Welcome to my blog. Today’s article will be a Total War Warhammer Immortal Empires review and why I think it’s up there as the best Warhammer game ever.
Now very recently, due to popular appeal Creative Assembly decided to make the Immortal Empires campaign available to owners of Total War Warhammer 3.
This is awesome, as you had to buy the previous two games to access the Immortal Empires campaign, which would have been great for CA but would have stopped many people from playing the campaign.
The great thing now is that you don’t need to own the previous two games, and you can buy the individual DLC for the last two games to unlock the lords/factions that you want to use for the Immortal Empires campaign.
Well, enough about that. Onto the review. If you looking for a guide to Total War Warhammer 3 you can find it here: Total War Warhammer 3 Guide
Also, the affiliate link to purchase Total War Warhammer 3 from Steam is here: https://sovrn.co/vouhli4
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Introduction to Total War Warhammer Immortal Empires
So the review will cover the following.
- Overview of the game
- Turn-based or RTS (Real Time Strategy)
- Lore and Factions
- Conclusion
Overview of Total War Warhammer Immortal Empires
So Total War Warhammer Immortal Empires is, in my opinion, one of the best Total War games ever because of its lore which is fantastic and a sore point that Games Workshop discontinued the setting.
So basically, Total War Warhammer is a 4X strategy game combined with an RPG where you start the game at war with another faction and have different victory conditions to complete to finish the campaign.
Now each faction has three sets of short, long and ultimate victory conditions. Now the short victory conditions aren’t fast to complete and can take longer to the point that I think I have only ever met short victory twice and never in Immortal Empire.
That is the game’s charm because you can decide not to bother with the victory conditions and have fun conquering.
So, in my opinion, it’s excellent that CA created a game based on the Warhammer Fantasy setting (the setting for the game). The game world is vast and alive, and the factions are incredibly different from each other than in the other Total War games I have played.
Now this game is not easy at all, even on normal difficulty. If you are not careful, you can end up with too many factions waging war on you, putting yourself in an unwinnable war. Luckily, it’s easy to save scum, but you must pull out all the tricks in the book to win this one.
Now the map is enormous, and it’s insane how big this map is. The amount of factions is insane, as I have played this game for 195 hours and still haven’t used most of the lords, and there are still factions I haven’t played much.
So basically, the game involves raising armies and capturing settlements to build more income-producing buildings to build bigger and better armies. One very cool thing is your diversity in terms of army options, even in the same faction.
So when you start the game, you get to choose one of the legendary lords to begin with, and each legendary lord not only has the skill tree that allows them to take on more skill as they level up, but you also have a technology tree as well.
The combination of these allows for some exciting and unique combinations. For instance, you might be playing a faction focusing on ambushing enemies with powerful combat troops so they don’t have time to shoot you with artillery.
The diversity of options and play styles in this game based on faction and lord are incredible but be aware that this game is all about combat as there is no science win here as you win by conquering and making alliances.
Turn-based or RTS?
So like all of the Total War games, this game combines turn-based campaign movement with real-time battles, which I think is a superb system.
I don’t want to disparage these games, but I am not a big fan of RTS games like Starcraft, as I love playing the campaign. I am not a big fan of multiplayer because it revolves around being able to press keys of the keyboard fast and build orders rather than strategy.
That’s why I think the Total War Games are the perfect combination of the two, as you will have natural formation like you would expect in a real war when you play battle, which allows you to set- up your formation before the action starts and then you start the battle which is then real-time.
Overall, I think it’s a great system. As much as I like turn-based battle games having that real-time battles while having the campaign map and income-producing being simple makes this the best of both worlds.
You have the turn-based style of a Civilisation game combined with real-time battles, which I think is a great mix.
The one thing that I will say is that for most factions, civilisation management is quite simple, so if you’re expecting the complexity of, say, a Civilisation game, this isn’t for you.
Lore and Factions
So now, in our Total War Warhammer Immortal Empires review, we come to lore and factions. The story is what makes this game so awesome. Games Workshop invented Warhammer Fantasy (the game’s setting) in the 80s.
And the lore was being updated till 2015. That means there are almost 40 years of story. So basically, in the world, we can divide all the factions into four groups.
- Forces of Order
- Forces of Chaos
- Forces of Destruction
- Neutral Factions
Forces of Order
Now the Forces of Order represent the good guys, well, sort of. These are the factions that want civilisation to continue in the Warhammer world and it consists of the following factions:
- Empire
- Dwarfs
- Bretonnia
- Wood Elves
- High Elves
- Lizardmen
- Kislev
- Cathay
Empire
The Empire is one of the world’s largest empires, consisting of most humans and is one of the most technologically advanced factions in the game, including being able to field guns, cannons and tanks that run on steam.
