®

ASSAULT ON
HEL’S CLAW
For a time, hope blazed anew in the Mortal Realms.
But the darkness too can rise…
CONTENTS
THE VERMINDOOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
The Smouldering City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Triumph of the Skaven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Nightmare Odyssey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Battle of Hel’s Claw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
STORMCAST ETERNALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Lord-Vigilant on Gryph-stalker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Lord-Terminos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Lord-Veritant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Reclusians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Knight-Questor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Prosecutors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Liberators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
SKAVEN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Clawlord on Gnaw-beast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Warlock Engineer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Grey Seer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Rat Ogors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Clanrats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Ratling Warpblaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Warplock Jezzails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
VERMIN WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

STEP INTO A REALM OF ADVENTURE

This book contains an exciting narrative designed to immerse you in the
war-torn Warhammer Age of Sigmar universe. Darkness and disaster spread
unchecked across the Mortal Realms. The Skaven – malevolent spawn of the
Great Horned Rat – have unleashed the sorcerous catastrophe known as the
Vermindoom, dragging their nightmarish sub-realm of Blight City into reality.
This is the Hour of Ruin, and it will change the Mortal Realms forever. On
the following pages, you will read about the momentous events taking place
in Aqshy, Realm of Fire – epicentre of the Vermindoom. Heroic Stormcast
Eternals of the Ruination chambers battle the vile ratmen across a landscape
marred by arcane disaster.

This is just one story among thousands playing out across a grand canvas.
Upon reading it, you will doubtless wish to stage your own epic battles in the
Age of Sigmar. In the accompanying Core Book, you will find all the rules and
information you need to do so. Once you are ready to get started, the models
and instruction manuals provided in this launch set will allow you to assemble
your own heavenly host or swarm of verminous despoilers in no time!

PRODUCED BY THE WARHAMMER DESIGN STUDIO

With thanks to The Faithful and The Loretesters for their invaluable services.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Assault on Hel’s Claw © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2024. Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Assault on Hel’s Claw, GW, Games
Workshop, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Battletome, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles,
locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

British Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Pictures used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain Citadel products may be dangerous if used incorrectly and Games Workshop does not recommend them for use by children under the age of 16 without adult
supervision. Whatever your age, be careful when using glues, bladed equipment and sprays and make sure that you read and follow the instructions on the packaging.

Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom

3
THE
VERMINDOOM
A cataclysm of unimaginable proportions has rocked the Mortal
Realms, breaking continents into ragged chunks and unleashing
shockwaves of vile corruption that scour the lands. This is the
Vermindoom, and in its wake, all will be changed.

Brought about by the devilry of the rat-like Skaven, the Vermindoom

has ruptured the very foundations of reality. It has moulded swathes
of the realms in the image of a nightmare. The clouds writhe like the
lashing tails of rodents. Twisting coils of infernal machinery come
bursting from deep beneath the earth. Waves of livid warpfire sweep
unchecked across the lands, inflicting agony and mutation upon
everything they touch. The teeming denizens of Blight City – that
ramshackle dimension of anarchy once akin to the Realm of Chaos –
exult in a new age of triumph for Skavenkind as segments of their dread
sub-realm force their way into reality through a thousand far-flung
breaches. Their stricken enemies have dubbed this dark and desperate
era the Hour of Ruin.

The great gambit of the Horned Rat’s spawn has left no realm unscarred,
but few regions have suffered so grievously as the Great Parch of Aqshy.
As the skies burn and the land melts into hideous new configurations,
the mega-swarms of the Skaven come on relentlessly, overrunning
cities and strongpoints in a tide of pox-ridden fur. Their deranged war
machines spew hails of metal or careen madly forwards, grinding all
to dust beneath their jagged wheels. Cascades of warp lightning reduce
mighty stone walls to slag, and Clanrats pour through the breaches with
murder in their eyes. Everywhere at once, the numberless swarms of
the Great Horned Rat are on the offensive. The sheer ubiquity of their
attacks makes any coordinated defence impossible.

Caught completely off guard, the denizens of the Parch now experience
horrors that have not been seen since the darkest days of the Age of
Chaos. Death is the least of them. Frontier settlements tear themselves
apart from within, stricken by plagues of grotesque mutation that turn
men and women into screeching, many-tailed monstrosities. Entire
crusade hosts disappear in a flash, slaughtered to the last soldier or
swallowed by rents in the realm’s crust. Maddened soothsayers and
doom-prophets rave that a new era of suffering has descended upon
mortalkind – a second apocalypse that marks the final victory of the
Ruinous Pantheon.

Nevertheless, there are many mortals determined to fight to their last

breath to delay the triumph of ruin. Taking up fusils and longswords,
the hardy soldiers of the God-King’s empire bar the path of the
vermintide. The most important victories of these desperate days are
not earned through grand campaigns or realm-shaking battles but in a
thousand small engagements; isolated pockets of soldiers cling on in the
face of impossible odds, selling their lives dearly and buying precious
time for Sigmar’s armies to reorganise.

The hosts of the heavens do not waste this gift. The Stormcast Eternals
meet the enemy’s vastly superior numbers with their customary resolve,
striving not only to stem the onslaught but also to drive it back into
the abyss. The Stormkeeps empty as these immortal demigods are sent
into the fray. However, those lands defiled by the Skaven are so foully
corrupted that even the God-King’s Warrior chambers cannot withstand
their warping influence for long. To wage war in such
conditions requires a different breed of hero entirely:
steadfast champions against whom not even the vilest
hexes can find purchase. So it is that the armies of
Order now turn to those avatars of celestial justice who
have been Reforged so many times that their souls have
been honed to a keen and ruthless edge, their ebbing
humanity a fearsome weapon in the fight against Chaos.
LAST STANDS AND
DESPERATE DEEDS
The sickle-shaped expanse of the Adamantine
Chain has come to mark the first – and perhaps
last – line of defence against the Skaven invasion
flooding in from the Gnaw. Here stand the few
remaining Sigmarite holdouts in the eastern
Great Parch, defended by ragged companies
of Freeguild soldiers, resolute duardin and
whatever Stormcast forces can be recalled from
other fronts and hurled into the maelstrom.
Multiple Stormhosts have dispatched troops
to hold this vital frontier, with the greatest
concentration hailing from the Hammers
of Sigmar. Ever firm allies of the first-forged
host, the Hallowed Knights have a significant
presence too, with at least two chambers
operating in defence of the city of Embergard
and its surrounding area. Vanguard forces from
the Sons of Mallus and the Astral Templars have
also had some success in disrupting the Skaven
assault by assassinating the creatures’ pack-
leaders and sabotaging their war machines.
Sigmar’s allies – both trusted and otherwise
– have also lent their aid, recognising that the
rise of the Great Horned Rat is a threat that
transcends mutual antipathy. North of the
Chain, along the sweltering stretch of land
known as the Charrwind Coast, Morathi-
Khaine has transformed the annexed port of Har
Kuron into a bulwark against the plague-fleets
of the Clans Pestilens. Her own Khainite hosts
hunt the enemy through the coast’s steaming
jungles and spill torrents of Skaven blood, each
victory strengthening Morathi’s claim to her
recently conquered lands. Further south, the
great Fyreslayer stronghold of Vostargi Mont
sends forth fyrds to seize and hold key locations
in the Adamantine Chain, including several
abandoned magmaholds whose forge-fires they
hope to rekindle. So too have their skyfaring
cousins, the Kharadron, agreed to offer air
support against Skaven incursions for a greatly
reduced fee; the Code explicitly supports the
elimination of ‘thaggoraki’, for the machinations
of the Skaven always spell disaster for a sky-
port’s bottom line.
Even amongst the forces of Chaos, there are
those who would see some semblance of sanity
restored to the Great Parch. Haunted by his own
role in the breaking disaster, Gunnar Brand,
the infamous Darkoath Chieftain of the Snow
Peaks, is uniting the remnants of those tribes
displaced by the Vermindoom – the Skaven
care not whether the humans they overrun are
in the service of Sigmar or otherwise. With an
ever-expanding horde at his back, Brand has
already slaughtered thousands of the Horned
Rat’s spawn, whetting his appetite for vengeance
against those who destroyed his home.
THE SMOULDERING CITY
The city of Embergard, a symbolic settlement of the Twin-Tailed Crusade, was reduced to little more than a
bombed-out shell, having suffered terribly during the initial, shattering trauma of the Vermindoom. Yet for as
long as it could be held, it would become a vital bastion for those fleeing the Skaven advance.
Knight-Questor Alfric Leodus smashed the Skaven
warrior in the face with the pommel of his blade and
followed up with a backhand slice that took the ratman
apart at the waist. He lifted his Brand of Dawn; the
enchanted beacon banished the gloom in a wave of
silvery-white light. Seeing that his fellow Hallowed
Knights had cut through the rest of the rat-filth, he
looked out grimly across the carpet of corpses that lined
the approach to Embergard. This last toll had brought
on the most ferocious assault yet. A thousands-strong
wave of vermin had hurled themselves against the
easternmost walls of the beleaguered city as that distant
bell continued its demented clanging, the creatures
seemingly oblivious to pain. It had been far too close.
Around Leodus, exhausted-looking Steelhelms slumped
in relief now that the tide had receded. Almost all of
them were wounded, some clearly mortally. The Knight-
Questor did not yet know why the God-King’s voice had
called him here, as the realms burned around him. Was
it simply to die alongside his mortal comrades, holding
back the flood for as long as possible? The defenders
of Embergard might be heroes, but they were not
superhuman. If the enemy kept coming – and if the bell
kept ringing out, heralding another mass assault – the
fragile perimeter would be breached and the ratmen
would have free rein in the burnt-out city. There would
be no saving the desperate refugees who lined its streets,
awaiting salvation. If Embergard fell, the entire southern
6
flank of the Adamantine Chain might also collapse. The
Skaven onslaught could break all the way through to the
Capilarian plains with nothing to impede it.
Cursing at the ringing in his ears, Liberator-Prime
Havian approached Leodus and stood beside him on
the palisade. All had witnessed the way the discordant
clanging of the bell had incited a madness in the
normally cowardly Skaven. Worse still, the noise caused
rockfalls and tremors that were growing fiercer with
every toll, further undermining Embergard’s fragile
defences. Yet what could be done? Leagues of warped
and Skaven-infested terrain lay between the Hallowed
Knights and the damned device. Leodus had already
seen what happened to those who lingered there.
Leodus knelt, clasping the hilt of his sword, and prayed
to the God-King for guidance. For a long while, he
heard only the groans of the dying. Then, illumination.
The curdled morass that was the sky above parted and
lightning danced across the heavens. Leodus’s eyes
turned white; his comrades started in alarm, for a
moment thinking that a Skaven bullet had struck the
Knight-Questor. They could not see what he saw. Swept
up by that crackling trail of fulmination, his spirit
raced out across the Adamantine Chain, rushing past
mountain peaks and through winding gullies. Finally,
it rose high above a crown of black basalt peaks, and
Alfric looked down upon a fortress such as none he had
ever seen before. It looked much like a smaller version
of the mighty Stormkeeps of his own order, but where
the shining fortress-cathedrals of the Hallowed Knights
were pristine in their gleaming magnificence, the aura of
doom and despair lay as heavy as lead around this one.
Carrion-birds circled its rooftops, and solemn, winged
warriors stood vigil atop its battlements.
Leodus stumbled forwards and was caught by
Liberator-Prime Havian, feeling a surge of vertigo as
his consciousness returned to his body. He noticed his
friend’s concerned gaze, and, firmly grasping Havian’s
shoulder, he smiled. He knew where they must go.
THE SEARCH FOR SALVATION
Alfric Leodus and his Liberators made their way
through the valleys of the Adamantine Chain, moving
as swiftly and silently as they could to avoid the packs
of Skaven that infested every corner of the mountains.
The Knight-Questor followed the image embedded in
his mind – that gloom-shrouded stronghold, circled
by ravens and winged figures. His flaming brand led
the way, the sole source of light in these benighted
mountains. Behind him, Liberator-Prime Havian and
his warriors shared uncertain glances. None of them had
ever heard of a Stormcast stronghold out here.
A series of deafening cracks split the air, and two
Liberators fell, smoking craters blasted in the gorgets
of their sigmarite plate. Shields were raised and orders
bellowed, the Hallowed Knights forming a semicircular
wall as more shots rained down from the cliffs above.
There, crouched amongst the boulders, Leodus could see
the narrow barrels of Skaven guns spitting green fire and
metal at the exposed Stormcasts. The Knight-Questor
shouted for an advance, but his words were all but
drowned out by a chorus of piercing shrieks as ratmen
spilled from the gully ahead and behind the Hallowed
Knights. Skaven scampered forwards only to be
slammed in the face by an embossed shield or met with
a shattering blow from a Liberator warhammer. But the
firepower poured into the Stormcasts from above was
only increasing in intensity. More Liberators collapsed,
their bodies erupting into columns of blue-white energy.
With every volley, the Hallowed Knights’ stirring war
cry – ‘Only the faithful!’ – became a little fainter.
Shadows fell across the battlefield. For a moment,
Leodus feared some new Skaven fiendishness, but
glancing up, he saw a flash of purest silver. An airborne
TH E TENTH TOLL
‘Ever y few hours, the bell starts ringi ng
swarm us. Each time, they kill more of us
– Freeguild Marshal Kaira Yathen-Trask
Stormcast Eternal dived from the clouds, wings tucked
together, then pulled up to hurl a spear of lightning
at the Skaven gunners firing from the ridge. With a
scream, two of the ratmen fell, fur aflame, followed
by the crumpled wreckage of their long rifle. Now
more silvery blurs swooped and struck, loosing their
own flashing missiles before dropping into the mass
of writhing bodies to wreak carnage. Sensing that the
battle had turned, Leodus ordered his warriors to charge
the Skaven, whose eyes had grown wide with panic. The
enemy wavered and broke, scrabbling over one another
to avoid their assailants.
T he battle turned swiftly after the Prosecutors’
intervention. Soon, the only Skaven left in the
ravine were the corpses of the slain. Knight-
Questor Leodus approached his rescuers. Their armour
was dark and their aspect grim. Absent was the easy
brotherhood that defined the Hallowed Knights.
Yet Leodus could see the heraldry of the faithful
beneath that gloomy panoply – the untarnished silver
that marked these warriors out as comrades.
‘Hail, brothers,’ he said. ‘ By the order of the
God-King, I have come here, seeking your aid.’
N o response. The nearest Prosecutor watched him
impassively through the open slit of his war-helm.
‘Embergard is about to fall,’ said Leodus, a note of
impatience slipping into his voice against his wishes.
‘The realm is tearing itself apart, and the Horned
Rat’s filth swarm in their multitudes. There is no time.
I would speak with your commander. N ow.’
Silence. Leodus’s warriors shifted uneasily,
recognising in their rescuers the coldness of comrades
too many times Reforged. Then the leader of the
Prosecutors stepped forwards.
‘We will take you to Lord-Vigilant Greylock,’ he
said. ‘You must travel hooded and blindfolded. N one
but those who have passed beyond the Storm’s Eye can
know the way to the Obsidian Tor.’
There was a stirring of resentment amongst the
Liberators, but Leodus held up a hand for silence. The
God-King’s will had guided him this far, and he had to
trust that these strange, solemn warriors were still true
comrades in mind and spirit.
‘Who knows the virtue of forbearance?’
he muttered.
Was it a ghostly flicker of a smile that flitted across
the Prosecutor’s face? It was soon gone.
‘Only the faithful,’ the man replied.
as if struck by a madman, and the Skaven
and drain more of our ammunition.’
7
 TH E ELEVENTH TOLL
‘Peri meter cogfort Maxi mus is down. All
hands lost. Our
left flank is wide open. I have diver ted two
batta lions of
Fusil iers to hold Kyerman’s Pass as long
as they can.’
– Freeguild Marshal Kaira Yathen-Trask

