The End Times: Glottkin – Review

The second End Times book is a noticeably slimmer tome than its predecessor and new was £10 less expensive, the presentation though remains of the same high quality. The first book is around 130 pages and the second 65, significantly less than the 300 and 100 of Nagash respectively. 

To begin with I think it is worth mentioning that this book is a lot narrower in scope compared to Nagash, whilst the first End Times book begins with an overview of each faction and the story itself covers everything from fallen Kislev, to Nehekhara and everything in-between, this book focuses upon the fate of the Empire alone. It also focuses upon a slew of new characters whereas Nagash revisited many old ones, some who had even dropped out of the background for a good many years. The Glottkin themselves being a new invention; making it feel very much like a totally new chapter in the Warhammer mythos as opposed to an expected logical extension.

We open with a quick recap of events from the previous book which nicely brings us up to date on world events and sets the tone of the rest of the book with the focus heavily on Chaos. It is also worth pointing out that this book chronologically take place just after chapter 4 in the Nagash book and I think at the same time as Nagash invades Nehekhara in Chapter 5.

Chapter 1  begins with the meeting of Archaon and the Glottkin followed by the planning of a three-pronged Nurgle attack on the Empire. Most of the chapter is then devoted to the first invasion party led by the Glottkin themselves on the city of Marienburg which is razed in a day despite the best efforts of Marienburg's resident vampiric under lord and a small imperial army 

Chapter 2 shows us the landing of the second invasion force led by Gutrot Spume and his slog through the forests of the Empire where he teams up with some beastmen, they then proceed to fight some forest goblins and savage orcs. I quite like the Lord of Tentacles, he has a nice little gimmick going on that isn't horrendously overused and is fairly interesting. Of all the new Nurgle characters he is perhaps my favourite, maybe I just like nautical characters as I was a fan of Luther Harkon in the last book, but at the end of the day I just felt he had a bit more going for him than the Maggoth Riders who talk big but do very little. It was also nice to see the beastmen do something beyond simply raiding and the fact that they can take marks now (as discussed later) has them rejoining with their long lost chaos friends in one massive unholy union. There were also notable mentions of Malagor and Khazrak One Eye who could yet have important parts to play in Archaon's invasion.

Chapter 3 sees the adventures of the Maggoth Riders and begins setting up the final chapter. Really this chapter felt a lot like filler, serving only to establish the daemonic elements of the army that attack Altdorf. The three Maggoth Riders, whilst possessing some very interesting back stories, seemed quite bland compared to Spume and the Glottkin, perhaps due to the fact that they acted largely as a single unit in this chapter doing everything together and not really exploring their individual characteristics. Together with Epidemius they take down Talabheim and continue their march towards Altdorf. 

Chapter 4 was the Fall of Altdorf, well this was pretty massive and was certainly a lot longer than the other chapters. On one side we have the men of Altdorf, a Brettonian crusade and the undead; Vlad being made Elector-Count of Sylvania by Kurt Helborg in desperation. On the other we have the armies of the Glottkin, Gutrot Spume and Epidemius joining outside the city whilst Festus and Ku'Gath work to cripple Altdorf from within. Even though Altdorf was for a time partially transformed into part of Nurgle's garden the forces of order prevailed as Karl Franz, imbued with the power of Sigmar, defeated the Glottkin and burnt away the corruption that ravaged his lands. The heroics of Louen Leoncoeur, Kurt Helborg and Vlad von Carstein managed to save the city in time for Karl Franz to perform what I suppose was almost literally a deus ex machina. It was really quite epic and my brief summery here doesn't really do it justice.

There were certainly less deaths in Glottkin than in Nagash and most of them happened in the final battle. Whilst I forget most of the fallen from Nagash I have listed the deaths of this book below:

Gutrot Spume and the Maggoth Lords managed to escape and I fully expect them to turn up again later as fodder for the heroes of order. Whilst the new Nurgle characters were interesting and had some pretty cool backstories, I couldn't really care much for them. Even though it said Glottkin on the cover the triplets didn't manage to bring the same gravitas to the book like Nagash did to his. In fact my favourite bits of the book were those with Festus or Vlad who both seemed to steal the show every time they appeared.

The image of Taal being attended by the other Gods of the Old World was quite a cool addition that appeared a few times throughout the book. This continues the idea of Gods being more active as we saw in the Nagash book and is something I am betting will be huge in the upcoming elf book with Khaine, Isha and Asuryan coming to the fore.

