Gargants & Shadowy Khainites Previewed For Age Of Sigmar
April 20, 2020 by brennon
Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of mortal men! A bunch of absolutely towering Gargants were shown off for Games Workshop's Warhammer: Age Of Sigmar this weekend as part of the next Destruction Battletome, Sons Of Behemat.
Each of the new Gargants that can be built stand a good head and shoulders above the Aleguzzler Gargant that you'll be familiar with from Warhammer Fantasy Battles and by extension, Age Of Sigmar. They are towering, living weapons and will be stomping across the battlefield.
The new collection of Gargants break down into the Gatebreaker, Warstomper and Kraken-eater which gives you an idea as to the environments they frequent and how they might fight on the battlefield. As with a lot of their massive kits, the details on these models are pretty fantastic. I love all of the little nods here and there to the wider Mortal Realms and the poor people who have ended up in their way.
These Gargants can be taken as part of a Sons Of Behemat army (so, all Gargants if you want!) but every faction in the Mortal Realms can draw on their aid. So, if you're force is missing something titanic and brutal then you'll soon have the option to pick up one of these kits.
As they mentioned as part of their preview, now you just need to work out how you're going to fit your chosen Gargant into your army. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of conversions we see for this collection and it could be a great army option for those that don't want to work on lots of tiny infantry models!
Stalk From The Shadows
As well as the big new Gargants for massive-scale engagements on the tabletop, the Games Workshop team also showed off a new warband for the smaller conflicts of Warcry. Here we have the murderous Khainite Shadowstalkers.
With a warband made up of assassins, shades, cutthroats and murderers, this sounds like a good set of models for those that want to make a warband of glass cannons. These spies and infiltrators for Morathi have skulked out of the Realm Of Shadow and now find themselves crossing the Realm Of Chaos in search of information for their Mistress.
This collection of models very much put me in mind of the Dark Elves from The Old World and Warhammer Fantasy Battles which is a nice touch. I love all the swirling cloaks, flowing hair and grim looks! It's very interesting to see the first entry into Warcry which steps away from the obvious path of Chaos and it opens up the door for more factions to get added into the mix too.
Having dedicated WarCry warbands for more of the factions would be very nice indeed and would also mean that you wouldn't have to pick up lots of different boxes in order to craft your warband for the game.
These are some very nice models indeed and I think Games Workshop continues to hit all the right notes when it comes to Warcry. It does still seem like the perfect place to jump into the Mortal Realms.
Light Of The Aelves
Sticking with Aelves but of a different style entirely we also had a peek at a new model for the Lumineth Realm-lords. Here is the Scinari Cathallar.
This character plays an important role in Lumineth society. She is able to draw on the emotions poured into the aetherquartz by the Aelves and fashion it into a weapon to be used on the battlefield. She is able to use the sorrow, despair and darkness of their race to punish foes and drive them to their knees.
It wouldn't be an army of Elves without something tragic to draw on in their backstory, would it? I do like the miniature, especially the work on crafting that veil. It is going to be interesting to see how people attempt to paint that or if they try something different with the scheme.
Plenty of previews both big and small for Warhammer: Age Of Sigmar this week!
"Plenty of previews both big and small for Warhammer: Age Of Sigmar this week!"
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Those giants are savage looking. I was always wary of models like them as I still struggle with large areas of skin when it comes to painting. Can never get the highlights to contrast properly. Not so keen on the Aelf model. I normally don’t mind ‘Foot on Rock’ but she looks like she’s about to slip down hers. Not a fan of the smoke(emotion fumes?) coming out of the chalice either. Billowing smoke has become a real feature of GW minis over the last couple of years and barring a few rare examples, it just looks too exaggerated and… Read more »
That’s my biggest concern about how these models look as well, the lack of flesh painting skills. Not a fan of savage looking giants. Would have been cool to see more civilized giants, in my opinion. More armoured would cooler….
Very odd that none of these giants scream Aos at all. In fact the say old world more then they say AoS.
I like the Realm Lords for the most part but everything about this new model goes past “goofy in a good/cool way” into “just goofy” to my taste. What’s up with that weird belt? The shadow magic effects on those new dark elfs also don’t really work for me, maybe with a different paint job.
I think they were going with a sort of “living shadow” thing for the Ulgu elves, like their cloaks aren’t really solid articles of clothing and are shadows they’ve coalesced into physical form. I could see then why they used purple, but I think black with some dark purple or blue highlights would work better to convey this idea. As for the Lumineth, something I’ve seen discussed on a lot of other boards is that they’re going for an Oriental look with their armor, hence all of the elaborate ornamentation. I’ve seen similar styles on the Skorne of Hordes for… Read more »
That’s definitely what they’re going for with the cloaks, I just don’t think it works very well.
I can understand the whining about the Lumineth, and I definitely sympathize, especially given how unapproachable something like that would be for a newbie or less-skilled painter. I’m glad to see that people are mostly on board with the giants, though. (An AoS release where 90% of the comments aren’t nitpicking and complaining?! This IS the apocalypse!!)I’ve never really been a fan of the giants, but I can’t deny that they look great, and will look even better in a battle scenario rampaging across the tabletop. (And for all those WHFB fans who love to complain about Stormcast on an… Read more »
The giants look great. But I don’t really fancy spending 300€ on a set of them… I think I’d rather invest in some Mierce monsters for that sort of money.
Finally, Super Giants!! These Will be Tons of Fun ☺️
Does GW have a rule book for a giant army would be great seeing one stomping across the table like something from Jack the giant slayer.
That’s what the upcoming Sons of Behemat release is going to be all about – running an entire army of giants.
Same you need to be a millionaire to make one.
Alas those Dark Elves are “spoiled” by the studio trying to be clever and push the boundaries of sculpting to a point where it’s just not working. If they had just done “normal” cloaks I think the reception would have been a lot better, we NEED wargaming minis from GW NOT mantlepiece ornaments 🙁
Well, I’ve opened the box of my Age of Sigmar starter set and looked at the sprues. Does that count as painting? :/
I love all of these releases!
It’s as if those 3 really big giants are just one single model with different heads and the same body + legs.
I would have wanted something a bit more unique … 🙁
They do look interesting.
The new Dark Elves for warcry look cool, but the ‘shadow’ / ‘spell’ / whatever effects aren’t exactly features that a beginner can make look good IMHO. Same thing applies to any fancy sculpted smoke and fire effects.