Blacktalon is an animated show for Warhammer+. It is set in the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar universe and follows the Knights-Zephyros Neave Blacktalon of the Stormcast Eternals.
The story follows Neave Blacktalon and her unit of Stormcast Eternals as they fight to uncover an unknown danger that threatens the City of Hammerhal, all the while Neave struggles to rediscover her past identity before her reforging as a chosen of the God-King Sigmar.
The show is exclusive to Warhammer+ subscribers, but the first episode is available to watch for free
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The show provides examples of the following tropes:
- Big Bad: Thysis, a Chaos Sorcerer of Nurgle and the source of the plague seeds.
- The Big Guy: Of Neave's unit, Rostus is the tallest and heaviest of the four.
- Fantastic Racism: The Daughters of Khaine see the Idoneth as "lesser born" Aelves and refuse to let Lorai meet their Hag Queen because of it. After seeing their barbaric and bloody games, Lorai snarks "And they call me lesser born".
- Fat Bastard: The Maggotkin are mortal followers of Nurgle who have bloated bodies as a result of carrying the Plaguefather's diseases in them. Subverted with Thysis, who has a skeletal figure.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Thysis was once a normal man from the Realm of Ghyran who enjoyed a peaceful life with his daughter, until the Forces of Nurgle invaded Ghyran and destroyed his home. Thysis was left for dead until he consumed a plague seed and turned to the worship of Nurgle to enact vengeance for his past suffering.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The sixth episode reveals that Thysis serves an unknown daemonic being, with the former doing the latter's bidding for the promise of vengeance.
- Heel–Face Turn: When her past self reveals the truth that Neave was once a Champion of Chaos, Neave declares that Sigmar redeemed her. Her past self fires back that may not have been the case, as it's just as likely that Sigmar forced her to his side via Heel–Face Brainwashing.
- I Did What I Had to Do: When the vampire thrall is under the mercy of the Stormcast, he tries to weasel his way out of harm by claiming that he only serves the vampires in order to survive. The Stormcast are unsympathetic to his reasons and force him to aid them, even when the thrall explains that his mistress, Kaelena, might kill him if she finds out that he aided them.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The vampire Kaelena is shown to have a human thrall who gleefully serves her and is uncaring of the mortals who are brought in to serve as her future meals. He ends up being killed and drained of his blood by his amnesiac mistress when he attempts to rejoin her side.
- Making a Splash: A schtick of her race, Lorai the Idoneth Deepkin mercenary has the powers of hydromancy.
- Mysterious Past: A focus of the story is Neave wishing to remember who she was before she became a Stormcast Eternal. Even when it is revealed that she was formerly a Champion of Chaos, her past before that is unknown. It is just as a mystery if Sigmar offered her redemption or if he forced her into his service.
- Resurrective Immortality: As the main characters are Stormcast Eternals, their bodies disappear in a flash of lightning whenever they die to be reforged in the Anvil of Apotheosis and thus are resurrected to fight again. At several points of the show, all four of the main characters die and are shown reforged later on.
- Retcon: The show retcons the already established origins of Neave. In the lore, Neave was born of a human tribe from Ghyran that was slaughtered by Nurglite forces. She was then taken in by the Sylvaneth who taught her their ways and later nearly died fighting the Forces of Nurgle were it not for Sigmar choosing her to become a Stormcast Eternal. In the show, her origin instead has her formerly a Chaos Champion before being turned into a Stormcast Eternal, and it is even questioned whether she was offered the chance for redemption or if she was forced into Sigmar's service.
- Revenge: Thysis' entire motivation, as he seeks vengeance on the Forces of Order (and most especially, Sigmar) as he believes that they abandoned his family to die and left him to suffer impaled on a tree to slowly rot until he turned to the worship of Nurgle.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: By the end of the second episode, the vampire Kaelena, greatly weakened after her fight with Hendrick, feeds on her human servant and killing him. However it is not because she knows he was forced to betray her by aiding the Stormcast Eternals, and it is more because she has recently lost her memory and is uncaring whether he is her servant or not.
- Seers: Lorai is an example of using her powers of divination for mercenary work. As an Isharann Soulscryer, she aids the Stormcast Eternals by using her powers to see their enemies movements.
- Token Black Friend: Neave has one in Shakana, a Stormcast Vanguard-Raptor and the only person of color in her unit.
- Wham Episode: The fifth episode contains major revelations. Her past self reveals that the women that Neave thought were her were actually her victims when she was a once servant of the Dark Gods. Whenever she was close to finding the truth, Hendrick would kill her and her subsequent reforging would make her forget her discoveries. Her past self also reveals that this is not the first time she was informed of this, as whenever Neave would die, she would return to the crossroads of her mind where she would be told the truth only to reject the offer of fully remembering her past and restart the cycle once again.
- When Trees Attack:
- A Treeman serves as a guardian to a Stormvault located in Ghyran and attacks both Neave and the attacking deathrattle skeletons.
- Thysis' body has branches growing out of his body as a result of an merging with the tree that he was impaled on. During his final episode, he uses his magic to summon tree roots from the ground to restrain the protagonists, and even brutally kills Hendrick by impaling his head through said roots.
- A few Treemen are showing fighting along with the Stormcast Eternals and Dawnbringers against the Forces of Nurgle in the sixth episode. Two of them are showing double-teaming a Great Unclean One.
