First video of the community-made Shadow Realm expansion (News)

The hard work of the team creating the Shadow Realm expansion for AoW3 is starting to pay off and a first teaser of the expansion, showing the Shadow Elves in battle is now available! This article presents their Cavalry and Support units, the Exterminator and the Storm Priest and provide some updates on the progress on the design of the expansion.

An Article by Hiliadan

The gameplay of the Shadow Elves and their differences with the current High Elves and the Dark Elves, the new minor-race introduced as a Dwelling in the Shadow Realm expansion,  have been explained in a previous article. Thanks to the huge modding work of Dr_K, the Shadow Elves reached a pre-alpha status and are close to being ready for tests by the design team.


First teaser of the Shadow Realm community expansion showing the Shadow Elves in tactical fight (pre-alpha) (for this first pre-alpha video, the graphics were set on low)

The race has been almost fully designed (Racial Governance, class units, racial units, buildings) and future articles will present their entire line-up. Today, we present two of the units that can be seen in the video, the Storm Priest and Exterminator.


Shadow Elf Storm Priest, by vfxrob

Meandor’s name be praised! May the power of the storms batter down those who stand against Him! Let his lightning strike down all who dare to raise arms against His servants! The time of reckoning is nigh!





Shadow Elf Exterminator, by vfxrob

When we saw blood-red blades glowing in the darkness, we knew our time had come. The dark knights of the Elves had always been the scourge of humankind wherever they struck. But this time, their blades reaped the lives from the scuttling horde that surrounded us instead. Those who had once been our executioners were now our saviours.




Both units highlight the heritage of Shadow Elves, who were in majority Dark Elves, and who were led by Meandor, a leader strongly linked to the cult of Storms (see the presentation of the lore of the Shadow Elves in a previous article).
The Life Steal of the Shadow Elf Cavalry unit is its main distinctive feature, while its capacity to Mark its enemies by Shadows will create synergies with the shock-oriented, less shadowy, units of its race, who can Exploit Shadows. At Elite, the Exterminator will also be able to wrap friendly adjacent units in Shadows, giving them Projectile Resistance, again providing interesting interactions with its fellow fighters.
The Storm Priest by contrast is quite different from other racial Support units: its ranged attack uses the unusual Frost and Shock channels and it can summon a ephemeral Lightning Sprite for three turns to fight along its side, launching attacks on his enemies without putting himself in danger.

Currently in a "pre-alpha" stage, the Shadow Realm expansion still require a lot of work, especially on the Shadow Realm layer RMG integration, the icon design and the design of several 3D models, especially for structures on the Shadow Realm. 3D modellers are highly wanted to support the current team! If you have skills with Blender, Maya or equivalent softwares, please contact us!


Beacon of Light, work in progress, by lordoflinks - one of the new Shadow Realm structure, that will be defended by remnant of Athlan's armies and unlock the Celestial Tower (+1 city radius, city gets extra Spirit Blast attack during siege) (to be confirmed)

The next article will present other units from either the Shadow Elves or one of the two Dwellings introduced by the expansion, and hopefully will show more of the Shadow Realm!

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Created on: 06.05.2017 at 15:15:12