Total War: Warhammer Inherits the Warhammer Legacy - Hands-On Preview

[JonB]

Total War: Warhammer Inherits the Warhammer Legacy - Hands-On Preview

Games Workshop blew up the decades-old Warhammer Fantasy setting - but that?s not stopping Creative Assembly.

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[Oroboros]

Looks interesting. Not too keen on units with health bars though. I liked the system the older TW games had- a sort of 'roll to hit vs defense' with a sort of 'lethality' percentage which would determine how often a hit that got through defense would deal damage...which also had the benefit of being a lot closer to how Warhammer works.

 

[Elfgore]

I just watched Angry Joe's version of this a few days ago, for some reason they didn't let him play the game... Anyway, this game looks amazing. I was already throwing money at the screen at The Blackfire Pass battle, this one just convinced me I need to buy a new PC to play this game in its full glory.

 

[Xelzeno]

I just watched Angry Joe's version of this a few days ago, for some reason they didn't let him play the game... Anyway, this game looks amazing. I was already throwing money at the screen at The Blackfire Pass battle, this one just convinced me I need to buy a new PC to play this game in its full glory.

Really? If I remember correctly he played the seconds time during the video, first the guy from CA played and then Joe tried it.

 

[JonB]

I just watched Angry Joe's version of this a few days ago, for some reason they didn't let him play the game... Anyway, this game looks amazing. I was already throwing money at the screen at The Blackfire Pass battle, this one just convinced me I need to buy a new PC to play this game in its full glory.

Haven't seen the video in question, but it's entirely possible that Joe couldn't make it to San Francisco from Texas for this.

Looks interesting. Not too keen on units with health bars though. I liked the system the older TW games had- a sort of 'roll to hit vs defense' with a sort of 'lethality' percentage which would determine how often a hit that got through defense would deal damage...which also had the benefit of being a lot closer to how Warhammer works.

The health bars track nothing more than how many soldiers are left in the particular unit - all the old TW mechanics you mention are still there.

 

[Karadalis]

A sad day for tabletop when a video game company produces a better product with GWs IP then GW could have done themselves.

A rather good day for video games when a game company produces a better product with GWs IP then GW ever could.

Ill definatly will get my hands on it but im kinda disapointed that Chaos is not a playable faction.

Oh well.. theres allways room for DLC...

 

[Oroboros]

I just watched Angry Joe's version of this a few days ago, for some reason they didn't let him play the game... Anyway, this game looks amazing. I was already throwing money at the screen at The Blackfire Pass battle, this one just convinced me I need to buy a new PC to play this game in its full glory.

Haven't seen the video in question, but it's entirely possible that Joe couldn't make it to San Francisco from Texas for this.

Looks interesting. Not too keen on units with health bars though. I liked the system the older TW games had- a sort of 'roll to hit vs defense' with a sort of 'lethality' percentage which would determine how often a hit that got through defense would deal damage...which also had the benefit of being a lot closer to how Warhammer works.

The health bars track nothing more than how many soldiers are left in the particular unit - all the old TW mechanics you mention are still there.

There was a part in the video in the article where they mention that their hero had only a hundred or so hp left.

 

[JonB]

Oh well.. theres allways room for DLC...

My gut says Elves and Chaos for DLC armies, maybe Brettonians as a minor nation and/or ally pack for Empire.

There was a part in the video in the article where they mention that their hero had only a hundred or so hp left.

Ah! I see. Yes, the heroes have an HP mechanic so you know how well they're doing. Since they are also your map agents and very important as special characters, this felt like a good choice. Didn't feel weird in context of playing the game.

 

[talker]

I would write a ten-page rant on how the player could have done everything better, but I'm too busy being distracted by the graphics and the awesomeness that is a WFB Total War game.

I give it 2 months before somebody starts working on a 40K mod.

 

[vallorn]

This is easily going to devour me the same way that Dawn Of War did (RIP Relic...)

I did like to see the differences between your video, the programmer and Joe on Joe's video. All three of you used slightly different tactics in the battle and it all worked kind of well no matter who was doing what.

I think for a pre-alpha that says a lot about the quality that we can look forwards to.

 

[Imrix]

But have they unfucked the combat system and its obsession with kill-moves rendering multiple-on-one fights into a succession of duels? And have they fixed the lack of unit collision, and how every unit moves in lockstep with itself like a bunch of robots?

Those are the questions I REALLY want answers to. I've seen a few videos of the Black Fire Pass and Underway battles, but so far none of them focused on the boots-on-the-ground level combat system enough for me to get an idea whether they've fixed those bugbears from Rome II.

Basically, absent the special abilities, spells and monsters, if you match a unit of dwarf warriors against a unit of orc boyz, is their clash more mechanically reminiscent of Rome II on release, or Medieval II's system?

