Total War: Warhammer Stats - A resource for all unit stats in the Warhammer series. Warhammer TW:W Full list of strategic locations and their respective buildings (self.totalwar) submitted 3 years ago. by syanda. Misc - The map marks out Miragliano as having a unique building chain, but only for the Southern Realms. This might be a. In WH2 there are unique buildings throughout the game, and they all confer some kind of buff/bonus to their entire faction. Not just the region that they're in. This is a great change from TW1 where if you built a craftsmen/woodworker etc. Those buffs only applied to that specific region. Total War: Warhammer Total War Battles: Kingdom Total War: Attila Total War: Rome II Total War: Arena Total War: Shogun 2 Napoleon: Total War Empire: Total War Medieval II: Total War Rome: Total War Medieval: Total War Shogun: Total War Toolbox What links here Related changes Special pages Printable version Permanent link Tools Log in Search.

• Total War Warhammer 2 Factions
• Total War Warhammer 2 Unique Buildings Pictures

Creative Assembly’s latest foray into the Warhammer universe is less of an expansion on the first game, and more of a sidestep into other areas of the world. There are remnants of Old World factions, but the vast majority of the game deals with new races and locations not seen in Total War: Warhammer, all while keeping the focus on fantasy battles. And what fantastic battles they are.

The sequel of 2016’s critical acclaimed title, Total War: Warhammer II doubles down on lore and goes even more niche than the first instalment. Unlike the Old World, with its expansive landmass full of humans, orcs, and dwarves, the new region of Lustria is features a collection of islands and small continents connected by massive seas.

A truly gigantic map, Lustria is beautifully executed with a decidedly tropical tone. The world map offers breathtaking views of mountains, beaches, and cliffs, among a dozen other geographical features ranging from common canyons and plains to unique volcanos and magical structures. It continues the graphical fidelity standard set by Rome II, and turns the strategic map into a true work of art.

Even the cities -- with their unique visual representation -- are a wonder to behold, although there is disappointingly little variation between settlements of the same race. I expected cities to visually change and grow with each upgrade and expansion, like they did in the latest Total War historical games, but instead we got the same stale depiction of the previous Warhammer and Total War games of old.

The top east corner of the map features the island of Ulthuan, home continent of the High Elves and which center holds the epicentre of the Great Vortex. The beautiful world map serves as the background for Warhammer II’s main campaign, which revolves around the struggle between different factions to attain control of the Great Vortex: a massive swirl of blue energy and raw magic. A staple of Warhammer lore, the Vortex was recently destabilised by the passage of a comet, and nearby races all rush to either heal it in order to maintain the status quo, or corrupt it in order to further their own interests.

Those races are the noble High Elves, the savage Lizardmen, the corruptive Skaven, and the chaotic Dark Elves -- all of the playable factions in Total War: Warhammer II’s campaign. The sequel continues its predecessor penchant for making each race a truly unique experience, from buildings and units to mechanics and abilities. Historical Total Wars often have two gameplay styles: begin with a flagship empire, or struggle to superiority with an underdog. In the Warhammer franchise, Creative Assembly has embraced what makes each fantasy race unique, and the game is all better for it.

Of all the factions, my favourite was without doubt the High Elves -- not only because they are the only good guys, fighting for the good of the world -- but because their set of units and culture strongly appeals to me on a personal level. Aside from Elven archers and white horsed cavalries, they possess a healthy selection of aerial units in the shapes of phoenixes and dragons. As much as I love ground battles, having good dragons in any army is an instant way to get my attention.

However, I didn’t really click with battles in Warhammer II. Ever since Attila, the ground combat seems to be tweaked to be more fast-paced, which is a terrible proposition in a tactical game. Shogun II and Rome II had wonderful battles that could at times grind and stale as evenly matched armies would hack at each other, giving you time to manoeuvre a cavalry or shock troops behind enemy lines and crash into their flanks, breaking the line. But like its predecessor before it, Warhammer II prefers to take a more immediate approach to damage, to the point that you can easily kill most of the enemy army with ranged attacks before they get within melee range of your infantry.

