Striking from the heavens and bursting from its burrows, Skaventide has erupted onto the scene. With carnage raging across the Mortal Realms, stories of heroism and treachery are being written by the day – and you can read one of them right now on Warhammer Community, completely free! We’ve coaxed Jordan, one of the Warhammer Age of Sigmar background team, out of his verminous warren to explain more.
Jordan: Even the briefest look at the online hobby-sphere confirms it; by now many of you have started digging into the depths of Skaventide. Whether you’ve sided with the noble Stormcast Eternals or the Skaven hordes, the whiff of imminent battle lies heavy on the air. That conflict is coming to a head in the Slaughter at Hel Crown campaign, where even now generals the world over are deciding the fate of a vital beachhead in the Ravaged Coast, which separates the Great Parch from the emergent Gnaw, corruption-riddled domain of the Skaven.
Just to the south of Hel Crown, across the Helbridge,* another battlefield echoes with the sound of steel and shrieks – the very same conflict, in fact, that the contents of Skaventide depict. This tale is already available to download in Assault on Hel’s Claw, a brand new narrative to ring in** the new edition and act as a prelude to the coming worldwide campaign.
Assault on Hel’s Claw begins with Alfric Leodus, Knight-Questor of the Hallowed Knights. Alongside his brethren Stormcast Eternals and some especially hardy mortals, this valiant warrior is charged with stemming the Skaven swarms that crash against Embergard – the city founded by the Aqshian tail of the Twin-Tailed Crusade at the climax of the Dawnbringers series, and which promptly went bang*** in the blast wave of the Vermindoom.
Embergard is a ruin of its former glory, but it sits atop a major deposit of emberstone – a vital arcane resource for Sigmar’s people – and so it remains a key location. Frenzied Skaven are assailing it almost every day, their hordes spilling from the island of Hel’s Claw only a few leagues to the east. Leodus’s onerous but straightforward duty of defence is about to get a lot more complicated, though, when he receives a vision bidding him to seek out a mysterious stronghold deep in the mountains of the adjoining Adamantine Chain.**** This is Rookenval, the Obsidian Tor.
The Obsidian Tor offers one of our first encounters with the denizens of the Bleak Citadels. Built under the direction of Ionus Cryptborn when that always-cheery soul came to the conclusion that the flaw in the Reforging could not be fixed, these act both as strongholds and panopticons for the Ruination Chambers, a resting place for Stormcast Eternals who have been Reforged so often that their humanity has practically eroded. Their winnowed souls are even more resistant to the warping power of Chaos than their fellows, however, and Leodus must petition the sombre warriors of Rookenval and their warden, the grim Lord-Vigilant Greylock, to join the struggle…
Hel’s Claw used to be a burgeoning frontier port on the isle of Xanthul. It’s now the lair of Clawlord Skabpelt, and a major Skaven beachhead, suffused with their especially ruinous brand of Chaos energy. Skabpelt is under orders from the Council of Thirteen to seize Embergard, and has been provided all manner of devious new weapons to do just that. But nothing comes for free in Skavendom, and so he’s also forced to work alongside the temperamental Vreek, a Grey Seer and sorcerous representative of the Masterclan.
It may astound you to learn that Skabpelt and Vreek don’t get along. The Grey Seer has his own agenda: to tend the colossal Warpshatter Bell that has been erected at Hel’s Claw. This is an upscaled version of the dreaded Screaming Bells, and while the specifics of its creation are (for now) shrouded in mystery, its effects are horribly apparent. Each time the bell tolls, the Skaven swarms become filled with a frothing mania, and their attacks grow more intense. Twelve times already it has struck. Should a thirteenth toll ring out… well, let’s just say the Stormcast Eternals should probably get down there before that happens.
You’ll have to read the full account of the battle yourself, but it’s not the only content in Assault on Hel’s Claw. More than just Stormcast Eternals and Skaven are abroad, and there are details on what the major players in Aqshy are currently up to.
In addition, there are descriptions for every unit that you’ll find in Skaventide, explaining how it fights and its place in the realms. If you’ve ever pondered about that gryph-beast that the Lord-Vigilant rides, or how Rat Ogors are created, questions such as these are answered within.
For those looking for the cutting edge of the ongoing story in Warhammer Age of Sigmar, or those jumping in for the first time, Assault on Hel’s Claw is a bloody taste of the fighting your forces will experience. Make no mistake, the Adamantine Chain is going to be a major war front in the Hour of Ruin. We already have wheels in motion. Sinister wheels…
* Property prices must be plummeting here.
** Get it? Skaven, bells? Eh, you’ll see.
*** I believe that’s the technical term.
**** A massive sickle-shaped mountain range in the eastern Great Parch that's become a strategic barrier and firebreak against the invading Skaven.