Today, after what seems like forever, Warhammer Age of Sigmar Skaventide goes up for pre order! Inside the Skaventide box you get a full set of Matched Play General’s Handbook 2024 cards – but a lot of people have been asking if there’s going to be a book release of the General’s Handbook? Well, I’m happy to say there is – in this post we’ll be taking a look at the Matched Play content contained on the Skaventide cards and also contained within the physical book, and will be taking a look at what additional content is contained for those who opt to pick it up!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a copy of the General’s Handbook 2024 /25 and Skaventide to check out on the site and review! If you would like to support the site then why not order your copies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also done a stack of coverage on Skaventide and 4th Edition AOS here on the site, Unboxing the Skaventide set, Reviewing the new core rulebook and delving into Spearhead – click the links to check them out, or watch the videos just below or on YouTube.

We also have a full write up of the Age of Sigmar Factions today on the site and as part of our latest Podcast, which you can check out here.

So without further ado, let’s dive into the General’s Handbook 2024 – 25

General’s Handbook 2024-25 Review

So first of all, what is the General’s Handbook? Essentially it’s main role is as a way of setting the Matched Play games for the next 12 months of Matched Play and Tournaments – new missions, new rules, all contained in a spiral bound hardback book that can be opened flat while gaming.

This year things are a little different, as the season rules and all the missions are actually contained in the Skaventide box – So it may be that player’s don’t need to pick up this book (Though, as we’ll see a little later that there are still lots of things that are only included in this book at the moment..)

So first things first, let’s take a look at the Season Rules for 2024/25 along with the Battle Tactics and the missions themselves…

Season Rules 2024 – 25

So one of the things that the GHB does is introduce new season rules that mix up the “meta”. By that we mean the current trends of list construction, tactics and representation of armies. If the rules stayed the same for the entire edition then you would quickly start to see people drift towards the same trends of units picked and often know what someone’s battle plan is going to be before any dice are rolled. By changing some rules every season it makes sure that list construction stays fluid with different units being selected and an evolving gameplay expereince.

In the 2024 Season Pack we see the “Honour Guard” rule introduced. This has you select a unit out of your General’s Regiment (A regiment is the new way armies are constructed – in short you take 1-5 heroes, and each of those heroes can take a number of units with related keywords) and give them one of 3 special rules. Rather than being something that is selected at the point you write the army, instead these are selected at Deployment so that you can tailor them to your opponant.

Special Assignment – This allows you to give the Honour Guard an “Anti” weapon ability such as “Anti-Infantry” or “Anti-Monster” (Cavalry, War Machine and Beast can also be selected) – Whenever the unit charges that weapon ability is added to their weapon giving them -1 rend against the specified target. This is a nice one to pick, as you can really lean into whatever your unit excels at and make it better!

Priority Target – In contrast, this allows you to add 1 to hit and wound against against all units in the enemy General’s regiment. Now, as written this also includes the general, which is a massive boon. Now I do wonder if from a tactical point of view it’s worth building your General’s regiment in such a way so that it only contains your general and them a single unit to pick as your Honour Guard, thus limiting the impact of your opponent choosing this against you. Likewise if your opponent has a full regiment then this seems like a great pick against them.

Bodyguard – This reduces the attacks of enemy units targeting your general as long as the honour guard is within 6″ of your general and if they did not charge – For me this one has too many conditions. Yeah, some armies will have a general who just wants to sit back protected by their honour guard – but if they pick Priority Target then the reduced attacks will have less impact as they will be hitting you harder anyway. I’ll need some more games to see what this is like in practice, but my gut feeling would be the other two honour guard options.

Universal Battle Tactics

The way Battle Tactics has changed a little for 4th edition – rather than lots of faction specific ones we now get a master list of 6 Universal Battle Tactics and then a pair of Battle Tactics for each Grand Alliance.

Let’s have a quick look at them all:

Do Not Waver – requires you to have at least 2 units fight and non destroyed. For some armies this will be really easy, but you need to be conscious of a Counter Charge hitting a fragile unit and destroying them.

Slay the Entourage – You need to destroy a unit in the General’s regiment. fairly achievable, and this can be the general themselves if you so wish.

Attack on Two Fronts – You need to take 2 objectives, one of which was controlled by your opponent at the start of the turn. If it wasnt for that other requirement that would make for a great one after winning priority turn one, but this is stlll possible early game.

Take Their Land – This is a nice one if you have fast units, or units that can teleport or be set up at the end of your movement phase. You select a terrain feature in the opponents territory and have to take it by the end of the turn. I like this for an easy turn 1 or 2 tactic – again, just watch our for counter charge.

Seize the Centre – Again this is a nice early game one, especially if you win priority! You just need 2 or more units within 3″ of the centre of the board.

Take The Franks – A variation on an old one – you need a unit within 6″ of each board edge, but they cannot be in friendly territory and they must have been on the board at the start of the turn. Harder than take their land, but a nice filler tactic if you make sure to have some fast units freed up to move into position.

Each Grand Alliance then gets a pair of unique ones

For Order we get Reclaim the Realms, which needs a unit in each quarter of the board – which is a pretty easy one to achieve. They also get Slay the Tyrants which has you having to kill an enemy Hero.