Even when locked in combat, the units just dwindle very quickly -- there's none of that grinding and back and forth, and whole units break and route in a matter of seconds. I rarely had the chance to perform a proper pincer move, and often had to rush an intended backline attack into a side flank incursion, lest the battle be over by the time my troops were in position. As I got latter in the campaign, that was less important -- large units, heroes, and flying creatures change the flow of battles, and magic starts to play a bigger role. However, it is still a worrisome sign -- the strategy layer has improved with every new release, but the tactical layer is getting more and more rushed. One just needs to look at Dawn of War III to see a similar shift.

Even though battles are at times lacking, they look utterly fantastic. Each unit is rendered in high resolution with a very detailed geometry, and clash against each other with tremendous effect. Heroes send several soldiers flying with each strike, while artillery pieces down dozens of enemy units with a passion. The terrain itself also looks utterly amazing, with geographical variations and multiple set dressings such as towers, statues, and buildings littering the landscape and background. As beautiful as it is, everything besides the terrain itself serve serve only as a backdrop to battles -- even settlements play no tactical part in it, as the enemy army will face you in the field.

Unfortunately, the sound design is a bit lacking. Battles do not sound particularly interesting from an auditory standpoint, but the campaign map has it worse: Heroes constantly utter catchphrases in the campaign map, which doesn’t take long to become annoying, and diplomacy is distractingly disconnected from the actual circumstances -- someone whose opinion of you is just one point below neutral will scream at you in rage and call you a traitor, while people who barely know you will proclaim how much of a trusted ally and friend you’ve been to their people. Similarly, the soundtrack is utterly forgettable. Coming from Shogun II’s brilliant feudal melodies to Rome II’s latin music and Attila’s terrific throat singing, Warhammer II’s OST leaves a lot to be desired. Is not that the music is bad, per se, it’s just that it is ordinary -- unlike the often praised scores of historical Total Wars, Warhammer II’s soundtrack fails to stand out.

That lack of identity, however, is not present in the tackling of the setting. Thanks to the unique characterisation and gameplay mechanics, the game at times almost feels partly RPG, vesting you with interest in the happenings of the world and of your particular culture. As I previously mentioned, I loved playing as the High Elves -- their unique Influence mechanic allows them to manipulate the diplomacy of far countries from afar, and they really feel like aristocratic stuck up snots, ruling the world from their ivory towers. However, the game does take the plunge into the deep end of lore at times, and as a result it is utterly unwelcoming to newcomers.

Pretending to see it from the lenses of a newcomer, this is what happens: the campaign starts with a cutscene that throws a dozen names around, mentioning brothers, places, and murders, none of which meant absolutely nothing to me. Shamefully, the game took 80 minutes to tell me who the hell my race actually was, and it did so by showing me a one paragraph tooltip about the High Elves. Instead of giving me an overview of the culture during the prologue, like most Total Wars do, Warhammer II forced me to spend an hour and a half with a race I knew nothing about to achieve things I had no interest in for people I didn’t cared for. It was a shameful introduction, and I am certain a lot of players unfamiliar with the setting will be put off by it.

In the end, however, Creative Assembly’s latest foray into the Warhammer universe is once more a success. It's wonderful animations and fantastic visual identity deliver an immersive and enjoyable experience for anyone with even a passing interest in the fantasy genre. It is both a capable Total War game and a satisfactory Warhammer title, and it manages to unite both of them without losing sight of either. The world is in desperate need of a Total War: Lord of the Rings title, but until then, Total War: Warhammer II is your best fantasy choice.

A capable Total War game and a great Warhammer title combine to deliver one of the best fantasy strategy games around.

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Total War Warhammer 2 Factions

Sixteen months after the launch of Total War: Warhammer, Creative Assembly have developed and released a second entry that’s both conventional stand-alone sequel, and a significant expansion towards a planned trilogy of combined titles. Total War: Warhammer 2 will, ultimately, hook up with the first game and all of its factions for a ‘Mortal Empires’ campaign that will span (a version of) the Old and New Worlds. For now though it is a stand-alone follow-up, with four new factions and plenty of applied lessons from the past year-and-some spent on the series.

Players who closely followed the first Total Warhammer and its steady flow of paid and free DLC will know that Creative Assembly leaned heavily into the idea of faction diversity. Some of the mechanics that were technically unique at launch, weaker stuff like the Empire’s political offices, were eclipsed by later additions like Bretonnia’s peasant economy or Norsca’s monster hunt quests. That confident approach to merging lore and flavour with the moving parts of a strategy game has continued in Total War: Warhammer 2, which pushes the factional distinctions even further with its four races.