TRIUMPH OF THE SKAVEN

While the defenders of the Order reeled in the face of the Vermindoom, the servants of the Great Horned Rat
revelled in the chance to spread terror and panic. It was a time of great potential for ambitious Skaven warlords,
each seeking to outdo one another with acts of murderous infamy in an attempt to catch the eye of their deity.

Clawlord Skabpelt had watched the latest wave of his
thrall-rats hurl themselves to their deaths against the
walls of Embergard with rising irritation. The city
still refused to kneel. The man-things’ artillery had
ripped through the Skaven without answer, splattering
everything in a thick layer of blood, fur and ruptured
innards. As the clangour of the distant bell started to
fade, Skabpelt had been forced – yet again – to scurry
back to Hel’s Claw, where he now impatiently gathered
reinforcements. Still, as the Clawlord watched swarms
of fresh Skaven scamper forth to replace his losses,
Skabpelt was not unduly worried. The numbers of
humans and silver storm-things dwindled every time he
sent another vermintide scuttering into their guns, and
Skabpelt had plenty more surprises yet to spring.
Xanthul, a major port unlucky enough to find itself
within the Vermindoom’s blast radius. His vermin
swiftly butchered its dazed inhabitants, who had not yet
recovered from the shock of the disaster.
As far as Skabpelt was concerned, Hel’s Claw was the
epicentre of the entire Skaven uprising. In truth, it was
one of hundreds of strongpoints, ruins and dwellings
in the Great Parch alone that had been flattened and
rapidly turned into fortified warrens from which the
Skaven could launch the next wave of their invasion.
Already, Warlock Engineer Shrikk and his acolytes had
transformed the humans’ shattered dwellings into smog-
belching workshops that pumped out weapons and
ammunition by the crateful.

The Skaven onslaught was no great triumph of careful

Skabpelt had been chosen by the Council of Thirteen
to strike at this spot on the southern flank of the
Adamantine Chain, and – in typically Skaven fashion –
now reckoned himself the vital spearhead of the entire
invasion. He was determined to overrun what remained
of the city of Embergard, for Eshin spies had revealed
not only that the mountain-city was the lone stronghold
of the humans left in the region but also that its vaults
were filled with ‘sparkrock’ – the native realmstone
of Aqshy that the man-things called emberstone. This
volatile material was capable of super-charging the
demented war machines of the Clans Skryre. With such
a bounty in his clutches, Skabpelt would become one of
the richest Clawlords in Aqshy.
His first move had been to attack the Sigmarite
settlement of Hel’s Claw on the bleak ash-island of
precision and organisation, for the ratmen do not care
about such things. Yet, for once, the Great Clans of
the Under-Empire worked in something approaching
instinctive cohesion, their ingenious but easily
distracted minds joined in common purpose by the
might of the Great Horned Rat. They channelled the
deity’s malign power through the terrible devices known
as Warpshatter Bells, more powerful versions of the
Screaming Bells that the Grey Seers prized so greatly.
Attuned to the unnatural madness of Blight City, a
single peal from these tocsins unleashed a crashing wave
of sonic energy that caused fortress walls to crumble and
gaping pits to open in the rocky earth. Those Skaven that
heard the sound immediately fell into a mindless frenzy,
eyes rolling over white and bloody saliva spilling from
between their fangs as they hurled themselves at any foe
in sight without a care for their own lives. The infernal
powers channelled by the device would eventually burn
out, requiring the sacrifice of many hundreds of thrall-
rats and captives to start the insane racket up again.
Much to the anger of the other Skaven Great Clans, it
was the Masterclan that hoarded the secrets of forging
the Warpshatter Bells. Thirteen of the ensorcelled

