The actual title for this game is Total War: Warhammer II, however I think the folks at the Total War series had a slam dunk with the name I used so I'm gonna put that instead okay? So as part of the Total War series the gameplay loop is essentially Grand Strategy (campaign maps, resource management, population happiness, tech trees, etc) + RTS individual battles (you can see where each individual guy is and then you direct them around a separate battle map to fight) to form a cohesive whole of WAR! I was a huuuuuge fan of Medieval 2 many years ago and I've played a couple TW games since then but typically bounced off pretty fast - but I've put 40~ hours into this one, what's the difference? WARHAMMER IS FRICKIN AWESOME THAT'S WHAT!! Where every other TW is some humans with different colors fighting other humans in another color this game has an enormous variety of races and each of them plays pretty differently and watching all these crazy fantasy units go at it just looks and feels amazing + the campaign parts are no slouch as well.
As this is Warhammer II there is a Warhammer I, and I do own that as well - I played the "Mortal Empires" campaign that combines the maps from 1 + 2 plus all the factions as well from I to form a GIANT world map to fight over in a sandbox-style campaign and frankly it is awesome. In each game there are 4 base factions - 1 has Humans, Dwarves, Greenskins & Chaos while the second game has Lizardmen, Skaven, High Elves & Dark Elves. I did a quick mini campaign as humans and High Elves to get used to the mechanics then jumped into the game proper with Lizardmen and I have mostly completed (just a formality at this point to wrap up the last few victory conditions) one Mortal Empires campaign and DAMN did I love it to pieces. You start off with some relatively simple units (basically alligators with big sticks and thin lizards with javelins) and slowly progress your way to cooler and cooler units ending with some wild shit - I had one army that was almost entirely T-Rexes and Stegosauras - that sounds amazing right??? Well, yeah, it was. And that's really the magic of this game: building up YOUR armies and YOUR heroes then getting to watch them smash into other armies until one side gives up, followed by that ever-satisfying feeling of expanding your "color" across the world map and holding more territory. It just felt great.
The campaign layer feels juuuuust complicated enough for a game called "Total War", there's diplomacy involved between factions that can add some interesting complications and you have to keep track of a few different variables (depending on your faction anyway) so you're rarely JUST spoiling for the next fight, there's always some administrative or colonial task to keep in mind while you're moving your army pieces around. They could've very easily gone overboard with this and make it a slog (and I fear some of the other races might just be that) but for Lizardfolk at least it felt like a good balance, even giant slugfest battles can get boring if you do them too often. As you progress through the campaign you begin to fight more and more enemies of different races which keeps things feeling fresh long into your game with a world-shaking event occuring about 'halfway' through - Chaos Invasions. So there are a few Chaos-adjacent factions that are in the game that you go toe to toe with like regular enemies however at certain intervals armies of special chaos will show up and just wreck shit all over the map - and it provides an amazing and tense challenge when it does occur.
My game was played as the Lizardman Slaan Mazdamundi who I chose since he seems like the "default" Lizardman option. I tried my best to roleplay as an agent of Order - I was benevelent to humans, elves, dwarves (though I basically never encountered them) and my fellow Lizardfolk. In fact I spent HUGE chunks of the game just getting my fellow Lizardmen to ally with me rather than just have peace treaties and the other races treated me in a way that could be charitably described as "standoff-ish". The faction I picked started off in the "Central America" analog of this world with some Dark Elves to the North and much of "South America" being populated with Skaven and rogue human factions and then some vampire pirates further at the end, who I spent much of my time battling. After nearly 100 turns I was getting to be pretty unstoppable when suddenly... CHAOS ARRIVES!! Full stacks of chaos units who are tough as BALLS start showing up and absolutely annihilating the dark elves. I go in and start colonizing and wondering... what the fuck happened up here?! Then I get into some VERY tense battles with these guys and eventually form a shieldwall with my 4 armies fighting as one and I beat them!! It was amazing and then... chaos again?!?! I fought them basically to a standstill and then destroyed them, and order prevails!! I needed to do a bit more for the formal Victory conditions but... I won okay??