The vast majority of my time has been spent in command of Malekith’s torture-happy Dark Elves, so I’ll be using them as the bulk of my examples. That’s no slight on the other three (Lizardmen, Skaven, High Elves), who from what I’ve experienced have just as many specialties of their own. Total War: Warhammer 2’s main campaign is much longer than Warhammer’s, so I made the choice to primarily relive my teenaged tabletop years with the Dark Elves. Except without Games Workshop charging me a tenner for every new bolt thrower.

Dark Elves are sadistic types, led by a guy who once had a reasonable claim to the High Elf throne but has long since torpedoed his eligibility by embracing murder, slavery, goth rock, and a thoroughly weird relationship with his mum. When a Dark Elf army chooses to take captives after a battle those prisoners show up as a resource and start to generate income, instead of just vanishing to some invisible slave mill.

Having captives show up as a tangible number (that’s just for Dark Elves, the other factions have their own special mechanics), affects several of the strategic choices a player will be making. Certain building chains and technology choices tie directly into the slave economy. Public order will also be affected if cities get absurdly packed with captives, and, unless this was a review build oversight, the Dark Elves can’t quell public dissent by ceasing to collect taxes. That toggle doesn’t exist. Perhaps because, where Dark Elves are concerned, ‘taxes’ are a euphemism for ‘keeping a few people wealthy by working prisoners to death’.

Slaves are also the grim currency by which the Dark Elf faction pays for a new, universal mechanical addition to Total War: Warhammer 2; Rites. They love a good mass sacrifice.

But muuuuuum. God, you’re SO embarrassing.

For the low low price of a few (okay, a lot of) souls, Rites will provide a temporary faction-wide buff. The Dark Elves have a public order one, a sorcery one, and an appeal to Khaine which both boosts critical troop stats and results in more post-battle loot. Best of all though, they can use Rites to summon a Black Ark.

Black Arks are fortress cities carried on the backs of huge sea creatures, and are unique to Dark Elves. They act like mobile, sea-bound settlements; able to construct a subset of the main Dark Elf buildings, and recruit armies. Park them off the coast, and nearby armies can also recruit troops from them. That, and their bombardment support in battles, make Black Arks a pretty invaluable support unit for any invasion jaunts abroad.

Dark Elves also share a loyalty mechanic with the Skaven. This appends a numerical level of trust to the hired lords beneath your faction leader, which fluctuates according to your actions. If a ‘lower’ lord rises to a higher level than your Legendary Lord, their loyalty can nose-dive (giving them items can appease them a little, but I found keeping the Legendary Lord active and at a higher level was the most reliable defense against rebellion). So ended the brief coup of Nelosi Lifequencher, who rose in stature when sweeping the forces of Chaos from Naggaroth, got far too ambitious, and was smashed in battle by the Witch King.

That makes for a fun anecdote, but loyalty is a Total War: Warhammer 2 mechanic that may not age as well as others. I think it should be fairly straightforward to avoid once players figure out exactly what drives the changes. It does fit the factional theme though, and may still crop up if you’re forced to recruit a low loyalty general in a crisis situation. Skaven give it an interesting twist by having Queek hate Grey Seers, making them a riskier loyalty choice by default.

RIP Nelosi. Killed her sister, rebelled, and then died.

Again, those are just the unique (and one shared, in the case of loyalty) mechanics for one faction. High Elves have a whole diplomacy game going for them, where they use an Influence resource to push other factions into alliances or conflicts. The Skaven have semi-hidden cities that look like ruins, and a Food resource that (when abundant) can help boost newly founded settlements. Finally, the Lizardmen get a mysterious ‘Geomantic Web’ that gives bonuses to linked cities, and, of course, lots of potentially angry dinosaurs.

Other factions from the first Total War: Warhammer are plentiful in number too. AI groups of Chaos, Norsca (the old version, I suspect new-Norsca will be patched in), Greenskins, a whole coast of Vampires, and various Imperial off-shoots are all present across the three main land-masses of the New World.