One thing I do quite like about the battles in this book is the little heraldic shields given for each unit of note which can act as a cool little reference guide for either painting those specific units or as something to draw inspiration from. The art overall in this book has continued the strong lead taken by Nagash and the general quality of the writing remains high.

I am not gong to dwell on the rules too much as I don't play any chaos armies so much of it will be lost on me. Besides, there are many other bloggers who can do a much better in depth look than me and I would recommend you check them out.

City fighting looks fun, doubt I will play much of it due to not owning much appropriate terrain, but it is nice to see these rules come into print. We seem to be getting more and more ways to play the game than ever before which is great, I just hope by the end of this series we get a rules over-saturation. It will be interesting to see if skirmishing rules come back in the future or if Regiments of Renown become something more than just a Warhammer World event.

Chaos Legions rules look like every Chaos players dream since Hordes of Chaos got split up into three factions. Beastmen being able to take marks in particular has my brother very excited and it very much feels like a big Chaos reunion where everyone gets cool new stuff and nobody loses out. The Chaos Ascendent and Infernal Legion rules look fun to use if you like more random tables and summoning. The amount of summoning being added to the game does feel a lot like the new psychic Demonology discipline in 40k, not only do you need to have an army to actually play a game but you also need to own nearly a whole other army in case you summon it; whether it be undead or demonic. Summoning spells and tentative steps towards an allies system with combined lists certainly feels nice as it represents the background in many ways but it also feels like another way for GW to make money as I discussed during my Nagash review. 

With regards the new characters I quite like that GW are willing to add new named characters to the background, a rather bold move considering all the characters in the Nagash release were already well established figures even if they were lacking modern rules or models. I think the Glottkin book is a sign that GW are wanting to move in bold and interesting new directions. Nagash functions perfectly as the first book to the End Times as it brings waves of Oldhammer nostalgia with it whilst moving the story forward. It sets the stage for the End Times but does so using familiar characters and concepts. Glottkin is the perfect second book as it brings new ideas to the board and would not have been successful if it hadn't ridden on the coattails of Nagash. If it had been the very first book I can imagine many would not be happy with some new randomers coming out of nowhere starting the End Times.

The new models are quite gorgeous, whilst the characters themselves don't really appeal to me I cannot deny how detailed and absolutely disgusting they are. As with Nagash and the Mortarchs of the last release, the Glottkin and the Maggoth Lords really showcase the talent and production capabilities of the company. Whilst I often disagree with the pricing of their models, I cannot deny that GW make some of the nicest models on the market, their massive kits of the past two years being particularly impressive. The real stand outs of this release though have to be the Putrid Blightkings, already I have seen them converted into everything from Plague Marines to Obliterators and Inquisitorial Henchmen. In fact they are great models on their own and have me sorely tempted to revive my Warriors of Chaos army.

On a random note. Personally I think that if the Glottkin wanted to succeed they should have gotten themselves some big hats. Nagash, Arkhan and Neferata all got massive hats in the last book and won at pretty much everything they did. Nurgle didn't bother giving any of his new champions impressive hats; the pitiful helmet of Otto Glott being nothing compared to the might of Karl Franz's feathered head gear. Archaon should get himself an upgrade quick before the world is covered in the shadow of Nagash's mighty Hat of Death!

Ultimately, whilst I really enjoyed this book, I feel it falls down somewhat simply by comparison to Nagash. The size and scope of Nagash was immense and there was simply lots more content; whilst there were several battles during each chapter of Nagash, each of the four chapters of Glottkin was devoted to a single event. Whilst Nagash appealed primarily to Undead players it also spent time with the Elves, the Dwarves, the Empire and Chaos whereas Glottkin was far more narrow in scope. Don't get me wrong the events of Glottkin were massive, but it felt overall like less was covered. In fact on page count alone it was only really half the size of Nagash.

7.5/10 - A strong continuation of the End Times series, quality remains high but there was less of it.

As I finish writing this another End Times book has gone up for pre-order, this one dealing with the three elven factions who hitherto have largely been absent from proceedings. As Dark Elves were my first army I am really looking forward to this. I managed to order a copy of hardback End Times: Khaine within minutes of it going up, something I failed to do with Glottkin, so I am very pleased with myself. Now I simply have to wait just over a week and it shall be mine!

I would also like to quickly note that both the Nagash and Glottkin books have been released in soft back at a slightly lower cost. This I think is definitely a move in the right direction and will hopefully help to cut down on eBay scalpers now that there is a less limited version of the books available.