The Mortal Realms are consumed in a tide of vermin as the ratmen hordes of the Skaven invade in their millions. With the fell metropolis of Blight City erupting into the Great parch of Aqshy in the cataclysmic event known as the Vermindoom, The Horned Rat finally takes his place among the Chaos Pantheon alongside the 4 Chaos Gods and his verminous children set out to defile the Realms.

But the forces of Order are not defenseless, Sigmar the God King has opened up the Ruination Chamber and unleashed those Stormcast who have been reforged so many times they are little more than soulless living weapons.

In Skaventide, the launch box for the 4th edition of Age of Sigmar, players are able to pit the Skaven against the Stormcast and get their first chance to get their hands on both the brand new Core Rulebook, matched play General’s Handbook rules and the new game mode Spearhead.

In this full unboxing and review of the Skaventide box we’ll be checking out the contents of the launch set including building and painting up every model in the box! We’ll let you know how these are to build, what they are like to paint and just what the value of the set is.

Also up today we’ve got a full in depth review of the Core Book including the core rules – In that sister article we’ll be diving into the rules themselves and seeing what has changed from previous editions of the game, how the game itself plays and talking about what impact it’s going to have on players – You can check this full write up here.

On Monday 24th June we’ll be diving into the Fire & Jade supplement, the very first book dedicated to Spearhead – If you want to know more about Spearhead, how it plays and what all of the factions are like then make sure to head to the site at 10am on Monday!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us over a free early review copy of Skaventide – if you would like to support the site then why not order your copy of Skaventide through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

In addition to our full written reviews we also have videos of the full unboxing, Core Rules read through and also our very first Age of Sigmar 4th Edition Battle Report pitting the contents of the box against each other in a Matched Play battle using the new General’s Handbook cards! You can check out all this content on YouTube or just down below – We’ll have lots more Age of Sigmar content coming both to the site and YouTube over the next few weeks, so make sure to give us a follow!

So without further ado, let’s crack open the Skaventide box and see what lurks within.

Skaventide Unboxing and Review – Age of Sigmar 4th Edition

One of the things that always excited me as a kid getting into Warhammer far longer ago than I cared to admit was the thrill of picking up one of Games Workshop’s big boxed games. When I got into the hobby, the first ones I picked up where the old Warhammer Fantasy one containing Bretonnians and Lizardmen, and 40k 2nd Edition with Space Marines and Orks. Being new to the hobby and not having an existing collection, being able to jump start my collection with not only the core rules but also 2 fledgling armies started my Warhammer journey and set the expectation for Boxed Games going forwards.

Fast forward 30 years and Skaventide, the launch box for the 4th edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar is here. The box goes up for pre order on Saturday 29th June and is released Saturday 13th July with a cost of £160. This may be the most expensive launch set that Games Workshop have put out so far – but there’s a lot of stuff in the box!

First up let’s take a look at the miniatures!

As with other recent launch sets, all the models in the box are push fit, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that they are any less detailed or fun to build than standard multi part kits! We also see somewhat of a move away from sprues containing mixed units, with only the Reclusians and a couple of the Stormcast characters sharing a single frame – All of the other kits each sit on their own frame, which makes splitting a box really easy for those who want to share the armies, but it also means that every kit in this box can easily be repackaged as individual kits for those who want to pick up additional units without having to end up with duplicated models that they do not want. I think this is a great shift as I’m already reassured I will be able to pick up another unit of Prosecutors for example without having to fight for split ebay lots. I’ve furiously been painting the contents of the box over the last 2 weeks – so let’s take a look at what they look like when finished! We’ll be taking about exact points next week, but you get approximately 1300 points in each army.

The Stormcast Eternals

Out of the two forces in the box, I was most excited to painting up the Stormcast in order to bolster my existing army. One of the things they have done with this box is to make the Hallowed Knights the cover army, but at my heart I’m a Hammers of Sigmar player! The gold is the iconic Stormcast scheme to me, and with the contents of Skaventide combined with my existing Stormcast army I’d have a large pool of models available to draw an army from.

