Neave and her hunters are back in action today with the first instalment in the second season of Blacktalon.
The episode takes place inside the walls of Hammerhal. Here's a look at why this city is so important.
Warning, mild spoilers ahead.
Just to be safe, it’s best to watch the new episode of Blacktalon now, and then come back for the article. It’s ok. We can wait…
The Twin-Tailed City
Hammerhal is a big deal in the Age of Sigmar, a lynchpin of the God King’s grand plan and the largest Sigmarite city in the Mortal Realms. The vast sprawl of Hammerhal spreads across two realms, emanating out from the titanic Stormrift Realmgate across the parched plains of Aqshy and the verdant hills of Ghyran.
On the Aqushian side, Hammerhal Aqsha is the military, spiritual and industrial centre of Sigmar’s holdings in the Mortal Realms. Its sister city, Hammherhal Ghyra, is the breadbasket of a score of Sigmarite settlements on both sides of the Realmgate, as well as boasting a formidable military of its own.
The two halves of the city exist in symbiosis, Ghyra provides water and food for the industrial sprawl of Aqusha, while lava is channeled back in return and used to hold back the natural fecundity of Ghyran’s flora and fauna, making permanent settlement possible without it becoming overgrown within a matter of days. Neither side of the city could survive without the other.
Rostus Oxenhammer hunting in the streets of Hammerhal Aqsha
Hammerhal is arguably Sigmar's greatest territorial success in the Mortal Realms – a bastion of Order and a statement of intent for the God King’s vision for the Realms. It is no wonder that the forces arrayed against him want to see it fall.
Hammerhal Aqsha is an urban sprawl that extends up as well as out.
Hammerhal is no stranger to attacks. Its walls have weathered many sieges, and its people stand ever ready to defend it. But what threatens it now is something altogether more insidious. A shadowy agent of ruin lurks within the walls of the city, somehow beyond the ability of the city’s mortal defenders to catch.
Enter the Blacktalons, who have been dispatched to track down this sinister individual and uncover whatever plot they might be cooking up. Surely Sigmar’s hunters will have no trouble apprehending one rogue mortal, right? RIGHT!?
The vast Stormrift Realmgate and the Hammers of Sigmar Stormkeep are just visible in the distance.
This episode also gives us some great views of the cinder-choked streets of Hammerhal Aqusha, and its mix of urban-sprawl and inventive duardin-wrought industry. It’s a world away from the interior of the Stormkeep, with its azure-lit hallways and towering sigmarite columns.
Inside the stormkeep is a little slice of heaven.
You can watch the first episode of the new season of Blacktalon now, only on Warhammer TV, with more episodes to follow later this month. Subscribe to Warhammer+ to watch them all as they drop.
This guy will be watching very closely, will you?
