Gameplanet Review: Total War: Warhammer

In the beginning, there was war. So says Sigmar Heldenhammer, the patron god of the humans in the Warhammer universe. So too says Creative Assembly, which since the year 2000 has been revolutionising war gaming on PC gamer’s screens. Merging tabletop gaming’s most iconic franchise with the inventor of the battle simulator genre was an inspired decision. But it was not a surefire one. Warhammer and Total War share many obvious similarities, but also they also have crucial differences. Exposing Total War to the myth and majesty of the Warhammer world offers hardcore fans something new and exciting, but it also misses a golden opportunity to fix some of the systematic problems plaguing the series as a whole, and the opportunity to push the game’s real time battles in a more radical and inventive direction.

Total War: Warhammer fits the Total War mold. It is two games in one; a turn based meta-strategy game – in the tradition of Civilization or Crusader Kings – and a real time battle simulator, where you physically control the units and characters in your armies in order to outsmart, outwit and ultimately crush your foes. It’s a format that’s worked incredibly well for Total War’s previous incarnations as historical epics. But Creative Assembly was rapidly running out of history books to build their games around. Turning to Warhammer was a welcome move. Bringing in new characters, new threats, and new armies injects new life into a series that was starting to flag. But it is also locates a Total War game, for the first time, wholly in the realm of fiction, pushing the series further away from the realism that is its raison d'être.

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PC Gamer: Total War: Warhammer review

Dwarfs line the walls of the Everpeak, weapons ready. They fire bolt and lead at the incoming Orcs, but to the Giant lummoxing forward at the head of the green horde it may as well be a light smither of rain. The Giant crashes into the gates, stumbles back and crashes into them again. It bursts through to be faced by massed units of Longbeards, fearless Dwarf veterans, who mob the Giant like dogs harassing an elephant.

They win, because in the rock, paper, scissors of Total War: Warhammer the Longbeards' immunity to psychological effects makes them good at fighting fear-causing Giants. Slayers would be even better as they have the Anti-Large trait as well as Unbreakable, but this is a game where paper can beat scissors so long as there's enough of it.

Moldy Old World

Until now Total War has recreated historical eras, and so the tactics have been based on simplified versions of real-world tactics, whether deployed by Rome or Napoleon. Cavalry flank and race ahead to attack missile units before they get too many shots off; spears defend and resist cavalry charges; missile units pour volleys into dense infantry units as they slowly advance. Here, things are more complicated.

The Warhammer World is a fantasy setting, one loosely based on Renaissance Europe but with the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, H. P. Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber funnelled into it through industrial pipes while copies of 2000 AD and heavy metal album covers are scattered on top. It's a mish-mash of everything someone at Games Workshop ever thought was cool, and it's both familiar and really weird.

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