Death isn’t the handicap it used to be, as Commissar Sebastian Yarrick is back in Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick! This end of edition arc has taken us across the galaxy and a number of different warzones, but finally we arrive at Armageddon where Wazdakka Gutsmek is leading the spearhead of Ghazghkull Thraka’s assault of the planet.

In this full review we’ll be checking out Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick, seeing what lore beats are here, looking at the new gaming content and exploring the new detachments that are included in the set!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us this over to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not pick up your copy of the book through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

This isnt the only thing up for pre order today though, as we have unboxed, built and painted all the new releases! You can see our review of the Ork kits here, Yarrick and the new Astra Miliatrum here, the new Inquisitor and Commissar here and the Sisters of Battle here! We also have full videos of all these up on YouTube or just below!

So without further ado, let’s jump into the new book!

Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick Review

So if you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months, the new 11th Edition of Warhammer 40k is on the way and as ever Games Workshop have closed up 10th Edition with a series of campaign books. We started with Titus and the 500 Worlds facing off against the Necron threat, Expored the Maelstrom and the forces of the Red Corsairs and Aeldari Corsairs, and most recently checkout out apocalyptic battles in the Eye of Terror itself!

This time we’re heading back to Armageddon.

Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick does something a bit different this time, looping into the story of the 11th Edition starter box – Previously the end of edition campaigns would close up the previous edition but not always directly link into the next edition – instead they would set up a number of different threads that may (or may not) be picked up in future books. This time round we are right back to Armageddon seeing the desperate forces of the Imperium trying to hold off against a massive Ork Waaagh!

The story kicks off with Yarricks last encounter with Ghazghkull himself, and shows us that even he thought Yarrick was dead after him. We do learn that while in bad shape and dying, the Space Wolves managed to lift him off the planet in a Thunderhawk and their Rune Priests had done something to stop his death. We learn that since then he has had a deathly pallor and feels old beyond his years. The Imperium has kept him hidden away as an ace they can play when things get really bad, and with Armageddon on the brink of falling he has been redeployed to try and turn the tide.

Campaign books like this are something that you should really read yourself, but I’ll pop a summary of the story in the spoiler section below – click if you want to see the detils:

As you can see above Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick really does set things up with a storyline that runs directly into the new 11th Edition box, which is really exciting and feels more narritivly cohesive than the end of edition stories in the past, which are often completely unconnected to the story beats in the next edition.

The book also contains a great deal of lore about Armageddon, the history of the previous wars, lots of detail about the forces and new models introduced in this wave and a good bit of info about Ghazghkull’s current inner circle – interestingly this consists of Orkimedes, Nazdreg and Ugrokk Gitztroof – perhaps a teaser towards what Ork models we might see next edition…

There’s lots of cool callbacks to the previous wars of Armageddon and this makes for a really nice supplement with lots of nostalgia for old school 40k players.

Armoured Gauntlet

Like with the other 3 supplements, Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick gives us a new way of playing in the Armoured Gauntlet book. With most of the narrative focusing on massive tank battles, this book looks to add new rules that encourage players to use as many tanks and monsters as they can. While these could be apocalypse sized games, this rules pack is really focused on using these sort of armies in normal sized games, which is a really nice thing to mix up your games.

So how does this work? Well essentially, there’s a new keyword “Spearhead”. this is given to units that are vehicles or monsters that have 10 or more wounds and do not have the Aircraft keyword or hover rule. Models with this Spearhead keyword are not destroyed when they go to 0 wounds – instead there’s a new series of damage tables that are rolled on. If you’re a long time 40k or Heresy player then this will bring back a lot of memories. Essentially you might not kill a tank when you take it to 0 wounds – instead you might make the crew shaken (causing a battleshock test) or perhaps stun them (reducing the leadership) – equally you could do some damage to the engine (reducing the move characteristic) or even cause armour panels to be ripped off the tank (reducing toughness).

There’s 3 different vehicle damage charts in Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick covering transports, Vehicles or Monsters, which different results on each to better tailor them to what your forces will be aiming for. So for example the Transport table has the possibility of breaching the transport compartment, which deals Mortal Wounds to the squad inside and causes the firing deck rule to be lost for the rest of the battle, while Monsters might have tendons and sinews lacerated reducing their charge rolls. These are really flavourful and I’d love these to be folded back into the main vehicle rules at some point!

The more damage you take, the more damage tokens you gain which leads to higher results on the damage table making it easier to destroy the target – I really like this as you can get some cool cinematic moments like a tank that is held together with spit and wishes making a valiant last stand as it leaks fuel and ammunition!

What’s really cool is that there are also bespoke damage tables for armies too that better represent the units that are available to that army. So for example the Astra Militarum get damage tables for Tank Officers and Super Heavies while Knights get new tables for Armigers and Knights. This really does help to make it feel like the damage you are causing to these targets has real effects that lessens their effectiveness without having to simply rely on some generic charts.

Also available to games of Armoured Gauntlet are spearhead upgrades. These are special upgrades that can be taken on your Vehicles or Monsters to give them some more flavour. The number of upgrades you can take is based on the total points cost of spearhead units in your army, with a sliding scale that increases the more you take.

