Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, usually abbreviated as WAR, is an MMO set in the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the second of its kind. An earlier Warhammer MMO made by Climax was in development around 2003, but that first version fell through spectatcularly when it tanked at the E3 and Games Workshop pulled its funding. Several years later, the license was aquired by Mythic Entertainment, who chose to develop it in a graphically brighter, more accessible format than their predecessor. It was released in late 2008 to record breaking sales, and recieved great critical acclaim. Unfortunately, early issues in server stability and a population thinned out over too many, combined with the release of the second World of Warcraft expansion at the height of these problems, led to it losing much of its early subscriber base and having large reductions in its development team. Nonetheless, it maintains a strong core playerbase and continues to be maintained and updated.

Like in Mythic's previous MMO, Dark Age of Camelot, the emphasis is in Player Versus Player and their trademarked Realm versus Realm system. There are two sides with three races each: Order (the human Empire, the Dwarfs and the High Elves) and Destruction (Chaos, specifically Tzeentch's followers, the Dark Elves and the Greenskins). Every race has four unique classes open to them, leading to quite a bit of variety and some serious Alt-Itis.

Most of the universe's general tropes can be found on the main Warhammer Fantasy Battle page.


 * Abnormal Ammo: Some options available for Witch Hunter's ammo.
 * An Adventurer Is You: Every race has a tank, a ranged DPS, a melee DPS and a healer.
 * Badass Bandolier: Witch Hunters
 * The Beast Master: White Lions for the High Elves, whose pets are...well, yeah...and Squig Herders for the Greenskins.
 * Bald of Awesome: Male Warrior Priests, and a possible option (though not compulsory) for females.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy: How the Witch King is controlling the Orc leader, Grumlok, and his goblin shaman lieutenant, Gazbag. He also increased their power tenfold while he was at it, so it's not all bad.
 * Though it's implied in the Greenskin story arch that
 * Breast Plate: Mostly averted since the armor for both genders is almost identical, but played straight with Witch Elves (which are female only) and Sorcerers which have far more revealing armor models for females. To lesser extent, Dwarf Slayers who are bare chested but in practice have 'medium' armor. As comparison, Witch Hunters' longcoats are considered 'light' armor. At least we're not expected to believe that the skimpy clothing of the Witch Elves and Sorceresses actually provides protection - both careers are lightly armoured and die if you poke them.
 * Burn the Witch: Witch Hunters. Especially the "Burn Away Lies" ability which has that picture as the tooltip.
 * Catapult to Glory
 * Combat Medic: The game has a liking for this trope. While both Warrior Priests and Disciples of Khaine can heal from a distance, their abilities work best when they can smash shit up to power their healing.
 * Dance Battler: Swordmasters
 * Death Seeker: Slayers
 * Drop the Hammer: The dwarfs love these, and Warrior Priests.
 * The Engineer: The Dwarf Engineer, obviously, who can build gun turrets.
 * Eye Beams: Archmages' Radiant Gaze ability.
 * Femme Fatale: The Witch Elves. Being married to a psychotic God of Murder and ready to treat any man who lays a finger on them to an agonizing death doesn't stop them having special abilities to reduce incoming damage just through their massive hotness.
 * Flaming Sword: Knights of the Blazing Sun and Chosen have these in some variations. Bright Wizards can also buff party members with this.
 * Glass Cannon: Many of the ranged DPS classes, especially the Bright Wizard and Sorcerer. The Witch Hunter and Witch Elves have the highest single target damage in the game, bar none, but die at the drop of a hat.
 * God Is Evil:
 * Though this is disputable because an avatar of a god in the universe is simply a piece of the god and only represents certain aspects, there is another confirmed avatar of Sigmar in the setting who was one of the only completely Lawful Good characters in the setting.
