Before I could drive a car, I was a fan of Warhammer Fantasy and 40K, and the latest from Games Workshop is Age of Sigmar, an epic plane-hopping fantasy spin-off. The relationship with was almost at arm’s length. Realms of Ruin, an upcoming RTS, has held out its shiny armored fists to bring me a little closer. And the fact that this looks a lot like his one of my all-time favorite RTS series, Dawn of War, made me want to reach out and get even more.
If you’re not familiar with what exactly Age of Sigmar is, I’ll do my best to briefly explain it. The Warhammer fantasy world seen in the Total War: Warhammer game was utterly destroyed when the greedy forces of Chaos finally triumphed in a divisive story arc called The End Times. But not all is lost, many of the main characters have survived and the setting has been reborn like a ruined kingdom. Most of the humans, dwarves, and orcs have been renamed to what the game his workshop is legally copyrightable, but the style and demeanor are still recognizable and take place throughout combat . Various themed fantasy realms connected by giant portals called Realmgates.
At the heart of this new setting is Stormcast Eternals. Even if they oddly resemble fantasy Space Marines, that’s exactly what they are. The Chosen Warriors of the Great Legal Good God Sigmar – Exactly like those worshiped in the Empire in Warhammer Fantasy, except that he is now a manifested character that you can meet and interact with. The fallen mortals have been forged many times by divine magic, possessing amazing abilities, but gradually robbing them of their humanity each time they resurrect from the battlefield. If you’re one of the freemen trying to make a living in the mortal realm, these are heavy hitters on your team. That is, in general. There are some groups that might kill you for getting a tattoo, but that’s beyond the scope of this story for now.
hacking into the gate
The only campaign mission I got to play led a small vanguard group of Eternals to the dimension of the Ghoul, the Kingdom of the Beasts. It is a virgin, virgin land that seems ready to overwhelm and swallow even geography itself. Currently under threat from a band of orcs. Sorry, they’d like us to call them “orcs”, but they’re basically old-school, fighting green football hooligans with axes from Warhammer Fantasy. When these scouts were overwhelmed, I commanded the main Warhost force, including the dragon-riding knights of the Stormdrake Guard, and began to find out what had happened to them.
We weren’t able to capture footage of this mission, but the multiplayer match we’re seeing here pits the same two factions, Stormcast Eternals and Orruk Kruleboyz, against each other on a map very similar to the one in the campaign. . Frontier’s developers have promised two more factions at launch, but I haven’t been able to convince them to give more details. Given that Age of Sigmar’s vast list of armies is divided into a wide array of formations: Chaos, Destruction, Order, and Death, two of which have already been covered, one from the Chaos formation and one from It is expected to emerge from the formation of death. Alignment also adds to the fun. Simply put, there are demons and undead.
The closest comparison in terms of how it actually plays as an RTS is probably Relic’s Dawn of War series, but probably closest to Dawn of War 3 due to its lack of cover and focus on close combat It seems. Control squads instead of individual units. , no StarCraft-esque base building. You can upgrade your main hub to increase your unit cap, unlock higher tier units, and build utility structures and defenses that serve as your main resource source at various capture points.
plane mayhem
When two squads are scrapped, it actually lasts quite a while, giving one of them more room to maneuver and make more decisions before it evaporates. I really liked this. Every unit has at least one active ability of hers, this Orruk’s netgun can block large units and squads under attack can retreat to base to recover. This is usually much cheaper than building a new squad. There is also a unit triangle where assault forces defeat heavy tanks and heavy tank ranged attacks and ranged beat assaults. However, monsters and heroes sometimes break that rule. Stormcast Eternals clearly focuses on heavier, more expensive units, while Krullboys favor swarm tactics and relentless attacks.
At this point, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of Realms of Ruin, but the basics are there. I want something like the new Dawn of War, even if I don’t have that much love for the setting. And there’s no denying that these Eternals look super cool.
