• It's time once again to ferret out those murderous vampires in a new VAU - Vampires Amongst Us. A cross between Cluedo and a roleplay, sometimes gory and often hilarious! Find out more and sign-up! here.

HERO

Wight King
Mar 25, 2009
434
Hey guys,

I just wanted to get your opinions on which armies you would like to see in the release version of Total War: Warhammer?

Keep in mind that there will also be DLC options for more armies, additional units and what not, so for now.. just the core factions with the most lore/fluff behind them.

How many armies would be in the first release of the game? Which ones and why?

Thanks!
 

Sanai

Stylish Deviant
True Blood
Oct 30, 2009
5,193
Behind Darvy
It is a bit tricky with warhammer fantasy, as most of the factions qualify as core factions.

However, the big 4 to me are;
1. Empire. They are the most significant and central faction in the warhammer world. They serve as your everyman human faction, and are the "good guys/main faction". They have a strong focus on combined arms tactics, using disciplined infantry formations backed up by massed gunpowder artillery, supported by elite cavalry.
2. Warriors of Chaos. They are the main chaos faction, and one of the main villains of the setting. They contrast well with the empire, as they have strong, heavily armoured troops, unwashed barbarian hordes, big monsters and a bigger focus on melee, while the Empire uses lightly armoured, disciplined troops with a focus on defense and shooting.
3. Orcs & Goblins. They are the most prominent of the "neutral" factions- They are not aligned with Chaos or the Undead, but still evil. They are everywhere in the warhammer world and they fight everyone. They are crude, rowdy anarchists with lots of crazy (but disfunctional) weapons and monsters.
4. High Elves. They are the most prominent/popular of the good factions besides the Empire. They have more fragile, but faster/more skilled infantry than the other factions, with a big focus on archers, cavalry and magic. They contrast well with the Orcs & Goblins.

Honourable mentions go to;
The Skaven. Like the Orcs, they are pretty much everywhere and fight everyone. They have the weakest, most cowardly troops out there, with a big focus on being sneaky, underhanded and backstabbing. They have the most advanced technology, using a mixture of magic and warpstone fueled steampunk to create bizarre weapons. They focus on using vast hordes of slave infantry backed up by weird weapons and monsters.

The Dwarves. They are the 3rd of the big 3 good factions. They are one of the slowest moving armies, with very durable, stubborn troops that are very hard to kill or break. They don't use magic at all, so contrast well with other armies in that regard, and are very good at countering enemy magic. They contrast very well with the skaven, as the skaven and dwarves are mortal enemies.

Those 6 factions are the ones I would see as most likely to be included in any warhammer game.

For expansion packs, I would go with the Vampire Counts & Bretonia for one expansion pack, and Dark Elves & Lizardmen for another. After that all you have to fill in is Wood Elves, Beastmen, Daemons and Ogres, who are probably the 4 least prominent factions in my view.
 

Banat

Varghulf
Jul 13, 2014
790
Given how most Total Wars have a hefty amount of playable factions.

Depends on which Total War you would imagine it as most similar to. For example if we were to take Rome IIs faction set up, you have the overarching faction with sub factions available in each one, for example the Roman faction has the Julii, Junii and the Brutii. The Greek States have Athens, Sparta etc etc.

If you were to follow this reasoning I'd say:

Kingdoms of Men: Empire, Bretonnia. One DLC for Tilea, Estalia and Pirates of Sartosa, second DLC for Araby, Ind, Cathay and Nippon.

Chaos: Warriors, Daemons, Beastmen

Elves: High, Dark, Wood of course. Possibly a DLC expansion, the Civil Wars opening up the Elven Island for play.

Undead: Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, DLC for Legion of Nagash

Skaven, Lizardmen, Ogres, Greenskins also playable factions.

IMO you can easily get all of the main officially licensed armies in as playable factions, given the scope of Total War games.

