Your empire has risen from the ashes and become strong. Your allies know your prowess in combat, your enemies have felt your wrath, and your people have grown to love you. Peace has begun to resume over the lands, but as of today, that is all changing. A dull roar has come from the countryside as your soldiers take to battle against the vampires, the elves, and even the dwarves. As the Beastmen, you will undertake their Grand Campaign, custom games, and multiplayer battles, with the experience of their own story mission Campaign titled “An Eye for an Eye”.
The Beastmen are the masters of guerilla warfare, they strike fast, hard, and ambush their enemies when the chances provide. Their prowess with weapons is irrefutable as they send chaotic magic ahead to doom their enemies. These magics were only told of from The Lore of the Wild. When their combat ends? They will vanish once more into the safety of the forests. Their Beastmen Grand Campaign may be led by two of their famous Legendary Lards from the Warhammer Fantasy Battles. The first is Khazrak The One Eye and Malagor The Dark Omen. Each of these leaders, much like the others, comes with their own quest-chains, and even an new starting positions for their Grand Campaigns. Their warriors are unique, hideos, and filled with Centigors, Minotaurs, and the devastating Cygor.
With the support of the ongoing free content program that is on-going with the game, Call of the Beastmen also brings in the Amber Wizard hero for all players to use, even if they didn’t purchase the DLC. This wizard can utilize the power of the Lore of the Beasts by summoning Manticores directly into battle to chain the odds into their favor. Want to know how the DLC looks?
As part of Total War: WARHAMMER’s ongoing free content program,Call of the Beastmen also introduces the Amber Wizard hero for all players, regardless of purchase. Wielding the Lore of Beasts, the Amber Wizard can summon wild Manticores into the thick of battle. For another look at the game, check out the battle video here. The DLC can be purchased via Steam at http://store.steampowered.com/app/404012/
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
Once a proud and strong race, the ancient Eldar brought a terrible curse upon themselves, one that caused them to no longer rule the stars, but also one that caused them to be divided from the empire forever. Struggling with both against the dying of the light, and even ongoing wars that require their remaining few forces to face off against the gravest of threats, the Eldar find themselves fighting for their planet Arkhona, one that will decide their face as a failure of the Eternal Crusade could lead to their very loss of existence.
For those unfamiliar, Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is a massively multiplayer third person shooter (MMOTPS) developed by Behaviour Interactive that currently features four factions: Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Eldar, and the Orks. These factions all must deploy on tactical terms using strategy and cunning as they assault strongholds, defend their outposts, and delve deep within the Underworld to take on the hordes of Tyranids that seek to destroy everything. As players work in harming together, they will conquer on and off battlefields to advance their faction goals and to reign supreme over their enemies.
Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade will be available on the PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One system, and Steam for PC. It is currently available on Steam via Early Access. Stay tuned for our continued coverage of the game.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
Pros: +Depicts the Warhammer universe in an immaculate manner
+Mod support works greatly since launch
+Online multiplayer is challenging, fun, and keeps the game functionally alive
+Amazing combat rendering for each faction
+Extremely easy to navigate and moderate active mods through the launcher.
+Runs amazing even on lower spec computers
Cons: -Can be complicated for beginners to learn even with tutorials
When you think of strategy games what do you think of? Some may think of games such as Starcraft, X-Com: Declassified, Warcraft, Total War, Age of Empires, and many others when it comes to the famed genre. When you ask me? I think of even older games, ones like Sid Civilization or Missionforce: Cyberstorm. However, none of these games truly have the depth of Total War: Warhammer, but this one isn’t the usual for the franchise. Known for its historic approach to events of true history and an approach to some of the worlds most interesting conflicts, Total War: Warhammer takes away from events such as the era of the Shogun and Napoleon Bonapartes greatest achievements in history.
Created by the masterminds behind the Total War franchise and even Halo Wars, Creative Assembly has created a solid franchise, one that fits a specific niche for some gamers, and continues to do great at it. With this latest expansion, they’ve done something astounding, and followed lore many Warhammer fans have come to know as well as love in the fantasy universe. For many of us, we know the Warhammer franchise hasn’t had the best of all records with games such as Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, which lost sight of its source material and aimed to create an epic adventure in the renowned science fiction universe. While we’ve seen other games that have taken this route, the series has had a bit of a rocky road, but thanks to Creative Assembly, it seems that bit of unfortunate circumstances has been turned around as of late.
Hardware Used for the Review: Asus RoG G53SX-DH71 Gaming Laptop (External Link to Asus RoG Website) Windows 10 Premium – 64-bit
1920 x 1080 resolution screen
8GB DDR4 RAM
1TB 7200RPM HDD with a 1TB 7200RPM Backup HDD
Nvidia GTX 560M 2GB
As a series that has been always evolving and making itself stronger, Total War hasn’t stopped itself from doing so even with its latest endeavor into the tabletop universe that has taken the world by storm for well over two decades. For my campaign? I couldn’t resist taking on the gameplay of the worlds adventurous as well as opportunistic Vampires. While I’d have loved to take to playing as the Dark Elves, Elves or Skaven, I was quite content with the selection that was made possible. While Vampire Counts is by far my favourite, I was quite content seeing Dwarves being one of my largest opponents even though they quickly became a nuisance.
