Cities of Sigmar – Warscrolls

Regarded as the most brilliant arcanist ever to emerge from the college of Settler's Gain, Erasmus Zonn has mastered Hyshian magic to a level even aelven archmages must respect. An experienced realm-wanderer, Erasmus supplements his devastating radiant magic with the Lantern of All-Knowledge, a powerful device that can manipulate light to empower his allies.

Every Cavalier-Marshal is nigh unstoppable on the charge. They gallop hard into the enemy, collapsing battlelines and intercepting charging foes with a sudden burst of speed. Though they often carry the weight of a Dawnbringer Crusade upon their shoulders, they are inspiring champions well used to leading by example.

The specialist wizards known as Alchemite Warforgers can exaggerate the innate strength of metal exponentially. These members of the Gold College are often requested by the Freeguilds for their mastery over metals and arcane machinery, which proves to be more practical than the high arcane arts of other wizards. Through their magic, the resilience of the metal used by the God-King’s armies is multiplied many times over. Wrought iron becomes hard as duardin-worked gromril and shields become inviolable bulwarks. Meanwhile, enemies find their own armour transmuting into cumbersome lead, staggering them at the critical moment. Blade hilts suddenly burn white-hot, forcing their owners to drop them, whilst halberds find their biting edge drizzling away into molten slurry. The signature artefact of the Alchemite Warforger’s profession is the massive crucible they bear at their side, a portable forge that contains the power of an inferno. Thick layers of leather protect them from the heat, but even veteran Alchemites must use long-handled tongs to bring out the runic cubes within. They use these cubes as lodestones that affect magical motes and the flow of the aether – simply by turning them this way and that, the Alchemite can melt metal around them until it flows at their command.

Strange and unnerving are the Amethyst Knellmages, masters of Shyishan magic. Their bizarre, bell-shaped helms are topped by hammer-wielding skeletal figures that toll a percussive rhythm; the wizards swing their deadly scythes in time to each soul-shaking peal.

Battlemages who dedicate themselves to the Aqshian school of magic are fiery and aggressive souls. Known as Pyrocasters, they channel the tremendous power of bright magic through their emberstone wands, annihilating their foes in an explosion of flame.

Deadly with sword and pistol, Hanniver Toll is a veteran hunter of witches, fiends, monsters and insurrectionists. Backed up by the two-fisted firepower of ex-Freeguild soldier Armand Callis, he wages a ceaseless war against the enemies of Sigmar.

Freeguild Marshals who lead from the front are perhaps the most heroic of all. The respect they have won from their warriors is stronger than any order, and their Relic Envoys ensure their orders always get to where they are needed. When battlelines close, their skill with sword, hammer and pistol swiftly becomes clear.

The armies of the Freeguilds eschew static towers in favour of those built atop hulking Ogor Warhulks. These battlements provide mobile vantage points, allowing a gunner riding aloft to snipe the command personnel of the enemy with relative ease. Their long-barrelled fusil allows them to engage at range and the tall crow’s nest protects them from return fire. When the enemy closes in, the ogor below uses their giant tower shield and heavy-headed mace to crush those foolish enough to get within reach. Those caught on the rim of the shield soon feel themselves being hoisted upwards and the ogor’s trowel-like teeth sinking into their flesh, for even a city ogor, relatively civilised in comparison to their wilderness-dwelling kin, likes a snack in the middle of battle. The relationship between soldier and ogor is not an easy one. Even city ogors, known for their ability to overrule the grumbling of their stomachs for hours at a time, are unpredictable. No ogor likes being clambered over by a mere thinling who should really be inside their gut. Those teams that last tend to have some manner of connection – a life debt after the gunner had saved the ogor from certain death, for instance, or a lost bet that the ogor feels obligated to fulfil.

As agents of Azyr, Galen and Doralia ven Denst have executed hundreds of Chaos cultists and living dead over the course of their careers. Galen’s skill with a spell-banishing pistol and runic broadsword is formidable, while Doralia’s crossbow blasts gheists and daemons apart with ease.

Driven into exile from his conquered home city of Anvilgard, the fearless Ranger-Colonel Jorvan Kreel travels far in search of allies to help him reclaim his honour and his legacy. Accompanied by the deadly ash panther Thexa and wielding twin swords with breathtaking skill, Kreel carves a path through anyone standing in his way.

The clergy of the Brethren of the Forge often serve in Sigmar’s armies as blacksmiths, chaplains and battlefield exorcists. With a chanted hymn and a blessed strike of their warhammers, they can blast the lingering corruption from contested ground, turning it into a haven for Sigmarite troops.

The Great Wheel turns, and the driving force is faith. As she gives her inspiring battlefield sermons, the raw celestial power of the God-King crackles out from Pontifex Zenestra’s sacred palanquin to incinerate enemy mages and heathens, whilst her acolytes bludgeon and hew any foolish enough to approach her without permission.

T here is no fortress, city or fortified war camp that the feared Shadowblade Assassins cannot infiltrate, and few foes can hope to survive the potent poisons delivered by their wicked daggers.

Masters of the arcane arts, the grizzled Battlemages of the Collegiate Arcane summon lethal storms of magic to lay waste to their foes and shield their comrades from harm with protective enchantment.

