Recent reviews by Beje

*EDIT: Some of my suggestions have already been added/resolved with later updates. Irrelevant text has been strikethrough-ed.

TL;DR: This game is basically just Loop Hero with a bright fantasy theme instead. The short version of it is, Loop Hero is the better game in my humble opinion. If you haven't already, play that one instead. If you already finished it and you're itching for more of the same core gameplay loop then get this one as well. If LH was a 10/10, then this one is a 7/10. It's a decent game that could use some much needed QoL features, but it's playable and offers a similar experience. Be warned tho, no mid-run saves. You will lose your run progress if you exit.

Needed improvements:
- Tooltips/clarity. There is a severe lack of tooltips, making it unclear how stats affect your character. How does 15 Lifesteal translate to 13 healing? No clue. (Btw, Lifesteal in this game heals you AFTER you kill a minion, which is a bit odd I guess. Again, a tooltip could have explained this). What does Retaliation even do? I have a hunch, but it would be better if the game actually showed you what they were and how they work.
- UI is decent for the most part, but again slightly misleading/unclear on the stats side. Defense for example; there are elemental types of damage and defense, such as fire frost poison etc. Thus you will get items that roll for each individual type of defense, such as +5 Fire Defense, + 4 Physical. But the game sums them all up in your stats screen and I don't know, do I actually have 9 total defense when something attacks me with Fire damage? I suspect not, it should be just the 5. But the game shows the total 9, followed by shield icons that you can hover to see how much defense you have for each element.
- Mid-run saves. At the moment of writing this review, the game does not have mid-run saves. If you exit during a loop it's gone forever. Lost a 9 wave run because of this. Now this wouldn't be that much of a deal breaker if the game at least warned you about it, but it doesn't. The button on the menu says "Save and quit" then even tells you that the game will be saved. I don't think this is a bug, they just used the same buttons across the board and didn't bother to change them during a run vs when you are in the hub.
- Too many materials. Now this wouldn't be an issue if the game had an in-game glossary/journal where you can check what you need for that next meta progression unlock, but you can't. So if you lose a run, you will be prompted to select X number of resources based on how far you've gone, but what do you select? What goes where? You literally have to write this down on a sheet of paper so you know what's needed and where. Tooltips or a glossary would solve this.

Positives:
- Item combine system is nice. At the loop start zone (2 squares before and 2 squares after it), the combine button becomes available. You can select 2 items of the same type (helmet for example, or weapon, pants etc) and the same rarity (goes from grey, blue, purple, orange, not sure if there's anything else after orange) and combine them into an item of the next rarity and of the same type. Also, stats from both items carry on and they are added on top of each other. So if you combine 1 grey helmet with 10 defense with another grey helmet with 15 defense and 5 max health, it results in a blue helmet with 22-23 defense (if it's the same type of stat, it gets reduced by 25% something like that) and 5 max health.
- Abilities are decent. There are 5-6 different heroes and each of them have 4-5 different skills each, that also have upgrades. You get to select 1 randomly when leveling up every couple of levels. Each hero plays differently and has certain strengths and weaknesses.
- You can craft items to start with in your next run only; sometimes you just don't get a weapon or a certain item, yesterday I finished a run without a helmet for example. You can alleviate this somewhat via crafting, which is done from the hub. This is not an unlock type of thing, just an extra boost to help you in your next run.

A lot of people in the reviews seem to have an opinion influenced by their own feelings regarding the MAIN game, so they will leave a negative review here just because "game still borken sieges no work". I understand that feeling completely but you're more than free to leave a negative review on the WH3 game, that has nothing to do with this DLC.

With that out of the way, I can say that this is the first proper and good DLC for WH3, with some caveats. Champions of Chaos I did not like so much (the free update to warriors of chaos that came along with it was amazing! but the 4 LL themselves not so much) and we don't talk about Ogres (they're OK tbh, just need a bit of fleshing out but the practice with preorder DLC-s is not something I can endorse).

