Editing Total War: WARHAMMER (section)

=Gameplay=
The gameplay at its core is that of a traditional [[Total War]] game. You select a faction to play as in the world of Warhammer fantasy, led by a Legendary Lord - a character of importance in the universe. You build buildings, develop towns and cities and muster your armies on the campaign map. The main draw of the game is smashing those aforementioned armies against each other in big battles. The battles are real time and require enough tactical finesse that you can pull off some pretty complex maneuvering if you want to. However, due to the nature of the setting, CA changed several aspects of the game to give off a more fantastical vibe that is similar to Fantasy 4X games like Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and Magic. In short - the focus during the launch of Total War Warhammer was more on the battles themselves than the campaign map aspects. As the game's scope has expanded via DLC and free content, there has been more focus put in on more interactive campaign elements.

Unlike the previous Total War games, generic lord characters and legendary lords in this game play a huge role. Lords (the leaders of your armies) are tough single models that might hit a bunch of models at once with a shock wave reminiscent of Dynasty Warriors. Lords, Legendary Lords, and heroes receive items and followers after battles or by completing quests, and they are able to equip them for various bonuses. The items themselves are often lifted directly from the tabletop game or the WHFB setting itself. Legendary lords are able to equip their own unique legendary items after they have reached a certain level and completed its required quest. Quests are small narrative driven events that Legendary Lords can complete to gain their trademark items that are part of their narrative arc. Lords also rank up by fighting and are able to spend skill points to either boost their stats, give benefits to their attached army (denoted by the color red) or campaign boost (increased campaign movement range, faster travel or improvement of public order when garrisoned). Note that some lords (like Balthasar) don't have stat boosts and instead rely on magic.

Speaking of heroes, they are like campaign agents from the previous total war. Unlike before, you can actually bring them to battle if you put them in your army. Heroes are, like generals, able to rank up and improve their stats and abilities. Depending on the type of hero they can perform several different actions on the campaign map (damage walls, attack unit, assassinate). Fun Fact: you can actually fill your entire army with heroes and watch them wreak havoc, demolishing entire units in seconds. Better yet, use any Lizardmen lord with 19 heroes with the "Pompous" trait (reduce enemy leadership aka "willingness to fight" by 4) and watch the enemy army flee in terror once the battle starts.

Lords and Heroes are generally one of three types.
The first type are the magic-using heroes and lords. Typically, they have low melee attack, defense and damage and have no way to buff these attributes. Heroes like wizards and Lords/Legendary Lords (such as the Fay Enchantress, Balthasar Gelt or the Necromancer Lords) are of this type. Instead of being paragons of front line combat, they excel at casting magic. Their combat skill tree is focused on unlocking more spells and reducing the chance of miscasts.

The second type are the combat heroes and Lords. They generally have higher combat stats and can take out even the most elite units of opposing armies from the start. They, however, cannot cast magic and are generally focused on front line combat. Their combat skill tree is focused on making them better fighters on the battlefield. Heroes like captains, Legendary lords like Karl Franz, Tyrion and regular Lords like the Empire General, Bretonnian Lords and Elven Princes are of this type.

The third are the hybrid lords and heroes.
They can either be powerful spellcasters or beasts at melee combat on par with combat lords, but a choice has to be made for focusing on their upgrade path. Heroes like the Loremasters, Vampires, and Legendary Lords such as Morathi, Malekith, Mannfred, and Vlad at all are these kinds of characters.

These are the first Total War games to have implemented magic. Being Warhammer and all, [[Warhammer Magic|magic comes from the winds of magic that blow from the northern chaos wastes]]. Specific heroes and lords can cast magic based on what lores they possess and which spells they learned by leveling up. Magic for casting is limited by the magic gauge (which is determined at the beginning of the battle) and magic reserves (determined by currents of winds of magic in the province the battle is taking place in). However, you can increase your magic gauge at the beginning of the battle by praying to [[Ranald]], the human god of luck, although sometimes [[just as planned|he aids you by replenishing your magic gauge or fucks you over by depleting it]]. Ironically, all races (except the dwarfs, of course) get the option to pray to [[Ranald]] despite having different beliefs and gods. Tzeentch would likely be really pissed if he found out that one of his sorcerers was praying to another god for magic instead of him. On the other hand, one may assume that the entire 'pray to Ranald' thing is an appeal to a literal RNG god, and is just a fun and fluffy way of rolling the dice.

The campaign gameplay is rather different in Total Warhammer 2 compared to the original. Central to the story in the game is the magical vortex at the center of Ulthuan that sucks out magic out the world and keeps the world from being overrun by Chaos. There seems to be some sort of disturbance in the Vortex causing different factions to scramble and try to either preserve or subvert the vortex to further their own goals. The objective is to complete a large series of rituals that will save/doom the world and win you the game. The AI is quite capable of following these goals and CA has reportedly stated that you can lose the campaign if you tarry too long. Of course in practice it is nearly impossible to actually lose the campaign. When an opposing faction actually completes it's ritual, you get a quest battle where you and every other major faction stops the faction that completed the ritual.

Doing the rituals requires certain settlements and currencies that you acquire through quests, missions and capturing certain settlements. As you progress throughout the ritual for your faction, the other races will start to hate you even more. As a result the gameplay is more focused and quicker paced, with players being encouraged to form small defensible holdings with which to win the race to the vortex instead of the slow meandering crawl that defines a regular total war game.

The Mortal Empires campaign is the combined campaign for the first and second game. The map includes the entirety of the Old World and most of the New World with the southernmost edges of the maps left out. The map is massive, and, along with the more regular style of Total War gameplay, you can expect to spend a lot more time conquering. It is available to players who have purchased both Total Warhammer 1 and Total Warhammer 2. Featuring a gigantic map of the overworld, the campaign is a similar sandbox experience to the campaign in the first world. Factions on the side of Order are supposed to defeat Chaos and control major parts of their core territory to win a victory. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, from a nice and friendly alliance between all the good guy factions, or by holding the territories through force. Either way, the campaign takes a long amount of time due to complete.

Lastly, the design of the campaign map itself is a bit more "up in the air." Because the game takes place in the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, the terrain itself is more fantastical than previous Total War games, as befitting a fantasy game. From the steaming, dinosaur-infested jungles of Lustria, to the arctic wastelands of Naggaroth and Norsca, the world presented in Warhammer has a wide variety of lands and climates, more than any previous Total War games. More fantastical elements also exist, such as the mysterious and dangerous forest of Athel Loren, the horrors of the Chaos Wastes, the decaying, yet resplendent civilizations of the High Elves and Dwarfs.

Although the battle maps explore varieties of terrain configuration and there are siege maps, the game is still made for large and open terrain in mind, so if you want to witness/control a Skaven invasion of a bustling Empire city or experience something akin to LOTR's Helm's Deep, you won't find it in Total Warhammer 1/2.