In some ways, the Stormcast side of the box is a re-imagining of the Stormcast that originally came the very first Age of Sigmar boxed set back in 2015. We get a mounted hero and heroes on foot, a winged unit, an elite unit and 10 standard Stormcast. This kinda fits thematically with this being the introduction of the Ruination Chamber, and I can imagine some of these Stormcast being the very same units from then, simply reforged many times later!

Leading the pack is the Lord-Vigilant on Gryph Stalker, and this is probably one of my favourite models in the box. While his mount shares some similarities in some of the older Gryph mounts, we have something a little more heroic here, with a move intimidating figure ready to strike with his weapon. This is something we see across the box with the Stormcast having a lot more personality rather than the faceless statues they often seemed like in the early days.

There are a trio of characters of foot with the Lord-Terminos, Lord-Veritant and Knight-Questor. The Lord Terminos is another amazing sculpt with with resting his axe on the floor – from a lore point of view his job is to put down any Ruination Stormcast who lose their fragile grip on identity and reality, making him somewhat of a sinister figure.

The Lord Veritant and Knight Questor are both new takes on old models, and again they look awesome combining both the heavy plate armour of the original Stormcast along with the robes and fabric seen in later models. Both also have nice identifiable silhouettes allowing them to stand out on the battlefield.

In gameplay terms, the most powerful unit in the box are the Reclusians, these are heavily armoured elite Stormcast who have the ability to inflict mortal damage on a hit roll of 6. Like the Lord Terminos they also have an innate resistance to non-core abilities such as Magic, making them quite a difficult unit to shift. The models look ace and them (And the Terminos) are accompanied by Memorians.

The Memorians are essentially tokens given miniature form – this is something that we see quite a lot in the 4th Edition of the game, these are not targetable and have no impact on the game directly, but represent abilities and actions that can be done by the unit – in the case of the Reclusians these make it more likely that their magic resistance works, however if you ever roll an unmodified save roll of 1 you remove one of them, making them into an ability that can be denied if you roll badly.

My other favourite unit in the Stormcast side of the box are the Prosecutors. These have been in Age of Sigmar since the original boxed set, but they now have a gorgeous new look with some simply stunning ethereal wings. These have also now become part of the Ruination Chamber and specialise in making charges with them being able to roll 3D6 when charging! People who are not fans of the half helmets that these guys have will be pleased to know that the sprue also contains an option for classic Stormcast heads too – which is a great option for those who don’t want to paint faces!

Finally, the box contains 10 Liberators – there’s enough parts to build this as a single unit, or as 2 units of 5 each with their own Champion and model with Grandhammer, and there’s head options for with and without helmets meaning you can make each model look unique. Wearing Stormstrike armour these are a lot sleeker than the original Liberators while still keeping that classic Stormcast look.

The Skaven

The other side of the box are the Skaven, and I think it’s fair to say that out of all the Age of Sigmar armies its been the Skaven who’ve most needed some love. Almost all of their models are from Warhammer Fantasy with very few new kits released for them over the course of Age of Sigmar. But with Skaventide Games Workshop have taken the opportunity to give the Skaven a massive range refresh, and I suspect this is something that will continue into the new Skaven Battletome later this year.

There’s a lot of models in the Skaven side, and so I wanted to put together a scheme that could ensure I’d have the contents painted in time for the review to go live. This meant batch painting models as fast as I could while still keeping them looking good enough for the battlefield. Characters and smaller units had a little more attention, though clanrats were churned out with a focus on speed and having them look good as a horde over individual models. In all it took a suitably fitting 13 hours over 2 days to get the entire Skaven side ready (Compared to 20ish for the Stormcast) – Yes I could go back and add some more detail later, but speed was of the essence here!

