David Guymer's Blog - Posts Tagged "warhammer"
Black Library Submissions Call
“Attention, servants of the immortal God-Emperor! Charge your mnemo-quills and dust off your data-slates, because Black Library is recruiting once more…”
If those two sentences are enough to electrify your nerves and make your skin tingle then you’re in the right place, because after a lengthy absence the Black Library submissions window is back!
At my count it’s been three years since the last window, and if you’re wondering why I should be counting at all then it’s worth remembering that I too am a submissions window baby. It was 2011 (remember that?) when The Tilean’s Talisman squeaked in under Black Library’s door and became my first published story, so you can understand that I’m thrilled to see Black Library opening up to submissions again.
This time, however, there are rules?
“First of all, we are only looking for short stories featuring the Deathwatch, set in the current Warhammer 40,000 era.”
Got that? Good. Paying attention to submissions guidelines and successfully not submitting a Death Guard or Deathwing story is hurdle number one. It doesn’t matter how excellent your Death Korps of Krieg tale is, it’s not what they want so it won’t get picked up. And will probably elicit a sad sigh from the reading editor too. You’re all nice people, and so obviously wouldn’t want that.
“Secondly, we only need a single paragraph which summarises your idea for a full short story, followed by a sample of your best writing from that story. The sample should be no more than 500 words (and we will be checking!) but should be of sufficiently high quality to engage/excite our editors who will be reading each and every submission.”
Note that ‘best writing’ bit.
I spent a long time perfecting the opening 500 words of the Tilean’s Talisman before deciding to submit what I felt was the best and most exciting bit from the middle. That’s fine. This is a showcase for your writing prowess and doesn’t need to do anything more than that. Will they be rejecting samples of 501 words? I don’t know, but why chance it for the sake of a few extra words? How you actually go about producing 500 words of irresistible 41st millennium action goes some distance beyond my power to explain. If I knew how I did it then I’d spend a lot less of my time in the periodic bouts of self-doubt I currently enjoy.
And then I think I’d write a ‘how to’ book and make lots of money.
Here’s a few tips that spring to mind, largely garnered from advice and writing courses I’ve been on and that have stuck in my mind for one reason or another
• Avoid overuse of adjectives.
• Steer clear of the most well-worn clichés.
• Given a choice of several words with the same meaning, use the one that produces the tone and feeling you want.
• If in a characters head, stay in the character’s head. Describe the world as they see it, as they hear, smell, and feel it. Don’t wander.
• Getting an honest third party to look at your work and edit it is always helpful. The best of us are capable of overlooking the most outrageous contortions of our own prose
Next up is the summary. That’s not too scary either, although there is a practiced art to condensing a 5000 word story into a 200 word (or less) paragraph. Be complete but be succinct. Shorter is always better. I tried to find the summary I wrote for Tilean’s Talisman, but it seems to have been gnawed on by the rats and I can’t find it. As a consolation prize, here instead is the summary to my second story, The Karag Durak Grudge:
The Book of Grudges of Karak Kadrin tells of the fall of the outpost of Karag Durak and of the maiming of the Dwarf Thane, Grimnar Half-handed, as he valiantly battled the rat-kin warlord, Queek. Such was the Thane’s courage that day that the skaven were driven back, allowing many doughty warriors to escape with their lives.
With the Dwarf’s abandonment of the mountain keep, Queek’s mission that day was a great success and much warpstone and glory were showered upon him. But long has the rage within him burned over his defeat in single combat to the Dwarf, Grimnar, and long has he plotted his revenge. After many years, he receives the news he has been waiting for: Grimnar has left the Slayer Keep to reclaim the lost treasures of Karak Varn. Seizing on this golden opportunity, Queek hurriedly assembles a force and races to the seeping ruin of Karak Varn, eager to face his old foe once more to prove once and for all that the dreaded Queek Headtaker suffers no equal.
Now you’ll immediately notice that that’s two paragraphs, instantly failing me on my own advice of reading submissions guidelines and adhering to it. I get away with this kind of anarchism, but be safe and keep your to the regulation one.
