Ready those celestial wings as we nose dive straight into this post. I share some incredible cinematic shots, clear background shots, the lore on Yndrasta as well as her rules and some paint recipes for her wings and armour.
Standing firm Yndrasta prepares to dispatch one of Khorne’s Champions with Thengaver and her Blade of the High Heavens.
Yndrasta is one of Sigmar’s mightiest Champions charged with the task of slaying Sigmar’s monstrous enemies. Born aloft on great feathered wings she’s an inspiring presence to the forces of Order. Armed with Thengaver and the Blade of the High Heavens she strikes down enemies many times her size.
Before being reforged by Sigmar’s very own hands Yndrasta was a Chieftain in the Realm of Ghur. Uniting many nations during the Age of Chaos she was able to hold back the tides of Chaos long enough for her people to escape to Azyr. Ultimately it was Khorne’s champion Doombreed where she met her match, in her dying moments she drove her spear in to the Daemon and prayed to Sigmar to destroy them both in a blast of lightning.
Yndrasta’s rules are really good. I love the fact she can fly 12” and has an 18” ranged weapon. Thengaver is 1 attack but hits and wounds on 2+ and does D6 damage with a -2 rend. Her melee weapon, Blade of the High Heavens, has 4 attacks, hits on 3s, wounds on 2s with -2 rend and 3 damage. The high damage definitely fits her monster hunter theme. She has 8 wounds, 3+ save and a 4+ ward save. What’s really going to help keep her alive against monstrous adversaries is the Prime Huntress rule which makes monsters add 10 wounds when consulting their damage table to see which profile stats to use really weakening their effectiveness.
AOS First Edition Vandus Hammerhand and the Third Edition model Yndrasta
Her Dazzling Radiance rule is awesome. During her Hero Phase, she can bring back a model with 3 or less wounds from the dead so long as the unit is wholly within 12” of her. So pairing her up with a fast moving unit like Prosecutors could be good. These units wholly within 12” also don’t have to take battleshock tests due to her Hawk of the Celestial Skies rule.
Look at how great these recent Age of Sigmar models look. So good.
When it came to painting Yndrasta I thought I’d continue with my Primal Kings Stormhost. It’s not an easy colour scheme to paint but it’s really rewarding. White is part of my scheme so I knew I wanted her wings white. I painted them separate to the model pinned to corks in my Get a Grip painting handles. I undercoated the wings with Wraithbone Spray then used Contrast Apothecary White all over. Then I used Contrast Space Wolves Grey to line the recesses between the feathers. Finally I highlighted the feathers with Corax White. I feel it’s a natural off white look for the feathers.
The Angel and the Demon.
Now, it’s all about the base. Once the wings were done, before I glued them on I painted the base next. I actually used my Warcry Ruins tutorial to paint them. You can check them out below.
Then it was onto the main model. The Grey armour is Dawnstone basecoat, Basicanum Grey wash, repaint with Dawnstone and edge highlight with Celestra Grey. The yellow armour is first painted with Corax White, then basecoated with Yriel Yellow. Then it’s area highlighted with Flash Git Yellow. It’s area shaded with Contrast Iyanden Yellow and then lined with Gryph Hound Orange. Finally its edge highlighted with Wraithbone.
Chaos Warriors goad a Chimera into the path of the Annhilators but is thwarted by a lightning wreathed intervention by Yndrasta.
Thanks for taking the time to check my post out. Later this week I’ll be back with another showcase post featuring the Annihilators.
Another in person, real life, 2000 point game of 40k! This time matched play against James P (jp_wh40k on Instagram), who has beaten me with his Guard in the previousthreegames, but this time was taking Adeptus Custodes. I took the spicy new Adeptus Mechanicus, along with the Lady Helena, piloting the Valiant ‘The Defiant Flame’ – primarily to make up the points to 2k, but also to reduced the amount of new rules I’d have to remember. In fact I opted to go pretty admin light, with very few additional buffs and effects that go off in the command phase. I’m sure it’s far more competitive to take advantage of all these new rules, but this book is definitely one that I needed to ease myself into gently!
Anyway, we played the ‘new’ Overrun mission from the GT2021 pack. That’s long board edge deployment, six objectives, 3 in each player’s territory, scoring points for holding two, holding more than two, and holding more than your opponent.
My list featured a Ryza battalion and a Taranis superheavy auxilliary. I spent a CP on the obligatory Ion Bulwark warlord trait for the Valiant, and an extra CP to give both the Techpriest Dominus and Cybernetica Datasmith a melee weapon relic, for a bit of a laugh. For my secondary objectives I picked Engage on All Fronts and Raise the Banners High since I had a lot of fairly quick, fairly expendable units, and without a super great option for the third, the new and improved No Prisoners, which replaces Thin Their Ranks, and now gives one to the tally for each wound on non-vehicle/monster/character units killed.
