The first time you set fire to a swarm of spider-riding goblins with your dwarf flamethrower unit, you’ll wonder just why it’s taken so long for Warhammer and Total War to join in blissful union. It’s a perfect mix, and one that I think comes at a good time for The Creative Assembly. While Attila did a lot to rectify the issues that plagued Rome 2, it nonetheless felt like a bit of a stop-gap release, a midway point between that colossal, lumbering, awkward war elephant and something new and exciting.
Beyond the fact that the license is tailor-made for the kind of large-scale carnage that CA specialise in, what excites me about the introduction of Warhammer’s fantasy universe into that familiar battle system is just how many interesting new scenarios it throws up. Take the battle I played at EGX, which featured the mighty dwarf army taking on an ambushing horde of goblins and orks. From the off you’ve got a fairly standard setup; cannons at the front, angled with a field of fire that covers the open ground ahead. Melee infantry, of which the dwarfs possess some of the hardiest in the game, is ordered up behind, while on each flank you have hilariously devastating flamethrower units and a few handgunners.
As the battle evolves, though, you realise that you have to be far more adaptive and quick-thinking that you have in any previous Total War game. The afore-mentioned spider cavalry are astonishingly fast, and exploit any gaps in the line ruthlessly. The goblin horde itself is deceptive, too – in a typical historical battle, routing and destroying entire bands of infantry would quickly result in a defeated opponent, but in Warhammer you’re absolutely expected to chop your way through hundreds and thousands of pitiful goblins. They’re a distraction, and they’re very effective at their job. You have to deal with them, but that distracts your key units from more mobile, heavily-armoured and aggressive foes.
When these elite units hit your lines, things really begin to get serious. You can’t simply trust in your heavy infantry to fend off an attack by a colossal Arachnorok spider; instead you have to adjust your entire formation in response, shifting vulnerable units from the front and bringing in heavy-hitting monster-slayers and heroes to deal with the immediate threat. Then you’ve got chaotic magic to worry about, as well as flying drakes, bizarre artillery units and hulking, vomit-spewing trolls. The sheer variety and speciality of some of these units throws the basic Total War formula – spears and swords in the middle, cavalry on the flanks, archers firing from the rear – out of the window. The dwarfs don’t even have cavalry, which makes coming up against the fast, furious and innumerable hordes of the orks and goblins an intriguing tactical challenge.
I can’t tell you how will the game will run on your typical rig – performance has always been an issue for the series – but I can say that the build I played was silky-smooth, and looked absolutely beautiful. The amount of work that has gone into animating the sheer variety of units here is astonishing. Bow-legged trolls bound into battle, vomiting arcs of acid bile, while dwarf slayers leap manically into battle. Giants batter dozens of soldiers aside with each swing of their club, and giant spiders flick unfortunate archers into their maw, swallowing them whole. As I played, I kept finding myself reacting too slowly to the enemy, because I was sat there watching the chaos unfold with a big, stupid grin on my face.
So yes, it looks incredible. What was harder to get a handle on was how much CA has managed to improve the series’ notoriously spotty AI. I was playing a relatively straightforward defence mission, and the AI did a respectable job of trying to stretch my lines and find a gap to exploit. I didn’t see any particularly notable mistakes, aside from a slightly reckless use of its hero units, and it even managed a couple of incisive spider cavalry charges which very nearly routed my siege units. The early signs are reasonably promising, though I’d need to see more to make any definitive judgement.
Total War: Warhammer’s new fantasy units break the rules in all sorts of entertaining ways, whether it’s goblin Doom Divers hurling themselves to their deaths from a makeshift catapult, or colossal giants who can march headlong into an infantry formation and come out swinging. It’s not just that the whole spectacle brings the grim, blackly comic world of Warhammer vividly to life in a manner that my fourteen year-old self would literally have killed to see - the really exciting thing is just how radically this injection of magic and monsters changes the moment-to-moment combat. If every army feels as distinctive and fun to play as the dwarfs, and if the high quality of the battle map action carries over to the grand campaign, we might have the most engaging and entertaining Total War game in years.
Most anticipated moment: I’m feeling very positive about the battles themselves, but I’m itching to see how Warhammer tackles the grand campaign. Will these armies feel as distinctive out on the world map?
