Total War: Warhammer II announced

[Steph]

I'm thinking about another possibility. Let's suppose Game 3 is not chaos only. I'd rather see

Bad guys
- Chaos Dwarves
- Chaos race (but with two Chaos factions, like Khorne, Tzeench, each with its own LL, and LL (and so faction) specific units and maybe building. Like Drycha for the WE. So we would have a common base of units for Chaos Gods, with specific units for each God, but as a single race and not 4 completly different races.

Good guys:
- Kislev
- Cathay

Neutral
- Ogre

I'd imagine 4 of these 5 races as core starting race, the 5th being the first DLC (a la Tomb King).

Why not Kislev as pre order and the other 4 at start?

Because of the teaser. What if the pre order is NOT a race, but a LP? Empire with missing Knightly Orders, a few more icon units, playable Toddy and or two LL? This could be a way to bring the Empire, one of the main factions, to 6 LL.

[Lord Baal]

Trowing my money at naval battles. Not because it will happen, because it wont and I'm sure CA in their infinite... "wisdom" won't, but because I would really want it to happen and would be beyond comedy if by some miracle it end up happening on some level.

[Deathshade]

I don't see Kislev being the preorder faction because you couldn't play them on the Vortex campaign.

But am I hyped for Warhammer III ! Give me some real chaos !

[Alwyn]

Steph's thinking looks good to me. Like Lord Baal, I'd like to see naval battles if they could be done (which seems unlikely, I agree).

The Warhammer fantasy wiki seems to suggest that Kislev has a strong military, with infantry that are capable in melee and ranged combat (the Kossar with axe and bow, the Streltsi with halberds and rifles, the Ice Guard with bow and blade). Kislev's cavalry sound effective, as their horse archers could disrupt enemy formations and their armoured lancers could exploit weak spots that the horse archers create. Cathay's armoured Bannermen infantry, Ogres, cannon, War Mammoths and mages sound like a powerful combination, too. I like the sound of playing these factions! At the same time, I'm wondering how the new factions will compare to the old ones, in terms of balance. Would it be fair to say that Warhammer II factions are generally more powerful than Old World ones (at least until DLC or FLC updates bring Old World nations up to the Warhammer II level)? Will there be a similar issue, with Warhammer III factions being more powerful than nations from the previous games?

I'm also wondering what the balance between Order and Chaos factions will be like when Warhammer III factions are added.

[Lord Baal]

Honestly I dont know if is possible to mod in naval battles. I mean, could be possible to mod in recruitable naval units? And then could be possible to mod in that instead of the island battles they load a custom map with those units?

[Dumanthis]

My bet is that there will be no naval battles (since TWW2 map would have actually made sense for it more than speculated TWW3 map). Also Cathay is not going to happen, I just can't see any indication towards that direction and I think it will go to the same category as Araby, Ind etc. I think most likely will be four chaos factions at the start plus Kislev. I think you could say that why four chaos races because in previous games we got four different base races. I think to make all chaos armies with their different gods will be a similar task as four different races alltogether. Ogres and Chaos Dwarves will be DLC. This is my bet.

[Lord Baal]

Maybe chaos as four factions, maybe a major rework were you can specialize or get chaos united. With Kislev and maybe Araby...

Or two Chaos goods, khorne and nurgle, with the other two as DLC because of trolling and excess...

[Steph]

I've been thinking a bit more about DoW and pre order. Some are claiming the DoW could be the pre order. However, DoW requires a mix of eveyrthing, including Ogre, etc.

So I think adding them at release may requires too many resources and assets to be made. And since they have a special mechanism, being some kind of semi horde, I don't think they would really work well as a a core faction controlling part of the map.

I think they'd work better down the road as a DLC, when other races have been added with the required assets.

Recent DLC for Game 2 shows that CA is not very keen of making new race DLC, and focus more on LP DLC. I suppose it can still be the case for Game 3. So making 4 races for Chaos God, and having Chaos Dwarves and Ogre later has race pack seems unlikely.

And from marketing reason, having only bad guys with Chaos is maybe not to good. Add some references to Kislev in the Old Word rework from GW...

I think the core races will be
- Chaos (one race, but possibly LP later with specialized units, that would fit the trend of DLC)
- Chaos Dwarves,
- Ogre
- Kislev
- Possibly Cathay.

What of the pre order.? As I said before, maybe an Empire rework with more knights order, etc. But I have another idea. It would be a bit hard for CA to include "old" stuff in the new game. To market it as a full game and not a glorify extension, they need new stuff. But there is a part of the game that has been untouched, left as placeholder since game 1: Southern Realms. CA can't really focus on them in Game 3, imagine the uproar if they said "no Ogre, or no Chaos, but we have TEB!!!"

So... Why not take the opportunity of a pre order to bring some of the missing stuff to the same level as the other, and have a consistant based to expand from with game 3?
- Empire has relatively few LL compared to others.
- They are mising knightly orders
- TEB has not specific units nor LL.

So a possible solution for the pre order would be Human centered pack
- Add a few knighltly orders for the Empire, make Boris Playable, add a new generic lord "Grand master". Maybe one LL with a new start position
- Flesh out TEB: use Empire and Bretonnia as a base to minimize cost, but add a few unique texture or animation. For exemple add Pikemen with proper anim, mostly based on Empire state troops models, with a new helmet and some reskin. Add some LL: one for Tilea, one for Estalia, one for Border Princes, one for new world Colonies.

