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[umiman]

I can't remember seeing any decent woods/forests in any of the games so far. Trees dotted about (even in the orc campaign), but no real defensive features, escarpments, anti-cav or flyer areas.

I wonder if black knights will have the spirit rider thingy (no terrain penalties) in the full game?

You'd think gob spiders would have it at least.

A decent terrain system with +/-'s to various units is all this really needs to be fun (much like normal Warhammer). But right now terrain seems to be hills with window dressing and the odd objective. It'll probably change before release though.

The latest games have super thick forests that make it so even you can barely see in them and cavalry move super slow as they have to constantly move around all the trees.

It might be tied to graphics options though. I remember hating to fight in forests simply because it was impossible to see anything. And in Shogun 2 multiplayer, I'd love the maps with the forests as I'd own any player trying to fight me in them (your archers and cannons have no power here!).

Edit: I had an AAR of an MP game involving fog and forests but the image host seems to have died.

I have this though:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's not the best representation, but if you look to the left you can see how dense the forests are. You can fight in them and completely lose track of everything.

Rome has it too, I remember because I'd do MP games with Bay12ers where we'd do nonsense like 10,000 dogs in a forest. Absolutely no idea what's going on.

[sambojin]

Cool. Half of what Warhammer is to me is the very defined scenery and the effects of it on your troops. It'll probably only take a day or three for them to whip up a couple of hundred tree variations in Speedtree, so I assume proper forests will be in. Hopefully with wierd-arse chaos botanicals as well. And 'shrooms. Shrooms everywhere, all the colours of the rainbow.....

The giant trees in the test footage are probably just to show off how pretty the trees are up close (or scaled 2x-3x like they seem to be. They tower over everything). They are quite good, I must admit. Saves a tad on frame rate and AI as well.

[ZebioLizard2]

Well there's another thing to the tree's for why they need to make sure they have proper tree types and such, considering there's an army that certainly makes good use of forest for magics and their troops.

[sambojin]

Not yet they don't. That's DLC.

[ZebioLizard2]

Yes I do mean for later, getting such work in now would make much less work later.

[miljan]

Vampire Counts Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8hp08qsnXg

Empire Quest Battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfireiQOA0Y

[Mech#4]

Yes, there has been quite a deluge of videos recently. Here is a thread with a compilation of articles and videos.


The major points have been videos on siege battles between;

* Vampire Counts and Vampire Counts (Templehof siege)
*Vampire Counts and Dwarfs (Zhufbar)
*Vampire Counts and Orcs and Goblins (Karak Kadrin)

This shows the recently revealed new design of the siege battles as they will function in Warhammer: Total War. This being that sieges will be focused on a single angle of attack with a focus on wall fighting leading to capturing a control square.

From the reveal of siege battles earlier, I do like the styling of the sieges allowing for a grander scale of the city beyond the borders of the map. It helps make the cities seem much bigger than they actually are. I will say however, that looking at the battle maps I find it looks kind of odd having the full battle map with all the fighting conducted in a single corner. It doesn't seem like a very effective use of space.

I understand the space outside of the walls is for your army to start outside the range of the towers, but since all of the fighting is aimed to be on the walls, and I don't think the defenders will sally forth that often, it still seems kind of minimum change-ish? If all the fighting is taking place in 1/2 or 1/4 of the map, the rest of the map is a bit wasted, isn't it?
Sieges can apparently have different shapes to the walls, with small settlements having either no wall (Which leads to a field battle), small size wall (with the 1/4 corner wall like in the Templehof siege) or 1/2 wall on large settlements (like in Karak Kadrin).

One thing I've seem people mentioning a few times they'd like would be multiple walls to assault, like in Medieval 2: Total War where you have an outer wall and an inner wall. I remember the problems I had with those was manoeuvring siege equipment through the gates and streets to breach the inner walls but with the wider streets present in Warhammer: Total War maybe it could work better.


