I’ve made no secret of my long term love affair with the Total War franchise. From the original Shogun: Total War to when they pivotally swapped the title in Total War: Shogun 2, I’ve spent somewhere between 100-400 hours in each of their games. It’s a franchise I’ve only grown to respect more and more over the installments. Hardcore fans are going to call me out on this statement, citing shoddy AI and a DLC practice many see as greedy (Warriors of Chaos a Day One DLC? By Sigmar, No!). Still, with each culture pack, expansion, and update, I have spent at least another dozen hours conquering lands and razing cities. In regards to just Total War: Warhammer, there’s absolutely no debate in my mind that my several hundred hours playtime were worth it.
Hot off the heels of the new Norsca DLC , the good people over at SEGA gave me the chance to fly out to San Francisco for a special reveal/hands-on for Total War: Warhammer 2. Up till then they had kept the secret fourth team close to their furry, compressible chests. Chittering rumors scurried about the nests of various message boards. Lurking fans scavenged for details luke crumbs, chasing the tails of blank spaces on the campaign map. Still, a perfidious notion spread like the plague. Perhaps the final race was that rumored clan that the more educated in the Empire knows doesn’t exist. Fans squinted their beady eyes and wringed their miniature clawed hands, whiskers brimming with excitement.
It’s Skaven. We all knew that though. Ever since the first trailer showed a red eyed rat, we all knew that the pestilent ratmen would be the fourth race. The worst kept secret in gaming history, even the presenters at the preview event delivered the big reveal with little fanfare. So we all knew it was Skaven, but what we didn’t know was how the Skaven would work. That was the badass part.
So this is going to be one of those articles that is really only going to appeal to fans of the Total War: Warhammer games. I’m going to get into some pretty intense nerd minutia here, so let me just get the general information out of the way first. The four races are now Lizardmen, High Elves, Dark Elves, and the Skaven rat clans. If you are new to the series, I’d recommend playing Total War: Warhammer first. They make significant changes in Total War: Warhammer II. It’s a far more complicated game. The simple objectives and more insulated campaign map of the first Total War: Warhammer is far more noob friendly. All of the original races are present in Warhammer 2, so learning the original 9 on top of the new 4 is going to be a chore. That being said, the new game both looks and feels fantastic.
Right, into the hypernerd shit that Total War fans crave. A race of vile rats with both devious genius and unrelenting numbers, the Skaven are the true herald of the End Times. All of the races in Total War: Warhammer 2 are unique, but I’d venture to say that the Skaven are the most complicated. First and foremost, Skaven cities appear as ruins to your opponents. Walking into your territory, foreign armies won’t even know they are trespassing until they are right on top of you. Veterans of the barren and charred late game Old World will immediately recognize how useful this is. Walking onto a fresh, seemingly uninhabited continent, there’s no telling just how many rats wait below to nibble off your bones.
It’s a necessary advantage, as the Skaven towns don’t initially carry a lot of economic and defensive power. Their garrisons are meager and unwalled without their defensive structure. Skaven economic buildings generate very little money by themselves, across the board only providing 40-80 each at every level. The advantage they give is more specific, with decreased troop cost or a province-wide economic boost. Conversely, their basic military structures are incredibly easy to construct. Most max at Tier 3, meaning even your minor towns can easily construct them. Basic Skaven units are weak, but very numerous. It’s a clever balancing act that means Skaven territorial expansions are simultaneously quickly threatening, yet not very valuable.
There are a few other factors that you have to keep your eye on in a Skaven Grand Campaign. A constantly hungry race, Skaven have a unique resource called food. There are five tiers of food (1-20 is starving, 21-40 is hungry, 41-60 is adequately fed, 61-80 is well fed, and 81-100 is abundantly fed), each with it’s own buff/debuff. Starving Skaven will suffer from growth and public order debuffs, while staying well in the green means your hordes are growing and happy. Food has far more application than this however, as it can be spent before combat to increase the charges of your The Menace Below ability. As Skaven inhabit a vast Under-Empire, there are always hordes of eager Clanrats willing to burst forth from the earth to harass your opponents. Clanrats are weak, but even the most basic of melee unit can turn the tide of battle when deployed into a pesky line of archers. A third use for food that cannot be overlooked comes into play when capturing towns. As Skaven inhabit ruins, all of their settlements start out at Tier 1. This can be changed by spending food, allowing you capture and settle at Tier 2 or 3. Veteran players will recognize just how incredibly powerful this ability is. The cost is high, but well worth it in certain situations.
