The Orruk Warclans & Stormcast Eternals Battletomes have been delayed, here’s the latest on the new AoS releases.
Games Workshop announced a delay coming to the battletome release buried in another post, which might have a connection to another recent delay…
In case you haven’t seen them yet, we’ve included the rules previews we have seen so far below as well as the announcement from Warhammer community about the delay.
GW unveiled a little insight into what to expect in the Battletomes, which they say will be the best yet. The Stormcast stuff covers some Battle Traits and actually a little of what we can expect from the new Dragon. Whereas the Orruk rules cover even more Kruleboyz rules and special traits.
If you want to see all the minis still waiting for releases, check out the links below:
Stormcast Eternals Battletome Rules
Let’s get into all the rules previews from Warhammer Community.
The Stormcast Eternals still descend from the skies on bolts of lightning, as they have done since the Realmgate Wars, but new rules give these inspiring warriors the power to rally the Cities of Sigmar forces to their cause. You can represent this in-game by deciding if your army is a Scions of the Storm force – the thunderbolt-riding warriors we all know and love – or a more defensive Stormkeep army.
1 in 4 is pretty nice if you want some cheaper units from The Cities of Sigmar, or to even throw in some more interesting units. Plus, adding to your Bravery is never a bad thing. Overall a pretty fun rule that is pretty fluffy as well.
Stormkeep armies excel at defending objectives. When enemy forces attempt to wrestle control of territory from Sigmar’s mightiest, you can use their momentum to punish them with vengeful fury.
This is a really nice rule, so not only is it near impossible for the enemy to take objectives in your zone on turns one and two, as long as you’re within 6″ of an objective, you have a high chance to do mortals.
Stormcast Eternal Heroes who command these armies are not to be trifled with either, bellowing out commands that rouse warriors to great acts of valour. One such order comes in the form of an old favourite, Staunch Defender, which is now all about dispensing justice to those who dare to try to challenge Sigmar’s might.
Nothing crazy, but helpful to do more Mortals.
Karazai, in particular, is a whirlwind of annihilation, becoming stronger as he takes down Heroes and Monsters.
Getting stuck in with Karazai is going to really grant you some cool bonuses, since we haven’t seen the datasheet yet, we’ll have to see how impactful these will be.
New Kruleboyz Rules
These loud-mouthed Kruleboyz are known to talk a big game, but they prefer to hang back and shoot rather than muck it across the battlefield. This rather lazy (in the eyes of other orruks) approach to warfare is quickly forgiven since they boast some of the finest weaponsmiths and dead-eye shots of all orruk-kind.
Nothing too game-changing but adding range and rerolling on turn one is always nice.
Alternatively, the Kruleboyz can field an army from the Skulbugz warclan. They may not be the best shots or the most vicious warriors, but they’re really, really gross – even other orruks think their obsession with creepy crawlies is strange.
If they are near some Monsters, they will be subtracting 1 to their hit rolls on a 4+ which is nice considering half the time they will be debuffed.
Ever the opportunists, Kruleboyz also employ an impressive selection of underhanded tactics to get an edge, called Dirty Tricks. Noisy Racket caught our attention, and it shows how prolonged terror tactics can fatigue even the strongest enemy.
We’ll have to see what all the Dirty Tricks do, but debuffing the enemy is never a bad thing.
The orruks now have an even better selection of mounts to bring to the table, and the battletome adds some hilarious – and effective – traits for your ride. Our favourite has to be this one, for obvious reasons.
It’s really fun that they only get the minus if they didn’t charge, meaning the stink takes a second to stick around.
WAAAGH!
You don’t have to give up all your subfaction’s battle traits, either – each of the three retains their best ability. A Big Waaagh! has access to a totally different set of abilities to represent the effect of such a massive buildup of power. As various conditions are met, like the presence of a Warchanter or getting the boyz stuck in, you accumulate Waaagh! points with which you get access to a range of dizzying buffs.
Who doesn’t love a good WAAAGH!? Similar to 40k Orks, it looks like you’ll get to trigger different parts throughout the game. This one is just insane, where for the rest of the game everything will get an extra attack, which is just a super good army-wide buff.
Now onto the sad news…
New Orruk Warclans & Stormcast Eternals Battletomes DELAYED
Coming through a sneaky Gryph-themed post, at the bottom GW confirmed a slight delay.
While we’d previously hoped you’d be poring over pages of gryph-based content in the new Stormcast Eternals battletome this month, not even Sigmar’s chosen are immune to the ongoing global disruption. Rest assured that the Stormcast Eternals and Orruk Warclans battletomes will both be available to pre-order in September.
Now, this seems like a sad but understandable delay due to supply chain issues and such during the pandemic, however, this delay seems to also coincide with the recent Warhammer AoS App delay as well!
This might be because they want the books to release with codes that can actually be used inside the AoS App, which won’t be out until later in September. It does make a little sense, but if the app delay is the reason, it’s just another reason why an on-time app release would have been nice. It was planned to release with Warhammer+ after all…
If you want to read more about the rocky start to Warhammer+, involving the launch of the new AoS App, you can here.
Either way it looks like September will be awash with all new rules, miniatures, and even an app for Age of Sigmar- three things that are always welcome regardless of any delays!
Stormcasts or Kruleboyz- which is it?
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About the Author: Andrew Schrank
Andrew Schrank
Job Title: Miniatures & Warhammer Hobby Staff Writer
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About Andrew Schrank: Over the past 15 years, Andrew has played all the games, including tabletop and video games, and immersed himself in the associated lore. Andrew joined the Spikey Bits team in 2018 and covers the Warhammer hobby and tournament scene, along with the latest in tabletop miniatures, each week.
Aspiring diplomat, Lord of Fluff, and Master of Ice Hammer, He loves Star Wars, Chaos Undivided, and Gundam. During his free time, he hunts Platinum trophies on PS5 and reads international news. On weekends, Andrew plays commander and cEDH games, often with unique strategies that push the limits.
He believes each day presents a new opportunity to grow and be challenged.
