***** at ********* wafted a copy of Metamorphosis at me today! He can't sell them until the 25th but did let me drool over a copy in the store for about an hour.
It is absolutely fantastic, easily the best book yet, at first glance. To be fair, I did spend most of the time reading through the Trollblood section which was very frothy. The new Troll Warlock is very unusual, she is a Troll Gypsy Queen complete with flowing skirts, etc and looks fabulous. Her stats are pretty damn good as well, she is probably the best supporting Lock that the Trolls have. Her Feat is just too damn good - for 1 turn all Trollboods have a Toughness check on 3+ and cannot be knocked over... Ouch!!!
Her spells are pretty good too, from the top of my head there is 1 for 1 fury which allows her to remove 1 pt of damage from all beasts in her control area and another which gives all attacking enemies an extra damage dice but they discard the highest. All very good stuff, she also has a precognition which gives +2 defence against Magic and Ranged and if the attack misses the recipient of the spell gets to immediately move 3", she can cast this as a spell but has it as an ability as well. If she attacks a wounded enemy she does extra damage and she has an ability that boosts all around her if she kills as well. Overall she is nails, she has a few other spells and abilities but these are what I remember off of the top of my head.
The other Troll units include some of what we've seen; the Hero, etc. Mulg is awesome, just about the biggest meanest beatstick in the game - any kills within 4" of him he gets to munch down on "You eating that?" and regenerate but overall he is just an uber tank.
The other new units include some Rune type sorcerers which looked ok, the Fennblades are frakkin awesome - Trollbloods with Uge swords that get to attack first when charged!!!!! Yup, you charge these lads and they hit you on the way in before you get to strike. I think my favourite new unit are the Whelp hordes - the miniatures look so damn cute and they are a pain in the ass, they disrupt the enemy and get in the way and can be eaten by Troll Beasts to boost regenerating. Additionally, you can pay 20 pts for 5 and only put em down when a Trollblood is wounded or hurt, i.e. if your Dire Troll takes damage put down a few whelps then eat em for a load of healing!
Every faction gets a mounted solo Dragoon - the Troll guy is the archetypical tank on a bison who gives himself and other Longriders some very good boosts - follow up is my favourite, they slam and then move the extra distance that the slammed target moved and hit it where it lands! Well cool.
Ok, the other factions - I honestly didn't spend too much time looking through these other than the pictures but there were some striking new characters and units for every faction. The Dragoons are very cool with the Skorne getting a Ferox mounted character, the Druids an armored guy on armored Wolf and finally the best was last - the Nyss Sorceress on Winged Beast solo for Everblight - she looked amazing in the picture. The Minions are pretty much all out there barring the Nyss Sorceress who looked pretty good.
Overall the book is very good, usual extremely high standard artwork and layout and the storylines (what I read of them) holding the attention well. I will definitely be in their first thing on the 25th to pick up my copy!