Fast Attack: 5 Pteraxii Sterylizors, 3 Serberys Raiders
Heavy Support: 4 Kastelan Robots (each with heavy phosphor blaster, kastelan phosphor blaster, fist)
Lord of War: Knight Valiant (four missiles, one siegebreaker cannon, Ion Bulwark)
JP took a battalion of the Dread Host, and also spent some CP initially buffing his Captain, and then in deployment to teleport the dreadnoughts. His secondaries were also Engage on All Fronts, as well as Grind Them Down and the mission specific Overrun, which gave points for holding my objectives in his command phase, which was a pretty clear signal of intent. The list was roughly this:
HQ: Trajann Valoris, Shield Captain on bike (assorted upgrades to get 3+ invulnerable, 9 wounds and a 5+ feel no pain)
Fast Attack: 5 Venatari, 5 Vertus Praetors (hurricane bolters)
Deployment was pretty cagey from the Custodes, while the AdMech spread out across the line, Valiant in the middle to go whichever way as needed. Dreadnoughts and Venatari off the board, while my Pteraxii were also flapping around somewhere above (I know they don’t really flap – let me have this). The die was rolled, and Custodes went first. A cheeky pregame 3 inch backwards move from the Rangers put them out of charge range of the jetbikes on turn one, while the Raiders ran up into the central ruins. I had previously been mocking the 3 inch Ranger move as useless – apparently not!
Turn one for the ‘stodes, and they opted for pretty much a null turn, waiting me out and keeping the bikes behind the big rock. They got onto two objectives and took some token shots down at the (now very scary) Vanguard.
Ad Mech turn two was similarly uneventful. I moved up the robots on the left flank, Knight central and other units plonked on objectives, raising banners as they went. The Raider hoofed it up into JP’s half for a couple of Engage points, and the Datasmith started to change the disks on the Kastelans to the ones marked ‘super punchy death’. Some token shooting did not a lot, and the Valiant nuked a Custodian with a Shieldbreaker missile.
Turn two, 5 Primary for the Custodes. Venatari dropped in behind my lines, while some other units moved up. The Vertus Praetors continued to play it safe by zooming over to hide near the central objective. Shooting cleared most of the Vanguard, though hilariously didn’t hurt the Raiders.
They were however not long for this world, as the Custodian Guard and Shield Captain combined to make them go away, though they did make a bit of a meal out of it.
The Venatari made their charge into the dregs of the Vanguard and wiped them with ease, claiming an objective in my territory and removing a banner. This also put JP on two units killed for Grind Them Down.
In my turn two I scored 5 Primary, plus a couple for Banners, then lined up to kill a couple of units of Custodians. In my mind the now very punchy robots and Ruststalkers coming in from Circuitous Assassins would charge in and kill the Guardians, taking that objective, while the Valiant and newly arrived Pteraxii would kill most of the Venatari with shooting, then finish off one or two in melee. Let’s see how that worked out?
The robots managed to kill the Custodians to a man in shooting – a good result but now I had nothing to charge on the objective! But the other flank was surely doing better right?
Errrm. Not even one killed with shooting (the entire payload of the Valiant went into them ,as well as the Phosphor torches from the Pteraxii), and then I didn’t even manage to kill one in melee! To add insult (and more injury) to injury, the Venatari turned around and smashed the flappy boys out of the sky! This ensured Grind Them Down and some points for Overrun on turn 3.
Apparently annoyed at the continued incompetence of the Sterylizors, I goofed a bit and forgot to take any photos of JP’s turn three. Which is a shame because some significant stuff happened! He picked up a big 15 for Primary, and deployed the dreadnoughts to press the advantage. The spear one dropped in to charge the robots, while the shield one came up behind my Breachers to double team them with the Shield Captain.
In shooting the jetbikes killed off the Ruststalkers and the Venatari blasted ten wounds off the Valiant, before the Dreads both charged in (using a reroll charges for teleporting units strat) along with the Captain. The Breachers died horribly, and the spear dread smashed two of the robots to bits. However return fighting from the remaining two was pretty nasty, hitting on 2s and wounding on 2s thanks to the Conqueror Protocols and Ryza’s new trait, destroying the war machine. Even more surprising however, Lady Helena powered up, getting her steed to hit with 11 out of 12 titanic feet attacks! The Venatari were suddenly reduced to just one model!
