Age of Sigmar: The Game’s Best Pieces of Faction Terrain
While all faction terrain is rad, these three rise above the others for their usefulness.
Most of the new armies (and some of the older ones) that GW has released have brought some sort of building, altar, or grove of ticked-off trees to the battlefield to help boost their numbers. They’re all fairly useful, and buff their own army or debuff the enemy in some way, but some just outshine the usefulness of the others. Here’s my top 3 favorite pieces of faction terrain, and why I think they’re the best.
Bone-tithe Nexus
Like the Ossiarch Bonereapers that set this monolith up, the Bone-tithe Nexus has an answer for almost anything, and since it starts the game in the center of the battlefield, it will almost always be in range. If you need to blunt a scary unit, you can lower their hit rolls, if you need to assassinate a pesky character, you can slap a Mortal Wound on it, if there’s a wizard bothering you, you can foul up its magic, and if there’s a unit primed to slam into you, you can slow down it’s charge. Combining these with the specific strategy you employ on the battlefield means you can be ready for just about anything the enemy throws at you, and can counterattack with ease.
Herdstone
At first glance, a 6” bubble of Rend and no battleshock doesn’t seem like much, so the Herdstone doesn’t get a great deal of recognition. However, each turn the pulse grows as the Beastmen fall deeper and deeper into a feral frenzy and the power of Chaos invades their mind. By turn 4, all enemies within 24” will find their armor failing them as they face down a fearless mob of angry beasts. Combining this with a meaty unit of Bullgors or a massive horde of Ungors or Gors will leave your opponent trampled under the weight of your empowered hooves.
Bad Moon Loonshrine
For a low leadership horde army like the Gloomspite Gitz, the Loonshrine is a great asset, and can turn a loss into a victory very quickly. First, you have the immunity to battleshock wholly within 12” which isn’t incredible range but is enough to keep a defensive unit in the battle longer. The real power comes from the ability to return a unit of Shootas or Stabbas that has been destroyed to the battlefield, albeit only once and at half strength. However, killing a 40 man blob of Stabbas just to have 20 more pop up that are immune to battleshock is a pretty powerful ability. Bringing one of these along might not keep you alive, but it will definitely keep you around a little longer.
What’s your favorite piece of faction terrain?
