God bless late-in-life DLC. Every game is about developing skills, and therein lies the magic: the longer you think your players have been playing, the more fun content you can put in it.
That certainly seems to be the case with the Thrones of Decay DLC for Total War Warhammer III. Introducing new Legendary Lords, this new batch feels more experimental in playing with what they can do within the game’s systems.
I’m particularly a big fan of Elspeth von Draken- the new Empire Lord. Despite hailing from the more human side of Warhammer’s fantasy world, she’s got a dash of undead to her with her Lore of Death and campaign objective, which lets her create Gates of Mohrr around the map.
Part of it feels good because a lot of the older Warhammer III DLC tended to feel skeletally similar- build objectives until you get to big campaign event, be it the main campaign’s Realms of Chaos or any of its equivalent for other factions.
With my army of gun-toting humans instead I got to explore the layout of the map more. Elspeth can build her Gates in any Imperial city, not just her own- so you don’t have to suddenly wage a bloody campaign across the land when you realize you can just play nice with the other human factions and focus your resources on targeting the non-humans instead.
Guns Are Fun
Of course, when you do get into battle, there’s a lot of fun to be had there. Elspeth has access to the Imperial School of Gunnery, which lets you build a variety of ballistic themed units for your army, from pistoliers to handgunners to even Land Ships.
A lot of people tend to focus on the sword-and-sorcery side of Warhammer Fantasy that it’s nice to be reminded just how flavorful the universe actually is. Having an army primarily consisting of gunners is really fun, since you’re less incentivized to rush in and instead keep your distance. The fact the tech tree for Imperial School of Gunnery lets you do things like increase reload speed also makes it interesting to see how far you can get staging Ogre D-Day and pinning them down with gunfire.
Combined with the units you get from the Gardens of Mohrr themselves, you get a pretty flavorful force that reminds me of actual Warhammer army- you can see which units come from the Imperial keyword vs the ones from the specific, evil-flavored variant you’ve chosen.
That’s Not All
Of course, the Thrones of Ruin and Decay DLC has way more in store for players. There’s a new Dwarf Lord as well as a really interesting Nurgle Lord, all with their own fun gimmicks to use for the Warhammer fan who thinks they’ve seen it all.
That’s not even counting the free Lords included with the corresponding update. Basically, if you’re looking for more Total War Warhammer III, now’s a great time to get into it. If nothing else, for the satisfaction of laying siege to a vampire keep with a bunch of Mortars.
DLC Access Provided by SEGA
