What’s Gus Playing? Total War: Warhammer I
Our speed-bump-sized sovereign of steel speaks of swords and spells ~
Lloyd Sabin, 12 February 2018
The Norsca are close to a Viking type faction in real history, they inhabit the freezing cold northern wastes of the Warhammer Old World, they are evil, and they can align with Chaos in the end game, if the player survives. I can dig them.
Those who know me from the forums have a decent idea of my resolve (or lack thereof) in purchasing games. With most releases, I try to hold out as long as I can for a sale. And then there are games whose mere announcement drives me to pre-order…which I frown upon in general, try to minimize most of the time, and occasionally fail at doing. Some pre-orders are still made…I’ve pre-ordered Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Thrones of Britannia (A Total War Saga), and Vampyr….all of which will find their way in to this column eventually. OK…so maybe my pre-order resolve needs some work. But it does lead to more interesting and varied games for me to feature here!
Total War: Warhammer I was a rare case for me. I am only a casual Warhammer fan – I have never painted any of the minis and the books I find depressing in larger doses. I am just about finished with Dan Abnett’s Thunder & Steel omnibus and although I have liked some WH40K books by Abnett, I found Thunder & Steel to be quite the slog most of the time.
So with that in mind I actually held off on buying Total War: Warhammer I. Even after initial glowing professional and user reviews, the game just struck me as too fantastical, too wacky/fruity. That is, until the Norsca were announced.
Here was a faction I could sink my teeth in to (I probably should have saved that cliche for my Vampire faction playthrough…oh well). Yes they have some supernatural units like Ice Trolls and Frost Wyrms…but no gryphons. Or demigryphons for that matter. It’s those kinds of units that truly weird me out. The Norsca are close to a Viking type faction in real history, they inhabit the freezing cold northern wastes of the Warhammer Old World, they are evil, and they can align with Chaos in the end game, if the player survives. I can dig them.
So I finally bought Total War: Warhammer I about a year ago along with some DLC, including the Norsca faction. It took almost another year until I got in to a suitable, Warhammery mood, but 2-3 weeks ago I finally started my Norsca campaign…and was slaughtered in under 10 turns.
Suffering through this ignominy, I started a second Norsca campaign and slowly learned the new systems involved. I began to really enjoy it and especially loved discovering new factions and places in the Old World. 425+ turns in, and I had completed 3 of the 6 victory objectives and had aligned myself with The Crow, one of the dark gods that Norsca have to choose to get to the end game.
I won’t give anything away beyond that since my time with Total War: Warhammer I will span at least 2-3 What’s Gus Playing slots (apologies if you’re just not that in to Warhammer). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and hopefully you will enjoy reading the next few more than going to see an off Broadway production of Cats.
So…you have been sufficiently warned. On to the screenshots and WAAAGH-hammer.
The Norsca were a great faction for me to get my feet wet in Total War: Warhammer I and although I still find some of the Warhammer books a bit darkly weird, I will definitely be playing more of this game. And then move on, of course, to Total War: Warhammer II and the scary and sassy Dark Elves.
More to come on this playthrough in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks for reading!
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