Leading the swarm is the Clawlord on Gnaw-Beast, taking the concept of a mounted Skaven to give them something new as a centrepiece leader model. There’s some great detail on this model and he stands up well against the Stormcast leader – it would be ace to see a cav unit that carries on this concept in the new book, as he’d look great leading a unit of elite mounted stormvermin on similar creatures.

The Grey Seer is a concept that has been around as long as the Skaven, and in Skaventide we get a brand new plastic model to represent one that shares much of it’s DNA with models that I played with 30 years ago! One thing I really like about the design aesthetic of these is that even the trailing fabric behind him gives the feeling of rats tails. This is something that Games Workshop often do across the ranges to tie them together, and it works really well with the new Grey Seer.

Another new take on an old model is the Warlock Engineer, who is suitably kitted out with technology and causally stepping on a rather dangerous looking bomb

One thing that Skaven players have been wanting for years are new Rat Ogors. The plastic multi part kit is very dated now with chunky joins and action figure like poses, and the Isle of Blood ones while much nicer are part of a long discontinued Warhammer Fantasy starter set. This is remedied in Skaventide with a brand new kit that does them justice. What’s great about this kit is that even as a push fit set there’s still lots of options with heads and optional parts to make them a little more varied if you take larger or multiple units.

The Warplock Jezzails had only previously been available as metal kits from the World that Was, but in Skaventide these finally get a brand new plastic kit and they look stunning too! Like with the Rat Ogors there’s option parts here to mix up a unit, and the way they fit together means the Skaven can be matched with other partners in order to add a little more variety.

Finally you get two sprues of 20 clanrats giving you a grand total of 40 of the evil little vermin. Like with the Stormcast you could opt to build these as a single large unit, but I stuck to 20s for flexibility. Though keep in mind you no longer have to worry about battleline units, so feel free to go big with them! They are very quick to build and paint with only 2 or 3 parts per model – though I did have a couple snap at the feet, and while this is after manhandling the sprues quite a bit to take photos etc, just make sure you dont accidentally damage any of the parts as they are a little fragile. If you do break a join just be patient and carefully glue the join.

On the subject of glue, non is needed to build any of the kits – With push fit models you’ll find that you actually get a worse join and gaps if you do try and glue them together. For these models pictured I generally only used glue pasted along joins in cloaks etc to make them a little more seamless – other than that they are 100% pushed together!

Terrain

With a first for Age of Sigmar launch boxes, we actually get a sprue of scenery in the box too! This is designed for use in Spearhead games alongside the included boards (more on that later) but they make a great start to an Age of Sigmar scenery collection too! you get two medium sized L shaped ruins along with two pieces of scatter terrain

What’s really cool is that the sprue for them also has molded 3″ and 6″ range rulers (which we affectionately call range doofers) that clip together to make a 9″ ruler. These are really handy for games, and the fact that they are sculpted with Skaven iconography is a nice touch too!

If you have any of the existing terrain that was released shortly after Dominion, you’ll find that these fit in nicely and will match your existing collection.

Rulebooks, Boards and Cards

Of course, we’ve only looked at the plastic contents of the box so far, but there’s a lot more found within the box that really adds to the value and makes it worth the price tag.

In a move away from single use plastics, Games Workshop have moved to using card sleeves to hold most paper material, and we get the same here with an attractive card wallet that holds most of the gaming contents

Inside here we get contents for both Matched Play and Spearhead. From a Matched Play point of view we get a full deck of General’s Handbook 2024-25 cards that contain the same mission, season rules and Battle tactics that are contained in the upcoming book release of The General’s Handbook.

This includes cards that list all the battle tactics for each grand alliance along with the universal battle tactics – this allows you to simply have that card out at the side of the board in order to pick your battle tactics rather than having to flick through a book.

