BAM! When an avalanche of new rules hits the game like this, you feel like an artist given a new primary colour to work with. Some of them have strong competitive rules, others don’t, but when you get handed this pdf you can see that it’s teeming with opportunity.

In case you hadn’t heard, GW have unleashed a barrage of new RORs into the game. They’ve crafted some really interesting background lore, a lot of them present great hobby opportunities and there are one or two that you might put into a tournament list.

And look – I’m as competitive as the next man¹, but taken on its own terms, there’s a lot of joie de vivre here. Not everything has to be cutting-edge competitive but these Regiments (almost) all have at least got a reason why you might put them in your army.

A quick note on RORs

I’m going to assume you know the fundamentals about how they work by now – you put ’em in your army and they take up their own Regiment slot². What’s new here is that a lot of these RORs are cross-Grand Alliance. They all come with their own little matrix of who can use what, and despite a few odd outliers, there’s a lot of thematic touches that add to the whole thing. I really like it.

The fundamental tension with taking any ROR is that you’re pouring a chunk of points into units that don’t get your army’s battle traits (or their own). But while they rarely have direct keyword synergy, they can often fill a gap or complement your win condition.

Beyond that, a lot of them are good hobby opportunities or just a fun way to freshen things up. So we’ll be considering all of the above today: would I play it at a tourney, would I play it for a local gaming day, does it make me keen to crack out the hobby saw and putty? Let’s explore what the latest batch can offer.

First Question: Do Kruleboyz Finally Get Access to Cavalry?

LOL no.

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Enforcers of the Tithe (OBR) – 510 points

What it does

The Harvester already builds up bone-tithe points from his Warscroll, and this ROR allows you to turbocharge the collection rate. Once you hit 6 points you can summon back a unit from this ROR at half-strength (rounding up); so that’s 5 Mortek Guard or, hilariously, one full Mortisan Ossifector.

The latter comes with a handy +1 to hit and wound spell, so keeping access to that is welcome, but you can only cast it on your fellow ROR units. He does have a bit of baked-in warscroll synergy to make the Harvester bang harder too.

Is it cool? Is it good?

Eh not really. It’s not awful, but Mortek Guard without any allegiance abilities are extremely mid. You’re welcome to disagree but I just don’t see myself pouring fully one quarter of my points into this one.

Exile Scavengers (KO) – 460 points

What it does

It’s a scalpel! And a pretty bloody good one. Even if you’re setting up the Gunhauler 9″ away, the other fellas jump out at 6″, so they’re on a close charge. They’re also flying units on small bases, so there’s a good chance you can jump a screen and chop down something important.

What’s more, you’re popping up within 12″ so you can direct your Dakka into a hero. The artefact-stealing thing is too situational to really factor in but you will occasionally steal a defensive artefact at the start of combat, and it’ll be a great story when you do.

Is it cool? Is it good?

Yes to both! I actually started work on a converted Grot Sky Pirates army years ago, using a lot of these units as the basis – time to resurrect the project.

Any army that wants a bit of poke could make good use of this ROR and it’s one I’ll be taking out for a spin. In strictly competitive terms I might prefer Big Grikk and 120 points change, allowing for just that little bit more in your core army, but it’s certainly very playable. Tick.

Goroan Scions (S2D) – 470 points

What it does

It bangs a bit. They’re all fighting units with rend and multiple damage. There are armies who need that, so you can just drop the Goroans right in as a solid hammer – they wouldn’t be a frivolous inclusion in Bonesplitterz for example, or Kruleboyz for those turns where Mortal Wound Roulette lands on a green zero.

A real wizard plus a handful of units to “do stuff” is ringing those Sons of Behemat bells….but I do think they’d still take Braggits Bottle-Snatchaz at the same points. All the same that Thaumaturge comes packaged with a great spell – Strike Last is always a strong tool.

The Thaumaturge does have ways to dish out Burning on his warscroll too, so it’s a neat way of bringing that Battle Trait along for the ride when it would otherwise be redundant. Brilliantly, there’s no way to remove Burning outside of Tzeentch allegiance either³, so as it stands the target unit is facing a permanent debuff at Neg 1 to Hit. Not bad.

Is it cool? Is it good?