Two other factors Skaven have to deal with are Loyalty and Corruption. Players of the historically sourced Total War games will remember the Loyalty mechanic. As the Skaven are a naturally scheming and self-interested race, their Lords all have the potential of scampering off to start their own clan. Just like you need to maintain Public Order to keep your cities from revolting, you must keep your Lords well stocked, fed, and busy.
Skaven also have their own form of corruption, which is unlike the kind we’ve seen with the Vampire Counts or Warriors of Chaos. Rather than a prerequisite for replenishment/attrition, Skaven corruption is a double edged sword. The higher your level, the more rats you can summon with The Menace Below. The Corruption will also lower your Public Order. It was explained to me that the logic behind this is, “mo’ Skaven, mo’ problems.” It’s up to you to balance Corruption to keep things well defended and peaceful.
Combat wise, the Skaven field a mix of devastating special weapons and disposable meat shields. That isn’t just a random term I use. Their basic units literally have the ability, “Meat Shield.” Life is cheap in Skavenblight. As a Skaven player, use this to your advantage. Unit stacks for the Skaven army are larger than any other, with the basic Skavenslave clocking in at 135 (I believe the build I played had the unit sizes on “large,” so expect these numbers to vary based on your settings). Factor in the numerous Clanrat armies you’ll be summoning over the course of a battle, and the Skaven have a clear advantage in pure numbers. This numbers advantage isn’t just for their basic units, as even their specialized Poison Wind Globadiers and Warpfire Throwers come in rather large stacks. Once again unit size is going to play a large factor in how these numbers balance out, but my 90 Stormvermin were going up against Lizardmen Saurus stacks of 75.
This numbers advantage comes with the obvious downside that most Skaven are cowardly creatures. Your armies will frequently break and scurry away when faced with a real challenge. Given the absolutely massive amount of early game Clanrat and Night Runner armies you’ll be fielding, you can get the feeling that you are less of a general and more a broom constantly sweeping your swarm back into the fray. Most Skaven infantry also have an interesting tradeoff of defence for speed at below 50% health. This means not only that your rats will have a better chance to survive once they retreat, but will also be better at repositioning and getting to work nibbling on your enemy’s heels.
Now fans of Warhammer will know the Skaven are known for two things: limitless hordes, and unspeakable death-machines. The juxtaposition between their frail sacrifice units and devastating war machines is what really gives Skaven their spice. Skaven artillery is amongst the best in the game, with even the basic Plagueclaw Catapult putting out a ludicrous amount of consistent AoE damage. Higher up, the Doomwheel can easily churn through hordes of enemies better than any chariot we’ve yet seen. Massive Rat Ogres function much like Crypt Horrors/Trolls, and the Hellpit Abomination is exactly what you want from a massive, single model unit.
Overall, Skaven is a team of extreme strengths and weaknesses. On the campaign map, their ability to quickly and nefariously expand is hamstrung but their weak initial economic power and need to constantly feed. Factors like Loyalty, Corruption, and economic synergies will prove overwhelming for new players. Similarly, the incredible power of the Skaven military is one equally matched by its glaring weaknesses. There’s a major lack of armor/armor-piercing damage. Most of their powerful tools are all ranged, meaning you’ll have to be very careful with your positioning. Death Globe Bombardiers are absolutely devastating if left unchecked, but will quickly get cut down by a cavalry charge. Overall, I’m going to predict that the Skaven team is a “noob trap.” You’d think that the army of silly rat people would be the most accessible to people that just want to swarm their way to victory, but I found this to be exactly the opposite. You’ll have to be cunning, and brutal.
