Total War: WARHAMMER - Official anounced

[Airlick]

major ones affecting several core game mechanics no matter who, what and how you play. Warhammer DLC unlock Lords and units, that's it. If a race gets a new mechanic, it's part of a free update. They completely overhauled the campaigns of the Empire, Greenskins, Wood Elves and Beastmen in WH2, for example, and so long as you could access the factions you didn't have to spend a dime on the DLC that came bundled with the changes, that just unlocked the units.

There definitely are some pretty crucial DLCs, though. Like, good luck playing Skaven without ratling guns/jezzails or HElves without SoV. Of course it's not so bad that you'll be left with absolutely no archers or monsters with any faction if you don't get any DLCs, but the difference between having and not having many DLC units is not insignificant. Especially the 4 release factions are extremely barebones with no DLCs. FLCs alone don't cut it.

[Jastall]

There definitely are some pretty crucial DLCs, though. Like, good luck playing Skaven without ratling guns/jezzails or HElves without SoV. Of course it's not so bad that you'll be left with absolutely no archers or monsters with any faction if you don't get any DLCs, but the difference between having and not having many DLC units is not insignificant. Especially the 4 release factions are extremely barebones with no DLCs. FLCs alone don't cut it.

HEs can make do without Sisters if you ask me, not because they aren't very powerful units (they are) but because they have so many other powerful units. Even just looking at base units, there is no army you can't crush with properly upped Lothern Sea Guard backed up by Star Dragons, Bolt Throwers, Flamespyres and the bevy of overpowered LLs they have. A Star Dragon doomstack is also one of the strongest in the game.

Skaven do need Prophet and Warlock, tho, not going to say otherwise, Jezails and Ratlings are not only stupidly strong units but core to the race's flavor. Base Skaven still has reasonably strong units like the A-bomb, Plagueclaws/Warp Lightning Cannons and Doomwheel however.

DEs and Lizardmen need no DLC if you ask me. All the best DE units- Shades, Hydras, Kharybdyss, Black Dragon- are base or free, and the faction is plenty strong as it is with their two best LLs being the initial ones. Lizardmen do have strong stuff as DLC, like Trogolodon or Ripperdactyls, but their base roster is already quite varied and strong, you don't need much more than Temple Guard, Carnosaurs, Stegadons, and Fireleech Bolas to stomp anything.

The only DLCs I'd personally consider must-haves are Tomb Kings, Prophet & Warlock (if you wanna play Skaven) and Silence & Fury (if you wanna play Beastmen). Below that I'd rank Vampire Coast, Queen & Crone, Twisted & Twilight (+ optionally Realm of the Wood Elves), and Warden & Paunch. Then most everything else. List subject to change if/when they update races like Norsca or Chaos Warriors later down the line.

[Faldric]

Ogres is very likely to be the pre-order bonus for WH3 as they showed off Ogre mercenaries in the last WH2 patch.
Based on the map locations and how it all fits together Chaos Dwarfs are practically assured to show up at some point.
Ind has been hinted at? Can't remember off the top of my head.

Each of the 3 games are a game onto themselves so you can get one your interested in and you can always expand later if you want.

In the Grand Cathay preview they showed some building cards, one had the description: "Settlement has walls unless occupied by Norsca or Ogres" or something like that. Ogres are almost confirmed at this point.

[KrayZ33]

In the Grand Cathay preview they showed some building cards, one had the description: "Settlement has walls unless occupied by Norsca or Ogres" or something like that. Ogres are almost confirmed at this point.

It was something like "adds walls unless settlement is in Norsca or Ogre region" but yeah, it implies a playable Ogre race or a region where ogres are a faction.

[ParanoiD84]

Epic, probably my favorite chaos god and kairos fateweaver have some great and interesting lore.


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And some campaign mechanics as Tzeentch

[KrayZ33]

Haha, these mechanics are more or less things every faction should be able to do in some way with spies or diplomacy.
Pretty cool stuff.