8
devices had been placed across the Gnaw in order to aid
the great invasion. To his immense irritation, Clawlord
Skabpelt had been forced to endure the presence of one
of the pale-furred prophets, on the insistence of the
Council of Thirteen. Shortly after Skabpelt had finished
putting the humans of Hel’s Claw to the sword, his
old rival Grey Seer Vreek had arrived at the head of an
immense swarm of thrall-rats and verminous pack-
beasts purchased at heavy cost from the Clans Moulder.
These wretched servants dragged behind them a huge
conveyance of brass and clanking wheels, upon which
rested one of the Warpshatter Bells. Its vast, curved shell
of brass was scrawled with angular runes and imbued
with throbbing patterns of warpstone. When it rang out,
it did so with such malevolent power that it could be
heard from leagues away. Even in distant Embergard.
Standing imperiously atop his conveyance, Vreek
proclaimed that he had been sent by the Verminking
himself to ensure that Skabpelt’s assault on Embergard
did not fail, as it surely would if left unsupervised.
Clawlord Skabpelt’s eyes had narrowed murderously
at that, but he was not foolish enough to kill a Grey
Seer. Not openly, at least. Once he had his claws on
Embergard’s treasure trove of sparkrock, however, he
might well put out feelers and see how his contacts in
the Clans Eshin felt about ridding the world of a certain
troublesome, ashen-furred wretch.
For now, there was a city to destroy and man-things
to slaughter. One more mass assault should do it.
This time, Skabpelt would unleash every single one of
Shrikk’s war machines: Ratling Guns, Warplock Jezzails,
Doomwheels and whatever else the Warlock Engineer
had stashed in his workshops. This formidable firepower
would surely spell the doom of Embergard and cement
Clawlord Skabpelt’s position as the greatest military
mastermind the Clans Verminus had ever produced.
THE SOUL-STRICKEN ONES
Knight-Questor Leodus was stunned to learn that
a Stormkeep of his own order existed here in the
Adamantine Chain, hidden away from the world
outside. Neither he nor his comrades had heard
anything more than hushed whispers about the
Ruination chambers, from which these mysterious
figures claimed to hail. Leodus’s company felt a great
sense of discomfort as they entered the fortress’s
spartan interior under the piercing gaze of warriors too
many times Reforged. Most had heard the rumours of
Stormcast Eternals separated from their comrades by
stern sentinels, but none of them had realised the scale
at which this had been taking place nor the solemn fate
that awaited such unfortunates. From their Bleak Citadel
of the Obsidian Tor, Lord-Vigilant Vaylar Greylock
and the warriors of the Argent Flames chamber – just
one of hundreds of isolationist brotherhoods across
the Stormhosts, according to the Lord-Vigilant – had
witnessed the nightmares of the Hour of Ruin and the
massed surge of the Horned Rat’s flea-ridden hordes.
Prosecutors clad in thunderstrike armour had braved
the tortured skies above the enemy’s territory, analysing
and engaging the Skaven where they could in order
to disrupt their movements. Though their doctrine
emphasised the importance of isolation and constant
self-vigilance, Greylock’s Reclusian warriors had not
remained idle in the face of the enemy’s advance, even if
their response had been measured.
One of Lord-Vigilant Greylock’s most trusted agents,
the formidable Lord-Veritant Rhosina Crowcall, had
even led small incursions into the lands shattered by the
Vermindoom. She had returned with disturbing reports
of how those exposed to the arcane fallout spreading
across the lands found their flesh writhing with
corruption and their blood turning black and tar-like.
Even Stormcasts were not immune, and the corrupting
miasma showed no signs of abating. Only those of the
Ruination chambers seemed resistant to the worst of
these symptoms, able to withstand the hellish wastes
where their kin were witnessed succumbing to hideous
mutation. Why this was, none could say.
Thus, when Greylock took audience with Knight-
Questor Leodus and his Liberators, he needed no
convincing of the scale of the disaster. Leodus’s
experiences tallied with that of his own warriors,
and the Knight-Questor’s description of the damage
wrought by the demented bell-weapons of the Skaven
matched the reports of his Prosecutors. The winged
scouts had brought word of hordes of ratmen massing
upon the Skavenised ruins of Hel’s Claw with one of
those infernal devices in their possession. It was surely
that bell that had wrought so much damage upon
Embergard. Greylock knew that only a full-blown
assault on the former strongpoint would be sufficient to
destroy the bell. His warriors could perhaps withstand
the warp-infernos of the Lands Anathema and shatter
the bell before Embergard was overrun. Alfric Leodus
and his Liberators swore to join them and brave the
horrors of the Skaven domain for as long as they could.
Consisting largely of heavily armoured and
redoubtable Reclusians, the greater host of the Argent
Flames would strike at the heart of the ruined city,
distracting the ratmen so that a smaller force might
fight through to the sorcerous belltower and find some
way of destroying it. There would be no retreat. This
mission into the depths of the enemy’s lair could only
end in death. Lord-Terminos Heldren the Last assured
Greylock that his axe would stand ready to guide the
stricken to their final peace. Even if the entirety of
the Hallowed Knights’ army was shattered, so long
as they fulfilled their duty to the last, Embergard
might yet endure.
9
 THE TWELFTH TOLL
‘It is all but over. The Wall of the Faithful has been
breached. When the bell rings again, it will do so to
announce our doom. We can do nothing more than pray
for a miracle. God-King save us.’
– Freeguild Marshal Kaira Yathen-Trask

NIGHTMARE ODYSSEY
Lord-Vigilant Greylock understood that to venture into the poisoned lands of the Gnaw was to risk the vilest
corruption. If his Ruination chamber was to destroy the Skaven’s warped bell and end its malevolent tolling, the
soul-stricken warriors would have to go willingly into the jaws of oblivion.

A day’s march took the Hallowed Knights beyond the
polluted hinterlands of the Skaven’s territory and into
regions where the air itself burned green. Ahead, the
skies roiled like a storm-tossed sea, the blinding arcs of
warpstone meteors casting everything in an emerald
glow. Everywhere, the earth was rent and torn, as if
some titanic beast had clawed its way up from below. The
smoking skeletons of ratmen, humans and duardin alike
were strewn all about, half-buried in the soil. Simply
breathing felt like inhaling poison, each gulp of air
searing the throat and tainting the lungs.
Seeing it up close, Leodus could scarcely believe
the sheer scale of the disaster, which stretched from
horizon to horizon. The company passed the skeleton
of a bombed-out strongpoint. Its walls were studded
with fragments of warpstone that pulsed obscenely,
and the Knight-Questor could see the flayed corpses
of Dawnbringers dangling from iron gibbets, their
twisted, elongated limbs bearing the hallmarks of
mutation. Nearby, a statue of the God-King lay broken
in two, scrawled with obscene symbols and smeared
with filth. The limbs of upturned cogforts poked up
from beneath a layer of green-flecked ash, their spindly
frames stripped of gun barrels and cogwork parts by
verminous looters. Truly, the carnage recalled tales that
Leodus had heard about the Age of Chaos and the great
retreat to the Gates of Azyr. The thought was not an
encouraging one.
Leodus felt the foulness in the air like fingers around
his throat. Already his Liberators were slackening their
pace, unable to keep up with the Argent Flames, who
marched in total silence save for the tread of their boots
and the soft recitations of their Memorian squires –
how these humans had not succumbed to insanity, the
Knight-Questor could not say. It was not long before the
pervasive aura of corruption began to take its toll on the
Stormcasts. Liberator Culdrus groaned, and Leodus was
appalled to see blood spilling from the warrior’s eyes
and mouth, dripping down his silver plate. After what
seemed like an eternity, the Hallowed Knights could see
the shimmering, oily surface of a great lake stretching
out ahead of them. Some way off in the distance,
partially shrouded by banks of sickly yellow smog, lay
the isle of Xanthul. As the Stormcast Eternals reached
the shoreline of the lake, they could make out structures
that protruded from the island like nails driven up
through the realmcrust: the remnants of the shattered
city of Hel’s Claw, now overtaken by the parasitic tangle
of Skaven architecture. The largest jutted out over the
lake – a great tower housing a vast bell whose brass shell
throbbed with warped arcane power.
The target was in sight. Mounted atop his sombre
Gryph-stalker Fulnus, Lord-Vigilant Greylock observed
the path ahead. He had planned to force a crossing
over the narrow causeway that had once connected
Xanthul to the mainland. That promontory now offered
treacherous passage indeed, for it was riddled with
warpstone fragments and at points entirely shorn
through. Worse yet, it was horrendously exposed. Fulnus
gave a harsh cry of warning, and as the first Reclusian
stepped onto the bridge, the hiss-crack of gunfire ripped
through the air.
THE CROSSING
Warlock Engineer Shrikk observed the storm-things
through his warpglass scope, baring his teeth in an
amused sneer as he watched half a dozen of them
fall, peppered by bullets. His ambush was – as ever –
perfectly timed. Clanrats spilled from hidden boltholes
and out from behind boulders, attacking both the
advancing head of the column and its vulnerable flanks.
As expected, the first of Shrikk’s vermin to engage the
silver-clad warriors suffered badly for it. Hammers
swung out to pulverise Skaven heads or shatter their
limbs and leave them to be trampled by their own
advancing masses. Corpses toppled from the narrow

