Path to Glory, Spearhead, and One Extremely Unlucky Rat Ogor
We had one of those very relatable hobby chats recently: it started with rules confusion, escalated into excitement about narrative play, took a detour through Spearhead cards, and somehow ended with a Rat Ogor losing its hands and feet in solvent.
So, basically, a normal Warhammer conversation.
Wait, what actually is Path to Glory?
Michał dropped a link to the new Path to Glory book for Age of Sigmar, and that kicked off a really good question from Dubry: is Path to Glory its own thing, or is it a mode for “regular battle”?
The answer: it’s the narrative campaign mode for Age of Sigmar.
And honestly, the more Michał described it, the more it sounded like exactly the kind of system that can pull you deeper into AoS. You start with a general and a smaller roster of units, build your force over time, gain experience, unlock development paths, and gradually turn a little warband-sized beginning into a proper army with history behind it.
That’s the part we really like: it’s not just list-building, it’s army storytelling.
According to Michał’s summary, Path to Glory includes things like:
- starting with a general and a relatively small roster
- gaining experience over games
- development paths and skill progression
- adding new units to the roster after battles
- units leveling up over time
- units potentially rising into bigger roles later
There’s also a very charming bit of Games Workshop energy here: they even sell dedicated campaign journals so you can track your army’s story properly. Which is both a little extra and also completely on-brand for narrative Warhammer.
This is the kind of mode that makes armies feel personal
What sold us most in that conversation was the idea that there are multiple progression paths for your general, and even regular units can develop too. That immediately makes the whole thing feel less like “play game, score result” and more like “watch your force become something”.
That’s a big part of the appeal of narrative systems in general. Once your units stop being anonymous entries in a list and start becoming veterans, survivors, future heroes, or complete disasters, the game gets a lot more memorable.
Spearhead keeps sounding better and better
At the same time, we were also circling around Spearhead, which continues to sound like one of the nicest entry points into Age of Sigmar.
Michał mentioned that the Ironjawz Spearhead feels like an ideal AoS army for someone who likes 40k, which is a very specific recommendation, but also exactly the kind of recommendation that tends to be useful. Sometimes you don’t need a giant faction overview — you just need someone to say: if you like this kind of energy in one system, you’ll probably click with this in another one.
The Jade & Fire confusion was also very relatable
There was also a brief moment of product archaeology around Spearhead: Jade & Fire.
Dubry had seen it sold separately and wondered whether it came with miniatures. Michał clarified that the version he had was part of Skaventide, so everything was in the box there. The separately sold Jade & Fire product does not include minis — instead, it contains cards for Spearhead.
And that led to another useful little discovery: what those cards actually do.
In Spearhead, you draw cards that shape the game setup, including:
- deployment
- terrain
- victory condition
Then during the game, you also draw Twist cards that change the rules from turn to turn.
Michał compared that to the kind of card-driven setup we’d use in Warcry, which honestly helps explain the appeal immediately. Randomized structure like that can do a lot of work to keep smaller-format games fresh.
Path to Glory pages look dangerously tempting
Michał also dropped a few photos from the book, and yeah — this is exactly the kind of thing that makes narrative-minded hobbyists start planning campaigns they absolutely do not have time for.
Even without doing a full review, the vibe comes across very clearly: progression, campaign structure, and lots of space for your army to become your army.
Meanwhile, in the hobby disaster corner
And then, because no hobby discussion is complete without at least one minor catastrophe, Michał casually mentioned that he had left a Rat Ogor in solvent overnight.
The plan was innocent enough: strip the grey primer and redo it for slapchop.
The result?
He took it out without hands and feet.
- the feet stayed on the base
- the hands stayed in the solvent
As Dubry correctly observed, this is an amazing advertisement for the hobby.
Apparently the next step may be trying the stripping paste someone recommended in a video Piotrek had shared — which, after this little incident, sounds like a very reasonable upgrade to the process.
Final thought: now we kind of just want to play Spearhead
The conversation ended in the most predictable way possible: with Michał saying he’d really love to play Spearhead.
And honestly, same.
Between the structured but dynamic setup, the lower barrier to entry, and Path to Glory sitting nearby as the “what if this becomes a whole campaign?” option, Age of Sigmar is looking very dangerous for our free time right now.
Which is, of course, how you know the hobby is working.