Since belief and faith in objects and concepts is enough to mystically charge them in the mortal realms, and the Kharadron pointedly only believe in the Code, mostly spurning the worship of gods, I wonder how long it'll be until they accidentally make the Kharadron Code into a sort of divine entity? I believe the Idoneth do something along that line with their Isharann rituals and the Ethersea, who knows how long until the Kharadron can actually rules lawyer their reality lol
They even have an Um Actually ability:
Powergaming with Kharadron. I find this ability pretty neat because it expands the tactical flexibility of the Kharadron, allowing them to swap out a bunch of once per battle Footnotes once they expire or changing an Amendment once it's no longer useful.
It also further increases the number of Heroes you run in a Kharadron army, and they're swiftly hitting the 6 Hero cap at this point. Khemists are required for Spell in a Bottle, Navigators are way too good at boosting Airships, Admirals are just plain powerful, and Endrinmasters are important for Ship maintenance. Now the Codewright is coming in with gamechanging tactical abilities.
I really, really like the new design, especially the swollen throat sac. It really feels like the Salamander is holding a pouch of flammable liquid there.
Technically the design is roughly the same as the predecessor, but the technology of today adds a lot of details and flourish to the model:
I was mildly interested in that book. Not enough to get it, but it's supposedly an attempt at providing some nuance to the concept of falling into Chaos beyond "I want power" or something like that.
AoS is generally good about that. The Darkoath are specifically a group of people who fall to Chaos without knowing it, worshipping a proxy god who's really just a Chaos God in disguise, and it really lets the creative juices flowing by creating all sorts of bizarre and interesting groups like the Iron Golems or the Jade Obelisk. The Iron Golems are blacksmiths from Chamon whereas the Jade Obelisk are cultists from Ghur who slowly turn into Jade with time.
The funny thing is that they're represented in the tabletop like that. They're weak as hell, but they're also very cheap and have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to even the playing field. Very representative of how they survive in this hell world.
Also, in regards to the reveals, it looks fantastic. The Seraphon are being spoiled rotten. This is a brand new army at this point, at least model wise.
To be fair, Soulblight Gravelords and Ossiarch Bonereapers are getting one character each, and most armies released this year had the same treatment. Chaos and Seraphon hogged all the resources for model making. I suspect Cities of Sigmar is also another huge range. They have been teasing them since 3rd Edition first came out two years ago after all.
To be fair, Soulblight Gravelords and Ossiarch Bonereapers are getting one character each, and most armies released this year had the same treatment. Chaos and Seraphon hogged all the resources for model making. I suspect Cities of Sigmar is also another huge range. They have been teasing them since 3rd Edition first came out two years ago after all.
Absolutely, I think you're completely correct in that assessment. If the CoS range has as much effort put into it as the basic troops suggest they're in for a crazy year
I'm not surprised Death is only getting new Hero models, perfectly in line with the Battletome updates everyone else gets.
What actually bothers me is Vamps getting another Vrykos character when they already have like 4 of them and my boys OBR getting another Caster whose a slightly different Boneshaper instead of a foot Liege or something. It's just kinda redundant, you know?
"I see the bad moon a-risin'
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightnin'
I see bad times today
Don't go around tonight
Well it's bound to take your life
There's a bad loon on the rise"
- Mantra of Doomsayer Creedence, last survivor of the city of Clearwater's Revival
In the name of Da Bad Moon (with permission from Codex) this post has been commandeered by the Gloomspite Gitz! The quote above is a bit of a joke (The latest Gitz book by Andy Clark is called Bad Loon Rising!), but because GW is GW we've also been shown that those lyrics almost exactly match the signs of the Bad Moon approaching. Codex has already written a bit about the Moon before, so I'll focus more on the Gitz themselves. However, since it's so central to the faction I'll have to at least mention it as well.
Who are the Gloomspite Gitz?
Simple question, hard answer. The Gloomspite Gitz are a very eclectic bunch, more a loose alliance of convenience between grots, troggoths, squigs, and spiders rather than a faction proper. The unifying factor for all them is their appreciation of the Bad Moon, however their interpretation of what it actually is and its cosmic importance differs greatly. It is easy to disregard the Gitz, because they have some rather humorous aspects to their factions, but I would argue that they're a contender for biggest fridge horror element in AoS. If you want to see the utter horror they truly are for yourself from a human perspective, I'd recommend the novel Gloomspite. For those of you wanting to see things from the green side, do read Bad Loon Rising, its got more than enough secret horror parts, but it also makes the Grots into characters you can root for!