The point of focus animating everybody among the Big Four is the High Elf Vortex, situated in their homeland of Ulthuan. Custom camos black ops 3. Think of it as a giant over-spill drain for Chaos, preventing demons entering the Warhammer world even more often than they do already. Everybody wants it for some noble or nefarious purpose, and a sequence of five rituals is required in order to fulfill that desire. Those rituals require special resources, generated by each owned settlement, completed quests, and (in far greater volume) by settlements of particular magical significance; places like Ghrond, The Altar of Khaine, or Vaul’s Anvil(s).

As a slight aside here, I love how much detail Total War: Warhammer 2 has included with unique building options. All the Dark Elf capitals have at least one special construction (things like Hellebron’s Palace at Har Ganeth), with appropriate properties and bonuses for the region. I presume this is the case for the other three factions as well. It’s lovely stuff for great big nerds like myself.

The Vortex campaign route is technically optional, since total conquest is still available as a path to victory. It involves eliminating all seven (two Legendary Lords for each race) main rival factions and holding fifty(!) provinces though, so I think you’d have to forego the final Vortex ritual on purpose to get anywhere near that. All regions can be conquered in Total War: Warhammer 2 (a change from the more restrictive first game), but there are major penalties for settling in places that have an inhospitable climate. Building costs skyrocket, and casualty replenishment basically ceases to exist.

In an escalation of Total War: Warhammer’s central Chaos incursion, a handful of Chaos stacks show up at your door like aggressive salesmen every time your faction starts a ritual. I suspect this could be Creative Assembly’s compromise solution to what otherwise remains (on mid-tier Hard difficulty) a pretty timid campaign AI. It kind of works, too; Chaos assaults actually gave me a defensive siege battle or two to play. Practically unheard of in the first Warhammer. That mostly reminded me that the battle AI isn’t too smart when it comes to avoiding being shot to pieces during sieges, but hey, I’ll take it.

Outside of those beeline ritual attacks you’ll still need to apply ambush stance tactics or dangle a weaker force near the campaign AI to really get it to bite. I’m sure there’ll be a mod to make the AI go for fights where the auto-resolve is lower than 70-30 about five minutes after Total War: Warhammer 2 launches, but why Creative Assembly won’t make it at least a little bolder I don’t know.

On a happier note, the number of Hero agents employed by the AI seems dramatically reduced. Twenty-some hours in, I’ve seen factions using one or two at most. No utterly bonkers unit composition either, though I have seen an all-harpy Morathi army image floating around so maybe I just got lucky there.

Welcome to my city, please take your complementary crossbow bolts.

As noted, the Vortex campaign (and a larger map) makes Warhammer 2 much lengthier than the first title. Accounting for unfamiliarity with the newer systems, I think it’ll work out just over twice as long. At the point where you could easily be finishing a Warhammer campaign (100 turns or so), you’ll probably be around the third ritual.

The five ritual steps effectively coincide with a faction’s expected goals. By the first ritual, you should have conquered your local provinces. Around the second and third you should be in control of your starting region. Then from the third onwards (which opens up the world by putting all ports in diplomatic contact with one another) it’s time for more adventures abroad to tackle your major rivals. The Vortex structure provides a sense of underlying urgency and forces some long-term planning. If you need to send armies to disrupt the Lizardmen they may end up stranded in distant Lustria while you begin a ritual, leaving you to face down Chaos with the home guard.

I’m relatively confident that the AI in Total War: Warhammer 2 are playing with roughly the same ‘rules’ regarding the Vortex (albeit with some behind the scenes boosts on higher difficulties, I’m sure). In my main campaign, somebody smashed both Skaven factions quite early on, and they struggled to ever recover the pace. High Elves, meanwhile, sped up towards their ritual goals as they grew in power. Until I popped over to Ulthuan to say hello, anyway.

There’s also a way to act against ongoing rival rituals at a distance. Money (up to 10k) can be spent on Intervention Armies, which spawn an AI controlled force near the enemy ritual site as a disturbance. I’m not entirely convinced by this mechanic. It feels a little bit like a late-in-the-day realisation that players might need a desperate method of preventing a late-game surge by an AI power. Given the size of the map, something like this is probably necessary, but I’d prefer a more lore-friendly solution (hiring a large guild of Dark Elf assassins or whatever).

My record with Intervention Armies has not been great. A 10k one wandered around Ulthuan studiously avoiding the ritual sites until Tyrion and some friends came to destroy it. An earlier game 5k group were immediately rolled over by Mazdamundi. Lots of money well spent, there.

