Creative Assembly is rapidly accelerating the post-launch content flow for Total War: Warhammer 3. The first major content addition is the Champions of Chaos DLC and its accompanying free revamp of the Warriors of Chaos faction – mortal followers of the gods of Chaos. There’s so much to this revamp that we had to split it into two guides to effectively cover the most essential elements of this content update.
Here’s everything you need to know about the new Chaos Warriors settlement and recruitment system in Total War: Warhammer 3.
Colonies
In their previous version, the Chaos Warriors were a horde faction where they built a kind of mobile base with their armies to represent the traveling nature of this faction. However, this approach received a lot of criticism as the faction wasn’t that fun to play and didn’t feel like a growing threat to the rest of the world. In this revamp, the Warriors of Chaos’ entire horde function has been completely replaced and they can now use settlements to establish bases of operations from which they can move and wreak havoc on the Warhammer world.
Chaos Warriors now concentrate around Dark Fortress sites, a marked region that is usually a provincial capital. In these dark fortresses, the faction has access to a whole range of building options of up to five levels covering military, advanced military, economic and defense categories. Additionally, some regions will offer resource-specific buildings that will provide faction-wide benefits when constructed.
Any non-Dark Fortress sites the Warriors of Chaos can use as Altars of Chaos which act as outposts that spread corruption and provide only limited benefits to the faction as a whole. Unlike most other factions who can build minor settlements entirely, the Chaos Warriors can never develop these outposts beyond level one and only have access to a few buildings which incur local effects. It’s safe to say that Chaos Warriors want to prioritize their Dark Fortresses for their primary economic needs and only take over other colonies for ancillary needs.
Band Recruitment
The unit recruitment system has also received the biggest overhaul as Chaos Warriors can build up their ranks in three ways. The first and easiest is to use Warband’s recruitment option.
Any Chaos Warriors army can now muster units regardless of their position on the map, but the units they can muster are affected by provincial and regional geography and climate. For example, you will find some units in the Northern Frozen Wastes that may not be available further south or in more temperate climates.
Unit availability is also affected by any buildings in the province that can add new units to the global unit pool. For example, if you’re recruiting in a province with a Dark Fortress that provides heavily armored Chaos Warriors, you’ll find them in the Warband’s Recruitment panel.
Upon opening the Warband Recruitment context menu, players will notice a list of units they can potentially recruit from with unit caps to limit powerful unit spamming, as well as a percentage on the map of unity. This percentage represents the particular unit’s chance of getting a recharge next turn. Essentially, Chaos Warriors can now immediately recruit armies quickly and in quick bursts, but will then have to wait a while for their unit pools to fill with the desired troops.
Band improvements
The second recruitment method, while it doesn’t technically add more soldiers to your army, acts as a system that helps grow your army over time into a true representative of the power of the Chaos Gods. In this system, the experience and technology of the unit become even more essential to the development of your forces. Essentially, this system was adapted from the Amazon army development feature of Total War Saga: Troy.
When a unit reaches a specific rank of experience gained from fighting and surviving battles, at the cost of a few coins it can be upgraded to a higher unit level or it can even be re-equipped into a different unit at the within the same level. When a unit is upgraded, and not re-equipped, its experience level will be reset and will have to succeed in battle again to prove that it is further upgraded. You can check all possible upgrade paths in the Warband Upgrade panel when a unit is selected.
In this upgrade system, you can also mark units to devote themselves to a particular god, giving them abilities and stats. For example, if your army starts with marauders or basic Chaos warriors, which are part of Chaos Undivided by default, you can mark them to follow any god you choose. However, once a unit is marked it cannot be unmarked, so choose carefully when and which units to dedicate to a particular path.
An additional nuance to the unit tagging system is that you can only dedicate a unit to a god your lord is loyal to, although all chaos warrior lords have access to the undivided upgrade path. For example, Archaon the Everchosen is loyal to all Chaos Gods and therefore can dedicate units to any of the Gods of your choosing, while Sigvald the Magnificent and the other Lords in the Champions of Chaos DLC can only dedicate units to units of their patron gods.
Gifted units
The final way Chaos Warriors can now bolster their hordes is to recruit demonic units gifted to them by pleasing each of the four Chaos Gods. You can see which units are available in the Gifted Units panel next to the Band Recruitment button. Unlike factions dedicated to chaos demons who have almost no limits on how they can summon demons, chaos warriors have fairly limited unit caps, so it’s unlikely they can lead armies. whole only made up of demons.
There are several ways to obtain Giften Units. The first is to use the Gifts of Chaos system by selecting such gifts that grant you demonic units over time. The second way is to complete quests that can grant you units of the gods by fulfilling their conditions. Finally, there may be events or dilemmas that can grant you additional demonic forces based on your choices in those dilemmas.
The Warriors of Chaos have now become a true behemoth of a force with an expansive, flexible and thematic recruitment system. How will you build your loyal armies and glorify the Chaos Gods?
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