Very cool! This is a neat “Army within an army” assembling all the Ogroids: Destro exiles coming home to Big Daddy G is a great theme, and that’s reflected in the factions that can take them.

As for how good it is – this is one of many that’s OK. Not unplayable, not amazing, just OK. Other than the unquenchable Burning bullshit, these are all just honest units that bang a bit.

Edit: What about that rend buff⁴?

Just need to point out for anyone getting excited about the likes of Kragnos taking the rend buff that GW have gone out of their way to make sure this ability isn’t very good:

You need to be wholly within 3″ for this buff, so it’s little foot sloggers only. The Orruk Megaboss is the closest thing Destruction has to a functioning combat hero, but he labours under a 4″ move and is way overcosted (still).

Maybe you can have a bit of fun making a pet unit slightly scarier than it should be in melee, but it’s not something to really build around.

What about the Ogor Tyrant? Isn’t he a combat hero?

Oh, my sweet summer child.

Nurgle’s Gift (Nurgle) – 180 points

What it does

Now you’re talking. It breaks the game, but in a very haphazard manner. You have to start them off the board, and you have to roll for them to burst into the game. But when they do – they’re a little Chaos Spawn kinda dealio, tagging enemy units in combat and wasting their turns.

Bearing in mind that most armies will be using some kind of Prospector unit, you can often get those popped early and make it increasingly more likely that your Nurglings burst out when you need them in the crucial mid-game. And even if you do get “unlucky” and bring out a unit too early into an incidental flanking combat, you do still have a second one up your sleeve.

That 5+ ward is right there on their warscroll so the way the maths works is that your opponent usually has to do 36 damage to pop both units – roughly 5 points per wound, which is dirt cheap. The units themselves do fuck all of course, but that’s by design. Popping out at an inopportune moment and bogging down a key unit in combat for a turn is more than enough.

Is it cool? Is it good?

Gift by name, gift by nature. Happy Christmas, motherfuckers! 180 points just slots right into your army list like a dream. They’re dicey as fuck of course, but give how big an impact they can have, the risk-reward calculation stands up.

Hobby wise, this is easy mode. Personally I won’t bother buying them – all you need is sprue goo, a bits box and a flagrant disrespect for aesthetics. So what if it all ends up in a disgusting, sludgy mess? Hey, they’re Nurglings.

Snerk’s Trogg-Fer-Hire (Gloomspite) – 250 points

What it does

This is one for the true connoisseurs of crappy GW rules writing. Support hero with nothing to support? We’ve got ya! Durability buffs, to keep a Hero with zero utility alive and doing nothing for slightly longer? Cha Ching! The opportunity to take damage away from something useless and redirect it into something better? Merry Grotmas!

The Dankhold can punch his weight, and his Warscroll Rampage is legit. If you haven’t seen it before, Wade and Smash lets you wander around from one combat to the next in both players’ combat phases (6″ move without Fly, but still great). That’s his USP and the reason you’d even consider this, but at the end of the day, cobber’s got 10 wounds on a 4+ save, and are you paying 250 points for that?

Is it cool? Is it good?

This one sadly is zero effort and zero interest. The Loonboss in this ROR is a waste of space; the Dankhold is fine, but the reality is that he struggles to make the table in his own army at 180 points. So if you instead want to pay 250 points for one that doesn’t get +1 to save from Da Bad Moon…well, here’s your chance, I guess.

Squires of the Everchosen (FEC) – 310 points

What it does

It uses your enemy’s Prospector units against them. These fellas have to kill any unit, then both of these units are +10 to their OC for the whole game. So the outline idea would be that your Morbheg Knights and/or Varghulf Courtier smash into something soft that just stepped forth to Take the Flanks, and you’re off to the races.

Is it cool? Is it good?

Very cool! FEC continues to have some of the coolest and most unique fluff in the Mortal Realms. These guys are actual Varanguard who got “turned”, but still have flashes of who they were – hence the Chaos factions. If I played those armies I’d be drooling over converting some bastardised Varanguard monstrosities this weekend.

