Total War: Warhammer III - Tides of Torment

Tides of Torment, as always with Total War: Warhammer III comes along with a massive game update with large scale updates to mechanics and are intertwined with the actual DLC content, on top of a free legendary lord as always. We won't be covering the major overhauls because that would require many pages of text, but they are, in all aspects, improvements, where especially Norsca really needed this.

If you are unfamiliar with the Total War series, and especially the Warhammer part of it, I strongly suggest that you read our previous articles and reviews, otherwise most of the following will be pure nonsense.

The free part that comes with the update is relatively easy, as it's The Masque of Slaanesh, a poor soul, a dancing demon, that was unfortunate enough to re-enact a military defeat to her master through the media of dance. Wrong move, literally... She is now damned to dance forever, and no, I am not under the influence of controlled substances, this is the real original lore for the character, even if the original lore from the 8th Edition codex from 2013 is slightly different, and the 40K version also has some variations.

Her main mechanic is therefore dances that provide buffs, and the tempo is enhanced through military victory, and so are the effects of the different dances she can perform, with a final one unlocking when the three others are fully completed. Each dance can have some variation, and is generally versatile, and very much in sync with the general play style of the army, where you must be on the move constantly. This is made easier via new unholy manifestations, while the cult mechanics that allows for hidden cults in far away cities will help you spread your corruption. The Masque, like the paid DLC lords, have no custom campaign, and is used for the large-scale Immortal Empires mode only, which is fair for a free and actually interesting lord, but for the paid ones, that part feels like its lacking.

The paid lords, three of them, represent some new flavours with different mixes. Sea Lord Aislinn has some very interesting variations of existing mechanics in regards to gaining favour with other factions, meaning that he rarely takes cities for himself, as he gives a conquered settlement to other factions and has a small outpost instead. He is very much using the Black Ark mechanics from the Dark Elves, and is a very seafaring based lord, with the Dragonship fleet letting him be a horde faction, while he still has to deal with complex politics at home. This is the only part of the build I played that didn't work, as I simply couldn't insert any of my generals as rulers over the different parts of Ulthuran and thus use that part of his game mechanics, which is odd since the other part, getting direct help and buffs from specific elven leaders worked without any problems...

Aislinn comes with a new generic lord and heroes, new low-tiers infantry, and some very colourful monsters, including what I can only describe as a water-version of the sand worm from Dune, along with a (and I swear I didn't make this up) flying chariots with one version having a bolt thrower mounted on it. He is very clean, a high elf as usual, but it's a very different way to play due to how heavily buffs and aid from other legendary lords influence your gameplay. My main issue with his campaign is that he runs out of obvious enemies due to his position, that was despite my gamble to attack Kairos Fateweaver and invade demonic lands almost right away.

My new favourite is Dechala, The Denied One. God, how I love those biblical names. She also has the easiest starting location of the four, with few strong enemies nearby, and lots of options for expansion. She uses a thrall mechanic like Malus Darkblade, with a strong limit on the most powerful settlements, such as the Pleasure Palace that provides the best soldiers and economic advantages. This half-daemon, half-human comes with six arms and doubles up on magical weapons, making her an insane melee powerhouse that is also speedy. She comes with a named legendary hero, new infantry, and more importantly, ranged infantry, which really makes basic combat a lot easier. The playstyle is still extremely fast and swift, with more or less every single unit in the army being a glass cannon.

Last, but not least, unless you want to die as a mutated spawn of chaos, there is Sayl, The Faithless. He starts in a new providence added to the map, and has some really strong but also difficult quest battles that unlocks game mechanics, and some really lovely additions to the Norscan tribes, including a legendary bear-like hero, Fimirs, that you may remember from the old Hero Quest games. His game mechanics are very sneaky and play around manipulations and treachery, rather than brute strength and allegiance to one specific god. However, he is situated very poorly. No matter what I did at the start, I would get into trouble with a legendary Chaos Dwarf lord, and they are tough when you are starting out. Battling them put me 10-12 turns behind my normal routine, and combined with the quest battles, you need to put in some more effort with Sayl, who does, like the three others, have some interesting mechanics.

The main thing for all new lords is not that the faction and lord-specific mechanics are complex, and they are not individual but combined, so there is a lot to be aware of at once. I like that as it's a strategy game that is not impossible to learn, but hard to master, and with something like 100 options for a lord, there is everything for all flavours.

The price will most likely be an issue. At the time of writing, we do not know the final price, but a guess would be €9 per lord, or €25 for all three. You do get a lot, three legendary lords, three generic lords, three legendary heroes, four generic heroes, ten Regiments of Renown, and twenty new units on top of the new mechanics. However, unlike Thrones of Decay, you don't get a custom Realms of Chaos campaign (the story/narrative driven part of the game), and unless the developers at Creative Assembly surprise us at launch with vastly different prices, I find it only fair to point out that we are essentially getting a lot less content for the same price. Don't get me wrong, I will eventually achieve a complete domination victory with Immortal Empires - because that is how it's supposed to be - but unless the pricing turns out to be a lot cheaper than the previous DLC, I find the pricing to be off. But if you enjoy Immortal Empires, go for it, as the game mechanics are fun and provide some otherwise slightly boring factions with some serious upgrades.