The Skaven is presently the team I have to most to talk about, as they were the primary focus of the preview event. I have plenty of general campaign info as well, but before that let me get into some details on the other three teams. I’ve played Lizardmen before at E3, but only in a quest battle. What I saw of the Lizardmen campaign map only came from the red borders around my lovely Skaven townships. From the presentation they gave, I know that the Lizardmen utilize ley lines under their cities to boost the Edicts that you can issue when you control an entire province. Certain cities are far more important to these boosts than others, but overall you’ll want to control as much territory as possible. They also have breeding events for certain units, which will spawn specialized variants with visual changes. Think Regiments of Renown, but not quite so extreme.
Combat wise, the Lizardmen remind me of the good ol’ days of rampaging War Elephant armies. Aside from the normal breaking and routing, Lizardmen units can also just go apeshit with a new out of control status. It isn’t quite a “fight to the death” mode, but does give Lizardmen significant staying power when other armies would flee. Combined with high natural armor and very mobile ranged skirmishers, I had an extremely hard time killing even the most modest Lizardman army without high level Skaven units. Also, they get dinosaurs. That’s a win.
I also got my hands on Dark Elves for one of their quest battles. Taking control of Malekith and his army, I matched off against a High Elf army that was frankly no match for me. Mounted atop his Black Dragon Seraphon, Malekith’s magic tore through the High Elf lines with ease. Their unique race mechanic is called Murderous Prowess, a dark reflection of the High Elves’ Martial Prowess. Score a certain number of kills, and you’ll be rewarded with a massive team-wide stats boost. It rewards hit-and-run tactics, and the magical bombardments popular to casters.
Other than that, it was kind of hard to get a sense of their strengths and weaknesses. Their ranged line was strong in a predictably elfy fashion, but I’ll need a lot more testing to judge the effectiveness of their various melee units. I didn’t go up against enough large enemies to judge the effectiveness of their Halberdiers, enough heavily armored to judge their Greatswords, etc. I’ll have to spend much more time with the team to figure out just how exactly you’re supposed to murder best with them.
I didn’t run into any Dark Elves during my Skaven preview, but the devs did get some info into how the team will play on the Campaign map. The new unique Dark Elf resource is slaves, which are taken after successful battles. According to the devs, slaves are assigned to cities at will. Similar to Skaven Corruption, slaves come with both an up and a downside. On the one hand, slaves are a major economic boost. Various quests will also require a certain number of slaves (or slave sacrifices) to be completed. The downside is that slaves don’t really like being slaves, leading to a Public Order debuff. Weigh your risks carefully, or you might be crippled by a slave revolt.
Perhaps the most compelling of all of the Total War: Warhammer 2’s new unique mechanics are the Dark Elf Black Arks. After performing a special Rite, the Dark Elves will be able to create a special mobile city called the Black Ark. Sailing through the ocean, this nautical doom fortress can serve as a staging ground for your plentiful slave raids. On top of that, Black Arks gain access to a unique building chain that allows them to perform magical bombardments. Fans of Total War: Shogun 2 – Fall of the Samurai will fondly remember these devastating barrages. Initially weak, upgrading the Black Ark to the max level will give you access to numerous, increasingly lethal options. Sure, bombing your enemy from the ocean lacks finesse. But come on, it’s undeniably satisfying to watch helpless infantry be launched into the sky by doomfire rained down from murder fortresses sitting comfortably several miles away.
This leaves the High Elves as the team I have had no actual playtime with. And you know what? Good. Who needs the pompous Asur of Ulthuan and their dumb Silver Helms anyways? All I need to know is how to best chase down their stupid Archers with my Clanrats. I had plenty of fun nibbling at their heels while my Legendary Lord Queek Headtaker took their stupid heads.
I did get some new info on them, such as their Martial Prowess combat mechanic. Opposite of the Dark Elf Murderous Prowess, Martial Prowess is a buff that starts active and deactivates if you lose enough Leadership. So basically, it’s a noob’s new favorite thing. Pack all of your units into a box, point as many ranged units outwards as you can, and pray they’re too stupid to flank you. Tactical genius.