 

[TK MadCat]

I would write a ten-page rant on how the player could have done everything better, but I'm too busy being distracted by the graphics and the awesomeness that is a WFB Total War game.

I give it 2 months before somebody starts working on a 40K mod.

And I will be happily DLing it. Was never really into the old school Warhammer universe. Much to my own disappointment. I just love 40K version. Games, the TTRPG, and I think I have a pretty good chunk of the books lol. I only have 1 or 2 of the books for Warhammer, and besides the/a video game from like late 90's (can't find it, or remember title) I only have Warhammer Online. Just never really got into em the way I do with 40K series.

 

[ron1n]

There was a part in the video in the article where they mention that their hero had only a hundred or so hp left.

They explain it in the video though. They needed to add a healthbar system because Warhammer works on a hitpoint system for units. Because there's going to be a number of powerful individual units and characters, it makes more sense to have hitpoints, especially when there's abilities they can use that restore health like the potion.

As for the 'lethality' percentage, you can't have a system whereby a giant can be one-shot by a unit of infantry because one of the soldiers got a lucky hit in. Would make no sense. Having said that, if you saw how quickly the slayers brought down the Giant, It's borderline like that already anyway lol

My gut says Elves and Chaos for DLC armies, maybe Brettonians as a minor nation and/or ally pack for Empire.

They've already announced the game will be a 3 part thing and you better believe they will make the most of Race Pack DLC so I think they will do every race that they possibly can. And there would be riots if Brettonians were treated as a 'minor vassal state'. That's more Kislevs role. Be interesting to see if they do much with Tilea, Estalia and Araby.

I'd say they will first add a northern Choas faction, then Wood Elves and Brettonians and possibly some kind of Chaos Beastmen faction to flesh out the south of the map. Then they will add High Elves/Dark Elves/Lizardmen/Skaven. Although I'm struggling to figure out how they will incorporate Lizardmen from a campaign map standpoint as they are quite alien compared to the other races.

Tomb Kings seem like they may be added as an AI faction only, but hopefully not. Doubt Chaos Dwarfs will get added but we can always hope. Ogre kingdoms 50/50 chance, although their army list is kind of small so again, maybe a bit hard to fully incorporate.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

A sad day for tabletop when a video game company produces a better product with GWs IP then GW could have done themselves.

Give it time, GW will try and force their idiotic new rules in to this game.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Looks absolutely phenomenal. Ever since Total War games first appeared I've wanted to see a "Warhammer Fantasy" version, and this is pretty much exactly what I dreamed of it looking like.

Here's hoping for lots of DLC factions. I'd love to see Lizardmen, Chaos, Skaven, and maybe Dark Elves as well. Bretonnia would be pretty easy to add as a minor allied faction as well, thanks to their pretty limited unit selection.

 

[Oroboros]

There was a part in the video in the article where they mention that their hero had only a hundred or so hp left.

They explain it in the video though. They needed to add a healthbar system because Warhammer works on a hitpoint system for units. Because there's going to be a number of powerful individual units and characters, it makes more sense to have hitpoints, especially when there's abilities they can use that restore health like the potion.

As for the 'lethality' percentage, you can't have a system whereby a giant can be one-shot by a unit of infantry because one of the soldiers got a lucky hit in. Would make no sense. Having said that, if you saw how quickly the slayers brought down the Giant, It's borderline like that already anyway lol

Reread my post . The (hidden) 'lethality' stat for weapons just determined how often an attack that beat the target's defense would chip off a hitpoint. Warhammer had rolling to wound based off of the attackers strength and the defender's toughness, which served pretty much the same purpose. Never any danger of a giant getting one-shotted by a lucky shot, but the reverse would not be true.

Most units only had one... hp (again, just like in WH) so armor and defense skill was crucial-but elite units sometimes had 2, and generals big creatures like elephants and generals would have more. Elephants had...12 I think. Which is totally in the ballpark of Warhammer Fantasy... the arachnarok giant spider that wrecked so much of the dwarven army in the video has...8 wounds or something in that ballpark. Healing potions are for d6 wound recovery or something like that. So completely in the same ballpark.

Don't get me wrong, the ability to know how many hitpoints a unit has is really nice. But the large hp pools we are seeing on some units makes me wonder if they are going for more 'mainstream' rts mechanics rather than TW mechanics...with no 'roll' to hit vs defense and instead variable damage vs defense as damage reduction against HP pool.

My gut says Elves and Chaos for DLC armies, maybe Brettonians as a minor nation and/or ally pack for Empire.

They've already announced the game will be a 3 part thing and you better believe they will make the most of Race Pack DLC so I think they will do every race that they possibly can. And there would be riots if Brettonians were treated as a 'minor vassal state'. That's more Kislevs role. Be interesting to see if they do much with Tilea, Estalia and Araby.