The negatives:
- increased price compared to other race packs (from 20 to 25 euros for my region), combined with...
- only 3 playable legendary lords instead of the 4 we used to get. They gave us a Legendary Hero instead, which is not bad! But I feel that it doesn't quite make up for the lack of a 4th LL
- the 3 factions aren't really that distinct from each other; all 3 have the exact same campaign mechanics (there are some minor differences which I will touch upon later, but they aren't enough I believe to give you distinct and entirely new experiences with each lord).
- each LL gains a different passive bonus from each tower constructed (which is good!), EXCEPT for Astragoth (which is sad). Drazhoath gains extra research rate for each tower, Zhatan gains extra replenishment factionwide for each tower and Astragoth gains....nothing (all towers also give conclave influence besides the mentioned effects). Mind boggling really, I don't quite get it especially since he's supposed to be the faction leader and you would expect him to be the strongest. Astragoth's faction gains extra conclave influence from all sources and I suppose that should make up for the lack of a different effect? But I personally don't think that it does
- unit caps can be both a positive and a negative, but I'm listing it here as well due to the way the cost to unlock new units scales, which can get to insane numbers in the late game; as you unlock more of the same unit type, the cost ramps up more and more for that unit type only so you are encouraged to spread out and evenly unlock new stuff.

The positives/other remarks:
- each of the 3 lords actually have a difficulty curve to them, which I think is a great approach for future content: Zhatan has the easiest and comfiest start position; Astragoth has a medium amount of challenge to his start position: he's safe from the north but he has a couple of big threats in the area which he should deal with asap; Drazhoath has the most difficult start from the 3, absolutely surrounded by enemies and legendary lords, but is also the most rewarding and fun campaign. So there's a campaign in here for everyone, depending on if you want a challenge or if you want a more relaxed one.
- in terms of differences, Drazhoath and Astragoth buff a particular type of unit or units (favoring doomstacks with them) and Zhatan buffs everything really, allowing you to build any army you want. Other than that also see my take above on the tower bonuses for each faction, which I consider is a positive but Astragoth not having one is a big negative;
- playing in co-op with friends with the chaos dwarves can feel....a bit restrictive. All playable Chaos Dwarves factions (so just the 3) have access to the Tower of Zhar mechanic, which is like a mini-tech tree that works for all 3 chaos dwarves, not just yourself. The problem is that each tech is a "seat" and only 1 faction can claim that seat using conclave influence. You can dethrone an already taken seat by paying even more influence. It's a good mechanic for head to head or free for all, but not as good for co-op since you'll be fighting with your friends over the stronger seats. Yes if all seats in a district are occupied (regardless by whom) then everyone gets the district bonus so you can co-op to finish a district, but those bonuses are not nearly as strong in general
- best empire-building faction in the game in my opinion, simply due to the building mechanics which are engaging throughout the entire campaign. You have 3 extra resources as the chaos dwarves: laborers, raw materials and armaments. You also have 3 types of settlements (which you can freely exchange between at any time; it will take 1 turn to convert to a different type) and they each have their own specific chains of buildings: towers - only in capitals, these are your main bases of operations; outposts and factories. You use laborers in outposts (sometimes in towers as well if there are resources) in order to extract/generate raw materials. You use raw materials to build most of the buildings and upgrade them, and also to produce armaments (which are required for constructing advanced military buildings + the hellforge). Resources matter a lot more, Iron for example will give you armaments! Marble will give you raw materials and so on. + buildings producing raw materials need a certain amount of laborers to operate at full eficiency so you need to keep a steady supply of laborers in those provinces (which you get from battles and convoys). Factories don't require laborers! They only need raw materials which are used to produce either gold or armaments (or both).
- the Hellforge. Armaments are also used to unlock new unit caps. All units excepting hobgoblins are locked behind factionwide caps (you can field armies comprised of only different hobgoblin units, but they are not nearly as strong). You need to use armaments in the Hellforge to unlock more units of that type. The fun part is that as you do it, you also unlock improvements and buffs for that unit type, which you can activate from the Hellforge for some very powerful bonuses, such as Barrier for your monster units or artillery, or magical attacks for ranged infantry units. These cost armaments upkeep tho, per unit, per turn and that cost can REALLY ramp up. Which is why armaments are so important in the late game, thus making factories the most important settlement type really
- convoy system is better than Cathay caravans in a lot of ways and a very good source of laborers early on, but it's not as good of a money maker
- unit diversity is great! They're essentialy dwarves with magic and monsters. But the unit caps will slow you down from perfecting those doomstacks. Units range from the chaff like hobgoblin fighters and archers, which are decent early game units (can be made much better by the legendary hero), to monsters like demonic spirits entombed in mechanical constructs, centaurs, flying bulls, to heavy artillery like dreadquake mortars which can also be pulled by a train! and have 360 degrees aiming, to heavily armored infantry that never dies and devastating ranged units like the blunderbusses (they have low range, but they are absolutely devastating to the point where if you are not careful, you might end up killing your own units which are in their firing range).

