Developer Frontier has premiered gameplay of its recently announced Warhammer RTS Realms of Ruin and revealed plans for two upcoming open beta periods.

The gameplay trailer, released exclusively as part of the PC Gaming Show, shows off some of the game's basic elements, such as large fantasy warriors trading blows with sharp weapons, the invisibility cloak for Kruleboyz's squad, the Stormcast's area-of-effect The game introduces the special abilities of the units, such as the invisibility cloak for the Kruleboyz squad and the area-of-effect lightning attack for the Stormcast, as well as snippets of dialogue that alternate between aristocratic dignity and guttural orcish (Orrukish?) speech.

The first open beta will run from July 7 to July 10 next month, preceded by a second later this year. You can sign up through the game's website. Two factions will be playable during this period: the Stormcast Eternals (think fantasy space marines) and the Orc Krull Boys (a cunning and nasty gang of orcs), but two other legions will join them at launch. Frontier, however, is keeping its identity under wraps.

Realms of Ruins appears to follow the familiar RTS path of recruiting units and capturing objectives on maps divided into various territories. However, it is marketed as a more accessible RTS, with minimal base building other than erecting defensive buildings and fast-paced multiplayer skirmishes that take about 30 minutes to complete.

Typical skirmishes involve taking Victory Points from your opponents to chip away at your score, while advancing your technology tree to deploy more powerful units. Of course, all of this is taken directly from Games Workshop's tabletop miniatures wargame of the same name. In the gameplay video, you can see some of the units that Frontier did not show in the first teaser trailer. Among them are the big old Mashcrawler Sloggoth (an orc monster with a handful of grottos on its back) and Malknob with his Belchavanna, which still holds what looks like a moving tongue in place. [Frontier has yet to reveal a release date for Realms of Ruins, but if it launches later this year, it will face stiff competition in what has been a strong year for the RTS genre.