Total Warhammer 2 is an excellent strategy/RTS game with a compelling world and super awesome factions to control and I can't wait to drop into more areas and try to dominate the world. Slowly expanding your roster with weird and cool units and watching them RIP into the enemy is just... its beautfiful. Watching your T-rexes charge into hordes of chaos warriors and watching them get ripped to shreds is just what gaming is all about.
As this is Warhammer II there is a Warhammer I, and I do own that as well - I played the "Mortal Empires" campaign that combines the maps from 1 + 2 plus all the factions as well from I to form a GIANT world map to fight over in a sandbox-style campaign and frankly it is awesome. In each game there are 4 base factions - 1 has Humans, Dwarves, Greenskins & Chaos while the second game has Lizardmen, Skaven, High Elves & Dark Elves. I did a quick mini campaign as humans and High Elves to get used to the mechanics then jumped into the game proper with Lizardmen and I have mostly completed (just a formality at this point to wrap up the last few victory conditions) one Mortal Empires campaign and DAMN did I love it to pieces. You start off with some relatively simple units (basically alligators with big sticks and thin lizards with javelins) and slowly progress your way to cooler and cooler units ending with some wild shit - I had one army that was almost entirely T-Rexes and Stegosauras - that sounds amazing right??? Well, yeah, it was. And that's really the magic of this game: building up YOUR armies and YOUR heroes then getting to watch them smash into other armies until one side gives up, followed by that ever-satisfying feeling of expanding your "color" across the world map and holding more territory. It just felt great.
The campaign layer feels juuuuust complicated enough for a game called "Total War", there's diplomacy involved between factions that can add some interesting complications and you have to keep track of a few different variables (depending on your faction anyway) so you're rarely JUST spoiling for the next fight, there's always some administrative or colonial task to keep in mind while you're moving your army pieces around. They could've very easily gone overboard with this and make it a slog (and I fear some of the other races might just be that) but for Lizardfolk at least it felt like a good balance, even giant slugfest battles can get boring if you do them too often. As you progress through the campaign you begin to fight more and more enemies of different races which keeps things feeling fresh long into your game with a world-shaking event occuring about 'halfway' through - Chaos Invasions. So there are a few Chaos-adjacent factions that are in the game that you go toe to toe with like regular enemies however at certain intervals armies of special chaos will show up and just wreck shit all over the map - and it provides an amazing and tense challenge when it does occur.
My game was played as the Lizardman Slaan Mazdamundi who I chose since he seems like the "default" Lizardman option. I tried my best to roleplay as an agent of Order - I was benevelent to humans, elves, dwarves (though I basically never encountered them) and my fellow Lizardfolk. In fact I spent HUGE chunks of the game just getting my fellow Lizardmen to ally with me rather than just have peace treaties and the other races treated me in a way that could be charitably described as "standoff-ish". The faction I picked started off in the "Central America" analog of this world with some Dark Elves to the North and much of "South America" being populated with Skaven and rogue human factions and then some vampire pirates further at the end, who I spent much of my time battling. After nearly 100 turns I was getting to be pretty unstoppable when suddenly... CHAOS ARRIVES!! Full stacks of chaos units who are tough as BALLS start showing up and absolutely annihilating the dark elves. I go in and start colonizing and wondering... what the fuck happened up here?! Then I get into some VERY tense battles with these guys and eventually form a shieldwall with my 4 armies fighting as one and I beat them!! It was amazing and then... chaos again?!?! I fought them basically to a standstill and then destroyed them, and order prevails!! I needed to do a bit more for the formal Victory conditions but... I won okay??
Total Warhammer 2 is an excellent strategy/RTS game with a compelling world and super awesome factions to control and I can't wait to drop into more areas and try to dominate the world. Slowly expanding your roster with weird and cool units and watching them RIP into the enemy is just... its beautfiful. Watching your T-rexes charge into hordes of chaos warriors and watching them get ripped to shreds is just what gaming is all about.