Welcome!

Update 4.0 arrives tomorrow (Aug 31st), bringing with it not just many improvements to Total War: WARHAMMER III but also a bunch of new content to sink your vortex-warped tentacles into.

Here are some of the highlights:

• The Changeling, Yuan Bo, and Mother Ostankya arrive in Shadows of Change!
• Let Tzeentch take the wheel with The Blue Scribes, scattering spells across the battlefield with only the hand of fate to guide them.
• Take it to your foes with our newest free Legendary Hero for Tzeentch, Aekold Helbrass.
• Control your destiny like never before with additional difficulty options and sweeping AI improvements across both the campaign map and battles. 
• Show off your skills with 32 new achievements for every existing race within the WARHAMMER trilogy. 

We’d love to hear your thoughts about Shadows of Change. We talk to our players all the time across all sorts of channels – please do reach out to us below and let us know what you make of it.

Jump to:

• Release Spotlight

Shadows of Change ⬥ Aekold Helbrass ⬥ Legacy Landmarks ⬥ New Achievements

• Stability & Performance
• Gameplay
• AI Improvements
• Races & Balance

Beastmen ⬥ Bretonnia ⬥ Chaos Dwarfs ⬥ Daemons of Chaos ⬥ Dark Elves ⬥ Dwarfs ⬥ Grand Cathay ⬥ Greenskins ⬥ High Elves ⬥ Khorne ⬥ Kislev ⬥ Lizardmen ⬥ Norsca ⬥ Nurgle ⬥ Ogre Kingdoms ⬥ Skaven ⬥ Slaanesh ⬥ The Empire ⬥ Tomb Kings ⬥ Tzeentch ⬥ Vampire Coast ⬥ Vampire Counts ⬥ Warriors of Chaos ⬥ Wood Elves

• Campaign
• Battles
• Multiplayer
• Game

Amendments:

• Hotfix 4.0.1
• Hotfix 4.0.2
• Hotfix 4.0.3
• Hotfix 4.0.4
• Hotfix 4.0.5
• Hotfix 4.0.6
• Hotfix 4.0.7

Jump ahead:

• Looking Forward

Shadows of Change (Premium DLC)

The Shadows of Change pack introduces three new Legendary Lords for Tzeentch, Grand Cathay and Kislev, usable in both the Realm of Chaos and Immortal Empires campaigns.

Inject new Legendary Lords, Heroes, and Units into your games to vastly expand your methods of play on the campaign map and within battles. The Changeling, Yuan Bo and Mother Ostankya each bring their own campaign mechanics to their races, with goals separate from the Realm of Chaos campaign, and new units to help them pursue victory on their terms.

• Three new Legendary Lords emerge from the shadows!
• Perform dastardly schemes and trickery with the Changeling of Tzeentch.
• Establish and execute grand stratagems on a global scale as Yuan Bo of Grand Cathay.
• Conjure powerful hexes and incantations while engaging in witchcraft, flipping campaigns on their head as Mother Ostankya of Kislev.
• Scatter magical spells at random with new Legendary Hero The Blue Scribes of Tzeentch.
• Expand your roster with 11 additional units, and enhance your troops with nine new Regiments of Renown.

Hit the links to read more about our new Legendary Lords – The Changeling, Yuan Bo and Mother Ostankya.

You can pre-order Shadows of Change here and grab 10% off the launch price!

Aekold Helbrass (Free DLC)

Breathe life into a world of death and destruction as the Conqueror of Kislev, Aekold Helbrass, arrives in Total War: WARHAMMER III.  

Free for all players, this Champion of Tzeentch carries an unusual gift bestowed upon him by his ever-changing Chaos God – with a single touch he can turn death into life! Beware, however, as Helbrass is not a generous Legendary Hero, and he can just as easily take that life away again. 

Having left the Empire behind in search of his true purpose, Helbrass was mortally wounded by his mirror image, only to be reborn under Tzeentch as his Champion. With this, he’d finally been granted the motivation he so desperately sought.  

To Raise Hell. 

Aekold Helbrass is now available as a free addition to Tzeentch and certain Warriors of Chaos factions in WARHAMMER III to everyone with a CA Account and can be added to your roster by completing his personal quest chain, The Tale of the True Path. You can read more about CA Accounts and create your own here.

New Legendary Landmarks

We’ve added 13 new Landmarks across the map in our continued effort to bring fan-favourite locations from the trilogy into Immortal Empires:

• Glacial Caves (Fateweavers Crevasse)
• Agrammon’s Menagerie (Castle of Splendour)
• Desecrated Grove (Haunted Forest)
• Occupied Imperial Palace (Wei-Jin)
• Pillar of Bone (Deff Gorge)
• Huatl (The Awakening)
• Monument to the Ecstatic Hunt (Shrine of Kurnous)
• Valley of Many Eyes (Black Pit)
• Rampaging Oak (Mordheim)
• Wreck of the Talon of Agony (Haichai)
• Monolith of the Bloody-Hand (Monolith of Bjorkil Bloody-Hand)
• Hall of Rebirth (Lahmia)
• Bells of the Lazarghs (Maw Gate)

32 New Achievements

A fistful of new achievements have made their way to WARHAMMER III, even if they snuck out of Chaos Wastes sooner than they should’ve, and are now earnable in Immortal Empires. 

This includes two achievements for each race within the game that didn’t already have them, giving everyone from the WARHAMMER trilogy the chance to track their ultimate victories on any difficulty, with a second achievement for doing the same on Very Hard or Legendary.

Prove yourself worthy with these mighty challenges and rank among some of the best Total War strategists out there.

 

• Fixed a crash when resurrecting artillery pieces for a unit with no currently living engines. 
• Fixed a memory-related crash when picking up artillery pieces with a smaller, different crew than the one originally manning those pieces.
• Fixed an issue leading to the game softlocking in rare cases when AI is attacking a settlement with reinforcements.
• Fixed a crash when zooming out while selecting a WAAAGH! target. 
• Fixed a crash that could occur when autoresolving certain battles. 
• Fixed the Quick Deal button in diplomacy panel losing its functionality when reopening the panel after threatening a faction.
• Fixed a start of turn crash when a character is ready to upgrade.
• Fixed a UI crash when leaving multiplayer survival battles.
• Prevented a potential softlock from happening during the Prologue when a player pressed auto-resolve while a tutorial box is on the screen awaiting player action.
• Addressed an FPS stutter when running the Immortal Empires campaign benchmark. 
• Fixed a LUA error and softlock that could occur when cancelling the new player tutorial for the Hell-Forge mechanic.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a save.
• Fixed a crash when double-clicking from the campaign overview on a settlement owned by a rebel faction.
• Fixed a rare crash when processing callbacks from the music system.
• Fixed numerous quest battle script triggers to prevent cutscenes and audio playing at the wrong time.
• Fixed a rare issue wherein a dilemma would not load correctly, causing a crash.
• Improved performance issues that could occur due to unchecked unit pathing thresholds. 
• Fixing a crash that could occur when playing on the ‘Dragon Fang Mount’ Lizardmen settlement battle.