10
strip of rock, splashing into the waters below. Naturally,
Shrikk could not care less about such losses – not while
his Warplock Jezzails continued to rake the flanks of the
Stormcasts. He sensed the chance to smash this foolish
assault before it even reached Hel’s Claw. That would
show that arrogant pipsqueak Clawlord Skabpelt who
truly had the Horned Rat’s favour. He raised his own
warplock musket, took aim and fired off a shot, which
struck a Stormcast warrior’s helm and sent the man
spinning from the causeway.
Battling away on the other side of the land bridge,
Knight-Questor Leodus cursed as another Liberator
was torn apart by a storm of bullets and discorporated
in a burst of lightning. The ratmen had wheeled up
some heavy repeater cannon that was raining down
glowing missiles on the exposed promontory. More
Skaven warriors were being turned into red mist than
Hallowed Knights, but that was clearly of no concern
to the enemy. Leodus was about to call for his warriors
to take cover when he heard the booming war cry of his
Stormhost roared aloud.
‘Only the faithful!’
Outnumbered a score to one, there should have been no
way for the Argent Flames to seize the initiative. Leodus
watched in awe as the Reclusians lowered their shields
and drove forward, bulldozing Skaven into the waters
on either side of the promontory. Silver light wreathed
the Stormcasts’ star-shaped crests and the hafts of
their axes as they swung them back and forth, clearing
space for their advance. Shrieking bullets smacked
against the Reclusians’ armour or thudded into their
shields, but only a handful of the warriors faltered. The
enemy’s repeater cannon was taking a heavy toll, each
volley annihilating another handful of Stormcasts in a
splatter of gore and a flash of lightning, but even as the
cannonade threatened to spoil the Hallowed Knights’
momentum, Prosecutors with wings of silver fire swept
down from above and hurled volleys of javelins to
impale the Skaven gunners.
Shrikk’s confidence was rapidly dwindling. Even
covered in smoking wounds, the silver giants would
not slow. Step by step, the enemy was forcing their way
across the causeway, and he could smell the foetid reek
of fear-musk in the air as his Clanrats wavered. He
licked his chops nervously, glancing back at the gates
of Hel’s Claw. Of course, even if the silver storm-things
managed to reach the warren, they would then have
to face the full might of Clawlord Skabpelt’s waiting
host. Yes, perhaps it was time to make a slight tactical
readjustment. The Warlock Engineer shrieked an
order at his gunners to keep up their barrage and then
slipped away when their attention was fixed elsewhere,
neatly evading an incoming bombardment of storm-
wreathed missiles.
11
THE BATTLE OF HEL’S CLAW
The Skaven warren on Hel’s Claw was a formidable target, and the Argent Flames commanded by Lord-Vigilant
Greylock had no illusions about the prospects of their survival. Indeed, some even welcomed the idea of oblivion
as they strode into battle through a hailstorm of warpstone bullets.
Hammers and axes thundered against the ramshackle
gates of Hel’s Claw, and with a creaking groan, metal
gave way. Towering figures strode through the breach,
only to be struck by a withering hail of fire as Warlock
Engineer Shrikk – having retreated behind a new mob
of Clanrats – screeched for his Ratling Warpblasters
to open up a barrage. Three of the war engines spat
warpstone-infused metal at almost point-blank range,
and one of the Reclusians was lifted from his feet,
his sigmarite shield blown to pieces and a fist-sized
hole blasted through his skull. Clawlord Skabpelt
shrieked an order, and the Clanrats of Hel’s Claw
surged forward anew. Outraged that the enemy had
dared to strike at his lair, Skabpelt was determined to
see the storm-things butchered in the most painful
manner imaginable.
Massive Rat Ogors waded through the throng of vermin,
smashing aside anything in their way. The warpstone
embedded in their flesh glowed as the Moulder death-
beasts fell upon the silver Stormcasts, raking at their
armour with oversized talons or bludgeoning at
their shields in a frenzy. Some had warpfire-spitting
gauntlets stitched to their limbs, which spewed wild
and undirected streams that incinerated Skaven and
Stormcast alike. One of the beasts stove in a Reclusian’s
12
skull with its fists, only to screech in pain and fall with a
gigantic, flaming axehead buried in its back. As Heldren
the Last ripped his weapon loose, Knight-Questor
Leodus and his remaining warriors rushed to shore up
the Argent Flames’ line, the Liberators at last engaging
in the sort of head-on struggle of grinding defiance at
which they excelled.
For a few desperate moments, the momentum of battle
seemed to shift, and the Hallowed Knights pushed
deeper into the Skavenised city, widening their front
line. But then a dreadful sonorous boom drowned out
the sounds of battle. Liberators cried out and clutched
their skulls, unable to stand the atonal racket of the
Warpshatter Bell. Several perished in a moment, heads
imploding under the terrible pressure. The effect upon
the Skaven was even more profound. They howled and
screeched in exultation as the sonic magic of the bizarre
device flooded through them, driving them into a feral
state of madness. As one, the vermintide crashed down
upon the Stormcast Eternals, utterly indifferent to the
axes that hewed into their flesh. Even as the bell of Hel’s
Claw threatened to drive all reason from his mind,
Leodus sang canticles of faith along with his comrades,
all of them praying to the God-King for the strength to
hold on for just a little longer.
THE THIRTEENTH TOLL
Lord-Vigilant Greylock felt the deafening clangour as
a physical sensation that shook his bones and filled his
mouth with bile. He called upon Sigmar and Morrda
to help him focus his mind on the task at hand. While
Leodus and Lord-Terminos Heldren drew the attention
of the enemy’s main host, Greylock and a small group of
chosen warriors had split away, making for the teetering
belltower and the cursed instrument that it housed.
He could see it there, its rune-scarred surface
pulsing with grotesque energies as it unleashed
another dreadful toll. The sonic blast threatened
to strike him from his mount.
Fulnus hissed a warning, and Greylock
saw at once that they had been spotted.
Waiting at the foot of the tower was
a huge mob of Skaven warriors
and mutants, rallying around
what was clearly their leader – a
heavily armoured rat-lord sat astride
some loping, hairless beast. Beside it,
perched on a teetering pulpit of brass,
was a Skaven priest with curling horns and
filthy, bloodstained robes, ranting with such
frenzied fervour that yellow bile spilled from
its mouth.
The Lord-Vigilant ordered his own warriors forward
to meet the enemy. Led by Lord-Veritant Crowcall,
the Reclusians advanced, intercepting warpshard
bullets with their shields and slamming into the ratmen
with force enough to shatter limbs. Here it would
end, for good or for ill. Once the chains holding the
bell aloft were severed, the device would topple into
the depths of the lake, silencing its terrible noise once
and for all.
S ilence. To Caldor, the sound was bliss, and
he took a moment to savour it even as his
lung burned where the ratman’s dagger had
pierced it. The Reclusian could not stand, nor could
he even turn his head. But the ringing in his skull had
finally abated.
‘God-King be blessed,’ he gasped. He could feel the
corruption seeping into his flesh, crawling in his blood.
But he had fulfilled his duty. The bell no longer tolled.
A shadow fell across him.
‘Easy, brother,’ came a deep, rasping voice. ‘ Rest
now. It is done.’
Caldor looked up. An angel of death stood there,
clad in silver. Heldren , the Lord-Terminos. The huge
man’s axe gleamed in the sickly green light.
Caldor smiled.
A thunder-crack sounded above the din of battle,
and Lord-Vigilant Greylock was nearly ripped from
his saddle. He felt blood gush beneath his gorget and,
looking down, saw a circular wound punched just above
his heart. Biting back the agony that shot through him,
Greylock fixed his gaze on the slanted opening of the
belltower, which lay only a dozen paces ahead. Blocking
his path was the Skaven warlord, smoking pistol in
hand and a triumphant sneer upon its ugly face. The
ratman’s hunched mount snarled, strings of drool
descending from its snout.
Greylock kicked his heels and urged Fulnus to
charge. The Gryph-stalker sprinted through
the churn of the melee, weaving through
the chaos with avian grace as it bore
its master on a headlong course for
the enemy leader. The Skaven’s eyes
narrowed, and its own mount-beast
loped into an answering charge.
Stowing its pistol, the wretch instead
levelled a fell-looking warglaive at
Greylock’s chest.
Lord-Vigilant Greylock knew only calm
amidst the storm. That was Morrda’s gift
– the understanding that suffering was not
eternal, that silence and peace awaited at the
end of all things. The Skaven warlord lashed out
with its weapon, expecting Greylock to return the
blow. Instead, the Lord-Vigilant leant aside and let the
weapon carve a gash across his ribs, guiding Fulnus
past the snapping rat-beast and onwards towards the
rickety belltower. Ahead, the chains of the cursed device
dangled, and as darkness blotted the edges of his vision,
Lord-Vigilant Greylock brought up his axe to cleave
them in twain.
‘I knew that you would find me,’ he gasped. His
wounded lung throbbed in protest, and he coughed up
a stream of black bile. Something writhed amidst the
foul discharge. ‘I was certain of it. As certain as I am
that Morrda calls me from beyond the Last Threshold.’
The Lord-Terminos nodded. ‘It is time, brother.
Your saga is at an end. It will be remembered. Close
your eyes.’
Too exhausted to deny the command, Caldor let his
eyelids droop.
‘ Be not afraid,’ said Heldren .
‘I am not afraid,’ said Caldor. ‘I want to know…
what lies beyond.’
There followed a swift rush of air and a brief
moment of intense, white-hot pain, and Reclusian
Caldor at last knew peace.
13
AB STORMCAST VIGNETTE
STORMCAST ETERNALS
Descending from the heavens in great columns of lightning come the Stormcast Eternals, blazing onto
battlefields across the Mortal Realms to hold back the forces of misrule. All are warriors of superhuman skill,
taken from their former lives to serve as Sigmar’s undying champions in the long war against Chaos.
Legends of the Stormcast Eternals have been woven into
story and song since the Age of Sigmar first dawned.
Immortals all, they plunge into battle in a blaze of light,
borne upon swirling tempests. Booming thunderclaps
and chains of lightning arc across their frontiers of war.
Whether given reverence in great Sigmarite cathedrals
or spoken of in whispers throughout distant Dreadholds,
the God-King’s champions are feared and held in awe by
all. They are the last bastion of hope standing between
mortalkind and the countless forces that would see them
slaughtered – now more than ever, as Chaos swallows up
great tracts of the realms.
‘We march out in gleaming sigmarite, bearing
banners of gold to inspire Sigmar’s citizens. We
sacrifice our lives without hesitation in order to
guard theirs. We undergo countless agonising
Reforgings so that we might die for them,
time and time again. And we do this without
complaint. Sigmar is father to all, and we must
always be his sword. Even if that weapon is
chipped and worn down, repaired over and
over until nothing of the original steel remains,
it has a duty to fulfil. Despite the shadows that
reach out to claim us, we will keep fighting.’
– Lord-Commander Bastian Carthalos
Each Stormcast is hand-picked by Sigmar for their acts
of heroism in life. Once called into his service, their
souls are taken up upon bolts of heavenly lightning to be
excruciatingly Reforged in high Azyr. This responsibility
falls to the duardin demigods known as the Six Smiths,
who craft thick, burnished sigmarite armour with
which to clad each warrior’s new form. Every crackling
weapon or piece of shining plate is struck from the core
of a world long destroyed, infusing it with thrumming
power. Because of this innate energy, each blow of
an Annihilator’s grandhammer or a Decimator’s
thunderaxe can harness a fraction of this celestial
might. Should any of the Stormcasts fall, it is also this
power that allows them to return again for Reforging,
discorporating in a blaze of energy great enough to send
the soul hurtling back to Azyr.
Those who call this immortality a boon, however, are
sorely mistaken. Not only is the process of Reforging
agonisingly painful, it also brings about gradual change
in the bodies and personalities of those who repeatedly
undergo it. Some warriors find that they leave glowing
footprints of light behind them, others that their voices
reverberate with thunder. Almost always comes the
erosion of the soul. Each Reforging robs a little more
of a Stormcast’s personhood, be this their memories,
their judgement or their compassion. Many who
fought in the Realmgate Wars have already lost much
of their humanity; some are only one Reforging away
from becoming mindless automatons that carry out
Sigmar’s will to the extreme. Such a fate is considered by
many to be worse than meeting their final death. Each
Stormhost’s Ruination chamber takes in those warriors
beyond the Storm’s Eye – those beyond the point of
recovery – to await the day on which they may give their
last in the great battle against civilisation’s foes. The end
destination of these exhausted souls remains unknown
to most, even among Sigmar’s own armies.
THE GLEAMING HOSTS
Thousands of Stormcast Eternals have been called into
the service of the God-King since the First Striking.
They are organised into different Stormhosts, each with
its own distinct culture and preferred arts of war. Since
the coming of the Cursed Skies, a corruption of the
aether that means that the journey back to Azyr is no
longer guaranteed, the scattered hosts have become ever
more individualistic. The Celestial Vindicators favour
the sword over the hammer, paying homage to an entity
named the ‘Father of Blades’. The Hallowed Knights
sit upon the more pious end of the spectrum, carrying
reliquaries and cleansing the land whilst championing
absolute faith in Sigmar. Others, such as the fiercely
tribal Astral Templars and the warrior-mages of the
Celestial Warbringers, were originally drawn from a
single source of heroic souls. Such tight-knit fraternities
allow the Stormcasts to fight as a well-oiled machine
upon the battlefield.
THE BLEAK CITADELS
When Stormcasts stand upon the precipice of
losing their humanity, it is the task of the Warden
of Lost Souls and the Lord-Veritants to descend
and lead them to the Bleak Citadels, where they
will be inducted into the Ruination chambers.
Each Stormhost has a corresponding Bleak
Citadel hidden from sight in which the warriors
sequester themselves and watch over the realms
from afar. According to legend, hardly a word is
spoken in these vaulted halls as their custodians
reflect upon the dwindling shards of their past.
Only in the hour of mortalkind’s greatest need
will they emerge – after all, for these warriors,
their next death could be the one that shatters
their identity for good.
PITY NOT THE LOST
15
LORD-VIGILANT ON GRYPH-STALKER
Masters of the Bleak Citadels and forbidding commanders of a revenant order, the Lord-Vigilants have looked
into the black abyss of oblivion and retained their sanity. They lead the soul-damaged warriors of the Ruination
chambers to battle, igniting the last vestiges of their charges’ humanity with the boldness of their leadership.

