Warhammer previews Spearhead: City of Ash with 42 miniatures, new painting challenge

City of Ash is the kind of Spearhead box that tells painters what to reach for before the sprues even hit the desk. The ruined streets of Embergard, the emberstone fight, and the Cities of Sigmar versus Skaven matchup point straight at a palette of soot-black rubble, burnt brick, rusted metal, and dirty cloth, with just enough glowing orange or warp-lit green to make the whole force feel tied to the same city. The set goes up for pre-order Saturday, April 19, and it looks designed to be built, based, and painted as a single visual project rather than a grab bag of disconnected units.

The box is packed with 42 miniatures split across two full Spearhead forces. On the Cities of Sigmar side, Jorvan Kreel, the Heir of the Kraken, leads Thexa the Ash Panther One, Mallus Forgepriest, five Freeguild Gallants, and 10 Freeguild Grenadiers. The Skaven side is headed by Deathmaster Crixxit and brings one Skaven Deathmaster, 10 Gutter Runners, 10 Night Runners, and two Bomb Rats. That spread gives painters a lot to work with in one purchase: polished armor next to chipped shields, heavy cloth beside ragged hooded ninja-rats, and enough weapon metals, furs, and basing clutter to make the contrast between Order and Chaos read at tabletop distance.

The supporting contents make the release feel bigger than a normal battle box. It includes a 72-page Age of Sigmar handbook, a double-sided game board, the City of Ash battlepack book, two ruined manor terrain pieces, five relic objectives, and a deck of 36 Spearhead cards. Earlier preview material had already positioned City of Ash as a Cities of Sigmar versus Skaven set for the streets of Embergard, and it added a brutal bit of Skaven lore too: Crixxit once brought down an arcane Silver Tower with warpstone bombs while serving Be’lakor. On the other side, Jorvan Kreel lands with a cleaner human story, a former Wildercorps captain from fallen Anvilgard trying to find allies and reclaim his home. That Anvilgard thread gives the new Cities force a sharper edge than a generic battle box.

The hobby focus got even clearer when Warhammer TV’s Ultimate Paint-Off showed up in the same preview, with four contestants taking on two Gryph-hounds in 30 minutes and a Flamespyre Phoenix in three and a half hours using Contrast paints. Add the later Tabletop Titans tips session with Clawlord Adrian, and City of Ash starts to look like a launch-window painting challenge as much as a game release. The real hook is simple: this box does not just add units to Spearhead, it hands painters an entire ruined city theme and asks them to make every chipped wall and ash-streaked cloak count.