The Daemons of Chaos are a surprise, customisable eighth faction coming to Total War: Warhammer 3
Six, plus two! The Number of the Beast!
Surprise! Total War: Warhammer 3 is getting one more faction at launch, the Daemons of Chaos, led by none other than the Daemon Prince himself.
This is the eighth and "final" race to be available in Warhammer 3 at launch, joining the two human races of Kislev and Grand Cathay, the four other Chaos races of Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh and Nurgle, and the pre-order bonus race of the Ogre Kingdoms. Here's a trailer.
The Daemons of Chaos' main gimmick is their heavy customisability. Worshipping "Chaos Undivided" as opposed to one specific god, the faction can use units from all four of the other Chaos races, creating an "unprecedented" number of army combinations compared to other factions in the series. In practise this is done by devoting a captured settlement to a specific Chaos God out of the above four, which then lets you create buildings and spawn units from that faction.
The Daemon Prince is also customisable too, a bit like an especially gnarly action figure, with the faction centred around a system called Daemonic Glory. Doing things like winning battles and constructing buildings will earn Daemonic Glory, which comes in five "flavours" - as in, under the category of any of the four Chaos Gods plus Chaos Undivided.
Earning glory for one of those pillars advances you down a kind of skill tree, with various weapons, stat boosts and body parts for the Daemon Prince himself being unlocked along the way. It's all frightfully silly in that very Warhammer Fantasy way - which is part of why we've had so much fun with our hands-on time so far.
Despite this being the final race to be available in Warhammer 3 at launch, there were a few hints at more from our chat with game director Ian Roxburgh and narrative lead Andy Hall. "Obviously, there are certain races currently missing from the maps, which I'm sure we're going to get to in time. So there is plenty more to come," as Hall put it.
There's plenty more on the campaign, the challenges of building a giant interconnected map across the trilogy, and the future of Creative Assembly's Warhammer partnership over in our main, jumbo Total War: Warhammer 3 campaign preview, so be sure to give that a look.