Hachette Partworks are no strangers to Games Workshop part work magazines, having now done 2 Warhammer 40,000 ones in Imperium and Conquest, and one Age of Sigmar run with Mortal Realms. But they are back today with their latest magazine Stormbringer, allowing collectors to build not only an entire Order and Destruction army over the 80 magazine run, but also all the paints needed to get them ready for the battlefield and the scenery needed to play over!

The previous series have proved particularly popular to players as a way of getting access to units far cheaper than you would do if you bought them boxed from store. Many stores such as Forbidden Planet will sell individual issues allowing you to stock up on Stormdrake Guard on the cheap for example! But what about people who want to subscribe to the series? Is it worth the money?

In this post I’ll be trying to help out those who are on the fence, or those who want to know just how much money they will save over the course of the magazine by not only breaking down the value of what is in the series, but also how many points worth of models you get and how you can turn them into a functional army.

This is not a sponsored post, and we’ve subscribed out of our own pocket – we just wanted to share the number crunching with you to help you decide if this is the magazine series for you! If you would like to support the site then why not order your Age of Sigmar goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

So how does this all work? Well in this post we’ll be assessing the value based on someone who subscribes to the magazine. Issue 1 is out today and costs £2.99, and subscribers will get issue 2 free alongside it. Following this, subscribers will be sent 4 magazines a month at a cost of £8.99 an issue (for a total of £35.96 a month) – the issues tend to be sent at the end of the month collecting together every weekly mag in one delivery, so don’t worry if you are seeing new issues in stores and yours have not arrived yet! The magazine currently runs for 80 issues (but it is not unheard of for these types of series to be extended further) so this puts the total cost of the magazine run at £704.21 over the course of a year and a half.

It’s worth noting here that currently the collection is only available in the UK, however each other series has later been released in other regions including the United States and a version localised for Japan.

There’s also the option of a “premium subscription” this adds a cost of £2 for each magazine (excluding the free issue 2) for a total cost over the run of £158 – This gives you access to 4 Premium Kits over the life of the magazine – we’ll go into these in more detail later, but the individual kits included in these cost far more than that!

Subscribers also get some exclusive goodies as a bonus to subscribing and these are pretty good!

First up is a modelling kit, this contains a starter sprue clipper, a moldline remover and a bottle of plastic glue – This is tough to put a value on as the clippers and small moldline remover are not available separately, so I’m going to put an approximate value here of £10 – this comes sent with your second delivery

The 3rd Delivery contains a binder and dividers valued at £10.99 (While you get your first binder free, you will be charged for ones later in the run)

The 4th Delivery comes with a heat changing mug, something similar can be found only from Merchoid for £16.99

Delivery number 6 comes with a collection of paint brushes – a large base brush, a large dry brush and a medium shade brush from the STC range – together these would cost £16.50

Finally in the 7th delivery you get the Warhammer Commemorative Series miniature Haggok, a Gutrippa Boss. This model was exclusively available for store anniversaries and is a nice alt pose do lead Gutrippa units! He cost £21

In total this puts the value of the freebies at £75.48, which is pretty cool as a subscription bonus!

Another thing that we shouldnt ignore is the magazine itself! Previous magazine runs framed themselves as a way of getting into the hobby, gradually teaching concepts over the run to allow people to pick up the game – This time is no different with the magazine being arranged into 5 sections covering Read, Collect, Built, Paint and Play – the last 4 are self explanatory, but within the “Read” section apparently we will get exclusive lore, which even as a veteran hobbist I’m looking forward to reading!

So on to the models – We’ll be looking at each of the grand alliances and seeing what we get, what the value of contents is and how many points you can put together from it! Rather than an issue by issue breakdown – this article is very much aimed at how much subscribers will save as a miniatures collection!

