I was getting smashed to pieces by an army of Dwarves that vastly outnumbered me. All seemed lost, yet I knew that if I stuck with my “brilliant” strategy, I would come out on top. Slowly being surrounded by the Dwarves, I smiled as the time came to hit them back with a large force of Chaos Knights stationed at the top of a hill. Much like the scene from The Two Towers, my Chaos Knights stormed down the hill and smashed with an uncanny force into the cluster that was the Dwarf army. With that fatal blow, the Dwarves scattered, and the overwhelming sense of power swelled up that I felt the need to laugh maniacally. This is Total War: Warhammer.
Let me be honest; I believe Total War and Creative Assembly has lost it’s excitement and luster over the past few entries. Total War: Attila, while the features and gameplay were there, felt boring and dull after a few battles. With the same-y armies and lack of a stellar story-line, many wondered how Creative Assembly would be able to freshen up the Total War franchise. With the Warhammer license (particularly the fantasy license), Total War not only feels new and fresh, but also allows for the developer’s creatives juices to flow for possible future installments. All of the armies feel unique and play different from one another, and often require very different strategies to feel a sense of success. Combine that with the stellar unit animations, fantastic audio design and true-to-form Warhammer lore, and Total War: Warhammer gives players the complete package.
Gameplay
As I stated before, each army offers a unique and different play style. The Dwarves offer a stout and powerful army, but require much patience from the player as they are the slowest army in the game. Many times in my campaign battles, I felt overwhelmed as I was overtaken by faster (but often weaker) armies. The benefit of the Dwarves is their strong and stout roster of units, which typically outlast many of the other armies forces. The Vampire Counts offer what I consider the easiest to play army, as they have an ability to where you can raise the dead to reinforce an army. However, this is counteracted as the majority of their forces are weak (zombies and skeletons typically are), so players will need to plan tactfully to get the most out of the Vampire Counts. The Greenskins (my personal favorite) offer a chaotic and often unorganized army; an army that thirsts for war and conflict. Players will need to maintain both their public order to ensure an Ork rebellion does rise up through the ranks (which add new armies and forces to the campaign map).
Along with ensuring your Ork encampment’s public order is high, players will need to ensure their standing armies pillage and plunder to keep their “fightiness” up. What good is a relaxed and bored Ork army anyway? Finally players will have the chance to be the head of The Empire, the atypical human army. Although I found The Empire to be mostly plain and boring compared to the other monstrous armies, however they offer plenty of benefits. Along with some very powerful magic users, The Empire boasts some of the better cavalry units, as well as artillery units. Also, nothing is as terrifying as seeing the infamous Deathclaw (a giant griffin ridden by Karl Franz, one of the leaders of the Empire) land and tear your army to shreds.
While the vast majority of the gameplay will come from battling these armies head-on, I found the most enjoyment in the actual campaigns. Depending on the army the player selects, they will be given various quests and missions to carry out that will further their story. Whether it be attacking villages, or facing off against mortal enemies in battles straight out of Warhammer lore, these missions accomplish what I felt was always lacking in past Total War games: world-building. Not only did I feel a sense of accomplishment after completing these tasks, but I felt that the outcome of these tasks had a direct impact on the world. Fight a specific battle and win, and the opposing army may be so crippled that you can go for the killing blow. The world-building and rich storytelling through gameplay is something many games lack.
My only issue with the overall gameplay however is how diplomacy works. There were many times during my Ork campaign that Dwarves were trying to negotiate peace treaties with me, even though I was invading their lands. While this may have just been my specific campaign, I always found it odd that the animosity between the Dwarves and Greenskins in the lore wasn’t as well replicated in the diplomatic negotiations. There were plenty of audio cues between the two armies that illustrated this hatred, but nevertheless the Dwarves kept trying to petition for peace. Needless to say, they were properly conquered by my Greenskin army.
Visuals/Audio
I’ll be the first to admit that the Total War series has needed a bit of an update when it comes to it’s visuals. Total War: Warhammer seems to mostly achieve this with it’s wonderful character models and environment designs. All of the individual units on the battlefield are exquisitely rendered, and appear to thrive in this world of war. While all of the units were astounding to look at, it was the sense of kinetic energy that seemed to emanate from them. All of the units felt ready to enter the fray, and this was executed tremendously when two armies collided with an uncanny force. In previous Total War games, when two armies collided, it always felt as if it were just the first two lines of the units entering combat. In Total War: Warhammer, when these armies collide, it feels like a scene ripped straight out of the Lord of the Rings films.
I had only wished the actual battlefields were a bit more detailed. Yes, there are trees scattered throughout, and sometimes dense forests, but I always felt as though the actual ground these armies stood upon felt flat and untextured. It’s understandable that this may not have been able to be accomplished given the number of individual units on the screen at the same time, but it would have been nice to see some other environmental details besides sparse amounts of grass and trees.
The audio is just as astounding as the visuals. From an epic, heart-pounding score that echoes the attitude and grit of Warhammer, to the excellent voice work for all the various races, Total War: Warhammer nails its audio. Nothing wanted me to roar like an Ork more than hearing my army charging into battle screaming mercilessly.
