Gloomspite Gitz are venturing into the sunlight of Hysh to form Gitmobs, massive tribes of Snarlfang mounted Gitz who fight under the searing heat of the Glareface Frazzlegit. In the new Gloomspite Gitz battletome contained in the Gitmob army set (up for pre order today) players get the first opportunity to build the new Gitmob models and put together a new type of Gloomspite Gitz army.

In this full review we’ll be checking out the new 4th Edtiion Age of Sigmar Gloomspite Gitz battletome, seeing what is new, what’s changed and if anything has been removed, and also unboxing, building and painting the new units from the Gitmob Army Set.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a free copy over to review. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Gloomspite goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We also filmed a full unboxing of the Gitmob Army Set, which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So without further ado, lets dive straight into to the new Gitmob Army Set and check out the battletome contained within!

Gloomspite Gitz Gitmob Army Set Unboxing

Crashing onto the scene with a fully mounted 600 point force is the Gitmob Army Set, containing a lot of the new releases for the Gitmob. From a model count point of view it’s a little lighter than in some sets we’ve seen – however this does contain some pretty big kits such as chariots and wolves ridden by a pair of wolves!

In all you get 4 kits here – the Sunsteala Wheelas (Someone at GW a fan of 70’s folk-rock band Stealers Wheel?) which are a pair of 2 chariots, 2 boxes worth of Snarlpack Cavalry (totalling 6 models) and one of the new HQ options introduced in the new Battletome, Droggz da Sunchompa

All of the models are gorgeous and I really enjoyed painting them up, but they will take you a little while as there’s a lot of detail on them.

What I really like about the chariots in particular is that you get a lot of optional Gitz to place on the back of them – there’s around 7 or 8 crew on each of the two sprues (with a nice mix of spear armed and bow armed), so with a couple of chariot boxes you could put together enough models to model some Moonclan as Gitmob on foot, which is something I’m very tempted to do!

The Snarlpack Pack Cav are really nice too, though I do wish there was a bit more variation across the riders if you build multiple boxes of them. With there being 6 in the Spearhead box too, I feel you’re going to end up with a bit of duplication if you do go for a full Gitmob army.

The star of the show is Droggz though, being a nice big model with a suitably rotund Git sitting atop a massive wolf – there’s a lot of new hero models in the book, and I’m really glad they decided to include this one in the Army Set.

As is the trend with other recent Army Sets, the Gloomspite Gitz box includes a full set of Warscroll cards covering all of the Warscrolls within the Battletome itself. These are in the same Tarot card format as other recent ones, though I do think it is a shame they didn’t keep the large format cards after the Faction Packs as I felt these held the information a little better than the smaller format cards. I do love the trend of including these cards in the box though, and hope that this is something that continues.

There is one more thing in the box though, and that’s the gorgeous red edged limited edition battletome, so let’s take a full deep dive into that next!

Gloomspite Gitz Battletome Review (4th Edition)

I’ve been a fan of Goblins since the World That Was, but I’ve never actually collected a Gloomspite Gitz army before! I’ve lovingly admired the models, and very nearly pulled the trigger multiple times (With an army’s worth of models put to one side for the day I decided to venture into the project). So heading into this review was a fun one, I’ve read the previous battletome but this was the first time getting fully engrossed into the background of the faction, and I hungrily drank this one up as I paged though the new tome.

Firstly, as with all the other books that Games Workshop have put out for 4th Edition, this one is utterly gorgeous! Really nice page layouts that are a joy to explore, beautiful artwork and army shots and some ace lore. We learn quite a lot of new stuff here, from the Evil Sun (AKA the Glareface Frazzlegit) who is the enemy of the Bad Moon and shines its harsh rays upon the planes of Hysh. Most of the Gloomspite fear the sun, but the Gitmob (the wolf riding roving tribes who lead dangerous mounted raids) admire it as a rival of the Bad Moon and go out of their way to adsorb enough of it’s light to make it wink out. This can be through using various realmstones and metal that can absorb the energy of Hysh, or by aiming to emulate and peacock at it by becoming a giant flaming fireball themselves by using incredibly flammable chariots laced with gunpowder and festooned with torches just waiting for an “accident” to happen…

We also learn how inventive the Gitmob are with their skill to crafting tools that can trap the sun, or even their bizarre war machines in the form of the Doom Diver Catapults or the Frazzlegit Shamen who use the light of the Frazzlegit to blind their enemies while strapped to a totem in turn strapped to a chariot.