Fleetmasters are rulers of the high seas, Corsair lords who command the marauding Black Arks of the Scourge Privateers. Peerless swordfighters, they delight in seeking out worthy foes against whom to test their skill.

Thief. Fugitive. Brigand. Bren Tylis has been all these and more in her life as a roving sellsword. Not for the first time, she finds herself on the run from Sigmar’s unforgiving clergy – but this time with just cause. She bears the relics of Saint Yondara, her fallen ancestor and a sworn guardian of the Everspring. That holy duty has now passed to Bren Tylis; through her own blessed skull, Yondara can commune with her living relative and guide Tylis’s hand.

Grizzled combat engineers who know how to squeeze peak performance and killing power from any war machine, Cogsmiths are also proficient warriors capable of cutting down those who would interfere with their field repairs.

Chief of the Arak Klor, the hulking Drasher Vorn is a mighty warrior of inhuman strength. He wields the Ebon Claw, an artefact that grants his tribe bestial power at the cost of turning many of them into mindless berserkers. As he suffers wounds, the chieftain grows ever more wrathful, snarling and raking the Ebon Claw across his flesh. At the height of his rage, Vorn transforms in a blur of violence, crushing skulls and snapping spines as he hurls himself at his terrified foes.

As the last living descendant of his duardin clan, Drolf Ironhead bears the weight of an unfulfilled oath: to slay the Prince of Sores who brought about his kin’s demise. Taciturn, grizzled and outwardly dour, Drolf has spent his entire life traversing the wilderness of Aquia. With his twin axes, he hacks a path through obstacles and enemies alike, while his snaplock crossbow can put a bolt in a Pestigor’s eyeball at a hundred yards.

Few warriors are more confident of their martial brilliance than Edmark Valoran. His bluster is not without merit, for his record of brave service in the God-King’s armies is undeniable. Yet after an incident saw his flesh riddled with shards of Aqshian realmstone and allies slain by his hand, he seeks to restore his honour. Should he be roused to anger, the Manticore Knight’s emberstone-pierced skin will flash red, and nearby enemies will be incinerated by a sudden burst of livid flames.

Few of Ghyran’s human populace are as venerable as Inara Sion. Kept in perfect health by draughts of pure Aqua Ghyranis, Sion has devoted her life to defeating the corruption that engulfed her former home. Inara learned her martial talents from the order of the Jade Circle, who sought to blend the mystical command of water with elegant sword-art. Eschewing armour, she moves with liquid grace, always seeming a step ahead of her clumsy foes.

Jacobus Vyne is a powerful mage of the Collegiate Arcane and a master of nature magic and Ghyranite lore. Attuned to the Realm of Life in a way that few humans are, Vyne can send lianas, branches and roots snaking to throttle Nurgle’s minions, while his enchanted sickle cuts through flesh and bone as easily as it does a flower’s stem. Jacobus can even commune with the land to bring forth an arcane spirit he calls Wisper that functions as a guardian and familiar.

Runelords have mastered the ancient art of runeshaping. Through rituals of hammercraft, they can unbind hostile magic or imbue the weapons of their kin with fearsome killing power.

In Ghyran, Pontifex Zenestra is revered as an icon of stubbornness and faith, a living embodiment of the Life Realm’s ever-churning cycles. Several times she has appeared in lands corrupted by Chaos or wild magic, burning away the corruption with divine conjurations and cleansing it with the spilled blood of her faithful acolytes.

Despots who rule over the Darkling Covens with unquestioned authority and cruel cunning, Sorceresses wield dark and terrible magic that can blast the life from their foes or wrack them with unimaginable agony.

Warden Kings are the leaders of the Dispossessed duardin, venerable fighters and strategists who seek out the most fearsome enemy combatants and bludgeon them to death with rune-carved warhammers.

Named the Lioness of the Parch by her loyal soldiers, Tahlia Vedra has risen through the ranks of the Freeguilds and emerged as the foremost tactical mind of Hammerhal Aqsha. Now it is she who leads the city in its quest to reclaim Aqshy’s hearthlands from the grip of Chaos.

When mounted atop a furious, twin-headed Ghurish griffon, a Battlemage of the Amber College can lay waste to their foes from afar or strike from on high in a vicious frenzy of stabbing beaks and ripping talons.

The feared warlords of the Order Serpentis delight in inflicting pain and terror upon their foes. They ride to war on obsidian-scaled dragons that can lay waste to entire armies with their dagger-like claws and foul, choking breath.

A Freeguild Marshal mounted upon a noble griffon surveys the battlefield from on high. Identifying where their presence is most required, they descend like a speeding comet to lay waste to their enemies, inspiring their comrades with word and deed.

Many Sorceresses go to war upon fearsome Black Dragons, delighting in the terror in the eyes of their enemies as the scaled beasts spit clouds of choking fumes and rip their prey apart with sword-sized talons.

Built for total battlefield domination, the Cannonade Cogfort towers above the fray like a god of war, grinding enemies to paste beneath its stone and iron feet. When its main godbreaker cannon fires, the report can be heard for miles around – and whatever is unfortunate enough to lie in the Cogfort’s path is reduced to splintered fragments and ash.