So overall, are the elves and beasts DLC worth buying?
I think so. Probably wait for the winter sale (Beasts will probably be discounted) but otherwise they add a lot of variety that makes for more interesting campaigns mechanics-wise.
Can’t speak for the elf stuff personally (although reviews from people on forums I have read have been positive) but I enjoy the Beastmen quite a bit- hordes how they should be imo. All the vanguard deployed stuff is great, and the minotaurs and gorebulls hit like bulldozers on bath salts.
That morale mod is an interesting find, easytarget, but it seems that it would result in higher casualties. Routing a self-preservation mechanic – the idea being that units run off before they’re completely slaughtered – so wouldn’t delayed routing mean greater losses in battle?
Not that I necessarily object to the idea, but it’s an example of how tweaking one value can have a dramatic and inadvertent effect on the whole shebang.
That said, I’m okay with the basic pacing for the time being, but reading this thread does make me a bit concerned for microing elf missile units!
-Tom
Yeah, I agree it’s not ideal, which is why I’d suggest doing a quick search in the workshop to see if there’s anything else available (although I already did and didn’t find anything else). That’s the reason I almost never end up using mods, just seems to be one step forward and one step back because they so rarely tweak just what I need tweaking and start poking around under the hood with other settings.
For me, playing the more micro races results in pausing or playing half speed, and I just don’t find that as satisfying as just letting it run. So I often compensate through numbers, haha.
It’s personal tastes, I’m not much of a fan of RTS as a rule, TW happens to be the one game series where I’m willing to dive in, at least partially because the campaign map is turned based.
I wanted to reply to your question in Steam but the 1,000 character limit stopped me since I rambled on and on. Here is what I wrote.
I always liked the idea of the Total War games more than the implementation for whatever reason. Shogun 2 was the closest I got into one of them, but I only enjoyed that co-op and not all that much, really. I’m just not one for real world history and territory, I think I get hung up on stuff like that.
But Total War Warhammer does it right, in my opinion. This is the most fun I’ve ever had with any of the games in the series - in some ways it’s a little more streamlined (simpler formation options, maybe a bit more straight forward empire management and diplomacy, easier to understand combat roles (trolls and ogres instead of “human knight variant 8”) but it all works really well and in my opinion is streamlined for the better. The Grand Campaign is just incredible, a great map and smartly laid out. Fighting for control of territory with enemies while maintaining fragile alliances with friends. It’s gorgeous.
You have legendary lords that can go on quests and get legendary items to equip, your heroes and leaders can spend points on new skills, abilities, and that stuff feels fun like a strategy/RPG type deal I never got in other TW games, as well. In my current campaign, my highest level Lord leading my knights has an armored griffon he rides around on, and a powerful hammer that just destroys the enemies he lands on top of. It’s a trip.
And fantasy is my preferred setting as well, which helps a ton - as I hinted at above, it’s kind of easier for me to understand the benefit of upgrading to some units vs others because for me it’s easier to understand “this unit can cast spells” or “this troll unit is armored” or what have you. Also there is magic in the game, oh it’s all so good and entertaining! I love it.
And the map tools are fantastic - go to your map and filter for “who likes me?” and “Which of my territories generate the most gold per turn?” and lots of great tools at your finger tips.
I could go on and on, but if you like strategy games and like fantasy settings, you can’t go wrong here.
Great quick review there Scott, I 100% concur.
Ok, this sounds like me, so this TW game might be the one for me. Thanks for the reply!
Ok, well, i’m finally on board with the Elves. Think I got them figured out as well as can be expected. I kind of liked the environmental details of their custom campaign, made the actual Grand Campaign map seemed cramp by comparison.
To each his own of course, but Attila has all that great detail and nerdocity that I find so compelling. One thing odd about Attila though is that while the city battle maps are significantly more detailed - honestly, even the generic city maps in Attila have are more detailed than anything in Warhammer - the generic Warhammer field battles have better vegetation spread, where I’ve found over and over the randomly generated field maps in Attila and before to really be lacking in personality.
I got a copy of this for @Knightsaber for Christmas, and he asked me to do a little video introducing the game and running through some of the basic concepts. So I did throw something together (also testing out my new snowball mic, which works well enough I can keep it plugged in and not even near my desk and it picks me up damn well) and put it up if anyone on the fence wants to get a sense of how this might play from the point of view of someone (like me) that tends to bounce off Total War games but might feel differently about Warhammer (also like me).
Awesome, thanks Scott! Going to give it a watch in just a bit!
As someone who has never played a Total War game but loves Warhammer, I really appreciate this video and am definitely picking this up. Thanks!
Success! 80 hours on record and I finally beat my first campaign (first ever for the TW series for me). It’s my fourth or fifth game, it doesn’t really take 80 hours to win, but I bet I put more than 12 hours into this game over the last weekend.
I love the Dwarf faction, straight forward, easy to make friends with other Dwarf factions and easy to crush my enemies while ignoring feeble attempts to demoralize or even harm my units. I need to remember I’m not playing as Dwarf next time, I started up a Vampire Court game and got my ass kicked the first few fights, forgetting I can’t use the same Dwarf tactics to win fights. Time to hit up some VC strategy guides!
I shouldn’t have watched that. I am waiting for major discounts on the game before I jump in, but that look really cool. You should do more videos Scott, you are great at explaining.
Scott’s video was really helpful. I also found the tutorials on the quoted (from WAY up thread) YouTube channel to be really good primers.
No mods; I never really think of mods. Are there some good ones for TW? Now I beat my first game I’m more inclined to look into them - I like to complete a game the way it was intended by the developers before I dive into the modding scene, usually.
Normal difficulty for me, I find it challenging enough!
Disappointed that none of its DLC went on sale, really wanted the two that add heroes and units to the different factions.
To be fair those DLC’s are only $8 each, so you’d have saved, two or four bucks? Maybe eight? They are very much worth $8, fwiw.
It’s a mental thing, hate paying full price for DLC.