Review: Liberators

The standard grunts of the Stormcast Eternals, the Liberators make an obvious choice as the first box set of units after the Starter Set. So what's inside a box of Liberators? Let's find out.

The Models

The box comes with several sprues with a variety of heads, weapons, should pads, shields so you can customize the weapon loadout of each of your troops. Of course, it only comes with enough legs and torsos to make 5 models, even though there are enough weapons/heads/arms to make 10. But GW still has to be GW.

The legs and torsos are pretty static in terms of positions, they're all standing heroically, knee bent, ready for war. There are no troops "in motion" and it's mostly a single leg glued to a waist with one leg already modeled on, so you would have to do some clipping to customize your leg poses.

Outside of that is where you can customize. Your Liberators can have two hammers or two sword or either one hammer and shield or one sword and shield as their options for weapons. On top of that, one unit may also have a Grandblade or Grandhammer, which are two-handed versions of the weapons prior. And of course one model can also be a Liberator-Prime (I'd suggest the guy with the Grandweapon since owner of the models pick deaths in a unit and you always want your Prime removed last).

As for their look? They look a lot like what you got in the Starter Set. As the "main line" troops for the Eternals, they have the most basic design. These are your "Sigmarines" covered in the heavy armor, full face plates and not too much flourishes. You do get a small dagger at their hip, various scrolls that can hang from some models and a variety of spikey tops to the helmets, but that's about it.

They do have a ton of great detail like all these late/AoS GW models have had, but they're not all that striking. With the movement that the Prosecutors give and the grand look of the Lord-Celestant, they really don't have much that calls attention to them. I know the other models are built upon them as bases, but since the other models are almost exactly like them with improvements, it's hard to call these guys special.

The War Scroll

The War Scroll is an update to the original one from the Starter Set, with some extra bits added for the weapon options. Since these are your baseline Eternals, this is you best look at how the Eternals average out as a whole.

A unit of Liberators needs to have 5 units or more and 1 in 5 can have a grandweapon. Your Liberator-Prime gets one extra attack compared to his brothers, pushing his attacks to 3.. They move 5", Save on a 4+, have Bravery 6, and 2 Wounds. As a baseline, this seems pretty standard. They're not as disposable as other Factions main lines with their extra Wounds, but their all their other stats seem average.

As for the weapon options, they're not that different. All weapons (Grandweapons included) have a 1" reach and 2 attacks. The Grandweapons have -1 Rend and do 2 damage instead of 1, but that's the only difference. With blade or hammer, you swap a 4+ and 3+ for To Hit and To Wound. The hammers Wound on 3+ and Hit on 4+ but the blades Wound on 4+ and Hit on 3+. Hammers hurt more but are harder to hit it appears.

As for the option of paired weapons or a shield. The Paired Weapons allow you to re-roll hits of 1 and the Sigmarite Shields allow you to re-roll save of 1. So it comes down to offense vs. defense.

Finally, they retain the Lay Low the Tyrants abilitly, giving them +1 to their hit rolls if going up against enemies with 5+ Wounds giving them an edge against heroes and monsters.

The Price

$50 gets you 5 completed models. GW will tell you about all the pieces you get and how awesome that is, but you still can only make 5 complete models out of the box. That's $10 a model, which is cheaper than buying a Lord-Celestant or Lord-Castellant solo, but they have a little less detail. They are bigger than your standard "normal dude" model and $10 a model is the going price that GW seems to have on the big bulky guys. While way more pricer than other companies, this is still within GWs normal price point. Much better deal than the Lord-Celestant.

Overall

These are your standard troops for the Eternals and they suffer because all the other Eternals are basically these units + bits. While they don't stand out among the Eternals, they still are quite striking to look at and have great detail. They are also pretty much a must if you're building a standard Eternals army. The price is what you expect from GW and if you're already buying their stuff, it shouldn't be a hard pill to swallow. Great detail, but sadly lost among all the other Eternals when put in the mix.