Some game mechanics would be difficult I think... in the sense of playing various factions. Daemons wouldn't need resources or economies to develop in the same way as Empire/ Bretonnia. The Chaos Warrior campaign would involve starting off in your own warband, uniting various others. The VC primary resource would be living humans, you'd start off as a budding Vampire Lord, in control of just one Keep and its local village. The more villages you conquer (and cities etc) the more troops you get. Every faction gets some kind of bonus when fighting battles and VC would be a bonus to troop requisition.

Would be really cool, and I believe there's already some skin mods going around on one of the Total Wars. I've seen in battle skins of zombies, skeletons, grave guard and blood knights.
 

Count Vashra

Lord of Shadows
True Blood
Sep 29, 2013
1,717
New Zealand
Warhammer Total War? This would be great. I already have Medieval, Rome (I) and Barbarian invasion, so I know that they can do massive well-done battles/campaigns. For warhammer...epic.:happy:
 

HERO

Wight King
Mar 25, 2009
434
Thanks for the replies so far!
To expand on this a little more, now you need the same amount of "good" and "evil" factions. Which ones will make the first cut?

I see that some say Undead as this combines VC and TK.

If you were to combine others, how would you combine them without making it too complicated?
 

Banat

Varghulf
Jul 13, 2014
790
I don't see why you should have to. Ultimately the world isn't black and white and grey shades of morality make fantasy so much more interesting and give it much more depth. Total War doesn't have good or evil factions. Even warhammer has neutral factions to balance out the other two.
 

HERO

Wight King
Mar 25, 2009
434
I don't see why you should have to. Ultimately the world isn't black and white and grey shades of morality make fantasy so much more interesting and give it much more depth. Total War doesn't have good or evil factions. Even warhammer has neutral factions to balance out the other two.

I don't know about that, there is clearly a group that's more "order" vs. "destruction", as depicted in the WHFB BRB and in other games (Warhammer Online, Mark of Chaos).
 

Sanai

Stylish Deviant
True Blood
Oct 30, 2009
5,193
Behind Darvy
Are you planning on releasing a mod or something or is this entirely academic?
The Company that makes the total war games is working on a warhammer game. Seeing as how total war games are pretty much the only games made by said company, its pretty obvious that this warhammer game is going to at least be similar to a total war game.
 

Get of W'soran

CN's Lord of Masks
True Blood
Apr 23, 2008
9,239
Behind the Throne
The Company that makes the total war games is working on a warhammer game. Seeing as how total war games are pretty much the only games made by said company, its pretty obvious that this warhammer game is going to at least be similar to a total war game.

While it's certainly their biggest line it isn't necessarily what they'd do with the warhammer IP. They also made those terrible action-adventure games Spartan: Total War and Viking: Battle for Asgard. They're also making the new Alien: Isolation game.
I blame Sega...

Still, I really hope they do it Total War Style and not generic strategy game. Has their been any further announcements beyond "We're doing a Warhammer game"? Because their total war team is currently developing the Atilla game.
 

Henning

Ghoul
Sep 8, 2014
119
Taking inspiration from Rome II's direction, I would say almost all the factions would be available in some form or another. The divide would be that instead of WoC, you would get one particular warband devoted to a chaos god or instead of High Elves, you would be Chrace etc. This brings more dynamic in to the game where you don't just fight against your enemies but also against other aspiring families, warbands, provinces etc. for complete control over your faction.

I am so amped for this it's not even funny! Only difficulty I see is how they will include magic into the current system.
 

Sanai

Stylish Deviant
True Blood
Oct 30, 2009
5,193
Behind Darvy
I am so amped for this it's not even funny! Only difficulty I see is how they will include magic into the current system.

Rome II already has generals with special abilities (usually in the form of buffs that affect a target unit with a cooldown) so it would probably work like that, except some of the abilities would do more obvious thinks like hurl fireballs.
 

Sanai

Stylish Deviant
True Blood
Oct 30, 2009
5,193
Behind Darvy
Yes, but how will dispelling and miscasting work?
Warhammer: Mark of Chaos just out and out didn't have dispelling and miscasting.

