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1. Total War Warhammer 2 Review
2. Total War Warhammer 2 Tips
3. Warhammer Total War 2 Poison

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2) Raising Dead: The major strategic strength of the VCs is their ability to raise large armies on short notice thanks to Raise Dead. Between city-based recruitment and Raise Dead, a VC player can raise a full army of 20 stacks in 3-4 turns, AS LONG AS they have enough money to pay the Raise Dead costs and at least a few turns of upkeep on the new army.

Total War: Warhammer II is the sequel to Total War: Warhammer and the second game in the planned trilogy. The game was announced on March 31 2017, confirmed for release later that year with the introduction of the Dark Elves, High Elves, Lizardmen and Skaven. It is to take place in the New World, Ulthuan and the Southlands, and will focus one the Vortex in Ulthuan, a maelstrom of arcane energies created by High Elf mages to drain excess magic and Chaos influence from the material world, and the playable races' struggle to control both it and the Ley Line network in Lustria. Players who own both games, as well as individual DLC packs, will have the option of playing them separately or as a single combined campaign map, the massive Mortal Empires campaign.

Millennia ago, besieged by a Chaos invasion, a conclave of High Elf mages forged a vast, arcane vortex. Its purpose was to draw the Winds of Magic from the world as a sinkhole drains an ocean, and blast the Daemonic hordes back to the Realm of Chaos. Now the Great Vortex falters, and the world again stands at the brink of ruin.

Powerful forces move to heal the maelstrom and avert catastrophe. Yet others seek to harness its terrible energies for their own bitter purpose. The race is on, and the very fate of the world will lie in the hands of the victor.

Prince Tyrion, Defender of Ulthuan, guides the High Elves in their desperate efforts to stabilise the vortex as it roils above their home continent.

Atop his palanquin-throne, the Slann Mage-Priest Mazdamundi directs his Lizardmen war-hosts as they surge northward from Lustria. He, too, is intent on preventing cataclysm, though the methods of The Old Ones must prevail.

The Witch King Malekith and his sadistic Dark Elf hordes spew forth from Naggaroth and their labyrinthine Black Arks. He tastes great weakness in the vortex – and great opportunity in its demise.

Meanwhile in the Under-Empire that spans across the world, The Skaven have sent forth Queek Headtaker for a diabolical quest to gather warpstone, all in an attempt to gain control of the vortex in the name of the Horned Rat and the Council of Thirteen.

In the vast sandy expanses of Nehekhara, the Tomb Kings awaken once more from their deep slumber, rising from dry crypts with Settra The Imperishable in the lead to secure their dominance once and for all by going on a quest to find the missing books of Nagash The Undying.

Across the misty seas and the salty ports of Eastern Lustria, The Undead Pirates of The Vampire Coast have had enough of simple plunder and pillaging of the ships and boats sailing the oceans, leading Arch Grand Commodore Luthor Harkon to search for more than mere treasure.. for the Star-Metal Harpoon lies in the deeps, a weapon powerful enough to bring the greatest Merwyrm of them all to heel!

Six races, six outcomes, a single goal: control of the magics of the world, for good or ill.

The core gameplay remains relatively unchanged from the first game (functioning more like a massive Expansion Pack then a true sequel), but it contains several new features besides additional races, such as Rites; powerful spells unique to each faction, activatable on the campaign map that provide a myriad of special boons both for the campaign and the battlefield, story focused campaigns for each race centered on the vortex, several new battlefield types, and a host of other changes that improve on the game that came before it.

The second of the trilogy is set in the New World and focuses on the factions of the New World warring against each other for control over the Vortex, as well as to further their own various goals. Playable Factions include The High Elves, The Dark Elves, The Lizardmen, and The Skaven. Two paid expansions added The Tomb Kings and The Vampire Coast to the setting.

Many tropes that apply here also apply to Warhammer, and vice versa.

The game was released on PC on September 28 2017, and is the tenth overall title in the Total War series.

