

The smaller Legendary Lord packs each focus on expanding two existing factions, adding a playable lord and some unique mercenary troops called regiments of renown to beef up both. It's worth it if pillaging is more your thing. Its mammoth-riding Vikings are all about raiding and sacking rather than settling down, razing enemy settlements so you can build unholy monoliths in the ashes. Norsca, a late addition to the first game, is quite different as well. Each has an unusual playstyle, with the Tomb Kings not having to worry about upkeep and the Vampire Coast able to set up pirate coves to profit from rival cities rather than taking them over, while gathering a resource called infamy to draw out legendary pirate captains. Of the expansions that add entire new races, the second game's Rise of the Tomb Kings and Curse of the Vampire Coast are the most well-regarded. While it's inessential, the DLC has improved as the series has gone on. It can be as life-consuming as any live-service game.

It's a serious investment of time, a sandbox where you'll spend hundreds of turns pushing armies around. The objective is simple conquest, first of your own divided people and then various landmarks spread across the map. Mortal Empires is a third campaign that plays out on a tweaked-for-scale version of both the other campaign maps combined. Legendary heroes Gotrek and Felix are available as a free DLC. If you own both you can download the Mortal Empires DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2, plus gain access to any DLC from the first game to use in it (so grab all of what The Creative Assembly calls "free-LC").

One the subject of DLC, after you've exhausted the options presented by one game's basic factions, there's one expansion worth buying: the other game. DLC actually worth buying The best Total War: Warhammer DLC A Bretonnian force under the command of Joan of Arc-analogue Repanse de Lyonesse is available as a free DLC, as is a dwarf force under Thorek Ironbrow. The Empire (led by Huntsmarshal Wulfhart) return in The Hunter & the Beast, goblins (led by Grom the Paunch) are in The Warden & the Paunch, wood elves (led by the Sisters of Twilight) in The Twisted & the Twilight, and beastmen (led by Doombull Taurox) in The Silence & the Fury. To confuse things, some subsets of the first game's factions are playable in the second game's Eye of the Vortex campaign with the right DLC. At the back you can see this army's lord, the ghost of a drowned opera singer who rides a giant crab.
