Warhammer Orruk Warclans New Releases Review - Waaagh!

When the Waaagh! bells begin to ring, there's no more terrifying sound for civilized society. But for the Orruk Warclans, it's sweet, sweet music! Games Workshop sent us a few new Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Orruk Warclans releases, along with their updated Battletome, to check out - so follow along for our thoughts! (Psst... stick around to the end for new Bloodbowl releases!)

Battletome: Orruk Warclans

Let's start with the wonderfully aggressive Battletome: Orruk Warclans, which reintroduces the army into the newest edition of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar (we reviewed the new edition with the release of the Skaventide box set). Over 120 pages long, this Battletome covers everything you need to know to play with the Orruk Warclans army. The first 76 pages are devoted to backgrounds and lore for the army, including information on various clans, how the Orruks see the world (generally as a place to fight), and more.

From there we get into the rules, and there are distinct sections for both the Ironjawz faction and the Kruleboyz faction. I can't show screengrabs from my review PDF of the Battletome, so I'll summarize some of my favorite bits here.

For the Ironjawz, there are brand new battle traits that key off of their aggressive nature, with one allowing a friendly Ironjawz unit to move up to 3" (including moving into combat), and the other allowing a friendly Ironjawz Hero to add 1 to charge rolls and 1 to their Attacks characteristic of their melee weapons.

There are also Battle Formations (you can pick one) which allow them to add 1 to attack rolls for a unit that rolled high on their charge roll, give them Ward (6+) when they're near Ironjawz Wizards and Priests, and more! There are also Artefacts of Power like Trophy Skulls (which add 10 to the unit's control score, not bad!), and spells like "Da Great Big Green Hand Of Gork" which, along with winning the award for the best name of a spell, allow you to teleport a unit halfway across the battlefield.

For the Kruleboyz, there are plenty of dirty tricks they can employ (with a successful dirty trick roll), allowing them to sneak around the battlefield, use venom-encrusted weapons to score crits on rolls of 5+, and more. Their battle formations allow them to hide near terrain features, boost the range of ranged weapons (not that too many units are interested in ranged here), and more.

Their Artefacts of Power include Mork's Eye Pebble, which gives them Ward (5+) for the rest of the turn, the ability to boost a wizard up with a Swamp Staff, and stinging ash that makes it harder for your enemies to hit you. Along with updated unit profiles, rules for Spearhead and campaign play, and so much more - if you run a Orruk Warclans army, you really can't afford to skip the new Battletome: Orruk Warclans.

Now let's take a look at some of the new models we received!

Warhammer Orruk Warclans - Hobgrot Slittaboss

For when your Kruleboyz need some leadership - and I use that term very loosely when talking about the Orruk Warclans - you can now look to the Hobgrot Slittaboss, a real mean little dude with a Toxin-smeared Slitta-sword (ouch!). He's got two nasty abilities.

First up is the Kompany Taktikz (these spellings are driving my spellcheck insane) ability, which triggers after you've declared a Fight action with this unit. In doing so, you can then allow another friendly Hobgrot Slittaz unit in his command range to immediately fight after he fights, adding 1 to their wound rolls.

There's also the potentially devastating Toxic Stash ability, which can be used once per battle. This ability allows you to pick an enemy unit currently in combat with the Slittaboss and roll 2D6, if you roll higher than the target's health characteristic... they're immediately destroyed! All in all, I think this leader does what I want a Orruk leader to do - some light unit benefits, with a big old nasty attack up his sleeve. From here, we move onto some fun terrain/manifestations for the army.

Warhammer Orruk Warclans - Bossrokk Tower/Skaregob Totem

This absolutely towering piece of terrain can be put together either as a Bossrokk Tower (if you're running an Ironjawz army) or as a Skaregob Totem for you Kruleboyz players. I built it as a Bossrokk Tower, but both builds are easy to assemble considering their size and amount of component parts.

As a Bossrock Tower, which has 12 Health and a 4+ save, you'll move an Infantry Hero onto it and from then on all attacks against them will target the Tower. The Tower also boasts the "Aggressively Bossy" ability, which effects a visible enemy unit within 18" of the Tower. The Tower is surprisingly defensive (which makes sense as its a Tower, but doesn't make sense as this is the Orruks we're talking about), and can subtract from an enemy's control score, subtract 1 from casting rolls, or even subtract 1 from the number of dice rolled when making charge rolls!