Overall, I'd say this is a 9/10 DLC for me and some of the most fun I've had with a faction probably since the Tomb Kings. A shame it had to release under some controversies like the more expensive price and arguably less content. I blame the suits for all these really because it really shows how much effort and love the devs poured into this DLC. Direct your hate towards the correct party, people. The devs don't have a say in any business decisions. Thanks for reading, hope this was helpful for someone out there.

EDIT: Somebody in the comments section (thanks Stix_09) pointed out an aspect that I overlooked when I initially made this review. There is an additional merit to this DLC: if you own the Champions of Chaos DLC, it will also expand the Warband upgrade system, allowing you to devote a normal Marauder for example to a different Chaos God then also take him up through the ranks, from a normal Marauder of Khorne all the way up to Chosen of Khorne. If you don't own the DLC, you are able to do this only for normal chaos undivided units (like normal Marauders). You can still change alignments...but you need to have that exact unit. You can't "level" it up. Even considering this, I still don't think it's worth the full price. If anything, this aspect makes things even more confusing for me and kind of sad that it wasn't included in the base game as FLC.

Original review:
It seems to me that a lot of people are confusing the free 2.0 update (which reworked Warriors of Chaos entirely) with this DLC, hence they're giving the DLC waaay more credit than it deserves.

I own almost all the Warhammer DLC-s, except maybe 1 lord pack since it was for something I'm not interested in. This is the first DLC I kind of regret buying. I mean it's not bad....but I don't think it's worth 15.99 euros either for the amount of effort invested (compare this to the Tomb Kings or Vampire Coast DLC-s....there's no comparison really). MOST of the effort went into the 2.0 free update which is amazing, but that one is free for all Warhammer 3 owners.

So what does this DLC actually give you? 4 new Legendary lords which are very cool, but I can't shake the feeling I'm playing a half-baked version of the mono God that Lord is representing. Valkya's Bloodletting is....disappointing to say the least, when compared to Skarbrand's. Vilitch has only a quarter of the Changing of the Ways mechanic that Kairos has, Festus has almost the same Plague Cauldron that Ku'gath has, but with slightly different less effective plagues. Azazel I haven't played yet but I suspect it's more of the same story; just stolen ideas from the mono Gods, but a much weaker version of their mechanics.

Hey but why are you comparing them to their mono Gods? Warriors of Chaos are an entirely different faction. Well I think you can understand why I was comparing them as such, but fine. Let's use Archaon the Everchosen as a staple to compare to (Note that you have to own the Chaos Warriors DLC for Warhammer 1 to be able to play Archaon, I believe; but you can find both the first 2 games and their DLC-s quite heavily discounted on third party authorized resellers).

All 4 new Legendary Lords can dedicate their heroes/lords/units/chaos gifts only to their respective chaos God (or keep them undivided), so Valkya can only dedicate to Khorne and has access only to gifted Khorne units, can upgrade her units as Khorne variants and can offer only Khorne Chaos Gifts. Well Archaon has access to all 4 of them. He can dedicate his units to any chaos God, can access basically the entire roster of demons and can have Gifts of Chaos for any of the 4 Gods. Also worth mentioning here, you can only have 6 gifted units in a standing army (trading between armies doesn't work, it's still 6) and this applies for all of the Warriors of Chaos.