One of the most admirable parts of the game is the gameplay itself where the game focuses heavily upon regiments and their strategy. Something that ties almost perfectly with the tabletop game where the rules are implemented as if they were made just for Total War. As one would expect, the veterans to the franchise would find themselves at a bit of an advantage due to their knowledge of unit times as well as what they will contend best against in real-time combat be it in large groups or individual battles.
The one thing that may take them for a bit of a spin is the games required maintenance for their empire as they take on their enemies. Because of this players will find themselves carefully recruiting, filling in defenses, but also bargaining for truces with enemy factions. This can include the factions players can choose from such as the Human Empire, Vampire Counts, Chaos Warriors (available as a pre-order bonus for pre-order folks or as an optional DLC) as well Orks and Goblins.
Total War: Warhammer – PC (Reviewed) Developer: Creative Assembly Publisher: Sega Price: $59.99 USD Released: Available Now
While one would expect them all to play the same, it’s actually not the case here, as each has their own strengths, weaknesses, and even their own resources needed to keep their factions alive. Some may take on larger infantry scales as the Human Empire or the terrifying Terrorgheists and monstrosities of skeletons from the Vampire Counts. Others may see magic become a lacking feature of the Dwarves focus more on combat prowess as well as their capability of controlling the battlefield the best they can. While it’d been interesting to see the nimble yet cunning races such as the Elves in or the terrifying Skaven taking to the battlefield, players won’t be disappointed when they see what Creative Assembly has brought to life even if their faction didn’t make the games initial cut. As someone who has played plenty of Warhammer games such as Dawn of War, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, it’s hard to not say this game isn’t near-perfect as a deep and complex empire building title with its strategy focus for combat, but also; the best Total War game I’ve played to date. This has easily taken the spot from Total War: Shogun 2. You can be guaranteed our review will get updated over time as we experience more and more with it.
Our review is based on a copy provided to us by the games publisher. For information about our ethics policy please clickhere.
Final Score: 9 out of 10
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
If you’re a modder and love to put out new content for P.C. games, Total War: WARHAMMER has had its latest announcement unveiled, which is full mod support and Steam Workshop support that will allow for you, the modders, the fans, and the gamers to enjoy content created by your fellow gamers. With this announcement, Creative Assembly has announced they will have both an Assembly Kit and Steam Workshop support setup so that the game will be ready on launch. Additionally the development team will also be assisting some modders in readying day one mods for those wanting some created content.
While it was initially announced that the game would not benefit from the official mod support and Workshop Support, the development team and Games Workshop both have worked away on the paperwork so that the much-in-demand fan feature could be come a reality. What does this mean for you? You’ll be able to visit the official Total War: WARHAMMER workshop, browse, follow, discuss, and even install mods straight from Steam, as well as access and manage them from within the games Total War Mod Manager within the game itself. Is that not enough? Of course not! The Assembly Kit will be officially released as a “modding tool box” that will be released with the Database Editor and BOB for modifying and exporting database tables as well as campaign start positions. They also are aiming to add further functionality including battle map editing later int he year.
Additionally, attendee’s to Creative Assembly’s Mod Summits over the last three years will be getting some early access codes to the game in order to help populate the Steam Workshop starting from day one. Also, well-known modders such as Magnar and Dresden will receive specific help from the development team at Creative Assembly in order to produce some unique mods of theirs. This means Magnar is creating a Legendary Lord Start Position Mod that will introduce new start positions from Race Leaders while Dresden is working on a Regional Occupation Mod, which alters settlement rules to enable each race to settle every and any region they want.
With this announcement, the enabling of Steam Workshop has allowed the DotA2 Team at Valve to announce they will be accepting submissions for a new “Warhammer” themed treasure to mark the release of the game. With all these announcements there is one last new one. Those that want to pre-order trough steam can get some unique little goodies to read up on: http://blog.dota2.com/2016/04/warhammer-comes-to-the-dota-2-workshop/
Total War: WARHAMMER is the first fantasy title to entire the Total War franchise when it releases on May 24th, 2016 through steam for PC. You can tune into their channel on Twitch to look at the Greenskins campaign today: twitch.tv/totalwarofficial .
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
You may be familiar with Creative Assembly. Many of you know them for their help on games such as DOOM, Halo 4, and their upcoming title Total War: WARHAMMER, which features gameplay based on the fantasy settings of WARHAMMER. The team has announced that for the first week of the games launch, players who buy it within that week or have it pre-ordered will get the Chaos Warriors Race Pack free of charge. This sale will only take place for the first week, however.
“The Chaos Warriors have proven to be hugely popular” said Creative Director, Mike Simpson “and, by extending the deadline for getting them for free by a week, we can ensure loyal fans who don’t feel like pre-ordering don’t miss out, while still rewarding early adopters whose support is really valuable to us.”
“We’re really confident in the game and with the community backing us so strongly this should be the biggest launch for Total War ever.” he continued to state.
For those that pre-order from a local retailer, they will continue to offer the DLC for free for that first week, and will even have a free period that ends at 10:00amPDT/18:00BST on May 31st, 2016. So this means grab the content while you can so you don’t miss out.
For those of you wanting to check out the trailer for them, you can check it out below. Stay tuned for more information as we receive it.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.