Chaos have Offering of Carnage which challenges you to slay 2 units, or Ordained Charge which has you picking an enemy objective, charging with at least 2 units and having control of the objective at the end of the turn. More moving parts on this one makes it a little trickier, just watch out for counter charging units against your one taking the objective

Death get Marked for the Grave which needs you to destroy an enemy non-hero that has no casualties so far, and Inevitable Demise which requires you to have 2 friendly units in enemy territory outside of 9 of the enemy – a great one to do the turn before or after Take Their Land or Take the Flanks.

Finally destruction get Time to Get Stuck In which has you charging and fighting with 3 units who start in friendly territory and end outside it. The Kunnin’ Approach is also a combat focused one, you have to charge at a unit that’s already engaged and destroy them.

I feel this approach of 6 universal and 2 per grand alliance is a much better way of balancing these rather than faction specific tactics.

Battleplans

So the main draw for a lot of people with the General’s Handbook are the battleplans. For the opening of 4th Edition I think it’s safe to say that the studio has gone for a “The Best of Age of Sigmar” approach to these, with missions from 2016’s Border War all the way to 2023 – 24’s Limited Resources. It’s really nice to see the history of Age of Sigmar celebrated like this, with missions from every year the game has been out since the original General’s Handbook dropped!

Now, that’s not to say these are a straight copy and paste of the old missions. They have all been tweaked and retuned to fit the new edition of the game. For every mission a maximum of 10 points can be scored which is usually 6 from objectives and 4 from Battle Tactics. The big twist however is that every mission has an Underdog condition, which rewards or helps the Underdog (the player with the fewest victory points at the start of the battleround). When combined with the extra command point that the underdog gets, this leads to a really nice back and forth feel on missions – especially when you add in the decision of a double turn costing you a battle tactic too.

Each mission also has a map with suggested terrain layouts for a balanced game, along with what types of terrain to use. These are of course just guidelines, but I suspect that events will be using them as I feel this helps for balancing the missions. This also means that some maps have features such as Places of Power while other’s don’t. With this new system the scenario designers can try and suggest a fun and balanced battlefield to fight games over.

General’s Handbook 2024 – 25 Exclusive Content

So far, everything we’ve talked about is also included on the cards that come in the Skaventide box. So what else is on offer for people who pick up the book version?

Well firstly, we get a Tournament Organiser Pack – While this may not be something everyone will use casually, this is a great resource for anyone wanting to run their own campaign and contains helpful guidelines for everything from timing, organisation and suggested text for a tournament pack.

In addition to this, the General’s Handbook has a large section that most players will have an interest in – the rules for Endless Spells and the Manifestation Lores they fit into. As part of the new edition, players can pick a manifestation lore as part of their army building. This may be a faction specific one, or instead it can be one of the 6 introduced in this book. The old generic Endless Spells along with the Forbidden Power ones and the Krondspine Incarnate have been split out into different lores, with the Endless Spells being broken down into 4 smaller groups of 3 or 4 spells. All of these have been rewritten for 4th Edition and a lot operate in very different ways compared to how they used to. They all have health and a save characteristic, and the majority have a movement value and attack profile – for the most part they opperate like any other unit, but often have special abilities that also trigger.

For example, the Incarnate is now a dedicated Anti-Manifestation killing machine, with it having 3 rend and 3 damage when fighting them, in addition to healing 6 wounds whenever it kills one. Or the Geminids now can fight in combat, but also stop units within 3″ from using commands.

Because of the Endless Spell content, I feel players that already have the GHB mission cards will certainly want to pick up the book so that they have access to that content too. I suspect the code in the front of the book will unlock these for users in the app too once the trial period has ended.

In addition to the above content, the book also contains the full core and advanced rules including comprehensive glossary, terrain list and reference sheets – making this a really handy thing to have for events rather than the full hardback book.

Summary

So what do I think of the latest General’s Handbook and do I think it’s worth picking up for people who already have the cards from Skaventide? I’m a big fan of the GHB – It’s a nice small form factor book with a great ring bound design that can be thrown in your event bag so that you have access to all the missions and full rules when at an event. We’ve all gone to a tournament with enough boxes and books to hurt your back, so being able to leave the big hardback core rulebook at home is always a good thing! I find that it’s easier to access the rules references in the GHB due to the design of it, the back cover and final few pages containing everything you need to play games of AOS 4.

Now, if you only play friendly games at home then perhaps that isn’t an issue, and if you already have the cards out of the Skaventide box then is this a required purchase for you? Well ultimately that’s going to come down to the question of if you want the rules for Endless Spells and the Manifestation Lores than contain them. At the time of writing I don’t know if these are going to appear elsewhere, but I suspect this will be exclusive source of these rules. If you are sticking with your faction spells then this isnt an issue, but there’s some nice options in here for people who still have all the old spells – and tailoring your manifestation lore will be a part of list building, so having more options is always a good thing.

For me, this is absolutely something I’ll be picking up a physical copy of to use for both casual games and events. While we’re very lucky to get digital review copies of books, the general’s handbook is absolutely something that works brilliant in hardback form as both a player aid and a rules reference, and I always recommend it to new players as some of my most used Age of Sigmar publications

The General’s Handbook goes up for pre order next Saturday the 6th July and is released 20th July – Skaventide is available to order right now and is released 13th July.

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with free copies for review purposes.