Warhammer: Age of Sigmar – Deathmaster – Assassin’s fleas

The useful part

Their cruelty and treachery is hardly reserved for the other races of the Warhammer world, but turn it inward as well, with no semblance of pity for the weak amongst their own ranks. Beaten up, with a broken tail and nothing but a desire to survive, they're somehow destined to become a Deathmaster, nonetheless. Age of Sigmar – Deathmaster is the story of this rat's survival and eventual rise through a clan of particularly sneaky Skaven Assassins, until they become a deathmaster themself.

How it works

• Quickly you need to learn how to hide and evade, cowering behind patches of cover in the foreground to avoid the gaze of less desperate, less ambitious Skaven guards.
• That starting point, dragging themself out of the pile, gives you a creature that has nothing.
• Deathmaster is a side-scrolling 2D stealth game, and that naturally brings some quirks and oddities to the stealth action.
• They're largely dullards, happy to pace back and forth a little, giving you the ability to slip by, dropping down through thin platforms to reach lower tunnels, or clambering up walls and along ceilings to...
• Get spotted, though, and you've got no defences in this early stage, the other Skaven able to dispatch you with just a single blow.

What to take from it

Fortunately, you can often outrun them if spotted and wait for them to settle back into their routine, or distract them, using your tail to fling skulls as a noisemaker to draw them out of position. When you do get a shield, finding it on the floor, the first instinct isn't to block and parry, but to leap onto an enemy and bash their brains in! The opening stage builds up to a climax with an insane Rat Ogre breaking out of containment and going on a rampage.

Details worth keeping

The sneaky skittering rats of the Skaven are a mysterious bunch.