“Finally, you should make your submission by email only, to blacklibrarysubmissions@gwplc.com – please attach your submission as a Microsoft Word document (not Works, not OpenOffice, not RTF or any other weird and wacky file formats) and also copy your single paragraph summary into the covering email. Failure to follow those basic requests will result in your submission being rejected.”
That’s my bolding – I figured it was important, and rather neatly emphasises what I’ve been saying all along. It ultimately boils down to: ‘do as your told.’ Also, do read your covering e-mail before sending, and not while so tired after yet another round of editing that you don’t notice that you’re writing about the skaken story your sending them. I remember that typo because it haunted me for weeks. The moral, I suppose, is that good writing (if I do say so…) will always win out, but don’t give an editor an excuse to disfavour you from the start, or even reject your story outright before they so much as read it.
Oh, and think positive and turn off your spam filter. Yahoo was good enough to shunt my acceptance e-mail into my spam folder, and it was only rare good luck that meant I saw it at all. My spam filter remains off, and it’s fine.
And finally: don’t delay!
When I first discovered the submission window three years ago, my first inclination was to give it a miss and wait until next year. There was only two weeks left to it, and I hadn’t started, and I’m pretty lazy really by nature. I figured I’d wait until the next year. But of course as we know there was no window next year, and who knows when the next one will open after this?
I’ve been ridiculously fortunate to have written what I have for Black Library these past few years, and it goes without saying that I wouldn’t have done any of it had I given into my first instinct and sat on my hands. So don’t think, don’t procrastinate; plan your story right now and then write it. Submissions close on 26th January and I hope that a lot of you are going to submit. Partly because I want you all to get the chance to do so, and partly for the very selfish reason that I want to write a Deathwatch story and for that to happen Black Library need enough high quality stories from you guys to justify an anthology.
That’s right; you’re doing this for me.
So go prepare your submissions, and read the rest of the guidance on Black Library’s website:
http://www.blacklibrary.com/Getting-S... And good luck!
Death to the Xenos.
(I first wrote this article for Fifty Shades of Geek - to hear my chitterings early, go to http://www.fiftyshadesofgeek.org/feat...)
If those two sentences are enough to electrify your nerves and make your skin tingle then you’re in the right place, because after a lengthy absence the Black Library submissions window is back!
At my count it’s been three years since the last window, and if you’re wondering why I should be counting at all then it’s worth remembering that I too am a submissions window baby. It was 2011 (remember that?) when The Tilean’s Talisman squeaked in under Black Library’s door and became my first published story, so you can understand that I’m thrilled to see Black Library opening up to submissions again.
This time, however, there are rules?
“First of all, we are only looking for short stories featuring the Deathwatch, set in the current Warhammer 40,000 era.”
Got that? Good. Paying attention to submissions guidelines and successfully not submitting a Death Guard or Deathwing story is hurdle number one. It doesn’t matter how excellent your Death Korps of Krieg tale is, it’s not what they want so it won’t get picked up. And will probably elicit a sad sigh from the reading editor too. You’re all nice people, and so obviously wouldn’t want that.
“Secondly, we only need a single paragraph which summarises your idea for a full short story, followed by a sample of your best writing from that story. The sample should be no more than 500 words (and we will be checking!) but should be of sufficiently high quality to engage/excite our editors who will be reading each and every submission.”
Note that ‘best writing’ bit.
I spent a long time perfecting the opening 500 words of the Tilean’s Talisman before deciding to submit what I felt was the best and most exciting bit from the middle. That’s fine. This is a showcase for your writing prowess and doesn’t need to do anything more than that. Will they be rejecting samples of 501 words? I don’t know, but why chance it for the sake of a few extra words? How you actually go about producing 500 words of irresistible 41st millennium action goes some distance beyond my power to explain. If I knew how I did it then I’d spend a lot less of my time in the periodic bouts of self-doubt I currently enjoy.
And then I think I’d write a ‘how to’ book and make lots of money.
