This came about because of a literal happenstance at the grocery store. I was at the local Rewe and I found the first issue of Hachette’s Age of Sigmar: Spearhead subscription. For those of you who, also, had never heard of this, it is a subscription magazine that sends weekly (ok, 6 issues every 6 weeks) issues for 10.99 a piece. By the end of a two year subscription you have 12 spearhead armies, paints, tools, terrain, dice, and a binder full of lore, rules, and hobby advice.
I thought it was absolutely worth giving a shot, and I am going to share with you all my impressions over the course of the subscription. Hopefully there will be mostly ups and not downs, but time will tell.
Astute readers will learn that I am only discussing the content of the magazines, the free gift tools, the premium models, and only half the armies. I will give general impressions of the other half of the armies, but I am giving those ones to one of my kiddos.
If I get them started on the plastic crack, they’ll never have money for drugs.
In the first delivery there were three issues. Because I bought issue 1 in the store, we did get two copies of issue 1. That means both my kiddo and I got a set of 6 dice, and a playmat. Along with two copies of the leaders of our armies.
The first two Spearheads we will be getting are Skaven and Stormcast Eternals (The German Sturmgeschmiedete Ewige, or Stormsmithed Eternals sounds much cooler). For these first three issues we got:
Both shaping up to be pretty strong forces. In addition to the models, there were also some gaming and modelling accessories. Every few issues comes with a special gift, and so far they are pretty great!
I had always used a craft knife for scraping mold lines before now. While this worked, the moldline scraper does seem a lot less likely to snap if it gets snagged on something, so that is nice. Definitely not a tool I would have purchased, but also one I could see using. The gaming mat is pretty nice, with a green grassy field on one side, and a chaotic waste on the other.
Finally, the magazine itself comes with some lore to read, at this point just introducing the 8 Realms and a little back story for the two Spearheads. Another fun bit is the tables in the magazine to help name your unit, if you so choose to. There are some hobby instructions and tips, with some geared towards preparing you for later issues and gifts (including a breakdown of what each brush and brush type is for, and how to paint). Finally, each issue comes with a little mini game that slow-walks new players into the rules of Age of Sigmar. For the first 3 issues it covers attacking and defend, but not yet any movement or tactics.
All in all, I would say the value is pretty good so far. Over the course of the subscription I am sure this will change (some issues literally come with 2 pots of paint…) but I am optimistic that overall, and getting multiple issues at a time, will help maintain the value feeling. The monetary value is beyond question, lots of people have done the math, but ultimatley it is a savings of several hundred Euro.
I used to be a demo runner for a game store playing a LOT of Warhammer. Specifically, It was my job to help transition people to Age of Sigmar from fantasy, and teach new players the rules of the game. This meant maintaining armies, staying up to date with lore and rules. It was fun, fulfilling, and not something that I kept up with after moving. I was never able to find a new store, family life happened, career life happened, and I didn’t get back into it.
That said, I have painted some minis over the years, but not any GW minis. Actually, most of what I have been painting for the last few years are Mechs. That prelude aside: Here are the 2 Lord Veritants and their respective Gryphcrows. I did name them, but I used the charts in the magazine for the title and unit name.
Lord Veritant Verdis Stormborn, leader of the Dragonhearts
« Image Coming Soon »
Lord Veritant Mortus Strongsoul, leader of the Deathbearers
« Image Coming Soon »
« Image Coming Soon »
Over the years I have drifted away from the Warhammer side of the hobby. One consequence of this is that I no longer have my Citadel paint collection. I do, however, have the Army Painter Battletech paints. Side note: I honestly think I like Army Painter better than Citadel in many ways. Don’t get me wrong, a good Citadel paint is great, but Army Painter is so smooth, and the speed paints are so fantastic. On a more critical note for my color choices, I no longer have the giant selection of paints I used to have. I have the Army Painter Battletech set… and that is it. So I opted to go with colors I had on hand. I also always really enjoyed the Stormcast that were painted outside the normal Gold color scheme. My favorite ones I have ever seen were the Stonecast Eternals. One of the gamers at my game store back in the day (Game Quest, Radford, Virginia… now closed :( ) painted his Stormcast Eternals to look like they were made of stone. It was one of the most gorgeous armies I have ever seen.
Long Story Short: I rarely use the ‘right’ colors. I paint what looks good.
Each issue comes with a mini game. So far, each of the three issues have been largely the same “Roll dice with these written out instructions and you succeed on these numbers.” They do explain what the rules they are referencing are, but without full warscrolls and with only the explanations of what each individual roll means, it is a little repetitive. Personally, I am waiting for the issue that finally teaches us movement so we can do a real, honest to goodness, game of Spearhead. My suspicion is that they want each force to be “complete”, with a Hero, a pair of units, and some paint that actually came with the set before they have us doing a tabletop game with measurement.
The sets are great so far. I look forward to the next ones. The Minis are legitimate Games Workshop minis for cheap and the gifts have been on point. If you enjoy Age of Sigmar, it is definitely worth looking into. It has also encouraged me to bookmark the Hachette page so I can get in on the next 40k round when they start it after Spearhead is over… in 2-3 years :D
]]>