General Battle

• We have now removed the victory tickets from the key building capture point in major settlement battles. The only way to now gain victory tickets is to capture and hold the major point. This has been done to allow players to fall back without having to defend multiple locations.
• A range restriction has been removed for reinforcing armies in campaign battles. This will allow players to reinforce to any valid location on a battle map. The increased time will be calculated in the same way and added to the final reinforcement time.
• Wood Elves will now load in to the Wood Elves minor settlement battle map when occupying foreign settlements instead of the forest pathways in which they used to load.
• Beastmen will now load in to the Herdstone minor settlement battle map when occupying foreign settlements instead of the beast paths in which they used to load.
• Ranged units will no longer automatically charge into melee when running out of ammunition. 
• Updated the wall zones on battle maps to allow units to dock on both wall sections on Major Empire maps.
• The defender in an ambush battle will now leave the cinematic camera after a set amount of time, stopping cases where the defender would have to watch their stalk unit army slowly walk to the exit.
• Fixed issues with character loyalty when getting reassigned to a faction.

Unit Tier Icons

We have expanded the range of Unit Tier Icons from 1-3 to 1-5 with the intent of adding more granularity to represent the overall power of units.

 (Note that these icons changes have not impacted unit power balance.)

Rules & Systems

• Fixed the unit caps for the Regiments of Renown units introduced in Update 3.1.0.
• Fixed an issue with DLC-locked mounts showing in the UI after being unlocked in-game, even if the player didn’t actually get the mount.
• Corruption that spreads from Ruins is now listed as ‘Ruins’ rather than ‘Buildings’ in the corruption tooltips.
• The Character Details panel for wounded characters can no longer be opened. 
• Fixed an issue where Legendary Heroes (e.g. Harald Hammerstorm) could spawn stuck in the Realms of Chaos.
• In the Objectives Panel, the Victory Conditions Tab will now always select the first victory condition type instead of sometimes selecting the second.
• Fixed a timing issue that would cause certain abilities to trigger immediately upon starting a battle with a large number of entities, such as the Bloated Corpse’s explosion.
• Building Browser can now be accessed if your faction has a Cult, Vampire Pirate Cove, Skaven Under-city or Silent Sanctum in a settlement.
• Added a new end turn notification for Daemon Cults, Skaven Under-Cities and Vampire Coast Pirate Coves, which will show when a building in one of those places can be upgraded.
• Warriors of Chaos recruitment, Drycha beast recruitment, as well as Vampire Coast and Vampire Count Raise Dead should now work as intended in the Eight Peaks province.
• WARHAMMER III races can now correctly construct the Maelstrom building in the Galleon’s Graveyard.

Tooltip Improvements

We’ve made several improvements to the Sticky Tooltips added to WARHAMMER III in Update 3.0.

Most notably, we’ve added the option to make Sticky Tooltips follow your mouse like standard tooltips. This can be achieved by disabling the ‘Pin to Element’ checkbox in Game Settings.

It is also now possible for players to setup a keyboard shortcut that instantly sticks a tooltip. This shortcut can be found in the Misc sub-section of the Universal category with the name ‘Stick Tooltip’.

Finally, you can now turn off the stick delay entirely by unchecking ‘Auto Stick’ in Game Settings. The only way you will be able to stick tooltips to inspect them in this mode will be to use the ‘Stick Tooltip’ shortcut.

AI Rules & Logic

• Fixed an issue preventing AI defending armies from using all available funds to purchase deployables during the deployment phase in settlement battles.
• Fixed an issue in settlement battles preventing attacking AI units from pathing through areas where a deployable barricade has been constructed. AI units will also (now more reliably) attack deployables that are blocking their path rather than abandoning their current route to a destination.
• AI Bretonnia will no longer fail to unlock vows on their Paladins if they gain more than one level at a time.
• Servants of the Conclave will now declare war on factions who raid them.
• Fixed a blobbing issue when multiple AI units attempt to move through entry points (wall breaches, gate entries and open entries).
• In settlement battles where an attacking army is assisted by AI reinforcements, an issue has been fixed that forced AI units to attempt to use a single entry point.
• Fixed an issue where an attacking AI army is prevented from idly waiting for reinforcing armies with extended arrival delays.
• Rogue armies will now no longer recruit multiple Lords into their armies.
• Fixed an issue where AI missile units were being issued missile attack orders on obstructed targets, causing units to remain idle.
• Fixed an issue preventing AI units from being positioned on deployable barricades during the deployment phase in settlement battles.
• Improvements have been to defending AI unit positioning during the deployment phase of settlement battles, reducing the amount of repositioning that would occur after the battle starts.
• Fixed an issue leading to some AI units being deployed outside the default deployment area.
• Fixed an issue where AI units would ignore deployed towers in settlement battles when the defending army is player-controlled and has no AI allies.

Exploit Fixes

• When the player delegates reinforcing armies to AI control, the opposing AI will now likewise delegate an equal number of reinforcing armies to be controlled separately. This stops players from overwhelming AI opponents by having all their reinforcements appear on the battlefield as separate AI controlled armies, as the AI opponent will now reinforce the battlefield with the same number of armies where possible.

We’re making some sweeping changes to the AI in WARHAMMER III in our continued efforts to make them more engaging to play against. This includes decreasing their bias against the player and making them more effective in the right places, while also increasing their likelihood of mistakes being made that can be capitalised upon, rewarding the quick thinking generals among you!

There’s quite a bit to go through, so deep breaths…

Campaign AI

AI – Diplomacy 

• Distance is now more important to the AI when engaging with diplomacy. This should mean the AI has fewer dealings with factions that are further away.
• The AI is less likely to declare war when it is in a bad situation, reducing the number of war declarations from factions that are in trouble. 
• When the AI is considering a peace deal, the impact of causalities on its decision making has been doubled, meaning that the AI should offer peace deals more often if it has received significant recent losses. 
• Passive factions (like the ones which live in Wood Elf Forests) are now less likely to go to war. 
• Fixed an issue affecting AI’s view on enemy strength. 
• The effect of diplomatic events will now subside twice as fast (with the exception of Giving Gifts).
• Battles in hostile territory and hero actions now have a smaller impact on diplomacy.
• Increased the number of diplomatic goals each AI faction can generate per turn from one to three and made it clearer to understand the AI’s attitude toward each other faction.
• AI to AI Diplomatic contact has been reworked, meaning AI factions should be much more capable of discovering each other.
• The actions of an AI toward a faction will now have less impact on other AI factions who also had a hostile stance. This will make pile-ons less likely.
• AI is more likely to confederate minor factions on harder Immortal Empires difficulties. 
• Increased the number of deals AI can check per turn. The AI now receives a little more time to think about diplomacy, but at the cost of end turn performance. 
• Each war increases the negative impact on an AI faction’s situation much more than before. It will strive to be in fewer battles overall. 
• It will now take the AI longer to identify which faction is its main threat. 