You get a card detailing the Matched Play battlepack and one listing the Season Rules for 24-25, this is essentially the new rules introduced for this years matched play games. In this season you get to pick a unit in your General’s Detachment to be an Honour Guard, and that unit can then pick one of 3 bonuses at deployment – this can range from making them a specialist against a certain type of unit, to making them hit and wound stronger against units in your enemy’s general’s detachment or even reducing the incoming attacks when they are near your general. This means that by picking up this box you have immediate access to the rules from the General’s Handbook and can get going with matched play games from day 1!

Missions are essentially a “best of” from Age of Sigmar, with scenarios originally dating from 2016 all the way to last year’s General’s Handbook – Again these are the same ones that will be in the printed General’s Handbook so you have everything you need to play.

In a nice touch, the box also contains 6 extra 40mm bases that players can use as objective markers to get going straight away!

A Slaughter at Hel Crown insert is also included which lets you record the results of your first game for a global campaign with the chance of winning every single Skaven or Stormcast release for the next year!

It isn’t just Matched Play that gets all the love here though, we also get a lot of content for Spearhead too! Firstly, a full two sided Spearhead board is included, one side representing the Realm of Fire the other the Realm of Life. This is the same size as a Warcry tile, and each side has objectives printed on them – they layout of these changes on each side, and I suspect that over the life of the edition we’ll get new tiles and layouts to represent each of the realms.

Spearhead runs off decks of cards, and those are also included in the box. We get Battle Tactic cards which are used to either score points in games, or can be spent in order to activate a command (Command points are not used in Spearhead), and we get 2 decks of twist cards (One for Aqshy and one for Ghyran) that are drawn in order to add a bonus that gives the underdog (The player with the least points) an advantage to get them in the game – Again, it wouldnt surprise me if we got new sets of cards for the other realms over the life of the edition.

Books

Like with the card materials, both of the books are nicely presented, wrapped and sealed with a Ghal Maraz icon. Opening this up we get both a hardback 274 Core Book containing lore and rules (You can check out our deep dive of this and the core Age of Sigmar 4th edition rules here) and the 144 page Fire & Jade Spearhead supplement. Fire & Jade is the first Spearhead book of the edition and contains not just the core Spearhead rules, but rules for each and every Spearhead that is currently available to buy. We can’t show off that book today, but come back on Monday 24th June for our full written article and video review!

Summary

So is Warhammer Age of Sigmar Skaventide “The World’s Greatest Fantasy Miniatures Game” as it proudly proclaims on the site of the box? And is the launch box worth the £160 price tag?

I’ve been collecting Warhammer for 30 years now, and have picked up every big boxed set that Games Workshop have put out, but to me even with the increases price tag this is certainly one of the most value packed and complete feeling boxes that GW have put out. Let’s start with the models – you get not only two full Spearheads (£87.50 each), but also around 3-4 additional units for each side on top of the Spearheads which even if we put a very conservative price tag of £60 per army means the value of just the miniatures in the box is £295.

On top of this we have the cards and boards, along with the core rulebook and Spearhead supplement adding another £60ish value puts the total value of the box at around £350. While the price of entry may be high for some, especially in the current climate, this is very nearly a complete Age of Sigmar experience with the only thing it really missing being a tape measure and some dice, but those are things a lot of people will have around the house.

There’s never been a better time to get into Age of Sigmar, and if you check out our Core Rules and Spearhead reviews you’ll know that i’m a massive fan of the new edition!

As an aside, there’s no unit profiles in the box, but profiles for the contents (And every Age of Sigmar army) will be released free online prior to release – meaning that as soon as you get this box you’ll have everything you need to play!

I’m really excited to see how this edition of Age of Sigmar plays out, and I’m very much looking forward to expanding both the Skaven and the Stormcast into full armies!

Are you going to pick up Skaventide? Let us know below!

Skaventide goes up for pre order on Saturday 29th June and is released Saturday 13th July for £160

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews a free copy for review purposes.

Published by Matt Crowther

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