[Jastall]

Yeah, these mechanics are pretty insane, and unlike Sniktch's faction deletion it's built into the race rather than the sole province of a character. Swapping settlements alone is pretty crazy, can you just decide that Lothern now belongs to Malekith, no questions asked? Or just swap the Great Bastion's fortresses over to your control? It's nuts and 100% guaranteed the AI won't be able to use it on the player. Imagine playing as Dwarfs and ooops, some Tzeentch faction AI decides Karak-a-Karak now belongs to Grimgor because fuck you.

I can't wait to see the mechanics for other gods if they're going this hard and being this creative with Tzeentch. I can't be mustered to care overmuch for recolored Warriors, that kinda shit can always get fixed, core game mechanics however need to be good from the get-go and these are certainly very good.

[KrayZ33]

well, there is probably something you have to "fill up" in that zone, maybe corruption for example, as each god now has it's own form of corruption, maybe it needs like a certain amount before you can use these.

[Jastall]

well, there is probably something you have to "fill up" in that zone, maybe corruption for example, as each god now has it's own form of corruption, maybe it needs like a certain amount before you can use these.

You do need Grimoires and I expect the more powerful options will be correspondingly expensive, and yeah more corruption = more Cults = more Grimoires so it makes sense. IMO another limitation that would make sense is that the settlement musn't be garrisoned. Otherwise, what, so you wipe away the defending army as well? That would be just all kinds of broken.

These mechanics have a lot of roleplaying potential as well. By shifting important settlements and forcing wars on factions you don't like you can probably cripple them without setting a foot in their territory. Say you'd like the Greenskins to beat the Dwarfs, take away Karaz-a-Karak and force war between the stunties and the Empire and they're probably done. It's very, very thematic and I truly do hope every God has mechanics this good.

[Otaka]

You do need Grimoires and I expect the more powerful options will be correspondingly expensive, and yeah more corruption = more Cults = more Grimoires so it makes sense. IMO another limitation that would make sense is that the settlement musn't be garrisoned. Otherwise, what, so you wipe away the defending army as well? That would be just all kinds of broken.

These mechanics have a lot of roleplaying potential as well. By shifting important settlements and forcing wars on factions you don't like you can probably cripple them without setting a foot in their territory. Say you'd like the Greenskins to beat the Dwarfs, take away Karaz-a-Karak and force war between the stunties and the Empire and they're probably done. It's very, very thematic and I truly do hope every God has mechanics this good.

Nah it wouldnt be broken, garrison doesnt really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Ever heard of real life corruption? or other fictional situations like horus herecy in 40k or the empire in star wars or even warcraft. All you need is deep enough corruption and you can turn the governing body of an entire city/organization to be completely different simply due to the most powerful people within it doing the change (or being replaced).
It doesnt matter if the garrison or civilians oppose it... there would be more than enough corrupted people who either believe in the change or are corrupted themselves and then its too late to fight back.

Obviously we wont have such detailed systems in a game like this as to have a hierarchy within every city that you must corrupt but thats the part where you have to use imagination and roleplay it happening.
Even the turn timers in total war arent per day, more like the world moves one month forward or something similar.

So corrupting a city or inciting a war between factions in a single month? very much doable with enough instigation and magic!

In WoW the orcs were corrupted by the demons through visions which caused them to declare war against draenei... the demons abused the orc's own magical ways to rouse them into it. The spirits of their venerated ancestors who only talked to the most respected within the orc society - shaman. (a tradition they have done for hundreds of years)

Every faction has a weakness be it either religious, political or greed. Visions, hallucinations, mindcontrol, power, they can all be achieved through magic.

[Jastall]

Nah it wouldnt be broken, garrison doesnt really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Ever heard of real life corruption? or other fictional situations like horus herecy in 40k or the empire in star wars or even warcraft. All you need is deep enough corruption and you can turn the governing body of an entire city/organization to be completely different simply due to the most powerful people within it doing the change (or being replaced).
It doesnt matter if the garrison or civilians oppose it... there would be more than enough corrupted people who either believe in the change or are corrupted themselves and then its too late to fight back.

