via the Warhammer Community
The new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar turns the Mortal Realms into rich backdrops for all of your battles. These aren’t just optional expansions, but a core part of the game; using the rules for each Mortal Realm is the best way to get the complete Warhammer Age of Sigmar experience.
If you’re a narrative player, these rules ground your games and are great for giving campaigns a sense of place and consistency, while if you’re a matched play fan, the rules provide unique and unusual tactical challenges.
The choice of which realm you decide to set your battle in is up to you – the realm you fight in might depend on the story you want to tell, while for structured events, you could have every single game take place in the same Mortal Realm, journey through several, or roll a dice to decide. Likewise, if you don’t fancy using a Mortal Realm, you don’t have to – but you’ll be missing out on some really fun stuff if you do.
Each of the Mortal Realms has a set of unique rules that create unusual challenges and opportunities for the armies fighting in them – you might recognise some of these as expansions of those first introduced in the most recent General’s Handbook.
Firstly, each realm has a command ability, apart from Shyish, which has two, and Ghur, which has wandering, feral monsters instead (it’s pretty cool!). Available to every Hero fighting in that realm, these abilities ensure that your army fights in a thematically appropriate way for the realm it’s in – battles in the Realm of Light, for example, happen at lightning speed, as Heroes race to use Strike Quickly, while in Chamon, troops adapt their tactics to survive the attacks of their foes:
Secondly, each Realm has a set of Realmscape Features – a random in-game effect that’ll often have a significant impact on how your game will go. Flaming Missiles from Aqshy, for example, will help your ranged troops enormously, while in Ghur, Primal Violence can result in a double combat phase! There are six features for each realm, for a total of 42 – keeping your games varied is going to be easy.
Last, but not least, each of the Mortal Realms has a massive selection of spells associated with it, representing the unique powers that Wizards are able to harness. Each realm has seven spells, ALL of which will be available to ANY Wizard fighting in that realm. These rules are great if you’re using a Wizard without a battletome full of spells of their own to draw on, as well as again providing some really interesting and unusual opportunities for tactical trickery. Curse of Rust, from Chamon, for instance, is punishing for elite enemy units:
Finally, choosing a Realm has a range of impacts on certain warscrolls. Each endless spell, for example, is more powerful when cast in its associated realm – so make sure to grab a Burning Head if you’re battling in Aqshy, or an Aethervoid Pendulum if you find yourself in Ulgu…