As with the other books this edition, a Bestiary of sorts replaces the traditional army showcase pages, with a single page dedicated to the lore of every single unit, with full photography of the models alongside them, to better act as a guide to which model is which. I mentioned in the Slaves to Darkness review that this acts as a really nice way of introducing the units to new players and helping them identify them in the heat of battle.

Faction Rules

So what’s changed here? Surprisingly a lot is updated here, with the core mechanics of the army taking quite a different format. The concept is still the same – the Gitz are enhanced by the Bad Moon, but instead of this being something that drifts across the table and affects certain quarters of the board this is now something that works in a similar way to the old Nurgle Wheel mechanic.

At the start of the game you pick one of the four faces of the Bad Moon – Grinin’, Scowlin’, Sulkin’ or Cacklin’. Each Battle Round the moon will change to the next face until you finally come back to the original face in the final Battle Round.

Two of the faces will enhance certain Gloomspite Gitz units – so for example Grinnin’ and Scowlin’ will affect Troggoth units and Scowlin’ and Sulkin’ will affect Squig Units. Sulkin’ and Cacklin’ affect Gitmob units and Cacklin’ and Grinnin’ will affect both (non squig) Moonclan and Spiderfang. This means if you specialise into one of those core Gitz army makeups your units will be affected by the Bad Moon a guaranteed 3 Battle Rounds out of 5, making it a lot more reliable than the old mechanic. While if you go for a mixed Gitz army with units from all branches, then you will have units affected by the Bad Moon in each turn.

I really like this as it always means it might be worth taking some different units outside of one subfaction as that let’s you have at least 2 turns for any unit to get it’s buff, without penalising you for taking a pure subfaction of gitz.

The buffs are more or less inline with the old ones, but on the whole improved over the old version too!

Frothing Zealots now adds 5 to the control of non-squig Moonclan.

Lunar Squigs now lets you choose to add 4 to the movement of Squigs rather than roll the D6, making them much more reliable.

Moonlit Hide has been tweaked and now reduces the rend of incoming attacks, allowing you to now stack with All Out Defense to effectively make the opponent less punchy while also increasing your own save.

Spiderfang Venom stays the same, making crits happen on a 5+

Sneaky Snarlfangs joins for Gitmob units, and this lets you charge and/or shoot after retreating, which is very good when used in conjunction with some of their abilities.

There’s also ways of manipulating the Bad Moon to keep it on the facing that you want. All in all i think this is a great update to the army mechanics, though i really wish the box had included some sort of dial to make it easier to track (Though I’m pretty sure 3rd parties will be making their own very soon!)

3 of the 4 Battle Formations stay the same as the previous ones (bar a name change for Moonclan Skrap into Moonclan Horde) but the Spiderfang Stalktribe has been removed and replaced with Gitmob Pack.

The Gitmob Pack gain the Git and Run ability which allows units that are in combat to deal D3 Mortal wounds on a 2+ and then make a retreat move up to their movement value – it’s worth pointing out here that this isn’t limited to once per turn, so if you have multiple units in combat they can all cause mortal wounds and then scarper – and time it right so that you are on the Sulkin’ or Cacklin’ phase of the moon and all those units can then shoot and charge too! I really like this one, and I’m planning on putting together a really quick fully Gitmob force to take advantage of it!

The Gloomspite Gitz Heroic Traits and Artifacts of Power remain the same as they are in the Faction Pack, with no changes here

The Spell Lore does get a change though, and I think some people will be disappointed to see Sneaky Distraction removed from the list (This used to grant a -1 to hit aura which was quite effective) Instead, the Gitz now have Bad Portents – this goes off on a 6, and then allows you to roll a dice, on a 1 nothing happens, on a 2-5 the Bad Moon shifts to the next phase and on a 6 you can pick a new face. This spell is also Unlimited which means it can be cast by multiple wizards, making this a really effective way of keeping the Bad Moon on the phase that bests suits you.