In terms of how they play, they are one of the most well-rounded factions in the game, but their artillery, ranged troops and cavalry are where they shine.
Dwarfs
The Dwarfs are your typical fantasy dwarfs that want to do nothing but stay in the mountain and mine gold, and they are also pretty technologically advanced and hard to kill.
The dwarfs have tough troops even at the early level and have access to fantastic ranged units and artillery. Still, they are primarily a defensive army because of how slow their units are and having no cavalry.
Bretonnia
Bretonnia is my favourite faction, and they are another human race but less technologically advanced than the empire, but they are all about knights and Arthurian mythology.
If you were to take King Arthur and make him French, you would have Bretonnia, and they have some of the most powerful knights in the game.
In terms of how they play, they have average to weak infantry backed up by many knight units, including flying knights, which are fantastic for flank attacks or going over armies to get at wizards.
The Wood Elves
The Wood Elves are a group of xenophobic elves that decided to stay in the Old World (what the lands of the Empire and Bretonnia are part of) after a war between the High Elves and the Dwarfs.
They inhabit the magical forest of Athel Loren to the south of Bretonnia and are good allies of the Bretonnians in the lore (not in the game so much), but they don’t like people entering their forests.
The campaign is all about restoring the magic forests around the world.
Their forces are a mix of forest elves who love to run and gun with their sturdy bows and tree spirits that don’t damage much in combat. Their troops are all about quality over quantity.
High Elves
The High Elves are the next race and the cousins of the Wood Elves. The High Elves are entirely different from the Wood Elves in that they are arrogant and haughty and think theirs is the best civilisation ever.
It was the High Elf Teclis that taught the humans of the empire about magic, and that was four thousand years ago Teclis is still alive and kicking and looks young, and you can play as him in the game.
The High Elves have access to the lore of high magic, and the other eight the empire can use are some of the most powerful wizards in the world.
The High Elves love political intrigue and can use it in-game to influence other factions, potentially starting wars between two factions and using intrigue to better heroes.
In terms of how they play, they are also a very well-balanced faction and have a lot of combined arms, troops, spearmen, cavalry and chariots and also access to Dragons, so they are very similar to the Empire in terms of their balanced play style.
Lizardmen
The Old Ones bred the Lizardmen(reptilian creatures) to combat the forces of Chaos (who were killed by Chaos) and have some of the most powerful magic users in the game: the Slann Mage-Priests that rival the High Elves in terms of magical ability.
In-game, their armies consist of a powerful front line of Saurus warriors, many monsters and skinks (the weakest of lizardmen that also make up the majority of their ranged troops)
Kislev
Kislev is another human race northeast of the empire and is generally the front line defending against Chaos. You can think of them as a combination of Pre-Soviet Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.
In the game, they use ice magic, lots of hybrid ranged-melee troops that can shoot and fight in close combat combined with some rugged cavalry and the occasional monster here and there. And they have Winged Hussars (for those history buffs)
Cathay
Cathay is the last of the forces of order which appear in this game after not appearing in the tabletop game.
Their leaders are immortal dragons that can turn into human form and represent ancient China.
In the game, they use combined arms tactics to have an excellent front line of infantry that are good at holding the line while their ranged troops do all the damage.
They also have very little in the way of cavalry and so heavily really on the combined arms approach.
Also, the affiliate link to purchase Total War Warhammer 3 from Steam is here: https://sovrn.co/vouhli4
Force of Chaos
Now we come to the forces of Chaos, and if you have never played Warhammer Fantasy or Total Warhammer before, this will require some explanation.
So while it is possible to say that in the Warhammer world, there are many mighty evil factions, Chaos is one of the most powerful. Still, luckily for the Forces of Order, they usually spend most of their time fighting against each other.
The Faction of Chaos are:
- Khorne
- Slannesh
- Nurgle
- Tzeentch
- Daemons of Chaos
- Warrior of Chaos
- Chaos Dwarfs
Khorne
Khorne is the chaos god manifestation of anger, rage and warfare and is all about combat and war. He despises magic and thus hates the other Chaos God, Tzeentch, who is the god of magic and manipulation.
In the game, they have access to powerful melee units, cavalry and monsters and have very little in the way of ranged units. As a result, they have a straightforward rush play style, so if you want to do nothing but fight in close combat, they are the faction for you.