• Absolute Xenophobe: There are several traits that confer the character hating an entire species (such as 'Hates Greenskins', for example), that usually give army-wide bonuses in combat against them. An Inversion is also in the game, (like 'Likes Greenskins', for example), which instead gives negative traits when fighting the faction.
• Abnormal Ammo:
  • The Skaven fully embrace this trope, utilizing a wide variety of different projectiles, including but not limited to condensed warp lightning and poison gas grenades
  • Besides their poisonous darts, the Lizardmen fire beams of solar energy, from stone cannons atop dinosaurs!
  • The Tomb Kings top them all, however, as they use their Skull Catapults to throw blazing skeleton heads of energy, as well as agonized souls!
• A Commander Is You: As in the first game the factions are far different from each other, compared to most strategy games, both on the campaign map and the battlefield.
  • High Elves: An Elitist/Generalist/Espionage faction. High Elf units are all at least reasonably well-armored, well-trained, quick on their feet and they have a variety of units to provide hard-counters, plus they gain buffs to damage when nearer their maximum hitpoints. But they are expensive and their numbers generally small, so they make up for this by using their Intrigue system to help secure alliances for themselves and divide their enemies against each other.
  • Dark Elves:An Elitist/Generalist/Brute faction. Like their counterparts they have a versatile roster of high quality troops, though their soldiers, especially the high-tier ones, tend to be less numerous than average. However, unlike the High Elves, they emphasize sheer force and aggression over espionage and defense. In addition their 'Murderous Prowess' mechanic gives them a significant boost to their combat abilities once a certain number of units have been slain, encouraging offense over defense. Their campaign mechanics also encourage aggressive strategies, with the slavery system and numerous boosts to raiding and sacking allowing them to enhance their economy through sacking and raiding.
  • Skaven: A Spammer/Technical faction. Probably the most prominent example of a Spammer in the franchise, the Skaven have the largest unit sizes in the game, and their tactics encourage sending waves of Slaves and Clanrats to bog down and distract the enemy, while using much more powerful elite infantry, monsters and war-machines to deal serious damage. They even have an in-battle mechanic that lets them periodically spawn entirely new units of clanrats, which can be placed literally anywhere on the battle map.
  • The Lizardmen: A Brute/Guerrilla faction. Lizardmen have a wide array of very heavy hitters, including their supremely powerful Saurus Warriors (who are often described as being high-tier infantry with the cost of mid-tier infantry), lumbering Kroxigors, and vicious primal dinosaurs, which will rip through any army that can't match their strength. Alongside this, they have very powerful skirmishers in the form of their many Skink Cohorts, including the powerful Chameleon Skinks and Terradon Riders, which are excellent at harassment. Add these two aspects alongside their powerful support magic, and you have a truly formidable force.
  • The Tomb Kings: A Spammer/Technical/Gimmick faction. The Tomb Kings are one of the most powerful defensive factions in the game, alongside the Dwarves. They have access to hordes and hordes of hardy, if offensively weak, skeleton infantry which can hold enemies in place for long periods of time, whilst their more powerful and fast units, such as horsemen and their various constructs, move in for the kill. They make heavy use of their lores to further support their skeletons and make them last longer (whose sustainability is enhanced even further with their battlefield mechanic: Realm of Souls). Unlike the Vampire Counts, they do have archers and powerful artillery, which let them turtle even more.
  • The Vampire Coast: A Spammer/Ranger faction. The Vampire Coast are very reliant on being able to quickly summon hordes of cheap infantry and a few monsters to support their waves upon waves of cost-efficient and plentiful gunners on the field with most of their melee units being mainly used in order to keep their the foe bogged down and open for bullets and cannonballs. They may not be as accurate as Dwarfs, Humans and Elves, but they make up for this weakness by drowning their foes in a far bigger hail of projectiles than anyone else can muster.
  • The Rogue Armies are non-playable Gimmick factions that are totally focused on one particular tactic or theme. For instance: only cavalry, only units that fit a pirate theme, only monsters, hilariously impractical amounts of artillery, and so on.
• Adaptational Expansion: Like the first game, there's been some alterations to existing factions to make them more fun and competitive,
  • The Lizardmen sport a few new units that don't appear on the tabletop. The player can create units of feral dinosaurs as standalone units instead of mounts, as CA thought not having any dinosaur-based units in the early game wouldn't be fun for the player. There is also now a Bastiladon that can have a magical crystal strapped to its back that will heal and buff units.
  • The Skaven meanwhile gain several variants of slingers which weren't present in the tabletop game. They also field an even more powerful version of their grenadiers, the 'Death Globe Bombardiers', who are chemical weapons experts.
  • The Dark Elf roster remains mostly unchanged, though they did gain a new cavalry variant in the form of the Cold One Dread Knights and have been given black dragons as a standalone unit rather than just a mount choice.
  • The High Elves too are mostly unaltered, though they, like the Dark Elves, have gained dragons as standalone units and have received a new archer and new chariot unit not present on the tabletop.
  • The Tomb Kings are the most altered faction so far. Creative Assembly created two homebrew units: the Nehekhara Warriors (Skilled soldiers duel-wielding two Khopeshes that serve as aggressive medium infantry), and the Nehekhara Horsemen (Riders who are more well-armored than the fragile Skeleton Horsemen) who fulfill the role of medium-tier infantry and cavalry, respectively. The monstrous Hierotitans, and the Legendary Lord Khatep, had rules but never had models, which Creative Assembly fixed.
  • The Vampire Coast faction in its entirety. Similar to Norsca, it is a background faction that has been turned into its own full-fledged faction. It derives the bulk of its roster from a White Dwarf custom army list. It also features the Mournguls and Necrofex Colossi from the Monstrous Arcanum supplement from Forgeworld, as well as Count Noctilus and Aranessa Saltspite from Dreadfleet as Legendary Lords. There is even an original Legendary Lord called Cylostra Direfin to round out the roster.
• Action Girl: Several, mostly fielded by the High Elves, like their gallant Princesses and Mages. The Tomb Kings in Lustria are also led by the badass, yet level-headed, High Queen Khalida.
• Adaptational Villainy: While the Lizardmen have always had an undertone of genocidal tendencies, in the tabletop they usually restricted their massacres for the manyAlways Chaotic Evil races of the setting. The Vortex epilogue makes it very clear, yes they intend to slaughtereveryone in a giant purge of both the New World, and the Old War, now that they have the power of the Vortex behind them. Furthermore, the game plays up their bestial traits far more, appearing more savage and monstrous then they did in the original game.
• Adaptational Heroism: Settra is still the arrogant, and ruthless Lord of the Tomb Kings we all know and love, but he's noticeably a bit more benevolent, examples include him sparing Khatep, who despite being exiled, arrives on time to assist his liege lord against the minions of Nagash, who did so in canon, and was executed for it.
• Adaptational Wimp: Not everything translates well from tabletop..
  • The White Lions were downgraded from Elites to mid-tier infantry, a far cry from how they played in the original game. Creative Assembly, at least, justified this by stating they believed the Swordmasters and White Lions would play the exact same role (elite damage-dealing infantry), so downgrading the White Lions would make a new niche for the unit..which had questionable results. The High Elves as a whole got hit by this in the marketing, becoming the punching bag of the trailers.
  • The Slaan Magepriests are severely less powerful then how they were in both the fluff and the wargame, although this also can be attributed to the fact the series put less emphasis on magic than the original game.
  • The Temple Guards, while still powerful and possessing a nifty anti-large bonus, no longer outclass other factions' elite-tier infantry. This was partly done to shift the focus of Lizardmen gameplay from the heavy Saurus infantry that dominate their early game into dinosaurs and magic in the late game.
• Alliance Meter: A fairly standard one for the genre, unchanged from the first game, though several new types of AI personalities have been added.
• All There in the Manual: Further backstory and flavor text on units, buildings and technology in the campaign are in the Warhammer Encyclopedia, which can be accessed only while playing the game online. More details on the various original characters featured in the Vortex campaign can be found on Creative Assembly's website, which houses several short stories that take place before the events of the game.
• All or Nothing: Getting caught on a special map (Like a Beastpath) will automatically purge the entire stack (even if a large amount of soldiers survived the initial battle) if the player or AI loses the battle. (Explained In-Universe as the surviving soldiers dying from being lost to the extreme wilderness)
• Alternate Universe: Like the first game, however, since 2 has a fairly large and unique storyline, it's far more detailed about its disconnection to the main Warhammer universe. As an example, it's quite possible, in one ending, for the Great Horned Rat to be summoned into the physical world, to wreak all kinds of havoc. Also, unlike the first game, numerous aspects of lore introduced by the End Times are mentioned, implying that it's considered Broad Strokes canon.
• Already Done for You: A common recurrence, as the game is quite random when it comes to AI expansion. Don't expect your rivals across the sea to still be alive after a hundred or so turns. This is especially true in the Mortal Empires campaign, which has rather horrible auto-resolve rolls for the Greenskins and Skaven, who get dominated and snuffed out early on, mainly by the Dwarfs. After a patch, this was reversed with the Dwarfs barely able to hold on by a thread whilst the Greenskins dominate the badlands.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The forces of the Skaven and the Dark Elves will always be composed of monsters, without a single redeeming quality about them. Their races 'virtues' are all considered vices by practically any moral person. Being captured alive by either of them is considered to be A Fate Worse Than Death.
• The Ageless: Heroes and Lords do not age, and as such, can't die from old age or sickness. This is especially true for some of the factions (with the average High and Dark elf being able to live for a millennia) Legendary Lords, who are ancient. Lord Mazdamundi for example is tens of thousands of years old.
• And I Must Scream: The Warhammer universe is not a pleasant place to live in..
  • Caledor and the Archmages who helped create the Great Vortex are eternally bound to it, in a state between life and death, forever chanting spells in order to stabilize the Vortex or else doom not only Ulthuan (the Vortex itself is what keeps Ulthuan from being consumed by the ocean) but the world. In the High Elf campaign it's possible to relieve him and his cohort of mages of their pain every ritual, and finally free them from their eternal suffering at the end.
  • Getting captured by Dark Elves entails this. The kindest fate you can suffer under them is being sacrificed to Khaine. In their settlements, you can stumble on corpse fields which are composed of slaughtered slaves, who have a look of perpetual agony.
  • The Skaven, if you're lucky, will quickly devour you (and if you're extra lucky cut your throat before hand), if not, then they'll spend weeks subjecting you to horrible experiments, the end result being fused together with some other unlucky sods in a flesh golem, still alive..
  • Most Tomb Kings regard their condition as this, as despite having functional immorality, they can't enjoy the simple pleasures of life anymore.
• Annoying Arrows: Brutally averted outside of the Mortal Empires mode. Gunpowder is not present among the playable races in the vortex campaign, so arrows alongside crossbow bolts dominate ranged fights.
  • High Elven Archers possess frightening accuracy and range, enough to make their Asrai cousins wary.
  • Dark Elf Dark Shards use repeater crossbows that have unimpressive range but allow them to put out a tremendous amount of armor piercing damage even in the early game.
  • The Tomb King can field Ushabti with Great Bows which are Monstrous Archers about ten feet tall with enormous bows that have better range and damage than anything else in the game. The missiles are so heavy that they go right through shields the same as artillery. Their Regiment of Renown version, the Chosen of the Gods, fires arrows that explode into shrapnel arrows; it also has the 'Shieldbreaker' trait, meaning that said shrapnel arrows will actually lower the shield value of any unit they hit.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Plenty of quality of life improvements have been added to the game.
  • The UI has gotten a large facelift, and is much more pleasing to look at.
  • Quest Battle teleportation is now defined by distance. Meaning you pay less gold the closer you are to the location of the quest.
  • The game lets you cycle through actions you haven't completed yet (Such as not moving a hero, or having unspent skill points. You can even choose what things you want the game to notify you about, and what you don't)
  • You can choose the speed of enemy movements on their turns on the campaign map.
• Anti-Cavalry: As is the norm for a Total War game, most units equipped with spears, halberds, and pikes will be fairly efficient at killing mounted units, though to shake things up, any unit with the 'Anti-Large' trait will do well against cavalry, as well as monsters. Units that brace, will also be able to withstand frontal cavalry charges much better. However, Monstrous Cavalry, such as the Tomb King, Necropolis Knights, will be significantly harder to take down, even by dedicated anti-large units.
• Anti-Infantry: Similar to the above, any unit with the trait 'Anti-Infantry', will do rather well against infantry units. Monstrous Infantry, and giants, especially, will almost certainly be very good at killing foot soldiers, and other infantry units.
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: The Shield of Civilization trait returns on the Mortal Empires map, which now applies to all High Elves and Lizardmen factions. The forces of Order are always willing to unite against Chaos!
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Unchanged from the first game. A single army can consist of twenty units per stack, further increased to forty if you engage the enemy with a reinforcing force. Also summoned units cannot be spawned if there's twenty, or forty units on the field.
• Armor Is Useless: Zigzagged like the first game, the higher the armor rating, the more physical damage the unit can shrug off. Some of Lizardmen monsters, like the Ankylosaurus-esque Bastiladon, function as living tanks, and because of their thick armored plating, simply shrug off volley after volley of arrow fire due to their insanely high armor values.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Most attacks do some form of split between Armor Piercing damage and non-AP damage. The defender gets to roll their Armor value against the attacker's damage, and AP damage gets to skip this step. Most attacks do some AP damage, and some units, like great-weapon infantry or firearm users, get to ignore armor with most of their damage.
• Artificial Brilliance: The Campaign and Battle AI is generally considered a good improvement over the first game.
• Artificial Stupidity: Skaven controlled by the AI have a nasty tendency of using Menace Below nowhere near the enemy troops during battles.
• Artifact of Doom: The Sword of Khaine (otherwise known as the Widowmaker and the Slayer of Gods), doubling as an Evil Weapon. The cursed blade was wielded by the Ax-Crazy Elven God of War Khaine, which he used to fell immeasurably amounts of people . To drive back the first incursion of Chaos, the first Elven king, Anerion, picked up the sword, which granted him power unimaginable..at the cost of turning him into an Ax-Crazy beserker. The May Patch added this in as an in-game mechanic, as it lets Dark Elf, Wood Elf or High Elf players construct the Shrine of Khaine. After which, if ones very desperate (or incredibly stupid), gives the player an option to have one of their generals draw the infamous blade from the shrine, turning them into unimaginably powerful One-Man Army..at the cost of turning them insane, with truly horrible effects mounting on the campaign map the longer the wielder holds the weapon.
• Ascended Meme:
  • The Skaven Scribe Reacts trailer is chock full of it, with the titular Scribe referencing the jokes about how Creative Assembly's rendition of Teclis looks a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch, the Skink that protruded its head at the camera at 1:59 became memetically popular, and ending it with the phrase 'Skaven confirmed!' was essentially acknowledging the most common reaction to the end of the trailer.
  • The faction leader of Tiranoc in the 'Mortal Empires' campaign is named Surthara Bel-Kec, a reference to the Norscan leader Surtha Ek from the first game. Tiranoc, in the lore, is famous for its chariots and Surtha Ek became a Memetic Badass on the game's forum and subreddit over his tendency to create mass chariot armies in the first game.
• Ascended Fanon: The May Mortal Empires patch incorporates many features that modders implemented into the game first. Including, but not limited too;
  • Ungrim Ironfist, after essentially two years, is finally receiving his own sub faction, and being moved from Karaz a Karak to his home city Karak Kadrin. This was originally done by Crynsos' Faction Unlocker+.
  • The Dawi are getting their own crafting system based on the Tomb Kings one, showing off their skills as the Ultimate Blacksmith of the setting. This had been done prior (albeit with immense technical difficulties) by Runeforging.
  • After popular demand, the unforgiving and strict Skaven food system is being overhauled and made easier with the addition of many other ways to get food for your horde, which Adjusted Skaven Food did before it.
  • The Vampire Coast update introduced Island and Black Ark Battles, which were implemented prior by the GCCM: Naval Battles mod.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: As the warscape engine allows thousands of corpses to persist on the battlefield, it's entirely possible to see your Lord standing on a bloodsoaked body-littered battlefield by the end of the fight.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Monsters return from the first game, with new candidates such as the foul Hydra, rot-spewing Black Dragon, Panther-like Warsphinx, and the purely nightmarish Hellpit Abomination. Behaving exactly like they did previously, monsters can disrupt large infantry formations just be moving over them and rip apart lines single-handedly, though they always carry the risk of being whittled down by enemy fire.
• Animate Dead: The Tomb Kings raise armies by resurrecting fallen legions of skeletons, though only on the Campaign Map, as unlike the Vampire Counts from the first game, they have no ability to summon skeleton warriors on the battlefield.
• Amazon Brigade: Witch Elves are all-female units of fanatical Dark Elf warrior-cultists, who try to honor Khaine by spilling the blood of everything they come across. The Wood Elves also field all-female units, such as Wardancers and the Sisters of Thorn in Mortal Empires.
• Authority Equals Ass Kicking: As with the last game, Lords are elite warriors who can take on entire regiments on their own. Put enough skill points into their individual combat skills, and their battlefield prowess becomes ridiculously high-powered.
• Awesome, but Impractical: As with the first game, there are a couple of units that serve this role:
  • Skink Cohorts with javelins. While it is true that they are rather fast and have an incredibly strong ranged attack for their cost, the problem is that their ammo is very limited and their range is short, making them near-useless once they run out of javelins to toss.
  • The Khepra Guard, a Regiment of Renown for the Tomb Kings who dual-wield swords. Wile it is true that they deal quite a lot of damage and are more durable than Nehekaran warriors, they do not have any shields, which is a great part as to what makes the Tomb Guards so durable during long fights, making them very vulnerable compared to many other late-game units available for the Tomb Kings.
  • White Lions. What's cooler than a regiment of heavily armored Lumberjacks wearing lion cloaks, armed with battle axes? Except they aren't nearly as durable as they appear because they lack shields, occupy an awkward position between regulars and elites, are the same role as Swordmasters yet worse at everything, and aren't effective for their cost. Still awesome looking.
  • Putting Tyrion on his unique Elven Steed. Whilst it's heavily armored and very fast, it downgrades his dueling abilities (and Tyrion unmounted is the duelist lord of the game), and makes him an even bigger target to archers and other ranged attacks.
• Badass Baritone:
  • Tyrion talks with an authoritarian air and even sterner voice. For a High Elf, at any rate, meaning he's more of a tenor.
