Total War: Warhammer 3 REVIEW

[@haasgaming]

This is a long one! And KZbin doesn't want to process it any quicker, so going to give this premiere thing a shot and see if it's actually watchable in 6 hours, ha!

[@AntonioGuillen316]

I was so happy when I saw you made a WH3 review. I love your videos! Excellently made, very detailed- So glad you’re still at it!

[@haasgaming]

That's great to hear! Thank you, yes, I upload far too infrequently but when a chance like this comes around I had to jump in. There's some exciting games lined up this year and the next, so I'm hoping to get around to more for sure.

[@kirmityou]

Hooray, Haas is still among us! 'this gonna be a jolly good day!

[@haasgaming]

[@Spandex08]

I don't know any other more underrated review channel than yours. Not that your reviews are the best, or you have the best written script or gameplay footage, but you are hardcore gamer that does reviews, and what you have to say is a lot more meaningful than a guy who is payed to do game reviews.

[@haasgaming]

Thank you, that's nice to hear!

[@haasgaming]

Forgot to add this to the siege segment, but worth pointing out: Sieging on the campaign map has some more merit now. If your army is more suited to an open field battle, combined with how siege damage is done earlier now to the defenders, I found there's more scenarios in which you want to wait a turn and force the AI to attack you. Although I suspect it will still happen rarely, it's nice that I found this to be useful more than in previous titles.

[@UnderdogTactics]

Hi Haas, been a long time subscriber. Enjoyed your review and pre-loading the game as I watched. I can't wait to play this game. What demon faction was the most fun for you to play? I'm going to start with Kislev and Cathay first, but not sure which demon faction to play first.

[@haasgaming]

Thanks for watching! I'd say it's a toss up between Slaanesh and Khorne for my favorite factions in the game thus far, demons or no. Love the cult and corruption synergy on the campaign map, and I really like both their armies and combat styles. Skarbrand and N'Kari are both a sight to behold. Cathay is a contender for the top in due time though, they got some really fun and involved campaign mechanics.

[@lozza367CHANNEL2]

Great review man, can't wait to play Kislev and Cathay!

[@haasgaming]

Thank you! Have fun with them!

[@ghost2031]

Thank you for this Review. Nice score. Excited to play it on Gamepass.

[@haasgaming]

Thanks for watching, enjoy the game!

[@kraziel]

This makes me want to go back and play the Chaos in the Old World physical board game.

[@bulekman]

Seeing this in my sub box was a nice surprise!

[@haasgaming]

I'm glad it's a nice one!

[@fast1nakus]

and when the world needed him the most, his eternal slumber will end ph'nglui mglw'nafh Haas R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

[@haasgaming]

Spread the good word, cast off the shackles of your slumber, for it is the only path that leads to salvation. Or, as a famous Goblin once said... but da lads were wonderin'... who'z next!?

[@anab0lic]

I've tried several times to get into the total war games and bounced off them hard each time. The reason being Is I just don't find the combat really has much depth to it, all you are really doing is softening up your enemy with ranged attacks as best as possible, then charging blobs of units at other blobs of units and hoping for the best, with the occasional spell cast here and there. All of which happens at a pace that turns it into an absolute uncontrollable clusterfuck. Really, I want to feel like I have more meaningful tough tactical decisions to make in combat that affect the outcome, and for that to work, I think you would have to fully lean into the game being real time with pause, like how CRPG's combat operates, but a larger scale, to fully allow for more micromanagement over the tools at your disposal. Actually, I think company of heroes 3 may be utilising that as its combat system, so it will be interesting to see how that pans out. For me though, these kind of war games will always play best in turn based form, where you are given a rich decision tree moment to moment throughout the battle, to allow for the real tactician within you to shine. But that doesn't seem to be what total war is about, its seems to me that its more about the spectacle of the battle and how cool it can all look in motion, which to its credit it does do well.

[@haasgaming]

I can see where you're coming from. Micro is of course not as relevant here compared to a dedicated RTS, and as I said in the review Total War has historically had issues with trying to micro quickly when units get blocked by enemy entities, so I don't think it'll ever reach that point. That said, I've played a ton of 4X titles (and I think it's fair to call Total War a 4X in the style of Heroes of Might and Magic or Age of Wonders), and none of them quite hit the same level of intensity as Total War can in combat. A lot of it is definitely spectacle. But I think, as with all of these titles, that taking combat on its own is going to give it a diminished outlook. The game really shines the brightest when you have set up the situation on the campaign map in a specific way and then use combat as the final way to get an edge over your enemy, if that makes sense? (Battles are of course a whole different thing if you're playing against other players). Battles can get repetitive, absolutely, and there's some races that have such ridiculously strong doomstacks that I just can't play them for long (High Elves come to mind, I really loathe how strong Sisters of Avelorn are as a super cheap and immensely powerful doomstack). It's one of the reasons I really enjoy Tomb King's unit caps, so you'll be forced to use a proper variety. Ultimately, I adore these games for how it manages to intertwine both campaign strategy with battle spectacle, and Warhammer 3 has significantly upped the synergy of that in a lot of factions when compared to WH1/WH2 launch rosters.

[@SamSGLM]

Haas reviews hit different

[@NekoDZ]

HE LIVES

[@haasgaming]

Or, is it merely a trick of the light?!

[@princeowiredu2022]

the UI is improved?

[@haasgaming]

In the most critical ways, I would say it has. A lot of it is the same as before. Some things are improved and nice to have, especially for newer players, such as idle icons in combat. The performance of opening up the UI is in general better. The spell browser is way better, the unit browser is significantly better. Quite a few things take up less space, which can be nice. But there's also some odd choices, like how the quest banners can be hidden behind other tabs incredibly easily now. Or aesthetic choices some people might not like, like how incredibly dark the UI is in general or how the research panel no longer has distinct color differences for certain paths. All-in-all, I would say the parts that generally matter the most have seen some solid upgrades.

[@juan-qx8kz]

what about performance

[@haasgaming]

Performance for me is very similar to performance of Warhammer 2. Battle performance has much improved, especially considering the default unit sizes is now 'ultra' rather than 'large' as it was in Warhammer 2. So to see it do a lot better there, with more units on the field at once, is nice. Campaign map it's basically identical to Warhammer 2 for me, which is to say it's decent but far from great. But that's just my experience, performance is always going to vary a ton from PC to PC. I should note I play this at nearly maxed out graphics (VFX I had on high, and shadows on medium), 1440p, and I have a RTX 3070 and Ryzen 7 2700X.

[@Petrixxxxxxx]

Is it realy tho? Alien Isolation is well loved in the gaming Community, and is a solid contender.

[@haasgaming]

Ha, fair! That's quite a different one to say the least. Very good game, yes. Not really my cup of tea, granted (pure horror games are never mechanically interesting enough for me personally -- I'll take something like System Shock though). But I could accept that.

[@maribelspecken8905]

🌟 Promo-SM!!!

[@dill899]

Did they pay you to make this? It's CA's worst game yet.