AI – Tactical and Strategic Behaviour 

• The AI is more likely to carry out offensive tasks within its current active target region. Each AI is designed with a defined set of regions it would like to take and/or hold per campaign, increasing the chances of it operating in regions it doesn’t currently own.
• Reduced the amount of time that AI factions will consider territory to be recently captured. The AI is less likely to focus on these regions.  
• Increased the inaccuracy in the AI’s calculation of movement, meaning mistakes will be more common at some difficulties. 
• AI will not retreat forces with four or fewer units on any difficulty.
• AI is much more willing to defend its last settlement, even if such an action is suicidal – AI should stand their ground more often instead of escaping trying to survive
• Rework of AI defensive behaviour- Instead of focusing more on regions with enemy forces inside more emphasis now on regions with bordering enemy factions and directly dealing with enemies.
• Distance scaling has been increased – AI should focus on nearby targets more 
• Increased number of units needed for the AI to consider releasing a force for offensive actions. – AI should build bigger forces for offensive actions and return under strength armies to own territory 
• Increased number of units in existing forces needed before the AI will consider building a new army – AI will only add new armies if it has more units in its existing forces 
• Fixed a bug where the AI would incorrectly evaluate assaulting a settlement with a very weak garrison as worthless – AI evaluates primarily by how much enemy strength can be destroyed not by the value of a settlement.
• AI views the strength of siege equipment much lower – AI will attack major settlements more quickly. 
• Significantly increased priority for the AI to go after a factions last settlement – AI should finish off factions more often 
• AI views garrisoning settlement as much stronger – AI will less often retreat from a settlement if it thinks it cannot defend it, even with the garrison 
• Improved AI logic for working out which region to recruit units in. 

AI – Military Recruitment 

• Fixed an issue that AI High Elf factions would only recruit Rangers, Sword Masters of Hoeth and Athel Tamara Faithbearers through allied recruitment. 
• Reduced AI Vampire Count’s propensity to recruit Zombies. 
• Warriors of Chaos AI factions should be more willing to upgrade Marauders and Warriors of Chaos units. 

AI – Unique Behaviours 

• AI Factions have been banned from razing settlements early in the game (with the exception of Beastmen, Khorne, and Wood Elves).
• AI Factions with standard settlement occupation patterns (so not Beastmen, Wood Elves, Khorne) will not raze or sack a settlement until they have at least five (three in the case of the Vampire Coast).
• Fixed AI logic for rites incorrectly assessing if there was an army belonging to a hostile faction in their territory.
• AI Ikit Claw is more likely to use workshop buffs. 

AI – Buildings 

• AI should now build more garrison buildings.
• AI should make better choices when building military recruitment buildings in minor or major settlements.
• AI should be better at upgrading military recruitment buildings. 

AI – Other 

• Fixed a bug where some Legendary Heroes weren’t spawning in for the AI. 
• Fixed a bug where Legendary Heroes spawned for the AI weren’t always receiving their ancillaries.

AI – Start Positions 

• Every major faction now has their faction potential (which causes different AI factions to rise and fall each time a new campaign is started) randomised on IE and RoC.
• Reworked faction potential calculations so that it is now possible to make the expected value skew towards either the lower or the upper bound of what is permitted for that faction.
• Dark Elves, Settra and Arkhan are now more aggressive (and should accurately reflect their displayed traits). 
• Removed the starting war between Settra and Arkhan. 
• Yvresse and Broken Axe now have diplomatic contact at the start of the game.
• Resolved an issue with passive AI units not using their ranged weapons when positioned on the ends of a line formation. 
• Fixed multiple cases wherein the Campaign AI was not correctly considering all valid options when deciding how to allocate its forces. 
• Fixed a rare issue wherein AI armies would get stuck on the campaign map after a defeat.
• Made further improvements to AI barricade behaviour to prevent units repeatedly docking and undocking.

Battle AI

We’re excited to announce some major improvements to the Battle AI and difficulty settings.

Smarter AI: We’ve worked hard to make the AI feel more intelligent and challenging, without relying on boosted stats. Say goodbye to the ‘cheating AI’ and hello to a more engaging battle experience!

Improved AI Behaviour: Depending on the difficulty level you choose, the AI will now behave differently. On lower difficulties, expect a more passive and less efficient AI, while on higher difficulties, the AI will be more aggressive and focused.

More Difficulty Options: We’ve added more granularity to the AI stats difficulty settings, giving you a wider range of options to find the perfect challenge for your playstyle.

Visual Feedback: To help you understand the impact of your chosen difficulty level, we’ve added a visual representation of the AI behaviour changes in the game’s user interface.

General

• Strengthened the garrisons of T3 minor settlement and garrison building for all races that have them. We’re continuing to monitor garrisons to ensure they’re providing a meaningful benefit – this should be a big step towards making them feel better to use.
• Added a faction climate list in the Lord selection screen under the Map tab.

Traits

Several Traits that are innate to some recruitable characters (mainly those from the WARHAMMER III base game factions) are lagging behind those from the rest of the trilogy and subsequent DLCs. As such, we’re bringing many of them up to speed:

WARHAMMER III

OGRE KINGDOMS

Deboner

• Meat Post Battle: 10% → 20%
• (New) Melee Attack: +4 (Lords and Embedded Heroes)

Farter

• Speed: +20%
• (New) Campaign Movement Range: +8%

Flabby

• Unit Mass: +15%
• (New) Armour: +20

Big Daddy

• Charge Bonus: +3 → +10
• (New) Leadership Aura Size: +30%

Maw Preacher

• Corruption: -1 → -2
• (New) Control: +2

CATHAY

Martial Artist

• Melee Defence: +4 → +6
• (New) Physical Resistance: +5%

Harmonizer

• Leadership: +4 (when fighting Daemons of Chaos) → Leadership: +6 (when fighting Warriors of Chaos, Daemons of Chaos, Chaos Dwarfs and Norsca)
• (New) Leadership Aura Size: +30% (when defending)

Bureaucrat

• Control: +1 → +2
• (New) Construction Mod Cost: -10%

Enlightened

• Winds of Power Reserve Charge: +8 → +10

Fervent Questioner

• Corruption: -1 → -2
• (New) Income from buildings (loca l region): +3%

KISLEV

Kossar Headman

• Leadership (own territory): +5
• (New) Leadership Aura Size: +20%

Strongholder

• Melee Defence (own territory): +5
• (New) Physical Resistance: +10%

Judicator

• Corruption: -1 → -3

Student of Miska

• Winds of Magic power reserve change (when increasing): +8%
• (New) Winds of Magic power reserve capacity: +5%