Warscrolls

So what’s changed with the Gloomspite Gitz warscrolls? I’m only really going to be calling out any that have changed along with those that have been added in this book, so let’s take a look!

Skragrot has had a couple of changes. His once per game ability means that the Bad Moon now stays on the same face for an extra turn, giving you 3 turns on the go with facings that best affect your army (and he’s a Wizard so a chance of shifting it around to the first one again too). His Babbling Wand has also been tweaked, it now allows units to redeploy without spending a command point (Though this is still limited to once per turn)

Boingrot Bounders can now potentially cause more damage in larger units – previously They did D3 mortal wounds on a 2+ when they charged – now you roll a dice for each Squig in the unit, and for each 4+ you deal a Mortal Wound. For small units this will do similar to previously, but for reinforced units you have a chance of spiking high for a load of damage! I feel having a unit of Squig Hoppers and a unit of Boingrots working in tandem have the potential to put out a lot of Mortal Wounds.

Trugg has been hitting the gym, with his Ironshell Club now hitting at rend 3!

On the other hand the Dankhold Troggboss is now a little less effective with his ability to increase the attacks of Troggs now triggering on a 4+

The Malevolent Moon gets a tweak with the new army mechanics in mind, nearby units now count as being under all 4 faces of the Bad Moon

The Bad Moon Loonshrine still recycles a unit (50% size) for 1 CP, however it now no longer casts the light of the Bad Moon – this though makes the Malevolent Moon worth taking as a way of getting your units under the right facing.

So what about the brand new units?

Droggz Da Sunchompa is the awesome new named character out of the Gitmob army set, and he’s going to be pretty hard to hit – he makes units within 6″ -1 to hit and stops them from using All Out Attack. In addition to this, once per game he can make himself (or another friendly unit within 9″) make a 2D6 move out of combat when they are attacked, this only triggers on a 4+ but this is a great get out of jail free card!

He only has 1 rend (Low rend is something you’re going to have to work around with the Gitmob) but he does have a consistent 2 damage on all his attacks, and can make another unit strike after him.

Frazzlegit Shaman are the new mounted Wizard, and they have some really interesting abilities. Gimme All The Light stops anyone within 6″ being able to be targeted by ranged weapons other than Frazzlegits (So you can’t use 2 of them to stop each other being shot) – this of course puts a massive target on the shaman, but gives your army a big advantage against shooting armies if you make an agressive push early game (Though you’ll probably lose your shaman that turn!)

In addition, every shooting phase he can pick 3 units within 9″ and do D3 mortal wounds on a 2+ to each of them! And that’s a shooting attack rather than a spell, so he can still cast as normal too.

Snarlboss on War-Wheela is the other new character on a chariot (and has some Grom the Paunch vibes!) – he has the usual pick a unit to fight after him ability, but in addition he can move through enemy units in the movement phase, and if they are infantry deal D6 mortal wounds to them, which is very cool! He also has a once per game ability that makes your Wheelas -1 to hit and gives them +6 movement (making them a nippy movement 18!)

Snarlboss and the Wolfgit Retinue are the old Rippa’s Snarlfangs given new rules, and they make up a nice couple of units. The Snarlboss makes your Cav units get +2 to charge rolls and can also give them extra attacks on the charge, while the Retinue act as a way of granting the boss a ward save, which is handy to keep him kicking around.

Sunsteala Wheelas are the new Chariot unit, and they are pretty cool – they come with a profile similar to the Snarlfang Riders but with extra attacks – the main thing you take these for however is the ability to move over units and do mortal wounds to them – and as seen above these become really good with a Snarlboss too.

