BAM! We’ve got leaks, baby! Massive thanks to Rob for splashing these all over Twitter:
Rob hardly needs a shout-out from us, but he’s getting one anyway: thank you.
Today we’ll take you through the rules for each Hero and Regiment, and whether and where you might use them. It’s a mixed bag, and some are more interesting than others, so we’ll do our best to help you navigate through it. And as always: if we think they’re shit, we’ll say so.
Ready? Let’s go.
How they work
Each of them comes in two forms:
- The solo hero. These are not Unique, just a regular unit, so they can take Enhancements. They have the keywords for their own armies, and can be taken in their own armies; but the rules they offer have broad applications, so they can quite often be useful as normal allies. Bear that “normal ally” option in mind when you assess their usefulness to your armies.
- The package deal. Bundled into a (fairly large) package with a bunch of other units, they take up roughly one quarter of your army, and they cannot go in their own army. That’s a lot of points not getting your main Allegiance Ability, and in many cases these are units that would really rather be Reinforced. So they’ll need to do something decent to see play.
So for example, the Rabble-Rowza can go into a Gloomspite army as a normal unit, or be allied into Orruk Warclans as a normal ally; the Bottle-snatchaz Regiment can go into any other Destruction army but not Gloomspite.
Gloomspite Gits: Rabble-Rowza
By Peter Atkinson
Boy, does he make you work hard for it.
No sexy keywords like Wizard or Priest, but a solid enough platform of 5 wounds on a 4+ save and standard half-decent hero attacks. These Harbingers all have a common theme of some durability bonus, and in this case it’s a 4++ ward while more than 6″ from enemy units. This is particularly nice because it offers protection from spells and AOE mortals (like the Vexillor banner), rather than just shooting. Off to a good start.
The Rabble Rouser does two things beyond existing:
- Drops a little Squig hand grenade, popping D3 MWs into three separate units once per game in the shooting phase. The 12″ range gives you something to work with – I like it.
- Has a bizarrely restrictive run and charge ability that is way more difficult to use than it needs be. It only applies to Monsters – OK – but where it gets a bit hard is that you need to finish every move closer to this guy than you started it. That doesn’t include pile-ins, but it does include normal moves and (crucially) charges.
So you need to charge your Monster towards this guy, whereas the general idea with run and charge is to zip across the board, away from your own units and towards theirs. There’s also a completely unnecessary punishment for completing a charge within 3″ of him: if you do, the Harbinger cops D6 MWs because GW thinks shit rules for Destruction are “fun”. Yup, this one has been hit with the fun stick, just like the bad old days.
You can teleport this guy up the board, and there is no range limit on the Goad ability, so actual dream is to teleport your Harbinger into the backfield, and then every forward movement will automatically bring your Monster closer:
But that requires Hand of Gork coming off and getting past an Unbind. More importantly, it means wasting your Hand of Gork on this dipshit, and that’s already a lot to ask.
Failing that, generally you’d want to be moving diagonally:
Run diagonally “towards” him, he runs sideways away from you, charge diagonally “towards” him. Fucking around with placing your units out wide, just so that they can run diagonally back into the middle is likely to swallow up a lot of the benefit from the extra movement. So yes, it’s achievable, but no, it’s not good.
Which Monsters can it be used with?
The charged things applies to all friendly Monsters (it’s not Gloomspite keyword locked), so that brings quite a lot into scope. Let’s rattle off a few:
- Mangler Squigs: can already run and charge under the Bad Moon. Laughably bad with the army’s best Monster.
- Arachnarok Spiders: maybe fun with a tricked-out Shammy, built for damage, but you can do the same thing but better in every way with the Webspinner Shaman and his Warscroll spell. That’s a no from me dawg.
- Aleguzzler Gargants: I keep getting drawn back to these idiots, like a moth to a flame. They already charge on 3D6″ so the combo is actually kinda tempting. My head says NO, my balls say GO.
- Kragnos: Again the whole 3D6″ thing. Remember that you can’t just charge off into the sunset though, unless you can get the Harbinger in the backfield, so it’s usually going be to far worse than it sounds.
- Merc Mega Gargants: I’m a sucker for these big idiots, and I wrote a Patreon article about the charms of One Eyed Grunnock in particular. But I don’t think this makes them 100 points better than they already are.
- Incarnates: Krondspine can already run and charge while it’s Wild. Again, Krondspine is much better value without this tech than with it.
- Orruk Warclans: How about as an Ally? The Maw Krusha is already fast enough, the Mirebrute was screwed out of the Monster keyword and while the Croc could certainly use the speed boost, you don’t have a teleport and can’t spare 100 points.
