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 Orlanth wrote:
I really hope Alith Anar is a warband lord, it would make a fun addition and make him very special.

It makes sense for that character. Alith Anar should not have a starting settlement, he should have no settlements at all, that is for other Asur.

He starts with three settlements; one in the Shadowlands and two in Naggaroth near Karond Kar.

I am way to excited for Alith Anar. The downside being, when he is released I leave the house for 10 days.

I think the secret DE monster coming for DLC is a pretty cheap marketing ploy. Why not just tell people what they're buying. Lootbox roulette isn't a good color for CA. Rest looks decent, just sad that Lizardmen are going to end up waiting almost a full year for even a new flc lord.

It’s hardly a lootbox. When it’s out everyone will immediately know what it is. Just a bit of mystery hype.

I feel its poor sport trying to get people to pre order the dlc by dangling something in front of them that might be a unit. Knowing that the original response to the dlc was bad, the promise was added very late, as it wasn't included in the leak.

When they first let people know they did not say if it was part of the dlc or even a unit. Why not just let people know what they are buying instead of having them take a gamble?

So wait to see what it is if it’s a deal breaker? I don’t see why it’s worth getting worked up about. ‘People thought the pack was a bit light, lets add something to it as a surprise’. *gamers get torches and pitchforks over the surprise addition*

Well call me cynical, but its the kind of thing I think they should let people know before they put up a pre order. I am waiting it out, but I feel its bad practice and point out it is. People doing that is exactly why they had to add something in the first place.

It's doing exactly what its intended to do - got you all talking about it. A mystery generates far more discussion than actual knowing. So in the run up to launch its an ideal option!

You can bet that near launch the lets-play early birds will reveal it (or enough hints) and at launch itself it will be revealed

Evidently it is less than the focus of the pack, if you like the revealed contents you can know there is an additional feature you will be getting as 'bonus'.
It is a valid marketing tool, and nt dishonest.

It just behooves us to add up what we can see add blank for what we cannot and judge if we want to buy.

So long as you understood from day one that you are likely to need to drop the best part of £200 or equivalent on this game by the time its done.
It has been clear this game will be multi volume with additional DLC, right from the pre release of the first game. We know it was going to be big and CA wanted to cover pretty much all the published lore and likely more.

Commit yourself to pay up for the whole lot or give up ASAP and save your money, this game as broad as it is intended is getting more and more expensive as it gets bigger and more diverse, only you can decide if it is worth it.

 Overread wrote:
It's doing exactly what its intended to do - got you all talking about it. A mystery generates far more discussion than actual knowing. So in the run up to launch its an ideal option!

You can bet that near launch the lets-play early birds will reveal it (or enough hints) and at launch itself it will be revealed

I assume it won't be ready at launch. 2 weeks is an awfully short time to implement a whole new unit. More likely we will get a reveal with a later implementation date.


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 Orlanth wrote:
Evidently it is less than the focus of the pack, if you like the revealed contents you can know there is an additional feature you will be getting as 'bonus'.
It is a valid marketing tool, and nt dishonest.

I'm judging it based on the contents of the previous lord packs. Based on pricing its not a 'bonus' but a requirement to get it up to the level of the asking price. I lile the series and love warhammer, but I wasn't going the buy the dlc without this, because less content for the same price is not very consumer friendly imo.

They haven't used this tool before. Half of me thinks they kept it a mystery because they themselves wanted to keep their options open for whichever DE monster is easier to make with what is in game.

I suspect its made and ready go to they are just hiding it - keeping it secret for marketing purposes. Trying to shoe-horn in a new unit in a two weeks up to launch wouldn't be the best of ideas nor would it be to release a DLC with future content coming later.

Instead it will likely appear at launch its just a mystery now. If you trust CA then you can pre order without worry; if not then just wait for the launch. Pre order discounts normally run fairly well during a launch week also (esp on many 3rd party sites like Fanatical) and asides the discount on most lower end DLC is very minor (often only a few pennies not even a whole pound).