Snarlpack Cavalry are the new heavy Git wolf riders, and they again have a similar profile to Snarlfangs, just with more attacks and no ranged, however they get +5 control on the charge and have a once per turn Strikes First too, which makes a unit of 6 pretty good and forcing things off objectives. Lack of rend hurts them though, and I’d have liked to have seen these get at least 1 rend, as this is lacking across the gitmob…

Doom Diver Catapult bucks the trend here however, as it’s got some insanely good rend. sporting 4 shots that hit on 4s and wound on 3s this thing has rend 3 and damage 3 making it a very real threat – it has a neat twist too, you are allowed to reroll hit dice at the cost of 1 rend each – so reroll 1 dice and its rend 2, reroll 2 and its rend 1. What’s nice here is that you can use a Gobbapalooza to up the rend to 4, and chuck all out attack on it to make it a pretty effective shooting platform! a potential 12 damage at up to rend 4 is nothing to sniff at, and I can see a few of these being taken in Gitz lists going forwards.

Spearhead

We also get full Spearhead rules, with a brand new Spearhead set introduced that has a very similar makeup to this Army Set. It contains 2 units of 6 Snarlpack, 2 Sunstealer Wheelas and a Snarlboss and Retinue – I’ve worked out if you pick up both this Army Set, the Spearhead and one of each of the other new kits (including 2 Doom Divers) then you have enough models for a 2000 point army, which is nice if you want to do a full Gitmob force!

As ever, we also get a painting guide and full rules for the spearhead itself.

Path to Glory

Continuing the trend from other Battletomes, the Gloomspite Gitz also get full Path to Glory rules with an Anvil of Apotheosis to allow you to create your own custom characters. You get to pick between a grot or a troggoth hero, and then spend Destiny Points in order to add abilities, weapon and mounts. For Spiderfang fans you have the ability here to put your characters on a Gigantic Spider (Allowing you to use the old Spiderboss model, or maybe even stick a spare shamen on a smaller spider) or maybe even put a combat hero on the back of an Arachnarok.

I love the Anvil, and it’s really very fun coming up with your own unique and original heroes such as a Troggoth who has attacks that ignore ward saves, or maybe a Git Priest on a Snarlfang who cannot be targeted if he is in terrain.

Gloomspite Gitz Armies and Regiments of Renown

The Gloomspite Gitz get a couple of new Armies of Renown and Regiments of Renown. Droggz’s Gitmob is a pure Gitmob army with the ability to leave units off the board and deploy them on board edges. Personally I’d stick to the standard army construction to get the benefit of the moon, but they do have some nice abilities such as being able to stop enemy units from piling in or to retreat from combat in the enemy combat phase.

Da King’s Gitz is an interesting one, as Skragrott and the Loonshrine give you the Moonclan and Squig benefits of the moon permanently, and Troggs can be taken as bodyguard units that grant your heroes a 4+ ward save. You can also give D3 extra heroes enhancements too, which is pretty nice. This one also favours horde armies and once per battle you can recycle a full unit rather than get it back at half strength. This one seems pretty fun to be honest.

The contents of the Spearhead box can be taken as a Regiment of Renown in any destruction army, and this works like a better version of the Gitmob Army of Renown – you can leave your units off the board and in the movement phase deploy them outside of 9″ of enemy models, which is really cool to take alongside things like Sons of Behemat to snag some objectives out of reach of your Gargants.

Finally we get a defensive one consisting of a Loonboss, 20 Stabbas and 5 Fanatics – the main gimmick here is that all your models have anti-charge +1 rend when they are defending objectives, which is pretty nice.

Summary

So what do I think of the new Gitmob Army Set and Gloomspite Gitz battletome? And is it worth the price tag for what’s inside? Well, I fell in love with the new Gitmob models when I first saw them, and that only grew once I had the sprues in my hand. They are gorgeous and filled with character that takes the concept of some old Warhammer Fantasy units and updates them for the Age of Sigmar universe. I suspect this is something that we’re going to see more of as AOS armies transition to having their own ranges and the old world stuff is slowly phased out. And I’m all for that! I can’t wait for the rest of the Gitmob range to drop so that I can complete a full force!

As for the Battletome I’m glad to see more updates compared to the relatively light ones in the Orruk book, and I think the changes to the main army mechanic is much better – though I do wish we had a dial or something in the box to make it easier to track which phase of the moon you are on, but this is a minor quibble, and I’m sure there will be people making 3rd party markers for this!

Im excited to rolling some dice with the army and seeing how they do on the battlefield!

The Gitmob Army Set is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 15th February

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

Published by Matt Crowther

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