Total War: Warhammer background and factions introduction
So, as a long term Warhammer and Total War fan, I was extremely excited to hear that Total War Warhammer was coming out. Then I proceeded to read the comments under the trailer and watch various youtubers reactions to it. Many of them outright stated that they knew next to nothing about Warhammer or it's backstory. So I decided to make this thread, where I'm going to be posting the background to the Old World and the various factions you'll be able to play in Total War Warhamer, along witha few ideas as to how they might play, what units they'll have available to them etc. If you are a die hard historicall Total war gamer, well no one is forcing you to read this.
Right before I begin, I ought to explain a bit about the old world. The Old World is where the majority of the action in the Warhammer backround takes place. While it is by no means the only place in the universe of warhammer, most of the factions are located there, meaning that I'll focuss on it more than anywhere else. The Old World is Warhammer's equivilant of Europe. In it's northernmost reaches, there's the Chaos Wastes and Norsca, being roughly the shape of scandinavia, and in it's southernmost reaches there's the deserts of Nehekhara, Warhammers ancient Egypt. Much of the Old World is covered in forests or mountains. Plains and grasslands are fairly few and far between.
Life first came to the Old World arouns 15,000 years before the main events of Warhammer take place. It came in the form of mystical beings known as the Old ones. They created the Lizardmen(Giant upright lizards who resemble Aztecs in their dress and ride dinosaurs) in Lustria(South America) to be their servants in the old world. They then created other species such as the Dwarfs, Elfs and men. Strangely they didn't create the orcs. No one quite knows how they got to the Old World, all we know is that they've always been there. The Old Ones had begun to prepare the Warhammer World to become part of their space spanning Empire when, about 12,000 years before the "modern" times, the first Chaos war happened. This was a giant war between the denizens of the Old World and the Deities of Chaos and their servants. These beings live in a realm that is essentially a different dimention but is also connected to the Warhammer World. Chaos is divided into four deities, Khorne(God of Blood and skulls), Nurgle(god of sickness and disease), Tzeentch(God of Change) and Slaanesh(God of Sex, drugs and rovl&roll). They feed off living beings emotions and desires so for as long as there's living beings theres chaos. Anyway, demons of chaos swarmed through the portals to the chaos realm(the warp) which are located at the poles and the denizens of the Warhammer world had to fight them off. This war ended when the elfs, with the Lizardmens covert help, shut the portals into the warp as effectively as possible, meaning demonic incursions were now extremely rare occurrences and required help from a cultist in the Old world.
After this war, the Old ones dissapeared, leading to the Lizardmen isolating themselves in Lustria while the rest of the old world followed its own path. The Elfs formed an Empire, until they were forced to withdraw from the Old World back to their island home of Ulthuan by the sundering(and elfen civil war over who got to become phoenix king folliwng the 1st one) and the War of the Beard(a war between them and the dwarfs, most of which took place in Bretonnia, the Old Worlds France). They split off into the High Elfs, the ones who stayed on Ulthuan, the Wood Elfs, who stayed in the Old World in a huge forest, and the Dark elfs, those who sided with Malekith and were driven off Ulthuan into Naggaroth. The Dwarfs have remained fairly united over this time, all answering to the Dwarf High King despite being divided into their various holds, each with it's own kings.
However, this post I'm going to be leaving all of them to one side and focussing on the humans, more specifically the Empire. While the first human civilization was Nehekhara I'll talk about them some other time. This post is just about the Empire, with abbit of Bretonnia thrown in there.
The Empire is the largest and most powerful human kingdom of the Old World. You remember that guy in the trailer who had a massive hammer and was riding a griffin? He's the current Emperor of the Empire, Karl Franz. The Empire is 2,500 years old and is one of the most technologically advanced of the Warhammer factions, being in the rennaissance era.
The tribes who would later be part of the Empire first arrived in the world about 6000 years ago. They were fleeing west to escape the greenskins who were running rampant in the Eastern warhammer world at the time. They paid the Dwarfs to let them through blackfire pass, a pass going through the Worlds Edge mountains in the south of the Empire, which has remained their principal defence against the greesnksins to this day. While there bronze weapons were primitive compared to the Dwarfs and Greenskins, they were far superiour to anything possessed by the humans already living in the Old World at this time. Because of this, these new peoples were able to take over large chunks of the Old World as their own. Originally they were many warribg tribes, who fought each other more often than they fought together. Then in -50 in the Imperial Calender(IC) Sigmar Heldenhammer was born.
