So I LOVE the Total War Warhammer games. I didn't at first, 1 was fun but didn’t have the staying power. 2 got me into it hugely, including the lore, to be honest. And 3 promised to be one of my favourite games with a bit of polish. And with a friend or two looking to get into it, I decided to write this guide. What started off as a quick gameplay guide exploded into a general overview of the game and its major players. It's still useful but now might be a bit more entertaining.
And that's what this is, entertainment. None of this is serious or a hardcore analysis. It's meant to entertain and inform. If it fails at either, or both, I apologise. I still had fun writing it. But assuming it doesn't, I hope it's at the very least, a little useful, and a little funny. Total Warhammer is fun when you're immersed, but it's scary from the outside. Sometimes a little context is all you need to dive head first into the nerdfest.
Before you begin, if you want a general idea of the sheer spectacle this franchise has wrought. Here’s some talented bloke’s mashup of all the trailers up to the penultimate WH2 DLC. There will likely be one for Immortal Empires before long, but I'm yet to see one that quite matches the majesty. It will come though. Have no doubt. In the mean time hopefully this will get you in the mood.
Total War Warhammer : How Far We've Come
I thought it was worth mentioning this as the differences between historical (both in terms of chronology and setting) Total Wars are the biggest put-offs for some people.
Truly, the variety at this stage is staggering. It’s the main selling point. This ain't Shogun. It ain't even Rome. The majority of factions aren't even the same species. You get multiple ‘legendary lords’ for each faction/race, but they are treated more like Rome II’s families: different flavours and buffs to different units. That said, this is not a rule. Some DLC lords add entirely new mechanics which are game-changing. I'll go over the factions and lords below but most of its on the wiki, or, you know, in-game. Tactics and strategy can both vary quite wildly between nations. Especially if you're bored with standard TW formula it should be one hell of a shakeup. As a general rule I'd say each nation has about the depth of a faction in Rome in terms of just roster (10-15 units for the smaller factions, 20+ for the more varied/bigger ones), but the difference between rosters is huge, not to mention unique lords and unique(ish) heroes, quest battles, buildings, and faction mechanics that actually do stuff rather than just +5% agriculture gain. And there's over 20 playable factions. Just among the human nations you literally have the HRE with gryphons, gunpowder and tanks; comic Peter the Great-era Russia where most everyone rides a bear or has a gunaxe; Monty Python-style French knights with peasants literally firing cows from their castles; and high Romance China with sky junks and dragons and a Yin/Yang mechanic to balance. And those are the four human nations which are by and large the most similar to each other. There’s something like 6 or 7 Skaven lords and each one is practically their own unique race based on the units they are geared towards and can choose from. There's something like 85 lords in play by now and I'll be surprised if they don't break 100 by the time WH3 is done. I’ve played about 2/3. You may not play them all, you may not like them all, but damn, it’s sure as hell not ‘samey’ anymore.
A dinosaur riding a larger dinosaur atop a throne of bones fighting a giant Egyptian statue shooting laser beams out of its eyes. If you don’t like the idea of this just fucking go home now.
Heroes and lords are generally powerful single units rather than regular ones with bodyguards, because, you know, it's fantasy. Same as 3K Romance mode I think, though this actually did it first. They level up in much the same way they always have, but often have a ton more unique abilities and flavour while doing so. They also have equipment in a super-light RPG system which is largely ignorable and made much better in 3 (once they fix the dumbass balancing). I actually believe some of this is direct from the table top so the mechanics may be more familiar to you if you know some of that stuff. Regardless, heroes work super well on and off the battlefield, some are better on one or the other, and have a modicum of variety between them these days, both in terms of utility and usefulness.
Most units don't have active abilities (rip phalanxes, testudo and the like), some do but they’re mainly lords or heroes and are either ‘bound’ spells (don’t use your mana) or equipment abilities (basically magic abilities but don’t count as them). Mostly they have a lot of auras and modifiers which are passive but can have a big effect. Basically there's a lot less micro within units but you need to know them well to get the best out of them and if you don’t check them you can miss a lot of the benefits. So for instance as a super simple example undead units don't rout but take damage on morale hits, making their leadership very important as you will ALWAYS lose the whole army on a loss. Or for instance High Elves fight better in formation, but Dark Elves do increased flanking damage. There’s also way more of them including regeneration, damage over time, buffs and debuffs. Some are triggered, some aren’t. These generally get more complex and interesting as the games go on. The greater demons in 3 generally have so many effects you can’t read them all due to overlapping icons. Feature creep, if not power creep, is a big issue. The original nations are still plenty fun but they aren't so flashy in a lot of places. However, if you ever feel like you’re missing the appeal of some of the units beyond flavour, it’s probably in the abilities.
Magic - Bit of a double edged sword and they changed how it worked from 2 to 3 but it's notoriously powerful in places and fills in much of the tactical gap left by simplifying units to mostly passives. It's the kind of thing you can largely ignore but will turbo-charge you if you don't. Your best mages might get 1000+ kills it a match, used correctly. Some factions rely on it more than others. The effects are massively varied, lots of buffs, debuffs, LOTS of magical artillery spells, and some fancier stuff like making troops invisible, mass healing spells, or reflecting damage back. It’s basically where all the attention previously spent on unit abilities goes. It’s good, it’s worth getting your head round.
This is not really a positive, this is where we get into the ‘but be prepared for this’ side of things. So the battles are (arguably) more complex and (definitely) more entertaining than ever but I will admit the strategic layer is simplified. There's growth, tax, and public order (’control’) but that's about it. Food buildings just generally affects replenishment and give cash, no actual food is involved. It's less Grand Strategy and more Army Manager 2022. However the building chains are varied and unique to each nation, and the diplomacy is fun and varied. There’s also ‘corruption’ which acts in place of the religion/culture/fortheemprah mechanic but actually does active damage if you’re not in the right one for your faction. As a general rule later nations have more interesting strategic layer stuff but a lot of old nations have been retroactively improved to have fun stuff to do between battles and unique mechanics. In general DLC lords will be more interesting. The Skaven in particular have 3 super fun DLC lords with their own unique mechanics of note on top of regular mechanics which leaves some of their other lords wanting.