The Lord-Vigilants are grim figures who rule over the
Bleak Citadels, acting as both gaolers and commanders
of their tormented charges. Each long ago passed beyond
the Storm’s Eye, their soul eroding past the point at
which most beings would lose their grip upon reason.
Yet the Lord-Vigilants endure, their liminal existence
allowing them both to connect spiritually with their
afflicted brethren and to maintain the composure and
sense of self necessary to command them in battle.
This inner calm is said to be a gift from Morrda,
the Bleak Raven – an ancient death god whom they
venerate with the same intensity as they do the God-
King himself.
Indeed, this is not the only gift bestowed upon the
Lord-Vigilants by their mysterious patron. Their
hallowed greataxes are imbued with a spark of Morrda’s
sacred crematorial flame, the same fire that burns
eternally in the sanctums of the Bleak Citadels and
is said to symbolise Morrda’s eternal vigil over the
dead. These weapons can reduce a foe to ashes with a
single blow and are particularly effective against those
who pervert the natural cycle of death, such as gheists
and daemons.
Lord-Vigilants are rarely seen without a fearsome-
looking beast at their side whose eyes betray a
sombre wisdom. These Gryph-stalkers are cousins
to the bold Gryph-chargers employed as mounts by
many Stormcasts. Unlike their kin, Gryph-stalkers
are immersed in the energies of death, vanishingly
rare and believed to be intimately connected to the
essence of the Bleak Raven. The only sounds they
make are rasping echoes of phrases they have heard
before – often the last words spoken by the long-dead,
recalled in a new context that gives them a dark and
portentous resonance.
Gryph-stalkers are ferocious fighters, but they are
somewhat frailer than their more martial cousins. They
compensate for this with strange and morbid powers.
With the flick of a claw, a Gryph-stalker marks a foe for
death, sapping their vitality and siphoning this energy
to themselves or to those nearby. This act can appear
disturbingly similar to true necromancy, and the Lord-
Vigilants do not openly speak of it. Some amongst the
Memorian order secretly theorise that the process might
go some way towards maintaining their commander’s
lucidity and the sturdiness of their soul.

16
 Warriors of the Ruination chambers are solemn champions, both strengthened and hollowed by the process of
Reforging. Here they are joined in battle by Stormcasts yet to share their grim fate, together making a formidable force.
LORD-TERMINOS
A towering executioner who radiates a sombre majesty, the Lord-Terminos strikes justified fear in those who
witness their deadly efficiency in battle. Only those of the Ruination chambers know that these unyielding souls
are deliverers of blessed oblivion, tasked with ensuring that the soul-stricken do not suffer eternally.

It is the duty of the Lord-Terminos to offer a final peace
to those Stormcasts whose souls have been broken
beyond repair. With a single swing of their fire-wreathed
greataxe, they end their comrade’s suffering, sending the
tattered fragments of their humanity on to whatever end
awaits them. Those of the Ruination chambers see this
not as a grim task but as an act of mercy.
A Lord-Terminos does not seek out the hopelessly
afflicted like some merciless angel of death; rather,
these damaged souls come forth willingly, knowing
that their time in the Mortal Realms has come to its
inevitable end. In a sombre ceremony known as the
Crossing of the Last Threshold, the warrior’s many
lives and battle honours are recounted by chanting
Memorian squires in recognition of their proud service
to the God-King. Prayers are recited and solemn
goodbyes exchanged between old comrades. Then, as
the supplicant lays their head gratefully upon a stone
block, the Lord-Terminos raises their axe and brings
it down with a swift, sure stroke. For the last time, the
Stormcast warrior reconnects with their mortality, for
this is a final death, and there is nothing but mystery on
the other side.
Only Sigmar knows what happens to the souls of those
released from their torment in this way. Many amongst
the Ruination chambers believe that Morrda greets
them, ushering their tired spirits into merciful oblivion.
Certain Stormhosts have different ideas: some believe
that they are reincarnated as Azyrite beasts, others that
they merge with the radiant essence of the God-King
himself. All that is certain is that none who have crossed
the Last Threshold have ever returned to Azyr to be
Reforged anew.
A Lord-Terminos often accompanies a Ruination
chamber on their missions, ready to give an eternal
quietus to any Stormcast who requires it. Perhaps
seeking some measure of reprieve from the solemnity
of their duty, they are always eager to close with worthy
enemies, hewing through heathens, daemons and
other foes with arcing sweeps of their axe, each fallen
victim crumbling to ashes as the weapon’s righteous
enchantment incinerates their flesh. In the aftermath
of the fighting, the Lord-Terminos strides across the
battlefield, granting stricken foes the mercy of a swift
death and searching for signs of trauma in their own
surviving brethren.

18
LORD-VERITANT
Relentless pursuers of the spiritually unclean, the Lord-Veritants are the soul-shepherds and watchmen of the
Ruination chambers. It is their duty to analyse those Stormcasts who display signs of corruption or dangerous
instability and to deal with these potential threats with customary ruthlessness.

Once it was the duty of the Lord-Veritants to scour the
cities of the God-King for signs of spiritual decay and
root it out with fire and fury. For years, their title was
synonymous with terrifying efficiency, but as Sigmar’s
empire expanded, their role was slowly transferred to
the Order of Azyr – those mortals invested with the
authority of the heavens. Still, the Lord-Veritants and
their skills were an asset that could not be abandoned.
They were soon absorbed into the Ruination chambers,
where their uncanny ability to sniff out the merest sliver
of degeneracy in a being’s soul would prove invaluable.
To aid them in this task, most Lord-Veritants are
accompanied by a Gryph-crow – an Azyrite creature
attuned to the souls of mortals who can sense not only
corruption but also the shadow of imminent death.
The Stormcasts of the Ruination chambers are tasked
with entering the most distorted and surreal battlefields
imaginable, marching through waves of pure corruption
that would kill or mutate lesser warriors beyond
recognition within minutes. Even with their enhanced
resistance to such warping effects, at battle’s end, these
champions sometimes find they bear a faint mark of
this corruption. This cannot be countenanced, for not
even one iota of the Dark Gods’ influence must ever
be allowed to enter the sanctums of the lost. Every
Stormcast who returns to the Bleak Citadel from such
a mission into hostile lands must present themselves
before their Lord-Veritant. Obscuring their vision so
that their easily tricked physical senses do not interfere
with their judgement, the Lord-Veritant will examine
the soul of each warrior, searching for signs of spiritual
infection. Some even go so far as to carry out the
Rite of Purgation, burning out their own eyes with a
celestium brand so that for evermore they see the world
only through the pitiless lens of unwavering justice.
Those whom they suspect of exhibiting even a hint of
darkness are given over to the Citadel’s Lord-Terminos;
all too often, they meet their end at the edge of an
executioner’s axe.
Such incidents are thankfully rare, and the prowess
and knowledge of a Lord-Veritant ensure that they are
more commonly called upon to take up arms against the
enemies of Order. This they do eagerly, slicing heathens
with their judgement blade and brandishing their Staff
of Abjuration – a flaming stave that can shatter unholy
enchantments in a burst of celestial power.

19
KNIGHT-QUESTOR
Champions of the Stormcast Eternals chosen by their deity for a holy mission, Knight-Questors operate alone,
outside of any regular command structure. They are some of the finest duellists and most intrepid heroes of the
Stormhosts, and woe betide those who attempt to impede them in their duty.

The Knight-Questors perform a unique role amongst
the highly regimented Stormhosts. Not for them the
burden of mass command; they have but a singular
duty, given unto them by the God-King himself. Their
holy mission can be straightforward or mystifyingly
complex. Sometimes it involves nothing more than the
slaying of a rampaging orruk warlord, while on other
occasions, a Questor might have to recover a series of
dangerous artefacts or break a curse that has lingered
for many centuries. In recent times, these figures have
become inextricably linked to the Bleak Citadels of the
Ruination chambers. Though they are not themselves
enrolled in this grim order, they are amongst the few
Stormcasts allowed to directly petition the aid of the
soul-stricken veterans, for their requests carry the
weight of the God-King’s will.
Knight-Questors can be chosen from any rank of a
Stormhost and are often picked for their particularly
formidable martial talents and their ability to think on
their feet. Other times, a Stormcast may have the role
thrust upon them by a dark turn of fate; some are the
only survivors of terrible military disasters and must
carry out some duty on behalf of their deceased kin.
A Knight-Questor’s calling comes to them in the form
of visions or sacred omens, often manifesting with such
urgent intensity that the chosen warrior immediately
abandons whatever campaign they are embroiled in.
They do so with the full blessing of their superiors, for
all Stormcasts can recognise the holy fervour of one who
has been called by Sigmar, and it is forbidden to impede
such champions in any way.
A Knight-Questor possesses the authority to recruit
a small retinue of Stormcast warriors to their cause.
Some are willing to join with allies of Order or even
morally dubious mercenaries in order to carry out the
God-King’s decree. Almost inevitably, this will involve
taking to the battlefield in person and hewing a path
through their foes with their heavenly broadsword. The
Brand of Dawn that a Knight-Questor carries is not
merely a flaming torch that casts the light of hope into
the darkness but also a symbol of their esteemed rank
that guides them in their quests. Evildoers quail in the
face of its righteous flame, their flesh smouldering and
their black hearts seized by dread. Such helpless foes
are swiftly cut down with a lightning-swift slash of the
Knight-Questor’s blade.

