Total War: WARHAMMER Review
Table Top to Desktop
Introduction:
Good day everyone! I’m Nolan aka Totaltoad, and I’ve got to be completed honest with you: I’ve never played a round of table top Warhammer. But I have watched a few buddies play a game or two of 40K. I’ve watched the sweat and tears roll down their cheeks, flare ups over horrible dice rolls, and even the emergency dash to the hardware store for a new tape measure, because well… Dave threw it over the fence again.
I do enjoy many table top games, most recently Munchkin and Epic Spell Wars, but Warhammer can be an extensive hobby. Acquiring models and then spending the time to paint and design them is something I do not have the hand nor patience for. So when Total War developers The Creative Assembly announced a collaboration with Games Workshop to create Total War’s first ever non-historical based strategy game Total War: Warhammer, I leaped at the opportunity to immerse myself deeper into Warhammer’s now virtual realm of flesh, magic, and steel. What I discovered was an endless battle for control that more than once ended with my head on a stick.
Gameplay:
Total War: Warhammer is a mix of turn-based and real time strategy mechanics. Overall campaign progress is controlled in a overview map of the kingdom; here players move lords and heroes in attempt to create an empire by occupying settlements, establishing trade routes and obliterating your enemies. Each campaign plays host to a different race: the Empire, Dwarfs, Greenskins, Vampire Counts, and if purchased the Warriors of Chaos. There are huge differences in how each race progresses throughout the game, which makes playing through multiple campaigns more than worthwhile.
A dark desire to raid and kill harbors the souls of the Greenskins; this can be both a curse and a blessing. Remain idle for two long and Animosity will grow among the horde, causing disobedience and fights between ranks. On the flip side performing a series of raids will increase Fightiness, a battle buff, and may even summon an extra Waaagh army to join in on the slaughter. Unique campaign differences between races change major aspects of the game and are what encouraged me to try all campaigns.
Throwing differences aside, battle gameplay mechanics are synonymous between races (excluding the Warriors of Chaos). All factions, including you, take turns growing their empires across a humongous world map. Occupy a settlement, build infrastructure, then enlist reinforcements to take into battle. Strike at an enemy settlement or army, and suddenly you are waging epic real-time skirmishes against hundreds of units in a vast battlefield. When it comes to strategy in Total War: Warhammer, the variety is infinite. Players can wage war in whichever way they choose, though I will say Total War offers a challenging set of obstacles that will make Easy difficulty seem Hard, and Hard down right BONKERS!
On many occasions my forces were defeated by overpowered opposition, and my settlements looted by relentless raids on an empire who isn’t generating enough money to pay for security. Wrinkles like these can be ironed out over time, through practice and experimentation, but I do wish there was a more hands on tutorial in battle strategies. Training on how to efficiently use different units, and different battle formations from the menu would be a nice addition. Lords and heroes will level up if they remain alive long enough to do so; each level comes with a skill point to invest in attack and defense buffs, aura augments, and some overall useful skills. I have high hopes in completing a couple a skill trees; reaching a new level usually only takes a battle victory or two.
Design:
Empirical advancements are obtained from developing occupied settlements, both economic and military. While playing as Vampire Counts, as much as I want to be able to spawn Black Knights near campaign start, it’s just not happening. First I’ll need to build a Cemetery, then upgrade it two times from Barrow to finally Mausoleum, all after previously improving my Shady Township to a Corrupted Village, and again into a Crumbling Hamlet. Other than units, buildings often provide multiple advantages to their corresponding settlements in the form of income, growth, public order, corruption resistance, or unit buffs. I enjoy the varying building trees between races, but there needs to be more visually pleasing additions to settlements. Settlements do grow and change in appearance when upgraded, but individual buildings can not be seen. I yearn to stare deep within the flames of a dwarf’s kiln, but alas there is no embers to see.
It is the differences in technology trees and campaign goals that the differences between races really begin to shine. The Vampire Counts want to spread corruption across the known world and cause eternal night, the Empire wants to ensure control and defend the realm against the Warriors of Choas, the Greenskins pretty much want to raid everything, and the Dwarf’s strive to rid The Great Book of Grudges of all bothers. I found it entertaining to see the structurally stern Empire’s tech tree limited by which buildings you’ve erected, but for the Vampire Counts it’s as easy as choosing which book to read.
Total War: Warhammer is ingenuously designed to be spontaneous; no two campaigns will be the same. As if it wasn’t stressful enough protecting your empire’s borders, outbreak mechanics such as population rebellion, vampire corruption, and Chaos plague the dirt and represent the very real outcome of losing your empire from within. I battled the randomness with a little spontaneity of my own; instead of charging headlong into a battle sometimes I’d encircle a settlement and starve the populace in surrendering, or send a hero to assassinate an enemy lord, instantly disbanding his units. It’s decisions in strategy like these that allow Total War: Warhammer to appeal to a wide variety of players.
Presentation:
Early game, battles can take place in giant expanses of open earth that feel rather dull. Rolling hills peppered with scant trees with a boulder or two make it easier the view your units in combat, but I almost always prefer the battles in thick forest or bog covered hills. I guess these sub-par maps help enhance more complex areas I loved to bleed on. Settlements often were to mighty to simply run down with cavalry; high walls and man-thick wooden gates barred my progress. Erecting siege towers to scale the walls and battering rams to splinter the gates results in conducting war along city streets. Placing all this within the Underway, deep travel passages for dwarfs and Greenskins, visually stuns me and make me feel a little claustrophobic, in a good way.
Striking the enemy with crackles of magic looks brilliant with dancing tornadoes of flames, golden splashes of spirit hounds and even a head-banging green moon with a evil grin. Nods are in order for the interface art and loading screen stills, everything feels classy or deathly when appropriate. Character and creature designs hit the nail right on the head; no worry or second thought was given to making swarms of tiny bats and then swarms of giant bats, or tiny goblins to massive titans. Total War: Warhammer be like, “Love the idea of controlling a platoon of ghostly reapers, here you go. Oh and have these spectral reaper cavalry as well.” There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how creative the Warhammer universe can get. The only real downside is some of this detail can get lost in massive clashes of units, but look close enough and you’ll be treated to some amazing and comical battle animations.
Conclusion:
Strategy players can revel in the light that is Total War: Warhammer. Aggressive turn based conquest gameplay mixed with oceans of real-time clashes between foes taken from the depths of Warhammer will capture the eyes of many gamers who may have turned blind to it’s table-top counterpart, and at the same time allows old fans to play a slightly different version of the game with people from all over the globe both competitively and cooperatively. Yep you read me correct: Total War: Warhammer offers a co-op campaign for those who don’t want to tread alone. Expect more expansions in the future; already offered for purchase is the Warriors of Chaos race that comes with a new campaign mode that spices things up with no settlement occupation. Overall my time with Total War: Warhammer has been a struggle, but every endeavor is worth it when commanding an army of Thriller back-up dancers (pictured below).
Thank you for reading. Nolan — Totaltoad
Total War: Warhammer gets a 8/10 (Very Good)
Thank you to Zack Hage and SEGA with The Creative Assembly and Games Workshop for supplying me with the code and giving me this chance to share my opinion with everyone. Check out my random video game videos on YouTube. For more reviews and features like this one, please check out The Cube on Medium.com, or our twitter account @TheCubeMedium
