Total War: Warhammer

Brikker said:

Looking over the Steam store, is it really worth paying $20 for a game I won't play (TW:Warhammer 1) to unlock this campaign in TW:Warhammer 2 (also $20 right now)?

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You're essentially paying $20 for both an extra campaign, and for five new races.

Brikker said:

Looking over the Steam store, is it really worth paying $20 for a game I won't play (TW:Warhammer 1) to unlock this campaign in TW:Warhammer 2 (also $20 right now)?

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Also, you have over a week to play a campaign or two in TW:WH 2, before the sale ends (Jan 2) and then, you can better decide if the 5 more races with a sandbox campaign might be worth it, for you. The races all have their own unique mechanics, research tree design, and play style.

I think the mortal empires map got unlocked for everyone last patch so you don’t need game 1. Could be wrong.

I have played 800 hours in TW:WH 1 and am closing in on 1700 hours in TW:WH 2, so I may be biased here when it comes to the Total War: Warhammer series - but this is a great time to get the into the series with the winter sale. The most recent DLC came with a free quality-of-life patch that, among other things, massively reduced the end turn times and generally optimized a huge amount of things in the game. This makes even the longest campaigns much faster and more enjoyable.

If you're interested in getting this but don't want to navigate the ocean of available DLC, here's how I'd break it down as far as what to buy:

MUST BUYS:
TW:WH 2 is $20, and gets you the High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, and Skaven - along two campaigns: Vortex, which is the more structured, goal-oriented one, and Mortal Empires, which is the massive sandbox campaign that spans almost all of TW:WH 1 and TW:WH 2.

TW:WH 1 is only $15 on Steam right now, and that gets you the Empire, Dwarfs, Vampire Counts, Greenskins, and Bretonnia for use in Mortal Empires. All of these races (except Greenskins) have been majorly reworked to be up-to-par with the game 2 races, and Greenskins will get a free update in the spring.


STRONGLY RECOMMENDED DLC:
Curse of the Vampire Coast are $9.49, and are probably the best DLC race pack - they're a fun race that have a bunch of great campaign and battle mechanics that allow you to play the game in very unique ways.

Rise of the Tomb Kings gives you access to the Tomb Kings (duh) for $9.49. They're another great faction that are well-worth playing - their unique approach to unit recruitment/upkeep make building your empires really enjoyable.

The Prophet & the Warlock is a Skaven/Lizardmen lord pack for $6, but it adds a ton of great stuff to Skaven - especially their weapons teams. Skaven in the base TW:WH 2 are a bit rough around the edges - this DLC smooths those out and adds strong new units/mechanics that make them much more enjoyable.


GOOD BUT NOT ESSENTIAL DLC:
The Queen & the Crone is a $4 lord pack for High Elves and Dark Elves, and fleshes out their rosters a bit more. If you're a huge High Elves fan, get this for the Sisters of Averlorn alone.

The Hunter & the Beast is a $9 lord pack for Lizardmen and adds a new Empire faction in both Vortex and Mortal Empires. It's not on sale yet, so you can probably wait on this one.

The Shadow & the Blade is another $9 lord pack for Dark Elves and Skaven, and is the newest DLC. Unless you're dying to play as Deathmaster Snikch , you can probably wait on this one too.

Norsca are a race pack for the first game, and are on sale for $5. They're the best of the game 1 DLC races, and have a fun Mortal Empires campaign where you can ride around the world like a Chaos Viking, pillaging and plundering.

The King & the Warlord (Dwarfs/Greenskins) and The Grim & the Grave (Empire/Vampire Counts) - both lord packs for game 1, both $4. Both pretty good and cheap additions to the races from the first game.


I HAVE EXTRA MONEY TO BURN AND REALLY LIKE THIS GAME DLC:
Blood for the Blood God - $3 gets you some blood textures that are overdone and kind of silly, but also enables the fun dismemberment kill animations. I wind up using a mod to tone the amount of blood splatter down, while still allowing my dudes to chop peoples heads off, rip them in two, and generally spice up the visuals a tiny bit.