20
RECLUSIANS
Each Reclusian was once a heroic champion of Sigmar, yet repeated Reforgings have left them on the brink of
transforming into an emotionless automaton. Now these warriors march gladly into the most nightmarish
battlefields imaginable, determined to end their sagas in a blaze of glory.

Though the Stormcast Eternals are granted the ‘gift’
of immortality, it does not come without a price. Each
time they are cut down in battle, their soul returns to
Azyr to be Reforged anew, a process that erodes a little
more of their humanity every time. Those veterans who
have waged war across the Mortal Realms for decades
on end have suffered death after violent death, and there
comes a time when the soul can take no more. These
warriors have long passed beyond the Storm’s Eye – that
point of equilibrium at which a Stormcast Eternal’s soul
is relatively stable and can be Reforged without risk of
further erosion. Whether it happens after their next
death or another further down the path of fate, they are
destined to become a merciless automaton of lightning
and sigmarite, their spirit and memories erased entirely.
Such warriors are soon identified, isolated and taken
away to the Bleak Citadels to join the ranks of the
Ruination chambers. The cawing of circling grimrooks
– creatures sacred to Morrda – heralds their fate, a
sound that many Stormcasts have come to dread. Those
taken by Morrda’s champions are destined to become
Reclusians – revenant knights who knowingly walk the
path to oblivion yet are determined to meet their end
on their own terms. Though well past the point of no
return, the Reclusians are not yet mute statues. With
the aid of their Memorian squires, they recall flickers
of their past lives and deeds and are still capable of
expressing emotion, even if they struggle to relate to
those who are not similarly afflicted.
In a cruel irony, it is the very erosion of these warriors’
souls that makes them such a potent weapon in Sigmar’s
war against Chaos. Their spirits radiate intense power,
for they are becoming avatars of pure justice, imbued
with a singular and unyielding purpose. Moreover,
so much of their humanity has been blasted apart on
the Anvil of Apotheosis that the sickening corruption
of the Dark Gods can find little purchase on their
spirits. Magic that would agonise another Stormcast
Eternal simply slides off their armour. By contrast,
the untrammelled power of the storm-magic coursing
through a Reclusian’s body lends them strength beyond
that of even their non-afflicted kin, ensuring that each
blow they land with their relic axes strikes home with
terrifying force. Each solemn victory is recorded by the
Memorians, who risk their own lives to bear witness to
their masters’ tragic existence.

21
PROSECUTORS
Winged hunters who prowl the tortured skies of the realms’ most deadly battlegrounds, Prosecutors descend
upon their foes like vengeful meteorites. With javelins and tridents, they strike again and again, leaving corpses
strewn across the ground before soaring away to seek out their next quarry.

The Stormcast way of war centres around a ceaseless
assault that overwhelms the foe, attacking not only
from the ground but also from above. It is the task of
the Prosecutors to serve as both airborne strike troops
and scouts, identifying where the enemy line is weakest
and attacking it with deadly force. The Ruination
chambers field a great number of these warriors, for to
ply the Chaos-warped sky-lanes is a dangerous calling,
and ceaseless Reforgings have taken many Prosecutors
far beyond the Storm’s Eye. The form of the avian is
sacred to Morrda, the Bleak Raven – perhaps this is why
these winged warriors can be found in the Ruination
chambers in such numbers and why their wings are
limned with dark flames, akin to the sacred fires that
burn at the heart of the Bleak Raven’s temples.
Where once these warriors took on the image of angelic
demigods, now they are more akin to harbingers of
doom, their armour dulled and their masked visages
solemn. They make war in much the same way as
they always did, summoning stormwrought javelins,
hammers and tridents into their hands and hurling
them at their enemies before descending to deal the
killing blow. Yet gone is the graceful joy of the skyborne
Stormcast, wheeling and dancing above the battlefield.
Like their earthbound kin – the Reclusians – these
Prosecutors kill with mechanical efficiency, often in
total silence. They no longer care for egotistical displays
of skill or reckless acrobatics, for that side of their
personality has long ago been shorn away. They are
all the deadlier for it, even if they can never banish a
lingering sadness for all that they have lost.
The towers of each Bleak Citadel are lined with cells
exposed to the skies, similar to those found in the
interior of the panoptic structure. Here, when not on
campaign, soul-damaged Prosecutors spend their days
in sombre meditation in the company of grimrooks,
large corvids whom they believe to be the eyes and
ears of Morrda himself. Whenever a Lord-Veritant
departs to collect a new batch of Stormcasts destined
for the Ruination chambers, they are accompanied by
a wing of Prosecutors, whose mere presence strikes a
note of dread into those who witness them. Meeting
their new charges’ fearful gaze with stern – but not
pitiless – resolve, they summon them to join the ranks
of the Ruination chambers and leave their comrades
behind forever.

22
LIBERATORS
When mortals picture Stormcast warriors, it is the shining shield and raised hammer of a Liberator that springs
to mind. These are the most numerous soldiers of the Stormhosts, though all are veteran fighters who have
fought against some of the most horrific monstrosities of the Mortal Realms.

Even a war machine as grand as Sigmar’s celestial
army requires a core of redoubtable infantry, warriors
whose duties perhaps lack the grandeur of those of their
more specialised kin but without whom victory would
simply not be possible. Liberators are the backbone of
the Stormhosts, and their deeds have been etched into
legend since the first hours of the Realmgate Wars. With
shield and hammer held high, they have met onrushing
tides of daemons, gheists and countless other horrors,
holding the line so that their more prestigious kin can
strike a telling blow. Through their selfless efforts have a
thousand vital battles been won.
The strongest warriors in a Liberator retinue are also
granted the opportunity to carry a grandhammer, a
two-handed maul that can stave in a Chaos Warrior’s
ensorcelled chestplate with a single blow.
This rolling juggernaut of sigmarite has overwhelmed
countless hostile armies. The Liberators’ true strength
lies not only in the shock and awe of their tactics but also
in the uncanny cohesion with which they fight. They are
comrades and heroes all, bound together by the weighty
demands of their calling, determined never to fail their
beloved God-King.

Liberators are trained to exemplify the martial doctrine
of the Stormcast Eternals. Carried to the battlefield
upon the celestial storm, they slam to earth in a blinding
flash of lightning, sending their enemies reeling.
Before the foe can regather their senses, the Liberators
immediately crash into them with their heavy shields,
smiting them with hammers that crackle with heavenly
energies. Some Liberators choose to wield a pair of such
weapons, eschewing the traditional defensive doctrines
of the Stormhosts in favour of raw aggression and
smashing through their foes like a gleaming whirlwind.
The emergence of thunderstrike armour and Grungni-
forged weaponry has only heightened the Liberators’
importance on the battlefields of the Mortal Realms.
Their hammers strike harder, and their shields are even
more impervious to the cursed weapons of their foes.
Clad in divinely reinforced sigmarite, this new breed of
Liberator is now capable of waging war in environments
that would once have been considered lethal – at least for
a time. Now even the foul miasma of the Cursed Skies
cannot bar them from riding Sigmar’s Tempest to war
and resuming their ceaseless crusade against darkness.