Here’s a few tips that spring to mind, largely garnered from advice and writing courses I’ve been on and that have stuck in my mind for one reason or another
• Avoid overuse of adjectives.
• Steer clear of the most well-worn clichés.
• Given a choice of several words with the same meaning, use the one that produces the tone and feeling you want.
• If in a characters head, stay in the character’s head. Describe the world as they see it, as they hear, smell, and feel it. Don’t wander.
• Getting an honest third party to look at your work and edit it is always helpful. The best of us are capable of overlooking the most outrageous contortions of our own prose
Next up is the summary. That’s not too scary either, although there is a practiced art to condensing a 5000 word story into a 200 word (or less) paragraph. Be complete but be succinct. Shorter is always better. I tried to find the summary I wrote for Tilean’s Talisman, but it seems to have been gnawed on by the rats and I can’t find it. As a consolation prize, here instead is the summary to my second story, The Karag Durak Grudge:
The Book of Grudges of Karak Kadrin tells of the fall of the outpost of Karag Durak and of the maiming of the Dwarf Thane, Grimnar Half-handed, as he valiantly battled the rat-kin warlord, Queek. Such was the Thane’s courage that day that the skaven were driven back, allowing many doughty warriors to escape with their lives.
With the Dwarf’s abandonment of the mountain keep, Queek’s mission that day was a great success and much warpstone and glory were showered upon him. But long has the rage within him burned over his defeat in single combat to the Dwarf, Grimnar, and long has he plotted his revenge. After many years, he receives the news he has been waiting for: Grimnar has left the Slayer Keep to reclaim the lost treasures of Karak Varn. Seizing on this golden opportunity, Queek hurriedly assembles a force and races to the seeping ruin of Karak Varn, eager to face his old foe once more to prove once and for all that the dreaded Queek Headtaker suffers no equal.
Now you’ll immediately notice that that’s two paragraphs, instantly failing me on my own advice of reading submissions guidelines and adhering to it. I get away with this kind of anarchism, but be safe and keep your to the regulation one.
“Finally, you should make your submission by email only, to blacklibrarysubmissions@gwplc.com – please attach your submission as a Microsoft Word document (not Works, not OpenOffice, not RTF or any other weird and wacky file formats) and also copy your single paragraph summary into the covering email. Failure to follow those basic requests will result in your submission being rejected.”
That’s my bolding – I figured it was important, and rather neatly emphasises what I’ve been saying all along. It ultimately boils down to: ‘do as your told.’ Also, do read your covering e-mail before sending, and not while so tired after yet another round of editing that you don’t notice that you’re writing about the skaken story your sending them. I remember that typo because it haunted me for weeks. The moral, I suppose, is that good writing (if I do say so…) will always win out, but don’t give an editor an excuse to disfavour you from the start, or even reject your story outright before they so much as read it.
Oh, and think positive and turn off your spam filter. Yahoo was good enough to shunt my acceptance e-mail into my spam folder, and it was only rare good luck that meant I saw it at all. My spam filter remains off, and it’s fine.
And finally: don’t delay!
When I first discovered the submission window three years ago, my first inclination was to give it a miss and wait until next year. There was only two weeks left to it, and I hadn’t started, and I’m pretty lazy really by nature. I figured I’d wait until the next year. But of course as we know there was no window next year, and who knows when the next one will open after this?
I’ve been ridiculously fortunate to have written what I have for Black Library these past few years, and it goes without saying that I wouldn’t have done any of it had I given into my first instinct and sat on my hands. So don’t think, don’t procrastinate; plan your story right now and then write it. Submissions close on 26th January and I hope that a lot of you are going to submit. Partly because I want you all to get the chance to do so, and partly for the very selfish reason that I want to write a Deathwatch story and for that to happen Black Library need enough high quality stories from you guys to justify an anthology.
That’s right; you’re doing this for me.
So go prepare your submissions, and read the rest of the guidance on Black Library’s website:
http://www.blacklibrary.com/Getting-S... And good luck!