NURGLE

Contagious

• Chance of a plague spreading: 8% → +12%
• (New) Passive: Aura of Pestilence

Fomenter

• Nurgle Corruption: +1 → +2
• (New) Character Movement Range: +10%

Repellent

• Melee Defense:  +4 –> +8
• (New) Enemy Hero action success chance: -15%

Scabrous

• Armor: +6 –> +10
• (New) Spell Resistance: +15%

Infectious

• Control: -3 (enemy prov)
• (New) Character Experience mod: +15%

Corpulent

• Unit Mass: +15%
• (New) Weapon Strength: +10%

SLAANESH

Enslaver

• Casualties Captured post-battle: +10% → +15%

Perfectionist

• Seduce Units Budget: +8% → +15%
• (New) Character Experience mod: +12%

Sleek

• Speed: +4% (to army)
• (New) Enables Strider

Depraver

• Slaanesh Corruption: +1 → +3

KHORNE

Murderer

• Casualties captured post-battle: +10% → +12%
• (New) Income from post-battle loot: +8%

Serial Killer Instinct

• Skulls from Skull Piles: +12%
• (New) Charge bonus: +15

Maimer

• (New) Armor Piercing: +50

Blugeonous Slaughterer

• (New) Melee attack: +5
• Weapon Strength: +4% → +10%

Bad Hat

• • Khorne Corruption: +1 → +3

TZEENTCH

Pinioned

• Campaign Movement Range: +6%
• (New) Vigour loss reduction: -20%

Baffler

• Miscast Base Chance: -8% → -15%
• (New) Enemy Hero Action Success Chance: -15%

Corrupter

• Tzeentch Corruption: +1 → +3

WARHAMMER I/II

SKAVEN

Sharp Claws

• Charge Bonus: +4 → +10
• Weapon Strength: 5% → +15%

Sharp Teeth

• Armor Piecing Damage: +5 → +40
• Melee Attack: +3 → +8

VAMPIRE COUNTS

Dark Majesty

• Character’s aura leadership effect: 3 → 5
• Leadership aura size: 20% → 30%

DARK ELVES

Vicious

• Melee Attack: +3 → +8
• Melee Defense: +3 → +8

Spells & Abilities

LORE OF THE WILD

MANTLE OF GHOROK

• Mana Cost: 12 → 10
• (Upgraded Version): 20 → 18

LORE OF THE TEMPEST

SWIFTWING

• Mana Cost: 8 → 6
• (Upgraded Version): 11 → 9

LORE OF METAL

TRANSMUTATION OF LEAD

• Duration: 38 → 50s

THE WITHERING

• Mana Cost: 7 → 6
• (Upgraded Version): 14 → 12

OKKAM’S MINDRAZOR

• Mana Cost: 9 → 8
• (Upgraded Version): 16 → 14

THE PENUMBRAL PENDULUM

• Mana Cost: 13 → 12
• (Upgraded Version): 18 → 16

MELKOTH’S MYSTIFYING MIASMA

• Mana Cost: 5 → 6
• (Upgraded Version): 8 → 9

LORE OF HEAVENS

CURSE OF MIDNIGHT

• Mana Cost: 9 → 8
• (Upgraded Version): 15 → 14

WIND BLAST

• Mana Cost: 6 → 5
• (Upgraded Version): 9 → 8

LORE OF THE GREAT MAW

TOOTHCRACKER

• Duration: 25 → 35s
• (Upgraded Version): 50 → 60s

LORE OF DEATH

SOULBLIGHT

• Duration: 18 → 20s
• (Upgraded Version): 36 → 40s

DOOM & DARKNESS

• Mana Cost: 6 → 5
• (Upgraded Version): 12 → 10

PURPLE SUN OF XEREUS

• Vortex Movement Speed:  4 → 2 m/s
• (Upgraded Version): 3 → 2 m/s

LORE OF LIFE

SHIELD OF THORNS

• Duration: 23 → 30

LORE OF DARK

DOOMBOLT

• Mana Cost: 11 → 9
• (Upgraded Version): 16 → 14

BLADEWIND

• Vortex Movement Speed: 4 → 2 m/s
• (Upgraded Version): 3 → 2 m/s

LORE OF YANG

CONSTELLATION OF THE DRAGON 

• Mana Cost: 18 → 15
• (Upgraded Version): 24 → 20

WALL OF WIND AND FIRE

• Mana Cost: 7 → 6
• (Upgraded Version): 11 → 10

LORE OF ICE

CRYSTAL SANCTUARY

• Damage Resistance: 60% → 80%

Campaign

• Marienburg is no longer missing from the Beastmen’s Long Victory objective.
• Beastmen events no longer reduce the upkeep or recruitment cost of units.

Battles

• Added a monetary reward to the Beastmen final battle – Fall of Man – as it was in WARHAMMER II.

Skills

• Added bonus XP per turn to the Beastmen lords’ starting red line skill in campaign to bring them in line with other races.

Campaign

• Bretonnia vows now progress correctly in campaign for Damsel Heroes.
• Fixed Bretonnia not being able to raze or sack Chaos Dwarf settlements. 

Units

GRAIL KNIGHTS

• Changed entity collision size priority Large → Medium. This stops never ending charges against infantry.
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,700 → 1,800
• Recruitment Cost: 1,700 → 1,800

GRAIL GUARDIANS

• Changed entity collision size priority Large → Medium. This stops never ending charges against infantry.

GRAIL RELIQUAE

• Recruitment Cost: 300 → 400
• Multiplayer Cost: 300 → 400

FOOT SQUIRES

• Recruitment Cost: 700 → 750
• Multiplayer Cost: 700 → 750
• Upkeep: 175 → 188

BEASTSLAYERS OF BASTONNE (FOOT SQUIRES)

• Recruitment Cost: 850 → 900
• Multiplayer Cost: 850 → 900
• Upkeep: 213 → 225

BATTLE PILGRIMS

• Recruitment Cost: 550 → 600
• Multiplayer Cost: 550 → 600
• Upkeep: 137 → 150

THE HOLY WARDENS OF LA MAISONTAAL (BATTLE PILGRIMS) 

• Recruitment Cost: 750 → 800
• Multiplayer Cost: 750 → 800
• Upkeep: 188 → 200

Skills

• Fixed the Fay Enchantress’s skill The Secrets of the Otherworld displaying lots of unnecessary Hero unit cards in its tooltip. 

Technology

• Fixed Repanse de Lyonesse missing technologies and the other Bretonnian factions not having a bonus to diplomacy with her faction on the Support Religious Errantry technology.

Campaign

• Fixed an issue where Exalted Greater Daemon Lords could spawn without a name when playing as the Daemon Prince.

Units

• Fixed an issue with The Knights of the Brazen Throne Regiment of Renown not receiving buffs from the Riders of Doom character skill.

Items

• Fixed the missing Dampened contact effect from Daemon Prince items.

Campaign

• Rakarth now starts with the first technology unlocked, on par with the other Dark Elf factions.
• The Dark Elf Khainite Assassin Hero’s Enlist Slaves action will now update correctly when the action is improved via the character skill.
• Fixed Crone Hellebron’s two death night missions not triggering on Turn 2.
• Clarified the wording around the Khainite Assassin’s passive Hero action, Generating Slaves.