23
SKAVEN
For centuries, the perfidious ratmen known as the Skaven scurried beneath the earth like an infection under the
skin, rising to bombard their foes with hideous mutants and machines alike. Now they are erupting across the
realms in explosive boils of corruption, their centuries of scheming and plotting finally bearing fruit.
The Skaven have burrowed and multiplied throughout
the Mortal Realms for thousands of years, festering
within the cracks of reality. Each one is a sly,
megalomaniacal agent of their own self-interest. Despite
travelling in vast swarms, they will betray their kin in
a heartbeat for power or personal gain. Every Skaven
believes they deserve to rule over the others, and the
more powerful one of them becomes, the more at risk
they are of falling victim to assassination or betrayal.
As a result, the entirety of Skaven culture teeters upon
a knife edge of constant paranoia, wheeler-dealing and
braggadocio. Every rat constantly fawns upon those
above them in the pecking order whilst mercilessly
punching down at those below. In spite of their tendency
to undermine each other, Skaven are still at their most
powerful on the occasions when they do unite. The six
Great Clans hold the most sway over Skaven society,
with each having a presence on the Council of Thirteen
– a gathering of the twelve most powerful Lords of
Decay, with a seat symbolically reserved for their deity,
the Great Horned Rat. Upon their orders, skittering
nests of rodents have slaughtered entire cities in a single
night. The Clans Skryre delight in madcap warpstone
inventions, whilst those of Moulder use the substance
to create freakish mutants. The Clans Eshin work from
the shadows, assassinating both enemies and fellow
Skaven who grow a little too ambitious. The devotees of
Pestilens overwhelm the enemy with plagues, whereas
those of Verminus overrun the foe through sheer force
of numbers. The mad prophets of the Masterclan are few
by comparison, but they are responsible for directing the
Skaven along the path to victory.
While the most powerful Skaven do end up at the top
of the heap, budding tyrants soon find themselves
impaled upon an assassin’s blade. The only being that
WARPSTONE
Realmstone is an arcane substance made of the
condensed magic of the Mortal Realms, and each
realm produces a different kind. Blight City, the
unholy sub-realm of the Horned Rat, is no exception.
Known as warpstone, the tainted gems mined here are
explosive, highly volatile and hideously corrupting.
Whilst warpstone can imbue creatures and machines
alike with great power, it also infuses them with
equal instability. Of course, this is of little import to
the Skaven, who use the realmstone liberally in their
experiments and spellcraft. Those powerful enough to
wield such magic are known as Grey Seers, and these
ratmen hold immense influence within their clans.
PITY NOT THE VILE
24
can truly lord over them, standing as a paragon of their
very worst habits, is the Great Horned Rat. Previously
only a minor deity of the Dark Pantheon, the true
scope of his corrupting influence is quickly becoming
known as innumerable Skaven wash over the realms
in a screeching, chittering tidal wave. With many dark
priests and shamans now in awe of his power, the Great
Horned Rat has gained a host of new worshippers – and
his children’s new-found freedom allows him to bleed
the land dry of life and resources wherever they go,
leaving only empty wastelands behind.
THE HOUR OF RUIN
This surge in influence was a long time in the making,
After having corrupted arcane nexus points across the
realms with warpstone, ultimately causing a cataclysm
that consumed much of the eastern Great Parch and
breached countless other nations to boot, the Skaven
were no longer content simply to scheme in the dark.
Bringing about the Hour of Ruin was their greatest
triumph, and since the very first alarm bells tolled across
the Cities of Sigmar, the Skaven have swarmed over the
realms in endless droves. They are a cruel race with no
concern for anyone but themselves, and they will happily
shred their enemies with teeth and claws, use them for
target practice with their explosive missiles or, worse,
imprison them for use in their twisted experiments.
Those who suffer this fate will meet a particularly
gruesome end, whether forming parts of patchwork
rat-mutants or being sectioned into ingredients for
hazardous bio-weapons. As the Skaven fan out across
all realms save Azyr, decimating natural resources and
swallowing up cities with their great gnawhole fissures,
they bring with them a blanket of dread that empowers
the entirety of the Chaos Pantheon day by dark day.
CLAWLORD ON GNAW-BEAST
Possessed of a towering ego and a razor-keen sense of self-preservation, the Clawlords of the Clans Verminus are
the Skaven’s foremost generals. They are formidable fighters and savvy strategists, spending their underlings’
lives by the thousand in order to secure victory in the Horned Rat’s name.
The Skaven have a unique idea of what constitutes the
perfect warrior. Strength and speed are all well enough,
but what really marks out their greatest champions is
an underhanded genius for fighting dirty – for finding
the enemy’s weak point and sinking a warpstone-laced
blade into it, preferably before the victim even knows
they are in danger. Few beings embody this better than
the Clawlords, the commanders of the Horned Rat’s
swarming armies.
Clawlords are utterly ruthless in their pursuit of victory.
Having climbed over the corpses of fellow Skaven to
reach the heights of military command, they seek to
secure their position – and improve their standing in
the eyes of the Great Horned Rat – by slaughtering
the enemies of the Under-Empire. Or their own rivals,
which, in their view, amounts to the same thing. They
see no reason to needlessly risk their own fur in this, not
when they have teeming multitudes of minions ready
to intercept any bullets or blades intended for them.
Yet while they prefer to lead from behind a meatshield
of several hundred Clanrats, it would be a mistake
to denigrate a Clawlord’s prowess in the business of
murder. Like all rats, when cornered, they fight with
reckless savagery, taking their foes off guard with their
speed and wiry, adrenaline-fuelled strength.
26
Many Clawlords like to ride into war, for this affords
them a speedy way of manoeuvring around the
battlefield and offers them a better chance of fleeing
if the fighting turns against them. It is common for
these Skaven generals to purchase a Gnaw-beast from
their Moulder suppliers to serve as a battle mount.
These stooped and hideous creatures – flesh-grafted
amalgamations of rat, horse and hound – are swift and
agile, able to scale walls with their strong forelimbs
and easily tear open their prey’s throat with their
gnashing teeth. Gnaw-beasts are specifically bred to
suffer constantly from the ‘black hunger’ – the rabid
need to feed that often overcomes Skaven warriors in
the midst of battle. This locks them in a permanent
state of drooling fury and grants them a desperate, wiry
strength that can take larger foes entirely by surprise.
Atop the creature’s back, the Clawlord switches between
blasting holes in their foes with a ratling pistol and
running them through with their warpforged halberd,
a weapon designed to release deadly corruption into the
bodies of those it impales. If the battle turns sour, the
Clawlord takes advantage of the Gnaw-beast’s speed to
swiftly relocate out of harm’s way – although it is not
always easy to force a flesh-gobbling Gnaw-beast to
abandon its kill.
A Skaven war-swarm conquers its enemies through a blend of devious cunning, deranged warpstone-fuelled firepower
and overwhelming numbers. In the Hour of Ruin, they are a widespread blight upon the realms.
WARLOCK ENGINEER
Masters of deranged science, the Warlock Engineers of the Clans Skryre delight in unleashing warpstone-fuelled
weapons of mass devastation on their foes. These madcap inventors will hire themselves out to the highest bidder
in their eagerness to test their latest creations.
Warlock Engineers are the master weaponsmiths of
Skaven society, possessed of an undeniable genius
alloyed with an utter disregard for conventional logic.
By fusing dark sorcery with warpstone-powered
technology, they create devices as insane as they are
lethal. Toxin-spewers, scatter-rockets and gigantic,
bladed wheels of death are just a few of their favoured
inventions. There are as many types of Warlock as
there are schools of Skaven engineering, but the
majority prefer to dabble here and there instead of
specialising in only one killing field. This is indicative
of the Skaven’s tendency to become distracted by new
methods of mayhem.
The typical Warlock Engineer is an artificer-rat that has
dipped their tail in various disciplines, mastering the
construction of multiple ingenious murder-weapons
along the way. Many choose to hire themselves out as
combat mechanics to whoever is willing to pay their
demanding price, taking the opportunity to test their
latest inventions in the field. Others chafe at the concept
of taking orders and instead assemble verminous hosts
of their own, marching across the realms in search
of volatile substances with which to create ever more
28
ambitious and insane devices. Life expectancy amongst
the warriors of these Warlock generals is low even
by the standards of Skavenkind, for they often find
themselves on the receiving end of their master’s latest
malfunctioning experiment.
Like many high-ranking Skaven, Warlock Engineers
see it as their right to select a nice, safe spot at the rear
of the battlefield, behind a screen of less-important
minions. From there, they direct their weapon teams
with great skill, coordinating deadly barrages of
missiles, warpflame and solid shot before observing the
messy results through a warpglass scope. Mind moving
at a million miles a minute, the Warlock Engineer will
calculate adjustments and make enhancements on the
fly, maximising the killing power of their arsenal.
If a weapon is not dishing out enough death, the
Warlock Engineer will call upon their techno-arcane
talents to kick it into overdrive, sometimes with
explosive results for the unfortunate ratmen manning
it. If necessary, the Engineer can also take up their own
custom-built warplock musket to blast any foe that
draws too close for comfort.
GREY SEER
Paragons of devious and wanton cruelty in a race renowned for such things, the Grey Seers are truly the favoured
spawn of the Great Horned Rat. Their swift-sparking minds are devoted to the expansion of Blight City and the
dominance of the Skaven empire – and to their own advancement, of course.

Marked out for greatness because of their pale fur and
sweeping horns, Grey Seers are the self-proclaimed
masterminds of the Under-Empire. Ever since the
Skaven first plagued the Mortal Realms, it has been the
prophets of the Masterclan guiding their expansion,
dominating the Council of Thirteen and claiming
sole intuition as to the desires of the Great Horned
Rat. Using their impressive talents in conniving,
backstabbing and dark sorcery, the Grey Seers
manipulate the Great Clans into carrying out their
deity’s will, attempting the unenviable task of steering
the anarchic branches of Skaven society towards
some common purpose.
Grey Seers are true zealots when it comes to the Horned
Rat – mostly because they know what he would do to
them if they were not – but they are hardly opposed to
some familiar Skaven self-advancement. They indulge in
the same rivalries, petty feuds and enmities that infect
every stratum of the Under-Empire. More than one
ambitious Skaven invasion plan has collapsed in disaster
as a result of Masterclan power games, at the cost of
thousands or even millions of lives. In the aftermath of
such catastrophes, the race begins for the Grey Seers to
avoid responsibility and blame the disaster squarely on
the incompetence of their rivals.
Nevertheless, when they fix their attention upon a
particular scheme, Grey Seers are truly formidable
creatures. With their curling horns and flowing,
sigil-marked robes, a Grey Seer cuts a striking figure,
shrieking and ranting behind a mob of eager minions.
Their connection to the Horned Rat grants them
fearsome arcane powers, allowing them to conjure bolts
of warp lightning with a flick of their claws or summon
swarms of daemonic rats to strip the flesh from their
enemies. Should they sense an opportunity for mayhem
– or if their well-honed danger sense is triggered – the
Grey Seer will ‘skitterleap’, teleporting away in a flash of
green flames and leaving their acolytes to their fate.
By far the greatest weapon wielded by a Grey Seer is
their fearsome intellect. Their minds are constantly
churning, spinning plots, schemes and deranged ideas
for every conceivable situation. When they unleash
this insane ingenuity on the battlefield, the results are
inevitably deadly – often for the Grey Seer’s
own allies as well as the enemy.

29
RAT OGORS
Rat Ogors are swollen berserker-beasts that possess the swiftness of Skaven alloyed with the mighty strength of
ogorkind. Using their claws and whatever weapons their creators have stitched to their flesh, they smash, rip and
tear to pieces anything unfortunate enough to find itself within their reach.

Of all the repulsive living weapons spawned by the
flesh-vats of the Clans Moulder, Rat Ogors are their
most successful creations by a considerable margin.
The armies of the Great Horned Rat, though capable of
outnumbering almost any foe, typically lack the sheer
physical might to take on the brawniest warriors they
meet upon the battlefields of the Mortal Realms.
The Master Moulders went about solving this dilemma
in their customary manner. Ogors in particular had
proved to be a foe against whom swarming tactics
had faltered, so the Master Moulders seized a great
number of them, forcing them to endure agonising
crypto-surgical experiments in which they were fused
with Skaven subjects and implanted with warpstone.
The strength and resilience of ogorkind granted these
Moulder creations astonishing staying power in warfare.
When combined with the natural swiftness and agility
of the Skaven, this resulted in truly terrifying specimens:
massive, dull-witted, rabidly aggressive beasts with an
insatiable hunger for flesh. A great many thrall-rats were
torn into pieces and devoured in the pursuit of these
living weapons, but it is unanimously agreed by the
Master Moulders that the results were worth it.
Ever since their creation, Rat Ogors have been a
mainstay of Skaven armies, called upon to shatter foes
that cannot be broken by weight of numbers alone. The
Clans Moulder sell them to their rivals for an exorbitant
price, knowing that the other Great Clans have no choice
but to grudgingly accept their terms. Kept half-starved
to heighten their ferocity, Rat Ogors are driven into
battle by Moulder Packmasters. Loping forward on their
knuckles, they barrel into the tight ranks of the enemy,
sending broken bodies flying through the air as they
thrash and claw in a frenzy, stuffing ripped-out chunks
of viscera into their mouths. Clanrats pour into the
gaping holes these monsters smash in the enemy line,
finishing off any maimed foes they leave in their wake.
It is something of a favoured hobby amongst Moulder
flesh-shapers to stitch various exotic weapons to their
Rat Ogors’ bodies. Lost limbs are often replaced with
enormous blades or whirling chain-flails. Some shapers
find it especially amusing to outfit their creation with
a warpflame projector, knowing full well that the beast
will be too stupid to use the weapon properly and will
instead loose random gouts of flesh-melting fire as it
runs amok across the battlefield.