Death to the Xenos.
(I first wrote this article for Fifty Shades of Geek - to hear my chitterings early, go to http://www.fiftyshadesofgeek.org/feat...)
Reading For a New Project
Thanks to everyone who suggested reading material for me, my reading list has now been expanded to include the novels:
Deathwatch by Steve Parker
Legion of the Damned by Rob Sanders
Angels of Darkness by Gav Thorpe
Prospero Burns by Dan Abnett
and the short stories:
Lysander: Fist of Dorn by Anthony Reynolds
The Dread Sentinels of Dorn by Rob Sanders
The Eagle's Talon by John French
The Long Games at Carcharias by Rob Sanders
Anyone who can guess what I'm working on and with who will get a surreptitious nod from across a smokey room. Guessing 'Space Marines' gets you no prizes
Deathwatch by Steve Parker
Legion of the Damned by Rob Sanders
Angels of Darkness by Gav Thorpe
Prospero Burns by Dan Abnett
and the short stories:
Lysander: Fist of Dorn by Anthony Reynolds
The Dread Sentinels of Dorn by Rob Sanders
The Eagle's Talon by John French
The Long Games at Carcharias by Rob Sanders
Anyone who can guess what I'm working on and with who will get a surreptitious nod from across a smokey room. Guessing 'Space Marines' gets you no prizes
2015 Roundup
It feels as though I've been worked pretty much as hard as I ever have last year, which to think back on it felt pretty good until I realised that I all I had to show for it was Gotrek & Felix: Slayer (which i wrote in 2014 anyway), and the short stories Beneath the Black Thumb, Godless, and Plan B in the Mantic anthology, Drainpipes for Strike Posts
Such is the delayed reward of professional writing, so hopefully 2016 will be a bumper year for releases. One speculative short story still sitting with Grimdark Magazine aside, it's all with Black Library so largely under wraps, but, just for a sense of what's coming...
January will see the release of an Age of Sigmar anthology featuring another short story of mine. I've received my author copies on this one and I'm just hovering over the 'share photo' button on my fun.
In June (I think) my entry into the Beasts Arises series, Echoes of the Long War will hit shelves both real and digital. And I can neither confirm nor deny that I am or am not working on another book in the series as we speak (I have two hands, after all)
I've also written four (count them!) Age of Sigmar audio stories, and according to the great Oracle, Amazon, it looks like I have an anthology of Gotrek & Felix stories coming out. News to me, but I'll take it!
Beasts Arises aside, there are some exciting projects lined up for 2016, but my goal for next year is to try and attend more conventions. If I'm not spotted at York Unleashed and EdgeLit Derby at the very least then you all have permission to slap me. And I still live in hope that someone might nominate Gotrek & Felix: Slayer for the Legend Award and I might get a paid trip to Nineworlds. It'd be a step up from the Magician's Circle in 2014 with Headtaker, awesome fun as that was, and I'll be keeping everything crossed from now until nominations close.
Happy New Year everyone, hears to plenty more bolters and warhammers in 2016
Such is the delayed reward of professional writing, so hopefully 2016 will be a bumper year for releases. One speculative short story still sitting with Grimdark Magazine aside, it's all with Black Library so largely under wraps, but, just for a sense of what's coming...
January will see the release of an Age of Sigmar anthology featuring another short story of mine. I've received my author copies on this one and I'm just hovering over the 'share photo' button on my fun.
In June (I think) my entry into the Beasts Arises series, Echoes of the Long War will hit shelves both real and digital. And I can neither confirm nor deny that I am or am not working on another book in the series as we speak (I have two hands, after all)
I've also written four (count them!) Age of Sigmar audio stories, and according to the great Oracle, Amazon, it looks like I have an anthology of Gotrek & Felix stories coming out. News to me, but I'll take it!
