Total War Warhammer 2 Best Race
While the big picture campaign may have some interesting quirks, co-op shines when you get into the real-time battles. If, like me, you get overwhelmed by attempting to manage each of your units while enemy forces charge down on you, then you should bring a friend along to help out. When one player gets into combat they can give direct control over some of their units to their co-op buddy, thereby delegating some of the responsibility. For example, maybe you only want to concern yourself with your ranged units, so you give your friend control over the infantry and cavalry squads. Not only does this allow you to better focus on a smaller portion of the battlefield at a time, it also provides you and your co-op buddy with some great chances to really strategize and use the units to their fullest (“ok, I’ll pull the enemies over here with my archers and when they get close, you charge in with that shield squad before hitting them from the side with the cavalry”). Granted, this is only an option if your co-op buddy doesn’t have their own army close enough to provide reinforcements mid-battle, in which case each player controls their forces separately.
Total War: WARHAMMER II. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews. I would say that Gor-Rok is the best Lord for the Lizardmen, honestly. Three that stand out in particular for their race type are: Empire - Gelt.
As a fan of all things Warhammer, the Total War take on the game has been an adequate substitute for the tabletop experience and even allowed me to play with old buddies once more. Within the bigger picture of RTS titles, I feel like Total War: WARHAMMER 2 provides a little bit of the “best of both worlds” mechanics from a variety of games in the genre. Even if I’d prefer the battles to be turn-based instead of real-time to truly fulfill my tabletop dreams, they still capture some of the best parts of Warhammer and provide you with that same thrill when your dragons swoop down on a pack of Skaven. If you hold a particular, specific hatred for the rat creatures, you can even slow time down and zoom in on the action to watch them get torn to pieces. There’s plenty of fun to be had within the game by itself, and you can sink even more time into it if you own the original title thanks to Creative Assembly’s (wise) decision to pull all the races into the sequel and make them playable in the multiplayer Skirmishes and “Mortal Empire” campaign. At this point, the only other thing I’d wish for would be an army painter feature.
Total War: WARHAMMER 2 is definitely a step in the right direction for the franchise as a whole. While there are a few quirks when it comes to the co-op, playing with a friend feels like the best way to tackle the campaign. Not only do you have someone with whom you can shoot the breeze while you wait for the A.I. to finish up its turns, but you also open up the possibility to better execute certain strategies on the battlefield by divvying up control of the units. While the game scratches a very specific itch for me as a Warhammer fan, I believe Total War: WARHAMMER 2 is an excellent title in its own right and worth picking up if you’re in the mood for something else to give you that “one more turn” feeling.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: The Co-Op Campaign mechanic in Total War: WARHAMMER 2 has changed from the previous title. Now, players play together as the same race - Dark Elves, High Elves, Skaven, or Lizardmen - with each player controlling a Legendary Lord of that race. Players can play online or via LAN. Alternatively, up to four players can team up together against up to a total of four A.I. opponents in 'Multiplayer' battles. Each player chooses their own race, a lord, and up to 19 units from that race's roster to duke it out on the battlefield. 'Multiplayer' battles support up to four players online, four players via LAN, or some combination of the two.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.
Total War has always been a game series which has catered to modders, but it would be fair to say that Total War: Warhammer took things to the next level. Rather than individual games from select time periods, for the first time ever Creative Assembly committed to a single consecutive series of games, as well as supporting that idea through their inter-game (and biggest ever) grand campaign, Mortal Empires.
This represents a unique opportunity for modders, who can now create ongoing content spanning a whole trilogy, as well as drawing from the extensive lore of Warhammer Fantasy to introduce game elements that CA may never have the chance to. Total War: Warhammer's modding community is, at its heart, a collaborative effort, as creators work together, adding hundreds of hours of replayability to the series, while also working to realize the in-game world of Warhammer Fantasy.
What are the best Total War: Warhammer 2 Mods?
- Crynsos Faction Unlocker+ (Quality of Life)
- Dryrain Reskins (Quality of Life)
- Totally Random Total War Generator (Quality of Life)
- Chaos Invasion Choice (Quality of Life)
- GCCM: Settlement Packs (Quality of Life)
- Mixu's Legendary Lords (Lords & Faction)
- Cataph's Kraka Drak: the Norse Dwarfs 2.0 (Lords & Faction)
- SFO: Grimhammer II (Total Conversion)
Total War: Warhammer 2 Quality of Life Mods
Games are rarely perfect, and it can often be hard for developers to justify and find time to change the little things — those tiny irritations that can gnaw away at a player's in-game experience. Quality of life mods effectively look to make these tweaks, altering the little things and smoothing the way for players to enjoy the game to its fullest. If they are doing their job well, you probably won't even notice they are doing it at all.
Crynsos Faction Unlocker+ by Crynsos
Do you remember back when simply defeating a faction in Total War would let you play as them? The first time I played Rome I, finally defeating the Gauls after a sloggish offensive, I was astounded to discover I could step into their shoes. Admittedly, recent games do seem to be bringing this feature back (In Three Kingdom's you have to defeat Dong Zhuo to play as him) but no such feature exists in Total War: Warhammer II.
However with Crynsos Faction Unlocker you can play as any faction in both Mortal Empires and the Vortex Campaign. With Warhammer's far spread races, this really does allow for unique start positions, whether a Wood Elf desert campaign from Oreon's camp, or a Dwarf jungle campaign on the Spine of Sotek.