What About Enhancements?
You can have a bit of fun kitting this guy out in a Gloomspite army. In terms of Command Traits, I’d say he’s a good Clammy Hand caddy:
In a Grot spam army, you’ll have the bodies to protect him from combat, and he can stand up to a ranged MW bombardment better than any alternative.
You can also pull off a neat combo with the Arcane Tome in any Gloomspite army:
This makes him a two-cast wizard who knows the whole spell Lore and is a Locus under the new Handbook. You probably want your Grots to do the fighting in that army:
And in Badsnatchers, you’ll get the reroll too. I’ll go deeper into Badsnatchers Grot spam lists when we see the full Handbook, but one thing you’ll definitely want in there is a Loonboss to dish out the MWs to your Grots.
And that’s the problem: anything you can do with Enhancements for the Rabble-Rowza, you can do with the Loonboss, except cheaper and with a great CA. I suspect one Loonboss will be more competitive than one Rabble-Rowza, and two Loonbosses (for redundancy) will be better than one of each. Still, with the 4++ ward to keep your CT on the board in the face of ranged MWs, and his own MW hand grenade, you wouldn’t be crazy to run one of each; and if you like the model, and want to put him on the table, that’s where I’d be looking.
The Verdict
When the insect people send their archaeologist caste to pick through the bones of our extinct civilization – in the same we look back on the dinosaurs that came before us – the single piece of evidence that will bring it all together is crypto mining. That’s what will make sense of the collapse of homo sapiens. The obscene resources that we as a species have poured into something entirely futile will make them pity us.
Rabble-Rowza is the crypto mining of AOS brain power. Right now, all over the world, us Destruction players are rubbing our two brain cells together and trying to produce a spark. The amount of mental energy being poured into how this could be actually be used on the tabletop is insane, so let me make it easy: it’s only good if you can get him onto the opposite backboard, and that will rarely be worth the investment of 100 points, a teleport and a 6″ run CA.
The mortal wound bomb is cool, but this guy will never see the table competitively because the run and charge thing is way harder to use than it should have been – and it proactively fucks you when you roll a big charge but can’t charge away from him. The amount of mental energy being wasted on him right now is matched only by the mental energy you’ll waste in-game on measuring little patterns on the tabletop, to try and make your diagonals works with enemy units cluttering up the space.
For 100 points I want more than some splash mortals once per game and a barely functional run and charge that sucks in more resources from your army. Give him Wizard or Priest and we can have another conversation but ultimately, he’s been fucked over for no reason with a shit rule that could have been good.
The Regiment on the other hand? Now that’s a different matter.
Braggit’s Bottle-snatchaz
Now you’re talking! This 500-point package brings around 570 points of models at time of writing. Most of them are quite efficient in their own right, although they can’t be taken in Gloomspite so you do lose a lot of functionality. No run and charge for the Squigs, no mortals wounds on their attacks because you won’t have a Squig Boss, no enhanced Rally, no summoning back units. A lot of the stuff that makes them tick is off the table.
What you get instead is:
- A two-cast Wizard in the Gobbapalooza that brings some useful Warscroll spells and a rend buff for the Squigs
- A couple of flexible Squig units that can screen or fight a bit
- An insane super-special Redeploy: when one unit in the Regiment redeploys, all the others (effectively) do too, as long as they start within 6″
- They can all start off the board and then come on a board edge at the start of your first Hero phase
Those two special rules are really juicy. Just think about what that Redeploy does: hitting a single 6 on a Redeploy can be game-defining. In this Regiment, you can reshuffle four different units to control space and charge lanes, and that’s four chances to scurry onto an Objective. That will win you games, straight up.
Starting off the board is money too: note that they do not have to come on the same board edge as each other, which is a mistake I’ve seen some people make on their initial read through. That would be really limiting, given their huge footprint, so it’s awesome that you’ve got that flexibility.
You only need a tiny little pocket to drop down your Rabble-Rowza and get the whole run-and-charge-up-the-board thing happening. Meanwhile your Gobbapalooza is down in time to get its whole Hero Phase, and your Squigs are on the table ready to screen and fight.
I’m pretty keen on this one for Sons of Behemat in particular:
- Screens. We have screens!
- The two-cast Wizard gives you access to Mystic Shield and two Unbinds. Or putting it differently, it frees up an artefact that would have gone on Arcane Tome, and frees up Heroic Actions that would have had to go on Willpower
- Sadly they do not appear to count as a Locus, because they are Unique, so you’ve still been fucked hard by this GHB and won’t get to play the full game with your $350 models
- You can cook up some fun combos with the existing run + charge and 3D6″ charge tech in the book, to get multiple Megas flying across the board at the speed of light
I’ll write up a proper Speed Gargants list with these guys in the near future as a Patreon article, so members should keep an eye out for that one.