Units

CAULDRON OF BLOOD & BLOOD WRACK SHRINE → RIDERS

Dagger Throwing Melee Attacks have been changed to Missile Attacks:

• The Witch Elf riders will now throw Daggers at a range of 55m.
• This has been changed, as the Witch Elves were benefitting from Charge Bonus, which inflated their damage to unreasonable levels.

Traits

• The innate character trait Cruel has been reworked. Previously, its effect only worked on Lords but could be gained by Lords and Heroes. Now, the trait has been split into two variants – one for Lords (bonus sacking income), and one for Heroes (bonus raiding income). Also, added additional bonuses to the character’s weapon strength with Cruel to compensate for it being split in half.

Technology

• Fixed the Dark Elf technology Upgrade III not applying its Slave income bonus. 

Battles

•  Thorgrim’s Axe of Grimnir quest battle now correctly counts Shaman kills, and is completable by fulfilling the kill count. 

Units

FLAME CANNONS

• Recruitment Cost: 1,300 → 1,100
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,200 → 1,100
• Upkeep: 325 → 275
• Range: 230 → 280
• Calibration Distance: 120 → 150

Abilities

• The ability Journey’s End will now provide the intended buffs.

Skills

• Fixed Thorgrim Grudgebearer’s unique Grudge Against skills not applying when fighting against Greenskins or Chaos.

Technology

• Fixed certain Dwarf characters not being affected by the Retainers Vows technology.

General Updates

• Skills on Cathay Dragon Lords no longer mistakenly show the unit info for the other Lords as being affected by the skill.
• The Dissenter Lord of Jinshen and Rebel Lords of Nan-Yang are now more hostile to Cathay factions.
• We’ve added two new quest items for both Miao Ying, the Storm Dragon (Vambraces of Yin & Storm Wind Coronal) and Zhao Ming, the Iron Dragon (The Burning Vambraces & Horns of Shang-Yang). These can be unlocked via missions during a campaign.
• The effects of the Wu Xing Compass will now apply to regions owned by Cathayan factions, on top of regions within Cathay.
• Some of the effects of the Wu Xing Compass directions have been tweaked to make them less situational.

Campaign

• Adjusted Cathay Income buildings so the Yang variant has a higher base income at all levels compared to the Yin variant.
• Fixed the Warpstone Desert compass direction for not actually increasing the sale value of cargo.
• Fixed the Von Carstein Blade not being correctly rewarded to caravans that finish in Castle Drakenhof.
• Fixed an issue where rebel armies could spawn with Lords that weren’t normally recruitable, (e.g. Caravan Masters).
• Fixed the “Blessed by Ind – Riches” trait for Caravan Masters not correctly applying the sell value for cargo.
• Fixed the player being able to swap between the Celestial Armoury chain of buildings and the Bastion Temple chain of buildings as if they were different variations on the same building. They’re not even in the same category!

Cathay Wu Xing Compass

With the addition of Yuan Bo to the Cathayan Roster, we have our first Cathayan Character who has a campaign set outside the provinces of Cathay. Making the Wu Xing Compass (which only applies to regions within Cathay) increasingly irrelevant to his campaign as you proceed outwards. As part of this update, we’ve adjusted the functionality of the compass.

Note: as a reminder, the effects of the compass apply to all Cathayan Factions!

• Instead of applying solely to regions within Cathay, the effects of the Wu Xing compass now has two separate conditions. It effects regions that are either:
  • Within the borders of Cathay.
  • Controlled by any Cathayan Faction.
• When playing the other Siblings, Yuan Bo’s 4 extra directions are present on the compass, but in an uninteractable state, while regular Cathayan factions cannot set these directions themselves, they can benefit if Yuan Bo sets the compass to these directions.

Additionally, we’ve done a pass on the effects of the compass, adjusting the positions of some effects. Most notably:

• ‘Celestial Intervention’ has been moved from the Great Bastion direction to the Dragon Emperor’s Wrath.
• ‘Ancestral Warriors’ has been moved from the now defunct bonus for factionwide harmony to the Great Bastion compass direction.

Cathay Harmony

What was that about a defunct bonus for factionwide harmony?

We’re glad you asked.

One of the larger topics we tried to tackle in this update is the experience of managing Cathay’s central Harmony mechanic. Following a lot of feedback, we identified what we think were the more and less successful parts of the feature and attempted to slim it down.

Top Level

• Harmony has moved from a faction to a provincial concern, balancing your construction of Yin and Yang buildings on a local scale.
• There are now distinct benefits to a province being heavily aligned with either direction, or by being in Harmony.
• Technologies, characters and events no longer affect your Harmony (though characters retain a harmony alignment used for getting buffs from the tech tree).

One consistent bit of feedback is that it got increasingly frustrating to manage Harmony over the course of a campaign, as more and more volatile factors started affecting your harmony levels. So we’ve tried to hone in on the aspects that are under your direct control. A rather large problem we faced was that Harmony was a very binary mechanic, where the benefits of perfect Harmony were so vast and ubiquitous that we had to design around the player always being in Harmony.

At its core, Harmony remains the same, but with a slimmer profile, each can contribute Yin or Yang the local province in which it is built, and the relative amount of these affects the overall Harmony of the province. But unlike the previous iteration, There are rewards for pushing a province into an ascendancy of either Yin or Yang as well.

A province with a strong Yin leaning embodies the introspective and passive state of the world. With bonuses to Construction, Growth and Control to build a strong foundation, you will likely want to start here often to get a Province off the ground quickly.

Meanwhile a strong Yang leaning embodies a more fiery active state, with bonuses to Recruitment, Research and Recruit ranks to build military strongpoints in which to perform mass recruitment.

Harmony remains the path for long-term prosperity, with income benefits, reduced upkeep for armies in the province and a large movement boost to help you travel through your secure and harmonious heartlands quickly. The perfect path for well established and safe provinces.

We look forward to feedback on this new iteration, and hope that fewer Generals will find themselves hired and fired between turns in service to the great scale in the sky!

Units

• Greater Arcane Conduit has been removed from the Wise trait that can appear on Cathay characters, and has been replaced with +10% Spell Intensity.

LORD MAGISTRATE ON FOOT

• Armour: 20 → 40
• HP: 4,068 → 4,568

LORD MAGISTRATE ON WARHORSE

• Armour: 50 → 80
• HP: 4,680 → 5,180

Abilities

• Fixed a bug which meant that the ‘Transformation of the Dragon’ abilities could be used by a character while manning a battering ram.

Technology

• Clarified some Cathay technologies that also apply to Celestial Dragon Crossbows units (as well as the stated Celestial Dragon Guard units).
• Cathay technologies affecting Yin and Yang armies now instead apply to Characters and Units. The previous implementation only affected the Characters leading these armies. 

General Updates

• Fixed Grom’s Cauldron not applying the ‘Hollow Bone’ ammunition type to the Regiment of Renown version of the Night Goblin Archers unit.
• Adjusted collision to fix barricade docking issues with Greenskins missile units.