Moving on, there is also another campaign quest battle, The Amulet of Sea Gold between the Empire (player) and Vampire Counts (A.I.) with Balthazar Gelt as the legendary lord. This video shows off the empire troops as well as some lore of metal spells.

[umiman]

So I went through everything in the wiki here: http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Total_War_WARHAMMER

Since I have nothing better to do, let's do some theorycrafting.

Empire:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Singleplayer campaign:
- These guys get so many hero units...

- Captain of the Empire - Melee

- Warrior Priest – Melee/Caster

- Witch Hunter – Ranged

- Celestial Wizard – Caster (Lore of Heavens)

- Light Wizard – Caster (Lore of Light)

- Bright Wizard – Caster (Lore of Fire)

But considering how they're surrounded by enemies, they'll probably need it.

- They seem to focus on strong cavalry, strong heroes, and shitty infantry.

- I'll probably play these guys last. #FuckEmpire.

- From gameplay videos, the Witch Hunter seems stupidly strong against Vampire Counts. He seems to have a spammable spell that annihilates undead units.

- I can imagine playing the Empire campaign involves running all around the map trying to staunch out every single fire at once.

Multiplayer:
- Uhhh... does anyone know how many hero units you can bring into an MP battle? If they can bring several these guys seem pretty scary with the unpredictability. Actually, can you customize the heroes in MP like in SP? Because that seems bonkers. I know you can already equip them with flying mounts and extra wargear and shit.

- Other than that seems like normal Total War fare. Except with a tank. And an ion cannon. And shitty infantry.

- They also get grenade launcher cavalry along with gun cavalry. That seems... pretty strong. I don't want to fight that.

Dwarfs:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Singleplayer campaign:
- These guys seem like the ez-mode version of the game.

- 3 heroes. Seem like standard stuff. No real "casters" because dwarfs don't cast shit. Apparently the Thane is as strong as a legendary lord.

- Invincible infantry. Even their ranged units are super strong in melee, and their ranged units are also super strong at range.

- Fucking flamethrowers. Fucking machinegun cannons. Torpedo guns what?

- Really small roster list. Probably invincible on the defense.

- They don't have rebellions and have super high public order apparently.

- Their units have really high morale and are apparently also strong against magic? OK.

Multiplayer:
- I don't want to play Dwarfs in MP. They're so slow and so predictable. Every battle with them is just going to be them camping in one spot because what else are they going to do? Also their unit roster is so tiny you already know what's gonna happen.

- Probably everyone will play Dwarfs in MP, because everyone online just turtles in one corner like the pussies they are.

- I wouldn't want to be an undead army fighting them, just sayin'.

Greenskins:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Singleplayer:
- I'm curious why Azhag the Slaughterer is in here but I'm not complaining. An Orc with death magic? Sounds like fun times.

- Their campaign seems pretty simple. See target? Attack. Don't stop attacking until nothing left. Change target.

- They seem very versatile, having a little of everything.

- They have a monopoly on big giant monsters. Knowing how elephants worked in previous Total War games, I'd probably won't rely on them.

Multiplayer:
- I'd probably play these guys the most on MP. I really like flexibility and these guys have a massive roster with a bit of everything.

- I also like charging at things and hitting them until they die. Seems in line with the Orcish philosophy.

- I wonder if they get to field larger armies and the other factions.

- The only Orc spell I've seen so far is da bad moon. Dunno what else they do.

Vampire Counts:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Singleplayer:
- Their campaign sounds really fun to play with the corruption mechanic and how they can befriend any race.

- Also they can summon units on the map for free.

- Their spells look really strong. Then there's that whole, summon zombies in the battle on the fly thing.

- They have some pretty interesting heroes:

- Banshee – Melee

- Necromancer – Caster (Lore of Vampires)

- Vampire – Melee/Caster (Lore of Death)

- Wight King – Melee

- Their unit roster is full of oddities and weird things.

