The Call to War

Hey everyone!

The end of the week is finally here, and the weekend is just around the corner! So, I’m wishing you all a happy Friday and an awesome weekend. I can’t wait to start the new Pathfinder Campaign with my group, it’s going to be a blast! On another topic, the weather is looking nice today, not as good as yesterday but still nice considering what we’ve been getting hit with here once a week. Think I’ll take advantage of it and go for a walk. I find that there’s something invigorating about going for a walk when winter starts to turn to spring. No more stuffy, stale air, no freezing cold temperatures that make your nose runny. It feels like a fresh breath of life. Honestly, it’s invigorating, and I find it to be a great way to shake off the winter blues. In any event I think I’ll try to refrain from blabbing on about the weather for the rest of this post. I’m very excited to say a game I’ve been looking forward to has just launched – Total War: Warhammer III. So, without any delay let’s dive into it.

I remember watching the announcement for the first game in the Total War: Warhammer trilogy and all I could think of was how cool the game looked. I had played several other Total War games prior to this. For those who don’t know much about them, the games in the Total War series are PC strategy games developed by Creative Assembly where you control a faction, run and develop cities, and command armies to conquer your foes. There’s more to it of course, it involves army composition and managing an economy, researching technology and so on. Before the Total War: Warhammer games, I would say that Medieval II was my favorite. In Medieval II you would get to pick a civilization from a vast area reaching from Western Europe to Arabia to play as during medieval times. I loved the amount of content that it had, and I believe it was when you either beat a civilization or completed a campaign that you would unlock other civilizations to play as. My favorite faction was Scotland. I remember having to play a quick match as England and march my armies north to conquer Scotland to unlock them. The siege battles were some of my favorites. You had entire cities to battle within not just a section of a city or a fort. I also believe it had the best mods as well, my favorite being a total conversion mod that turns the game into a Lord of the Rings version of the game. The mod had a lot of love put into and I can’t praise it enough. I haven't played it in about ten years but I believe the name of it was Third Age: Total War.

There was also Total War: Empire which I haven't played in years. I believe it is set around the late 18th century and goes into the early 19th century. I always went through the United States story campaign so I could play them in the regular game and conquer England as them. I was also a fan of Prussia and the Maratha Confederacy factions. The game was fun, and I enjoyed the combat. I don't think the sieges were as good as in Medieval II. As it takes place during one of if not my favorite time period, I loved the aesthetic. However, in my experience the game has some drawbacks that make the game unfun or outright unplayable. I’ve had save files corrupt and the game crashes whenever I try to load them. Even worse, if I try to launch a fresh game as the United States faction the game will just not load one. It’s a shame because it really was one of my favorites when the game worked.

The next in the series that I feel is one of the best is Total War: Shogun II. The siege battles in my opinion were lacking, except Kyoto Castle, that was the greatest siege battle in any Total War game that I have experienced. Now that may just be my individual experience because I was playing with a mod that allowed myself and the AI to have as many elite units as we could afford. Suffice to say the map was great and the battle was a bloodbath of the greatest warriors in all of feudal Japan. I was just able to secure the castle and Shogunate in that fight. Of course, due to the mechanics of the game, if you claimed the castle or became too powerful, the rest of the factions would turn against you because you were suddenly the greatest threat. I think I remember my allies turning on me as well which was heartbreaking until I decided their lands would look great under my rule.

Fast forward several years and now I’m playing the Warhammer line of Total War games. This takes place in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, not the sci-fi/science fantasy Warhammer 40k universe, both of which are universes belonging to Games Workshop. Is it confusing? Kind of, but it’s pretty easy to keep track of once you get into it. Anyway, as far as I can tell this is the first in the series that has anything to do with fantasy and if you ask me, they hit it out of the park. My go to pick was a faction called the Vampire Counts. Vampires, dark magic, and undead soldiers who do my dark bidding? Sign me up! As someone who finds necromancy in fantasy settings to be the coolest form of magic, I couldn’t get enough of the Vampire Counts. They also have giant bat monsters to really sell the whole vampire feel. Then there’s The Empire, who if you ask me are the main human faction in the game. There’s another one but I don’t play them. I find it’s hard to beat the fun of The Empire, holding the line with infantry and blowing my enemies to kingdom come with rockets and cannon fire. But my ultimate favorite faction to play, was the Warriors of Chaos. A bunch of magically enhanced, monsters hellbent on destroying the world led by the greatsword wielding Everchosen Archaon. Essentially, he’s the favored champion of all the Chaos Gods and destined to lead the forces of Chaos to victory over the rest of the world. They were fun and the aesthetic was cool. Now with the third game in the series out they’ve allowed players to play as daemons, which if you ask me are the real soldiers of Chaos, not the corrupt humans and mutated freaks from the previous games. Which are still cool in my opinion, it's just, daemons are cooler to me. Suffice to say, I’m loving it. Chaos Undivided is fun, with the ability to customize your Daemon Prince with various body parts that you unlock. I’m still toying with the faction but I’m confident that they’re already my favorite in the new game and I can’t wait for them to combine all the maps and factions from all three games into one super-sized campaign.

I could go on, but I won’t take up any more of your time and I’ve got to finish up the next part of The Hunt series for you all to enjoy tonight. Have you all heard of the Total War series before this post? Have you played any of them? Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading and have a great one.

Best regard,

Aaron Kirby