Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin brings the Warhammer universe to RTS in a fun way

I recently had the opportunity to get my hands on Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin and try out the Real Time Strategy title’s Conquest Mode. In Conquest Mode, players progress across a map engaging in 1v1 Skirmishes against the four factions in Realms of Ruin. Each battle will involve unique modifiers that can buff or debuff the way the battle is handled in that skirmish. For example, in one battle my units had reduced vision, meaning they could not see as far when traversing the map. In another battle, all units moved faster, which made for some faster-paced gameplay.

Realms of Ruin participated in the recent Steam Fest that just ended, featuring a playable demo. In the demo, players could jump into a couple of the early campaign missions to get a feel for the gameplay. Demos are always great to get an idea of how a game will play. But to me, these two early missions didn’t quite reflect the fun and unique RTS gameplay I experienced when I played Realms of Ruin.

The Age of Sigmar

I’m a huge RTS fan, growing up playing StarCraft, WarCraft 3, and Age of Empires. But Realms of Ruin is different. Instead of building structures and sending out workers to harvest resources, you will take over control points—called Arcane Conduits— and convert them to structures of your choosing. You have two resources, Command and Realmstones.

Command is primarily spent to spawn more units at your main base, while Realmstones are mostly used for researching upgrades. The upgrades can be pretty basic such as increased damage or armor for a certain unit, or more intricate like changing the playstyle of a specific unit. Realmstones are also used to activate specific abilities on your units, so you have to keep a balance of teching up and saving resources for battle. Both resources can be used to upgrade your Arcane Conduits to give them a specific purpose such as generating more Command or Realmstones, or even acting as a defensive structure or outpost to heal at.

Micro is not a thing in Realms of Ruin. When units engage in combat on the battlefield, the player loses control of the unit as they automatically fight their enemy. You can of course influence the battle by using abilities. Each unit has its own unique abilities, so once you get used to the nuance of all your units, you can really min-max things even without the ability to micro. Also, every unit has the ability to retreat in exchange for spending some Command. When you push the button to retreat the unit will instantly become ‘Unstoppable’ meaning they can’t be slowed or crowd controlled. They will then beeline it to your main base at a faster speed, where they can heal. It’s a nice added element of strategic gameplay, as you never want to lose a unit!

Plenty of tools for Tabletop enthusiasts

For fans of the Warhammer tabletop, or even just customization, Realms of Ruin also revealed a handful of features and tools that will further enhance the Age of Sigmar experience.

First off, there is an Army Livery. Here players can customize and paint each of their units as well as create a palette for their entire faction. I was able to mess around with the Army Livery for a few minutes before jumping into Conquest Mode, and it felt like observing a handful of painted figures from the Tabletop game.

A map Editor is also launching with Realms of Ruin and will be accessible in both the PC and console versions. Players can develop their own cross-platform maps as well as share them with the community. I didn’t get to try out the editor, but a brief video overview I saw showed off the ability to manipulate biomes, paint terrain, adjust elevations, and place objects.

Perhaps the coolest feature for Warhammer fans will be the Scene Editor. Using the same tools from the Map Editor, players can create immersive scenes in the Warhammer universe, placing and positioning units exactly where they want while also choosing their animation frame. I didn’t get to play with this tool either, but I did get to see some of the epic battlescapes created with it and dang were they cool! Super detailed and fitting to the Age of Sigmar name.

Fear the Disciples of Tzeentch

As part of the event, we also got the reveal of the fourth and final faction: the Disciples of Tzeentch. The brutal masters of mystical arts and eldritch warriors have some very unique units. According to Frontier, the faction plays a small but meaningful role in the campaign but is fully playable in Conquest Mode and Multiplayer.

The Disciples of Tzeentch join the other three factions: the Stormcast Eternals, Orruk Kruleboyz, and Nighthaunt. All of the factions in Realms of Ruin are inspired by their tabletop counterpart. Each faction has ten or so unique units with their own abilities as well as strengths and weaknesses. There’s a lot of depth here. And while I was able to pretty quickly pick up on how to play Realms of Ruin, I can definitely see it will take some real effort to master.

I had a lot of fun with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin. I think the unique spin they’ve put on the RTS genre ended up being a fresh experience. The lack of micro actually appeals to me as I’ve always been more of a macro fan. But I also like that you can still influence the battles based on unit selection and then how you make use of abilities in battle.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin launches on November 17 for PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation® 5 and Xbox Series X|S.