The Verdict
Well now you’ve got my attention. Sons of Behemat feels like the natural home for these guys. 500 points is a lot, and you’ll really miss the GG tech; but the rules have enough going on to at least make them interesting, and give them a purpose. And I think that’s a pretty good space for a unit like this to sit. List writing hats on!
Fyreslayers
By Peter Atkinson and Pat Nevan
There are real experts on the Fyreslayers here at the Craichouse so there’s a fair chance we are way of the mark with this one. Still when has not knowing what you are on about stopped content creation. Here we go.
What it Does
This guy provides another foot hero choice with not one but two once a game abilities for an army that already has plenty of both. This guy is basically the equivalent of a TV Network starting another version of the Real Housewives of Wherever. Enthusiasts might be able to tell one lot from another, but for most of us, it’s just another bunch of vapid narcissists throwing shade at each other and talking about it to camera for half an hour.
Still, let’s take a look at our latest identical Orange Housewife. He has the basic Fyreslayer hero attacks, save and move with 6 wounds so not too shabby. He brings three special abilities to the party.
The wee man has a once-per-battle ability to roll dice equal to a unit’s Wounds characteristic, and each 4+ dishes out a MW. That’s obviously going to do fuck all to Clanrats, whereas a Mega-Gargant will be pretty sad about it. You use it instead of attacking so you can get the drop on a wounded monster and finish it off quite handily. It might also help you soften up a foot hero for the kill.
It also gives a unit of Footslayers run and charge once per game, which would be awesome if they didn’t have to start wholly within six inches of him. He also gets a 4 up ward if he is standing near units of 3 or more Fyreslayers, which is cool.
140 ponts is not cheap and Fyreslayer hero slots are pretty competitive. Is he doing enough to bump a Runefather? Maybe. A Battlesmith? A Priest? Hell No! If he has a place, it’s in one of those goofy Greyfyrd lists with all the Grimwraths. 10 Heroes running and charging in the same turn would be awesome.
The Regiment: Fjori’s Flamebearers
The Regiment bundles up 5 Auric (shooty Hearthguard) with 5 Bezerkers (fighty Hearthguard) and 10 Vulkites (the crap ones). That’s 570 points a la carte, so only a 30 points saving for the bundle. But their rules are dope.
- Units in the Regiment cannot be targeted by Monstrous Rampages. Decent.
- Enemy Monsters can’t contest Objectives while they are within 3″ of units from the Regiment.
It’s a bit of a shame that they missed out on the recent anti-monster trend of dissallowing rampages within 3 inches. The objective play is tight though.
If you were ever worried about Sons of Behemat becoming meta again, don’t be, because these guys being available to drop into about 40% of all lists puts a hard cap on how good they can possibly be.
The Verdict
These guys share the issues of all the Regiments of Renown. They cost a lot, and they won’t perform as well without their allegiance abilities. All is not lost however when it comes to Fjori’s lot. I’ve got two words for ya: Teams List.
Don’t worry about Sons, they’ve already been booted off top tables and left to rot. The Stonehorns on the other hand are out in force, and these guys are incredible against them. If you’re in a local meta where they’re owning you, here’s a package you can drop right into your army.
Monsters aren’t doing a massive amount of business at the moment but they always come back sooner or later. This is one to keep in your mental bag of tricks.
Nurgle: Harbinger of Decay
By Pat Nevan
So the leaks dropped this morning, Editor Pete decides to push out the clickbait article. I put my hand up for Nurgle and by midday the same day Pete has completed a mini thesis complete with diagrams while he is technically at work. I guess society is lucky Pete isn’t an air traffic controller, or we would have a bunch of mid-air collisions whenever new Destro stuff dropped. Anyways, here goes.
Well damn, an actual Priest for Papa Nurgle, keyword and all. No one saw that coming and it’s a pretty big deal, Whatever the merits of the actual unit, adding Divine Mojo to an allegiance is big news in it’s own right. Will Nurgle get more Priests and a prayer lore in it’s next Battletome? Fingers crossed. For now the new guy opens up a lot of possibilities.
Unlike the other Harbingers, the Harbinger of Decay replaces an existing warscroll. Presumably because we already had a cool Harbinger name and, as I’ve pointed out before, the model is a classic that was well worth updating.
