For fans of Games Workshop's products, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar has been a reliable source of large scale fantasy warfare. Much like its dark far future sci-fi counterpart, Warhammer 40k, Age of Sigmar has received ongoing support with new units and boxes over the years. The most recent of these being the new Maggotkin of Nurgle box, which brings the forces of Chaos into the game's 3rd Edition.. But now, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar will be receiving some new rules changes, courtesy of smaller updates called battlescrolls.
As explained in a Warhammer-Community post, Games Workshop has talked about ongoing rebalances coming to Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. The post talks about the difficulties of keeping multiple armies, along with their various tactics and special units, balanced and engaging over the years, including the highly competitive Matched Play format. But, the answer the team seems to have settled on is the same solution Warhammer 40k reached a while back: Battlescrolls. Battlescrolls are small incremental downloadable updates that can tweak certain units or abilities in order to keep things competitive.
Games Workshop's reasons for this change to Warhammer: Age of Sigmar were concise, Quoting, "Each Battlescroll will feature new rule-tightening and fine-tuning, with improvements coming to factions that could use a bit of a boost, and slight changes to prevent a few powerful armies from dominating. These will be used alongside the annual General’s Handbook, which provides updated missions and rules for Warhammer Age of Sigmar matched play. These rules will be in effect at all official Warhammer: Age of Sigmar events, and we think they make the game better, so we’d encourage you to try them out at home and at your local club, whether you’re playing intense matched play games, narrative Path to Glory campaigns, or wild open play free-for-alls. Of course it’s up to you – it’s your game!"
As for what the first Battlescroll changes for Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, the answer is in the name. Titled, "Gods & Heroes," this Battlescroll makes changes to major powerful units across the board. Kragnos' The Shield Inviolate ability now has a 6+ ward. In addition he has received two new abilities, Avatar of Destruction which changes a killing blow from a single spell or attack into a d6 of mortal wounds, and The End of Empires is an improved charge ability with all Destruction units within 12 inches to charge 3d6 rather than 2d6. In the same boat, the unit Nagash has gotten some changes as well like his Death Magic Incarnate ability now allowing friendly Death units to add 1 to their ward rolls until the end of the phase.
The Battlescroll update includes smaller changes as well. These include tweaks to the Heroic Recovery and Unleash Hell abilities as well as the Amulet of Destiny item. This rules update can be downloaded for free on Games Workshop's website as well as the official Age of Sigmar app.