  • Mazdamundi's voice is so low, it might as well be an actual toad croaking.
  • Malekith. Good lord Malekith. Doubling as Evil Sounds Deep, nobody in the series speaks with a more menacing, yet utterly badass, voice.
  • Kroq-Gar, while not as thunderously deep compared to Mazdamundi's croaks, still speaks with a throaty, growling voice that perfectly conveys the ancient killing machine he was born to be.
• Badass Army: Hell yes.
  • The High Elves are well equipped and even their levied citizen-soldiers are very well trained. To reflect their intense discipline and mutual support in formation, High Elf units get a damage bonus when their hitpoint totals are closer to their maximum. Every single High Elf is a decent fighter by necessity and the specialist warriors they field are some of the bravest and most skilled around. They even field powerful Dragons as allies to further enhance the strength of the High Elven Empire.
  • The Druchii are no less skilled in battle than their High Elven foes, and they combine this prowess with a Blood Lust to rival that of the Greenskins and Norscans, being a highly militarised society similar to ancient Sparta. They are the opposite of the High Elves, and get stronger the longer in combat. Attached to their army, they make use of corrupted creatures to increase their armies killing ability.
  • Despite their cowardice, The Skaven get by with single minded zeal to overwhelm the enemy until they lay broken before the children of the horned rat. They make use of their extremely advanced technology when sheer numbers aren't enough, and can deploy Weapon Teams that fire green, warp-lightning that turn anything they touch to ash, or unleash monstrous abominations created with science to wreck enemy formations.
  • Despite having lost most of their temple cities over the long years, the Lizardmen warmachine is still truly a sight to behold. The Saurus are literally bred to be warriors, and it shows: the entire race of them are badass soldiers that can fight off any who oppose the Great Plan. Saurus Warriors are in fact so strong they can trade blows with enemy elites with little effort and exterminate any of the other factions' infantry. They are supported by small, but loyal and nimble, Skink Cohorts who make great use of throwing weapons, and monstrous, primeval beasts that can rip apart lines of warriors.
• Badass Beard: Many of the Tomb Kings sport highly impressive Egyptian styled ones. What they lack in size compared to the Dwarf's, they surely make up for it in style.
• Badass Boast: 'We do not serve,WE RULE!'
• The Berserker: Total War Warhammer II introduces a new mechanic called 'Rampage', which essentially causes certain units to lose control and attack the enemy closest to them without regards to their own safety! The Lizardmen are the primary holders of this mechanic. As a plus side, units under this effect will rarely route, and fight to the death. There even exists a spell that allows you to give this debuff to enemy units. Quite a few Game 1 units were given this effect with the Mortal Empires patch, such as Feral Manticores, and Squig Herds.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The Dark Elves or Skaven being victorious in the single player Vortex campaign spells absolute disaster for the rest of the Warhammer world. If the Skaven win, the Horned Rat himself is brought into the world, eager to consume mortal souls by the millions. If the Dark Elves win, Malekith will absorb the incredible power of the Vortex and make himself a god of the Druchii, and go on to subjugate the entire world with his power. Given the sheer sadistic cruelty of the Dark Elves, a few years under their rule might see the other races begging for the End Times.
• Beast of Battle: Monsters are used in warfare extensively, and each faction usually has at least one.
  • When the High Elves go to war, they do so alongside Phoenixes, Giant eagles and powerful Dragons, whom they compel to fight in their hosts.
  • The Lizardmen pad their armies with various primeval lizards, most based on Dinosaurs, like the Trex-esque Carnosaur, Stega-esque Stegadon, armored Bastildon (which can be fitted with a variety of magical artefacts), raptor-esque Cold Ones, and the flying Terradons. They usually are used as mounts, or as feral, independent warbeasts.
  • The Dark Elves use corrupted creatures, cruelly trained by their beast masters, like their terrifying Cold Ones, monstrous Hydra's, and mighty Black Dragons.
  • The Skaven field horrible, twisted abominations that have been strewn together through a mixture of science and magic, and turned into living weapons, like the Rat Ogres, and the Hellpitt Abomination.
  • The Tomb Kings monsters are primarily their constructs, but they utilise Undead Vultures as a flying force.
  • The Vampire Coast makes use of a wide range of nautical monstrosities, most notably the Prometheans. They also have access to more traditional vampiric monsters with a piratical flair, including Scurvy Dogs, Mournguls, Deck Droppers (Fell Bats that carry Zombie Pirates in their claws) and the Death Shriek Terrorgheist.
• Behemoth Battle - some of the aforementioned monsters have special animations if they are fighting each other, and all this while surounded by insane amounts (as for video games) of regular soldiers who can be trampled just accidentaly when one monster throws another somewhere.
• Big-Bad Ensemble: The Dark Elves and Skaven take center stage as the primary antagonistic forces this time round. Towards the end of the campaign it is revealed that the Skaven are ultimately the primary cause of the conflict, engineering the sighting of the false twin-tailed comet to provoke the other three races into dumping magical power into the Great Vortex, destabilizing it and permitting them the chance to summon the Great Horned Rat to the material realm.
  • And of course, Archaon and the Warriors of Chaos return as the Big Bad for Mortal Empires, now with even more map to devastate!
• Bling of War: The High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen and Tomb Kings all sport some very ornate armour among their ranks. The Skaven are the only ones who don't really indulge in this.
• Blue and Orange Morality: The Lizardmen care only for protecting their sacred sites and advancing the mysterious plans of the Old Ones, and will show no mercy to anyone who infringes on either of those things. Anything not mentioned in the Great Plan is to treated, at best, extreme caution, at worst, all out extermination. Notably, the Lizardmen are competing with the High Elves for control of the Vortex.. even though both sides essentially have the same end-goal.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The 'Blood for the Blood God' DLC turns this practically Up to 11. Previously bloodless battlefields become filled with torn up corpses, gallons and gallons of blood, and ripped up limbs. It also adds a dismemberment system to the game, and makes the monster kill moves a thousand times more disgusting.
• Bottomless Magazines: Fully Averted, unlike the previous game; all ranged units now have reload animations, though units who lacked reloading animations in the first game still lack them in Mortal Empires.
• Boring Yet Practical:
  • High Elf armies' bread and butter units are the Lothern Sea Guard. On paper, decidedly less impressive than the badass Swordmasters of Hoeth, or White Lions of Chrace, but what they lack in cool factor, they make up for in sheer practicality, being highly-skilled archers that are also excellent in melee, and can counter traditionally archer-killing cavalry because they wield anti-large spears. With Sea Guard, one can make a two-rank deep line of archer/spearmen hybrids that can strategically switch roles when needed. These factors, alongside their surprisingly cheap price, means you'll be fielding a lot of them.
  • High Elf Spearmen. Good discipline, mixed with good staying power alongside their powerful Martial Prowess bonus, make for a sturdy unit that will be the core of your army if you need proper staying power. In the same vein, Dark Elf Dreadspears and Dreadswords also count.
  • For their Dark Elf counterparts, Darkshards with shields can deliver a devastating punch with their crossbows while possessing enough armor to withstand return fire, can have their range improved with research, and because their bolts are armor-piercing they only become more useful as a campaign progresses. For all that, they're relatively cheap and quickly available. They can perform a crucial role in a Dark Elf army at any stage of the game.
  • Stormvermin may not have the insane power and coolness of the other factions' elites, but what they lack in quality, they very much make up for it in quantity. Not only are they much more numerous than other elite units, they cost a good deal less, meaning they're easier to field in large numbers. For the price, you get very sturdy anti-larg, and line units that, with proper support, can kill anything you throw them against.
  • Skaven Slaves. Just like Zombies, there's nothing better for soaking up fire and charge damage, but they won't be winning any battles soon.
  • When it comes to Lizardmen, Saurus Warriors will always be the go-to unit, being a borderline Game-Breaker. Available very earlier on, Saurus will wreck any other faction's equivalent unit, and beyond, being capable of trading blows with other armies' elites. They also posses the Enrage mechanic, which causes them to become Unbreakable at the price of the player not being able to control them. Whilst Temple Guard may look cooler, Saurus remain competent and highly useful throughout the entire game.
  • In general, all lower-tier units will have roles to play throughout the entire campaign.
• Bodyguarding a Badass:
  • The Lizardmen Temple Guard are the strongest and most disciplined Saurus Warriors in any temple city. They're warriors who are hundreds, if not thousands, of years old who have stood guard against foes since time immemorial. The Slaan mage priests they 'guard' can rip open tectonic plates and immolate entire armies by themselves. Downplayed, since whilst the Slann are immensely powerful they spend a lot of their time asleep, rendering them extremely vulnerable and in need constant supervision. As well as being almost physically defenseless on the off-chance an enemy actually got into melee range of one.
  • The White Lions of Chrace are one of the most elite units in the entire High Elf military, being High Elf Woodsmen clad in heavy armor, wielding two-handed battle axes and acting primarily as the Phoneix King's personal cohort of bodyguards. It is slightly subverted in their case though, as while many Phoenix Kings have been great warriors, many have been essentially non action guys as well, including the current incumbent, Finubar the Seafarer.
  • The Black Guard of Naggarond are Malekith'spersonal guard and the most elite warriors in the Dark Elf army. Each one is trained from the time they're old enough to hold a weapon and indoctrinated to be fanatically loyal to the Witch King. Malekith of course is one of the last people in need of protection.
• Bow and Sword, in Accord: Dark Elf Shades are armed with crossbows and swords, and their high proficiency with both make them some of the most versatile and effective units in the game. Dwarf Quarrellers also fill this roll well, armed with crossbows as well as either 2-handed axes or a one-handed ax and shield combo. The Ax and shield option gives them a huge advantage in shootouts with enemy ranged units, while great weapons make them effective against armored enemies in melee combat.
• Breath Weapon: Dragons now have the ability to use breath attacks, and the dragons from the first game have been updated to use similar abilities.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: A very effective tactic in the mid game is to offer large sums of gold to factions of the same race, to get them to confederate with you. Which means you can quickly knock off many locations on your victory conditions. It's easy, and expansion without conquest. It's far easier to do, if you already maintain good relations with them, and as plus you automatically gain control over all their armies and lords. This becomes practically necessity in the Vortex campaign, as you need to expand as fast as possible to maintain steam in the race for the Vortex.
• Call-Forward: Interacting with a Skaven faction led by a grey seer will occasionally result in a reference to The End Times: Vermintide, despite Warhammer II being nominally set before the End Times and the attack on Uberseik^note :
  Grey Seer: 'Can't stop Vermintide - Saltzpyre and fire-witch will fail just like you-you!'
• The Cameo:
  • Caledor the Dragontamer appears briefly in the cinematic trailer, when Teclis witnesses a vision of the Great Vortex's creation.
• Canon Foreigner: Cylostra Direfin is the second original Legendary Lord added to the trilogy after Sarthorael the Everwatcher in the first game; Sarthorael is playable in custom battle.
• Chokepoint Geography: As in the original game the campaign map is full of choke points caused by rivers and mountains which affect how defensible certain settlements are. The ability of the Skaven to avoid these ensures that they are a plague that is difficult to defend against and hard to catch.
  • A new addition is Chokepoint Maps for battles which have an obstruction, usually a gorge, that blocks the middle of the map except in a one or two places. Unfortunately Artificial Stupidity means that the AI is not so great at fighting on these maps.
• Chronic Back Stabbing Disorder: The Skaven and Dark Elves both suffer from this trope. Fittingly, their generals all have a loyalty meter, giving them the potential to rebel against the player.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: When it comes to casting magic in battle the AI has an uncanny ability to dodge and avoid offensive spells. Moving the target unit out of harms way the instant a spell is cast. Its own spells meanwhile always strike with impossible accuracy to devastating affect. The same problem exists for artillery; when a players artillery fires on the enemy, they have a very annoying ability to reform, and skirt away from most of the splash damage. Thankfully, both these AI quirks have been fixed.
  • When performing a Vortex Ritual, players must guard specific cities from the forces of Chaos, which spawn armies to attack those cities..only for the armies to automatically spawn in areas away from your armies and in the weakest parts of your civilization, where they will raze as much as they can while ignoring their objective.
• Continuity Nod/In-Joke: In-universe, the human Empire doesn't acknowledge the Skaven as real and forcefully clamps down on any rumors about their existence. As such, during the run-up to the game's release Creative Assembly kept a tongue-in-cheek silence about the Skaven for as long as possible, claiming jokingly that the rat in their trailers was just a rat and had no relation to the as-yet unreleased fourth faction.
• Cool vs. Awesome: A large part of the game's appeal. This is a game in which dragons body-slam T-rexes.
• Crazy Enough to Work: The Council of Thirteen's overall plan is, characteristically, both cunningly brilliant and also totally bananas: put a rocket disguised as the Twin-tailed Comet into orbit to fool the other races into empowering/destabilizing the Vortex (the one thing keeping the world from being overrun by literal demons), and then pilfer the power generated by their rituals to physically summon the Great Horned Rat onto the mortal plane. No one else suspects a thing til near the end (even the other Skaven) because the plan is just that insane.
• Critical Existence Failure: After a faction is destroyed, or confederated with, all of their heroes just spontaneously die.
• Crosshair Aware: Powerful spells like Black Ark Bombardments show a indicator of where they're going to hit to the opposing player, giving them an opportunity to avoid the devastating results of being caught. As such its wise to lay done a spell on a unit that's been fully dedicated to the fight.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Very possible for a skilled player. If one lays a one sided beat down upon their foe, they're usually rewarded with a 'Decisive' or 'Heroic' victory.
• Cut Scene: The game has much more cutscenes then the first, all done in stylized art, which includes faction intros, ritual cutscenes, and an ending cutscene after the climatic final battle. There's also the gorgeous intro cinematic, which was made with CGI.
• Dark Is Evil: The Dark Elves dress in black, purple and red, and regularly indulge in piracy, slavery, Cold-Blooded Torture and casual sadism.
• Darker and Edgier: The Lizardmen were given a very large overhaul when it comes to their models, making them appear far more dangerous, and monstrous. In the tabletop, the Lizardmen were somewhat infamous in the community for their..goofy models (which were noted to be of very low quality). As a result many units were given an extensive redesign, playing up their bestial saurian aesthetic.
• Dark Fantasy: Just like the first game, though Creative Assembly made its color power palette so bright it resembles High Fantasy in art direction more.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: The combination of heavy armor and insanely huge health pools on enemy lords often requires one to go to absurd lengths in order to kill them. Killing them sometimes requires you to spend several minutes hacking away at them with your entire army after theirs has routed. This is also the case for many of the Lizardmen's monsters, who have thick, armored plating, which gives them the durability of tanks.
• Decapitated Army: If an armies Lord is killed, all units, bar a few special ones, loose an increasing amount of morale, until they eventually route. Noticeably, High Elves get a debuff as they loose numbers and their leaders which further decreases their leadership and stats, furthering the process along.
• Death from Above: In addition to artillery, there are plenty of flying units, a trend started by the first game. Some, like Lizardmen Terradon Riders, primarily attack from range by dropping rocks or flinging javelins from atop their mounts. However, most are melee units, albeit ones that can initiate a charge against practically anything on the battlefield, usually with a large charge bonus as they swoop down to rake and crush anything they land on! Beware though, once a flying unit is committed to such a melee battle it remains grounded until it can clear enough space around it to get a running start back in the air. That means that an opposing force can throw infantry at it to keep it surrounded and grounded long enough to do some serious damage to it.
• Demonic Invaders: The Warriors of Chaos also fulfill this role, like the first game, though the main reason why the factions are so desperate to control the Vortex is the fear of the realDemonic Invaders, the Daemons of Chaos returning to destroy the world.
• Dem Bones: Tomb King units have this general aesthetic, but unlike the Vampire Count ones, who have a gothic look, the Tomb Kings are Egyptian skeletons.
• Didn't Think This Through: Although tampering with the Vortex is shown to be a bad idea in any regards, the Skaven really didn't think on how well summoning their god (when their culture is based around backstabbing, worthlessness of individual life, and personal ambition) would work out; as the ending implies, the Great Horned Rat spends just as much time slaughtering the Skaven themselves as he does their enemies. That said, the Skaven hate everyone, including themselves..
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Chameleon Skinks may lack the raw killing power of other missile infantry, like Death Globe Bombardiers or Darkshards, and they can barely hurt armoured enemies on their own. However, they fire poisoned blowpipe darts that give their targets significant debuffs, allowing other Lizardmen units to take them down quickly and efficiently. On top of that, they are quick on the move, camouflaged when out of combat, difficult to target with missile weapons and able to hold their own in a melee against lower-tier infantry, making them an excellent support unit and a nightmare for the enemy to take down, bordering on Demonic Spiders.
  • The Bloated Corpses of The Vampire Coast, the first suicide bomber of the series. Wile it is true that they are cheap and can be taken down very easily by getting them stuck on a single unit, casting a spell on them or firing less than volley of projectiles at them, it doesn't remove the fact that they can singlehandedly wipe out even the toughest of Elite Mook squads if allowed to get in close enough for the detonation.
  • Lord Kroak. Due to the fact that he is such a big target and not too durable against sustained fire, it can be difficult to keep him alive against skilled players. However, if one can manage to bunch up enough enemies, then he can blast apart several squads at once with a single Deliverance of Itza.
• Dirty Coward: Nearly all Skaven units have pathetic morale, and will usually be the first ones to run away when things begin to go sour. It's probably more accurate to call the entire Skaven race, a group of dirty cowards.
• The Dog Bites Back: At the climax of the Skaven campaign the scribe turns on Vulscreek for attempting to sacrifice his clan to the Horned Rat, ripping his throat out.. and completing the ritual himself by sacrificing the Grey Seer Clan instead.
• Do Well, but Not Perfect: The game encourages steady expansion, but it also rewards caution; spread too fast and too soon, and you won't have much time to prepare for the insane doomstacks that attack you for starting rituals.
• Downloadable Content: As expected from a Total War title, however the amount of DLC (so far) made for the game has been far lesser in terms of quantity then the first game.
  • For FLC: Mortal Empires, The Laboratory, Trench Craventail, Steps of Isha, Alith Anar, Lokhir Fellheart, Tiktaq'to.
  • For DLC: Blood for the Blood God 2.0, Rise of the Tomb Kings, The Queen and the Crone, Curse of The Vampire Coast, The Prophet and the Warlock.