Grots:
The Moonclan are the classic, black-robed grots commonly seen on the tabletop, and are usually lead by warlords called Loonbosses. They live in deep, dark and dank caves called Lurklairs, as they utterly loathe the sun, considering it a god of evil named Glareface Frazzlegit. So wet, slimy and filled with mushroom spore miasma are these Lurklairs that no one else, not even the Skaven Clans Pestilens, can stand them for long. Subsisting mostly on a diet of hallucinogenic mushrooms, the Moonclans are generally the most direct of the Gitz in their worship of the Bad Moon as an entity. A common belief is that the moon got its powers after Gorkamorka broke his tooth trying to bite it, and they believe that if they can just please the Bad Moon by entertaining it enough, it will one day bathe all the realms in its corrupting light. This light would then bring about the Moonclan paradise called the Everdank, where all the worlds become as nasty and dank as the very deepest and clammiest of Lurklairs.
The Spiderfang grots instead usually make their living in deep, dark forests overrun by countless spiders whose mind-altering venom they regularly consume. They're ruled by great Arachnarok spiders they worship as local gods, with Webspinner Shamans acting as their high priests and running day to day operations. Above the Arachnaroks is the Great Spider God, a Godbeast that was elevated after biting Gorkamorka's toe and inheriting some of his power. It controls the afterlife of all spiders in Shyish known as the Evercrawl, which has never been conquered by Nagash. To the Spiderfang, the Bad Moon is a huge egg that will one day break open and drown the realms in an infinite amount of spiders.
The Gitmobs live in the great plains and steppes of the realms, particularly in Hysh. Riding great Snarlfang wolves, they utilise their speed and cunning for lightning raids and ambushes rarely even give their victims the chance to raise defences before they are already gone. Unlike the Moonclans, the Gitmobs actually worship Glareface Frazzlegit, something that creates significant strife between the two groups. It has been said that the hatred between Gitmobs and Moonclans is only eclipsed by the hatred between grots and everything else in the realms, but after it was found out that Snarlfangs can herald the Bad Moons approach an uneasy truce has been established.
The Grotbag Scuttlers followed the Kharadron example and took to the skies during the Age of Chaos, usually in Kharadron vessels they got their hands on by murdering Kharadron. They don't really have much lore and no rules or models, but these enterprising grot sky pirates use inflated squigs instead of aether-endrins. They have even successfully managed to conquer the Ghurish Kharadron Sky Port Barak-Khazzar, which they have renamed Da Moon City. And yes, they are mentioned to be grafting unstable experimental Kharadron weapons to their squigs, which they sell lucratively as Moon City Klankasquigs.
Troggoths:
Dankhold Troggoths are the biggest troggoths around, near impervious to damage due to their incredible regeneration, resistant to magic from their realmstone-and-fungi diets, and too slow-thinking to get scared off by the pain from whatever hurt them in the first place. Generally content with sleeping for decades, every once in a while they'll wake up, feeling an intense urge to walk somewhere, and they will do it no matter what comes in their way.
Rockgut Troggoths are if anything even more resilient than Dankholds, owing to their rock-like and rock-hard hides, and powerful regeneration. They also have the curious ability to make rock flow like water in their hands, making them incredible tunnellers and wall breachers.
Fellwater Troggoth hides secrete a slimy ooze that is so foul-smelling it can even make Ironjaw Orruks heave, and their puke is corrosive enough to melt metal and flesh in an instant, and even Sigmarite armour isn't safe from it.
Troggoths don't have terribly complex lore, but one interesting theory about their origin is that they are ancient astronauts originally from the Bad Moon itself, who came to the Mortal Realms on a gigantic spaceship in ages past. Whatever the case, they do seem to have some sort of instinctive ability to predict the Bad Moons path, and some grot mages even believe that troggoths are its heralds, charting the paths it will take in the future.
