Total War: Warhammer 3 – It Is Foreseen… That You Will Learn Tzeentch’s Campaign Mechanics
The Changer of Ways supposedly knows everything that will happen–but how does that play out if you’re in charge of the forces of Tzeentch?
Today we’re taking a look at the campaign and faction mechanics for Tzeentch’s Host in the upcoming Total War: Warhammer 3. We’ve seen what Grand Cathay is capable of, now it’s time to see how abilities like Tzeentch’s foreknowledge, fate manipulation, and scheming tricks that could almost give Ursarkar Creed (aka Creeeeeeeeeeeed!) a run for his money, will play out for players who choose Tzeentch.
First things first, there are Grimoires. These are forbidden texts, secret spellbooks, ancient lore–anything that Tzeentch might ferret out, and you’ll earn these through battles, buildings, sacking settlements, certain dilemmas, and so on. Why will you want to earn them? They’re your factional currency that you can use for Changing of the Ways.
These are special Tzeentch actions that let you rewrite the loom of fate itself. As you see here, you have several options, each with its own cooldown and technology tree unlock requirement. But worth it because you can:
- Transfer Settlement
- Transfer control and ownership of one settlement to a new faction. This can be your faction or another.
- Open Gates
- Open the gates of a major settlement with walls, for any battles in that settlement in the next few turns.
- Force Rebellion
- Causes a rebellion in a region, spawning an army for the owner to contend with.
- Track Army
- You are given the line of sight of a target army.
- Reveal Faction Intentions
- Shows the plans of all armies a target faction controls.
- Reveal Shroud
- Gives complete vision of a target faction’s territory.
- Halt Faction
- All characters – so armies and heroes – have their movement halted and disabledfor the faction’s following turn.
- Give War Co-ordination Target
- Gives a faction a war co-ordination target even if they are not your ally.
- Break Alliance
- Break the military or defensive alliance between two factions.
- Force War
- Force a war between two factions.
Cao-Cao eat your heart out.
But Tzeentch is also all about controlling the winds of magic as well. Many Tzeentch buildings have unique effects when the winds of magic are strong, and Tzeentch commanders can influence their flow by reducing the winds of magic in one province to increase it in another, at will.
And as your corruption spreads throughout the world, you gain new Unholy Manifestations, which typically either give you resources or allow you to damage enemies in a number of ways:
- Scriveners of Insanity
- Unlocked from the start.
- Allows a friendly army to generate a big batch of grimoires over the course of several turns. The army cannot move during this time, and must be in enemy territory.
- Mutagenic Energies
- Requires 1500 global Tzeentch corruption.
- Causes a target army to suffer attrition for a turn, regardless of situation or immunities.
- Magic Flare
- Requires 3000 global Tzeentch corruption.
- Increases the Range and Barrier hit points of all units in an army. Barrier is a special shield all Tzeentch units have – we’ll detail this further in the upcoming roster reveal.
- Night of Madness
- Requires 6000 global Tzeentch corruption.
- Target friendly army generates Tzeentch corruption and control (renamed from public order) loss in a province, as well as increasing the army’s Winds of Magic power reserve. It cannot move during these turns.
You’ll also get Cults, which can form in regions as any given Chaos God becomes dominant. They manifest as a foreign building slot, owned by you, that can construct unique buildings based on the god the cult follows. For Tzeentch, Cults have the following options:
- Sanctuary
- Generates grimoires per turn.
- Repository
- Generates more grimoires per turn but requires high winds of magic level.
- Sanctum
- Generates a decent amount of income but also requires high winds of magic level.
- Campus
- Destroys the cult but increases winds of magic here and in all adjacent to Tempestuous.
Let’s take a look at that Tech tree, which is really more of a Tech Web that spreads out from a center point.
Of course there are many paths to get through each tech area, so you can have multiple routes to get to the same end point.
Whatever your ultimate goal is, these are the tools to ensure everything always goes… just as planned.