• Easy Logistics: A little bit better then the first game, but still rather simplistic compared to other Grand Strategy titles. Food has been regulated to Skaven only, General loyalty has returned, but only for Dark Elves, Skaven and Vampire Coast, and the Imperium rating only exists as an invisible resource that defines how big the negative diplomacy rating you get with other factions. Taxes have been significantly simplified as well. All you really have to manage is your income, public order, and corruption.
• Earned Stripes: Units will earn experience as the gain kills in battles, which is shown by a symbol on their unit card, showing their level of veterancy, which in turn increases their stats.
• Easing into the Adventure: Each faction starts beside a weak faction, such as Skeggi, whom they're at war with; giving the player an easy chance to expand early on and build up a powerbase.
• Easy Communication: Just like in the other Total War titles, units can be ordered by a single click, no matter how far apart they are from their commander. Especially egregious is the fact Officers in units no longer exist.
• Enemy Mine:
  • If a faction overtakes all the others, and completes the final ritual, a final, desperate quest battle is given to the player which involves giving the player a final chance to avoid losing the entire campaign. Everyone left will reinforce you, culminating in the losing factions teaming up to stop the winning one from gaining the power of the vortex. This includes Arch Enemies like Tyrion and Malekith working together.
  • The Shield of Civilization returns in Mortal Empires.
• Enemy Chatter: Zooming into units reveals a staggering amount of context sensitive chatter from your, and the enemies soldiers, discussing the foe their facing, the dialogue in question being unique depending on which army you're facing, such as the High Elves making fun of the Dark Elves.
• Elite Army: While its possible to field entire armies of elite units (if you have alot of money), the High Elves units as a whole are cut above their equivalents, at the price of a universally highish upkeep for their units. They also have access to alot more elite options then other races.
• Elite Mook: Every faction has a handful of highly expensive, yet powerful units, that are a cut above the rest in their faction. There's also the illustrious 'Regiments of Renown'. Beefed-up variants of existing units with unique appearances (including weapons, armor, and colors), stats, and special abilities, you can only recruit one of every type, and the Lord who does needs to be a certain level. Recruiting them is also done in a special menu, on the fly, making them sort of an equivalent of the mercenary feature found in previous Total War games.
  • The Lizardmen have the Temple Guard, which is composed of the oldest, most massive Saurus Warriors who wield halberds onehanded alongside shields (the only unit of its kind), who wear heavy stone armor, and serve directly underneath the Slann, being fanatically loyal to them. Because of their immense discipline, they also never get enranged. They have singlehandedly hold off enemy charges, and slaughter monsters like nobodies business. Besides the Temple Guard, nearly every unit in the Lizardmen faction has a variety of Elite Mooks through the Blessed Spawnings, rare and extra powerful versions of the normal units with better stats and special abilities, which you can only access through special missions.
  • The Skaven, have the Stormvermin, who are picked from birth should they possess black fur, and are given better provisions, better war-gear and extensive training. As such they are larger, healthier, stronger and all around deadlier than the average skaven. While a Skaven Clanrat would run at the first sign of danger, Stormvermin hold the line, and fight with both ferocity and cunning. They come in Halberds (which are excellent anti-large, and armor piercing units) and sword and board variants (which are good frontliners). It should be noted, Stormvermin downplay this trope much more then other elites, as whilst their head over shoulders above the other Skaven as soldiers, they're subpar compared to other elites (with the added bonus of them being a good deal cheaper.)
  • The High Elves have the Phoenix Guard, an order of holy warriors who guard the Shrine of Asuryan. Each of Phoenix Guard is blesed by Asuryan, has been granted knowledge of their own death, and has taken a vow of silence in order to preserve the secret knowledge found within the shrine. The result is completely silent and almost entirely fearless breed of warrior. Needless to say, their unrelenting, emotionless and borderline robotic nature in battle is seriously unnerving to any who face them. Combine this with their martial prowess and master crafted war-gear and you have one of the finest defensive infantry units in the world. In addition the Asur also field the aptly named Swordmasters of Hoeth, who are said to wield their great-swords with such grace that they carry parry a projectile out of mid air. Their main duties in High Elven society are serving as guardians of the White Tower of Hoeth, and as a sort of secret police force; charged with rooting dissident elements such as cultists and Druchii spies.
  • The Dark Elves have the Black Guard of Naggarond, the personal guard of the Witch-King himself. While the Black Guard don't have the benefit of a god's blessing like their Asur counterparts, they make up for this through being subjected to some of the most brutal training in the Warhammer world. Each potential recruit is taken from their family at birth and thrown into an exceptionally hellish training program from the moment they're old enough to hold a weapon, and indoctrinated to be fanatically loyal to their king. Competition between the trainees is fierce, and often fatal; many don't survive to become full Guardsmen. Each of the Black Guard is expected to give two hundred years of service to Malekith, after which they are guaranteed a privileged position in Naggarond's court. Most don't live to see this reward however. Alongside the Black Guard are the Executioners of Har Ganeth, holy warriors of Khaine who guard his temples. Each one is a cold and brutal killing machine who trains ceaselessly to kill their enemies as quickly and efficiently as possible; ideally with a single strike.
  • The Tomb Kings have not only the Tomb Guard, mummified elite soldiers clad in golden and bejeweled armor and weapons who to this day still keep all the skill and discipline that they had in life, but they also have upgraded versions of most other units called Legions of Legends, which are basically an even stronger version of Regiments of Renown (which the Tomb Kings have as well) that can only be used in the campaigns, much like The Blessed Spawnings of The Lizardmen.
  • The Vampire Coast has the Depth Guard, fully armored vampires bearing either dual boarding axes or halberds. They come in smaller groups than most elite units (their unit count is roughly around the same as the Aspiring Champions of the Warriors of Chaos) but make up for it by having not only incredible damage, but also 'The Hunger', a trait that allows them to rapidly regenerate health as long as they are in combat.
• Embedded Precursor: The Mortal Empires campaign includes all the content from the first game for the relevant factions, including chapter objectives and quest battles. Effectively allowing you to play those campaigns again on an expanded map with new features.
• Every Bullet Is a Tracer: The bullets from every black powder small arm in the game leave a visible white streak in their wake allowing you to see them all the way to their target. Arrows also leave highly visible white lines behind them as well.
• Evil Genius: Clan Skryre, represented by their unique Forbidden Workshop mechanic that allows them to upgrade their specialty units (Doomwheels, Doom Flayers, and Weapon Teams), unlock exclusive Regiments of Renown, and stockpile Warpstorm Doomrockets.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Dark Elf cities bristle with these.
• Evil vs. Evil: The Dark Elves and Skaven are at odds with each other just as much as the 'good' factions.
• Fantastic Nuke: Clan Skryre has access to the Warpstorm Doomrocket, which is a one-use army ability that can devastate the battlefield, and the Doomsphere, an immensely powerful warpstone bomb that can destroy any settlement it is constructed below.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Fitting, as it is a Total War game.
  • The High Elves are a mix of Ancient Athens, as well as bits of the British Empire mashed together.
  • The Dark Elves are loosely based on Ancient Sparta (which contrasts very well to the High Elves Athens), with tinges of the Pirate based Barbary Coast.
  • The Lizardmen are obviously inspired by the Ancient Mayans, with obsidian tipped war clubs, and Human Sacrifice aplenty.
  • The Skaven are Those Wacky Nazis, but rats, and the technological level of the German Empire around World War I .
  • The Tomb Kings are very Ancient Egyptian, styled after the famous New Kingdom era to be more specific.
  • The Vampire Coast are clearly inspired by the Buccaneers and Privateers that plagued the Caribbean in the seventeenth century, but vampires and zombies!
• Final Battle: Completing the last ritual leads to an attack on the Vortex itself, with the player versus all the other factions rushing to stop them from conquering the Vortex. Noticeably, the player is given the full control of the Vortex, granting two extremely powerful abilities. The player is on the interrupting side should a rival faction complete their ritual first.
  • As for The Tomb Kings, they instead have a massive battle over control for The Black Pyramid of Nagash.
  • The Vampire Coast, having other goals in mind, instead have to battle Lokhir Fellheart under the seas for control over the Star-Metal Harpoon that will bring mastery over Amanar.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: The Skaven Screaming Bell, a war machine that helps them to cast their spells. They plan to build a much bigger one to stick inside the Vortex and summon the Great Horned Rat.
• Frontline General: As with all Total War games, the player is encouraged to keep their Generals (Lords) close to the front lines since doing so gives a buff to nearby troops. Their impressive HP and fighting prowess also means having them take personally part in the fighting is a good idea, unless their a caster lord anyway..
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Various inter-race factions will declare war on one another if given the opportunity, even in races where this is more a rarity than anything such as the Lizardmen or High Elves (who only fight other High Elves in Tyrion's Sunfang quest as the result of falsehoods told by a cabal of jealous princes). Inviting other factions to join wars against you if they hate you enough can result in things like High Elves cooperating with the Dark Elves, who are normally their archenemy.
  • A relatively minor and cosmetic one for Hellebron - a major aspect of her lore is that after each Death Night she emerges from the ritualistic blood baths rejuvenated to her youth. Despite the Death Night being her core Campaign Map mechanic and the flavor text for the buffs it confers suggesting otherwise, Hellebron's model will always retain the appearance of her old crone form regardless of how many Death Nights the player initiates.
  • Even if you complete the quest chain to restore Luthor Harkon's mind, his dialogue and animations remain the same as before, meaning he will still talk and act in a crazed fashion.
• Giant Enemy Crab: The Vampire Coast's Prometheans, monstrous crabs come in two variants: the blue Rotting Prometheans that bear zombies on their backs and the massive red Rotting Leviathans that bear shipwrecks as makeshift howdahs. The former act as monstrous cavalry, while the latter are the size of Arachnarok Spiders. Aranessa Saltspite and Cylostra Direfin can take the former and latter as mounts respectively.
• Good vs. Good: Well for a given value of 'good' anyway. The High Elves and Lizardmen both have more of less the same goal - to restore the vortex and protect the world - but will inevitably come into conflict anyway due to differing views on how to accomplish this. By the end of the Vortex campaign, however this is subverted. As arrogant as they are, it's clear the High Elves are trying to control the Vortex for the right reasons, including protecting the younger races. On the other hand, The Lizardmen want to use it's power to purge and kill everything not in the Great Plan, casting them as a darker shade of grey.
• The Ghost: As with the first game, numerous characters not (yet) featured in game are mentioned. Some mentions may count as Foreshadowing.
  • Finubar the Seafarer, the actual king of the High Elves, is only ever mentioned. Considering Finubar is a politician instead of a warrior and was never actually playable on the tabletop, this is understandable. His counterpart, the Everqueen Alarielle, also never makes a direct appearance, though unlike Finubar, she was playable on the tabletop and, unusually for an Everqueen, has been known to lead armies to war. Alarielle was eventually made fully playable as DLC
  • Hellebron, the Blood Queen of Har Ganeth and leader of the Cult of Khaine, receives numerous mentions throughout the Dark Elf campaign. And she eventually became a Legendary Lord in her own right.
  • In the epilogue of the Lizardmen campaign the infamous N'kari, mightiest of Slaanesh's greater daemons, is referenced.
  • Count Noctilus of Dreadfleet is once again featured in a random event, where one of your naval-bound armies stumbles upon his legendary treasure trove while exploring an island. With the Vampire Coast expansion, he finally became playable.
  • Nagash, even before the Tomb King expansion the pyramid of Nagash was on the map. Naturally playing as the Tomb Kings drops a lot more references to the Great Necromancer.
• Ghost Pirate: The Vampire Coast, though the majority of their units are corporeal undead (zombies) with only a few ghosts in the form of Syreens and Mournguls. Played completely straight with Cylostra Direfin, who is called the Siren of the Storms and can summon ethereal Bretonnian Knights.
• Grim Up North: The Dark Elf realm of Naggaroth, located in the north of the New World, just south of the chaos wastes. It is a desolate, freezing land ringed by black mountains and teeming with vicious monsters. To say nothing of the Dark Elves themselves. Also counts as an example of Mordor.
• Hero Unit: Legendary Lords, Lords and Heroes return in the same arrangement as in the previous game.
  • Lizardmen
    • Lord Mazdamundi (Legendary Lord)
    • Kroq-Gar (Legendary Lord)
    • Tehenauin (Legendary Lord)
    • Tiktaq'to (Legendary Lord)
    • Lord Kroak (Legendary Hero)
    • Slann Mage-priest (Lord)
    • Saurus Oldblood (Lord)
    • Red-crested Skink Chief (Lord)
    • Saurus Scar-Veteran (Hero)
    • Skink Chief (Hero)
    • Skink Priest (Hero)
  • High Elves
    • Tyrion (Legendary Lord)
    • Teclis (Legendary Lord)
    • Alarielle (Legendary Lord)
    • Alith Anar (Legendary Lord)
    • Prince (Lord)
    • Princess (Lord)
    • Loremaster of Hoeth (Hero)
    • Mage (Hero)
    • Noble (Hero)
    • Handmaiden (Hero)
    • Hand of the Shadow Crown (Hero)^note
  • Dark Elves
    • Malekith (Legendary Lord)
    • Morathi (Legendary Lord)
    • Crone Hellebron (Legendary Lord)
    • Lokhir Fellheart (Legendary Lord)
    • Male Dreadlord (Lord)
    • Female Dreadlord (Lord)
    • Supreme Sorceress (Lord)
    • Khainite Assassin (Hero)
    • Death Hag (Hero)
    • Sorceress (Hero)
  • Skaven
    • Queek Headtaker (Legendary Lord)
    • Lord Skrolk (Legendary Lord)
    • Ikit Claw (Legendary Lord)
    • Tretch Craventail (Legendary Lord)
    • Grey Seer (Lord)
    • Warlord (Lord)
    • Warlock Master (Lord)
    • Assassin (Hero)
    • Warlock Engineer (Hero)
    • Plague Priest (Hero)
  • Tomb Kings
    • Settra the Imperishable (Legendary Lord)
    • High Queen Khalida (Legendary Lord)
    • Grand Hierophant Khatep (Legendary Lord)
    • Arkhan the Black (Legendary Lord)
    • Tomb King (Lord)
    • Tomb Prince (Hero)
    • Liche Priest (Hero)
    • Necrotect (Hero)
  • Vampire Coast
    • Luthor Harkon (Legendary Lord)
    • Count Noctilus (Legendary Lord)
    • Aranessa Saltspite (Legendary Lord)
    • Cylostra Direfin (Legendary Lord)
    • Male Vampire Fleet Admiral(Lord)
    • Female Vampire Fleet Admiral (Lord)
    • Vampire Fleet Captain (Hero)
    • Gunnery Wight (Hero)
    • Mourngul Haunter (Hero)
    • Damned Paladin (Hero)^note
• Hungry Jungle: The jungles of Lustria, and the Southlands, cover vast swathes of land, including most of few remaining Lizardmen temple-cities. Almost everything that lives in them are very, very bad to regular people. Living inside are primeval horrors of the time before the Old Ones came to the planet, including savage Tyrannosaurus-esque Dinosaurs that can tear out the throats of dragons, swarms of smaller, yet no less dangerous reptiles that will tear apart humans in mere seconds, and more ancient, sinister monsters that lurk in the swamps. Expeditions into Lustria by mortal powers, usually have extreme mortality rates.
• Human Sacrifice: The unique mechanic of the Cult of Sotek. Tehenauin believes that with enough sacrifices, Sotek will return. On the campaign, his faction will have a series of unique missions that unlock new forms of sacrifice. As Tehenauin and his followers win battles against non-Lizardmen armies, they can choose to mark their captives as Sacrificial Offerings. Completing the highest level of sacrifice allows Tehenauin to evoke Sotek himself on the battlefield.
• Implausible Deniability: When asked about the inclusion of a plague-ridden rat with glowing red eyes at the end of the reveal trailer, the developers answer can be summed up as following: 'The rat? It's just a normal rat with nothing weird going on about it at all. It totally has nothing to do with the Ska- I mean the fourth race we have yet to reveal.' This is also represented in-game with a 'Skaven Denialist' trait. Non-Skaven characters can pick it up for managing a region with high Skaven corruption. It gives a Public Order boost, but also a -16 Leadership penalty if they ever have to confront an actual Skaven army.
  • However, after fighting said Skaven army, they instantly lose the trait. It is hard to deny the scurrying horde when directly confronted with it.
• Intelligent Gerbil: Two 'furry' factions so to speak, are featured.
  • The Skaven, anthropomorphic rats who live underground, constantly squabble, are disease-ridden, and don't attack anything bigger than them without having a 10-1 numerical advantage. They also reproduce like crazy and the albinos or big ones get special treatment. One of their war-machines is a giant exercise wheel with guns.
  • The Lizardmen are aloof, stubborn and set in their ways, though not strictly speaking Abhorrent.

