I regard myself as a series veteran, having played since the original Rome Total War from 2005 (though I appreciate many players surpass even me from the original Shogun!). I recently bought Warhammer: Total War in a sale a few days ago, and these are my initial thoughts.
Simply put, I think Warhammer is the best game in a long time, certainly since Shogun II: Total War. It's been a long time since I had fun playing a Total War game, and whilst playing Warhammer I can just feel myself smiling and watching the hours drift by.
I am not a Warhammer expert by any means, but it seems to me Creative Assembly really enjoyed making this game. I find the characters to be well crafted and a joy to inspect both on the campaign map and the battle map. The character model variety is really something. Watching the men of The Empire do battle against hordes of Greenskins, whilst wizards summon spells and trolls and giants beat my men into submission is a marvellous sight. I can't really comment on the accuracy to the Warhammer lore, but to an amateur like me, the models and animations are pretty excellent.
Which kind of leads me into my next point. The battles are satisfying, brutal and violent. Cavalry charges are finally as brutal as they should be! Watching scores of plate armoured horsemen send goblins flying into the air never gets boring. Sometimes I watch my frontline soldiers charge into combat, and wince as steel meets steel. Siege weapons scatter men and beasts alike across the battlefield.
I remember the initial release of Warhammer was criticised for having too fast, arcade style battles. Maybe it's the mods I'm using, but I don't think this is the case. My infantry hold and fight long enough for me to position a cavalry charge, or for me to manoeuvre my ranged units to the sides. I feel my units have sufficient impact - cavalry makes short work of archers. Charges to the rear play havoc on morale. My Legendary Lord crashes into battle and keeps my other units fighting on.
Speaking of Legendary Lords, I feel these and other Heroes are a good example of what was needed to freshen up Total War battles. By the time of Rome II and Attila, crashing one wave of men into another was getting old. The LLs though come with a range of weird and wonderful abilities, and each is unique from the other. The ability to customise and develop them as they gain ranks keeps you interested in your characters. I've yet to dabble too much in quests and I'm not sure how they work exactly, but I'm enjoying following the quest path at least to see what happens.
The negatives. I've done a lot of praising, but there are also things I'm not so keen on. Once again, the AI seems to be pretty weak, though this is par for the course now. An enemy army had units that were completely invisible even while moving. If they managed to flank these units around me, they could have caused some damage. Instead, they walk straight into my front line of Hand Gunners. One volley reduces them to about 5 soldiers remaining. Diplomacy again is still a bit wonky. One minute my approval rating is "trustworthy" and everyone wants to be my friend. The next turn, I'm inexplicably unreliable, and every faction is cancelling their non-aggression pacts and trade agreements with me. Also, the campaign itself. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel it has somehow lost a layer of complexity. I want my economy management to be a bit more complicated than "build this building, increase wealth by 250 coins per turn." I wish trade resources did something. For example, salt is used as a preservative. The more units of salt I have, the better my food is preserved, increasing growth throughout my empire. Timber is used for construction - the more timber I have, the cheaper construction costs are for me. Everyone loves wine and beer - the more I have of these, the happier my citizens are. I feel even a simple added layer like this would benefit the game a lot.
My initial impressions of Warhammer are positive, and I'm enjoying reclaiming The Empire with Karl Franz. I'll probably end up playing a second campaign with a different faction, to test just how different each faction truly is.
Thanks for reading my brief initial thoughts. I'm very late to the Warhammer party, but I'm sufficiently intrigued that I may take a chance on Warhammer II when it gets its first sale.