It all begins with the Malign Portents Book and the Harbingers (sounds like a rock band). Let’s dive in and see what the book has to offer and look at the stats on the new harbingers.
Malign Portents is here, and the campaign is kicking off with a bang!
First, the book itself is awesome. The artwork and pictures of the models are all high quality keeping pace with the high standards of GW. I am going to quickly go over the lore, but not in high detail so there won’t be many spoilers. The best part is that there is a new bad guy that even the Chaos Gods fear right now: Nagash. He always seemed like a minor God that was generally ignored by the bigger players until now. Basically, he took the sneaky approach (which seems unlike him) and used time to his advantage to build up his power. Now he is close to finishing it, and the signs, the Malign Portents, are all appearing to warn the other powers of the mortal realms.
There are small snippets from Sigmar and all the Chaos Gods, even Slannash and the Great Horned One, on how they first found out and why they fear Nagash. Then it goes into the mustering of forces and the march on the Realm of Death. Next, it dedicated an entire page to each of the 4 harbingers and their backstory. Each harbinger has a different style and way about getting their faction into the fight, but the end goals are all the same. The book then dives into the setting of Shyish itself (no maps though), with the history, realm (or gravestone) and how Nagash has been building up power within the realm. Finally, the lore goes onto describe various events happening during the time of tribulations throughout the realms, which really helps flesh out the setting. The lore within really does give you the sense that this battle is taking place not only in Shyish but across all the realms.
The book covers rules for playing within the Realm of Shyish and uses portents tables which adds some unique flavor to your AOS games. By fighting within Shyish, all Wizards know a Pale of Doom spell, and all generals can use either Honor the Dead or Soul-Force Sacrifice as a command ability. Then there is a table where you can roll a D6 and your battlefield takes on a unique feature that adds a twist to the battleplan. By fighting within Shyish, you take on the power of Death as well, which is a table that comes into effect whenever a unit is destroyed. You roll a D6 and add the number of units (friend and foe) that were killed in the previous turn and consult a table. Then we have the meat of the special rules and tables: the Prophecy Points. You generate Prophecy Points every battle round based on if the battle is fought in Shyish, if you have a wizard or priest, if you have a Harbinger, and finally if you are garrisoned in the Warscyer Citadel. Then you get one of six “signs” that you can use to spend your prophecy points on to do various things. A lot of these effects are immediate rather than needing to be done in the hero phase either
- Falling Star: A more defensive list of cheaper abilities and buffs friendly troops
- Bloodied Skull: Aggressive and regenerative abilities very expensive though
- Black Void: Mostly consists of cheaper debuffs with some aggressive abilities
- Balemoon: Some aggressive abilities but most mess with movement phase
- Writhing Serpent: Mix of buffs and debuffs that focuses more on hero models
- Red Mist: Lots of mortal wound abilities, with a couple of debuffs
The skirmish rules for using harbingers and playing it out within the Realm of Shyish, along with a unique scenario, are also included. Finally, the book gives us three narrative battles and two pitched battle narratives for use in matched play.
The Harbingers:
Lord Ordinator (Order) 100 points: Move 5, Save 4+, 9 Bravery, 5 Wounds. Has a melee attack with range 1″, five attacks, hitting on a 4+, wounding on a 3+, for one damage. if you roll two sixes in the hit roll, he deals D3 additional mortal wounds. He has an ability to let Order war machines within six inches reroll hit rolls of one and a command ability that lets a friendly war machine fire twice in the shooting phase.
- Bonus Prophecy Table Heavens: Mix of aggression and army buffing
Fungoid Shaman (Destruction) 80 points: Move 5, 6+ Save, 4 Bravery, 4 Wounds. Two different melee attacks. The first is a sickle melee weapon with range 1, 3 attacks, hitting and wounding on a 4+, with -1 rend for one damage. The other weapon is a squig’s teef melee weapon with range 1″, 2 attacks, hitting and wounding on a 4+, for one damage. Once per battle he can eat a mushroom which allows him to reroll failed casting and unbinding rolls and cast an additional spell at the cost of not being able to use his sickle attack. He has a 5+ save against all unsaved wounds and mortal wounds and you subtract 1 from hit rolls that target this model. He is a wizard and can cast 1 spell with his unique spell going off on a seven and targets all enemy units within D6 inches of him, they suffer D3 mortal wounds. Finally, his command ability allows one Grot or Orruk unit to charge in the following charge phase even if it ran or retreated.
- Bonus Prophecy Table Gorkamorka: All army buffs
Darkoath Warqueen (Chaos) 80 points: Move 6, Save 5+, Bravery 8, Wounds 5. Has melee attack with range 1″, 4 attacks, hitting and wounding on a 3+, with -1 rend for one damage (2 damage if targeting hero or monster and when she kills a hero or monster she gets an additional attack permanently). Every time she takes an unsaved wound or mortal wound on a 6+ she ignores it and it bounces back to the model that dealt the wound. Finally, her command ability lets slaves to darkness units reroll failed charge rolls within 12″ of her.
- Bonus Prophecy Table Dark Gods: Mix of aggression and army buffing
Knight of Shrouds (Death) 120 points: Move 6 (fly), 4+ Save, 10 Bravery, 5 Wounds. Melee attack with range 1″, 4 attacks, 3+ to hit and wound, with -1 rend for two damage. He ignores both positive and negative when making save rolls and when he kills a hero model he heals one wound. His command ability lets him add 1 to hit rolls to a friendly Nighthaunt unit.
- Bonus Prophecy Table Necromancer: Army buffs, regeneration, and aggression
My final take on this book is that it is a fantastic way to add some variety to your games of Age of Sigmar, and I hope over time each realm gets its own book. I bought this book for our home campaign and we are going to follow along with the grand campaign rules as well and have been having a blast including the prophecy’s and realm abilities in our games. It really adds a nice narrative to the game without going overboard with rules and charts etc.
Since we are playing a home campaign, we are not able to report our results to GW. However, we are going to follow whatever rules and battle plans they show off for the week. On top of that, it is a nice way for GW to add a new bad guy to the mix and flesh out the army of the dead. While I was hoping for more new models in that faction (there is still time GW) it does bring them all together into a more cohesive force lore-wise. All in all, this will be a book we will probably use down the road even when the campaign is down to fight a battle or two in the Realm of Shyish.
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