 Overread wrote:
I suspect its made and ready go to they are just hiding it - keeping it secret for marketing purposes. Trying to shoe-horn in a new unit in a two weeks up to launch wouldn't be the best of ideas nor would it be to release a DLC with future content coming later.

Instead it will likely appear at launch its just a mystery now. If you trust CA then you can pre order without worry; if not then just wait for the launch. Pre order discounts normally run fairly well during a launch week also (esp on many 3rd party sites like Fanatical) and asides the discount on most lower end DLC is very minor (often only a few pennies not even a whole pound).

I mean the fact that they call it post release content and don't include it in the info on what will release on the 31st says a bit. There is no confirmation of it being a unit or releasing on the 31st. In fact, the community manager Grace stated the secret won't come on the 31st.

Grace_CA
it's definitely after the 31st. it's not on release day

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/8kzga5/comment/dzbqrwm

Ahh I don't lurk reddit enough and missed that

i just wanna know when the freaking Ogres are gonna get added?

 Grey Templar wrote:
i just wanna know when the freaking Ogres are gonna get added?

Third game. They're way off the eastern edge of the map for the ME campaign, and no place at all in the vortex campaign.

Rather than a lot of dlc for this one, I'd rather they got right on three, which will hopefully focus on Daemons, ogres and chaos dwarves. (Maybe Kislev to round things out?)
And hopefully daemons as four separate god themed armies rather than the large chunk approach for daemons of chaos, the 'universal army but not' we saw in army books.

No idea how they'll get a coherent campaign out of that, though. The way they sliced up the factions is a little odd, and there isnt a major protagonist/victim faction leftover for game three.

But the ME equivalent could easily stretch to the ogres' mountains.

Ogre tribes occasionally migrate to the old world. They could be like chaos and have no settlements. There is plenty of ability for them to be in the game right now.

They could of course. But its incredibly unlikely they add them now as game 3 is going to add their homeland. They could have added Lizardmen or Dark Elves to game 1 with lore justification.

Also I hope they add Kislev. It would be nice to play the first bulwark against chaos instead of elector count daycare for a change.

The chatter in the period between two's official announcement and when it was released was that the third game would focus on the four Chaos Powers. I'm not sure where that leaves the Ogres, though. And of course that chatter is public chatter, so it's not necessarily endorsed by CA.


There is a big chunk of land off the eastern edge of the map. It's questionable how much is actually out there, but it does exist. The Ogres, Chaos Dwarves, and some Skaven settlements fill the area out. And adding it would put in a huge new complication for the Dwarves (who currently start the game secure in the knowledge that no one will attack them from the east).

I don't if anybody remembers Medieval Total War2, but anybody who does might recall the Mongol and Timurid factions. They didn't start the game in play, instead they showed up at random times on the eastern edge of the map with massive armies.

Ogres could be a similar thing, and if you chose them as a player faction you just start the game having shown up. And they could use the Horde mechanic that Chaos uses, with maybe the option to settle in settlements if desired. Which is how Horde mechanics worked in Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion where the Horde mechanic was first introduced into the game system. Certain factions could choose to abandon their last settlement and become a horde, or would be forced to if they lost their last settlement, and if they conquered a new settlement they had the option to settle and revert to normal mechanics or just sack the place and continue on.

I don't if this would really complicate things for the Dwarf faction though. They're already facing enemies on 3 sides pretty much to begin with, especially on the new map.

Eumerin wrote:
The chatter in the period between two's official announcement and when it was released was that the third game would focus on the four Chaos Powers. I'm not sure where that leaves the Ogres, though. And of course that chatter is public chatter, so it's not necessarily endorsed by CA.

That early Russian leak of the world map was accurate. If you look at ME the eastern part seems to already exist, just blocked off. Its unlikely CA will go further north. Plus if it is 4 chaos factions they still need around 2 race packs so Ogres are certainly coming at some point.


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 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't if anybody remembers Medieval Total War2, but anybody who does might recall the Mongol and Timurid factions. They didn't start the game in play, instead they showed up at random times on the eastern edge of the map with massive armies.