At 190 points he comes in at 50 points more than the old scroll so what do you get? First up he gained 2 inches of movement zipping around the table at 8 inches. Painfully slow for mounted units in most armies but good for Nugle, he can keep up with the flies. He has standard Nurgle combat hero toughness: 7 wounds, 3 up save. Should have got an extra wound with his improved base size, but he is tough enough for the front line, and he is going to need to get stuck in to use his abilities.
Combat wise he is interesting. If you take the Doombell he is pretty crap, you squeeze a few points of damage out of him. With the Scythe he runs closer to 5 points of damage and the flat 3 damage gives him a chance to spike when you start factoring in AOA and finest hours. The horse retains its surprisingly active 4 attacks which are good for running up disease and fulfilling prophecies about mounts doing more damage than riders.
Ability wise the Harbinger retains the Shudderblight ability, switching off command phase abilities on a unit within 3 inches at the start of the combat phase on a 3 plus. It’s good, but it wasn’t good enough to put the Harbinger in Nurgle lists this edition. In a lot of lists, this guy will be switching off command abilities anyway with Overpowering Stench, but another option can’t hurt.
The Toll of the Doom Bell singes my ass hairs. Does somebody at GW get a cash bonus every time they put a once a game ability on a warscroll? Well they’ve been cleaning up lately. It’s not a bad ability, but it needed to be board wide at once a game or a permanent aura at 14 inches. Knocking one inch off your opponent’s move once when they’re already 14 inches away is a solid meh. They’re already on top of you, and most armies will move in and close in a turn from outside range anyway.
It would be more useful if you could use it in any hero phase or at the end of your movement phase. Shaving one inch from a charge can save your bacon, but this is trash. Keep the Bell handy if you build the Scythe. I have a feeling that it will be the superior build option next time they redo the warscroll
As for the Prayer, well it’s pretty situational. The number of the battleround as a penalty to leadership to a unit within 14 inches. Hats off to the designers for incorporating Nurgley feels into the rules as this one really does get worse as the battle wears on. Off the top of my head, Nurgle doesn’t really have much to combo with a leadership debuff beyond switching off command abilities and battleshocking people the old fashioned way. In Nurgle lists this guy is probably a Curse platform and judgement dispeller, which is just dandy.
Loadout
I’m tempted to go Full Pete here and analyze a range of options, but there isn’t much point in a Nurgle army. If he’s a General he is getting Overpowering Stench, still the best command trait in the game. With his speed he is a viable alternative to the fly boss for this job. Artefact wise, it’s Splithorn Helm or Shield of Growths, both of which toughen him up for combat. You can try other stuff but it’s always going to be a weaker option.
The Verdict
It’s a thumbs up from me. A kickass model, a Priest and an option for a mortal general that isn’t a fly or wandering around at dwarf pace buffing units that aren’t worth their price. He costs way too much but so do all Nurgle Heroes. And units. You might still be better off with an allied Plague Priest, particularly if you are running Censor Bearers.
He would be an excellent Chaos ally if his points were a bit more kind. As it is, he costs 5 points more than the very useful Chaos Warshrine. If all you need is a Priest, who you gonna call?
Still, if you have some dastardly masterplan that relies on low leadership, this Harbinger throws out a debuff like no other.
The Regiment: Phlugoth’s Shudderhood
For 590 points you get 2 Flies, 5 Blightkings and the new Harbinger, all at a whopping 100 point discount. The regiment abilities are decent. The troops get a nice slice of Papa Nurgles abilities: a 5 up ward, one point of healing a round and -1 to hit from missile weapons. Looks like a good deal.
It’s a resounding meh from me. The problem with all these new regiments is that you are cutting out a quarter of your army’s points for troops that don’t get their allegiance abilities or yours. They won’t perform as well as they do in their own allegiance, and most armies won’t do as well with a quarter of their points missing out on their own stuff.
They won’t generate Depravity or benefit from it, they can’t use Blood Tithe, they can’t buff anything outside their regiment and their points are better spent on your own stuff. Nurgle Flies are good when you have 8 of them clogging up the board backed by disease, the wheel and a Lord of Afflictions. Two of them, even with a ward, won’t accomplish much. Blightkings will achieve even less. You will get better results out of the Harbinger with a ward, but eh.
Maybe as a Priest ally in Tzeentch, they seem to be able to abandon a big chunk of their points without affecting their core business. Given the accuracy of my guesses on the strength of the Khorne book, my predictions’ aren’t up to much but I don’t see this regiment being much use as anything but a bargain purchase for people starting a Nurgle army.