30
CLANRATS
A single Skaven warrior does not seem much of a threat, with its stooped posture, rusty wargear and nervous
gaze. But when gathered in their scores and filled with the self-destructive frenzy of the swarm, they can
overwhelm and rip apart even the mightiest champions.
Almost every Skaven warhost – no matter its allegiance
– features at its core a vast, skittering mob of Clanrats
clutching an assortment of rusty, mismatched weapons
and marching beneath tattered banners. It would be easy
to look at such a gathering and dismiss it as a meagre
threat, for individual Skaven are not physically strong
and are notoriously willing to stab each other in the
back to ensure their own survival. Yet only a fool would
dismiss them as altogether harmless. When they gather
en masse and their individualistic instincts of self-
preservation are dulled by a frenzied mob-courage, they
can triumph over far more skilled warriors.
When battle comes, the Skaven swarm charges forward
like a living flood of scabby fur and yellow fangs, each
Clanrat scrabbling over its fellows in desperation to get
its claws on the enemy. Spitting, biting and swiping with
rusty blades, they can quickly overwhelm even the most
resolutely defended position. The fact that hundreds
of them will be cut to pieces in any such assault hardly
matters when there are always more ready to spring
forth to take their place. This is the grim calculus at
the heart of Skaven military strategy: the Clawlords
of the Clans Verminus are savvy enough to know that
in any war of attrition, the numberless children of the
Horned Rat are always going to come out on top. Of
course, even in vast numbers, the morale of the Clanrats
is a temperamental thing. If even one of the creatures
hesitates in the face of particularly horrific losses,
indecision and panic can sweep through its fellows like
a contagion, causing them to take flight. It is for this
reason that Clanrat swarms are issued with standards
bearing the icons of the Great Clans. Gazing upon these
symbols of the Horned Rat’s might can often quell a
Skaven’s natural cowardice long enough to get them
back into the fight.
Should the Clanrats triumph, they will immediately set
about looting any shiny trinkets within reach, fighting
each other tooth and claw for the choicest treasures.
Some, however, will seek a gorier prize. A Skaven’s
hyperactive aggression often transforms post-battle
into a ravenous need to feed, known as the ‘black
hunger’. Such is the rapidity of the Skaven metabolism
that an afflicted creature’s innards will begin to devour
themselves if it cannot immediately gorge itself on raw
meat. Thus, casualties of the battle – friend or foe – soon
become food for the Clanrats.
31
RATLING WARPBLASTER
Multi-barrelled death machines capable of spitting out an ungodly hail of warpstone bullets, Ratling
Warpblasters are one of the most feared weapons in the arsenal of the Clans Skryre. Almost nothing can stand
in the face of their overwhelming firepower.
The Ratling Gun has long been a favoured tool of
Skaven engineers, adored for its ability to annihilate a
swathe of foes in the blink of an eye. The Warlocks of
the Clans Skryre were swift to observe the destruction
caused by this weapon and ask themselves a simple
question: what if we made it bigger and even more
indiscriminately murderous?
The result of such musings is the Ratling Warpblaster, a
mobile, death-dealing engine capable of almost single-
handedly laying waste to an enemy army. Utilising
largely the same technological concepts as its lesser
cousin, its enlarged warpstone accelerator battery sends
its barrels spinning wildly, causing several hundred
missiles a minute to punch through whatever happens
to be in front of it. Once rare and highly sought-after
prototypes, these weapons have seen increasingly
common usage in the aftermath of the Vermindoom
as Skryre industry expands, engulfing ever more of
the Mortal Realms.
A Warpblaster’s accuracy is laughable, but that hardly
matters when a cackling gunner is busy filling the air
with warpstone-infused metal. A cavalry squadron or
32
advancing unit of infantry unlucky enough to find itself
staring into the mouth of a Ratling Warpblaster is soon
reduced to little more than a cloud of pink mist when it
opens fire. Its high-velocity ammunition can even pierce
the shell of a Kharadron airship.
Of course, upon maximising the Ratling Gun’s killing
power and size, some necessary alterations had to be
made to its design. Not even a Moulder flesh-beast could
absorb a Ratling Warpblaster’s recoil without being
blasted off its feet, and so instead the weapon is mounted
atop a wheeled conveyance. The gunner sits in a rotating
chair that allows them to adjust the yaw and pitch of the
chain-cannon in order to render airborne targets into
smoking debris. A long-suffering band of Skryre thrall-
rats hauls the Ratling Warpblaster into position where it
can deal out the most suffering, cowering in anticipation
as it whirs into motion. Like all warpstone-powered
Skaven weaponry, a Ratling Warpblaster is prone to
fatal malfunction. If punctured by a ricocheting bullet
or simply taxed beyond breaking point by continuous
fire, its incredibly volatile accelerator will explode,
unleashing a wave of toxic flames to incinerate both
gunner and crew.
WARPLOCK JEZZAILS
Able to blast smoking holes through flesh and metal from a tremendous distance, the infamous Warplock
Jezzails of the Clans Skryre are the bane of enemy officers and other high-value targets. Armed with these
weapons, Skaven sharpshooters can cripple the enemy army before battle is even joined.

Skaven are natural snipers. As far as they are concerned,
there is no more practical form of warfare than shooting
your foe from a safe space where you can be reasonably
certain that they will not hit you back. Few weapons
exemplify such tactics better than the Warplock Jezzail.
The barrels of these huge rifles are more than twice
as large as a typical Skaven, and they are so unwieldy
that a two-rat team is required to operate them. Yet
the great length of a Warplock Jezzail is an intentional
design choice, allowing the weapon to shoot with
an accuracy far superior to any bow or handheld
blackpowder weapon.
Using complex – and unstable – power-surge
accelerators, Warplock Jezzails fire warpstone-laced
rounds at such a high velocity that the missiles pass
straight through inches of steel or sigmarite to blast off
limbs or pulverise heads. They are particularly suited to
targeted assassination. Jezzail teams are trained to seek
out high-profile enemy agents on the battlefield through
their warpglass scopes; officers, wizards and artillery
operators are considered the most important targets of
opportunity and are dropped with a well-placed bullet
to the forehead.
However, even with a designated loader-rat, their
rate of fire is far from impressive when compared to
other Skaven weapons. Moreover, since each volley of
corrupted ammunition leaves a sickly green trail in
the air, it is often all too easy to pinpoint the weapon’s
exact location. If their first shot is not a definite kill,
the Skaven duo can be left terribly exposed. Thus,
each Warplock Jezzail is equipped with a pavise shield
behind which the shooter can cower should their
fusillade draw return fire. Against foes who manage
to close into melee combat, the sniper team is forced
to resort to stabbing away with a rusty dagger or other
crude weapon. However, no self-respecting Jezzail-rat
would ever allow such a foolish thing to happen in
the first place.
In order to compensate for the Warplock Jezzail’s slow
rate of fire, several of them are usually deployed together,
forming overlapping fields of fire to cover all angles.
In this way, they can operate in concert, maintaining a
steady, ceaseless barrage that soon leaves the battlefield
strewn with corpses. These formations are typically led
by a senior Warlock Engineer, whose double-barrelled
weapon offers even more formidable firepower.

33
VERMIN WAR
As the realms-wide catastrophe of the
Vermindoom unleashes waves of horror and
corruption upon reality, the heavenly hosts of the
Stormcast Eternals – bolstered by the Ruination
chambers – attempt to stem the Skaven onslaught.

In both appearance and demeanour, the

Stormcasts could not differ more from the
verminous swarms of the Skaven. The champions
of the God-King march to war in serried ranks,
resplendent in their blessed armour. Facing them
is a living tide of fangs and fur that skitters across
the lands to engulf and consume everything
in the name of the Great Horned Rat. There
can be only one victor in this struggle between
order and anarchy, civilisation and warpstone-
fuelled insanity.
Lord-Veritant with Gryph-crow
Stormcast Eternals
Warlock Engineer Clanrats Grey Seer
Skaven Skaven Skaven
 Prosecutors of the Ruination
chambers descend from on high like
avenging angels, hurling volleys of
stormcaller javelins at their Skaven
foes as the creatures attempt to bring
a Ratling Warpblaster to bear.
Knight-Questor Leodus and his
Liberators focus their fury on a pack
of rampaging Rat Ogors, knowing
all too well the damage that the
monstrous linebreakers can wreak if
left unchecked.

Souls rendered adamant by constant

Reforging, these Reclusians of
the Hallowed Knights endure the
sorcerous onslaught unleashed by
a Grey Seer, while Clanrats swarm
towards them from all directions.

37
 .
st s
ca
m r
to S
of
ny
pa
m
co
a
lm
.
e
rs wh
de
r
i ve
ra
o
n to
ve ns
ka
e
at
oS re
et th
s tic sh
ju bu
’s
ng
am
Ki
n
ve
d- ka
e Go sS
th ou
vi
ut de
eo
et
A
m
to
es
ar
ep
pr
os
in
m
er
-T
rd
Lo
A
 A
Gr
ey
Th
Se
er
re e fi
ve en
ls di
th
in sh
we
a
e
po
ra
m
pa ns
nt of
c th
ru
or e Cl
pt an
n
io sS
kr
yr
un
lea ec
ed
sh an
by r ip
th ap
e ar
Ve
r ta
m St
or
m
in
d
oo ca
.
m st
ba
ttl
e li
ne
.
 A Lord-Vigilant is both warden and warlord, possessed of the Mounted atop a flesh-craving Gnaw-beast, a Clawlord surveys the
willpower to command those who stand upon the brink of losing battlefield, ready to charge forth to overrun and annihilate the
all. Loyal Gryph-stalkers aid them in this duty, turning their enemy – or beat a hasty tactical retreat should things threaten to
uncanny enervating powers upon their master’s foes. turn against them.

The Ruination chambers wage a bitter war against the Skaven, fighting across the most corrupted
and deadly hellscapes in the Mortal Realms – battlefields that only they can endure.

40
 ‘Our fate was decided long
ago, when the God-King rescued
our souls from ignominious defeat
and recast us in blessed sigmarite.
We are holy weapons, forged to fight the
eternal war until our souls are burnt beyond
repair. We cannot and will not retreat from that
destiny. If oblivion awaits us, we shall meet
it head on, with neither fear nor regret
in our hearts.’
– Lord-Vigilant Greylock