Multiplayer:
- Hmm... this is a pretty out there faction. On one hand... zero ranged units. Literally none. That sucks major ass. On the other hand, they have some really bizzaro units like those cavalry that are almost immune to physical attacks.

- Apparently they have the best cavalry and flying units in the game?

- I don't really see the point of a meatshield if it's slower than every other unit in your army. They appear to have a lot of really fast moving elite units, but their core soldiers of zombies and skeletons are slow as shit. In singleplayer it's fine, as the AI can probably be manipulated, but in MP, the enemy can just run around them...

- I imagine fighting a siege (either offense or defense) with these guys to be one of the stupidest ideas.

- However, since we don't know what a majority of their army does... might be a good idea to wait and see. It's such an oddball army, you can't really tell how it works.

[Mech#4]

It will be interesting how well tactics from the tabletop translate into the game. The Dwarfs, for example, really lack manoeuvrability with no cavalry (Though, they do have the gyrocopters) so heavy cavalry should be a problem for them what with getting flanked. One thing I would like to know is whether they have the dwarfs ability to march within range of enemy units present.
(Explaination to Marching: In tabletop, units can either move, charge or march. Marching doubles their movement distance but prevents them from engaging. Usually, armies cannot march units within, I think, 4 inches of an enemy. Dwarfs can march regardless of how close they are to enemies).

Vampire Counts, I agree. Meat shields is something that is kind of difficult to do in games like this. Why spend points on a slow, weak unit when you could get something stronger and more useful? Summoning zombies in the way of an enemy charge to blunt it is one tactic I've seen. I think Vampire Counts will rely much more on mass routing the enemy than grinding in melee. Combined charges from fear and terror causing units will have a large effect on morale.
We've also seen some Etheral units with the Hexwraiths, mounted ghosts they cause Terror. Etheral reduces physical damage by 75% unless it's from magical weapons or attacks. It also allows them to ignore terrain movement effects.

I think the Witch Hunter's "Accuse" ability does extra damage to undead and chaos units. I believe in tabletop it lowers the defence of a single model.

[Puzzlemaker]

I think the slow meat shield units would be helpful for tying down enemy units if nothing else.  If you are maneuvering around them to avoid them, the amazing cavalry they have should be able to take advantage if they leave themselves open.

[Mech#4]

Yeah, even if they don't engage enemy units in melee, if enemy forces have to maneuverer around them that's still disrupting their plans. In tabletop, zombies have a rule (The Shambling Dead) which means enemies that disengage them take hits for every row of 5 but the zombies can't pursue fleeing units because they're slow.
Someone on the official forums did suggest they could be done like wardogs, in that they replenish their numbers after combat. Maybe, but it seems like they're very easy to recruit and raise more on the campaign map.

[Teneb]

I agree with the above, in that the whole point of zombies is to tie down units and be an annoyance. They should be pretty good in defensive sieges, but not so much in offensive ones.

[Cruxador]

Was it money or just immaturity? I mean, I kind of doubt it was the result of a big marketing team analyzing the target demographics and bla bla. Even if the games were shit, the production culture was different.

You seriously think there aren't games like that being made now?

[umiman]

I'm actually really, really interested to try out the vampire counts in battle. I really don't think there's been an army like them before in Total War.

Just imagining the summon zombies shit in battle gives me such a boner. It'll be like kisho ninja from Shogun... except there's hundreds of them.

Also all those heroes sound so oddball.  Please tell me that the Wight King is basically Skeleton (Baller King) King.

I hope all those meteor and fireball type spells can destroy buildings / walls.

[Teneb]

Also all those heroes sound so oddball.  Please tell me that the Wight King is basically Skeleton (Baller King) King.

Wights are basically pre-Sigmar (so, ancient) skeletons brought to life, some of them (like Krell) former Warriors of Chaos. So yeah, pretty much a skeleton but better.

Spoiler: Basically, this level of badass (click to show/hide)