Though dispelling could easily work as having some kind of graphic pop up over enemy wizards when they cast, and you select your wizard and right click on that graphic to get him to try and dispel. Or you could make dispelling a passive- depending on what traits you give your wizard, he has a % chance to dispel enemy spells (which would be reduced by enemies being higher level/having anti-dispelling traits).

Miscasting would just be a % chance for something to go wrong when you dispel. You could even have settings for how much power your wizard puts into his spells- low/medium/high, with the higher settings making him harder to dispel/cast the spells in more powerful spells while increasing miscast chances.
 

Henning

Ghoul
Sep 8, 2014
119
Valid points but I think in a real time battle it will get too complicated and messy. Passive abilities sound better
 

Sanai

Stylish Deviant
True Blood
Oct 30, 2009
5,193
Behind Darvy
I would actually go with both- the active version for hard difficulty, the passive for other difficulties. There are people out there who can (and do enjoy) handling complicated micromanagement of individual parts of large battles.

Besides, you can always pause or put it on slow-mo if you need time to react (at least in singleplayer)
 

Banat

Varghulf
Jul 13, 2014
790
Computers can handle thousands of dice roll simulations a second, so it wouldn't be difficult to have randomised D6-esque outcomes happening in the midst of battle. Modifiers, just as in the game would be applied based on what gear you take and units within range of your wizard etc.
 

GDD

Grave Guard
Jul 30, 2014
200
I was actually hoping they'd announce Warhammer total war, instead of Atilla :P Since end times just happened I was thinking they'd do a strategic release.

I am going with the same old boring Warhammer online answer.

The Empire, and Chaos. The Dwarfa and Greenskin. High Elfs and Dark Elfs.

If it was going to work like a classic total war game I would have liked to see the whole old world. And then maybe you could send diplomats around the world to recruit Elfs, and Ogres. As an evil army maybe you could tempt Orcs, and Skaven to attack, and raid places for you.

Just the old world is a bit shit though, since you wouldn't be able to play Lizards, or elfs. If they did the whole world I guess they'd have to use the.. Erm.. Warhammer boats? I think that was a thing? I've seen a billion pictures of them?
 

John Rainbow

Crypt Horror
Mar 7, 2013
596
PA, USA
Man'o'War used to be a thing. There was also Dreadfleet. Much reference in the fluff is also also made to the Black Arks of the DE.
 

Banat

Varghulf
Jul 13, 2014
790
Warhammer boats are definitely out there what with the Dreadfleet game they did. Plus there are jungles containing lizardmen on the same continent as the other main races (South West of Nehekhara). But yes, they would be better off doing the full world.

Also, Atilla: Total War appears to be to Rome II as Napoleon was to Empire. That is to say it's not a completely new game, so I can't imagine they'll be spending ages on it, which means one of their teams could already be working on developing a WH game. Since they've got the license rights they'd be silly not to use them.

Warhammer is really perfect for Total War since it's ALL ABOUT battles! The part of it that would need the most effort into making it feel organic/authentic is the empire building element.
 
Last edited:

HERO

Wight King
Mar 25, 2009
434
Wow, a lot of interest here and it seems like most of you have experience with Total War. Awesome, do you mind if I bounce some ideas off you guys as well? I have a pretty good idea where I want to take this project.

I just want to narrow down which armies I want to do first.

Right now..
Empire
Dwarfs
High Elves
Warriors of Chaos
Orks and Goblins
Undead

..are the factions I'm probably going to use. Skaven is pretty big in there, but being a VC fan after all, I think they can wait until the next patch of good vs. bad gets released. Besides, I want to "flex" my design skills by incorporating Undead into the fray because I think Dark Elves will be too similar to the playstyle of High Elves.

Those factions above are what I think will have the most different and distinct playstyles with relation to their impact on the Old World. As you can see, we haven't expanded into the Lizards territory just yet, because I think they can make for an excellent expansion race with Lizards vs. Skaven as the add-on pack.

Are you guys excited? Let me know who wants in on some ideas :D
 

About us

  • Our community has been around for many years and pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion among people of all different backgrounds. We are working every day to make sure our community is one of the best.

Quick Navigation

User Menu