• Jack-of-All-Stats:
  • High Magic, available only to the High Elves and Lizardmen in multiplayer. The lore can heal, buff, has a decent magic missile, two AoE spells (one for flying units and one for ground-based ones) and a direct damage spell for lord and mage hunting. It can't compete with the Lore of Life for healing, the Lore of Heavens or Light or Beasts for buffs and debuffs, Dark Magic or Fire for damage or Death for direct damage, but a wizard with High Magic can do all of the above (if not as well as a more specialized one).
  • The High Elves themselves are this, having an option for everything, alongside a large selection of elites. You need powerful cavalry? Dragon Princes. Offensively powerful infantry? Swordmasters. Defensively strong infantry? There's not much better then Phoenix Guard. Archers? Seaguard. Monsters? Dragons. The High Elves can counter anyone, with their only main weakness being how expensive it is to field an army.
• Know Whento Fold Em: As in previous Total War games, factions who are about to lose, or know they will an lose upcoming fight will offer a ceasefire, usually with the added bonus of gold or some other incentive. Players can accept or turn them down, and the latter is usually the better option, as keeping on the offensive will eventually remove a threat from the race for the Vortex or the world of Mortal Empires. Unfortunately, players can't really pull this since computer factions will never accept a ceasefire from you if you're in a weaker position than them, because they hate you and want you dead.
• Knightly Lance: The primary weapon of High Elf Knights, though the Dark Elves wield some, which is more of a Black Knight version of this trope.
• Lady of War: The High Elves are one of the few races in Warhammer to feature female Generals with their Elven Princesses (who are just as chivalrous and gallant as their male counterparts). They also have several types of female spell casters as hero units.
• Large Ham: Just like the previous games, most characters really express themselves during diplomacy screen.
  Slaan Mage-Priest: Approach my glorious bulk warmblood!
• Large and in Charge: The Lords and Heroes are somewhat larger than the normal units, who usually only reach to their chests, making them look like mini giants in comparison. This was done for gameplay reasons, to allow players to be able to pick their general easily from a crowd. Some mods resize the Lords and Heroes to a more believable level.
• Leave No Survivors: Like in the first game, any battle will often have the victor take prisoner those survivors of the defeated force who could not manage to flee, and it's possible to massacre them. Every faction has unique options when it comes to dealing with prisoners, such as the Dark Elves and Lizardmen sacrificing their victims for bonus experience, or the High Elves forcing their prisoners do hard labor for a bonus to replenishment.
• Lizard Folk: The Lizardmen, who are a Mayincatec civilization created by the setting's Precursors at the dawn of history. They're also divided into several different types of lizard folk as part of a Fantastic Caste System.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Most monster units are surprisingly fast for their size, and can clear the distance between them and the enemy line almost as fast as cavalry. It goes without question that they can tear apart normal soldiers like nobodies business. Special mention goes to Kroqgar mounted on Grymloq, who is one of the most powerful and vicious lords in melee combat, and lighting fast as afforded by such a dangerous predator.
  • Heavy cavalry, is both very fast and devastating on the charge, especially the High Elf Dragon Princes, which combine tankiness, speed, and pure pain.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shields provide a hefty bonus against missiles when facing oncoming fire. It's usually a wise idea to take shielded unit variants over their unshielded counterparts.
• The Magnificent: Many of the game's legendary lords have epithets describing their past heroic deeds. Taken literally by Sigvald the Magnificent, and to absurd lengths by Settra's full list of titles: the Imperishable, the King of Kings, High King of Nehekhara, Lord of the Earth, Monarch of the Sky, Ruler of the Four Horizons, Mighty Lion of the Infinite Desert, Great Hawk of the Heavens, Majestic Emperor of the Shifting Sands, and Eternal Sovereign of Khemri's legions.
• Massive Race Selection: Mortal Empires and Custom Battles have fourteen races available (Empire of Man, Dwarfs, Vampire Counts, Greenskins, Bretonnia, Wood Elves, Beastmen, Warriors of Chaos, Skaven, High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Tomb Kings and Vampire Coast) each with at least two subfactions, some of which play radically differently from the main faction. While all the races are featured in some capacity in the Vortex Campaign, only those introduced in the second game are playable in it (which still means six different options to pick from).
• Mayincatec: The Lizardmen have this aesthetic, and even inhabit a continent of the Warhammer world geographically analogous to South America.
• Mêlée à Trois: Free-For-All mode makes a return to the series for the first time since Medieval II: Total War. Up to four players can battle each other.
• The Musketeer: In Mortal Empires, Imperial Free Company units are armed with swords and pistols. Dwarf Thunderers also fall into this category. They are quite proficient with both long guns and axes, while their heavy armor and shields give them the ability to defeat almost any enemy ranged unit in an open shootout.
  • Averted with actual musket-wielding Imperial Handgunners, whose powerful volleys are counterbalanced by very poor melee stats and armor.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The description of the 'Brave' trait characters can get is 'Insane courage! Clearly I rolled adouble-one..'
  • Settra's Badass Boast during the Tomb Kings Trailer ('We do not serve, WE RULE!') is based on one he says to Nagash during Warhammer: The End Times.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Several:
  • Malekith the Witch King. Even without the Witch King bit his name means 'friend of evil'.
  • Queek Headtaker. He takes heads.. Queekly.
  • Arkhan the Black.
• Private Military Contractors: Dogs of War finally appear in some capacity, after being absent in the first game. Mostly as Rogue Armies (Such as Mengil's Manflayers, a famous Dark Elf Dog of War crossbow regiment) but the 'Intervention Armies' are also described as 'mercenaries'.
• Ninja: Clan Eshin, who are Ninja Ratmen. In the lore, they actually were taught by actual Ninjas, from the mysterious island nation of Nippon. To reflect this, their high tier units throw shurikens and some of their heroes use actual Japanese names.
• One Steve Limit: Averted with city names, of all things. In Mortal Empires the High Elves, Dark Elves, and Wood Elves all control settlements named Vaul's Anvil (after one of the only gods they all venerate). The High Elf location is built into a mountain said to be Vaul's original forge, the Dark Elf city contains an artifact said to be Vaul's actual anvil, and the Wood Elf location is ruled by Daith who is said to be Vaul's incarnate in the mortal world.
• Our Elves Are Better: Game two introduces the remaining elven factions of the Warhammer world, the haughty but noble High Elves and the bloothirsty, sadistic Dark Elves.
• Our Mages Are Different: The Winds of Magic return, with the addition of some new lores.
  • High or True Magic, called Qhaysh in the elven language, consists of using all winds together instead of attuning to just one. It is extremely difficult to use, and is flat-out impossible for most races, such as humans, to use without instantly being overwhelmed by Chaos or burning out their own souls. As such, it can only be mastered by beings innately tied to magic such as the Elves and Lizardmen.
  • The Dark Elves meanwhile utilize Dhar, the lore of dark magic, which essentially serves as the Evil Counterpart to Qhaysh. Like high magic dark magic too involves harnessing the winds of magic in their entirety, but unlike its lighter brother Dhar involves forcing the winds into an unstable and chaotic form, sacrificing control and harmony for raw, destructive power.
  • The Tomb Kings have their exclusive Lore of Nehekhara, which, unlike the above two, utilizes both the power of dark and light aspects of Nehekharan religion utilizing both brighter protective and darker offensive spells from their gods. The Tomb Kings heavily rely on it to support their undead armies, which fall really fast against an determined offensive.
  • As one would expect for a race so foul, Skaven magic, is divided into two different lores, the Lore of Ruin and the Lore of Plague, and they are as malevolent as the ratmen themselves. Few of their spells do anything but curse the enemy or blow themselves to smithereens.
  • The Vampire Coast has access to the Lore of the Deep, a brand new lore that did not exist in the original tabletop game in any form. Being a cross between Necromancery and Murder Water, this school of magic is all about using the deepest horrors of the sea along with ghost and zombies to flush away the enemy through cold waters or undead might.
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier : The Vampire Coast has Animated Hulks, zombified ogres that have parts of sea creatures sewn into their corpses. They mark the first appearance of ogres in the trilogy.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: The Giant Eagles of the High Elves are rarely used once they get the Phoenixes, who in turn are rarely used once they get their dragons.
• Plot Armor: Legendary Lords (and the leaders of minor factions) can only be killed when their entire faction is wiped out. Otherwise 'killing' them results in them becoming wounded and sitting out several turns while they recover. In this game, it's also possible to purchase a skill that gives regular lords (and even the lower-ranking heroes) this 'immortality'.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: Averted when it comes to the High Elf and Dark Elf Lord. High Elf Male Lords excel in melee combat, whilst Female Lords are excellent archers. Reversed when it comes to the Dark Elves, whose Male Lords are a hybrid melee-ranged unit, whereas the Females fight Sword and Board, inverting the classic Guys Smash, Girls Shoot

• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: The Dark Elves, and the Skaven especially, love this, being heavily reliant on raiding and pillaging for their economy. Dark Elves need to gather slaves from looted towns to stimulate their coffers, whilst the Skaven need to gather food to feed their armies lest they take attrition. Even non-evil factions can engage in this, having the option to sack and loot cities for additional income.
• Rat Men: The Skaven, a race of malevolent humanoid rodents who infest the subterranean regions of the Warhammer world and are constantly at war with the Dwarfs and the Night Goblins.
• Rain of Arrows: A common result of facing the High Elves, who have very powerful archers.
• The Reveal: Once again there's a plot twist in the late game. The twin-tailed comet is fake, and it's actually a Skaven rocket intended to make the other races freak out and pump more magic into the Vortex, destabilizing it while allowing the Skaven to gather the ritual energy in order to bring the Great Horned Rat into the world.
  • Another occurs late in the Dark Elf campaign. It turns out that the assassin who had been aiding Felicion with the ritual the whole game was actually Shadowblade, the greatest of all Khainite Assassins, and who it turns out is actually the brother of the sorceress. Felicion plans to use his blood to complete the final ritual, but Shadowblade has other plans..
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • The current Phoneix King of the High Elves is Finubar the Seafarer, an ardent believer in the cooperation between the various Forces of Order, both militarily and with trade; he lacks almost all of the arrogance that has plagued the High Elf race for so long, and treats the other races with surprising respect. As he is an excellent administrator and diplomat yet poor in military matters, he's more than glad to defer such things to Tyrion, and always accepts advice from Teclis.
  • Lord Mazdamundi, despite being highly xenophobic when it comes to the younger races, is also very competent, wise, and heeds the warnings of the Skink priest at the start of the campaign, immediately mobilizing all of his armies to the cause of stabilizing the Vortex.
• Red Baron: A few of the Legendary Lords go by intimidating titles, like The Last Defender (Kroq-Gar), or The Witch-King (Malekith).
• Religion Is Magic: Very typical for the setting, but the Rites of each race are usually focused on their respective pantheons. For example; the Rite of Vaul for the High Elves has you invoking the power of the Elven God of Blacksmithing, which grants you a powerful artifact to be used by a Lord and a special ability that lets you tear down the walls of enemy fortresses in sieges.
• Rousing Speech: The climatic (and much lauded) Quest Battle speeches return from the first game, and are just as hamtastic as before!
• Savage South: The southern continent of Lustria, covered almost entirely by dense primordial jungle and inhabited by Lizardmen, dinosaurs and countless other hazards. Then of course there are the aptly named Southlands, which feature similar dangers, alongside scorching deserts (inhabited by legions of Undead Horrors that will kill you if you take just a single coin from their tombs) and dangerous waterways.
• Sea Monster: Several appear as campaign events (and in treasure hunts). You can also occasionally see one jumping out of the water on the campaign map, a Black Leviathan.
  • The Dark Elf Kharybdis, which is a monster unit, is pretty much a hydra with the head of mutated lampreys instead of snakes that lives in the deepest and coldest seas of Naggaroth, having to be summoned through bloody rituals. And that's not even getting to the part where one has to violently tame one into a somewhat stable state of submission. In game, it works as a poisonous anti-large monster that is meant to kill other beasts, but it does a pretty good job with butchering and frightening most infantry as well.
  • The Curse of the Vampire Cost expansion features these heavily, albeit reanimated sea monsters, including a colossus monstrous Promethean crab. An absolutely giant Merwyrm, a primeval horror from the elder days, features as the Expansion's Big Bad, and it's up to the Vampire Coast to hunt it down!
• Secondary Fire: A handful of artillery pieces, like the Reaper Bolt Thrower, can switch to different modes of fire that give anti-infantry and anti-large bonuses, respectively.
• Scenery Porn: The New World looks every bit as stunning as the Old World, if not more so, thanks to the beautiful lighting and much improved scenery.
• The Scrounger: Dwarf Master Engineers have a skill called 'Requisition' that significantly increases the ammunition carried by ranged and artillery units.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Dark Elves trailer has Malekith trapping a few high elves in a street just as they are about to escape, and slowly walking towards them while killing any attempting to strike him. Due to their similarities (though whether it's intentional or not is another matter), this could be a shout-out to Darth Vader and the iconic airlock scene from Rogue One.
  • A possible one is the trait a lord gets from defeating Queek Headtaker◊, which sounds pretty close to the 'rat-flail' in the VG CatsSkittles comic strip.◊
  • The Flavor Text for the 'Authoritarian' lord trait is 'I Am The Law!'
  • Similarly the Flavor Text for the 'Wasteful' trait is : 'Yes, we will hit our own troops, but we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack!'
  • The flavor text for the High Elven 'Militia Camp' military recruitment chain building? 'Let's get down to business and defeat these scum!'
  • The flavour text for the winery expert follower: 'I want the finest wines available to the Asur, I want them here and I want them now!'
  • One of the randomly generated names for female Dark Elf Lords and Heroes is 'Eville-Lyn'.
  • One of the Skaven lines paraphrases the theme song of The Wombles.
  • One of Malekith's lines is simply 'I hate snow'.
  • A random event that you can get as the Tomb Kings involves a Liche Priest betraying his king and going rogue. The event is titled Judas Priest.
  • When Tyrion's army sets sail, he may sometimes say 'Sailing for adventure.'
  • In the proud Total War tradition of ABBA shout-outs, one of the influence-granting events in the High Elf campaign is titled 'You Can Dance' and involves Alarielle going on a dance with Finubar. A literal 'Dancing Queen', if you will.
  • One of Cylostra Direfin's lines is 'Mirror, Mirror..'
  • The Adviser will implore a Skaven player to form trade pacts so that you might profit from others before '..your sudden but inevitable betrayal.'
  • Clan Fester was added as an NPC faction in the Doomsayers update.
  • The Warlock and the Prophet trailer's opening scene is taken almost verbatim from Predator.
• The Siege: Or Storming the Castle, depending on which faction's fighting which. An enduring element of the series that re-occurs here as well. However, in this iteration only provincial capitals can be besieged; the smaller settlements in the province around them don't having the fortifications that would make a siege necessary. If an attacking army is willing to spend enough time besieging a provincial capital, they can starve their opponents out. But even if they would rather storm the place, spending a few turns besieging can grant them the benefit of being able to build siege equipment, like battering rams and siege towers, which will help them get past the static elements that favor the defenders. Unlike the previous game, town battles return in a limited form. (You can now see the settlement fully behind your army, but unfortunately can't interact with it)
  • Building a defensive structure of the highest level will give fortifications even to small towns. This becomes almost mandatory on higher difficulties, as the AI tends to besiege these walls for a turn or two, giving the player more time to react with his main army. The exception to this are the settlements in the chaos wastes, which will only allow the player to build small garrisoned outposts without walls.
• Siege Engines: Somewhat less than the first game, with it being less focused on artillery, but there's still every faction's standard siege equipment (Siege Towers and Battering Rams) alongside the Bolt Throwers (which come in two firing modes) available to both the High Elves and the Dark Elves, the twisted engines of destruction available to the Skaven, and the sun-powered dinosaur mounted crystal batteries that the Lizardmen use.
• Squishy Wizard: Wizards as a whole are very vulnerable to damage, but there do exist a handful of exceptions, such as the Loremasters of Hoeth, master swordsmen who are as equally deadly with a blade as they are with magic.
• Stance System: Armies can adopt stances on the world map to perform a number of actions both on and off the battlefield. What really makes this interesting is that no two races have the same set of stances and some sub-factions even have unique stances. For example; the High Elves cannot raid (except for the Naragythe sub-faction) while the Vampire counts cannot encamp, but both of them can channel. Meanwhile both the Greenskins and Norsca have merged their raiding and encamp stances whilst the Beastmen have done the same with their ambush and encamp stances. Outside of the default stance there are:
  • Forced March grants an extra 25% movement on the Campaign map at the cost of increased vulnerability to attrition severe stamina penalties in battle. Armies in this stance can not initiate battles and are highly likely to be ambushed and completely destroyed if attacked.
  • Ambush conceals but immobilizes the army on the world map and gives it a chance to launch an ambush battle against the first enemy army to move into it's zone of control. The odds of this happening are largely determined by the terrain and the skills of the particular Lords leading both the ambushing army and the defending army.
  • Raiding generates income and damages public order and diplomatic relations in exchange for some movement range and stamina penalties. Also protects from attrition.
  • Encampment also protects from attrition and allows replenishment and access to the global recruitment pool at the cost of not being able to move.
  • Underway and the several variations thereof allow an army to move instantly for a fixed distance over any intervening terrain and attrition. This comes at risk of being intercepted by nearby armies and pulled into a battle that is guarantied to destroy the loser.
  • Stalk was first practiced by the Beastmen before being picked up by the Skaven and the Naragythe High Elves. It's a variation on the standard stance that allows an army to launch an ambush when attacking.
  • Channeling reduces movement slightly but increases the magical reserves of armies operating in the local region. This also allows Undead armies to replenish.
  • Astromancy Unique to the Lizardmen, this trades some movement range for a massive increase in sight range and ambush chance.
• Summon Magic: Some Lores of Magic can summon units, but unlike in the first game new race abilities are present, which mainly focus on summoning units onto the battlefield to support the main army.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: The basic concept, Ranged beats Infantry -> Infantry beats Cavalry -> Cavalry beats Ranged, is still present but the fantasy nature of the setting has added several more elements to the equation.
• Take Over the World: The regional occupation system has been scrapped entirely, and now's it's possible for a faction to take over the entire map. However, this trope is pushed to Awesome, yet Impractical, as the game levies rather harsh penalties against your faction for settling in climates that aren't suited for your race.
• To Win Without Fighting: The confederation option gives you the ability to annex factions of the same race without fighting them. In order to confederate, you'll need a very high diplomatic rating with the faction, and probably need to be significantly larger and more powerful than them as well. There are also downsides to doing this: Confederating with a faction will give you a significant public order and diplomacy penalty that will last several turns. Also, since the AI is terrible at managing provinces, the ones you take over may actually be a temporary drain on your economy, and you might have to scrap several buildings and then fill the slots up from scratch.
  • However, Bretonnia from Mortal Empires is an exception to this. They actually get a significant public order bonus following a confederation, and no diplomatic penalty. To balance this out, they need to do research for a subfaction before they can confederate with them, for a total of six factions, separated into two paths of three (you can only choose between two factions at a time), and you can't skip any of them even if a subfaction has been wiped out. Researching all of them takes about 36 turns, which takes time away from researching the decrees that give bonuses to fighting various enemies or economic bonuses. On the flipside, each technology gives you some additional chivalry, and a massive diplomatic bonus with the subfaction it targets, pretty much guaranteeing they will agree to confederate, and researching all the subfaction confederation techs gives you access to three technologies that give massive diplomatic bonuses with other factions (one for the Empire and the Dwarfs, one for the High Elves and Lizardmen, and the last for all the Knights Errant minor factions). Because of this, it's a lot more efficient for Bretonnia to confederate than to try and conquer their subfactions, as it gives them bonuses and allows them to focus their armies on fighting actual enemies. Like the two different Vampire Count subfactions in Bretonnia. Or the Norscans that raid them. Or the inevitable Beastman horde.
• Tech Tree: Each faction has access to a technology tree, but in a twist, every faction unlocks its technology in different ways. The trees themselves have also been massively expanded.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The announcement trailer somewhat spoils the existence of the Skaven, which were a closely guarded 'secret' for months in the lead up to the games release.
  • It also spoiled, in supremely clever fashion, the true nature of the Twin-Tailed Comet that kicks off the Race for the Vortex with the ending Astronomical Zoom out into space. For a moment, we get the same exhilarating view of the world and the twin moons as the Skaven pilot of the 'comet'.
• A Taste of Power: Like the first game, you're given a small number of upper tier units as soon as you start. Like before, you won't be able to recruit them for a good amount of time, so it's best to use them sparingly.
• That's No Moon!: The Skaven successfully pull this off in a fantasy setting; the twin tailed comet which has galvanized all the other races into war is actually a steampunk Skaven spacecraft built for just that purpose.
• Undead Knight : Cylostra Direfin can summon spectral Bretonnian knights (either Knights Errant, Knights of the Realm, or Questing Knights). And, of course, there's the various vampiric and undead knights that belong to the Vampire Counts in Mortal Empires (some of which appear in the Vortex campaign as part of the Scourge of Aquitaine rogue army, implied to hail from the fallen Bretonnian province of Mousillon due to the presence of normal Bretonnian knights in the army).
• Underground Level: The game features battlefields in the vast tunnels of the fallen Dwarfen Underway (which only Dwarf, Skaven, and Greenskin armies can regularly access) and when Dwarf Karaks, alongside Skaven ruins, are besieged.
• The Usual Adversaries: Anytime any faction begins one of the Vortex-influencing rituals, its magical protection will slip, allowing a brief surge of the energies of Chaos to leak into the world. This will cause armies of Chaos Warriors to spontaneously rise up and march toward whoever is channeling toward the Vortex, drawn as they are to the magical power. Alongside the Chaos warbands, stacks belonging to a mysterious Skaven clan (Referred to as the 'Unknown Skaven Clan'), will begin to drop en masse. Anyone seeking to control the Vortex will need to prepare to defend against them, a feat which is complicated by the potential intervention of their rival factions during this time.
• Units Not to Scale:
  • This is played straight on the campaign map, army leaders will appear larger than cities!
  • Averted, mostly on the battlefield, as units will be on scale with each other and buildings. However, General units will always be slightly larger than their men. While it makes sense for the Lizarmen, it can be pretty jarring to see Queek Headtaker be almost as tall as a high elf.
• Unstoppable Rage: About half of lizardmen roster and some units from other factions have this as negative trait. If they lose a lot of health when there is an enemy unit they can reach, their morale becomes unbreakable, butthey uncontrollably chase the closest enemy unit. Cavalry like squigs and cold ones suffer most from it because they are designed for Hit&Run tactics. Dark Elf witches can give this status effect to anyone they attack.
• Vestigial Empire:
  • The High Elven Empire, which once stretched from Ulthuan all the way to present-day Bretonnia, and had dozens of large colonies scattered all over the known world, is a mere shadow of its former self, having been ripped apart by various wars, the High Elves own pride, and plotting from the Dark Elves and incursions from the many hostile races of the Warhammer universe. Of course, Teclis and Tyrion are trying to change that. And if they get control of the Vortex, they succeed.
  • The Lizadmen Empire once spanned all of Lustria, and composed hundreds of different Temple Cities. After being devastated by the first Chaos incursion, much of what was left of the continent spanning Empire eventually fell into ruin, as the Slann fell into deep sleeps from which many never awakened from. Now only a handful Temple-Cities still stand, and the rest are vine covered ruins waiting to be reclaimed.
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: A new system added to Total War Warhammer 2. If you best a Legendary Lord in combat, the winning lord will gain a trait that reflects some of the losers powers. For example:
  • Reikshammer (Karl Franz) grants the lord Fear when fighting humans.
  • Metalstorm (Balthasar Gelt) grants the lord's army a bonus to armor.
  • Grimsbane (Volkmar the Grim) grants the lord's army a bonus to melee attack and melee defense.
  • Grudgekiller (Thorgrim Grudgebearer) grants the lord a reduction in construction costs wherever they are. It also gives global buff to research rate.
  • Beardhammer (Grombrindal The White Dwarf) grants the lord Fear when fighting Dwarfs.
  • Slayer King Slayer (Ungrim Ironfist) grants the lord a bonus in melee attack, magic resistance and missile resistance.
  • Kinghammer (Belegar Ironhammer) grants the lord increased leadership and melee attack during subterranean battles.
  • Kingslayer (Louen Leoncoeur) grants the lord a charge bonus and a recruitment reduction cost in cavalry units.
    • Should Louen fall to another Bretonnian lord, then that lord will instead gain the negative trait 'Traitor'. While this trait does increase the weapon strength of all units in that lord's army, it also increases their upkeep. More severely, it provides a -50 reduction in Chivalry, which makes progressing through a Bretonnian campaign much more harder.
  • Hammer and Anvil (Alberic de Bordeleaux) grants the lord +15 melee attack when at sea.
  • Witchfinder (The Fay Enchantress) grants the lord's army increased replenishment.
  • Moonslayer(Mannfred Von Carstein) makes the lord's army take less attrition in vampire corruption.
  • Ghorst or Ghost (Helman Ghorst) grants the lord's army poison attacks.
  • Liche Killer (Heinrich Kemmler) grants the lord's army increased magic resistance.
  • Undeath Descendant (Vlad Von Carstein) allows the lord to recover much more quickly when wounded.
  • Cruelty Unrestrained (Isabella Von Carstein) grants the lord regeneration.
  • One Down, X to Go (Luthor Harkon) grants the lord increased magic resistance and additional leadership when fighting at sea.
  • Dreadfleet Drowned (Count Noctilus) grants the lord's army additional leadership both when fighting against the Vampire Coast and at sea.
  • Consigned to the Drink (Aranessa Saltspite) grants the lord additional income from sacking settlements as well as regeneration when fighting at sea.
  • Siren Extinguished (Cylostra Direfin) grants the lord's army additional winds of magic while deducting from the enemy army's winds of magic at the start of battles. However, it also increases the lord's base miscast chance by a slight amount.
  • Immortal Unbeloved (Malekith) grants the lord Frenzy and extra income from raiding.
  • Hagbutcher (Morathi) grants the lord resistance to assassinations and decreases the cost of hero actions.
  • The Day After (Crone Hellebron) grants the lord a substantial buff to armor piercing damage, and a lesser buff to melee attack.
  • Black Heart Down (Lokhir Fellheart) grants the lord's army immunity to storm and reef attrition.
  • Spawnkiller (Lord Mazdamundi) grants the lord an increase in leadership aura size.
  • Saurussmiter (Kroq-Gar) grants the lord improved melee attack and a bonus to public order in the local province.
  • Prophet of Doom (Tehenhauin) grants the lord's army more captives after battle along with extra untainted.
  • Ulthuan Undefended (Tyrion) grants the lord a higher melee attack and increased rank for unit recruits.
  • Ruin Unrestrained (Teclis) grants the lord a higher winds of magic reserve.
  • Neverqueen (Alarielle The Everqueen) grants your lord's army public order, winds of magic reserve and growth bonuses.
  • Shadow's Fall (Alith Anar) grants your lord cheaper hero actions and higher success for hero actions.
  • Hidestriker (Grimgor Ironhide) grants the lord extra armor-piercing damage.
  • Greenskinner (Azhag The Slaughterer) grants the lord 30% magic resistance.
  • Sneakysmiter (Skarsnik) grants the lord both increased ambush success and defense chance.
  • Great Green Skinner (Wurrzag Da Great Green Prophet) grants the lord physical resistance.
  • Verminflail (Queek Headtaker) grants the lord bonus damage versus infantry.
  • Plaguelast (Lord Skrolk) grants the lord's army immunity against swamp attrition and makes the army lower enemy public order.
  • Craven by Name (Tretch Craventail) grants the lord extra speed and leadership for its army during subterrain intercept battles.
  • Settra the Perishable (Settra the Imperishable) grants the lord an increased charge bonus and causes a drop in public order when travelling in enemy territory.
    • As an Easter Egg, if Settra defeats Surtha Ek, he will get 'Surtha Wrecked', granting his army a drastic +10 capacity for Skeleton Chariots. And in return, if Surtha Ek defeats Settra, he will get a different buff called 'True Chariot Master', which effectively doubles the damage output of chariots in his army by granting them +100% weapon strength.
  • Khalida the Never Living (High Queen Khalida) gives a bonus to diplomatic relations with Vampires and increased experience for ranged units.
  • Not So Great Hierophant (Grand Hierophant Khatep) grants the lord increased magic reserves and makes the lord's army immune to deserts and sandstorms.
  • Arkhan the Blackened (Arkhan The Black) grants the lord increased weapon damage when fighting Vampires. It also gives improved diplomatic relations with Tomb Kings.
  • Wildhunter (Orion) grants the lord increased leadership and melee attack in forest battles.
  • Tree Surgeon (Durthu) grants the lord fire damage when fighting Wood Elves (included for completeness, Durthu has not flame powers, he's a treeman).
  • Beastscourge (Khazrak the One-eye) grants the lord Fear.
  • Crowreaver (Malagor the Dark-Omen) grants the lord improved leadership and melee attack when fighting Beastmen.
  • Skullslasher (Morghur the Shadowgave) grants the lord missile resistance.
  • Doomslayer (Archaon the Everchosen) grants the lord Immunity to Psychology.
  • Stormblight (Kholek Suneater) grants the lord a bonus against large entities.
  • Pride Assassin (Prince Sigvald the Magnificent) grants the lord a higher chance of stealing items after winning and a bonus to income in the local province.
  • Blood Feuder (Wulfrik the Wanderer) grants extra charge bonus.
  • Trollhunter (Throgg) will get your lord bonus damage versus large units as well as extra weapon damage.
• Violation of Common Sense: Continuing a trend from Total War games from at least as far back as Rome: Total War, the best place you can be when two armies are attacking you is between them. In normal military tactics this would be a disaster, but here it means you can simply deploy your entire force within inches of where the enemy reinforcements are coming in and hit them before they have time to form up, causing a very easy rout. This gives the main army a large leadership penalty and makes it even easier to rout them when they finally reach you.
• Violence Is the Only Option: Played straight with the Dark Elves and the Skaven, who need violence to stimulate their economies, and in the case of the Skaven, gather more food supplies. Raiding is just too vital to these factions to play truly diplomatically. Firmly averted with the other factions, though difficult, as one can confederate to get all the settlements needed for their victory condition, and then use their allies to beat back the Chaos Invasion in Mortal Empires. It becomes more complicated in the Vortex campaign though, as one needs to gather ritual resources.
• Walking Wasteland: Skaven controlled cities are derelict ruins filled with green mist, and blighted land. Many of their battle maps take place is mist shrouded lands covered in crumbling ruins. Dark Elves held lands, on the hand, are dark, snowy plains filled with dead trees, and the occasional volcano, with nothing but the aurora borealis to light the way.
  • Special mention goes to the recently added city of Skavenblight in Mortal Empires, the racial capital of the foul rodent species. Located near Tilea, the area we're it's located is a large, blight filled wasteland of pure foulness.
• Warrior Prince: High Elf lords are referred to as princes or princesses, the former being focused on melee combat, the later, archery.
• War Is Hell: This is Warhammer we're talking about, though like it's source material, crosses over with War Is Glorious. The average High Elf soldier, whom is a conscripted levy, is expected to fight all sorts of horrors, and will likely end up being devoured by one of them.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Despite the fact the subfactions of the various races should be united in trying to capture the vortex, there's just as much infighting as the previous games. Especially for the Skaven. Storywise, Tyrion hates how, despite having the backing of both the Everqueen, and the Phoenix King, the other High Elf Princes refuse to heed him, and fall underneath one banner. Which results in him forcing them, with diplomacy, or by physical violence.
• We Have Reserves: A legit, if taxing, method of winning battles is just to drown out the opposing force in waves of cheap infantry. This is the intended place style of the Skaven, as they can field massed hordes of Skaven Slaves, and Clan Rats to overwhelm the enemy, summon even more units of cheap infantry with the many summon options, both on the battlefield and the campaign. And since Skavenslaves are considered so expendable that they don't damage non-slave morale when they die, so they can be used to bog down better infantry for warpfire throwers or death globes.
  • Zig-zagged by the Tomb Kings. The number of units they can field at any given time is limited by their research and infrastructure, which at first seems to be a quantitative handicap. However, their powerful resurrection magic allows them to raise and deploy all their units completely free of charge, which renders all casualties almost strategically meaningless, as they can always raise a brand-new army in a few turns. Not only that, but their battlefield magic actually grows stronger as they lose more troops, meaning that they can give powerful boosts to their elite troops and monsters by throwing huge numbers of expendable Skeleton Warriors into the meat grinder.
• World of Ham: Considering this is the result of the hammiest of Tabletop Wargames and the hammiest of PC Grand Strategy franchises joining forces, it should come as no surprise that this game lives and breathes Ham.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: After capturing a city, the local population is almost always displeased with the development, and hefty public order bonuses are levied against the player for a handful of turns (which is dependent, in terms how big the penalty is, on the method you used to capture the city. Occupying and Looting will make them despise you). Like all previous Total War games, but in this one especially, it makes even more sense since the occupiers are usually members of a completely different species, leading to revolts and uprisings galore. The second game's climate system adds more to this: some areas are just not worth holding, because they don't match your species' habitat.
• You Call That a Wound?: Like in the first game, Legendary Lords cannot be permanently killed unless you destroy their faction. However in the sequel, regular Lords can now become unkillable, by unlocking the 'Immortality' skill, which has the effect of them only being able to be put in a wounded state.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Teclis, Mazdamundi, and Morathi are considered some of the most powerful spellcasters in the entire world, and yet they start out with all but one of their spells locked, with the rest needing an investment of skillpoints to obtain.
• Your Size May Vary: The scale of the maps of the Vortex Campaign and the Mortal Empires differ somewhat with that of the original map from the lore. Ulthuan is a pretty notable example. In the Vortex Campaign, it's much larger than it really is while also being much closer to Norsca and the Southlands. In the Mortal Empires Campaign, Ulthuan is instead positioned between Bretonnia and Estalia, and the Southlands are a bit further away. Ulthuan is also only slightly smaller than what is depicted in canon.
• Zerg Rush: The Skaven's hat. Their armies are made of huge numbers of disposable (seriously, they have a quality called 'Meat Shield' and are Expendable to boot) Skavenslaves and Clanrats, which are designed to either overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers or hold them in place until the more dangerous Skaven units (Doomwheels, Rat Ogres, Hell Pit Abominations, Plague Monks, Stormvermin) can get around them and put the hurt on. Universally, Skaven units have higher model counts than the other factions' equivalent unit.
  • Unlike in the first game, the 'Expendable' rule has been rewritten so that units around an Expendable unit will not lose leadership as they get slaughtered, encouraging this trope further.

