Review: Lord-Celestant

The Lord-Celestant was one of the first models released for AoS after the Starter Set (along with the Liberators) and offered the first look at the style and pricing of future unit purchases. So, let's take a look.

The Model

The Lord-Celestant retains the look of all the other Eternals. He's a big guy in a big armor, he's not going to shake off the "Sigmarine" moniker anytime soon. However, being a general/hero type he gets to be much more dressed and dynamic than regular troops. Unlike his Starter Set brethren, he is an unmounted figure, so he does not retain the size of the mounted version. However, he still holds a good heroic dynamic pose, foot aloft on stone, sword held in the air while his cape moves behind him.

The front of his armor has an impressive lion face motif and his high pointed halo stands different than the roman line of horsehair that the mounted Lord-Celestant has. His cape is a little odd, I'm not against the individual strips, but the small hammers at the bottom I'm not too keen on. Especially because they're actual small hammers, handles and all, as opposed to worked into the design.

Still, he retains the look as a hero, a leader, and will stand out among the regular troops, despite having a similar helmet and build.

The War Scroll

The War Scroll names him as the leader he is, a single model with no real choices in terms of weapons or options. At Move 5, Bravery 9, 5 Wounds, and a 3+ Save, he's not too strong in any one trait.

He has a runeblade sword that gives him 4 attacks and a hammer that gives him 2 more. Each attack only does 1 damage however and only the sword has a rend of 1. At 3+/4+ to hit and 3+ to wound on each, he's a middle line troop in terms of basic melee attacks.

His abilities add a few wrinkles to him, however. He has Inescapable Vengeance, letting him make one extra attack per weapon if he successfully charged, meaning you have an advantage of moving him into melee first.

The Sigmarite Warcloak explains the hammers at the end of his cape strips...and doesn't make it any better. The hammers apparently are a missile weapon, with D6 of them flying off towards a target and suffering one mortal wound on a 4+. You can also pick multiple targets. It would have some use as an attempt to finish off a model that can't save against mortal wounds or to punch a few holes in one wound units before charging in. It's still silly sounding in terms of it "actually" happening on the battle field as little mini-hammers go flying off a cloak and smack into people.

Finally, his Command Ability, Furious Retribution, allows any units within 9" to add +1 to their Hit rolls for a turn.

Overall, these stats and abilities make for a very middle of the road single character unit. Nothing gives him an overwhelming advantage, but there is enough useful abilities to not make him worthless.

The Price

He will run you $33 to purchase, a single model with no options. You'll use everything on the sprue and can only form him in one way. Yes, he's a great looking mini, the amount of detail is very impressive compared to other minis at this scale from other companies. Still, GW can't even claim that you have all these options or leftover bitz for conversions when you're done to make up the value.

Overall

It's a pricey model and one that doesn't give you a huge amount of abilities and uniqueness to make him a definite purchase. He is an alright option to add to your army, but one that will look like all the others due to lack of options and him having to keep the Eternals aesthetic.