Total War Warhammer 2 Unique Buildings Pictures

Don’t look now, but there’s a Witch King in your Ulthuan.

I’ve got pretty deep into this review without mentioning the actual battles themselves. That’s because they haven’t changed a vast amount. Nor did they really need to, because Total War: Warhammer’s pitched battles (thanks to pretty solid AI and widespread unit variety) were its strongest feature.

The most immediate additions are cosmetic, providing more variety in climate-specific battlefields with elaborate backdrops. You’ll now see the outskirts of a High Elf settlement, or distant Lizardmen temples with cascading waterfalls. Not much in the way of added tactical value, but brilliant for instilling the feeling that your Dark Elf invasion force is an awful long way from the snow-swept hills of Naggaroth.

On the more tactical side, choke point battles from previous Total War titles make their return. Different landscapes also provide more slopes and valleys than before. Dragons now have breath attacks. Provinces sometimes grant special battlefield abilities (Naggarond has ‘Lure of the Pale Lady’ that can halt units in their tracks, setting up a perfect target for Blade Wind). And Ulthuan get some fancier siege maps at the gateways to their nation.

The Total War: Warhammer 2 battle AI feels broadly similar to the first game, with the obvious addition of teaching it how to handle the newer units. It’s still fully capable of launching a co-ordinated charge, sneaking skirmishers around to harass your flanks or war machines, and able to boil your piss with how well it micro-manages ranged, mounted units. You’ll witness mighty Stegadons wading into hordes of ever-rallying Skaven, and High Elf spearmen holding the line against frenzied (and extremely buff) Witch Elves. The voice acting is also very enjoyable. It’ll be a while before I get tired of hearing a unit of Dark Elf spearmen cheerily announce themselves as “the merciless host!”

How this new set of factions will square up in multiplayer is up in the air until release. As someone with pre-release code, I’ve not had chance yet to dabble in either the returning modes from Warhammer or the new ‘Free for All’ four-way madness. At a guess, it’ll probably launch with some weird meta-level play like the first game’s ‘kill the general at all costs,’ then calm down after a bit of data-gathering and patching. That’s just speculation at this stage though.

There are a few more quality of life and campaign features that I want to touch on too. The traits system (basically a continuation from the Bretonnia DLC) is now terrific, rewarding your characters with suitable perks according to their actions. No more Dwarf Lords with a weird love of Greenskins. Legendary Lords can now level all the way to 40, reflecting the longer campaign. And their skill arrays reflect the things Creative Assembly learned during the first game; there look to be far fewer duff choices.

UI changes dotted throughout are all welcome as well. You have a lot more control over what is shown during an End Turn phase, and can fully customise pre-End Turn reminders for things like settlements with surplus population. The campaign map now has more exploratory events, brief choose your own adventure moments, and sensible, lore-and-circumstances-friendly quests. Teleporting to a Legendary Lord quest battle now only costs 500 gold. Plus, the Vortex campaign gives each faction its own set of illustrated cut-scenes. All of which helps to bring more quality of life and vibrancy to the game.

Blade Wind is Best Wind.

A word on performance. I was reviewing Total War: Warhammer 2 on an i5-6600 / 16GB / 380X set-up (so pretty fine except for a GPU on the slower side). It performs worse that the first Warhammer does today, but similar to how that game ran for me at launch. More detailed map regions (of which there are a few) drag the campaign layer down into the 30fps range, while the battles (on basically High settings) tend to be in the 50s. Turn times are fine. Loading times, again, will benefit greatly from an SSD if you have the space.

Total War: Warhammer 2 represents the efforts of a studio riding high on the run-away success of the first title. The four launch factions in this game have even more unique mechanics, and suitably eclectic troop options that mirror their tabletop incarnations. Vitally, those mechanics have strategic substance and, once again, do great work integrating the strange, absurd, and marvellously over the top fantasy tone of Warhammer with the familiar workings of a Total War game. I’d love to have more time with the Vortex campaign to see if it’s possible to ‘break’ it, or whether the formula gets tired after multiple attempts, but it serves as a decent way to force a split between expansion priorities and defending homeland ritual sites from Chaos incursions. It’s only when I realise I’m still having to coax powerful 20-stack AI armies into a 50-50 battles that this isn’t quite the flawless union of Total War and Warhammer I’ve been dreaming of since the early 2000s. But it’s damn close.