Age of Swag-mar

To me, there is nothing more satisfying then rolling up to a game of Warhammer with matching dice, cards, and other accessories for your army. The dice roll better if they match the army, it's a scientifically proven fact. Luckily for us, Games Workshop has been coming out with more and more add ons for each faction.

When Warhammer switched to AoS and 40k moved to 8th Edition we got rid of all of our templates. No more flame templates or pie plates, which was a great move. Those are the types of accessories I was fine with losing, but something I really enjoyed from 8th Edition Fantasy were the magic cards that came out for each races. They were a small thing, but really made it easier to keep track of your magic in game. They also looked great, and something about them just ticked a box inside the soul of any completionist out there.

Sadly, that was also one of the things we lost with the transition to AoS as well; at first, at least. Now that we're more than two years into the game system we're starting to see the return of these add ons. First it was some magic or prayer cards included for free with early copies of Battletomes, but soon we saw dice and most importantly, Warscroll cards. The fact that they've gone back and released them for older armies is great as well. They really are the most useful accessory for AoS they've released so far.

Whenever I start a major new army, one that I know I will commit to building to 2,000 points, or will be taking to multiple events, I always order some custom dice from Chessex. If I had the choice to buy some official dice from GW for every army though, I would definitely take that option. This isn't just on the AoS side of things either. 40k has been getting custom dice for awhile now, and Shadespire has dice and card sleeves for every faction, which I of course bought for the factions I play. Necromunda is also getting faction cards, as well as Blood Bowl. Most importantly on the 40k side of things are the Datacards, basically the spell cards for 40k. These just add value onto the game, but aren't required, which is what makes them so great. If you're inclined to picking up "swag" like this, as I am, the option is there, but not owning them won't hurt you in the game at all. I don't have any Warscroll cards yet since they haven't come out for any of my major armies I play regularly, but as soon as they do I'll definitely be picking some up. The one thing I would really like to see them do is bring back the spell cards for each faction as a permanent release instead of as an add on to an early Battletome order.

So, how do you feel about all of these additional add ons to the games? Are they something you pick up with new purchases or can you leave them behind? What accessories would you like to see GW come out with for their games?

Until next time,

Tyler M.