Age of Sigmar: Broken Realms Be’lakor Overview
Curious about Broken Realms: Be’lakor’s lore and rules? Well join us for a quick tour of the supplement from Games Workshop!
The story beats just keep hitting in Broken Realms: Be’lakor. This saga is far from over as more pieces get moved into play. After the chaos, confusion, and ascension of Morathi in Broken Realms: Morathi AND after the march on the Realm of Death in Broken Realms: Teclis, it’s time for someone to take advantage of this opening…
The Time Is Right To Strike
In the video I try to give a quick run down of the events it the book. So, if you haven’t figured it out by now, major spoilers ahead.
Still here? Okay here we go.
The book’s lore is spilt up in three acts:
- Act 1 – The Tower Falls – This is a run down of how Lord Kroak and his Seraphon chase down the Silver Tower and shoot it down.
- Act 2 – Death Pact – This Act kicks of Be’lakor’s plan to disrupt the status quo by sealing off realm gates and opening portals to the warp/chaos.
- Act 3 – Cursed Skies – In the final act, the combined forces of Duardin come together to prevent further calamity.
Again, these are very, very short descriptions of their acts and there is SO much going on with lots of nods to previous lore from both the World-that-was and previous chapters in the saga that is the current Age of Sigmar. This part of the story picks up almost directly after the events in the previous two books. It IS an important stepping stone that does give us a ton of info on Be’lakor and also some of the workings of the Mortal Realms and those Realm Gates. We also see what happens when a Realm gets cut off and Stormcast Etnerals are defeated and can’t port back to Ayzr (hint: they die for real and go to Shyish).
In Act 1 we see the Silver Tower get shot down by Lord Kroak and the Seraphon. Why? Well, the Gaunt Summoner (aka The Eater of Tomes) is the Mastermind behind the corrupting of the Realmgates with Varnite. He’s the brains behind the operation and knows how to use it to corrupt the Realmgates. That would be bad and would end the world(s). So Lord Kroak moves into stop him. Kroak succeeds and the Silver Tower ends up crashing in Chamon (the Realm of Metal). This sends up so much Aether-gold that the winds change and the Kharadon Overlord’s gold-o-meter goes into overdrive (more on that later).
Act 2 is where Be’lakor finally steps in. He is tired of being second fiddle to Archaon and wants to not only disrupt the status quo, he wants to shut things down. It’s a long story, but he gets help from a very unlikely ally in the form of Lady Olynder. He basically has a way to disrupt the Realmgates that cuts of a Realm from the Azyr and changes them to warp/chaos gates. In doing so, this also cuts off Stormcasts souls from heading back to be reforged – and they go back to Nagash. And after the butt kicking that he got from Teclis, Nagash could use some Stormcast soul-juice. So, an unholy (and tenuous) alliance is formed. We see Be’lakor’s plan start to work and some Stormcasts get their butts kicked.
Cue the maniacal laughter.
Act 3 sees the Kharadron Overlords get in on the action. A mysterious new Arkanaut named Gromthi has joined a skyvessel who’s captained by Endrinmaster Humboldsson. This Arkanaut has suggested that maybe getting the other fleets to join them would be a good idea – they like Aether-gold and there’s a LOT of it floating around. Anyhow, they team up and the united Duardins fly towards Vindicarum (the city where all this Be’lakor assaulting is going down). There is a siege, daemons are pouring in, the Duardin blast them with guns, an epic fight ensues and the Daemon forces are pushed back. The day is saved.
Now, I’m glossing over A LOT of info here. One of the key players is Arkanaut Gromthi – who is an old Duardin with lots of tattoos and a big, white beard…
He also magically disappears at the end of the battle. Hmm…
Anyhow, Be’lakor’s plan works to a degree and proves that the Stormcasts aren’t all that Etneral. However, he loses like a Saturday Morning Cartoon villain and the good guys live to see another day. It’s a little cheesy, but it does show some weaknesses and actually does share a TON of information about the mortal realms and Be’lakor. It’s worth reading for that stuff alone – even if the main ‘narrative’ is a predictable at points.
The Rules
The rest of the book is essentially a breakdown of rules. The entire story can be played in campaign form. We get the all Realm of Battle rules included, we get Siege Warfare rules (reprinted), and we get Coalition of Death rules (for team-ups of cross faction alliances designed for multiplayer games).
As you also might have guessed we get all the warscrolls and battalions from the featured combatants in this book as well. We’ve done previews of that stuff already.
Broken Realms: Be’lakor set out to change the status quo in the lore but all it really did was setup the next steps in the saga. It’s important because it does show us a bit of the “behind the scenes” action and the setup is a big deal – the seeds planted here will come back into play…eventually. And the updates to the factions that actually got rules are all good changes and updates. Be’lakor got a major update to match that new model and the Battalions could even see some use in more competitive matched play games, too. While this book wasn’t quite as realm shattering as Morathi or Teclis, it setup the long game – and I think that’s just how Be’lakor would have wanted it.
Broken Realms: Be’lakor is up for Pre-Order now.