This is a General Guide for the Lizardmen in the Vortex Campaign, and eventually, the Grand Campaign.
Other TWW2 Guides:

• Brief Description of Each Faction.
• Vampire Counts Hints & Tips.
• Skaven Guide.

Lizardman Basics

Army Basics
The Lizardmen are a pack of beasts, and this is both metaphorically and literally true. You can basically divide your units into the swift, relatively cheep skinks, and the hard hitting sauruses and beast units. Your Sauri hold your lines, and deliver the hammer blows, while Skinks can be used to reinforce your flanks, redeploy quickly on the battlefield, and even excute hit and run tactics you might have seen in the let's plays.
The important thing to remember about Lizardmen is that you WANT them to get stuck in. But importantly, you want to get them stuck in DEEP into enemy lines, and for Sauri, you want to be sure to do so against units that aren't much faster than they are. Chances are, that even on your best days, your units are going to frenzy. This gives them mad buffs to damage and makes them unbreakable, but you lose control over them. They'll focus on whatever foe is closest to them. That's why you want to make sure your Sauri are stuck in deep, that way they'll focus on the mobs near them rather than chasing lone units halfway across the map.
Your skinks will tend to run away from things, this is generally a good thing to allow to happen, let it happen, let them peel off enemy units from the main fight, let your Sauri do their job.
For your magic, throw it around, get good at figuring out when and where to use it, don't be afraid to pause the game, scope out the map. If you have to toss down some blasts that hit your own dudes but will hit way more of their dudes? Do it. Always remember, your magic is hellishly long range, use it to snipe enemy artillery, because lord knows, the Lizardmen aren't rocking the artillery department.
Campaign Map Basics
Lizardmen are reasonably fast for group, and importantly, they have a ton, and I mean this, a ton of structures that really boost their abilities on the campaign map. Use ambushes, get your guys up and running around the place, wage tons of battles. Don't be afraid to break alliances when you have too, and get in good and tight with the foe.
Importantly, use the geomantic web map to chart out how you should expand. If you have to choose between a place that is part of the geomantic web, and one that isn't, always go for the option that has the geomantic nexus on it. Don't bother building geomantic improvements if you can't capture the whole territory, but grab it anyway and get it improved as best you can, make it a tough nut to crack. The geomantic web is just USEFUL, and grows more useful the more of it you control. When you control a province entirely, always build the necessary upgrades for it, because they'll really force multiply your edicts.
The Rite of Ferocity is your cheepest, and honestly best, Rite. Pop it any time you're planning on really rapidly building armies and have the economy to sustain constant army growth for 5 turns in a row. Take your time, use the local province thing, not the global province queue, to save money, because what you lose in time you make up for in getting higher ranked, better units right out of the gate, and the experience gain is enormous. The post battle loot is really just a nice extra, because all the other benefits are in your recruiting.
Lord Mazdamundi
Lord Mazdamundi starts in a fairly nice position, but you have skaven to your north, and norscans to your east. You want to start out aggressively, ignore the Empire colonies to your south, they'll try to buddy up with you, and as this is part of the Old One's plan obviously, you should do so, and take advantage of it.

Early Game Units

Before I get into depth about this too much, something I should explain is two consistent features found in almost every unit of the lizardman army. Predatory Instincts, Hiding (Forest), and Primal Instincts. Predatory Instincts, from what I can tell, increases the detection range against hidden units. Almost every single unit that isn't a large unit (Kroxigors and most of the dinosaurs you can get from the beast pit) can hide in forests, and Primal Instincts is something you'll find in a ton of Lizardman units, which means that if they get damaged too quickly, they'll go on a rampage and focus fire on just one guy. Also, all Lizardmen have resilience Desert and Swamp, meaning they never take attrition in those locations, use that to your advantage, if you've got to run, flee into swamps or deserts and let the persuing army take some hits, then ambush them if you can.
Saurus Warriors
The bread and butter unit for your armies even late into the game. Eventually you'll only have your first wave of guys who manage to survive until the mid game, but the Saurus Warriors are your go to guys for the fight. They've got armor and leadership and weapon for days, just don't expect them to get anywhere fast, nor to do especially better on the charge (It's not bad, but it could be better). Importantly though, these guys eptiomize what it means to play as a lizardman player. They are tough, they are unwieldy, when they get too badly hurt they berserk, and while they might not hit as often as other guys, when they DO hit, the enemy -will- feel it. Keep throwing these guys into fight after fight, pull them back if they get too low without rampaging, and then replenish them, and they'll go up in ranks blisteringly fast. All the same, stop producing them unless you're having serious economy troubles the moment the shields variant becomes available.
Saurus Warriors (Shields)
Literally identical, only now they have sheilds meaning that they can take a charge from their front arc better and they have a slightly higher cost. There's literally no reason not to swap to these guys at every opportunity given barring reasons of budget, the need to raise a quick army from a low level city, or similar 'forced by circumstances' actions. At the same time, it's also arguable that the shields just aren't that big of a deal when lizardmen already have massive amounts of armor, leadership, and weapon strength, anyone who inflicts too much damage on a charge is going to be bogged down for days.
Saurus Spearmen
Slightly more melee defense, considerably less weapon strength, what they do have is both massive amounts of charge defense and the ability to chew through large units faster than normal Saurus warriors. Don't be as eager to get these guys stuck in as Saurus Warriors, keep them on your flanks, use them against large units and
Saurus Spearmen (Shields)
See Saurus Warrior Shields, apply all of that to Saurus Spearmen.
Skink Cohorts
I'm personally not a fan of this unit, but that's because I feel like anything these guys can do, a Saurus Spearman can do better. This isn't entirely true of course, because they start with shields, and they lack the primal instincts draw back. What does this mean? They might be more delicate, but they can redeploy much faster than Sauri can, and more importantly, are more reliable. Their anti-large bonuses are there, and they can take charges reasonably well, making them excellent support units. Their aquatic ability assists in this as well, but I haven't seen aquatic terrain all that often on any of the maps, so it's really a situational bonus.
Skink Cohorts (Javelins)
These guys gain a poisonous ranged attac, and they'll make up your opening ranged fighters. That said, Lizardmen really aren't all that into the ranged fight, so while Javelins are better than nothing at all, I wouldn't put more than 2 or 3 of them in an opening army, and phase them out in favor of the Skirmishers. They have poison damage as well, and hit harder than the skirmisher baseline. Same deal with aquatic as with the normal cohort.
Skink Skirmishers
Sneaky, forward deployment, poison attacks, and the ability to move really quickly while attacking on the move. Set them up on skirmishing mode so they'll run away from enemies, then use them as a -really- juicy target to peel off units from the enemy's advance. Provided cavalry doesn't run them down (and even then it'll take longer for the cavalry to do so than it would for most other units given how speedy these guys are), they'll take the enemy forces for a merry dance and pump them full of poison, chipping away at their health again and again and again. Can also be useful, given their ability set, of striking enemies from behind or taking out artillery.

Midgame Units

Chameleon Skinks
Chameleon Skinks are, basically, skink skirmishers with all the extras. You really really want to replace your skink skirmishers with these over time, for basically the same reason you replace your saurus bands with the shield bearing versions. The expense is worth it. In this case you are paying for chamelonic, which means with few exceptions the enemy really won't see them coming provided they never break cover, and they are rediculously hard to hit with ranged weapons, meaning they can harass and screw with ranged units, something skirmishers were not fantastic at due to their subpar range and the fact that most ranged enemy units wouldn't have to run after them as much. Chameleon Skinks are still cheaper than a basic saurus unit, and arguably the most effective harrasser you have. They also have poisoned melee weapons, and while chameleons in melee are still probably going to have an aweful time of it, it won't be quite as bad as that by skink skirmishers

Total War Warhammer 2 Review

Terradon Riders
Really your only true answer to screwing with enemy artillery in this game before they put you in for a world of hurt. Never leave home without at least one of them whenever you think it's even moderately likely you'll face serious artillery (late game skaven and any chaos army being the favorite picks, elven artillery is just not anything to write home about). Fly them over, drop rocks, keep them hovering and causing fear and attacking the artillery until it's done with.
Cold One Riders
A pretty decent cavalry unit. Their stats are nearly identical to saurus warriors, except having lower weapon strength, an greatly increased armor and speed. They do much better on the charge than in straight melee, but that's not unusual for cavalry units that I've been able to see. A solid choice and very affordable (only 20g higher in cost than saurus warriors), especially considering they are both armored, shielded, and have armor piercing.
Cold One Spear-Riders
Cold One Spear-Riders are kinda hard to justify. They've got identical stats to the normal riders, but come with the usual spear goodies of anti-cav and anti-large. That said, they cost around 40gp more than the normal riders do, so I'd never field them in bulk really. That said, they got speed, charge bonuses, anti-armor, anti-large, and anti-cavalry. So if you see a bunch of heavily armored elven cavalry or a swarm of rat ogres, these really are the guys to throw into it.

Feral Bastilidon
The Bastilidon is a walking, angry, fortress of armored plates and angry spikes. It's not fast, and when compared to the other two feral dinosaur units, it's damage is pitiful (Of course compared to everything except those two unit's it's scary as all hell). But what it has far more than any other unit I can recall is armor. As long as you don't throw it into melee against anything that is anti-large and/or anti-armor, then chances are it will hold the line and win through sheer attrition (plus the insane amounts of damage it would inflict on most things. This is a tarpit unit if I ever saw one, just keep it away from anti-large units. Also handy for letting you get into sieges faster.
Feral Stegadon
A charge monster if there ever was one. Whatever it hits IS going to break if that unit can be broken. It's not as tanky as the Bastilidon (but what is?), and I'm not entirely sure how it'll do if it gets bogged down, but given how rediculous it's damage is on the charge I'd say it's got a good chance of breaking even low to medium moral spear units if it catches them in the flank. I wouldn't try it except as a desperation move though, these guys are EXPENSIVE.

