It's Grotmas and that means a slew of surprising(?) and sometimes kind-of-odd updates for all things Warhammer. From new Detachments for 40k to, apparently, Legends rules to make use of your Darkwater Heroes in your Order armies. You can check out the Warscrolls yourself on the Warhammer Community downloads page here.

Legends rules take up a kind of odd space in Warhammer since they certainly exist but the discourse that you (or at least I) see online is that they never see any play and might as well not exist. Realistically they're not "legal" for General's Handbook (GHB) Matched Play games and so won't be allowed in the vast majority of tournament play; there is a local semi-monthly event that runs that does allow any and all Legends rules however while playing the latest GHB and all FAQs. Certainly at home and between your friends and yourself you can just do whatever you like and I really do think Legends should be used more, especially by those that already own the miniatures!

That's where this lot of rules falls into: You bought the Darkwater Warhammer Quest box and want to use the Heroes in your Order army. It comes in the form of a first-of-its-kind Regiment of Renown letting you take any number of the Heroes to fill a single regiment and then act entirely independently on the table from each other. You can take them in any Order army but since they have the Cities of Sigmar keyword they'll have the most synergy there but you'll still run into the eternal issue that you'll almost always have more synergy just taking heroes from your faction pack or battletome.

The Regiment rules heals each of them for one health at the end of every turn and if they're wholly within 6" of every single other one that you've elected to take then each gets +1 to its Attacks with melee weapons. Obviously the more you take the more restrictive that latter rule becomes! Otherwise that's it, it's fairly simple, each Hero costs you between 100-150 points each putting them in the normal region for foot heroes: Expensive and probably not "worth it" most of the time but they're Legends, they're for fun! You're allowed to have fun in Age of Sigmar despite what some might say.

The Heroes

Each one has a pretty standard foot-hero sort of profile with 5 or 6 Health, Control 2, and a save befitting the armour the models is wearing ranging from 3+ up to 6+ for the Jade Wizard. None of these have particularly stand-out weapon profiles but are aggressively fine.

Edmark Valoran

The Manticore Knight! Wielding a Knightly Battleaxe this guy acts as a bit of a bodyguard for any of your other Infantry Heroes by reducing incoming Rend of weapons against them so long as they're within 3" of this guy. He'll also deal a mortal damage back for each save of 1 he rolls in combat, a nice little bonus but with only five Health he's probably dying before that does any more than one point of damage. That's it, very straightforward. He's the second cheapest at 110 points and probably OK at that.

Bren Tylis

With the same exact stat line as Edmark but with an extra point of rend in melee she hits a little bit harder. She's got a fun little Deployment phase ability to remove her from wherever you've set her up and place her anywhere on the board more than 3" from all enemy units. Some battleplans, especially the more Narrative ones, can have some really funny deployment zones so that can be really amusing to nab an objective absurdly early and just generally be a backline nuisance; of course it goes directly against the Regiment's ability of getting an extra attack by standing near each other. Her other ability stands her back up after dying on a 3+ by not being removed from the table and giving Heal (5) after remaining damage points are ignored. Nurgle and Tzeentch each have a really funny counter this since both Disease and Burning would cancel the Heal and simply removing the effect from the model...and then it's still at zero health so will still die anyways. It's not the first instance of this to exist in the game, the Skaven Hell Pit Abomination does the same thing, but its' still very amusing whenever it comes up.

Inara Sion

The first of the two wizards on offer, she has a reasonable ranged attack (that's the exact same as her melee attack) with three shots, Crit Auto-wound, and dishes out D3 damage a piece, respectable for a foot wizard. Once per battle in any Hero phase she can heal any friendly unit within 3" for 2D3 health which is pretty nice that you can do it in your opponent's turn instead of needing to wait for your own to come back around again and can be used on any unit like monsters. Her spell casts on a 7+ against an enemy within 12" making it roll a dice each time it uses a Move ability, on a 3+ it's not allowed to move closer to Inara. That's a really great little piece of tech, the 3+ is more likely to go off than not and board control is king. Casting it off of a Magical Intervention will be hard with the -1 for what's not a guaranteed affect but could be game winning and worth the risk.