Chaos Warriors - $4 gets you a playable Warriors of Chaos faction. Sadly, while they have one of the best rosters in the game with some of the deadliest lords, they also have one of the most boring, shitty campaign mechanics in their horde gameplay. Unless you are ready to mod the fuck out of them, you can probably pass.

Realm of the Wood Elves - $9.49 for Wood Elves. They're another faction hampered by bad campaign mechanics - Wood Elves can only permanently inhabit magical forest settlements (there's only around 7-8 on the whole Mortal Empires map, out of 200+ total settlements), and create weak little outposts everywhere else. They rely on "amber" from these outposts to do most of their upgrades/research/etc., and you'll constantly be losing them to everyone, everywhere. Unless you really have a soft spot for archer-based gameplay (or want to mod them to be less awful), you can pass.

Call of the Beastmen - $9.49 for the saddest race in Warhammer Fantasy. Combines the shitty horde mechanics of the Warriors of Chaos with the weakest, most pathetic battle roster in the game. Plus, as an evil, chaos-based race, almost everyone hates you and wants to kill you on sight. Enjoy spending dozens of turns hiding in forests, hoping that you can muster up enough gold and population growth to someday afford some Minotaurs, which are your only good unit. Another race that's only for obsessive nerds like myself.


CONCLUSION:
For $35 bucks, you get a ton of gameplay out of this series - even if you only buy the two core games, you'll almost certainly get your money's worth if you like the core Total War style of game. If I were jumping in fresh right now, I'd spend the $60 to get the two core games and the top-tier DLC, and then keep an eye on the other DLC if any one race really strikes your fancy as you start to play.

having the DLC will allow you to confederate the DLC subfactions. For example if you are playing the High Elf campaign, either ME or Vortex, you won't be able to confederate Sisters of Avelorn without the DLC, if they jump out and grab a lot of the island cities you either need to declare war on them (possibly pissing off your other allies and having to fight them too) or let them get conquered to get those lands. For some factions its not as bad, but for example Tyrion and Malekith both have the DLC subfactions (Avelorn and Hag Graef) sitting right next to their starting area and if you don't have the Crone and the Queen DLC for them, it can be trickier to get things all going (still not hard) since you can ally with them but can't confederate and they both seem to be very aggressive factions so will conquer a lot of stuff.

the DLC gives options for the regiments of renown that you can recruit for each faction, these guys aren't game breakers but they are pretty potent, and you do get a few new units from each DLC.

as others have mentioned, no matter what you will be playing against the AI having all this stuff, so even if you don't have a factions DLC, the AI will have the regiments of renown for them and be able to confederate them as well.

I am pretty sure if you have to have the DLC bought before your campaign starts, I think I read buying it midway through doesn't unlock the stuff then, but only on a fresh campaign. For the money the DLC's are pretty good value when you hit them on sale, which happens regularly. You can get the TW1 + TW2 + a few big DLC all for less than the price of a new console game, and if you like either warhammer or Total War its easily a few hundred hours of enjoyment for like 50-60 bucks, not bad at all

Probably my favourite game of the last 5 years, sunk hundreds of hours into it. Total War 3 should be introduced soon also. Its the only game I've ever bothered to purchase DLC for.

For the first time I've actually gotten into TW:1 over the last couple of weeks - after pre-purchasing lol.

I started watching Legend of Total War streams and it made me want to play, and actually taught me a lot.

Like Punko's post from February though, I play on normal and enjoy the game without having to cheese the AI cheats too much and not worrying about YOLO'ing some stuff. I have found myself save cheesing when I start expanding in one direction and then another faction comes from the other way and starts butt raping me.

Watching streamers drain ammo from Legendary difficulty AI artillery and bows/guns before drawing them to the main army is hilarious.

I got this like 2 years ago an hated it. Started playing it recently and really enjoyed it.