As a Skaregob Tower, you'll really only want to use this if you're all-in on Kruleboyz' dirty tricks, as it adds 1 to your dirty trick rolls and can extend the range of said tricks to 18". Of the two, the Bossrokk Tower definitely packs more of a punch, but it still looks extremely cool on the tabletop in any configuration.

Warhammer Orruk Warclans Manifestations

Next up is a collection of Manifestation spells that you can cast with both Ironjawz or Kruleboyz factions, adding a bit of fun chaos to your army.

Let's start here with the Foot of Gork, the only spell you can rely on to put a big, stinky foot on the battlefield. Coming in two parts as you can see from the image above, these big footprints wander around the battlefield, stomping enemies where they land. These stomped units lose 1 of their charge dice, seriously slowing down your enemies!

There's also the Gork-Roara, a floating skull spewing out Waaagh! energy! This, with proper rolls, speeds up nearby armies, allowing them to add (with good enough rolls) additional value to their charge rolls. Sort of like the opposite of the big foot!

And finally in this kit, there's the Morkspit Marsh, which is a goopy, swampy morass of sludge that looks amazing on the battlefield and has a few key, hindering abilities. First up, any enemy unit within 3" of the Marsh subtracts 3 from their control scores (which could be huge with proper placement). Secondly, enemy units cannot use Run abilities when they're within 6" of this Manifestation.

All in all, these Manifestations are really fun ways to utterly mess with the tempo of the game - much to the advantage of a charge-happy Orruk Warclans army. This isn't really the kind of utility I think of when I think about running Orruks, but seeing it all laid out here I can really appreciate a path forward with the Warclans where you're stifling your enemy's movement and rolling over them like a tide of blades and jawz.

BONUS! New Bloodbowl Releases!

In addition to all this great Orruk Warclans content, I also got to check out the new Spike! Presents: 2024 Almanac! and two new models for Bloodbowl, Rowana Forestfoot and Rashnak Backstabber.

Spike! Presents: 2024 Almanac! and New Models

Mostly focused on the Vampire, Gnome, and Chaos Dwarf teams, the new Spike! Presents: 2024 Almanac! offers a veritable feast for Blood Bowl players.

Each of the three above-mentioned teams get updated rules and little bonuses. I won't go through them all here but to highlight some of the juiciest bits, for the Vampires, you can now run a Vampire Lord as your head coach, who can recruit a new thrall in the post-game sequence if you've killed a specific kind of enemy player during the match. They also have the Bloodlust rule, which effectively says that if they roll poorly after taking an action, they have to bite a nearby friendly thrall to feed!

For the gnomes, a new trait called "My Ball" means that the player holding the ball cannot willingly give up the ball under any circumstances - so long to handing off the ball when in a tight spot! They also have the new Trickster trait, which says when a Gnome is about to be hit by a block action they can move one adjacent square! Very tricky indeed!

Also included is one of the models we received, Rowana Forestfoot, who sits atop an elk! I LOVE the look of this model, and her special ability "Bounding Leap" allows her to take no penalties to an Agility test while leaping, and she can even re-roll the result.

Finally, the Chaos Dwarves get the new Breathe Fire special trait, allowing them to attempt to blast an opponent with a ball of mouthy fire. On a good enough roll, they make their opponent go prone (and with a roll of a 6, the target is Knocked Down). They also have an update to their Iron Hard Skin skill, which reads" Opposing players cannot modify any Armour rolls made against this player. In addition, the Claws skill cannot be used when making an Armour roll against this player."

Finally, in addition to the Almanac and Rowanna, I also got to check out another new Star Player, Rashnak Backstabber. This Hobgoblin plays the Sneaky Stabba position, and has the special rule "Toxic Connoisseur," which reads: "Once per game, when Rashnak successfully breaks an opposition player's armour as a result of a Stab Special action, you may apply an additional +1 modifier to the Injury roll. This modifier may be applied after the roll has been made.

Nastiness all around! For fans of Blood Bowl a new year always sees an exciting new Almanac, and I think this year's edition is one of the most useful for fans of the three featured armies. Everything I've written above is just the smallest little sample of what's included, so I'll leave it to you to dive in to see more Star Players, more sample lineups, point buy values for these armies, and so much more.

Final Thoughts

Over the next few weeks we'll see more exciting new releases from Games Workshop I can't talk about yet, which will be a little less "all over the place" than this week's batch of fresh entries. But even so, I don't see how you could be disappointed as either an Orruk Warclans player or a Blood Bowl fan. These new releases give fans exactly what they're looking for - and while they won't be of much value if you don't field Orruk or play BB, for those interested this is going to feel like a real touchdown. Waaagh!