FEC: Marrowscroll Herald
By Calvin Rarie
Once upon a time, in the years leading into the Third Punic War between Carthage and Rome, the statesman Cato the Elder would end each of his speeches with “Carthago Delenda Est“, which translates to “Carthage must be destroyed.” He did this for years, right up until the Romans did Roman things and destroyed Carthage. I bring this up because from now on, I’m going to demand the release of the FEC book at the end of my articles until we get it–and yes I will absolutely get my Latin wrong.
Speaking of heralding bad things to come, the long, long winter of FEC continues–which is appropriate since we’re moving out of Gallet and into Andtor next where Galletian Champions and Galletian Veterans are no longer going to be a thing, presumably. Since we’re going back to 1″ reach on our Knights, and no new book on the horizon, GW’s got to be throwing us a proverbial (literal?) bone with the Marrowscroll Herald, right?
Right?
What the hell is this.
Before I jump straight into criticisms here, I do want to point out a big positive here for the Marrowscroll Herald that is going a bit un-heralded in discussions I’ve seen online, which has to do with Don’t Shoot the Messenger. Basically, while the Herald’s wholly within 6″ of 5 or more friendly FEC models, he is just straight up invisible. Not even to just shooting attacks, just not visible whatsoever! With the Galletian Champion rules going away, this leaves the Herald as one of the few foot heroes in the game that can’t be targeted, and with how powerful FEC’s Muster abilities are, as long as he has an escort you can reliably keep him safe.
Now that being said, I have a theory regarding GW and how they write rules, in that without even reading them you can tell a rule’s quality based on how many paragraphs it has. One paragraph? Probably really good. Two paragraphs? Usually pretty good to mediocre. Three paragraphs? Absolute garbage.
And guess what! The King’s Entreaty is absolute garbage. Like, an open dumpster behind the used baby diaper factory in summer kind of garbage. It’s so much text for so little reward that I’m going to summarize it below:
- You have to charge with the Marrowscroll Herald into an enemy unit or have been charged–a unit that only moves 6″ and has no access to run and charge or charge bonuses outside of Hollowmourne, mind you;
- At the end of the charge phase, you pick one enemy unit within 3″ and offer it a bone, and the unit’s owner has to either accept or decline your tasty bone:
- If they refuse, FEC units within 3″ of the Herald get Strike-First, or;
- If they accept, then for the rest of the battle before that unit issues/receives a command, casts a spell, or prays you get to roll 2d6 and if you roll higher than that unit’s bravery they can’t do those things.
And that’s a summary of it! That’s a whole lot of text just to say “This is never going to happen“. FEC’s heroes are recursion tools, and outside of the Varghulf Courtier you almost never want them in combat because it is a very easy way to get them killed. At best, you’ll want the herald walking behind a blob of Royal Beastflayers or Ghouls or something, hugging tight to them so he can’t be shot to death (undeath?) so he can muster the troops back. Can’t do that if he gets into combat and just dies immediately!
The Verdict:
I’ll be honest here, I don’t see a reason ever to run him, which is a shame because his model is so cool! With bravery at an all-time high, the likelihood of his ability mattering EVER is dismal. For the low, low cost of 115 points you too can watch in dismay as your Marrowscroll Herald offers a bone to a unit of Squig Herd who can’t receive commands anyways anyway, who immediately eat him. Just take a Varghulf Courtier, you’ll be much happier.
The Regiment: Jerrion’s Delegation
For 460 points (which is a 105 point discount), you get:
- The Marrowscroll Herald
- 20x Crypt Ghouls
- 3x Crypt Flayers
- 3x Crypt Horrors
Admittedly, that’s quite a few bodies you get there. In fact, without the Marrowscroll Herald, the troops involved come out to 450 points by themselves. That’s not bad value per se, but without the muster abilities (which the Marrowscroll just doesn’t have for some reason) or Feeding Frenzy you’re dumping a lot of points on units that wilt under the slightest amount of pressure.
But the regiment’s got to give cool abilities to make up for the lack of offensive and defensive stats, right?
Well, sort of: the regiment gets run and charge and their 6+ ward. Hooray I suppose, now I can charge my Herald into combat so he gets one shot at offering a bone before he dies.
I just don’t see anyone taking these guys, not while the much, much, much better Deadwalkers Regiment exists for significantly less and with a much better ability.
“Flesh Eaters Courts expeditus est.”
Credit for the cover image to Games Workshop
If you’d like to help us continue with our work, we’d love to have your support. We’re the Age of Sigmar specialists, publishing regular AOS articles, including Patron-only posts on that platform. Please click here to join us on Patreon.
Plastic Craic 
3 thoughts on “Harbinger Leaks and Analysis”