Games Workshop - Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Gloomspite Gitz: Bad Moon Loonshrine

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Grots make up the bulk of most Gloomspite Gitz forces. Shootas and Stabbas are weak and cowardly but they’re also incredibly numerous. Hidden in their ranks are deadly and suicidal Loonsmasha Fanatics, mushroom-maddened grots whirling lethal balls and chains with devastating force. Troggoths are not complex creatures, they care not for deep aspirations. They sleep in their caves and if it were up to them they’d like to keep it that way. Glogg, a particularly cunning Troggoth (by which I mean only somewhat stupid instead of very) who has, despite all odds managed to form his own Trogherd and keep it going. Most Trogherds tend to burn out after a time, once their hunger has been satiated and they return to sleep. Glogg has, somehow, kept it going though no one is sure how. Guided by the Badmoon, this particularly dangerous Trogherd travels across the Mortal Realms, seeking new strains of fungi to eat. Da Bad Moon gives us another blessing yet again! Not two months after the last Tome Celestial, we get another one, and for Gloomspite Gitz again! Last time it was The Jaws of Mork aimed at the popular mascot of the Gloomspites, the Squigs. This time, the other, less appreciated mascot, the Troggoths get to shine. These sentient mushrooms are beasts of destruction, focused only on eating and napping and then whatever it takes to get one of those two things. With the newest White Dwarf you can field your own squad of them for a decidedly different type of playstyle from the normal gitz lists. The Moon-biter Squigalance takes a lot of the guess work from this process, you can pretty easily include it without much problem and it contains mostly everything you’d want anyway. Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz I was pleasantly surprised by this faction. At first blush it felt very lazy, they created two factions before for the Gitz which were just focused on a specific type of unit, and this isn’t any different than that. If anything, it’s working from an even more restricted list than the last two, and with a unit type that definitely doesn’t carry the same fan fervor as a list of all Squigs would. Given the strict limits on what units can be used, they made out pretty well, and there seem to be a handful of legitimate playstyles at work depending on which of the Behemoth units a player chooses to favor.

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Command Ability: ‘Get Some Loonshine on ’em!’

Each time a Grimscuttle Spiderang unit is affected by a spell, you can roll a die. On a 5+ ignore any wounds inflicted by that spell. Decent, if your opponent brings a lot of magic, as it negates the whole thing rather than negating one wound for each 5+ like a Feel No Pain does, but it also focuses on a specific niche (spellcasting) rather than Mortal Wounds in general, and is all-or-nothing. Allegiance Ability: Drawn to the Aetherglow Surprisingly for such a straight forward faction, there’s a fair amount of lore. The “Squigalanche” is more of a loose coalition of squig riding towards more or less the same goal. Few know why Squigs do this. Is it random chance? Is it the will of Mork that drives them? Who knows? All that matters is if you see them on the horizon you’re already dead, because there’s no way you’re getting out of the way in time. This week we have a bit of a treat for Gloomspite Gitz players in the August issue of White Dwarf. An actual subfaction was introduced for this oft-neglected army: The Jaws of Mork. This faction is aimed at people who really loves squigs. Do you like squigs? I sure do, so if that sounds like a good time then keep reading for possibly your best opportunity for a squig focused list. The Lore If you’re familiar with the last two subfactions released in White Dwarf, the pattern for this release follows pretty predictably. As before, this faction is focused on one specific group of units within the Gloomspite Gitz battletome, and while it doesn’t restrict you to those units, the new battle traits heavily emphasize a list that leans on them to get the most effect. In this case its the Spiderfang units who get to shine. Overall the faction, other than being dedicated to the spider theme, seems to be focused on anti-magic powers which certainly can be very useful. Allegiance Ability: Deff Grotz of Shyish Just one, and it’s a weird one. Troggherd Heavies has a required Troggboss, one Dankhold Troggoth and no optional units. For this you get the Magnificent ability. This is actually OK, Dankholds are no longer totally embarrassing, and this is an easy battalion to fulfil for a decent reward. Why there is just one core battalion and only for Troggs is another question, but it’s what we’ve got. Grand Strategies

The big issue here is the units which most benefit from these is a pretty small list of options, 7 units in total if you’re being generous (two are datasheets for the same unit with a different loadout, and two are an on-foot and mounted version of a Hero): Badsnatchers are also new and provide a buff to your moonclan wizards, letting you reroll one of your casting dice if they’re within 9” of another moonclan wizard. Rerolls to casting is nice, but the moonclan lore isn’t quite good enough to make forcing it through a requirement, and the other options for subfaction are spicy enough to compete. The Bad Moon even has an effect on tabletop games. Before the battle starts, you’ll elect a table quarter from which the Bad Moon will approach the battlefield. Each turn the Moon may linger in its current position or move erratically onwards, through the centre of the battlefield and eventually off the other side. While the Bad Moon hovers over a table-quarter, it will shed its baleful light on all the models there, and when in the centre of the battlefield it will cover the entire board. Finally there’s Chasing the Moon which requires your general to survive the battle, potentially much easier than it used to be if they’re a Galetian Champion, and to have been affected by the Light of the Bad Moon in 3 battle rounds. Battle Tactics There’s three interesting, if not overwhelmingly strong, options for the Dankhold Troggboss. Firstly, Alpha Trogg provides two extra wounds and the Monster keyword, a small mercy for everyone who thought they should be monsters anyway. Trogg Smash is a once per battle 3” mortal wound bomb that triggers after the Troggboss fights. Most intriguing is Loonskin which lets you take one of the non-arachnacauldron Gitz endless spells for 0 points and lets your general attempt to cast it (but crucially, does not make them a wizard so any of those predatory spells will be wild). Artefacts

