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If you've played Rome: Total War, you have to remember the first time you encountered the Carthaginians. Here you'd been, building proper Roman armies, with swords and shields and bows and arrows, designed to defeat nations with fewer resources and aging technology. And then you run into Carthage, and they've got war elephants. You weren't ready for war elephants.Total War, in my experience, has always played out a bit like a game of rock, paper, scissors. Swords tend to beat spears. Spears tend to beat cavalry. Cavalry tend to beat swords. The better units can defy these rules, sure, but it's almost always a good place to start. Up until the point at which you stand against an elephant charge and the whole thing falls apart. There is, of course, a counter to these units too; a new set of rules to add to the list. But for a little while, you're not sure what to do. In Rome: Total War, this feeling is a noteworthy exception, a rare blind spot in a game that wants you to understand its systems. In Total War: Warhammer, this seems to happen in almost every battle. And that's fantastic.
There's never been a Total War game with a roster this diverse. Alongside your typical infantry, ranged units and cavalry, there are flying war machines, giants, magic casters and legendary lords. There are infantry that specialise in taking down monstrous units and there are ranged units that can hold their own in melee combat. I think I now understand why the tabletop game has so many rulebooks. It can, at times, be a little overwhelming if you're not familiar with Warhammer Fantasy, but it's worth it in the end. Improving your army isn't just a case of replacing good infantry with great infantry, it can now be much more drastic than that. A late-game upgrade may see you adding a couple of steam tanks, or a gigantic arachnarok spider to your front line, and that feels way more important.
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