Beasts Arises aside, there are some exciting projects lined up for 2016, but my goal for next year is to try and attend more conventions. If I'm not spotted at York Unleashed and EdgeLit Derby at the very least then you all have permission to slap me. And I still live in hope that someone might nominate Gotrek & Felix: Slayer for the Legend Award and I might get a paid trip to Nineworlds. It'd be a step up from the Magician's Circle in 2014 with Headtaker, awesome fun as that was, and I'll be keeping everything crossed from now until nominations close.
Happy New Year everyone, hears to plenty more bolters and warhammers in 2016
Total War Warhammer - REVIEW
I remember the moment. I was reading the old Age of Legend anthology, The Last Charge by Andy Hoare I think, my imagination alive with images of Dark Elf war-hydra’s smashing up Brettonian castles, when I realised how awesome a Total War adaptation of Warhammer would be. It’s safe to say then that not since Birth of the Federation last gave me exactly what I wanted in a game have I been as excited as I was by Total War: Warhammer.
All that remained was for my PC to finally died
And then it died.
Could anything match those expectations?
I’d enjoyed a preview glimpse of the campaign map at the 2016 Warhammer Fest, but even on the best-performing machine that a B-list novelist can afford the game is a thing of beauty.
There were a few issues with the camera not always being able to go where I wanted it, but this was a small thing, and neatly solved some time later by a camera mod (more on mods later).
The battle maps were equally impressive and every units performs as you know it should. Charging Reiksguard knight plough through enemy infantry in appropriately pleasing fashion. Cannons recoil and belch out smoke while their crew set about reloading. Giants stomp across the battlefield like they own it. I remain somewhat unconvinced by the weird missile effects. And I do miss the pre-battle speeches that I loved from the Medieval series, but even those do still occur in the special quest missions that can be unlocked by your faction’s Legendary Lords. And even after 30+ hours of play there are features like first-person control that I still haven’t figured out what to do with.
But those are small niggles on something which is otherwise perfect.
To the actual game.
I’ll begin by pining for the days when games came in a box with a manual, because even for a veteran of the Total War series such as myself it took me a few dozen turns of trial and error to figure out *exactly* what ‘Heroes’ were and how to use them, how to manage provinces etc. There is a help feature but I found it a bit clunky to use and it wasn’t always helpful. The game’s fairly intuitive though, and playing with all the buttons to see what happens is probably a sound policy. If it’s worked out so far for the skaven race, it’ll work for you.
On my first run through I decided to play as Dwarfs. Because skaven aren’t in the game yet (more on that later too…), and the Dwarfs are my second favourite race. This is where I did the bulk of my fiddling, but even there I found the game to be a bit too forgiving. The Dwarfs do have their starting difficulty listed as ‘easy’, and I am a player who likes to be worked, so I ditched that after a couple of hours and re-started as Vampire Counts. Now the battles featuring the Vampire Counts are amazing, eerie and beautifully dark, but after about 2-3 attempts I just couldn’t seem to get a foothold. A bit too much like hard work, perhaps. And maybe I miss archers. It was about this time that I went to GW: Leeds to sign some copies of The Last Son of Dorn when the store manager impishly suggested that perhaps computer games weren’t for me – but not to be deterred I plunged in again.
This time with Karl Franz’ Empire.
And after a few more false starts I enjoyed the most epic, gripping, painfully addictive Total War experience of my life.
The starting objective for the Empire are relatively: evict the rebels from your home province and then set about unifying the peoples of the Empire.
I’ve already talked about the battles, so a special mention should go towards diplomacy. Diplomacy exists for the Vampire Counts and the Dwarfs (and even the Greenskins!) too, but its central to how the Empire expands and it’s tricky to get right. Agreeing to one friendly nation’s request to go to war with another can hammer your reputation, meaning you can forget about that alliance with Ostland you’d been slowly pushing towards. It’s full of characterful touches too. Never go back on an agreement with a Dwarf faction – they’ll remember FOREVER.