Units

• Fixed Pump Wagon units not being included in the buffs on the Greenskins timber building chain.

SNOTLING PUMP WAGONS (RIDERS)

• Spore Throwing Melee Attacks have been changed to Missile Attacks.
• The Pump Wagon riders will now throw Exploding Spores at a range of 55m.
• This has been changed, as the Spore Throwers were benefitting from Charge Bonus, which inflated their damage to unreasonable levels.

SNOTLING PUMP WAGONS (MELEE)

• Max Entities Hit by Collision Attack: 4 → 5
• Max Entities Hit by Splash Attack: 4 → 5
• These changes have been made to spread the damage that Pump Wagons are dealing a bit more evenly.

Skills

• Grimgor’s Bigger ‘n’ ‘Arder skill now applies to Orc Boar Boy Big ‘Uns.

Technology

• The Bigga ‘n Betta Bosses technology no longer applies the Lord recruit rank effect twice.
• Fixed the Greenskins technology, Trollin’, not applying to every type of troll unit.

General Updates

• Fixed the Landmark building icon not showing for Athel Loren Landmark buildings and certain High Elf Landmark ports.

Campaign

• Fixed High Elf Noble Action Increase Trade not increasing the amount of Elven Trinkets generated.
• Alarielle’s Power of Nature feature will now continue to function when her faction is confederated. The Mortal World’s Torment trait will get removed regardless of what stage it is in.
• Lords in borrowed armies will no longer get the mistwalker dilemma.
• Fixed an issue with Imrik’s campaign event, Dragons, not being affected by his Heart of Flame character skill.

Units

OMEN OF ASURYAN (ARCANE PHEONIX)

• Recruitment Cost: 2,350 → 2,250
• Multiplayer Cost: 2,350 → 2,250
• Upkeep: 588 → 562

ELTHARION (ON FOOT)

• Recruitment Cost: 1,100 → 1,000
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,100 → 1,000
• Upkeep: 275 → 250

ELTHARION (ON BARDED STEED)

• Recruitment Cost: 1,350 → 1,250
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,350 → 1,250
• Upkeep: 338 → 312 

Skills

• Fixed Alastar the White Lion’s skill ‘Ancestral Axes’ not applying the melee defence bonus.

Units

• Increased Chaos Lord, Exalted Hero, Chaos Sorcerer Lord and Chaos Sorcerer mass from 600 → 1,000
• Fixed an issue with The Knights of the Brazen Throne Regiment of Renown not receiving buffs intended for Skullcrusher units. 

Skills

• Removed Bloodcrushers from Hammer into Anvil skill as they are daemons.
• Character skill effects that gave authority to Khorne Exalted Heroes now grants corruption instead, as they are used by the Daemon factions, which don’t use authority.

Technology

RENEGOTIATE BARGAINS

• Armour Piercing Missile Damage (for Soul Grinders of Khorne): +3 → +9
• Ammunition (for Soul Grinders of Khorne): +15% → 20%

General Updates

• Added unit caps to single entities that were missing them.
• Fix Ice Court’s second training slot sometimes not showing as available even when it should.
• Fixed Motherland buttons remaining greyed out if the panel was open while an army was in transit, even after the army had finished moving.

Campaign

• Fixed an issue where Kislev could recruit units after capturing a settlement, despite missing the required military building.
• Devotion can now go into the negative, meaning low levels of Devotion start from 0.
• In order to allow Kislev to take the fight to Chaos, we’ve added a new commandment for them which is only available within the Chaos Wastes. This negates the effects of the uninhabitable climate, but will cost Devotion each turn that it’s active.
• The Devotion Cost to construct buildings have been removed.

Battles

• Player-controlled units will no longer begin Katarin’s The Crystal Cloak battle in skirmish mode.

Units

• Added unit caps to Kislev chariots that were previously missing them.

ICE GUARD (GLAIVES)

• Recruitment Cost: 1,200 → 1,100
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,150 → 1,100
• Upkeep: 300 → 275

ICE GUARD (SWORDS)

• Recruitment Cost: 1,100 → 1,000
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,100 → 1,000
• Upkeep: 275 → 250

ARMOURED KOSSARS

• Multiplayer Cost: 650 → 700

ARMOURED KOSSARS (GREAT WEAPONS)

• Multiplayer Cost: 700 → 750

Technology

• Ice Guard are now properly affected by Siege Mentality.

Campaign

• Fixed Nakai’s unit recruitment permissions.
• Fixed an issue where the marker for Lord Mazdamundi’s quest battle for the Cobra Mace of Mazdamundi could not be interacted with, only teleported to.
• Fixed Kroq-Gar not showing the Scar-Veteran unit on the correct building level.
• Eating captives now replenishes single entity units for the Lizardmen.
• Oxyotl can now construct Silent Sanctums in Chaos Dwarf-owned settlements, as intended.
• Oxyotl’s Visions of the Old Ones now correctly teleports him to a region that was razed.

Battles

• Adding the missing Doombull character to allow players to complete the first objective in Oxyotl’s final battle.

Units

• Added the Aquatic trait to the Feral Troglodon, Pale Death, and Skink Oracle.

Skills

• Removed units incorrectly listed under the Lizardmen Epicentrist skill.

Technology

•  Added Razordon Packs to several Lizardmen technologies they were missing from.

Items

• The Prize Hunter ancillary now correctly applies its benefits to Dread Saurian and Troglodon units.

General Updates

• Norsca can once again enslave forces they defeat to gain replenishment post battle.
• Added six new technologies for Norsca that target Wood Elves, Chaos Dwarfs and Ogre Kingdoms.

Campaign

• Throgg’s army is now immune to all attrition types. 

Units

• Azrik (Lord of Change) now has the Daemonic trait. 

Skills

• Fixed a bug where Barons of the Bog (Pox Riders of Nurgle) weren’t being granted buffs by the Cankerous Spread skill.
• Character skill affects that gave authority to Nurgle Exalted Heroes now grants corruption instead, as they are used by the Daemon factions, which don’t use authority. 

Units

GORGERS

• Recruitment Cost: 1,100 → 1,000
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,100 → 1,000
• Upkeep: 275 → 250

GNOBLAR TRAPPERS

• Multiplayer Cost: 400 → 450
• Bonus vs Infantry: 5 → 0

BOGLARS OF THE MAD MARSHES (GNOBLARS)

• Multiplayer Cost: 550 → 600
• Bonus vs Infantry: 5 → 0

SKY-STRIDERS

• Recruitment Cost: 2,100 → 2,300
• Multiplayer Cost: 2,100→ 2,300
• Upkeep: 525 → 575

Abilities

• Gnoblar Traps now trigger correctly in battle. 