Slaanesh
Slaanesh is the chaos god of excess and seduction and the youngest of the Chaos Gods. In the game, they can seduce enemy units in an enemy army to fight for them and create cults to subjugate other factions.
In battle, they have a mix of light armoured but hard-hitting and fast-moving units combined with chaos warriors and marauders whose job is to hold the line. In contrast, the fast-moving elements get flank charges, and many of their teams have the devastating flanker attribute.
The devastating flanker attributes double charge damage when that unit charges an enemy unit from the side or the back, which is a powerful ability for the cavalry. Also almost no ranged options
Nurgle
Nurgle is the chaos god of plagues, despair and resilience. He often gets followers by people praying to him to end their suffering by making them immune to pain and disease at the price of spreading the plague themselves.
In the campaign, he can create numerous plagues to affect other factions. In battle, his units are incredibly resilient and difficult to kill, including even his base unit nurglings which are extremely difficult to eradicate. They rely on attrition-based warfare to defeat the enemy while healing their troops.
Tzeentch
Tzeentch is the Chaos God of magic, manipulation and change. The exact opposite of Khorne as where Khorne is direct, Tzeentch is indirect.
In the campaign, they can use their powers to reveal a faction’s intentions, transfer settlements to another faction, halt a faction from doing anything and do other things using special abilities related to manipulation and scheming
In battle, they have many ranged units combined with tough front-line infantry, cavalry (including flying cavalry) and monsters. All their units have a magical barrier that acts as a secondary health bar that the enemy must deplete before the unit takes damage.
They also can access an insane amount of magic, primarily due to the tech and skill trees, so if you like magic, this faction is for you.
Daemons of Chaos
In the Daemons of Chaos faction, you play as a Daemon Prince who is trying to gain more and more power by pleasing the Chaos gods and waging war in their name.
In the campaign, they get access to various powers based on which gods they get favour with and can change their loadout depending on whether they get blessings from Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaanesh of Chaos Undivided (representing a pantheon of worship of all the chaos gods)
In battle, they have access to all the Khorne, Slannesh, Nurgle and Tzeentch units to take many units and different kinds of armies.
Warriors of Chaos
Lastly, we come to the Warrior of Chaos; they have the most Legendary lords to choose from out of any faction. These represent the mortal forces of Chaos and have a unique mechanic in that they can upgrade units to different types of units as they get more experience.
In battle, it depends on which legendary lord you take. They have different powers and units based on which Chaos god they represent, or if they represent Chaos Undivided, they can potentially take all of them.
Chaos Dwarfs
The Chaos Dwarfs are the newest released faction. I will talk about them later
Forces of Destruction
The Faction of Destruction are:
- Dark Elves
- Greenskins
- Vampire Coast
- Vampire Counts
- Beastmen
- Norsca
- Skaven
Dark Elves
The Dark Elves are the evil version of their High Elves cousins. They are spiteful and cruel, and their culture delights in causing pain and suffering. They have a very emo vibe (not to say emos are cruel in terms of aesthetics)
In campaigns, they play very aggressively as they fuel their economy with enslaved people, so they need to be expanding and fighting constantly to fuel their need for enslaved people, and they can also raise Black Arks.
Black Arks are ships that the Dark Elves can use to attack enemy ships and ports to fuel their need for booty and slaves and can also be used to establish a beachhead for an invasion of the mainland.
In battle, their forces are a mix of high-quality infantry and ranged units backed up by hybrid melee-ranged units, monsters, and powerful cavalry.
Also, their lords (except for legendary lords) have the loyalty mechanic, which means that if their loyalty ever drops to zero, they will become a renegade faction and take their army with them
Greenskins
The Greenskins are the Orcs and Goblins of the world, and they exist for constant warfare and love nothing more than to fight and fight. The orcs are the tough and straightforward warrior race, and the goblins are sneaky and cruel.
They have many different troops in battle, from the numerous hard-to-kill orcs to the cheap and expendable goblins to monstrous infantry like trolls and monsters like giants and giant spiders.
They also have artillery, and some ranged units, but their ranged units are not top-tier, and they also have a great selection of cavalry and ranged cavalry.
Vampire Coast
The Vampire Coast is one of the factions not in the original tabletop game, but I am glad CA added them. They are what you would get if you merge vampires with pirates.
So in the lore, they ply the pirating trade on the coastline of Lustria, doing what pirates do best. In the campaign, they have a few exciting things going for them.
First, their legendary lords and admirals count as a mobile settlement and can build their flagship up to make recruitment available directly from their ships.