Sigmar Heldenhammer was born a prince of the Unberogen tribe, who inhabited modern day Reikland, Karl Franz's province. When he was young he rescued the king of Karaz Kadrin(a Dwarf hold). In a gesture of gratitude, the King presented Sigmar with Ghal Maraz, the magic hammer which is the Emperors weapon and symbol of office. Eventually, Sogmar united the tribes, forming them into the Empire, though not entirely as it is today. The Grand Provinces at it's foundation were based on territories of the tribes. This made the provinces of Reikland, Stirland, Averland, Wissenland, Solland, Ostermark, Talabecland, Ostland, Middenland, Hochland Nordland and the Drakwald. Each of these provinces is ruled by an Elector Count, who's symbol of offices is a runefang, a magic sword forged by the Dwarfs, who made one for each Elector Count. When Sigmar dissapeared in around 50IC, the Elector Counts didn't make his son Emperor. Instead they elected one of their own to be Emperor, a system that has continued ever since, although for the past 200 years they've been relentlessly electing Reiklands elector counts. There have been times when this system doesn't work like the Time of Three Emperors when the Elector Counts of Middenland and Talabecland declared themselves Emperor without being voted as such, but for the most part the system seems to work. Incidentally, Sigmar was also deified after his death. These days Sigmarites are the most common religion in the Empire. The principal old gods still followed are Ulric, god of battle, and Taal god of Wild Places. These two are mainly worshipped in the North while the Sigmarites are found mainly in the South. In addition there is Morr, god of death, who has no cult per se but is worshipped across the Empire.
As far as the provinces are concerned, the provinces of the Drakwald and Solland were destroyed, their remains incorporated into Middenland and Wissenland respectivelly. The largest province is probably Nordland, although its much smaller than it at first seems, seeing as it contains Athel Lorren(the Wood Elfs home) and the extremely wealthy port of Marienburg, both of which are, in practice, completely independent. The most populous province is probably Reikland and the wealthiest either Reikland or Averland. The poorest is either Wissenland or Stirland, both known as rural backwaters, Stirland containing the province of Sylvania, which is where the Vampire Counts hang out, making it a very dangerous,
The Empires two most important cities are Altdorf, current capital and centre of the Empires various magical orders(the one you saw in the trailer was a wizard of the Celestial order), and Nuln, which is where all the Engineer schools are located and all the foundries that produce the Empires cannons, steam tanks and most of it's hands guns. While these are the centres of these orders, wizards and engineers can be found across the Empire in service of the various states. Because of these things, Altdorf and Nuln(along with Middenhaim in Middenland and Talabheim in Talabecland) are wealthy and populous enough to function as a seperate city state, with their own army.
That brings me on to the last subject. The Empires army. Playing as the Empire, you're going to have access to a huge variety of different troops, varying qualities. Out of all the factions in Warhammer, the Empire probably has the widest variety of troop types, meaning that when it comes to strategy the world is your oyster. In this I'll just examine the various troop types and what they do.
I'll start with the Empire's cavalry. While this is the area in which they are most lacking, they still have a reasonable variety. Their light missile cavalry are pistoliers. These are young nobles armed with two pistols who fire a volley at the enemy an then gallop away to reload. They should be used as skirmishers or to harass enemy flanking units as they pack a reasonable punch and being very mobile. The one thing they should avoid at all costs is melee, as the enemy will butcher them if they manage to engage them in melee. Next up are outriders. Older and more experienced than pistoliers, outriders are armed with blunderbusses rather than pistols. While these pack one hell of a wallop, they will probably be less mobile and take longer to reload than pistoliers, making pistoliers better in my opinion. Like pistoliers, they should keep to skirmishing although because of their superiour firepower they can probably hurt quite heavily armoured units(you hear that dwarfs?). Finally we get to the Empires shock cavalry, the knights. These come in two varietys, normal knighst and inner circle knights, inner circle knights having higher morale and being more skilled in melee. Unlike their Bretonnian counterparts, the Empire knights have extremely heavy armour, making the like the cataphracts of the Warhammer World. Just charge them into pretty much anything, bar monstrous creatures, heroes and trolls, and watch the blood flow.
Right next is the Empires melee infantry. These come in four varieties, Spearmen, halberdiers, Swordsmen and greatswords. Spearmen, halberdiers and swordsmen are likely to be the most numerous infantry in the early game. They are unlikely to be very effective as combat troops unless you back them up with knights, cannons, greatswords etc. They are essentially there to act as a tarpit to hold the enemy up while your other units get on with killing the enemy. Greatswords are your hard hitting heavy infantry. They will be the equal of most other elite infantry units in any other army and probably have the best combination of armour and sheer attacking power out of all of them. Just keep them away from any even heavyish cavalry and you should be fine.
Finally theres the Empires missiles. Their basic missile troops are archers, crossbowmen and handgunners. Archers are their skirmish infantry, used to soften up the enemy prior to the main infantry engagement while crossbowmen are a cheaper longer ranged alternative to handgunners. Both handgunners and crossbowmen fulfil the same function: standing in front or behind your main infantry line pouring masses of armour penetrating death down on the enemy. The Empire also has access to cannons, mortars and steam tanks(essentialy mobile cannon platforms) which can blow giant holes in the enemy ranks but can blow up on you if you arent careful. Finally theres hochland longrifles, essentially a sniper varient of the handguns.
Your average Empire army should consist of a good solid core of state troopers backed up by warrior priests(who will boost their combat efectiveness) supported by handgunners, crossbowmen and cannons. Then you should have sme harder hitting elements such as knights, greatswords or flagellants(religious fanatics) in positions where they can hit the enemy in the flanks or rear. You can also have pistoliers and archers for skirmish purposses, although they are not eswential for your success.
Right so there's the Empire. Tell me what you thought and cc welcome.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Rogal Dorn 229
)
Who invented Warhammer first?
