“As I stare at the wasteland, I’m reminded of an ’80s power ballad”

Discovering that chaos needs order to flourish in Total War: Warhamer

If the Warriors of Chaos are the biggest bullies in the Warhammer playground, Beastmen are like the smaller, nastier kid who wipes boogers on your bag and sniggers when you get shoved in the urinals. That’s how I play them in Total War: Warhammer, anyway. The only problem with this is that they start on the opposite side of the map to the Bigger Boys of Chaos, and as a horde army, it only takes one catastrophic defeat to end your game.

Things are going well this time, however. I’m stamping north with a full stack of braying Gors, flattening towns and ambushing feeble Bretonnian forces. I strike from nowhere, emerging from hidden beast-paths (like public bridleways, but more profane) and sneak back to my camp every time I’m outnumbered. It’s deliciously evil. It’s harder to play Beastmen since Creative Assembly added prancing Wood Elves to the game, because they hate Chaos enough to leave the safety of the forest home, but I manage to steal a few victories. At one point I manage to ambush one of their lords while she’s alone, but she kills my favorite shaman in a heroic last stand. I decide to move on. I will miss you, Gruk, Living Filth.

Spared the attention of the elf-swine, my campaign starts to go well. Too well, in fact. I roll through the Border Prices and Tilea, burning everything, and my Chaos brothers in the north flatten the Empire. An Ork WAAAGH! wipes out the Wood Elves. Bretonnia soon follows. I meet the victory conditions for the short campaign, but I haven’t sacked enough settlements to finish the game. Worse still, I’m growing short of people to kill.

Into the badlands

I push east into the Badlands and take my frustrations out on the Dwarfs. Sadly, my Chaos buddies have had the same idea, and we end up rushing to finish them off like the Russians and the Americans hurrying to Berlin at the end of World War II. I fall out with Archaon the Everchosen after I slightly murder his ally Kholek Suneater, but we make up. But even with the Dwarfs crushed, I haven’t razed enough cities to ‘win’. My only option is to head to the northern wastes and attack the Norscan factions of Varg and Skaeling, but I couldn’t do that—they’re on my side, right?

I burn the final Norscan city and… it’s still not enough. The map is a beige wilderness, and I haven’t plundered enough places to meet the victory conditions. There is a plan C, however. My Beastmen accountants have managed everything so well that I’m fabulously rich, so I start showering the remaining Ork tribe with gifts in the hope they’ll establish new settlements for me to sack. It’s like a savings account with ritual sacrifice. It doesn’t work. As I stare at the wasteland I’ve created, I’m reminded, somewhat unusually, of ’80s ballad China in Your Hand: “Don’t push too far your dreams are china in your hand. Don’t wish too hard because they may come true. And you can’t help them.” Perhaps if I’d listened to T’Pau’s warning, my dreams of a victory wouldn’t be shattered like a teacup beneath my hoof.

I fall out with Archaon the Ever chosen after I slightly murder his ally