They can establish pirate coves in enemy settlements that allow them to generate income and infamy to seize the verses of the Lost Sea Shanty to raise the Leviathan (a giant sea monster).
In battle, they love gunpowder and combine many ranged units, melee units and monstrous infantry, artillery and monsters. They are among the most challenging opponents in the campaign up there, with the dwarfs and lizardmen.
This is because most of their units are also undead, which means they will never break, and you need to engage them in combat, or they will just keep shooting you, as even their most basic ranged units are dangerous.
They will also almost always have more ranged units than you in the campaign(with few exceptions). If you’re playing against them, ambushing them with a powerful melee force is an excellent option to get in range with them as quickly as possible.
And if you’re using them, enjoy blasting your enemy to bit, but they are also quite flexible in the types of forces they can field, so you have good options.
Lastly, you lords (apart from legendary lords) also have the loyalty mechanic, which is slightly more complicated in this faction. Each lord has a thing that will raise loyalty, like some like sacking settlements, so pay attention to this when you recruit them.
Vampire Counts
The Vampire Counts are another undead faction (the other being the Tomb Kings). They represent the general kind of undead you would see in a fantasy setting, with necromancers and vampire counts being at the helm (mostly).
Like you, they expect they can raise the dead and recruit usually. The raise dead ability works because the more people die in a particular location, the more significant number of and better quality of units they can raise.
Due to the raise dead mechanic, they can get access to more powerful units earlier than you would expect in a campaign and recover casualties quickly, but the vampiric corruption mechanic limits this.
So basically, if any armies of the vampire counts (not heroes unless attached to an army) move into a territory that doesn’t have a certain amount of vampiric corruption, their troops will immediately start taking casualties (known as attrition in-game)
To expand into the map, you need to spread vampiric corruption to other territories, even them out, as otherwise, they would be too powerful.
They also have the bloodlines mechanic, a unique mechanic that they increase by defeating and subjugating other factions. So basically, in-game, five families of vampires are:
- Von Carstein
- Lahmia
- Necrarch
- Blood Dragon
- Strigoi
The Von Carsteins are your typical vampires being arrogant, cruel and regal, and the legendary vampire lords in the game are Von Carsteins.
Lahmains are an all-female fraternity of vampires, and they are the quickest of all the vampires, most manipulative, and like to work secretly and manipulatively.
Necrarch are the most powerful spell casters of the vampires and look decrepit in comparison and dedicate themselves to the study of magic
Blood Dragons are the warrior caste of the vampires, and where the leader of the Blood Dragons turned a chapter of empire knights into vampires who are all obsessed with combat and trying to challenge the most powerful being and have a strange sense of honour in the lore.
The Strigoi are the ghoul vampires who look like monsters because they feed on the dead due to being hunted by the other vampire and have devolved into debased but powerful monsters.
In battle, the Vampire Counts forces consist of numerous, cheap, unbreakable infantry and powerful infantry, monsters and cavalry. They lack a ranged presence, but you won’t need it if you combine them with the ambush mechanic or Vlad’s advanced deploy.
They can also heal their troops and raise more undead amid battle, making them awesome at attrition-style warfare.
Beastmen
The Beastmen are a force of Chaos, but they are in the destruction category for some reason. So the beastmen appear to be human beings that the magic of Chaos has twisted into half-human half-beast creatures.
They hate civilisation with a passion, reside in the forest, combine to strike when society least expects it and then retreat to the forest. They are consummate guerilla fighters hated by the Empire and the Wood Elves.
In the campaign, they function as a horde, meaning they don’t build settlements but act as mobile settlements and use dread to increase the unit cap of what units they can access.
They are very good at ambushing, and the rush style matches them perfectly because they have units that can advance deploy to get behind artillery to take them out quickly.
In battle, they also have access to mobile and hard-hitting units, monstrous infantry, and many monsters. They also go hidden when they enter their encampment stance, so when playing as them, try to get your ambush chance up high so you can strike when enemies least expect it.
Norsca
The Norsca (Norse) are Vikings who worship the Chaos gods. In the campaign, they get missions that allow them to recruit powerful monsters and gain the favour of one of the four Chaos gods to get sure buffs and access to special units.
They can also confederate other Norscan tribes by defeating the leaders, which is an interesting mechanic but often involves you running around trying to find those leaders.
In battle, they have a mix of cheap units backed up by monstrous infantry and monstrous units (thanks to their monster hunt mechanic). They are also a rush army and want to enter combat quickly.