 * Horse of a Different Color: Cold Ones (giant lizards) for the Dark Elves, wolves for Goblins, boars for Orcs. The other races just get horses (Chaos Steeds for, er, Chaos, Elven Warhorses for the High Elves or plain horses for the humans). Dwarves get a horse of a VERY different color, steam-punk personal helocopters that allow them to hover a few feet off the earth but act as a mount in every mechanical way.
 * Kill It with Fire: Bright Wizards, Burn the Witch, Molotov Cocktail, Flaming Sword, Flamethrowers, you need to ask?
 * Knight Templar: Most of the Empire, as should be obvious to anyone who knows the setting. Especially the Witch Hunters.
 * Magic Knight: On destruction side there is Disiples of Khaine and Chosens, and on Order side there are Warrior Priests, Knights of the Blazing Sun, and Swordmasters.
 * Master Swordsman: Swordmasters
 * Molotov Cocktail: Used by engineers.
 * Nice Hat: Standard issue for Witch Hunters. Even their class icon in PVP is a Nice Hat.
 * And Knights of the Blazing Sun, with massively glorified helmets pimped out in multicolor peacock feathers.
 * The Swordsmasters highest-level armour set has you wearing a unicorn on your head.
 * Ninja: Shadow Warriors are ninja elves.
 * Not the Intended Use: The flee ability is most often used to get from point A to point B faster.
 * Orgasmic Combat: Present and done quite almost over the top. If those kind of screams disturb you, even if you always play female characters in games like World of Warcraft, DO NOT roll a female character.
 * Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: Armour for female characters of the Order faction is invariably practical, or at least not revealing (most of them are exactly the same for both sexes). Female Zealots wear a skirt and bra...thing..., Dark Elf Witch Elves run around in their undies and Sorceresses (just the females) wear revealing robes. Two aversions in the Chaos Magus and Dark Elf Black Guard careers, where both sexes are pretty well covered and definitely villainous, as are Disciples of Khaine.
 * It's worth noting that what the female Zealots wear is pretty much identical to what the male ones wear, though. Male zealots go shirtless which means in fact the female have more covering.
 * Note that the other 2 male Chaos classes can be a Fetish Fuel as well, as the devs commented during pre-release introduction, they are like WWF fighters in bondage gear.
 * There was going to be female verson of the other two Chaos classes, the Choosen was basicly (basiced on art) just as covered and heavy armor as the male, the Murader looked like a female Conan with a carb claw, but they were cut.
 * Pistol-Whipping: The witch hunter's gun will also be used as a melee weapon in melee combat. There is even an ability called 'Pistol Whip'.
 * Playing with Fire: Bright Wizards. Let's see, for your three mastery paths you have "burn stuff more quickly", "burn stuff more effectively over time" and "burn lots of stuff at once". Yeah, they're one of the most popular classes.
 * Purely Aesthetic Gender: Most Order classes (except Slayers) and a few Destruction ones.
 * Reverse Grip: Witch Elves
 * Shout-Out: A couple to World of Warcraft. One of the Scenarios is The Guns Of Nordenwatch, named after the Warcraft quest The Guns of Northwatch, and the '/charge' emote in this game is something like 'X orders you to charge. Who does he think he is?' to Warcraft's 'X orders you to charge'. Also Stop Poking Me is present.
 * Although that is probably a reference to The Guns of Navarone
 * The Black Guard career has an ability called None Shall Pass.
 * A quest in one of the Greenskin tier 4 zones is called "I Smish on your Grave", presumably after the infamous "video nasty" I Spit on Your Grave.
 * The Greenskin Choppa ability Git To Da Choppa is a reference to Predator.
 * The Choppa also has a career mastery called Red Goes Faster! which is a reference to Warhammer 40k, where orks would paint their vehicles red. Because of their psychic powers, red vehicles actually do go faster just because the orks believe that they should.
 * In Norsca you meet a sorcerer named Majere who happens to have golden-hued eyes with slit pupils. Not hourglass-shaped but still close enough.
 * Squishy Wizard: The Bright Wizard class is probably the squishiest in the game. Sorceresses/sorcerers for the Destruction side fill the same role.
 * Stop Poking Me
 * Sword and Gun: Witch Hunters
 * Third-Person Seductress: Witch Elves again.
 * Twenty Bear Asses: Of the "kill X number of monsters" in disguise variety, since in this MMO every bear actually has an ass.
 * Wrench Wench: Female Dwarf Engineer is pretty literal example.