Total War: WARHAMMER 2 - Curse of the Vampire Coast Trailer - General

Fuck they better have given these guys the license to 40k because... oh man this looks so fucking GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

40k and Total War formula don't mix. Creative Assembly has the ability to do the visuals of 40k I have no doubt, but their Total War rank and file gameplay formula is just not compatible.

CA will never do a 40k total war game. 40k-based gameplay just doesn't mesh well with such a scale.

the only large-scale rts gameplay thats suitable for 40k imo is something similar to Supreme Commander.

Can't wait to 3D print guardsmen.

#305 didn't even kind of any of that stuff, even in the fluff text except the leviathan/kraken, and i guess you could make a case for the dread cannoneers simply being a siege range variant 2 of the units are kind of featured in WHFRP, and none of it aside from Varg variants has been on the tabletop that I've ever seen, ergo new units.

I guess they get more freedom to do whatever the fuck they wanted after GW murdered rebooted fantasy?

That's actually pretty impressive, although considering they did the same for the norsca I'm not too shocked they'd go into this level of detail.

I know for a fact that the Necrofex Colossus (big ship golems), Animated Hulks (ogre looking dudes with the chaos spawn skeleton), Deck Droppers (bats with zombie pirates), Syreen (recoloured ghosts), Rotting Leviathan (crabs), Queen Bess (giant cannon), and all the other generic zombies were a thing. They all look to be based off of old army lists from White Dwarf and Warhammer RP fluff bits. Hell, there's even art for what the Colossus is supposed to look like from the books, even if they never released models for them. https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammerfb/images/2/2b/Warhammer_Necrofex_Colossus.png/revision/latest?cb=20170720092936

They stated way back right after the first game's release that GW had allowed them to create some units of their own, and they've basically been given every bit of lore ever created for Fantasy. So it's not "free reins", and more CA actually digging through all the shit GW probably forgot even existed.

Looking at Napoleon and Fall of the Samurai I can see it working with the Horus Heresy setting, given the much larger legions

Ehh rank and file space marines still sounds a little ridiculous. It would take a LOT of work to actually make the Legions unique enough as well within the confines of how the game engine currently works. The only way to make a 40k Total War adaption work would be to change the formula so much it's hardly even Total War anymore and would end up looking more like a huge Company of Heroes.

Could make all the Space Marine factions like the aspiring champions unit from Chaos in Warhammer, so small you can hardly call it rank and file, also how the Ogre Kingdoms will likely be. Would also allow for the Marines to be as badass as possible, where 1 marine is worth like 10 normal guys from some other army.

That'd be dogshit though. There's a reason that the sub-40 men units in any Total War game are in the minority, and it's because the game isn't designed for such small units.

They'd have to create an entirely new system for it to work, possibly even a new engine. Their current system and engine really just wouldn't work for small scale stuff. What you're describing is essentially Stormrise and that game was complete garbage.

I honestly think the engine used in the Wargame and Steel Division games could be used to be make a good Warhammer 40k game.

autoresolved is broken (per usual) so not having naval battles is an actual detriment, especially for a faction like this. Naval Combat in Empire/Napoleon was good, it was ok in Shogun 2, fucking amazing in Fall of the Samurai, and once the bugs got worked out it was pretty fun in Rome II/Attila/Thrones of Britannia. but with warhammer we're back to using auto-resolve for it and it's just, ugh. The autoresolve has been broken in TW forever and they seemingly refuse to fix it. but this faction looks fun, wish we got substantial patches without DLC though.

Yeah but they're adding island battles to replace naval autoresolve. Like, literally the same as that mod that came out last week and even CA acknowledged how ridiculous the timing was and gave them a shout out on their FAQ Also maps specific for boarding Black Arks so even kinda excited tbh

well there's that at least. still think naval battles proper should have been included.

Maybe not for SPESS MARINES and the meme squad of baddies, but Orks, Imperial Guard, Sisters of Battle (to a lesser extent), Tyranids, Chaos (if you made cultists their main thing), Tau (if they treated the conquered races like they do in the lore) and even to some Dark Eldar.

You can't underestimate how much work it would take to introduce navel battles, even for a big studio like CA. In the historical games the work load was significantly less since all factions used pretty much the same kind of navel technology, but in Warhammer? You got Dwarf steam ships, Norsca longships, Lizard floating turtles, Orc makeshift barges etc. etc. All with different forms of naval combat. It's a huge task, bigger than the others games. Plus you got the licensing issue with GW.

Pretty sure most of the stuff seen was probably scratch built for Citadel magazine or RP fluff artwork, unless it appeared at a con. As a 30K venue the TW model would be fine, with 40K not so much.

I really dont understand this "40k doesn't work in Total War" idea I see no reason for Space Marines not to work like Hastati/Principes in Rome: TW; where they use their powerful, limited ranged weapons before charging with chain swords. Even if they don't sit "rank and file" they can still work like Head Hurlers where they have no formation; are ranged and then also charge into battle with lesser numbers. Small units work perfectly fine in these games; they have high morale and good stats which evens them out compared to other larger units. You could even thematically balance the small numbers out by making the Space Marine factions have no morale to break; it would fit. Like if you're a small band of space marines againsts orks in a big open field NO SHIT it's going to look like "it's not going to work"; your space marines are going to get surrounded but they're still going to kill 5 orks for every one that dies. I'm pretty sure there's enough weapon/soldier types in 40k for them to fill the archer/spearman/swordsman/skirmisher archetypes anyway. Flash Gitz as archers for Orks etc.., The guns are so big in the universe that you could justify having slow; predictable windups for archer classes

Well I mean space marines don't work like hastati, they work like modern militaries who operate in small scale unit operations rather than in giant rectangles. 40k works better as a traditional RTS or something like Men of War than something like Total War.

My question is why limit yourself when it's easily provable that you can in fact do whatever you want with the property as long as you use a little brain power? The Official Dawn of War 3 trailer depicted a legion of Space Marines standing in formation preparing for a melee battle with ORKS. Where are you getting this strict realistic ruleset for how the universe operates lol

Perhaps not in this pack or in another DLC, maybe in Warhammer Total War III?

The first few notes of the trailer were actually the same as Jack Sparrow's theme. And the expansion does have naval battles you idiots. They just gave the ships legs and put them on land

Man if they go ahead and release this as a proper army for AOS I might just have to give in and pick it up.

Problem with TW gameplay is that the dudes either stand and shoot or charge and stab. You can't really have a proper emulation of proper squad-level guardsmen interactions such as hiding in cover, providing covering fire, and intelligently using special weapons on a Total War scale without screeching the computer to a halt. DoW3 was also hot garbage.

So far the only strategy game that has done Warhammer 40k right is the original Dawn of War while Dawn of War II made a honest attempt while Dawn of War III from what I have heard was nothing but a piece of shit.