Main difference being?

I have a feeling that any computer game development team would tear their hair out physically if they had to put a word for word accurate GW rules system into a game. Although fantasy is generally better than 40K in this regard, it still suffers from the same old problem of single each faction being an individual rules release - heck some can end up a whole rules edition or more behind the times if they miss out a slot so they end up with really broken stuff!

Course it might force GW to adopt a single rules + codex release expansion program but we all know that won't happen :(


*goes to sit in the corner and wait for Wood Elves to see any kind of update*

I'm kind of torn on these news, while I expect nothing bad can come out of this deal, I also hope this isn't announced because THQ is going tits up, since their Warhammer 40k titles are mostly excellent too.

Then again a grand strategy Rome-like game in the Wrhammer setting is already meking me feel all giddy, or an actually playable Bloodbowl game would rock too.

Cavalry had zero use in shogun2 (or so i thought) and it seemed, dunno... flaccid!

Far as I know THQ never had a licence to do Warhammer Fantasy games. Indeed whilst Dawn of War was hitting the shelves fantasy had its own game in Battle March - although it had a weaker reception (I think in part because it wasn't quite as polished as Dawn of War, but also because many wanted "Dawn of War fantasy" instead of what they got with Battle March)

So this new licence shouldn't have any effect on Relic and might not even be linked to the companies problems (and lets remember whilst Relic itself has problems the Dawn of War games were a massive success).

I still have a copy of the microprose MtG game... still the best digital version of it there is...

Also a big difference between Shogun and MTW is that units in shogun function more as a charging flow of units, they don't really fight in formations the way they do in medieval.

Don't get me wrong the spectacle of shogun battles is great, but once the armies clash moving units around and reforming your army is virtualyl impossible, cause the units are just so...spread out, in MTW units also clash the same way, but you can much easier back them away then charge in again (ofcourse the cost of small retreats are often high, but its still MUCH more possible)

I'm surprised no-one mentioned Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen yet, both games that are very similar to Total War games and which use Warhammer Fantasy as setting:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/warhammer-shadow-of-the-horned-rat
http://www.mobygames.com/game/warhammer-dark-omen

I always thought that Total War was inspired by these two games (there's a LOT of similarities) so it may very well be a case of the company coming full circle.

I don't know.
I remember getting Shadow of the Horned Rat for free with a gaming magazine, and being unable to get into it because there was no manual, I didn't know anything about Warhammer at the time, and the game was pretty hard.

That was a long time ago, but I don't remember that game being all that similar to Rome: TW, which is the only Total War game I've played a lot.
And Dark Omen is described as a RPG, so I'm not sure how similar that one is either.

Anyway, I like fantasy strategy games, and Total War games, so I'm interested in this. I'm not sure how well they'll be able to reproduce the rules, though, since I don't think Warhammer Fantasy would work all that well with real-time battles.

You do command teams with flags, moral affects teams during battle, you can use different formations, terrain plays a role in how successful your charges are and different units have different strengths and weaknesses. That's the very core of what Total War games are about - sure the part of the game outside of combat is different, but it would be very odd if Total War wasn't inspired by these games considering how similar they are even down to the flags above each battalion.

I had picked up WH:Battle March and Mark of Chaos some time back, and enjoyed playing them as much as SOTHR and Dark Omen. If you liked the previous two, chances are very good, you'll like the latter as well..I sure did.