So with all that in mind, I started out by bending the (cough) free city of Marienburg to my will, before slowly bringing the other Imperial States into my faction through more peaceable means. However even the opportunity to bring another State into your faction has to be thought through carefully. I was in the latter stages of the game with Avrland, Stirland, and Middenland all under my banner when I confederated with Nordland and then watched my bankrupt Empire collapse. Because when you absorb another faction you have to pay for the upkeep of all their armies and their heroes, and the additional armies also increases the upkeep premium on your existing forces. I had to reload an old save and go again.
And I loved it!
And it was definitely towards the latter stages that the campaign really sucked me in. I was getting up at 5 am just so I could play for an hour before I had to start working. Chaos had crushed Kislev and was well on the way to burning through Ostland, Ostermark, and Hochland. Nordland held on by the skin of its teeth and the mighty Todbringer permanently garrisoned up in Middenheim. The effects of Chaos corruption were starting to show up on the campaign map even over Reikland itself. By this point the faction screen had my as the greatest power in the world but my forces were split between fending off Chaos in the north, desperately trying to finish off the last bastion of the Vampire Counts (the undead can rebuild an army FAST) while keeping the Greenskins from nipping in behind my southern armies, and completing Karl Franz’ quest missions. I’ve never been so happy while sat at a computer.
Ultimately what won the day was a good use of diplomacy.
In so many games alliances are just another way of saying that X won’t attack Y and vice versa, but Total War: Warhammer is the first I’ve seen that lets you co-ordinate military targets with your allies. There’s a Beastman horde rampaging through Middenland, but my nearest army is heading off to relieve the besieged city of Salzenburg? No problem, I’ll tag it for my Marienburger and Brettonian allies who are in the area. It would be nice for it to work both ways as it sometimes feel like I’m throwing orders about to my allies and waiting for them to intone ‘THY WILL BE DONE’, but it still felt more realistic than anything I’ve played to date.
And so by coordinating my southern armies with the Dwarfs I was able to finally put down the Vampire Counts and contain the Greenskins south of Black Fire Pass. And by patching together a coherent resistance from what was left of the Empire, the forces of Archaon Everchosen were at last put to rout in an epic battle on the plains of Hochland.
The Old World could breath again, and by Sigmar it felt as though I’d earned it.
DLC
No review of Total War: Warhammer would be complete without mentioning DLC.
There was a bit of a ruckus amongst the fandom that Chaos Warriors would be a DLC faction (free to pre-orders) and not integral to the game, but this is just the way games are nowadays. Personally I find the DLC and the Free-LC (the Brettonia faction coming February 28th!) to be enjoyable, with the steady release helping to keep the game fresh. Are they fun add-ons to the game? They certainly are. Are they cheap? They certainly are not. But then the game is just fine without them and you can cherry pick what additions you want. I had no interested in playing as Beastmen, for instance, but I leapt on the Skarsnik and Belegar DLC (because I wrote Belegar in Thorgrim, obviously), and actually sat and watched Steam refresh itself waiting for the Wood Elves to appear for download.
And I would pay almost any price to play as my beloved skaven
Or Chaos Dwarfs.
Or Tomb Kings.
Sigh.
I’ll settle with free Brettonians for now.
a teasing gap where the capital of a certain Under-Empire should be...
I also mentioned the fan-made mods at Steam Forged. There are thousands of these things, ranging from putting more gold on Dwarf shields or making Chaos steeds bigger, to altering the AI of certain factions or unlocking factions like Kraka Drakk or Mousillon as playable races. I’ve downloaded about a dozen and there’s a couple in particular I love.
- The mod that put Empire troops trained in different provinces in the proper State colours gives a nice varied, lore-appropriate feel to Empire armies.
- Cataph’s: The Southern Realms. It introduces unique units to Tilea, Estalian and the Border Princes rather than being essentially versions of the Empire.
The question is – if its possible for a fan to create a whole new army for three human factions, why has no-one yet introduced a building tree to train Halflings in the Moot?
VERDICT
No game is perfect, and my main issue with Total War: Warhammer was that it made me finish my last book late. But that aside there are a few minor points. Firstly, the AI never attacks my castles. Ever. An entire playthrough and I’ve not once played defender in a siege battle. A few lore gripes like the lack of Halflings and that one time I got a message saying that Zhufbar had brought their allies, the Greenskins, into their war with me. Naval units are also glaringly absent, particular when you’re trying to defend Nordland from wave after wave of Norscan raiders
But there can be only one verdict.