Skaven
Last but not least, of the forces of destruction, we come to the Skaven. They are the ratmen of the world who are corrupt, ambitious, and ever-scheming but cowardly and only fight when they know they can win.
Of the evil factions, they are one of the most technologically advanced, boasting powerful guns and war machines on their side. They also have no problem stepping over and killing each other to rise to the top.
Skaven society is divided into many clans competing for power, each specialising in something different, with Clan Eshin specialising in stealth and assassination (yes, rat ninjas).
Clan Skyre is the inventor of the deadly warp weapons that the Skaven use, like flamethrowers, guns and war machines.
Clan Moulder specialises in creating mutant monsters like rat-ogres, and Clan Rictus and Clan Mors produce the elite Stormvermin (the Skaven’s elite warrior).
Lastly, Clan Pestilence is a cult-producing religion fanatic obsessed with spreading plague responsible for producing plague monks and other plague-related units and artillery
Now the great thing is that all these factions are in-game, so if you play as Clan Eshin, you can have contracts with the clans to kill a character and attack settlements.
Clan Skyre can innovate and improve their weapons of war and create doom rockets (mini-nukes) for use in battle.
Clan Moulder can experiment and power up their monsters, and Clan Pestilence can produce plagues.
Now in the campaign, the Skaven faction is one the most complicated and challenging to play due to their food mechanic and how they function.
So in the game, you have to have food to feed your empire, but the faster you expand your empire, the more food you need. So you must be careful when expanding your empire, as getting food in the game is very difficult.
I have written a guide to the Skaven, which goes in-depth. Also, the Skaven are good at ambushing; you should always use the ambush mechanic.
In battle, the Skaven aim to outnumber the opponent as their army unit sizes seem more significant than other factions. They have a mix of cheap and cheerful units, but their infantry is subpar compared to what other factions can put out.
Their real strength is their monstrous units, war machines, ranged units, and artillery. The cheaper units hold the line while the rest of the army does the damage.
Check out my guide to them here:
Neutral Factions
There are only two neutral factions which are:
- Tomb Kings
- Ogres
Tomb Kings
The Tomb Kings were once the oldest human empire Nehekhara that ever existed (modelled after the ancient Egyptians), whose kingdom was killed by Nagash (the inventor of Necromancy), who unleashed a curse on them after their empire defeated his army.
As a result of the curse, they have risen, and they hate the Vampire Counts (agents of Nagash). They are neutral because they’re not precisely good guys, but their hatred of the Vampire Counts sometimes hasn’t them fighting against evil.
In the campaign, they are also very different from the Vampire Counts in that they don’t raise the dead, and their forces don’t cost any money to maintain but have a unit cap on units the Vampire Counts can build based on the buildings they have.
They can also use income and resources to craft magic items and awaken more powerful units. So rather than raising zombies, they focus on summoning the dead inhabitants of their empire.
They have a mix of good infantry, archers, artillery, cavalry, monstrous units, chariots and monsters in battle. They are much more like a professional army than their Vampire Counts counterparts.
One thing about them is that you can recruit more lords in your army like you can with other factions, as you have to research different lords to get access to them, so when playing them, make researching those lords a priority.
Ogres
Now we come to the mercantile Ogres. The Ogres are out for themselves, even if that includes offering themselves as mercenaries, extorting their neighbours with protection rackets for caravans and eating anything smaller than them that won’t pay.
In the campaign, you have to build camps, and they have a meat mechanic very similar to the Skaven in that your armies have a meat cost, and if you don’t have enough meat, your units will start cannibalising each other.
Also, your camps are where you can build your best units, and there is a maximum limit (that grows as you upgrade the tech tree) as to how many camps you have, so keep these protected.
In battle, their armies consist of mainly monstrous infantry backed up by cavalry, monsters, and some ranged units and artillery.
Conclusion of Total War Warhammer Immortal Empires Review
With so many factions to choose from or encounter (even if you don’t own all of them), the map is positively alive and now, with the new end-game scenarios, you will always have something to do.
Total War Warhammer 3 is the kind of game you can play for years, and even I haven’t played All the Lords even after hundreds of hours in the game.
The rich settings and breadth of factions separate this from other Total War games and the other Warhammer games you can get.
And now, with Immortal Empires being available to everyone who owns Total War Warhammer 3, there’s no better time to get into this game. Remember, you can buy all the factions as you go along, and I hope I have introduced you to all the factions and how the game works.
Also, the affiliate link to purchase Total War Warhammer 3 from Steam is here: https://sovrn.co/vouhli4