Happy Friday everyone!
As we continue to review the Destruction army’s Path to Glory rules it’s now time to look at the Sons of Behemat (SoB). In 40k integrating titan armies into narrative play has been tricky so let’s see how Age of Sigmar tries to incorporate these giants.
Army Special Rules:
One of the first odd things about the SoB, is that they do not control territories. They do not have a stronghold and instead use Wild Lands. You also don’t have unit limits (likely as your army is so small and specialized from the get go). You also get a special army construction type when playing Vangaurd sized battles. Basically your army is restricted to Mancrushers, but one gets a free upgrade at the start. It’s important to note that you don’t get a warlord in this configuration, not do you get core enhancements. Later on you can add a Mega-Gargant for free (well the first one anyway) and it becomes your warlord while also getting 15 renown points and a command trait. This also opens up the possibility of core enhancements for your army.
Another Quirk of the SoB is well…quirks. As your Gargant gets renown points it picks up random abilities (they must be rolled). There are 24 different quirks divided up into 4 tables (one for each type of Mega-Garagnt). GW also has provided you with very detailed instructions on how to combine Mancrushers into a mob. They are so complicated you will almost never do it as remembering everything is a huge pain.
Finally, the SoB have their own mechanics for lingering wounds. If you lose a gargant in battle you roll 2D6 and consult a table. In most cases you add D3-D6 lingering wounds to the model which are subtracted from its starting wounds at the beginning of the next battle. If you pile up more lingering wounds than your wound count your model is lost. Fortunately, you can spend Glory Points to help recuperate your units but the cost can be steep.
Quests:
The SoB get the standard number of quests: four. Monster Hunt gives you bonus renown for killing monsters but can never be completed. In Search of the Good Stuff gets you better exploration rolls and just requires a major victory. King Brodd’s Vengeance sets up their custom battle. Finding Bugman sees your forces try to go get a drink. You get clues by ending the game with models in your opponent’s territory although you lose points for fighting Khadron Overlords (which is kinda funny). Once you get 3 or more clues you can spend glory points to get barrels of grog which reduce your lingering wounds!
Custom Mission:
The fluff for this mission is that King Brodd has allied himself to your army for an attack on a Sigmarite city. One stupid rules is that you MUST include a King Brodd model to fight this battle – _ -. For the Gargants, it’s pretty much a breakthrough mission although all victory points are random. The mission is very similar to the Ogres one which is interesting. The defenders have a relief force to help them, and is likely there to balance out any camping. I am not super wild about this mission but you could probably house-rule it into a more fun game.
Veteran Abilities:
Aside from the Quirks table you also get a custom table for Mancrushers.
- Extra Big Bag: allows you to stuff two enemy models into your bag.
- Pointy Rocks: Improves the rend of Throwin’ Rocks.
- Thick Eads: Increases the damage of the headbutt attack.
- Dangerously Clumsy: Makes you do more damage when you die.
- Lanky Gits: Increases your movement speed.
- Thick-Skinned: a very fun ability which gives you a 4+ Ward save when targeted by the Unleash Hell command.
Territories:
As mentioned early you don’t really control territories. Thus your rules are a bit different. For all of your core territories you get different bonuses to your recuperation rolls. If you roll a faction-specific piece of terrain you get the highest level of recuperation and the following effect:
- Ghyranite Tract: Extra glory points
- Stonewrought Ruins: a lot of extra renown points
- Fallen Megabeast: free Mancrusher or Mega-Gargant
- Baggage Train: Even more Glory Points!
- Spring of Aqua Ghyranis: free recuperation for all your units!
- Ale House: An even greater amount of glory points.
While I am a little disappointed that the rewards aren’t terribly unique the descriptions are quite interesting and can show a slightly different side of the gargants which is cool.
Conclusion:
I have to say, a lot of thought went into these rules. the writers were very concerned about balance and loopholes and it shows. At the same time, it means these are some of the most complex rules for Path to Glory yet. You can build some pretty mean models using these rules but it will take a while. While they have some neat rules they also have a rather lackluster set of territory and custom mission rules. The custom mission is mostly a cash-grab and the territories are half-baked.
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