Units

STORMVERMIN (SWORD & SHIELD)

• Recruitment Cost: 1,050 → 950
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,050 → 950
• Upkeep: 263 → 238

WARP LIGHTNING CANNONS

• Calibration Distance: 275 → 350
• Recruitment Cost: 1,000 → 950
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,000 → 950
• Upkeep: 250 → 238 

Campaign

• Fixed a bug where Slaanesh Disciple Armies could recruit Regiments of Renown.

Traits

• The trait Intoxicating Presence now works on embedded Heroes.

Campaign

• Fixed a duplicated Gotrek and Felix effect in the Empire building tree.
• Fixed an issue where returning settlements to Electors in Ostland would not increase fealty.

Units

• Gotrek and Felix can now get their ancillaries in Campaign.
• Amethyst Wizards are no longer missing the Sigmar’s Ward skill.

STEAM TANK

• Recruitment Cost: 2,200 → 1,900
• Multiplayer Cost: 2,100 → 1,900
• Upkeep: 550 → 475

General Updates

• Fixed the Lost Tombs Landmark building not applying the Perfect Vigour attribute to Ushabti units.

Units

SKELETON SPEARMEN, KING NEKHESH’S SCORPION LEGION (SKELETON SPEARMEN), SKELETON WARRIORS, SKELETON ARCHERS, BLESSED LEGION OF PHAKTH (SKELETON ARCHERS)

• Capture Power Infantry → Expendable Infantry (lower power).

Technology

• Fixed the Underworld Gate technology mistakenly impacting War Sphinxes instead of Necro Sphinxes. 

General Updates

• When changing the Winds of Magic strength level, the effects that become active or inactive (from buildings) will now show. We’ve also made it clearer how many times the strength level can be changed during your turn.

Changing of the Ways

• Halt Faction has been changed to Halt Army – now it targets a single army.
• Force Rebellion now also damages the walls of the settlement – hopefully giving the rebellion an easier time when attacking the settlement.
• Show Faction Intentions has been replaced by Borrow Time for Kairos Fateweaver (this action replenishes an army’s movement range) and Spread Corruption for The Changeling and Vilitch (targeting an army owned by them will spread corruption from it to the local province).
• Give War Co-ordination Target has been replaced by Force Peace – this action forces peace between two factions that are at war.

Unholy Manifestations (Tzeentch)

SCRIVERNERS OF INSANITY

• Completion Time: 2 turns
• Grimoires: 125 per turn.
• Winds of Magic Power Reserve: -7 per turn
• No longer stops your target force from moving.
• Upon Completion: +20% Grimoires gained post-battle (5 turns).
• Mutagenic Energies Attrition Duration: 1 → 5
• Magic Flare also grants +20% Ammunition
• Magic Flare (Ascendant Upgraded): +30% Ammunition 

Campaign

• Changing of the Ways actions can now target armies when they are at sea.
• Swapped the positions of the Scrolls of Destiny and the Reckoning of Transmogrification in Kairos’ skill tree.
• Increased the Grimoire gain via surplus Winds of Magic with the Library chain building from 2/4/6 → 3/5/7.

Units

• Fixed Chosen of Tzeentch not correctly receiving buffs from Tzeentch lords Rank 7 red line skills. 

Technology

• Mark of Tzeentch Marauder Horsemen are now properly effected by the Gift of Mutation. 

Campaign

• Fixed an issue where additional loot would not always generate when entering encounters at sea as Aranessa Saltspite with the Your Worst Nightmare skill.

Units

• Added the Lance Formation ability to the Damned Knights Errant.

MOURNGHULS

• Recruitment Cost: 1,000 → 950
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,000 → 950
• Upkeep: 250 → 238

NECROFEX COLLOSSUS

• Recruitment Cost: 1,900 → 1,800
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,900 → 1,800
• Upkeep: 475 → 450

ZOMBIE PIRATE GUNNERY MOB (HANDGUNS) AND THE BLACK SPOT (ZOMBIE PIRATE GUNNERY MOB – HANDGUNS)

• Missile Base Damage: 6 → 8
• Missile Armour Piercing Damage: 17 → 20

DECK GUNNERS AND SHADEWRAITH GUNNERS (DECK GUNNERS)

• Number of entities: 32 → 36

Skills

• Fixed Queen Bess not being affected by the Vampire Coast Ensorcelled Weapons skill.
• Count Noctilus now has a skill for the passive ability The Hunger in campaign. 

Campaign

• Sylvania can now confederate with Templehof.
• Isabella no longer loses immortality when confederated.

Battles

• Fixed Mannfed’s Sword of Unholy Power quest battle objectives not counting correctly. The battle should now be completable by defeating each Shaman target.  
• Fixed an error that could occur during Isabella’s Blood Chalice of Bathori quest battle, preventing proper AI behaviour for the starting enemy army. 

Units

• Fixed some effects that were applying to Mourngul units that the text did not specify were included.

Abilities

•  Abilities that require their target not be on or below a platform now correctly say so in the tooltip.

Technology

• The Soulbinder technology now correctly applies to Mournghuls.

General Updates

• Fixed Champions of Chaos Legendary Lords being unable to upgrade Daemons to Exalted Daemons.
• Removed access to the Landmarks at Shiyama’s Rest and Chamber of Visions for Warriors of Chaos as they were Tier 3 and thus could not be built.
• Events will now appear for when Vilitch uses Changing of the Ways actions, and when factions are on the receiving end of them.

Campaign

• Fixed being unable to upgrade unmarked units to their marked versions in the Warbands Upgrades panel.
• Sigvald’s army abilities (unlocked via his skill tree) will now function correctly when confederated by other Warriors of Chaos characters.
• Updated Archaon the Everchosen’s victory conditions. Now, he must destroy Boris Ursun for his Short victory, and bring ruin to The Empire factions for his long victory. The requirement for Dark Fortresses has been reduced from 13 to 9.

Battles

• Fixing an issue in the Vessel of Chaos quest battle where reinforcement armies would spawn at incorrect locations. 

Units

• Swapped Harald Hammerstorm’s Indomitable skill for Soothsaying, as he was already Unbreakable!
• Fixed Azazel’s defeat trait not increasing weapon strength for embedded characters correctly.
• Updated the list of units that grant Boons to Harald Hammerstorm to include quest battle Lords.

HELLCANNON & THE SOUL OF DAMNATION (HELLCANNON)

• Calibration distance: 300 → 350
• Calibration area: 18 → 12

Skills

• Fixed an issue with certain Warriors of Chaos units not being affected by the Hammer and Anvil character skill.

Technology

• Ritual Staff no longer applies to Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons), as intended.  

Campaign

• Ariel will now spawn correctly with magic items and the event will display correctly. She also won’t spawn for the AI factions before the player can get her.
• Fixed Ariel spawning for the AI when there were human, non-Drycha Wood Elves.
• The Dreaming Wood event now gives Slaanesh Corruption instead of Undivided Corruption, to better match its theming. 

Units

• Drycha’s Glamoured effect now reduces Melee Defence instead of Reload skill.

