There’s a barrage of new battletomes coming to Warhammer Age of Sigmar, and first in line are two elemental rivals from the Grand Alliance of Order – the soul-stealing Idoneth Deepkin and the blaze-bearded Fyreslayers.
These nominal allies have been set against one another in Fury of the Deep, a huge new battlebox that contains a new character for each faction – such as the Auric Flamekeeper, whose Masterflame Rune draws power from the ur-gold runes of fallen allies. That’s not the only way these molten mercenaries can harness the runic magic of their forefathers, however.
Ur-gold runes are tattoos of mystic metal, crafted by expert Runemasters and hammered directly into the skin.* This bodacious body art is imbued with Grimnir’s essence, and when Fyreslayers enter battle – as they often do – they can awaken their ur-gold runes to claim the power of a fallen war-god.
As aspiring Runefathers may be aware, Fyreslayer armies benefit from the Ur-gold Runes battle trait. You can activate one of six different runes in your hero phase, each of which offer a special bonus with an enhanced effect on a roll of 6. The new battletome adds an extra twist – Blaze of Glory, a new Heroic Action that can tune up your runes.
Why leave things to chance? When you really need to fire up one of your Heroes, they can activate the enhanced effect of whichever ur-gold rune you picked – even if you didn’t roll a 6.
Meanwhile, the finest duardin smiths have been hard at work in fiery forges – several of your runes have changed quite dramatically.
The Rune of Fiery Determination has seen the most significant change. Once a simple Bravery buff, it now offers an impressive army-wide ward of 6+, ideal for weathering a turn of heavy shooting. Its enhanced effect makes your Heroes even harder to kill, boosting their ward to 5+.
Resilience is great, but it doesn’t win battles on its own. Fyreslayers love their giant axes, and the last thing you want is for your cleaving blows to be blunted by enemy armour and magical wards. Meet the shiny new Rune of Searing Heat, which causes your attacks to dish out mortal wounds on rolls of 6.**
The enhanced effect sets your hot-headed little dudes alight with literal flames of fury, inflicting mortal wounds on any units within 3”. Pop that right as your Hearthguard Berzerkers get stuck into a big brawl and watch the fireworks!
With their Flamestrike Poleaxes, your Berserkers can cause two mortal wounds on each hit roll of 6, another mortal wound on wound rolls of 6, and still have some damage in store for opponents who fail their save rolls. Now that’s hot.
Duardin commanders all across the Mortal Realms should find plenty of ways to use their new runic repertoire when Battletome: Fyreslayers is released in the near future. Let’s hope they can bellow loud enough to get the orders past their blazing bouffants.
Sure as the tides, we’ll be seeing updates for the Idoneth Deepkin shortly – alongside a new battletome of their own. Subscribe to the Warhammer Community newsletter so you don’t miss the latest news.
* And we thought tattoo needles were scary enough…
** It even works on ranged attacks – perfect for blasting away with magmapikes.