Squigs:
Squigs are a type of walking, snarling, hungry fungus-beast. They're more animals than true members of the Gloomspite, but they're such iconic creatures and a big part of the roster that they deserve special consideration. Two legs, a round body, and a huge mouth with way too many teeth are the basic characteristics, but owing to their mushroom nature they can be adaptively bred ad infinitum, potentially filling roles from hunting dogs, to cavalry beasts, to hot-air balloons and many more. They can be anything from almost insect sized to approximately the size of an elephant, and rarely have any real loyalty to anything but their stomach.
Spiders:
Particularly related to to the Spiderfang Grots, the Gitz incorporate everything from tiny, extremely poisonous spiders, to large spiders they ride like horses, to enormous Arachnarok spiders big enough to build weapons platforms on. Most revered of all are the Skitterstrand Arachnaroks, demigod spiders with the power to create their own realmgates, anywhere and at any time. Yes, the battletome explicitly mentions that they'll on occasion open up these portals inside enemy fortifications, just because they can. Worshippers of the Spider God in Soulbound can actually call upon them as a miracle: "The creature appears through a temporary realmgate woven from soulwebbing and stolen life, visiting just long enough to snap at your target with monstrous fangs, before retreating to the Evercrawl".
So, having talked about the GG's constituents, how is their society actually structured? They have a Loonking, who's a named character after all, right? Well, Skragrott more or less just decided he was Loonking one day. To be fair, he strengthened his claim by conquering Skrappa Spill, a great fortress in the continent of Ayadah in Chamon and its surrounding territories so overwhelmingly that the Bad moon has permanently blessed it with its light, even when it zooms around the cosmos doing other Bad Moon business. This has mostly convinced a majority of grots that he's actually right, which is rather unusual for the Gitz.
The easy answer is that the Gitz don't have a terribly formal structure to most of their society and forces. The primary driver of social status is results. Any daring grot that takes initiative and manages to succeed at something, whether it be at raiding, killing a rival, leading an assault, or successfully predicting the Bad Moon, will soon find themselves with followers that recognize the opportunity there is in following them. These leaders are the Loonbosses, warlords of the Moonclans. Of course, their followers are there because their leader is a winner, and if that stops being the case for some reason many underlings will consider that they would look much better in the Boss's boots, and start sharpening their knives. The Loonbosses use many strategies to stay in power, from adopting titles like "Grand Underemperor", "Da Magnificent" or "The Overbounder", to stealing credit for every plan and opportunity that works out well, to simply employing copious amounts of pre-emptive violence on anyone they think might be a threat.
No chaotic mess lacking rules without an exception though, and the rule in this case are the so-called spell-flingers. The first ones important to talk about are Gobbapaloozas, the name for a type of motley gathering of petty shamans, wise-grots and loon-priests who seem to inexplicably show up as hangers on and advisors to any bossgrots with large enough followings. While they're all individual grots the Gobbapalooza unit on the tabletop is made up of five grots with specified roles, and the literature seems to support that this is strictly how they exist in-universe as well. For example, one of the roles is Brewgit, who cooks up mysterious potions. Another is the Boggle-Eyes, who uses their mutated eyes to hypnotize enemies, and a third is the Shroomancer, who uses strange magics to turn mushrooms alive. Why do these "brainboyz" organise into groups of five? Who teaches them their respective skills, or gives them their mutations? No one seems to know, and the grots themselves don't really question it because they just know that it's right proper for a Loonboss to have them.
Secondly, more important, are the shamans. These are the actual wizards, with the most common being the Madcap Shaman. These half-crazed, mushroom-gorging Moonclan maniacs approach to magic is to shake their magic sticks and shouting random things until they either unleash spells of terrible and devastating potency, or blow themselves up in a cloud of green spores. The second type is the Moonclans Fungoid Cave-Shaman. Much rarer, they are also on a whole different level because they are the mouthpieces of Mork, not only for the grots but for all of Destruction. Even Ironjaw Warbosses and Mega-Gargants will listen to Cave-Shamans, because the visions of the future they receive after consuming near-lethal amounts of toxic mushrooms are considered messages from the Great Green, the mythical dream-realm of Gorkamorka. These same mushrooms also push their magic into overdrive, becoming threats even to experienced combat mages of other factions. They are generally advisors and grand strategists to Loonbosses. The third type are the Webspinner Shamans of the Spiderfang. Like the Cave-Shamans they receive visions, though theirs come about as a result of their blood being more spider venom than blood, and thus they are not considered as important outside of the Spiderfang. Still, they're strong spellcasters, and as they are the general rulers of their tribes outside of direct Arachnarok action they're considered rather powerful all in all. The warlords of the Spiderfang are called Scuttlebosses, and in a reversal of how it is in the Moonclans they're usually lieutenants of the Webspinner Shamans.