This is large enough to justify a full price DLC, but not as big as a full race pack, it can work in ME, a bit in Vortex (via the New World Colonies, maybe Sudenburg as a start position for a knight order LL for empire), and is a good occasion to have most race on the same level to build immortal empire upon.

And this keep opportunities for DLC later for Game 3
- DoW as a DLC, reusing TEB assets (Pikemen), or Ogre, etc
- Cathay or Kislev as first DLC, a la Tomb King
- If each core race of game 3 starts with 2 LL, they can expand it later with DLC. So they can start with one chaos race , with 2 LL (one for each god), and then make 2 DLC, each one adding a new LL dedicated to a new god, and adding new units specific to this god / LL, each time paired with another race expansion with a new LL

[Steph]

And today the constellation is the piper!

"The Piper is one of the Star Signs of the Old World. It is the Sign of the Trickster", seems like an obvious way to be teasing Tzeentch next.

And the video finishes with "tomorrow we'll see the third constellation". Add a 4th on Wednedsay... And so trailer Thursday?

For tomorrow and day after:

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Drummer
"The Drummer is one of the Star Signs of the Old World. It is the Sign of Excess and Hedonism, appearing as a drum, and is in Ascendance during Late Summer/Early Autumn." This one for Slaanesh.

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/...#39;s_Cauldron
"Rhya's Cauldron is one of the Star Signs of the Old World. It is the Sign of Mercy, Death, and Creation, appearing as a cauldron" and finally this one for Nurgle.

That would confirm a Chaos heavily focused game 3... We'll know more in two days

[Daruwind]

Second teaser ;-)


Khorne...Tzeentch today?

[Daruwind]

About the Wh3 races..there is a lot options CA can go and almost all has some cons and pros..

1)
-We don´t know whether pre-order will be race...should be, but can we exclude LP? Even latest Grace comment was just that there will be one more DLC for WH2..not LP not race a DLC, that could be anything....
-and at the same time we have no info if it will be playable at Wh2 as Norsca was for Wh1...because honestly that was nice cluster
-and what´s more, we have no idea if it would be even Vortex or just ME exclusivity...as it is really hard to add new whole race to Vortex while ME is pretty empty (Kislev, TEB, Nagash..)

2)
We don´t know how CA will tackle Chaos gods. My personal bets is the WoC will be rolled in and there will be 5 subfactions under "chaos" superfactions. But those 4 are in such spot that making them 2x2 (+1 old WoC) would make most sense. Like 2 DoC on release (Khorne vs Slaanesh ...or Tzeentch, then one race DLC will bring two more DoC..)

3) We don´t know if CA will tackle far east, because that is not just Cathay but what about Nippon, Ind, Kuresh...and honestly that is way to many factions with almost none material.

4)
-Wh1 had 7 races + 1 pre-order +1 Norsca..that´s 9
-Wh2 had 6 races + 1 pre-order. Norsca...possibly getting +1 more as Wh3 pre-order...that would be around 8
-so Wh3 will most likely be 6 + 2 as well..

Chaos Dwarfs, Ogres are sure ..we have 2
DoC let´s count them 2x2 .......so overall 4
Nagash, Kislev........................that´s 6
TEB/DoW - 7

So pre-order
-Kislev..despite recent return to Old World, why not. We have 2 great LL, most of roster could be reskinned unlike Chaos Dwarfs, Ogres, Chaos..DoW need Ogres and many assets that will probalby not be available at start... I´m not saying Kislev cannot be core, just that it could be easily pre-order
-Nagash...VC, VC, TK...a few new units, heavy focus on mechanics. Easy way
-Hobgoblins...yeah, only weird but near faction that could be done ala Norsca.
-TEB but separating DoW i don´t know :/

funny thing, all those will be ME exclusive. Except Nagash possibly...

[Lord Baal]

WH3 is end times, upon purchase it uninstalls Total Warhammer 1 and 2, install some crapy age of sigmar mobile game adapted to pc and GW&Sega stroll jumping to the bank.

[Steph]

The third teaser shows TWO constellation. 3rd is the Drummer (Slaanesh), 4th is Rya's Cauldron (Nurgle)

The time has dawned...

Sigmar protects us all...

Someone made an interesting suggestion... That the pre order DLC could be Chaos Gods.

So core races for Game 3 could be
- Chaos Dwarves
- Ogre
- Kislev
- Cathay..

We'll probably know more soon, the pace of teaser is accelerating

[lolIsuck]

With the teaser posted uncommonly early in the morning we could very well see a trailer this afternoon.

[Daruwind]

Well internet (reddit, TW forums) are livid with possible art leak...

-no reverse search for this...
-New Kislev models
-End Times Khorne aesthetics..


And Sigmar protects!

[Lord Baal]

May Sigmar protect us all from the Age of Crapmar.

[Dumanthis]

Glad I just made my bet Four constellations = Four chaos factions? And art leak supports Kislev too

[Daruwind]

And one more..and seems like another tomorrow..

-Geheimnistag
-sign of god bear Ursun ;-) So Kislev incoming..

[Steph]

And a second trailer with a third constellation for today! Point to Ursun, and so confirm Kislev.

And the video finished with "it arrives tommorrow"

But still so many possibilities...

It could be to announced Chaos Gods and Kislev as core for Game 3...

Or that Game 3 is focused in Chaos, and that Kislev, hope to fight against them, is the pre order, etc.

[Daruwind]

Tomorrow is 3.2.2021...321.jpg ;-) BTW I have tomorrow birth day!