Ogres could be a similar thing, and if you chose them as a player faction you just start the game having shown up. And they could use the Horde mechanic that Chaos uses, with maybe the option to settle in settlements if desired. Which is how Horde mechanics worked in Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion where the Horde mechanic was first introduced into the game system. Certain factions could choose to abandon their last settlement and become a horde, or would be forced to if they lost their last settlement, and if they conquered a new settlement they had the option to settle and revert to normal mechanics or just sack the place and continue on.

I don't if this would really complicate things for the Dwarf faction though. They're already facing enemies on 3 sides pretty much to begin with, especially on the new map.

You could have said like the Warriors of Chaos They use the same Timurid/Mongol delay mechanic until around turn 100.

As for Ogres, the horde and settled approach would be great for their semi nomadic lifestyle. But they would probably have some penalty build in to force you to use it if they go for that. I don't know if they are going for that though. It would have been perfect for Orcs too.

As for Dwarfs, they will be fine, their troops are good enough to fight off eastern factions by the time they can realistically reach them.

I seriously doubt they'd add ogres to TW2 though, as they're way off the map for the vortex campaign.

They're adding norsca out of obligation (despite the programing nightmare they created for themselves) as the promised to bring over all the tw1 races, but their focus is not the mortal empires mode.

Norsca isn't just out of obligation; the whole structure of the Warhammer TW games is that each content you buy carries over. IT's what's allowed them to split the game in an effective main game and then two stand alone releases thereafter.

They've got to have Norsca along with the other races otherwise it would demolish potential sales of Warhammer 3; esp as TW Warhammer 3 should, in theory, have more sales since its the final chapter and any who have sat out of buying Warhammer 2 would be more likely to jump in then and get Warhammer 3 (and pick up 2 at discount - esp if 2goes the same way as 1 and gets into humble bundle and the like).

Norsca was a mistake in how they added them into the first game; but then again they've never done game to game DLC cross-overs like this before; so there's likely been a learning curve of things they didn't expect going on. If anything its probably helped them in preparation for Warhammer 3

That sounds exactly like obligation to me. (Though i doubt it would have terribly ruinous effects on three)

The lesson was to have more communication between parallel development teams. The norsca team made a lot of weird work arounds to get norsca to function, and the TW2 scrapped and created an entirely new database structure. The two sets of changes couldn't be reconciled.

Hopefully three will focus on optimization rather than reworking the software at the base level , so whatever remaining dlc for 2 doesnt run into the same problem.

Ogre are a core army so they will be implemented, somehow.

Game 3 will be focused on daemons, and likely as four factions, but also at marked mortal units, also likely segregated.

Factional infighting will need to be central to daemon play as the greatest threats to the four chaos gods are each other, not the mortal factions.

Ogres may be central to the third game along with the eastern map, or they may be DLC. Chaos Dwarfs are likely because they are inbetween.

Kislev and Araby are maybes at best, though I would like to see both.

Should Ca and SEGA want even more money they could extend the map further include Cathay, Ind and Nippon and the Chaos horse tribes. This could go as far as a fourth main game, this way with much of the work done already by adding skulls at al to historical and quasi historical units.

I would love to see four main games done in this manner, the game would then cover the entire Warhammer world, they could even have the west an eastern map edges meet. We have no scale of the not-Pacific, there is no Oz, Nippon might be close to Lustria, allowing for clan Eshins travels this might even be likely.

Agree.. I hope CA do not stop with game 3.

The big question is how can they go on from 3. Whilst they could do a 4th with the same engine or do more DLC factions and add in the Amazon, Nippon and others that GW never really developed (or in the case of Araby, only in Warmaster).


After that I'd expect their name game to be Sigmar. It fits with the "end of the world" type message they've got in their own game and it also ties in nicely with what GW is doing now. For all the love of the old world it makes sense to follow through and come into Sigmar. It also means that they can redo the game engine and restart the pattern of armies being released bit by bit - otherwise they'd have more trouble doing a Warhammer Total War MK2 with less armies in the first version (gamers have this irrational expectation that each game in a series will always have more than the previous even if the new game reworks things in such a way that each army added is a lot more work to achieve)

A total warhammer 4 would involve a new license agreement. A reboot would be more likely, and unless they magic up really strong data from... somewhere, from a GW perspective linking it to AoS with a new Total Sigmar game is a better business decision.