This is why, overall, playing any of the 4 new Legendary Lords not only does it feel like a half baked weaker version of the Chaos Mono God (for me), but it also feels like playing only a quarter of what Warriors of Chaos can actually do. I think this could have worked if we got some entirely new mechanics rather than the borrowed ones we currently have, but that's not the case. I would have been less harsh if this was priced at 10 euros, but I can never ever recommend getting this over something like the Tomb Kings DLC which is similarly priced. Thank you for reading.

Muck

There's nothing more I can add with this review that hasn't been said already. You're already thinking this game is looking pretty promising: 96% Overwhelmingly Positive reviews, 4 million vikings in 2 weeks news, all the media outlets praising it and so on. But even so, maybe something's still holding you back.

Here's what I can tell you. This game has made me feel like I did when I first discovered Minecraft, or Terraria (maybe even more): that pure feeling of joy, that sense of discovery, the curiosity to explore this incredibly beautiful and interesting world, full or memorable adventures to be had and amazing things to discover.

It's a work of love, truly, and it shows in every little detail of this game: from some of the most incredible weather effects and physics I've ever seen in a video game (and this is a indie game developed by 5 people! Iron Gate has worked some serious magic here, in under 1GB of size), to the way animals react to your presence and the environment in general, or the way the waves move during a storm while on the ocean. All of this accompanied by a very fitting, atmospheric and very beautiful soundtrack, each biome having it's own separate tracks that do an excellent job of immersing you in this mysterious world. My one complaint, if any, is that I want more of it.

Needless to say, multiplayer is highly recommended for this one. You will have some of the most memorable adventures ever with your friends, even from something as simple as going scavenging for berries or hunting deer. You can never tell when you will stumble over a troll or some dungeon or an abandoned village or a different point of interest

I cannot praise this game enough, it has reinvigorated my love for video games and why I started playing them in the first place. The only problem is the void you will feel after finishing the current content (which took me and my buddies 113 hours, that's an absolute bang for the buck you're paying! and the game is not even complete, only 5 out of a planned 9 biomes are currently implemented), since it will be incredibly hard to find something else as good. Highly recommended.

I have to agree with what most people here have already said: the game is complicated (at first), obtuse and doesn't hold your hand at all.

That being said, you have to realise this is a card game where you SHOULD read everything and have patience. Seems to me that most people with negative reviews just didn't have the patience to read everything, since you get subtle (or quite obvious) hints just from reading the card's description as to what to do with it, where it can be used and so on.

Not only that, but if you click an empty space that requires a card, it will highlight all cards on the board that can be used in that slot (theoretically, there might be more conditions, like not being high enough level). Same goes if you click and hold a card: it will highlight the Verbs/Actions where it can be placed. Furthermore, you can click everything (the little icons on cards for example, known as Aspects), and you will get a description of what that Aspect is.

So with these things in mind (steep learning curve, read everything, be patient, click empty spaces / click and hold cards to see where/what can be used, click icons), I'd say give this game a chance. It will take some time before everything clicks (how the mechanics work), but once they do, you will get lost in this Lovecraftian style universe and you won't stop until you have an army of otherwordly creatures, readying yourself for the final ceremony.

Oh and about the end game goals, well it could be anything, but it usually involves performing one of the many available Rites. You could also forfeit the occult and just settle for a job in the police force, or climb the corporate ladder. Or you know, you could just loose yourself to madness / despair. My advice: don't worry about it. Just go with the flow. You'll never know what you'll get. The game will shape itself around your decisions and will give you an appropriate ending.

After all is said and done, I highly recommend this game. Very original concept, incredible lore and storytelling and the gameplay, while it's certainly the weaker point, it's not that bad to be a deal breaker. It's just hard to get into and fully understand. In my opinion, tutorial hints would be useful to explain the different Aspects of the cards, what goes where, how to progress and so on. You WILL catch on to all that, by trial and error but most people just don't have that kind of time, to experiment.

Be a floating head with a syringe stuck in the back of it, shooting green spectral tears and lasers out of your 5 eye sockets, that can kill unspoken horrors of the depths (which are mostly deformed, walking organs) + a giant fat leg falling from the skies, trying to crush said floating head.

CoD with tears instead of guns and demonic monsters / walking organs instead of russians. 11/10, would play 100+ more hours.