Once we move on from there we go into each individual city, which gets its own additional battle traits, and three command traits, artifacts, and spells each. It's a great expansion from the paragraph or two they all had in the Grand Alliance Order book. It's just so cool, and every faction gets a treatment like this. They now feign loyalty to Sigmar while they secretly strive to rebuild their empire of old. The majority of their knights now ride these beasts since most of the Black Dragons were killed with the fall of their empire. Now they're beastmasters supreme, and even create their own beasts, such as the Drakespawn. Most of the Order Serpentis decided to stand defiant and die in the face of Chaos, but a few more pragmatic aelves decided it was best to retreat to Azyr and fight another day. When the Age of Chaos dawned however, their empire crumbled surprisingly fast. They were every bit as cruel as the former Dark Elves were, but were tolerated by Sigmar due to their effectiveness in battle and the protection afforded to them by Malerion. They used to be part of a massive empire in Ulgu called the Narkath empire, and every one of their knights rode a Black Dragon. My favorite is probably the Order Serpentis, which gets a really cool backstory. For example, it hammers home how integral the Dispossessed are to the construction and maintenance of the cities, and how the Wanderers are now traversing the realms attempting the repair the damage done to the magical ley lines. There is a good amount of fleshing out here as well. The Collegiate Arcane, Free Guild, Darkling Covens, and Order Serpentis all get a full two pages while everything else gets one page. There are so many units here though that they wisely decided to break it down by faction instead. Seeing as how the Black Library authors have done so much to flesh out the smaller details of the Mortal Realms, with Reynolds having done the majority of that, it's nice seeing him included in an official Battletome.Īfter this we move onto what would normally be the unit entries. I flipped to the Greywater Fastness story first, since that's my favorite city, but I think I actually liked the Hallowheart story the most. Each story shows you a little snippet of the city at war. Hammerhal, the Living City, and Hallowheart each get two pages, while all of the other cities get one. I think the real masterstroke here is including a short story for each city written by non-other than Josh Reynolds. You get a good sense of each city as well as how they fight and live day to day. It takes the foundations that were laid in Firestorm and really expands on them. Both Hammerhal and the Living City get a full two page spread, while the others get a page each. The real meat of the lore section is when it delves into each of the seven major cities on their own.
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