Wes: Magic and flying units are definitely both major additions, and I hope that flying units work much better than the clunky naval combat of Shogun 2 and Rome 2. I think they probably will—from what we saw, flying units can shift pretty seamlessly from the skies to the ground, landing amidst a unit of soldiers and tearing into them with close-ranged attacks, or swooping down and carrying some up into the sky for a gravity kill.
The animations of the Warhammer ground troops were absolutely packed with personality, and by their nature are more varied than the kinds of units you see in historical Total War games (which are basically Guy Walking or Guy Riding Horse). But I don’t think they’ll behave much differently. Controlling battles will still mainly about putting your troops into formations, with melee units up front, ranged units safe behind them, and cavalry sweeping in from the back or sides. The cavalry just happens to be riding on spiders and wolves, this time around.
The way magic comes into play is still the biggest question mark, I think. It looked really fun. What god’s giant foot did that Goblin shaman summon to flatten an entire unit of Empire troops? I was worried about the magic being overpowered, but according to Warhammer’s battle designer Simon Mann, those uber-powerful attacks will require pretty much your entire mana pool, so there’s a trade-off there. I think using magic will be similar to managing the special abilities of your heroes, much like generals in previous Total War games. And you can always pause combat to strategize if things get too intense.
Tim: I believe the giant green stamping foot in question belonged to Gork, one of the orcs twin gods (the other being Mork, though I’m unclear where Mindy fits into their religious hierarchy.) I’m not too worried about magic being OP at this point, because the strong suggestion is that wizards will be glass cannons who need to be hidden behind massed ranks of cannon fodder to keep safe. On the subject of cannons, I’m probably more curious about how the use of war machines will be balanced. The Empire forces had a couple of powerful Steam Tanks, plus a mobile platform-mounted magical death ray contraption. I remember in the tabletop game—well, in my case, ping pong table game—that long-range siege weapons were absolutely deadly and the source of much frustration for my opponents. Though I will add that that wasn’t what got me headbutted in Birmingham.
What did you make of the idea of the big heroes being immortal? It makes sense from a lore perspective—you can’t have Karl Franz getting skewered in the tutorial—but what can I expect from the lesser agent-style units. These sound like what I would’ve called ‘character models’: super powerful singleton units that roam the battlefield helping to swing the outcome. I’m slightly perturbed by the idea these guys will have complex unlockable skill trees, but if they die that progress gets lost. I suppose that’s equally the case in something like The Banner Saga or X-COM, but hoo boy is it going to sting when my favourite war boss gets sliced into verdant shish kebab by halberdiers. Is that not a big deal? Is it usually easy to acquire new agents?