Game review – Total War: Warhammer offers action aplenty in a loving tribute
The marriage of fantasy table-top warfare with historical strategy simulation produces a diverse and exciting game
Total War: Warhammer
Creative Assembly
4.5 stars
Warhammer is a range of tabletop strategy games; Total War is a series of historical battle simulations. Combining the two should have produced a black hole of nerdiness so unapproachable it would crush all mortals. Strangely, however, this is probably the most accessible each game has been for years.
Typically taking place over the surface of a continent, the Total War games have taken in medieval Europe, the Napoleonic era, the Roman world and the warring states era of Japan. Like the turn-based Civilization series, players control one faction, building settlements, researching new technologies and recruiting armies. When those armies clash on the campaign, players then control them in real-time battles against opposing factions and nations.
As the Sun Tzu-inspired name might imply, the Total War games are not for the fainthearted. They’re complex simulations where strategic civilisation management has to be combined with the tactical nous to win relatively realistic battles. Even if you have played them since the first game in 2000, you’ll still discover baffling new elements every time you dig in. They’re not just complex, they’re 16 years of aggregated complexity.
Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Battles tabletop game, by contrast, is set in an elf, dwarf and goblin-rich universe that riffs heavily off Tolkien’s Middle Earth (or it was until they recently blew it all to hell with a 2015 reinvention – this game is set before that.) Save for the almost-forgotten Mighty Empires spin-off, Warhammer focuses on small-scale battles. Players buy, assemble and paint armies of small figurines, then take turns controlling them in tactical combat around polystyrene buildings and cardboard trees. It’s an expensive hobby, with some figures costing more than £1,000 , so it’s understandable that fans might crave a simulated version.
Integrating Warhammer brings an entirely different angle to Total War. Where before the focus was on replicating the armies and cultures of an era – making it realistic, for example, that the armies of the Huns would trigger the downfall of the Western Roman Empire – Warhammer brings gargantuan monsters, flying troops, powerful heroes and devastating magic.