What about the non-grots though? The squigs don't really have their own leaders, mostly being herded or ridden by grots, but the top grot responsible for them is called a Squigboss. Their knowledge of what magic mushroom creates which mystical effect is only overshadowed by the shamans, and thus they control their herds by feeding them just the right fungi at just the right time. For the spiders, Arachnaroks are usually in charge, plain and simple. Though they lack the vocal organs for regular speech, they possess a fierce, malevolent intelligence capable of coming up with cunning long term plans. Troggoths, being mostly antisocial creatures, will rarely gather in groups larger than three. That is of course unless there is a Dankhold Troggboss around. Creatures so ancient some whisper that there are Troggbosses that predate the Mortal Realms, their true power is a mysterious ability to compel any troggoth within possibly several hundred miles to join them in great migrations called Troggherds. These only grow and grow as more troggoths get picked up until they one day reach their unknowable goal point and disperse.
There's so a bit more stuff I feel I could talk about about the Gitz, but the post is starting to get pretty long. I'll do a few rapidfire fun facts, and then finish of with just a little bit of speculation from my side that's not been confirmed in canon.
Gloomspite Gitz and Kruleboyz despise eachother. The Gitz think that there should be a natural order of Orruks being bigger and stronger but significantly dumber than them, and they're quite upset that Kruleboyz are bigger, stronger, and (almost) as cunning. The Kruleboyz on the other hand think the Gitz are runty twerps who should accept their place under the Kruleboyz boots. That said, they can have uneasy truces as long as there are other more promising victims, like Dawnbringer Crusades, about.
Grots don't really seem to have the ability to Waaagh! themselves, being to small to be able to conjure up the proppa' fightiness. Instead, they use Loonstone, meteorite chunks of the Bad Moon itself, that can soak up ambient magic, and is particularly good at sucking up Waaagh!-energy. Once it is fully charged, they release it on their minions to create a pseudo-waaagh!, granting the grots much the same effects as the orruks get. Kruleboyz Waagh!-energy, which increases the cunning of those effected rather than their physical power, is particularly sought after.
Skragrott is the only grot to ever have had multiple consecutive successes in predicting when the Bad Moon will show up. This is thanks to his Fungal Asylum, a cavern-sized subrealm where he has imprioned an immense number of scryers, seers, and anyone else with any sort of ability to predict the future that he can possibly kidnap. Cursing them into horrific, tortured humanoid mushroom abominations, they spend their days incoherently babbling streams of nonsense mixed with prophetic insight. Recently, Skragrott has started incorporating stolen Azyrite divining orreries and Kharadron technology into them in order to create a machine that will be even more accurate at predicting the Bad Moon.
After the destruction of the Silver Tower in the Rusted Wastes of Chamon collapsed a significant chunk of the realmgate network there the Gitz have found themselves in control of a majority of the remaining gates, as those the were deep in the hidden cracks and caverns of Chamon fared somewhat better than more open ones.
Moonclans have a type of truffle dogs, called Snuffle Squigs, essentially squigs with huge noses, that they use to search for the rarest and most potent mushrooms around.
Grots are described as natural murderers, and are instinctively skilled at sneaking up on enemies and stabbing them in the back.
Grots, like orruks, seem to reproduce completely asexually. Leading theories for both grots and orruks are that dead ones break down into a fungal jelly from which proto-grots and proto-orruks spawn. Quickly hiding away in caverns and crevices, they start off feeding on insects and then work their way up to rats and larger creatures until they're large enough to re-emerge, getting picked up by whatever clan, band, or tribe finds them first. Most grots seem to go by he/him pronouns, although Soulbound has given us a quote example of a she/her Loonboss by the name of Wizzit Chiptoof. Being seemingly divested of biological sexes, I'd personally imagine that grot gender conceptualisation has room for just about any identity you'd wanna fit in. Or possibly the mushroom part of being some type of fungal creatures is in play, and in that case you could really go wild, because mushrooms irl are complex way beyond just about anything else you've ever looked up.