Walk the TW fan base to sigmar through a new game, and hook them up to the current product line. Yes, they would lose people. But continually referencing their ex-product line makes little marketing sense.


Nippon and Cathay (and Araby) are really unlikely as GW owns basically nothing. Its all pure historical expies that they currently avoid like the plague, as they can't put meaningful IP claims on any of it.

Using existing assets from CA's historical titles makes this worse from GW's perspective, not better. These are licensed titles after all

 Orlanth wrote:
I really hope Alith Anar is a warband lord, it would make a fun addition and make him very special.

It makes sense for that character. Alith Anar should not have a starting settlement, he should have no settlements at all, that is for other Asur.

Did you read End Times: Khaine?

Alith Anar apparently had a massive encampment/settlement in the Shadowlands. Soldiers, families, the whole shebang.

 Overread wrote:
The big question is how can they go on from 3. Whilst they could do a 4th with the same engine or do more DLC factions and add in the Amazon, Nippon and others that GW never really developed (or in the case of Araby, only in Warmaster).


After that I'd expect their name game to be Sigmar. It fits with the "end of the world" type message they've got in their own game and it also ties in nicely with what GW is doing now. For all the love of the old world it makes sense to follow through and come into Sigmar. It also means that they can redo the game engine and restart the pattern of armies being released bit by bit - otherwise they'd have more trouble doing a Warhammer Total War MK2 with less armies in the first version (gamers have this irrational expectation that each game in a series will always have more than the previous even if the new game reworks things in such a way that each army added is a lot more work to achieve)

They could release another full trilogy just detailing the parts of the world that GW barely touched - Araby, Ind, Kuresh, Cathay, Nippon, Elithis, and the Dragon Isles all have room for at least one and in most cases several factions. Also, for a company until now largely focused on historical games, Sigmar makes a lot less sense to me than doing Time of Legends stuff, maybe in the style of their "more focused" format like the new Thrones of Britannia game - Rise of Nagash in pre-mummified Nehekara, the proper "Age of Sigmar" ie Warhammer Fantasy: Dark Ages, the War of Vengeance for a non-human-centric storyline, the Black Plague in 1111-IC. If they do decide to carry on making TWWH games, there's a couple of decades worth of material there easy.

Also, Age of Sigmar as an IP seems like a poor fit with the Total War formula. Its deliberate lack of meaningful boundaries & borders and nebulous factions as opposed to a defined map on a human-comprehensible scale and strongly characterised nation states mean they would essentially have to create all the specific subfactions and places themselves from scratch in the same way ordinary fans have to if they want WHF-esque levels of detail, or else radically depart from the things that make Total War games Total War games. AoS seems like an IP much better suited to Dawn of War 2-style RPG/RTS hybrids where your dudes can be the Big Damn Heroes, rather than a low-complexity grand strategy overlay feeding into pseudo-medieval huge army-clashing tactical battles.

That said, I don't expect they'd be allowed to continue after the third game anyway unless they were willing to AoS-ify things. GW may be completely uncoordinated when it comes to cross-promotion, but even they can't have failed to notice how successful the TWWH games have been, and given the attitudes on display from their writers and full-tilt backing of AoS with the 2.0 update, they won't want WHF squatting at the side providing an alternative.

Sigmar also works to CA's benefit; the rejuggling of all the factions means that they've got a lot more potential to re-release the armies for the game without the "OMG why does this AoS 1 game have only 4 factions - the original game had like 50 I should have 50 in this gme at full price" backlash (sure it will still happen but it will mostly be limited to just hte trolls).


Even if Sigma as a game isn't trying to do rank and file the setting still has rank and file armies; just like how Warhammer 40K doesn't have legions on the table even though the setting has them in most wars. So they can still keep rank and file and the overall asthetic.

Heck who knows GW could be smart and bundle it with a "Sigmar Rank and File" expansion rules set with movement trays with round slots in them for putting the models in