For the Campaign map, High Elves can now spend special Influence points to perform diplomatic shenanigans. People have always criticized Creative Assembly for their diplomacy system being… well… kind of shit. So they’ve gotten around that by just letting you do the sneaky things you’ve always wanted with zero subtlety or skill. Want your allies to break up with their friend so you can invade them? Spend some Influence! Honestly, it’s something that they’ve needed to introduce for quite some time. It’s infuriating getting stuck behind a border because the team you’re friendly with will just not agree to military access without 5000 gold in tribute. So maybe this turns out to be the best new mechanic of the series. Or maybe that honor goes to the doom ships raining magic death from the sky or the rats bursting from the ground to gnaw you to death. Only time will tell.
So that concludes the team specific new stuff I saw in my playthrough of Total War: Warhammer 2. Of course, we’ll have to wait for a full review for me to really sink my crooked pointy teeth into it all. Seeing as how that’s still a month off, here’s some juicy general tidbits for all the megafans to slobber over.
First off, the UI has been significantly overhauled. Event messages now pop out from the side map/event panel, obscuring far less of the screen. End of Turn resolutions can now also be customized and are resolved individually. Are you like me and need to make sure none of your towns have an open construction slot? Turn it on, and cycle through your waiting cities. Did you actually mean to leave your army there for a few turns while you got another one ready? You can either turn off the idle army notification, or just skip past that particular message. It’s a much smoother and more customizable process, and a real relief to series veterans.
There are far more buildings now (at least for the Skaven), which is made up for by the number of City building slots going up from 5 to 7. Cities and towns also have more of a difference in what they can construct, with buildings specific to each being clearly labeled. With the amount of unique resources increasing, the number of special buildings has also gone up. I only saw two really interesting ones, but I’ll have to wait for the full game for the final verdict on that. Overall, it seemed much more difficult to concentrate your military production into one large center. This might vary between the teams of course, but for the Skaven it took a healthy spread of the economic and military structures to maximize your unit output. As a small quality of life improvement, buildings now also display the tier that they are constructed at, not the tier of that specific building chain. This means that monster dens that build at Tier 5 will now be displayed as a Tier 5 structure, not as a Tier 1.
Heroes and Lords also got some UI improvements, starting with the Hero skill rankings. It was hard to tell what different Heroes actually did in Total War: Warhammer, but now a quick ranking and description is available in their unit card. So if your Wizard can Block Armies vs Assault Units, you’ll now see that displayed on their card with a marker unerneath telling you their proficiency in that skill. This goes hand in hand with the Hero’s campaign skill no longer being arbitrarily tied to its own tree. As we’re still in the hypernerd section of this preview, I’m going to assume that you know what the skill trees look like. The blue Campaign tree for heroes is now no longer locked, instead spread between different one/two skill micro-trees for each ability. Now if you want to level up an assassin Wizard, you won’t have to needlessly go into their Public Order and recruitment cost skills first.
A long time favorite mechanic of Total War games, Traits now also come with their own levels and methods of acquisition. Attack enough cities, and your Lord will gain an increasing bonus to their siege and attack stats. Do it even more, and the skill will level up. Some Traits, like Hero success chance vs a specific race, only have a single level. Multi-level skills now also have negative levels as well. In my time, I never got to test these out, and the devs were being tight lipped as to the actual conditions for being smacked with a negative level. Maybe it’s a natural side effect of leveling up something too high? I can see a world where my hero with max raiding skills might also incur a slight Public Order debuff. Whatever it is, I’m eager to find out in my full playthrough.
As a final little note for fans of the multiplayer, all factions will be available at launch in the skirmish mode. As I don’t really know what Total War: Warhammer 2’s Bretonnia is, I think this mostly just applies to previously existing factions. Also, as now all the Legendary Lords have their own faction and starting position, you will finally be able to play through a co-op campaign as the same team. At long last, you won’t have to create awkward alliances between Dwarves and Vampires just to be able to fight alongside your friends.
I was already embarrassingly excited for Total War: Warhammer 2 before checking it out. After seeing the improvements they have made, I simply cannot wait for September 28th to roll around. Now you may notice that I left some mechanics out of my discussion. I didn’t even talk about the new climates system, or the game changing Rituals. The reason for this is that with my limited time in the game, I didn’t really get the chance to fully analyse these systems. For that, you’ll just have to wait for my full review. I’ll see you then.