Loonstone lights up with a magical glow in the presence of someone who is thinking treacherous thoughts. However, as all grots constantly think treacherous thoughts they are constantly glowing, fuelling incredible paranoia in their owners, even when it's their own thoughts that make it glow.
The Bad Moon can corrupt Incarnates of the Realms, turning them from regular monsters made up of primordial energies of the realms into crazed, cackling monstrosities that lash out at everything around them.
The Godbeast Boingob, Father of Squigs, once decided to eat Hysh, because the light of the sun was hurting its eyes. This did not go very well, and its charred skull that can be found in the Orborean woods in Ghyran is today a sacred site to the Moonclans.
So, speculationt point! Whats the point of the Gloomspite Gitz? Do they actually do anything substantial, is there actually some grand goal or guiding purpose to them? Well, as mentioned, the various members of the faction have some idea that the Bad Moon will bring about some sort of paradise for them, if they can only please it. Doing things because you think God wants it is a pretty reasonable motivation I guess, but does this god have any say in the matter, any desires or gran plans it is working towards? I can't say for certain, and most in the realms would probably say that it is just a mad, eldritch entity careening hither and dither without goal. Based on some of the Gitz black library books I've got some thoughts, and I'll put them in a spoiler since they do spoil a fair bit.
Yes, I would say that it does. The clearest example would be in Bad Loon Rising, where the Bad Moon sends visions to the main character Zograt about where he needs to go, as well as blessing him with magical abilities. It is shown that the target he is sent after is the lair of a trapped godbeast who seems to be in conflict with or is seen to be a threat by the Bad Moon, due tohaving the ability to see the futureall potential futures, and how to change them and what result these changes would bring, to be exact, only held back by the Bad Moons apparent ability to disrupt its predictions. It seems that the events of the book where at least partially set up in advance by the Moon, in order to deal with a problem. Something similar, but to a lesser degree happens in the short story Bossgrot. While the Loonboss main character there doesn't get blessed, the Bad Moon seemingly shows up for just a brief moment, guiding the path of this singular grot towards a place and chain of events that culminate in the destruction of a sigmarite fortress where a cabal of wizards from the Collegiate Arcane were experimenting with a magical orrery, in an explosion so powerful it turned night into false day Admittedly, you can't parse if there is some great goal that the Bad Moon is working towards from these stories, but the fact that it will take the time to individually guide grots to serve its purposes to me speaks to that it doesn't just do everything at random. Perhaps it is simply responding to threats that would make it harder for it to rampage freely, but it still acts with purpose and intent in these cases. We'll porobably never know for sure, but it's fun to think about.
Most of the material for this post comes from the newly released battletome, with choice parts picked out of the novels Gloomspite and Bad Loon Rising, as well as the short story Bossgrot. I have also taken some information from the Age of Sigmar officially licensed roleplaying game, Soulbound, mostly from the supplement Champions of Destruction which lets you play as members of Grand Alliance Destruction. Hope you've enjoyed reading!
"Varl had been foolish enough to gaze at the strange, grinning moon overhead; Horkhos had hacked off the screaming man's head before he could be overtaken entirely by the pulsating, glowing fungal clusters sprouting from his distending jaw" - Excerpt from the battletome of a Khornate encounter with the Bad Moon.
Just being in the light of the moon is enough for mushrooms to sprout from your body, and the Gitz make no waste in weaponizing it to horrifying success 🤢
Well the ghost of Morrslieb, now named Lunaghast, hangs around in the Shyishian sky, so they could just go there if they wanna view it. More seriously, as the Bad Moon doesn't seem to have any connection to chaos or warpstone I believe that they don't have any real interests in it, outside of acknowledging it as a threat if it shows up. Fun fact, the Bad Moon and Lunaghast have occasionally fought, with the Bad Moon having taken a bite out of Lunaghast, because the Bad Moon thinks the ghost moon is trying to muscle in on its territory
