Total War: Warhammer II: Mortal Empires Is Exactly What We’ve Always Wanted

Mortal Empires is the fun, but slightly flawed expansion we’ve all dreamed about.

When Total War: Warhammer II was first announced it caused more than one gamer to scratch their heads in confusion. Only four factions? Just the far West? What about all the stuff and armies from the prior game? The answer to all these questions soon came in the unveiling of Mortal Empires. Mortal Empires is a free DLC for owners of both Total War: Warhammer games to combines portions of the Maps from both into one massive map and game. This allows players to play factions form both games in a massive sandbox. Let take a look at why this is a great idea.

The Sandbox Of Your Dreams

Isabella Von Carstein sets sail for the west

When I played TW:WH2 I found the new Vortex Campaign to be a great addition to the game. However I can understand why some players might not like it. While it gives drive to the game, it also puts a ticking time limit on things. Every turn you feel a drive to do something, to move forward. It also removed a lot of the classic sandbox elements that have long been a part of Total War games. Mortal Empire returns us to a mostly sandbox experiences. While there is a overall Chaos invasion “plot” driving the game it tends to take a back seat, having even less of an effect on the game than it did in TW:WH1. Instead players are free to explore the world, while interacting with and fight the many races in it.

Massive Scope

My little empire seems so small in comparison with the rest of the world

The sheer scale and scope of Mortal Empires is amazing. It is apparently the largest map they’ve ever made. And it shows, sweeping from the far northern Chaos wastes and the lands of Kislev to choking Jungles of Southern Lustria, it is a massive map to play around it. More over almost every faction of the Old World is now represented in the game, with Tomb Kings and Ogre Kingdoms being the main exceptions. The Scope and grandeur of the game and amazing and simply give a player so many options it can be hard to decided what to do. It takes some of the best parts of both games and mashes them in something even better.

A Few Flaws

The Mortal Empires Map

Like all other games Mortal Empires is not perfect. For one it’s very size tends to work against it. I’m well over a 100 turns into a Vampire Counts campaign and have yet to see any of the TW:WH2 races. While Skaven can be found in the Old World, the rest are far away. Playing as any of the older games races it can take a long time, if ever, before you interact with the new. Luckily the new races don’t have this problem since pockets of races from TW:WH1 are scattered across the map. In fact I wish I could play as some of these, I’d love to a Vampire Coast campaign or play as the Imperial New World Colonies. I’ve also heard people say that the new races are a lot more powerful than the old, but since I haven’t seen them yet its hard to tell.

The Total War:Warhammer 2 map, you can see how much got cut

The needs of combining the two maps lead to a few odd choices. While the map from TW:WH1 seems mostly unchanged the map from the squeal had large parts cut out of it. There are a few other oddities, with Ulthuan being moved pretty far south. Still while this may causes some confusion, it all makes sense.

Final Thougths

Endless Treasures Await! 

Mortal Empires is a great game, turns Total War: Warhammer into the game we’ve always wanted. Finally we can fight across the length and breadth of the old world. Strangely, while Mortal Empires is a DLC for TW:WH2 it feels much more like it belongs to TW:WH1. It returns the focus of the the game to the Old World, and simply seems to add on new races and parts of the map. Key aspects of the sequel, likes its map and campaign are discarded. Still the game manages to be a ton of fun and an experience I can highly recommend. With Tomb Kings pretty clearly coming at some point, and hopefully more to follow it seems this is a game we will be playing for quite a while.

Tell us what you think of Mortal Empires, down in the comments! 

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.