Warhammer Fantasy Battle Archives - Mark Lord's - Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction

So I started playing Total War Warhammer last night and also a bit this morning before work – just a couple of hours so far, but here are my first impressions:

It’s a bit simpler than other Total War games – which is no bad thing – the interface has less clutter and units for example have fewer special powers, which makes battle management easier.
There’s no prologue campaign to wade through – which again is good – you just go and decide which faction you want and get going – although the advisor tips are quite heavy to start with.
It’s genuinely fun and I wanted to keep playing. I think partly because there’s no concerns over historical accuracy, the silly stuff like battlefield artillery feels right, whereas in other games like Rome it seems out of place and contrived.
The Warhammer world isn’t quite the one I knew and loved from Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition – some of the humour has gone and been dumbed down into things like shouting Waarggh! a lot. The orc animations look a bit daft to me, but that’s down to the direction Games Workshop went with figure design. But I think Creative Assembly seem to have faithfully recreated Warhammer as it was before Age of Sigmar.
The factions are quite few – again this is good – with a game like Rome II I just feel overwhelmed – I’d like to play all the factions, but I feel I never will and anyway how different are they. But with this playing a campaign with each faction seems manageable and they also feel quite different too.
Battles work quite well and basic tactics work better than other Total War games did before getting lots of patches. They seem to have got things right from the start this time round.
I found some of the graphics disappointing – I think it’s the underground battles actually that look a bit rubbish. Overground it all looks a lot better.

Here’s a screen capture video of me opening the game – it shows the opening video and the start of the Greenskins campaign.

As you might know if you interested in strategy PC games, Total War: Warhammer is just around the corner – due for release next Tuesday! I’ve already pre-ordered and can’t why to play. Here’s my top 5 reasons to be excited about the new game.

Firstly it’s because I’m an old git (relatively speaking) and remember playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles when it first came back in the early eighties. Spent many a happy hour with school friends playing McDeath and The Ziggurat of Doom, not to mention the epic Bloodbath at Orc’s Drift – which I’m sure included a badge saying “I bathed in blood at Orc’s Drift.”
I stopped playing though when I left school at started University – a couple of games while at Uni, but that was it – I finished with Warhammer on it’s 3rd edition. So it’s fascinating to go back to the game and see how it’s developed.
I also love Total War games – again getting into them right at the start with the first Shogun game. Somehow I still think that was the best – battlefield tactics somehow just worked better – a bit less real time rushing around perhaps? I’ve been looking for a Total War Warhammer game for ages. There’s some mods but an official game is where it’s at.
There’s some great new features for the game that will make it unique for Total War games – flying stuff and magic. I can’t wait to play with those things. Also the idea of Orc and Dwarf nations that don’t follow the standard nation building rout of these games will also be fascinating to play. I think I might start with the Orcs!
Perhaps if Creative Assembly pull off this game, they’ll get the change to do Lord of the Rings Total War – or Game of Thrones. A strategy game for either of those licenses would be awesome!