Warhammer Quest Dark Water.
Credit: Blake Law

Drolf Ironhead

The dwarf! Duardin, dwarf, dawi, it's all the same to me. This guy is the one I'm most excited about simply cause he is a dwarf, a surprise to no one that knows me or is familair with my posting. He's...fine. He's actually the cheapest of the set at only 100 points and gets a fun 3-shot-2-damage crossbow at 10" range, a pair of axes that hit the exact same as Edmark but gains Crit (2 Hits) when in combat with at least two enemy units at once; of course if he's in that situation he's probably dead before swinging anyways. In your movement phase if he's not in combat he gets to make a fun little scouting move by picking a terrain piece within 3" of him, removing himself from the table, and being set up again within 3" of the same terrain piece. Some terrain footprints are pretty big so that could easily be much faster than trying to move; this isn't a Move or Core ability either so he can move up to a terrain piece before using it too and can charge after. He just can't be set up within combat range of any enemy units is all.

Jacobus Vyne

The other wizard in the set and oddly with a worse save than Inara but equally unarmoured. His shooting attack is a bit nastier with two shots, rend 2, and flat 3 damage which has a good chance of actually laying on some hurt. His spell casts on a 6+ and you pick either an objective market or a terrain feature that is not faction terrain. All of your infantry and cavalry units are -1 to be hit from shooting attacks while wholly within 3" of that terrain piece or objective marker for the rest of the game. A game-lasting spell is pretty great but only working against shooting attacks makes it very situationally good as some armies just won't even have any shooting to start with. During your movement phase you get to summon in the Wisper manifestation for free, with no dice roll, if it's not already on the table; that's really solid just getting something extra automatically which is nice because with one single point of health it's going to die so fast every turn. Like any other manifestation it can be banished on a 7+ and has to be set up more than 9" from enemy units and of course can't move in the same turn it's set up either. The only advantage it gives you is measuring Vyne's ranged attack and spell from the Wisper instead, which is handy to keep your wizard a bit safer a little further back.

Drasher Vorn

The big beasty guy himself he's tied for the most costly at 150 points with Kelthannor and hits reasonably well in combat as soon as you get past his 4+ to hit roll, but with Crit 2 Hits on 6 Attacks with Rend 2 and Damage 2 it's reasonably meaty. In any Hero phase you can choose to cause D3 damage to himself and then add the number of damage points on him to his Attacks that turn; I do wish he'd just get extra attacks equal to his damage points all the time instead of needing to hurt himself first but at the right moment, so long as it doesn't kill him, that could get him up to 11 Attacks which could work as a great little targeted missile into something. At the end of every turn of course he will Heal (1) thanks to the Regiment and if he's killed any enemy models that turn until the end of the next turn he won't be allowed to use Retreat abilities but will also get +1 to his hit rolls, helping with the earlier issue of hitting on a 4+ normally! It's built in! Have him rampage down against the squishier units and he'll have a great time.

Kelthannor

A Kurnothi model, a faction/line of models that I've seen being asked after almost as much as Chaos Dwarfs ever since that Underworlds Warband came out years ago now. Well here's a hoof (get it) hero to add to that very small range, maybe something we'll see in the future, it's a fun aesthetic that would probably do well.

Anyway, with his big bow he's got the longest ranged attack here at 18" making 3 Attacks with Rend 2 and Damage 2 it's a solid little profile the harry skirmishing units but plinking any damage into a bigger unit lets you roll a 3+ to subtract 1 from the target's attacks characteristic until your next turn. That's really strong, especially on more elite units that have multiple attack profiles really neutering them before coming into combat; also, importantly, it's not just melee weapons either making Stormcast Longstrikes or even Kharadron Overlords units prime targets. In your own Hero Phase you pick any friendly unit, other than a war machine, wholly within 12" to make a 3" move that can move within and even end within combat ranges of enemy units that it already started within combat range of and can move out of combat. A little bit of extra movement is always going to be welcome and a way of pulling units out of combat without using a Retreat ability is huge: They won't suffer any damage and can still use a normal move, shoot, and still charge later in the same turn.

credit Games Workshop

Legends Come and Go

As I said at the start, these aren't going to be for everyone but there's certainly some fun abilities mixed in. If you've got these models already and aren't grinding your way through games prepping for a tournament why not throw them on the table to try out? Really curious for anyone that does which hero(es) might see the table more often than others. Obviously throwing down all seven at a cost of 880 points would be very amusing to just see how that many separate models running around might do!

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Tags: age of Sigmar | aos | Cities of Sigmar | warhammer quest