T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - The Age of Sigmar

It can't have escaped the notice of those concerned - gamers and specific fans of the Nottingham Mafia - that Games Workshop changed their entire business model a year or two ago (and did very well out of it if their share's performance is any guide), for which changes, another of the 'freebies' at this year's Toy Fair 2020 was a starter kit for the Age of Sigmar in the shape of a magazine, which we're going to look at quickly here.

Again, like yesterday's erasersaurs; no hurry, and this has probably been out for a while (© - 2018), and will be around for a while to come, but you get a White Dwarf type publication with a free figure attached. My sample being a show-freebie is printed with a blind price panel, so I can't say for sure what it costs, but you get 108pp with covers, and a frame-runner for a 'Stormcast Eternal'.

It's one of the more basic such frames, with no extras for the spares-box . . . shock horror! As far as I can tell it's a perfectly good sculpting, up to GW's usual standards of detail and build-quality, and from what I can see, the whole game is set in a 'verse somewhere between Warhammer 40,000 and the older LotR stuff, having both the interplanetary element of the former, and the fantasy olde-worlde Norse mythology of the latter?

No surprises here; it's exactly what you get in any issue of White Dwarf - army building guides, protagonist guides, potted histories, modeling tips, painting hints, a move-by-move sample game and lots of professionally-painted miniatures in wonderful technicolor.

But that's the thing . . . if you've ever bought into any sector of the Nottingham Mafia's systems you don't need this, won't need this and can move straight to the rule-book and army lists for your chosen faction, but for younger readers coming into the hobby from the hype surrounding Game of Thrones (or the Hunger Games maybe?) it's probably a good place to start.