Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin is a Real-Time Strategy video game based on Warhammer: Age of Sigmar developed and published by Frontier Developments.
Realms of Ruin is a game that takes elements from Dawn of War (particularly the second game) as its gameplay has the player command small squads of units produced from a single HQ building called Realmgates. Players battle over the map for capture points that produce two resources known as "Command" and "Realmstone".
There are four factions in the base game. These are the mighty Stormcast Eternals (Grand Alliance of Order), the wicked Orruk Kruleboyz (Grand Alliance of Destruction), the phantasmal Nighthaunt (Grand Alliance of Death) and the sorcerous Disciples of Tzeentch (Grand Alliance of Chaos).
The game features a cinematic story campaign which involves a Stormcast Stormhost lead by Lord-Celestant Sigrun, who travels to the Realm of Ghur to aid a Dawnbringer settlement from a Kruleboyz assault. Whilst there, she also seeks an ancient artifact that may aid her in eliminating the orruk forces.
The game was released on November 17, 2023 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin provides examples of the following tropes:
- All for Nothing: The Stormcast's main objective throughout the campaign is ensuring the safety of Harkanibus from the attacking Orruks. Despite the best efforts of the Forces of Order and fully defeating the Orruks by the end of the game, Harkanibus undergoes a cleansing of its entire populace after Demechrios realizes too late that the artifact is tainted by Chaos, and by using its power for the city's defense has unwittingly tainted him and all of Harkanibus with its corrupting influence.
- Boring, but Practical: The tier 4 faction ability for the Stormcast Eternals, Deep Strike, is simply to drop a unit straight into the field from Azyr, compared to the giant swamp monster, field of death magic and massive laser beam that the other factions can unleash. But it allows you to instantly deploy a high tier unit like Annihilators or Stormdrake Guard wherever they're needed, the unit deals damage and knockback to enemies when it lands, and critically, Deep Strike is both cheaper and recharges faster than the other faction abilities.
- Cassandra Truth: In one mission, the Stormcast manage to free an unknown artifact, guarded by the Nighthaunt, from its chains. The leading Nighthaunt, Lord Gloam, tries to warn the Stormcast of its danger, but is killed before he can explain further. Somewhat subverted, as while Iden doesn't believe the Nighthaunt, Sigrun and Demechrios actually heed his warning, with Demechrios casting a spell to discover its origins and see if it's dangerous before bringing it anywhere else.
- Combat Medic: The Knight-Vexillor serves as one, being deadly with a blade and using the Banner of the Reforged to heal and even resurrect fallen Stormcast.
- A Commander Is You:
- Stormcast Eternals are classically Elitist, Generalist Brutes. They have a well-rounded and solid roster of expensive but powerful troops with small unit sizes, able to handle most things but lacking much flare in any direction, and besides their flying units are quite slow to move across the battlefield.
- Kruleboyz are Balanced, Technical and Guerilla, with greater numbers than the Stormcast Eternals but relying on ambushes and mines to even the odds in combat, though they get a large power spike in later tiers with units like the Swampcalla Shaman and Breaka-boss on Mirebrute Troggoth.
- Nighthaunt are Spammer Brutes, starting with higher population and cheaper units than everyone else and aiming to drown the enemy in a tide of ghosts. Their Wave of Terror ability even rewards spamming and clumping units together to this end.
- Disciples of Tzeentch are Balanced, Ranged and Technical. Though they have Tzaangors to simply tank and hold the line, much of the army is going to be peppering in damage from afar and benefiting heavily from micromanagement to get the most out of their abilities.
- Do Not Run with a Gun: Subverted with Vanguard-Hunters, who are capable of shooting foes with their boltstorm pistols whilst running.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: The named Stormcast, such as Sigrun and Iden, go to battle without helmets.
- It's Raining Men: The Stormcast Eternals faction ability, Deep Strike, allows them to deploy a unit directly from Azyr onto the battlefield via lightning strike.
- Join or Die: A variation from an exchange when the Stormcast encounter the Nighthaunt.Lord Gloam: Interlopers... Join our ranks!
Sigrun: I'd rather die!
Lord Gloam: (Cackles) Die first, then join our ranks! - No Campaign for the Wicked: Almost played straight. With the exception of the Nighthaunt, The Orruk Kruleboyz and the Disciples of Tzeentch are fully playable in different parts of the main campaign.
- Poisoned Weapons: Man-Skewer Boltboyz have their crossbow bolts coated in poison. To emphasise this, whenever they fire their weapons, the bolts have flight trails with a sickly green effect.
- Swamps Are Evil: The Orruks use a swamp wretch that is powered by the magic of Mork to attack the Stormcast Eternals.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Most units are arranged into such a system with Heavy (shield icon), Ranged (bow icon) and Assault (sword icon), Heavy countering Ranged, Ranged countering Assault and Assault countering Heavy, with Hero (star icon) units operating outside the system.
- Tactical Withdrawal: Like in Company of Heroes and Dawn of War II, the game has a retreat button for units.