Late Game Units

Warning: Due to IRL obligations, I've only been able to fool around with Temple Guards and Solar Engine in my game, so the rest of these are going to be based on the stats I'm reading from cards until I can get them running in the campaign, which is where I like to get a feel for these guys since it lets me judge them based on overall economy as well.
Temple Guards
I consider these guys a fairly expensive, but still pretty damn worth it, upgrade to your Shielded Saurus Warriors. They are a definitely worth it upgrade to your Spear Sauri with Sheilds. More defense and accuracy, same weapon strength as your spear sauri, same abilities, and now with armor piercing. I'm not gonna say that they should outright replace your warriors and spear sauri, not like how you eventually replace all of your production of dwarf warriors with ironbreakers and long beards, but I'd say you still want a pretty even mix of normal shield spears and Temple Guards. The Temple Guards can very easily shore up the center of your lines, bogging down stuff for your much killier normal shielded warriors to smach in, while your regular spears can sit on the far flanks waiting to take cavalry charges. But it's just a generally flexible unit that can do a ton of damage with their halberds. Thankfully, you shouldn't have to make TOO many of these guys, as they tend to come from blessed spawning quests, which give you way better versions of them anyway.
Kroxigors
Big heavy monstrous units that fit the usual monstrous units catalogue. Armor piercing, anti infantry, siege-attacker, buckets of armor, hp, and damage, but low numbers. Decent turn of speed for them too. I've genuinely got no idea how well they'd fare against non-armor piercing anti-large infantry, but I wouldn't risk it. Pity, since there's just not a lot of seriously armored infantry that's not also antilarge. I'd say useful as any other monstrous unit in the game, but nothing that makes it stand out as unique in that respect. Just throw it against non-anti-large infantry and watch it chew through the poor footsloggers.
Terradon Riders (Fire Leech Bolas)
I'll be honest, I have no idea if the extra 37 gold tacked onto these guys it worth it. That said, they're basically the same thing as the Terradon Riders but with anti infantry instead of poison, meaning they'll kill stuff harder, but not debuff it very much. They also do fire damage, and there's more than a few units vulnerable to fire, so if you see any fire vulnerable units on the field, these guys can definitely pull their weight for that. I'd include one in any army you're throwing at enemies who might have fire vulnerable units.
Horned Ones
Cold one rider's bigger, angry, harder hitting older brothers. Better charge, better hit rate, better armor, better damage, all at the low low price of having to worry about them rampaging a bit. Honestly I say these guys are worth it just from the stat plate alone, they're basically speedier, more accurate, and better armored versiosn of your normal saurus warriors with fewer guys in a unit and with armor piercing as well as armor and shields. They could probably outright replace your normal cold one riders.
Stegadon
A nice, tough, mobile, anti-armor, poison damage dealer. You can smack folks from far away, does impressive damage, and like all dinosaurs, can hold it's own in melee if it gets swamped.
Bastiladon (Solar Engine)
A really good support range unit. Don't bother firing this sucker at artillery or gates, you have better things for that. Where the solar engine shines is the fact that the Beam of Sotek does fire and magic damage at the same time, and most importantly, blinds whoever is hit by it. The damage it deals is also really really nice. It's range is nice, but not quite long enough to qualify for real artillery in my books, more a field artillery piece. Also, it has a pretty damn fast set up time compared to most artillery, given it's mounted on a walking pile of plated anger and rage that'll lay down the hurt as well as a normal Bastiladon. Still, not what you want it to be doing most of the time, so don't use it as a tar pit like you'd use the feral Bastiladon.
Bastiladon (Revivication Crystal)
Oh look at this, a non-caster or winds of magic dependent healer unit. This thing, just from it's stats, is incredible, and keep it tucked away from the fighting and get him to pop those abilities whenever you can. They can seriously turn the tide of battle, not just healing injured units, but reviving dead ones. I have no idea what effect this has on rampaging units.
Ancient Stegadon
See Stegadon, but give it really impressive damage and the ability to fire on the moon. It's not got a lot of ammo though, so get it stuck in once it's used up it's 10 shots obliterating whatever poor idiots were caught in the explosions.

Feral Carnasaur
Do you like killing absolutely everything and causing massive amounts of damge? Do you like doing to monsterous units what monsterous units tend to do to infantry? The Feral Carnasaur is for you. This guy can, and will, murder just about everything it's thrown against, devouring enemies, stomping them, eating trolls, the whole 9 yards.

A Note on Blessed Spawnings

From what I've been able to see, Blessed Spawnings are, stat for stat, superior in every way. To prove this I'm gonna give you a side by side snapshot of the same unit, one of them with 2 gold 'elite' stripes, and the other blessed and having only a tiny sliver of experience, no ranks.
As you can see, with the exception of the melee defense and leadership that the non-blessed unit has, the Blessed Spear-Riders are just straight up better in terms of raw stats. This has been the trend in almost every single case I've come across. Some blessed units also come with additional abilities like Perfect Vigor, meaning they never counts as tired more or less. I'm sure there are other little bits and pieces, but in general, assume that Blessed Units are out of the box better than any normal unit ever can be.

Lizardman Economy

The Lizardman Game is not quite as economically dependent as the dwarf game, but it's very close. Where as dwarves depend on their structures and technologies to push their economy forward, for the Lizardmen it's based around their geomantic web and to a lesser extent, their structures. Any province you intend to focus on economy should be filled to the brim with Stone Markers and Lodestones on their minor settlements. As always, build any resource structures that you should, and for these provinces, more than any other, make sure there's room in your capital for the geomantic structures, because you REALLY want to boost the gemantic webstrength for any economic provinces.
One of the things that -really- helps alleviate the burden of recruitment is the ability to have blessed spawnings. Anytime you have a quest for those, make sure to take it, as having additional blessed spawnings is never a bad thing, allowing you to quickly replenish, reinforce, or recruit new armies entirely!
The other part of the Lizardman economy is the important of geomantic lines and the orders you can give to your provinces. Craftsmen and War are the two big ones. When you're ready to pop a rite of ferocity, then the turn before swap out craftsman for war, and see those levels truly pump up. Do it during a ritual event and the levels grow even more. Blessed Units aren't effected by this however, but they come with special traits, and in a few cases that I've seen, can be superior even to single gold ranked normal, but I'm experimenting to see what's true or not there.

Lizardman Tech Tree

Now, anybody here who read my old guide knows how important tech was to the dwarvish economy and warmachine. Getting your tech up was vital, and your tech tree was more or less independent of what structures you actually built, which should have told anybody paying attention that Dwarves needed to be constantly pushing their tech.
Lizardmen are more tranditional technologically speaking, they unlock rows based on structures. Honestly, you shouldn't sweat the tech tree overly much with lizardmen, as the tech that opens up will, by and large, be the stuff related to what you are doing. Be flexible with what you research, don't tunnel vision on one particular row just because you want to see it done (Another difference with the dwarves, who often benefited from toughing it out and going for deep techs early game while sacrificing early but quick and broad stuff). Jump around, do what feels best at the moment, and don't sweat the small stuff. The only advice I'd really give is that you should buy the Scrying Pool, Shrine of the Old Ones, and Geomantic Pylon as soon as you can, just because that +1 Public Order tech is very very useful given the sheer number of corruptors you'll be facing (Skaven, Chaos, Vampires) in short order and every little bit helps. It also opens up the research lines at the middle of the tree, meaning that if you fill out all of your research lines you'll be stuck without those 3 structures and the technology they unlock finished.

Mazdamundi's Early Campaign

Chief Priorites are to focus on the Skeggi to your west, and the Skaven to your north. Ignore the west and south for the time being. Your capital province will be in some serious need of reordering, and to fix that you should build the underground lagoon, followed by the monument to the old ones as soon as you can.
The Skeggi can be broken down very very quickly, and the moment you clear them out of the Monolith of Fallen Gods (something you should prioritize even over hunting down skeggi armies), you should buy a second lord, and have him start building up his forces. Get Mazdamundi's growing army out in the front, and for the Old Ones' sake, don't use autobattle if you've got your starting silver ranked cavalry in the army, the AI seems to love throwing them into the meat grinder, so you'll lose them and not be able to get them back until around turn 30ish, so just deal with it.
Once your second lord's army is up to snuff (Call it turn 10-15ish), send him north, start conquering places. The Fallen Gates -matter- and you want to turn this place into a power house in terms of army defense. Grab the two minor settlements (the northern most one should be unoccupied by skaven, so search it first. Always search ruins first if they're unoccupied), then start building them up, get them slotted with defensive enhancements, and camp an army there. Keep building them, and Mazdamundi's forces.
By this point, you've probably begun starving out the Skeggi capital, if you didn't just go and take it outright. Send Mazdamundi north, and grab the last settlement in your primary province, and then let it roll. You'll want to build some defenses on this point eventually, cause it's out in the middle of nowhere and a prime target for Dark Elves, but don't get too fussed about it.
By around, call it turn 25ish, you should have, one way or another, (assuming you've been focusing on your quests) gotten enough tablets to begin your first ritual. Do so, it should require you to defend Choteck's Causeway, the Ziguratte of Dawn, and Hexoatl. You should also get some wandering armies spawning in. Deal with them if they walk into your territory and raid you, otherwise ignore them, march Mazdamundi's army north, and have his army run interference against the Chaos armies marching from the north while your other dude goes south and begins expanding into the west. Remember, always go for the geomantic cities -first-. Treasure Hunt, then occupy. Depending on your difficulty, you might have the Ziguratte of Dawn come under attack. If you think it's likely, then move your second army over there, or buy a new lord.
If you've been doing well, and the Skaven to your north haven't been wiped out already, towards the end of all of this you should move in to knock their teeth out, taking the northern province. This will be a fortress province, then you can focus on your western province and turn it into an economic engine.
You'll notice that Lizardmen are expensive, they require a lot of upkeep, and so you should, throughout all of this, keep your eye on your income level, and invest in trade, in money boosting stuff, and economic buildings. The reason you pick the Western Province for this is that the Dark Elves are unlikely to launch any naval attacks down this side of the coast, and by the time they do you'll have your cities upgraded and can put in some defenses if absolutely necessary. Otherwise, just camp an army on the western most city and call it a day as this place funds 2 or three armies on it's own over the course of it's lifespan.

Mazdamundi's Mid Campaign

By the time you've secured the three northern most 'suitable for lizardmen climate' provinces, assuming you haven't accidentally (or deliberately) stomped the Humans, one of two things will have happened to them. First, they might have started and lost a war with one of the two hostile groups south of them (Skaven and Orks), or be in the process of losing. Get your armies prepped, snipe any of the enemies. If the Humans are doing well (as they were in my game given that they only had to focus on their southern front given that I took out Skeggi so early and bottled up the skaven to the north), then you want to grab a few of the cities, keep them from gaining any full provinces. If you're lucky, then the Orks or Skaven might take out Swamp Town or their Capital for you, in which case go in and 'rescue' it for yourself. You might end up losing the southern geomantic nexus point for the province south of your starting province. If so, fine, deal with it. At least it's owned by an ally. You can always take it later once you've grown three times bigger than them.
Start taking apart the Orks to your south, the province to the West runs down the coast and can be a tough nut to take, the Skaven tend to have it by this point and are dug in. I tended to march two armies through here, then swung up to take the other cities on the opposite side of the mountains. From there, you'll see a province capital that produces tablets. It doesn't matter if there's an ally or anything sitting on it, grab it. You need it more than them, and the Great Warding has to be bolstered. If you've been lucky with some of your interventions by this point, you'll be a head of anybody else. Sit on a nest egg of like, 10,000 cash, smack down anybody you feel it getting too close.
By this point in the campaign, some of your blessed spawning quests will probably be directing you to start attacking ally cities. My advice is to check out their relative strength on the map compared to you, and to have heroes scout around them. If they're sitting against a bunch of ruins, assume the ruins are all captured by skaven by this point, and deal with them first. Your income generation should let you wage at least a two front war with 4 to 6 armies. Always keep an army camped in your northern most province, because chances are the Dark Elves are going to be your biggest rival in these things, as they have just the right mix of backstabbing, common foes, and similar things to fuel their growth without stuning it (Unlike Skaven, who never get along and tend to fight rather than work together, and High Elves who rarely stab each other in the back and need lots of diplomacy, stuning their growth because they build tall and narrow in a game that really favors building moderately wide), so you never want to show an opening. Also, it tends to be the direction Chaos invades from, so having an army or two on site to intercept any idiots who try to disrupt your rituals is essential. I find keeping an army camped on my main capital helps as well, for sniping any problems that come up in my heartlands. Both of the lords you have leading these armies should have move-distance boosting abilities to get them where they need to go fastest, and ambush improving abilities as well, since the Lizardmen already get some structures that help boost ambushing enemies defensively. Use that to your advantage.

Total War Warhammer 2 Tips

From this point on, keep expanding south, make allies where you can, try to confederate any lizardmen you can, but honestly I find that it's a lot harder to confederate in this game, probably the lack of 'defenders of civilization unite!' bonuses. Just keep pushing your rituals forward, you should be well onto Ritual three by the time you grab the second tablet production city. Lizardmen play better on the defense with their infrastructure all self supporting and the scrying pool structure. Plus, they lack serious artillery, at least of the wall breaking sort, so you want to keep that in mind in how you strategize. It's always better to take cities early on in their development as lizardmen, then sit pretty and let the enemy get caught in ambush after ambush by your armies. Mazdamundi could probably win a victory by conquest if he wanted too, but why would you want too when you can just camp ambush armies on the paths of attack leading into your territory, pump tablets into your rituals, and call it a day?

End Game

Given how this game works, I am making a SINGLE end game section for both the legendary lords. The reason for this is simple, by a certain point in the game, me giving you specific instructions is not going to cut it, because the Vortex Campaign is far more about the rituals than anything else.

Warhammer Total War 2 Poison

You should, by this point, have secured the greater chunk of your continent, if not the entire thing in the case of the southlands (given the southlands are slightly smaller and more connected than Lustria is for the purposes of the Lizardmen campaigns). What's most important at this stage is to figure out who is the most important enemy, the guy who is closest to gaining on rituals than you. Chances are, in my experience, it's the Dark Elves just because they have exactly the right mix of alliances, brutality, isolation, and available targets to REALLY get down to brass tacks about reving their economy and rituals. At least when the AI play them, but depending on how things play out it could be the Skaven or High Elves giving you guff.
It is at this stage of the game, where you are probably going to have to give up on just playing the defensive game. Leave a handful of armies on your borders and corelands, and get 2 or three really good armies, probably your oldest two, and set them to RAMPAGE across whatever place is gaining on you. Give up on taking whole territories, instead go in, pinpoint strike cities producing tablets, and then take them, and pay whatever exhorbidant bribes are necessary to make peace. The reason I say this is that the Dark Elves or other factions might have SIGNIFICANTLY higher gain. For example, in my first campaign the Dark Elves went from the second ritual, to almost 3/4ths of the way to the third ritual just from the sheer backlog of ritual resources they had gained from expanding their empire in the time it took to finish the second ritual.
Whoever is gaining on you? Stomp them. Use raiding stance and astromancy stance to keep an eye on your enemies' armies and avoid attrition in territories that inflict it on you. Your job, at this point, is to enact Sherman's march to the sea. Loot, then raise, every single city you come across, or just raise it if you're concerned about a supporting army incoming. Obliterate the enemy's economy to the best of your ability. Do eveything to deny them sources of ritual materials and expand your own. Don't go for the knock down kills if you can help it, let them scramble and screw with each other, defend your ritual sites and cut off their supplies above all else. With this gameplan, you should be able to get your ritual running.