Slaanesh69 said:

For the first time I've actually gotten into TW:1 over the last couple of weeks - after pre-purchasing lol.

I started watching Legend of Total War streams and it made me want to play, and actually taught me a lot.

Like Punko's post from February though, I play on normal and enjoy the game without having to cheese the AI cheats too much and not worrying about YOLO'ing some stuff. I have found myself save cheesing when I start expanding in one direction and then another faction comes from the other way and starts butt raping me.

Watching streamers drain ammo from Legendary difficulty AI artillery and bows/guns before drawing them to the main army is hilarious.

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Hah same, I enjoy Legends streams.

If you guys like Legend check out ElichTV on twitch, he’s my favorite TW steamer.

I need something to play during quarantine, this was on sale for $20 so I bought it and installing now. Anything I should know before starting it up? Is there a pretty good tutorial? Will I get my $20 worth out of this? (I bought II, not I)

I got them both but havent played yet. I guess you get more stuff in 2 when you have 1 installed? Or something? No fucking clue, navigating the DLC in these games is half the challenge.

Brikker said:

I got them both but havent played yet. I guess you get more stuff in 2 when you have 1 installed? Or something? No fucking clue, navigating the DLC in these games is half the challenge.

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more armies or something, I figure it is all new to me so let me play this one first and see if I need more armies.

Brikker said:

I got them both but havent played yet. I guess you get more stuff in 2 when you have 1 installed? Or something? No fucking clue, navigating the DLC in these games is half the challenge.

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Having both (don't need WH1 installed, just in your Steam library) gives you access to the 'Mortal Empires' campaign, which essentially combines the campaign maps for WH1 and WH2 into one giant campaign map, with all the factions of both games playable.

Attog said:

I need something to play during quarantine, this was on sale for $20 so I bought it and installing now. Anything I should know before starting it up? Is there a pretty good tutorial? Will I get my $20 worth out of this? (I bought II, not I)

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There is no real tutorial to speak of, though there is an information page for every single unit/hero that describes them in pretty good detail.

For your first few campaigns I would stick with Mortal Empires and play an easy race. IMO the 3 easiest races are High Elves, Dwarfs and Empire(Humans).

Attog said:

Will I get my $20 worth out of this?

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If you like Total War games, you'll get your value ten times over. Since you already got WH2, just play it for a while and see if you do like the gameplay. If yes, you might want to watch for sales on WH1 and DLCs that interest you.

The WH2 campaigns have an overarching plot mechanic that's not for everyone, but don't feel pressured by it - you always get a final battle to ruin their victory. On the upside, the WH2 campaigns do have a tutorial at the start if you enable it. The combined Mortal Empires map is what I tend to play most the time, but that requires WH1.

Attog said:

I need something to play during quarantine, this was on sale for $20 so I bought it and installing now. Anything I should know before starting it up? Is there a pretty good tutorial? Will I get my $20 worth out of this? (I bought II, not I)

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If you remotely like the Total War style of game (a grand strategy campaign map that's sorta Civilization-lite, plus giant RTS army battles), then yeah - you should definitely get more than your $20 worth.

For starting tips: consider playing High Elves, specifically Lothern, to start. They've got one of the easiest starting positions, a strong economy, diverse unit roster, and are a solid introduction race. If you like them, then maybe try the Dark Elves next - they're a more offensively-oriented version of the High Elves, but their overall playstyle is fairly similar.

I would hold off on a Lizardmen or Skaven campaign if you're just starting out, however. Both of the races are a lot of fun, but they've been greatly expanded upon in some of the DLC and are a little underwhelming in the base game. This is especially true for Skaven - the inclusion of their Weapons Teams in the Prophet & the Warlock DLC really makes them shine, as you can start fielding armies of rats with Gatling guns and sniper rifles to mow down your opponents.

Also, don't hesitate to play through the tutorial mission at the start of the campaign - it'll give you a good overview of the battle commands, concepts for each race, and general tactics, as well as giving you a few extra bonus units for your first army.