Total War: Warhammer III
PREVIEW
work of the peasant troops manning the
walls, though I rightly suspect that Cathay
has more military tricks up its sleeve.
The clear standouts are the two
Legendary Lords, the Storm Dragon and
Iron Dragons Miao Ying and Zhao Ming.
These two children of the Celestial Dragon
Emperor can switch at will in battle
between human and dragon form. When I
ask the developers why one wouldn’t keep
them in dragon form all the time, it once
again returns to the theme of Harmony.
“In human form, the Lords have
massive Harmony amplifiers, but if you
see a greater demon on the battlefield,
then you’ll probably want to attack it as a
dragon,” lead writer Andy Hall tells me.
“You’re going to lose a bit of Harmony, but
you’ve got a big dragon on the battlefield- there’s a risk-reward strategy to it.”
Not that these dragon-kin are wanting
for power in human form. Once the
Tzeentch breach the walls, I witness Miao
Ying chew up a battalion of crab-clawed
Forsaken using the Talons of Night – a
vortex spell that summons giant scaled
claws from the ground to stun enemies.
The Cathay start to offer some aerial
resistance too, as the Crane Gunners –
rocket-launcher snipers, essentially – pick
off the Tzeentch forces from their distant
Sky Lanterns. Zhao Ming, meanwhile,
transforms into a serpentine dragon,
shooing away the Doom Knights
descending on Cathay’s deadly but fragile
Sky Lanterns and Sky Junks.
FORTS AND PRAYERS
The Grand Bastion, a towering fortress
built by Cathay to keep the forces of
Chaos at bay, is a beautiful showcase of
the more layered, vertical city design in
Total War: Warhammer III. This new
approach makes the part of the battle
after a city’s walls have been breached
more strategic than ever before. As the
Pink Horrors – Tzeentch’s rather cute and
expendable Boglin lookalikes – scamper
through streets, they’re picked off from
the upper tiers of the city by cannon fire,
while in other parts the attackers are
redirected towards ambush points by
buildable barricades.
And while the Minas Tirith-like layers of
the Grand Bastion may be unique toCathay, the developers tell me that all the
factions in the game will benefit from the
new siege mechanics and city designs.
In adding Cathay to the game, Creative
Assembly opens us up to a vast and
previously unexplored part of the
Warhammer map. Upon launch, the
campaign will focus on the northern and
western regions of Cathay, governed by
Miao Ying and Zhao Ming, but the empire
is surrounded by intriguing territories.
Just to the east across the sea is
Nippon, Warhammer’s axiomatic
equivalent to Japan. To the south, past the
realm of the troublesome Monkey King,
are the equally under-documented
Kingdoms of Ind – where cat-faced beings
and tiger-headed Beastmen are said to
dwell. I ask how far we can expect future
DLC to expand into Cathay’s neighbouring
territories. “When going further afield and
into the stuff that hasn’t been developed
by Games Workshop until now – we never
say never – but when it comes to Nippon
and Ind, that’s not on the radar at the
moment,” Roxburgh tells me.DRAGON IT OUT
When I pry for information about whether
the three other Cathay Dragon children –
each governing their own province of the
Empire – will feature down the line, Andy
evades a direct answer by pointing out
that there are “four missing Dragons as
well”. Cunning diversion, or redirection
towards a subject more in line with what
Creative Assembly are working on? With
the lore alluding to the possibility that
some of the dragons may have been
corrupted by Chaos, I couldn’t help but
wonder whether we could face a scenario
where dragons return for the bad guys.
But back at the Battle of the Grand
Bastion, there’s enough novelty to keep
my mind from foraying into fan-theories.
The Tzeentch Exalted Lord of Change flies
up to an upper layer of the city to take out
some Cathay artillery, summoning one of
the faction’s most powerful abilities – the
Storm of Fire – to his aid; the camera tilts
up to the skies where, high above the city
and the floating pagodas gleaming in the
golden sunset, a whirling neon vortex
opens up, raining cyan splatters from the
Chaos dimension down upon the city.
I never see the end of the battle as the
camera fades to black, but I see enough to
be amazed at the series’ ability to surprise
five years on. And to think that all it took
was a faction inspired by Ancient China
and a lurid army of neon demons...
Robert ZakI WITNESS MIAO YING CHEW
UP A BATTALION OF CRAB-
CLAWED FORSAKENBoomy-firing Crane Gunners
can be used on the ground or
fly around in Sky Lanterns