Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Total War: Warhammer 2 Skaven race guide: their campaign and battle mechanics

Skaven are one of Total War: Warhammer II’s four races. We’ve commanded them in war, paying close attention to their campaign mechanics and in-battle behaviours. Accordingly, we present our Total War: Warhammer II Skaven guide: a full rundown of Warhammer’s ferocious, subterranean race. Here’s how furry beasts play, from unique mechanics and race traits, to grand strategy and tactical tips.

Hateful and bitter? Deliver Druchii vengeance with our Total War: Warhammer 2 Dark Elves guide.
Superiority complex? Put the Asur back on top with our Total War: Warhammer 2 High Elves guide.
Agent of the Old Ones? Enact the Great Plan with our Total War: Warhammer 2 Lizardmen guide.
You can read our full review of Total War: Warhammer 2 here.

After something specific? We've broken our Skaven guide down into the following sections to make it easier for you to find your way around:

Skaven Under-Empire

Even more so than the Dwarfs, Skaven are an underground race. It goes without saying that they can use the Underway, though they also have a unique army stance: Stalking, which gives them a chance of making an ambush attack even while moving normally.

The Skaven’s subterranean nature is best reflected in the fact that their settlements are hidden to other factions - rival empires will see only ruins. Ruins, in case you didn’t know, are a new addition to Total War: Warhammer II - they’re explorable nodes on the campaign map that’ll offer a quick bit of flavour text and a modest reward. Think of them like goody huts in Sid Meier’s Civilization.

This means you can feel a bit more confident leaving cities undefended as Skaven - though it’s obviously still a risk - but otherwise it needn’t make much difference to how you play. From your perspective, you’ll need to juggle two other major mechanics: Food and Skaven corruption.

Like most races, the Skaven use gold, but each of the four in Warhammer II’s Vortex campaign also get a second ritual currency. The Skaven’s is Warpstone, which you’ll use to destabilise the Great Vortex and chase the narrative campaign victory. In addition to these, however, the Skaven have a unique third currency: Food.

Total War: Warhammer II

|19 February 2018

Why Total War: Warhammer 2 is the greatest strategy game of all time

By
Alan Bradley

Comments
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Total War: Warhammer II is the greatest strategy game of all time. That is a bold claim, sure, but one that gets easier to make with every subsequent piece of DLC that bolsters Creative Assembly’s masterpiece.

That is not to say the core game isn’t strong by itself. It manages to preserve what is special about the Total War series: the masterful blend of intense real-time battles with a complex and interesting meta layer of strategy and logistics. Layer in a tremendous helping of fantasy and lore from one of tabletop gaming’s most beloved series and you have a winner.

Find out how Total War: Warhammer became a story-driven series on the sly.

But that was not obvious when the first Total War: Warhammer was announced. There was a lot of trepidation from fans of both series, especially when details about how each faction would play differently emerged, and how they would only be able to capture certain territories. The fear was that adding Warhammer to the Total War formula would be more oil and water than peanut butter and chocolate.

The game’s launch silenced those criticisms. CA proved that a skillful twist on Total War’s core gameplay loop was exactly what the series was begging for, refreshing what had become a well-trod and almost stale formula. Instead of tilting Total War into fanciful nonsense, the liberal streaks of Warhammer added new layers of strategy to consider, all without fouling up the tactical and strategic warfare the developers had spent years perfecting.