As for being good? It’s at least very playable – fast units with high OC are just generically good at wargames. Earning that extra OC and then making the most of it is a fun little minigame that you’d be setting up for yourself too. One big downside is that the available factions already have their own good Cav options – are you taking these guys ahead of 2+ save Mighty Skullfuckers for example? Debatable.

I would of course have loved to take this Regiment in Kruleboyz, but amongst the available Chaos factions, I’d see them as a cool hobby opportunity with scope for some interesting gameplay. I’d certainly be happy to give them some table time.

Stumblefoot Gargant

What it does

So everyone hates the Mancrusher, because he’s an idiot on a 5+ save at 130 points. What if he kept that 5+ save but we asked you to pay 180 points instead? How about now?

Actually – surprisingly – yes.

You’ve got a choice of 3 Rampages each turn – and note that the shooting one does work in your opponent’s shooting phase, so that’s a nice little rug-pull. Neg 1 to Hit is always a great rule that synergises with basically any army – it’s one thing missing from the Bonesplitterz portfolio of debuffs, so I’m definitely considering him there.

And shoutout to the fellas in the Craichouse Discord (RussellCroweAOS and furythrow2) for putting me onto that movement Rampage. Mancrushers are too pillow-fisted to be a scary backfield combat threat but that hardly matters when the fella’s got OC10 – the real power here is stealing objectives with an unpredictable burst of movement.

Is it cool? Is it good?

A rare ROR that costs more than its constituent parts, I guess the logic is that Mancrushers had little in the way of army rules to lose, so he’s strictly better? But that portfolio of Rampages is really interesting, and adds something to almost any army.

Shooting in both turns and Neg 1 to Hit are universally useful. Zipping unexpectedly onto an objective with OC10 won’t come up every game – but when it does, it can warp a whole turn of scoring, and it’ll create big memories too.

That 180 price-point means he doesn’t eat up too much real estate and everyone either already owns a Giant (be it GW or 3rd party) or has a conversion idea for a mid-sized model. Personally I’m keen to make a Bonesplitterz Giant to use in that army – just be aware that he’s here for a good time, not a long time.

The Lost-Song Spirits (Sylvaneth) – 430 points

What it does

You get a respectable fighting Monster in the Treelord, and some scrips and scraps of this and that in the Tree Revs. They no longer teleport every turn but they can turn off CPs in combat, so there is some utility there that can support pretty much army.

Is it cool? Is it good?

Does the no-shooting thing really matter? When they can just shoot your other stuff in your actual army instead?

The movement ability is better, but coming as it does in the Hero Phase, it gives your opponent plenty of time to react their own upcoming Movement Phase. For context the Snarflang Riders do their reactive move in the enemy Movement Phase, which means your opponent has already committed to moving all their own models and you can Moonwalk onto a vacated Objective. This one is not a Murderlust “Walk into combat” move either.

Eh I’m not really feeling this one myself. It’s OK, but there’s nothing to really get the sap rising.

The Verdict

Today was a good day! A couple of them are crap, but way more of them have at least something to offer. The lore for a lot of these Regiments is actually pretty intriguing and despite some haphazard choices, the available Factions do generally make sense.

There’s a few that I’m really interested in as little hobby projects, with rules that are plenty good enough to be worth putting on the table. And I reckon that’s a great place for these kinds of releases to sit. Plus, there’s also the small factor of the Nurglings being really good.

So it’s Nurglings, the Bonesplitterz Mancrusher and a little KO side project for me. How about you? If you’re planning on giving any of these Regiments a crack, lemme know in the comments or on Discord. Looking forward to seeing what you all cook up – both in the list dojo and on the hobby table.

Have a good weekend, nerds – see you on the other side.

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1. Or indeed, the next dickhead who spends half their life yapping about Warhammer online. ↩︎
2. The sole saving grace behind every Order Wanker taking Callis and Bloody Toll is that it puts them on 3 drops minimum. ↩︎
3. “Quenching the Flames” is a Tzeentch Battle Trait, and you don’t have access to those. Lol. ↩︎
4. Shout out to Rufio and Dudes of Sigmar for raising this on Bluesky. If you’re into the hobby, and you’re not on Bluesky yet, it’s well worth jumping on board. Gimme a shout if you read the blog and I haven’t followed you back yet over there 🤙 ↩︎