First of all, let’s tale a look at the scenery in the set! This looks to be the scenery out of the Extremis set but with an extra statue, plus a set of the Warhammer Underworlds Beastgrave Primal Lair

In total, the scenery has an approximate value of £82.50 (The Extremis Scenery can be bought with a board but without the domed piece for £60 and the Underworlds set was £22.50 at release and is now out of production)

The Forces of Destruction

First up, lets take a look at the Destruction side of the box which arguably contains 2 armies – a Big Waaagh (which while missing a required battleline unit can be broken down into a legal Kruelboyz army) and a Gloomspite Gitz army. Let’s take a look at the Orruk Warclans first:

As mentioned, if you used all of the models as a Big Waagh you would be missing a battleline option – though you could easily use this as a selection of models to draw a legal 1k army from, or simply add a battleline unit to make a usable army! Let’s take a look at whats there, how many points they are and how much they would be to buy:

Leaders:

Killaboss with Stab-Grot (100 points)

Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-Grot (100 points) – Both the Shamen and Killaboss models are in starter boxes – so I’m going to put a low ball price of £21 on the two together

Mannok Da Kunnin’ and Da Kunnin’ Krew (150 points) – Now OOP but would be £24 in line with other Underworlds warbands

Orruk Megaboss (140 points) – £26

Orruk Warchanter (120 points) – £20

Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast (290 points) – £35

Battleline:

Gutrippaz (150pts) – £20 (while the standard box is £32.50 I’m valuing these less as they are the monobuild frame out of Dominion)

Orruk Ardboys (x5) (150pts) – £12

Artillery:

Beast-Skewer Killbow (100pts) – £21

Other:

Hobgrot Slittas – 2 units of 10 (160pts) – £32.50 (These can be battleline in a pure Kruelboyz army)

Ironskulls Boyz (80pts) – £24

Man-Skewer Boltboyz (120pts) – £30 (This is the full multipart kit rather than the ones out of Dominion – these can also be made Battleline in a Kruelboyz army)

Marshcrawla Sloggoth (150pts) – £32.50

This gives us a total of 1740 points of Orruks and a value of £208 of models

That is only half of the models in the Destruction side however, as we also have an entire Gloomspite Gitz army! For the purposes of this I’m going to assume a Moonclan general to unlock the squigs as battleline

Leaders:

Fungoid Cave Shamen (90pts) – £24

Loonboss (85pts) – £18

Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig (140pts) – £24

Mollog’s Mob (130pts) – £24

Skragrott (160pts) – £24

Zarbag’s Gitz (180pts) – £24

Battleline:

Boingrot Bounderz x5 (140pts) – £16.25

Moonclan Stabbas (125pts) – £26

Squig Herd (120pts) – £30

Behemoth:

Aleguzzler Gargant (140pts) – £42.50

Other:

Loonsmasha Fanatics (110pts) – £26

Sneaky Snufflers (110pts) – £26

This gives us a total of 1530 points of Gitz with a value of £304.75

Both of these armies can be used as allies for each other too, which means that you will have a decent collection together for building an army

Total destruction works out at 3270 points of Destruction with a value of £512.75

There are also even more models to add to this in the Premium Subscription – but we’ll be looking at the value of these separately at the end of the post

The Forces of Order

Next up we have the Order side of the magazine – this builds a large Stormcast army, a small army of Sylvaneth and a small band of Kharadron Overlords who could easily ally with the Stormcast!

Leaders:

Lord-Imperatant (170pts)

Knight-Arcanum (110pts) – Like with the Kruelboyz characters these are both from starter boxes – So I’m valuing these as £21 for the pair

Bastian Carthalos (300pts) -£27.50

Gardus Steel Soul (170pts) – £24

Knight-Judicator (200pts) – £21

Lord-Aquilor (170pts) – £26

Batteline:

Vindictors 2 units of 5 (260pts) – £32.50

Vanquishers x 5 (110pts) – £18.75

Other:

Gryph-hounds (90pts) – £18

Praetors plus Exclusive Leader (140pts) – £51 (I’m valuing the exclusive model as £21 in lines with other Commemorative Series models)

Stormdrake Guard (340pts) – £70

Stormstrike Chariot (170pts) – £30

Vigilors x5 (170pts) – £18.75

Xandire’s Truthseekers (230pts) – £24

This puts the Stormcast at 2630 points and a value of £382.50

So what about the small Sylvaneth force? This one actually works out really well as a starter army that can easily be fleshed out into a 2k force!