Into my turn three and only holding one objective, I picked no primary points and only a measly one for banners. It was looking pretty ropey, until that last fight phase gave me a bit of breathing space. I moved the robots up to engage the bikers, reasoning if I charge them they’ll only be wounding me on 5s without rerolls. The Rangers and my characters looked at that unkillable Shield Captain (perhaps optimistically), while the Valiant left combat in order to split fire all over the place, then charge back in and finish off the lone Venatari, who was being a right pain!
The Robots did their job well, killing a bike in shooting and two more in melee. They did take a hilarious 60 shots in overwatch, losing a few wounds.
Valiant shooting was once again slightly underwhelming. Killed a Custodian with the flamer, missed with the missile into the Venatari, and the Dreadniought passed it’s invulnerable against the Thundercoil Harpoon (though it was reduced to 4 wounds by the meltas). Helena did managed to kill off the Venatari in melee, though it did cost me a CP reroll and a thunderstomp to do it!
Rangers shooting four times each with Galvanic Volley fire did a number on the Captain, but between them and shooting and melee from the Dominus and Datasmith, the Captain stuck around on four wounds remaining. He smashed down the Datasmith in response. In the end I was engaging on all of the fronts, but I hadn’t pushed the Custodes off enough objectives.
Turn four, another 15 Primary for the golden boys, but there wasn’t much killing to be had. Jetbikes zoomed away from combat to ensure some more engage points while giving me threats to deal with. Trajann and his Sagittarum friends safely held onto their objective and shot into the Kastelans, destroying the damaged one. Finally the Contemptor charged my warlord…
A mighty dual, resulting in a single wound taken each! That left the objective contested, so going into my turn four I was suddenly picking up 15 primary points! Back in the game, time for a big turn…
So the plan was to do enough damage to stop JP scoring any more Primary, then run onto the objectives at the end for another 15 myself, and see how the secondaries fall – at this stage they were very close between us! The last Kastelan went in to try and clear off the bikes, while the Rangers poured more double shot firepower into the Captain, to little effect, leaving it to the Technoarchaeologist to charge in! The robot did kill one biker, but left one holding the objective, thanks to Custodes obsec. The Archaeologist obviously failed to kill the unkillable Shield Captain, but he did somehow survive the return attacks to force him to stay locked up.
The big play however was the Valiant taking on the right flank on her own, finishing off the Dreadnought, murdering some Custodians in melee, and flaming three of the Sagittarum! For some reason, the ‘regular’ Custodians are only leadership 8, so JP promptly rolled a six, and the last one ran away, (or probably just slowly cooked to death inside his armour), leaving that objective unheld!
This meant the Custodes were only holding one objective, and didn’t get any Primary points! In their turn five they spread out and disengaged to get some Engage on All Fronts points, leaving me to go stand on objectives at the end of turn five, and finally shoot down that Shield Captain!
At the end of the game, the Ad Mech controlled the field, but would it be enough? We both totalled 35 Primary points. JP picked up 19 Secondary, but with 6 for the new No Prisoners, I snuck ahead with 24! Including the painting score, it ended 69-64 to me! (Nice!)
What an awesome game, and so close! Great performance from the Valiant and the Kastelan Robots, with decent support from the Rangers and the Dominus. For the ‘stodes, the men of the match had to be the Venatari, causing me a huge problem and earning JP a lot of points.
I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the new Ad Mech book, but I am now more excited to delve in further and start playing with some more of the crazy overlapping buffs on offer, as well as maybe getting some Crusade in and looking for some Archeotech Treasures!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the read, sorry for the missing turn three pics, and stay safe out there!
Dominion is the brand new launch set from Games Workshop pitting the fearless Stormcast Eternals in their new Thunderstrike armour against the hordes of Kruleboyz. Today I rip open the cellophane, plop the lid off and delve into the box and share with you sprue pics, warscrolls, size comparisons and more!
Couple of days ago I received this awesome box in the post from Games Workshop. I’m going to be honest with you guys. When I received Cursed City a few months ago I spent a week filming, photographing, editing and writing my review of the game only for the game to sell out before anyone had seen the review. I felt bad sharing my review because so many people were angry they didn’t get a chance to buy the set. So that’s had a profound affect on me and this “review”.
This launch set is limited and it has a 2 week preorder window starting on the 19th June. It will be available in stores on the 3rd July. With all this in mind, I’m reluctant to spend too much effort on videos, so instead, I thought I’d do a first look post where I share high-resolution images of the sprues, war scrolls, some rulebook pages, and some size comparisons.