Dryrain Reskins by Hooveric
Visual variety in units is far less of a problem in fantasy games than it is in historical. It's easier to get bored of a generic barbarian faction, in a game with many generic barbarian factions, than it is in a game with giant spiders, killer bats, undead wolves, walking shipwrecks and exploding corpses etc. But a touch extra variety never hurt anyone. The Dryrain Reskins by Hooveric are a beautiful, yet subtle series of visual enhancements for units, lords and heroes, focusing on 'lore-friendly realism', adding another layer of depth to an already deep game.
Totally Random Total War Generator by Krubermorgen
Start positions have long been a gripe for the Total War: Warhammer community — it took years for us to get a unique start position for Ungrim Ironfist, and only in the last Empire update did Balthazar Gelt finally receive his own (a mere three years after the release of the first game). With one of my favourite Total War mods, the wonderfully named Totally Random Total War Generator, your start position worries are a thing of the past.
Or actually it would be more accurate to say they are a very real worry of the present, as the mod changes every faction start position in the game. As you might expect from Lizardmen suddenly teleported into the middle of Norsca, the results are often violent and unpredictable, as the AI tries to comprehend what's happening. It's a wonderful time.
Chaos Invasion Choice by Crynsos
There's nothing more annoying than being in the middle of a gripping campaign, but then having to drop everything for the Chaos Invasion. While I love a challenge, and sending heretics howling back into the Warp, I don't always feel like putting my campaign on hold for a good thirty or so turns while I deal with it. Chaos Invasion Choice by Crynsos does exactly that, prompting you at the start of a campaign as to when (or if) you want a Chaos invasion at any point in your campaign.
GCCM: Settlement Packs by GCCM
You may be thinking, what is a settlement map overhaul doing in the quality of life section? Hear me out. One of the most consistent complaints about the Total War: Warhammer series are the repetitive siege battles, which can often feel like a bit of a chore. In the background you spy an expansive city, with streets and alleyways, places for chokepoints and layered defences, but you can only ever access a small portion of the map.
The GCCM: Settlement Packs are compilation mods bringing together creations from some of the most prominent Total War: Warhammer map modders. They add a huge amount of variety to your in-game experience, allowing you to battle on siege maps more akin to Medieval II — multi-layered and filled with possibility, as well as granting the Warhammer locations the epic feel they deserve.
Total War: Warhammer 2 Lords and Faction Mods
Usually this is where I would talk about overhauls, but some of the most popular mods in Total War: Warhammer II are those which add lords and factions to the game. Creative Assembly can only use so many, so the hard work of these modders ensures that those who aren't chosen (often fan favourites), still see the light of day. Factions like the Southern Realms, who were passed over for the Vampire Coast, the New World Colonies, instead of which we got Wulfhart's Hunters, or Moussaillon and Middenland, for who we only ever got lords. In some cases (as with Cataph's Kraka Drak) a modder will even take the role of loremaster, filling in the gaps to bring a unique faction into the game.
Mixu's Legendary Lords by Mixu
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say Mixu's Legendary Lords 1 and 2, represent the peak of lord modding in Warhammer. They add a huge variety of unique lords and heroes to the game — both characters we were likely never to see, such as Elspeth Von Draken (and her Carmine Dragon) and those long requested, such as Taurox the Brass Bull. These characters come with special abilities, mounts, and a level of professional polish, that in some cases, often makes you question whether they are actually the real thing.
They also often fill a gap in terms of campaign playstyle — I played a fantastic cavalry-focused Tomb Kings campaign with King Tutankhanut from Legendary Lords 2.
Cataph's Kraka Drak: the Norse Dwarfs 2.0 by Cataph
While Cataph's Southern Realms mod is also great, I think Kraka Drak: the Norse Dwarfs 2.0 demonstrates something brilliant that Total War: Warhammer modders are doing. The mod essentially allows you to play as Kraka Drak, the Dwarf faction which exists in Norsca, with both unique units and unique lords. But the Games Workshop lore surrounding the Norse Dwarfs didn't go so far as expanding on characters or units, so Cataph created them — in a similar fashion to what CA did for the Vampire Coast, creating new units, and a new lord in Cylostra Direfinn.
This mod features a range of units, technologies, and building chains that make for a distinctive campaign experience. Not to mention that Kraka Drak, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting, yet unavailable, start positions in the vanilla game.
Total War: Warhammer 2 Total Conversion Mods
These are the crazy ones — we're talking Westeros: Total War for Medieval II, Third Age: Total War (also for Medieval II) or even Warhammer: Total War for Rome I (a decade before Total War: Warhammer). This is where modders truly shine, using what the game has given them, as well as their imagination and skill, to fashion something completely new. Artlandia symmetryworks serial mac os.
SFO: Grimhammer II by the SFO mod team
In terms of mods that change every aspect of the vanilla game, you owe it to yourself to look up SFO: Grimhammer II. Focusing on a player experience 'closer to the lore and Warhammer universe', the SFO team is made up of 10 community modders, each with their own speciality, united by their love of Warhammer Fantasy. They have created a collaborative vision of Total War: Warhammer, compiling some of the best mods to create a version of the game which is distinctive in its own right — with new units, factions, buildings, and visuals.
If you need any indicator of how extensive the changes are, a full 54 page summary can be found on their Steam page. The scale and success of SFO really is a testament to the continued drive and passion of the Warhammer modding community.
What are your favourite Total War: Warhammer 2 mods? Let us know in the comments!