Leaders:

Arch-Revenant (120pts) – £24

Branchwych (130pts) – £21

Spirit of Durthu (350pts) – £42.50

Battleline:

Tree-Revenants (110pts) £30

Tree-Revenants (110pts) £30 (You could build these as Spirit-Revenants too for some variety, through they then do not have battleline)

Other:

Ylthari’s Guardians (110pts) £24

The Sylvaneth clock in at 980 points and a value of £171.50

Finally we get a small band of Kharadron Overlords who can be taken as an allied force alongside your Stormcast

Leaders:

Arkanaut Admiral (140pts) £18

Endrinmaster with Dirigile Suit (160pts) £24

Other:

Grundstok Thunderers (130pts) £30

Thundrik’s Profiteers (130pts) £16

This gives us 560 points of Kharadrons at £88

While these would need some work to make into an army, it’s a nice start and gives you some different models to paint up

In total Order has 4170 points of models clocking in at a value of £642

Paint and Hobby Tools

Like with previous magazine runs, it seems that the series will also include paints and brushes too – at the time of writing this I don’t know the exact contents for these, though suspect it will be the contents in the above image

This looks to be

22 standard pots at £2.75 each – £60.50

3 white topped “premium” pots at £3.70 each – £11.10

A texture paint – £4.75

3 Contrast Paints at £4.75 each – £14.25

5 Shades at £4.75 each – £23.75

Small base brush – £3.95

Small drybrush – £4.55

Small layer brush – £3.85

Texture tool – £5.15

That puts the total value of paints and brushes at approximately £ 131.85

So if we add everything together, the total value of the miniatures, scenery and paints out of the Stormbringer Magazine adds up to an impressive £1396.10 plus the free subscriber extras bringing us to a grand total of £1444.58

This saves you a total of £740.37 over the course of the magazine and essentially means for every £1 you spend on the magazine you are getting over £2 of value out of it – that is assuming you are going to use everything in the magazine however!

Premium Subscription

So what do you get for your £158 if you opt for the Premium Subscription? Well it’s pretty good!

Krondys Son of Dracothion (550pts for Stormcast) £95

Gordrakk, Fist of Gork (500pts for Orruks) £75

Grundstok Gunhauler (160pts Kharadrons) £32.50

Aetheric Navigator (100 pts Kharadrons) £18

Skywardens (100pts Kharadrons) £30

Dankhold Troggoth (180pts) £42.50

Rockgut Troggoths (160pts) £36

So in total the Premium Subscription gets you £329 of models a saving of £171

the Premium models are really excellent this time, adding big centerpiece models to the Orrks and Stormcast and fleshing out the Kharadrons to 1000 points and Gloomspite Gitz to almost 2000 points – again this all depends on if you want all the models here to make it worth the extra money, but there’s no real misses from me here, they are all nice to add to the collection.

Summary

So what do I think of Warhammer Age of Sigmar and is it worth taking out a subscription? For me this is a no brainer, it allows me to collect a number of different models over the course of a year and a half and spread the cost at £44 a month for the premium sub. The fact that this also contains paints and terrain also sweetens the deal. While I suspect the magazine will be more aimed at beginners, I’m looking forward to reading the exclusive lore and building up and painting the models as they arrive rather than having to take on an entire army in one go, as I usually do with my projects!

If you have the budget, and you are in the market for getting a number of new armies then I’d certainly give the subscription a go, as I really think the benefits are great!

If however you are only interested in some of the models or only one of the armies then it may work out better to you to pick and choose the issues that interest you – and i do think there are going to be some bargains to be had by doing this!

We’ll be working our way through the series and sharing our progress here on Sprues & Brews, so make sure to stay tuned as we collect Stormcast Magazine!

Published by Matt Crowther

View all posts by Matt Crowther