There are a mountain of warscrolls here, so this isn’t an exhaustive list of everything in the book and everything that’s changed. Heroes That’s not their only Allegiance Ability. While Deff Grotz is defensive against magic, this is your offense. With this ability, Skitterstrand (Which is only one unit, unfortunately) can reroll all hits against Priests and Wizards. Incredibly niche, but Skitterstrands can deep strike, allowing you to time their appearance just right to find an opening in your opponent’s army to hit their spellcaster. Command Ability: Masters of Feigned Flight TOTAL: 2000/2000 WOUNDS: 142 LEADERS: 2/6 BATTLELINES: 3 (3+) BEHEMOTHS: 4/4 ARTILLERY: 0/4 ARTEFACTS: 2/2 ENDLESS SPELLS: 1/3 ALLIES: 0/400 If that doesn’t sound like your cup of fungus brew, we have a guide to the other Age of Sigmar armies to help you decide on a more suitable faction.

This isn’t a terribly long article because there just isn’t a lot here. The fluff is pretty much what you’d expect, just a bunch of dudes having fun causing mayhem, and the rules aren’t anything we haven’t seen before but they’re powerful and are new for the Gloomspite Gitz.Grimscuttle is a total rewrite from the old White Dwarf rules and feels like it still doesn’t quite get there for what is one of the weaker standalone parts of the army. This now lets you deploy up to two spiderfang units off the board with each skitterstrand that you have already deployed in ambush from beyond – bringing all the units on together when the skitterstrand deploys onto the board. It’s certainly an interesting way to keep some of your units safe from early alpha strikes, but can leave you at the mercy of multiple 9” charges. Battalions Improved Moon Mechanics – The bad moon isn’t going to be immediately flying off the board before you can use it anymore, and there are new ways to count your models as under its light even when they aren’t. Glogg’s Megamob boosts how often Troggoth units can regenerate lost wounds. Grimscuttle Tribes are spider-riders who follow the massive Skitterstrand Arachnaroks as they burrow through holes in reality. In game terms, this allows units of Grimscuttle Spiderstrand units to arrive from reserves almost anywhere on the board. Aside from the short list of units, your options are further constricted because aside from the Scuttleboss, Webspinner Shaman (on-foot) and Spider Riders, those are all Behemoths, and on a 2,000 point list you’re only allowed 4 Behemoths so you options for list building are further shortened. About the only saving grace is that the battalions are surprisingly powerful and depending on how you want to lean on your list you can build on those units strengths. Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz

Every turn, Troggoths can attempt to regenerate D3 wounds on a 4+. This adds +1 to the roll, making it a 3+. This makes for reliable healing which will make the fairly tanky Troggoths far more frustrating. Command Ability: Oblivious to Sorcery You can reroll the roll used to determine a SQUIG unit’s movement speed. One of the “fun” mechanics of running Squig units is the 3D6″ movement, which fluctuates on bigger squigs as they lose wounds. This gives you an out if you just make a bad roll. As per the rules, when rerolling a roll you do have to reroll them all so if you got two 6s and a 1, just keep it. Command Ability: ‘Get Some Loonshine on ’em!’Big, strong, stupid and stupidly tough, troggoths hit hard and can regenerate any wounds they have suffered.The mighty Dankhold Troggoths and Dankhold Trogbosses are colossal, ancient creatures that are even harder to kill than other troggoths, and their odiferous presence improves the bravery of nearby Gitz. The Gloomspite Gitz battletomecontains all the rules, Warscrolls, and army abilities you need to build an army of nasty little goblins and their reeking allies. Rules are included for five different subfactions of Gitz.Da King’s Gitz are the most numerous of all the troglodyte hordes, and can re-roll the dice when trying to return destroyed units to the table using the Loonshrine’s Moonclan Lairs ability. The Badsnatchers are sneaky and magical, and get better at spell casting when they gang up close to each other. For those of you with a spiderfang general, Spider Riders can be battleline and certainly exist. A bit more exciting is the Arachnarok Spider with Spiderfang Warparty , giving the faction its sole ability to monster mash if you’re that way inclined. No longer relegated to being the worst big spider but it’s battleline I guess, the warparty now counts as 10 models for contesting objectives which is really good! Behemoth Shootas and Stabbas return and both are improved on their baseline warscroll. Shootas in particular now come with more range and hit on a 4+ with their bows, and get an extra shot for having 10 or more models. Stabbas have their shield baked in for a base 5+ save and have lost their wound bonus in exchange for a really exciting ability to contest objectives from 9” away instead of 6”.