Age of Sigmar: No Bull Review – Alarith Spirit of the Mountain
Here’s the lowdown on the new Spirit of the Mountain kit up for preorder this weekend.
The weekend, the Spirit of the Mountain, affectionately known as the Aelvish Battle Cow, will be going up for preorder, alongside the other Alarith units and the Dawnriders. Here’s a quick and dirty review of the new big bovine, and while you’ll definitely want to pick one up.
I’ve done a review of Avalenor, the special character version of the cow, and the standard Alarith isn’t much different than him, with the exception of wounds and the weapon he wields. The standard battlecow only has 12 wounds as opposed to Avalenor’s 14, and the Spirit’s double handed Worldhammer only has 4 attacks while Avalenor can dish out 6. However, the Worldhammer wounds on a 2+ rather than a 3+, and has an additional point of Rend, so it is a little better at cracking heavily armored targets.
Both have the All but Immovable rule, which lets them add an extra attack to all their melee weapons as long as they didn’t charge, and the Stonemage Symbiosis rule, which lets them ignore the damage table so long as they are within 12” of a Stonemage. Their Ponderous Wisdom (on the spirit) and Elder Wisdom (on Avalenor) abilities are almost identical, with the exception that Avalenor’s only requires the hero to be within 6” rather than 3”, giving you a bit more range, and his Command Ability has slightly longer range and multi-target potential. Basically, Avalenor is, as he should be, a slightly stronger Hero variant of the Spirit, but he also costs an extra 20 points and locks you into the Ymetrica subfaction, plus you can only have one.
The idea of a herd of battle cows stomping across the field with this guy leading the charge is horrifying, and using quick minimum math, you could run Avalenor, a Stonemage, 3 units of 5 Stoneguard, and still have space for 3 Spirits, with a little money left over for another mage or some Endless Spells. While not as terrifying as the Baleful Lords Bloodthirster wave, I imagine an army like that could potentially go toe to toe with the Khorne Boys and come out on top, especially if Avalenor hits your three cows with his Command Ability to increase their attacks.
Outside the rules, the Alarith Spirit kit is gorgeous, and chock full of bits to customize your other models or to make your Spirits stand out from one another. The kit can build Avalenor and two seperate variants of Spirit, so even just building straight from the box you’ll have distinct models, should you decided you DO want to run a massive herd of Spirits. This is definitely a box worth picking up, and Spirits make great centerpiece models for your Lumineth collection if you, like me, are steering clear of the weirdly wrinkled Teclis model.
What models are you planning to preorder this weekend?
