who follow me on Twitter know I tried to get Kragnos working with my Squigs at a one dayer… and then gave up as he ‘won’ the wooden spoon for me – including losing to the Hobby Room’s Ceri’s lovely Squigs on the way… oh dear! So does this help?

He’s lost the anti-dragon synergy – with little time to trigger it – but he does gain two abilities and a 6+ ward save. This gives just a little more – especially if you get lucky and spike the rolls – and is a welcome addition.

End of Empires is great for helping his Destruction Bros (and himself)! A 3D6″ charge within 18″ is a great bonus and I’ll be writing some lists with him in a Ironsunz or Gloomspite (Squig) army to see if I can make him work… and maybe bring him along to Element Games in January (then again, maybe not!!). Just remember he can’t use allegiance abilities.

Avatar of Destruction means he won’t be autokilled by Nagash, Archaon or other instant kill abilities – well overdue and good to see.

The other benefit is a Mightiest Makes Rightiest getting onto the warscroll… starts as counts as 30 – brilliant – and degrades… like the MegaGargants should… but don’t seem to yet.

Is he good enough for 720? Probably not with Archaon being 860, but he’s not as bad as he was and there are benefits to him now rather than thinking your pushing his rock up-hill.

Oh, and in Ogors with Frostlords… a 3D6″ doing mortals based on charge roll seems great – fortunately I have one on a shelf… hmmm…!

Points changes

There are also points changes for each army, but I’ll review them later partly because they are underwhelming and this article is a positive to GW – let’s have more of this type of thing please!

Does this change how you build your armies?

— Declan