I’m used to having a good dozen or so starting scenarios and minor spins on a few common themes to play with. By the time I’d played about 100 turns of each, I was struck by the feeling that I’d seen most of what the campaign had to offer in a relatively short time for a Total War game. While each of these factions are quite entertaining and different, they are few in number and their starting positions are fixed. The vamps also lack ranged units altogether, which forced me to think very differently about how I built my armies and deployed them for maximum effect.
There’s no mistaking a Vampire-dominated region for an Imperial one, lending another layer of dynamism to the map. Peaceful, idyllic meadows become grey and dead, while lush forests are transformed into spooky, skeletal woods. I felt like my faction embodied the creeping, oncoming dread waiting at the end of a horror movie, and it was rewarding to watch my influence slowly expand. This telegraphing forced me to plan my wars many turns ahead. My faction embodied the creeping, oncoming dread waiting at the end of a horror movie.The Vampires, by contrast, are required to spread a province modifier called Vampiric Corruption into adjacent provinces before invading, lest their troops evaporate in the harsh light of day. Any stack that stops fighting (and winning) for more than a handful of turns is bound to collapse in on itself. This destructive power is appropriately balanced out by the total inability of the Greenskins to maintain defensive armies. It’s nirvana on those days when I didn’t feel like worrying about settlements, unrest, or unit composition - I just wanted to run over some dumb humies in a one-sided slaughter, making latrines of their pretentious civilizations.
Each army having a “fightiness” value based on how much havoc they’ve caused recently low fightiness leads to attrition and infighting, but max it out and you’ll spawn a second, AI-controlled follower army called a WAAAGH! which will join in your battles and allow you to stomp across the map, overwhelming defenders with superior numbers. Greenskins, my personal favorite, are simply a blast to command on the strategic map.
The warmongering Greenskins and reclusive Vampire Counts, on the other hand, play much differently than anything I was used to as a series veteran. The noble human Empire and the stoic dwarfs operate along the lines of traditional Total War factions, with the exception that humans get some of the best, heavy-hitting wizards in the Old World and dwarfs make up for a lack of cavalry or magic with super heavy artillery, excellent frontline infantry, and mechanical gyrocopters that can rain firebombs on enemy positions from above.
Humans get some of the best, heavy-hitting wizards in the Old World.The mold-breaking personalities of each faction also extend to their campaigns. All the while, flyers soar into the equation and force you to question the concept of a “safe” front line, a welcome new dimension to the struggle for map control. That’s something that was too often missing from Rome 2 and Attila, in which I usually felt obligated to play zoomed out for better tactical control. The true big bads like giants and vampiric vargheists can be the spearhead on or the exclamation point at the end of a successful charge, and the havoc they cause via over-the-top, almost superheroic attack animations demands gleeful close-ups. Sorcerers and melee heroes allow you to pour offensive resources to trouble spots in a scrum precisely and decisively. Lumbering “monstrous infantry” like trolls and crypt horrors add a new tier of melee fighters to the battlefield and break up the bow/spear/sword triangle. These fantasy units and the factions they are bound to are the stars of the show.