Obviously we wont have such detailed systems in a game like this as to have a hierarchy within every city that you must corrupt but thats the part where you have to use imagination and roleplay it happening.
Even the turn timers in total war arent per day, more like the world moves one month forward or something similar.

So corrupting a city or inciting a war between factions in a single month? very much doable with enough instigation and magic!

In WoW the orcs were corrupted by the demons through visions which caused them to declare war against draenei... the demons abused the orc's own magical ways to rouse them into it. The spirits of their venerated ancestors who only talked to the most respected within the orc society - shaman. (a tradition they have done for hundreds of years)

Every faction has a weakness be it either religious, political or greed. Visions, hallucinations, mindcontrol, power, they can all be achieved through magic.

I was more talking about garrisoned armies. Say Tyrion is in Lothern with his usual fullstack of Pheonix Guard, Sisters and dragons at turn 110, you swap the city over to Malekith or yourself, does Tyrion go poof? That is horrendously broken if so. Any assault by Tzeentch can be trivialized by finding the enemy's strongest army, waiting till its garrisoned, and poof them out of existence.

If said powerful army is instead kicked out to the outskirts of the settlement, then the ability would be a lot more balanced, if less fun for the player. No use in transfering Altdorf to the Vampires if Franz takes it back next turn.

[Corvus]

I hope the AI doesn't get to use those mechanics, especially given it targets the player above all else. Once you get multiple Tzeentch factions all screwing the player over, it will get very old very fast.

[Maximus Testiculos]

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-...p3HyHAq_hWRej8

[Corvus]

Doesn't look too bad. Nowhere near as powerful as Tzeentch but you wouldn't expect it to be so. It does raise the question of how new LLs would fit into it when the DLCs start to drop or are all the LLs going to be the limited amount of Kislev lands?

And the older races, especially ones like Lizardmen, are going to be weeping at how bad their mechanics are in comparison. Imagine playing one of them in Imortal Empires and having to contend with WH3 race mechanics?

[Airlick]

And the older races, especially ones like Lizardmen, are going to be weeping at how bad their mechanics are in comparison. Imagine playing one of them in Imortal Empires and having to contend with WH3 race mechanics?

There's nothing really to suggest CA won't keep updating/reworking old races to keep up with WH3 ones, just like they did with WH1 -> WH2 races. Well, to me Lizards felt outdated (though strong) back at WH2 release or TKs release at the latest, but that just means they should get updated sooner. WH3 is the final game of the series, so all effort put into updating old races will never become wasted after new releases.

[Corvus]

There is meant to be big news coming today, which many are taking as meaning the ogres are being announced as preorder.

If true, ogres seem an odd choice for preorder as I would have thought they would have been one of the biggest earners as a DLC but as preorder they'd be given away for free.

[RadasNoir]

If true, ogres seem an odd choice for preorder as I would have thought they would have been one of the biggest earners as a DLC but as preorder they'd be given away for free.

I suppose that begs the question, of the remaining possible race/factions, what would make more sense as a free preorder bonus instead?

[ParanoiD84]

Grand Cathay vs Tzeentch, btw Kairos Fateweaver looks so fucking awesome.

They also said they are working hard on performance as it's abit soso in the trailer.

[Gorsameth]

There is meant to be big news coming today, which many are taking as meaning the ogres are being announced as preorder.

If true, ogres seem an odd choice for preorder as I would have thought they would have been one of the biggest earners as a DLC but as preorder they'd be given away for free.

Chaos Warriors were the pre-order for WH1 a major faction and for sure a big earner as DLC.
The fact Ogre mercenaries got put into WH2 with the last patch is why people expect Ogres to be the pre-order bonus.

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I suppose that begs the question, of the remaining possible race/factions, what would make more sense as a free preorder bonus instead?

Chaos Dwarfs would be the other obvious choice imo.

[Makabreska]

Didn't Cathay openly worship Tzeentch?