10/10.
Make the time. Cut down on luxuries like sleep, switch to eating meals that can be consumed over a keyboard (I recommend pizza) and buy it.
All that remained was for my PC to finally died
And then it died.
Could anything match those expectations?
I’d enjoyed a preview glimpse of the campaign map at the 2016 Warhammer Fest, but even on the best-performing machine that a B-list novelist can afford the game is a thing of beauty.
There were a few issues with the camera not always being able to go where I wanted it, but this was a small thing, and neatly solved some time later by a camera mod (more on mods later).
The battle maps were equally impressive and every units performs as you know it should. Charging Reiksguard knight plough through enemy infantry in appropriately pleasing fashion. Cannons recoil and belch out smoke while their crew set about reloading. Giants stomp across the battlefield like they own it. I remain somewhat unconvinced by the weird missile effects. And I do miss the pre-battle speeches that I loved from the Medieval series, but even those do still occur in the special quest missions that can be unlocked by your faction’s Legendary Lords. And even after 30+ hours of play there are features like first-person control that I still haven’t figured out what to do with.
But those are small niggles on something which is otherwise perfect.
To the actual game.
I’ll begin by pining for the days when games came in a box with a manual, because even for a veteran of the Total War series such as myself it took me a few dozen turns of trial and error to figure out *exactly* what ‘Heroes’ were and how to use them, how to manage provinces etc. There is a help feature but I found it a bit clunky to use and it wasn’t always helpful. The game’s fairly intuitive though, and playing with all the buttons to see what happens is probably a sound policy. If it’s worked out so far for the skaven race, it’ll work for you.
On my first run through I decided to play as Dwarfs. Because skaven aren’t in the game yet (more on that later too…), and the Dwarfs are my second favourite race. This is where I did the bulk of my fiddling, but even there I found the game to be a bit too forgiving. The Dwarfs do have their starting difficulty listed as ‘easy’, and I am a player who likes to be worked, so I ditched that after a couple of hours and re-started as Vampire Counts. Now the battles featuring the Vampire Counts are amazing, eerie and beautifully dark, but after about 2-3 attempts I just couldn’t seem to get a foothold. A bit too much like hard work, perhaps. And maybe I miss archers. It was about this time that I went to GW: Leeds to sign some copies of The Last Son of Dorn when the store manager impishly suggested that perhaps computer games weren’t for me – but not to be deterred I plunged in again.
This time with Karl Franz’ Empire.
And after a few more false starts I enjoyed the most epic, gripping, painfully addictive Total War experience of my life.
The starting objective for the Empire are relatively: evict the rebels from your home province and then set about unifying the peoples of the Empire.
I’ve already talked about the battles, so a special mention should go towards diplomacy. Diplomacy exists for the Vampire Counts and the Dwarfs (and even the Greenskins!) too, but its central to how the Empire expands and it’s tricky to get right. Agreeing to one friendly nation’s request to go to war with another can hammer your reputation, meaning you can forget about that alliance with Ostland you’d been slowly pushing towards. It’s full of characterful touches too. Never go back on an agreement with a Dwarf faction – they’ll remember FOREVER.
So with all that in mind, I started out by bending the (cough) free city of Marienburg to my will, before slowly bringing the other Imperial States into my faction through more peaceable means. However even the opportunity to bring another State into your faction has to be thought through carefully. I was in the latter stages of the game with Avrland, Stirland, and Middenland all under my banner when I confederated with Nordland and then watched my bankrupt Empire collapse. Because when you absorb another faction you have to pay for the upkeep of all their armies and their heroes, and the additional armies also increases the upkeep premium on your existing forces. I had to reload an old save and go again.
And I loved it!