I'd say they will first add a northern Choas faction, then Wood Elves and Brettonians and possibly some kind of Chaos Beastmen faction to flesh out the south of the map. Then they will add High Elves/Dark Elves/Lizardmen/Skaven. Although I'm struggling to figure out how they will incorporate Lizardmen from a campaign map standpoint as they are quite alien compared to the other races.

Tomb Kings seem like they may be added as an AI faction only, but hopefully not. Doubt Chaos Dwarfs will get added but we can always hope. Ogre kingdoms 50/50 chance, although their army list is kind of small so again, maybe a bit hard to fully incorporate.

I really hope the likes of Tilea and Araby make it in. Now that the Warhammer Fantasy setting was destroyed, our only chance of factions and areas such as those getting expanded on is in video games.

 

[ron1n]

Don't get me wrong, the ability to know how many hitpoints a unit has is really nice. But the large hp pools we are seeing on some units makes me wonder if they are going for more 'mainstream' rts mechanics rather than TW mechanics...with no 'roll' to hit vs defense and instead variable damage vs defense as damage reduction against HP pool.

Ah I see what you mean. Was kind of hard to confirm either way from watching the demo footage thus far, although it does seem to be sticking to the standard TW style of doing things. Either way, I don't think the big HP pools will be that significant though. Especially considering how quickly a single unit of slayers was able to bring down a giant.

I really hope the likes of Tilea and Araby make it in. Now that the Warhammer Fantasy setting was destroyed, our only chance of factions and areas such as those getting expanded on is in video games.

Yeah would be cool if GW gave them the greenlight to expand on those factions and give them actual armies. Hopefully they'll at least be able to include the dogs of war units in some fashion since a lot of them are from the smaller states.


Also heads up for anyone in Australia going to PAX Aus this year, they've announced the Dwarf demo will be playable on the show floor: http://i.imgur.com/OUrVg2F.jpg?1

 

[Kahani]

Looks good. I didn't really like the last couple of Total War games, especially Rome 2, but that's mainly because it just felt too cartoony and dumbed down compared to the older games. And cartoony and dumbed down is exactly what you want for Warhammer when you're filling the game with deliberately over the top silliness rather than trying to be historically accurate.

Ever since Total War games first appeared I've wanted to see a "Warhammer Fantasy" version

Are you sure you don't have that backwards? Because "Shadow of the Horned Rat" was already a Warhammer version of Total War 5 years before the latter existed. Total War turned the campaign map into a turn-based strategy rather than the more story-oriented one in SofHR, but the actual battles are essentially identical.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

I really hope the likes of Tilea and Araby make it in. Now that the Warhammer Fantasy setting was destroyed, our only chance of factions and areas such as those getting expanded on is in video games.

It would be nice to see that, but I think the odds of that happening are slim to none; if we're really lucky, they'll appear as individual mercenaries you can recruit. (and if they don't call their mercenaries "Dogs of War" I'll be miffed).

As that combat wrapped up, my reinforcements arrived in the form of dwarf Gyrocopters. I'd been trepidatious about flying units in a Total War game, but they felt right at home. In a much more traditional RTS maneuver, they even had an ability that was skill and timing based: dropping bombs. I quickly ran them off to take care of the goblin-launching doom diver catapults that had been harrying my army. Once their marker was over the enemy, I dropped a volley of bombs, immediately routing my enemy's artillery. I dropped another volley, and that was it. I was out of bombs, leaving the copters with their rapid-firing and not nearly as entertaining steam guns.

Is there an automated toggle for that? The thing about Total War games that I like is that you can tell people to do something, then go somewhere else on the battlefield, and they'll still do it. I don't want to micromanage my units and advance the combat by seconds until they are in the optimal firing position (for example, you can organize a bunch of units to fire a volley, or just have them shoot when able and leave them to their business).

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Is there an automated toggle for that? The thing about Total War games that I like is that you can tell people to do something, then go somewhere else on the battlefield, and they'll still do it. I don't want to micromanage my units and advance the combat by seconds until they are in the optimal firing position (for example, you can organize a bunch of units to fire a volley, or just have them shoot when able and leave them to their business).

I can't answer that for sure, but specifically regarding the helicopters, in Angry Joe's playthrough he did the same thing, the dev missed his first bombing run and explained that you needed the markers (which Joe had got him to turn off) to aim the bombs properly. Then in Joe's turn he was advising him of the best places to drop his bombs. I suppose there might be an option to automate, but it looks like the idea is to take control yourself and drop the bombs to maximum effect, as you only have 2 bombs per gyrocopter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvOZEj6VaiE