Each faction in the game has a couple of pages of upgrades in Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick has a page of upgrades and are all flavored to the theme of the army – so for example Chaos Knights can be Frenzied, which gives them +1 on the vehicle damage chart rolls, or giving Ork vehicles a red paint job to give them an extra +3 movement! I love rules like this and it’s great seeing a game mode that really embraces big tank companies fighting off against a swarm of Ork buggies for example.

As with the last few supplements we get a full mission pack in the back of here with missions that suit the tank based battles! There’s 9 different scenarios which gives you a huge amount of variety, but this is also backed up with 3 challenge missions. While the main bank of weapons are for tank vs tank battles, the Challenge ones are asymetrical missions that are designed for a “normal” army facing a tank force – these are really cool, especially for adding some flavour to a campaign or a cinematic moment of a Crusade.

Like with the other campaign books, we also get a nice branching campaign – this allows you to fight through a series of battles, with the scenarios that you play decided on a branching tree based on who won the previous battle. There’s some cool stuff here such as allowing your Spearhead units to become Aces and gain new skills as they “level up” over the course of the campaign. This could be increasing their movement or toughness for example, or perhaps even making them more effective against other Spearhead targets.

This is a really fun game mode and I’m looking forward to using these rules alongside my games of 11th Edition too!

Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick Detachments

Like with the previous books in this campaign series, Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick also includes 6 new detachments across the Astra Militarum, Orks and Space Marines

The Astra Militarum start with Steel Hammer, a detachment that favours Squadron and Titanic units. This is really good as it allows them to fire all weapons (including blast) in engagement range, and they do not suffer a penalty to hit! Even better, and one of your Titanic units can be given the Character Keyword allowing them to be your Commander and give them enhancements! And you’re probably going to want to – Battalion Commander can be used to give them Voice of Command to issue orders to 2 Squadron or Titanic units! Titan Killer allows you to reroll damage (and this is all the time, not just on titanic units!). Engine Speaker can be given to Tech Priests, and allows the target to add 3 to their movement. Finally, Assault Hatches can be given to a Titanic transport, and allows a unit that disembarks to make a normal move and still charge.

The second Astra Militarum detachment is Armoured Infantry, and this has a focus on vehicle mounted units and light tanks. All of your non artillary units with 12 or less wounds get the Skirmisher rule, which keys off a new order that allows them to make a D6 move whenever an enemy unit gets within 9″. On top of this, all your officers can issue orders to Squadrons.

There’s some cool enhancements in this one too such as allowing units to embark transports at the end of the enemy fight phase, or allowing Tech Priests to give your Skirmishers a 5+ feel no pain.

The Orks get some cool thematic ones – first up is Speedwaaagh, and this one has a hilarious rule that allows your Speed Freeks to use their turbo boostas when advancing. This lets them move 24″ but they have to move in a straight line! Enhancements here favour Meks and Wartrikes – Wartrikes can mvoe through terrain features when they Turbo boost, or instead get 3d6 shots with it’s burner. While Big Meks can increase their BS (Pretty nice!) or give a vehicle rapid fire 1.

Blitz Brigade on the other hand is all about orks in transports – and this allows any Ork that disembarks to reroll advance and charge rolls, which is super nice in a truck heavy army! Building on this enhancements support the fact you want people in combat. Runnin’ boots allow your unit +1 to charges out of a transport, and Supercharged Squig Oil allows vechiles to re roll charge rolls. meanwhile Blitzkaptin allows you to redeploy up to 3 vehicles or pop them into reserves.

Finally, the Space Marines also get 2 detachments. Armoured Spearhead again leans into marines coming our of vehicles. This gives all your 14+ wound transports the Heavy Transport keyword, and all your units can move an extra D6 (or 3+d3 if Heavy Transport) when they disembark. There’s some brilliant enhancements here – Liberator gives the unit stick objectives, even if they are in a heavy transport! Tip of the spear gives your Transport riding character Scout 9″, while Armoured Commander can pop transports back into reserves once per turn.

The second Space Marine detachment favours tanks, with Headhunter Task Force allowing you to designate 3 units the Tank Ace keyword, which allows them to advance 6″ rather than roll and get to reroll damage rolls! Keeping on with the theme there’s some nice vehicle upgrades – my favourite being Redoubtable Machine Spirit which gives them a 5+ inv save and heal a wound every command phase! There’s also upgrades to give models hit, wound and damage rerolls, grant them sustained hits or even Assault on their weapons while they are in range of another vehicle.

Summary

So what do I think of Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick? I’ve really enjoyed this narrative arc, and I love that the final book is setting things up for the new 11th Edition Armageddon box! I’m a little sad that we don’t see another showdown between Ol’ Bale Eye and Ghaz, I’m sure that’s something that they are saving for the 11th Edition storyline. Most of these campaign books are a way of releasing new and updated models, and the assortment that comes with this book fits in really nicely with the tank based campaign too. I really like it when they release sub-modes such as this – especially as all of these books are fully compatible with 11th too!

While this one (like Eye of Terror) seems a little thinner than the first two books, the content in here is excellent and well worth picking up to add to your collection.

Armageddon: The Return of Yarrick is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 9th May

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