Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin

The Warhammer franchise is one that never fails to provide interesting video games. Their universe is so rich that, if it falls into the right hands, they can take on almost any genre with every guarantee of success.

As part of the strategy genre, but focusing entirely on the RTS genre, Frontier Developments brings us Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin.

The campaign in Realms of Ruin tells a story centred on the Stormcast faction, a legion of immortal soldiers fallen from the heavens time and time again to fight in the name of the God King Sigmar. This unit, affected by key events in the Age of Sigmar storyline and now in a land full of danger, seeks a rare artefact capable of defending their new home from the hordes of orruks that plague this wasteland.

However, the artefact holds its own secrets, which opens up the narrative to explore the other factions of the game. The game largely revolves around quests that require you to collect resources by claiming Arcane Circles and achieve victory by keeping your units above Victory Points in the game. Each faction available in Realms of Ruin has its own way of playing and although their units are similar, they are all distinguished in distinct ways that provide advantages or disadvantages depending on the skirmish in question.

The game is fairly easy to follow and mimics games such as Dawn of War, the quintessential real-time strategy saga set in the gritty world of Warhammer, but without the extensive range of building options and focuses on battalion management as Dawn of War II did.

The game more than delivers on the audio-visual side of things, especially for the strategy genre. The campaign cinematics are up to Triple A standards, but the component of the game that will really delight Warhammer fans is the ability to place the camera right in the middle of the heat of battle. The game, as is obvious in this genre, is mostly played with a top-down view like any real-time strategy title of this nature, but you will always have the option to zoom in until your camera is level with the terrain, along with the blood and mud shared by your troops in their skirmishes against nightmarish foes.

All in all, if you are a Warhammer fan, but don't have the opportunity to spend the money on miniatures or the desire to paint your own troops to organise a battle with friends, Realms of Ruin may be your best option. It is packed with features that will please both those who enjoy creating their dream armies and those who enjoy destroying everything in their path.

It has enough variety in its factions to please most classic RTS players who come from Dawn of War looking for something similar after so many years. Realms of Ruin is a reminder that Age of Sigmar has as much narrative power as its 40k counterpart and could become its own branch within Warhammer, rising again from ashes that never quite went out.