And it was definitely towards the latter stages that the campaign really sucked me in. I was getting up at 5 am just so I could play for an hour before I had to start working. Chaos had crushed Kislev and was well on the way to burning through Ostland, Ostermark, and Hochland. Nordland held on by the skin of its teeth and the mighty Todbringer permanently garrisoned up in Middenheim. The effects of Chaos corruption were starting to show up on the campaign map even over Reikland itself. By this point the faction screen had my as the greatest power in the world but my forces were split between fending off Chaos in the north, desperately trying to finish off the last bastion of the Vampire Counts (the undead can rebuild an army FAST) while keeping the Greenskins from nipping in behind my southern armies, and completing Karl Franz’ quest missions. I’ve never been so happy while sat at a computer.
Ultimately what won the day was a good use of diplomacy.
In so many games alliances are just another way of saying that X won’t attack Y and vice versa, but Total War: Warhammer is the first I’ve seen that lets you co-ordinate military targets with your allies. There’s a Beastman horde rampaging through Middenland, but my nearest army is heading off to relieve the besieged city of Salzenburg? No problem, I’ll tag it for my Marienburger and Brettonian allies who are in the area. It would be nice for it to work both ways as it sometimes feel like I’m throwing orders about to my allies and waiting for them to intone ‘THY WILL BE DONE’, but it still felt more realistic than anything I’ve played to date.
And so by coordinating my southern armies with the Dwarfs I was able to finally put down the Vampire Counts and contain the Greenskins south of Black Fire Pass. And by patching together a coherent resistance from what was left of the Empire, the forces of Archaon Everchosen were at last put to rout in an epic battle on the plains of Hochland.
The Old World could breath again, and by Sigmar it felt as though I’d earned it.
DLC
No review of Total War: Warhammer would be complete without mentioning DLC.
There was a bit of a ruckus amongst the fandom that Chaos Warriors would be a DLC faction (free to pre-orders) and not integral to the game, but this is just the way games are nowadays. Personally I find the DLC and the Free-LC (the Brettonia faction coming February 28th!) to be enjoyable, with the steady release helping to keep the game fresh. Are they fun add-ons to the game? They certainly are. Are they cheap? They certainly are not. But then the game is just fine without them and you can cherry pick what additions you want. I had no interested in playing as Beastmen, for instance, but I leapt on the Skarsnik and Belegar DLC (because I wrote Belegar in Thorgrim, obviously), and actually sat and watched Steam refresh itself waiting for the Wood Elves to appear for download.
And I would pay almost any price to play as my beloved skaven
Or Chaos Dwarfs.
Or Tomb Kings.
Sigh.
I’ll settle with free Brettonians for now.
a teasing gap where the capital of a certain Under-Empire should be...
I also mentioned the fan-made mods at Steam Forged. There are thousands of these things, ranging from putting more gold on Dwarf shields or making Chaos steeds bigger, to altering the AI of certain factions or unlocking factions like Kraka Drakk or Mousillon as playable races. I’ve downloaded about a dozen and there’s a couple in particular I love.
- The mod that put Empire troops trained in different provinces in the proper State colours gives a nice varied, lore-appropriate feel to Empire armies.
- Cataph’s: The Southern Realms. It introduces unique units to Tilea, Estalian and the Border Princes rather than being essentially versions of the Empire.
The question is – if its possible for a fan to create a whole new army for three human factions, why has no-one yet introduced a building tree to train Halflings in the Moot?
VERDICT
No game is perfect, and my main issue with Total War: Warhammer was that it made me finish my last book late. But that aside there are a few minor points. Firstly, the AI never attacks my castles. Ever. An entire playthrough and I’ve not once played defender in a siege battle. A few lore gripes like the lack of Halflings and that one time I got a message saying that Zhufbar had brought their allies, the Greenskins, into their war with me. Naval units are also glaringly absent, particular when you’re trying to defend Nordland from wave after wave of Norscan raiders
But there can be only one verdict.
10/10.
Make the time. Cut down on luxuries like sleep, switch to eating meals that can be consumed over a keyboard (I recommend pizza) and buy it.