I’ll be putting my efforts into painting the models and sharing those along with paint recipes and tutorials over the next coming months. But lets kick things off with this first look unboxing.
Unboxing Dominion
The Dominion box art follows the design style of the Indomitus launch box with a single figure illustration surrounded by a duotone background illustration. It’s pretty striking.
The first thing that greets you inside the box is full colour artwork of the battle scene on the front. This has a real Warhammer Fantasy Battle vibe if your ask me but that might just be because it has Orruks on it.
Sprues
Underneath the lightweight card protector sheet are the sprues. 11 plastic frames of various sizes make up the factions in the set.
In the picture above you have the Stormcast Sprues. My guess is the large sprue will be left out of future starter sets and sold separately at a later date. What’s super cool about these sprues are the options for helmeted and bare heads as well as separate push fit shields. Separate shields will make painting and customisation so much easier.
Looking at the Kruleboyz sprues these also get a single big sprue which you can imagine will also be left out of the inevitable starter sets to follow. I’ve also just noticed the Knight Incantor has snuck into the picture above. Sadly the Gutrippaz arms are joined to their shields.
Gaming material
Underneath the sprues is a second card protector.
Beneath the second card protector are the rules, instructions, Warscrolls and bases.
Here are the Stormcast Warscrolls in high-resolution detail. I really like the addition of the Pitched Battle Profiles and Allegiance abilities. Pretty cool to be able to add these to your armies and use them straight away without needing a Battle Tome.
The Kruleboyz also get their own Warscrolls and Pitched Battle Profiles.
The Start Here War at Amberstone Watch is purely background info on the location and units fighting. There isn’t any box specific missions or warscroll battalions. It’s a nice quick read and brings you up to speed on the lore of these new models. The rulebook has a unique cover only available in this set. Separate rule books will be available but will have different covers.
The new terrain that Warhammer Community recently shared is scattered throughout the book. My theory is the new terrain will be featured in the starter sets.
The Player’s Code makes it into the rules. It’s all common sense but because some people still can’t seem to function correctly it’s definitely warranted. Interesting nothing about using deodorant, that would have been my number one! Tell me in the comments what you’d add to the player’s code.
For all you competitive players here are the Matched Play Battle Packs. Warhammer Community have already shared this and it’s been leaked by some unscrupulous type that cares not for their NDA.
As well as Matched Play, Narrative Play and Open Play make a welcome return but this time both section feel very substantial. Narrative Play is a fully revised Path to Glory system where you can dominate territories, earn veteran abilities and more. Feels like big boy Warcry. Very coo.
I’m really excited for Open Play for the first time ever because it now includes Points Values! So using Core Battalions (basic Battalions available to everyone) I can structure an army of Slaves to Darkness and Daemon battalions fighting side by side and not be hampered by mini unit choices or allies points limits.
Here’s all the info and background on the new terrain pieces. It’s pretty interesting.
Without fail, every boxed game I get early I get asked how many and what size bases are included in the set. Keen hobbyists like to get a head start on their sets by getting all the bases done before they get their hands on the models. So using the above picture you guys can work it.
Here’s the back of the box. Nowhere throughout the set does it mention paint recipes or painting tutorials. Usually on the back of the instruction booklet there are the list of paints but not this time.
Models & Size Comparisons
Here are the first models I’ve assembled from the set. They’re all easy to assemble push-fits. Check out this top tip about assembling push-fits to avoid the unsightly gaps.
Here’s a comparison shot of the new models against their older counterparts and a human sized fighter. Slightly taller, not too bad though. Not Primaris Space Marine levels of scale creep.
The Kruleboyz size comparision is interesting. I would say the Hobgrot is spot on, taller than a Grot but smaller than a man. The Gutrippa is just taller than the man which is right but when stood next to an Orruk boy or Ironjaw he’s easily a head taller. This might make them look a tad out of place when adding them to an existing army. I got to admit I prefer the new Orruk physiology to the old one. I know it’s not a replacement but it sure does make the old stuff look dated.
Conclusion
Well this is just a quick first look but I really like these launch sets. They’re fantastic value (price tbc) with brand new models with all the rules you need to play with the contents of the box. The lore is fresh and exciting and moving forward. None of the previous army books are invalidated. Another huge plus are how well the rules are laid out with numbered sections and designers notes. The only downside is why does Games Workshop keep insisting on making these limited? I get their production schedules are packed and Warhammer Stores only have a finite amount of space and can’t stock everything and the same goes for warehouse space but so far this year everything has been in pretty short supply that I really hope everyone who wants one is able to get one.