WILD RIDERS

• Multiplayer Cost: 1,100 → 1,050

WILD RIDERS (SHIELDED)

• Multiplayer Cost: 1,200 → 1,150

SISTERS OF THE THORN 

• Entities: 48 → 60
  

GLADE RIDERS

• Recruitment Cost: 700 → 600
• Multiplayer Cost: 700 → 600
• Upkeep: 175 → 150

GLADE RIDERS (HAGBANE TIPS)

• Recruitment Cost: 825 → 700
• Multiplayer Cost: 825 → 700
• Upkeep: 206 → 175

WARDANCERS (ASRAI SPEARS)

• Recruitment Cost: 950 → 850
• Multiplayer Cost: 950 → 850
• Upkeep: 238 → 212

LOEC’S TRICKSTERS (WARDANCERS – ASRAI SPEARS)

• Recruitment Cost: 1,300 → 1,150
• Multiplayer Cost: 1,300 → 1,150
• Upkeep: 325 → 288

WAYWATCHERS & RoR

• Missile Base Damage: 6 → 10 

Skills

• Feral Bears now appear in the tooltip for Drycha’s Dark Heart skill. Previously, they were affected but did not show up in the tooltip.

Technology

• The Wood Elf technology, Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God, no longer shows multiple of the same mounted Lords and Heroes in its tooltip.
• Added Ancient Treemen variants to the Wisdom of the Ancients technology for Wood Elves.
• Updating the Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God technology for Wood Elves to include Glade Captains.

Prologue (The Lost God)

• Removed the Info button from the War Declared panel, since there was no info to show and it would sometimes softlock the game when pressed.

The Realm of Chaos

• Skipping the Realm of Chaos intro movie will no longer cause a black screen, which couldn’t be bypassed without restarting the game.

Immortal Empires

In the Jade River Delta province in Immortal Empires, Fu-Chow is now the province capital and Beichai has become a minor settlement. Fu-Chow has also gained a new Landmark port building to highlight its significance!

The Kislev area in Immortal Empires has been reworked as follows:

• Each province’s capital is now a major settlement (Troll Country: Fort Ostrosk, Eastern Oblast: Volksgrad, Southern Oblast: Fort Jakova).
• Each province now has four settlements.
• Eastern Oblast has a new settlement added: Plesk.
• Southern Oblast has a new settlement added: Igerov.
• The Troll Country and Western Oblast provinces have been merged, leaving Troll Country with four settlements rather than two provinces with two settlements each.
• Katarin and Kostaltyn now also start with Zavastra and Castle Alexandronov (as well as Kislev and Erengrad), respectively, under their control.

A new settlement has been added to north-west Lustria (Isle of the Crimson Skull) as part of the Aymara Swamps province. This is Yuan Bo, the Jade Dragon’s starting position.

• We have added new minor settlement map, Herdstone – Beastmen:

• We have added new domination map, Spawning Pools – Lizardmen:

• We have added new maps for the Chaos Wastes Mountains areas:

General Updates

• Updated reinforcement zones in the Lustria Lake battle maps.
• Updated the hard collision areas on the Lustria Hills battle maps
• Fixed an issue where abilities that would require line-of-sight couldn’t fire from siege walls to units outside of it.

Chokepoint Battles

• Fixed the vanguard deployment zones for the Finuval Flood Ulhuan Chokepoint battle.

Domination Battles

• Fixing vanguard deployment zone exploit in the Crossing the Sea of Claws Domination battle map.
• Updated the deployment zones on the Silver Spire domination battle to prevent units from vanguard deploying beyond their intended zones.
• Units with both Frenzy and Unbreakable will no longer lose Frenzy when summoned as reinforcements in Domination.

Land Battles

• Fixed units going underwater in the Obsidian Path – Plains of Zhaar map. 

Mirror of Madness

• Updating the army ability upgrades in the Mirrors of Madness Trial modes to have consistent initial recharge times on upgrades.

Minor Settlement Battles

• Updated the placement of a tower on Har Kaldra to include a base building to prevent melee units from attacking it.
• Updating the fort logic to help AI pathing in the Altar of the Horned Rats settlement battle.
• Fixed broken gatehouse and tower connections to capture points in the Khemri settlement battle.
• Fixed an issue with units not docking correctly and thus being unable to fire on the L’Anguille battle map.
• Fixed an issue on Quenelles where the camera would sink underwater. 
• Updated reinforcement locations on the Zoishenk settlement map.

Major Settlement Battles

• Updated wall tower logic for the Zharr Naggrund major settlement map to correctly allow the towers to fire.
• Fixed an issue with assets impacting the deployment zone on Zhufbar. 
• Fixed the reinforcement positions on Zharr-Naggrund to prevent the attackers from deploying within the settlement.
• Updated the reinforcement zones to prevent attacking reinforcements from deploying within the defenders area in the Altdorf and Dragon Fang Mountain settlement battles.
• Updated capture point flags to the correct height in the Parravon settlement map.
• Updated the pathing areas in the Parravon settlement map to fix broken pathing.
• Updated the collision mesh on the Statue of Khaine to prevent units from being able to shoot through it in the Ancient City of Quintex settlement map.
• Updated the placement of some buildings and props in the Ancient City of Quintex settlement map.
• Ancestral Warriors can no longer be spawned within city walls from the outside.

Survival Battles

• Added battle difficulty settings options to Survival battles.

General

• Fixed an issue where the Ready button was clickable when overspending in either the main or the reinforcement army, as long as the total was less than the sum of both.
• Fixed the Chaos factions not being at war with the Kislev factions in the Something Rotten in Kislev multiplayer campaign.
• Fix Initiate Diplomacy button in multiplayer campaigns remaining greyed out even after another player’s pending action has finished.
• Players in different teams can no longer see each other’s pings.
• Quest battles completed in multiplayer campaigns will now show a green tick in the quest menu. Note: will only work for newly completed multiplayer quest battles, not for old ones.
• When gifting a transforming unit in a multiplayer battle, both players are no longer able to simultaneously control the unit after transforming it. 
• Fixed certain difficulty settings not functioning in multiplayer battles. 
• Co-op Victory Conditions now accounts for Sacking as well.
• The intro movies and cutscenes, along with narrative missions, will now trigger in multiplayer Realm of Chaos campaign games.
• In Multiplayer Battles mode, we’ve added a way to enable or disable splitting player funds based on the number of slots in a team. This defaults to enabled (previous behaviour before this change) and only affects non-custom set funds.
• The host will now regain control of gifted units when a player with gifted units abruptly leaves a battle.

Lore of Light

The Lore of Light has been completely visually overhauled, with every spell in the lore receiving new visual effects and audio treatments.

Lore of Beasts

The Lore of Beasts has been completely visually overhauled, with every spell in the lore receiving new visual effects and audio treatments.

Graphics

• Gave the Bray Shaman his head back.
• Edited terrain height and enabled select assets to be visible in the shroud.
• Removed incorrect placement of foliage.
• The Empire Captain’s limbs now fly off as intended. 
• Fixed missing loot animations from the post battle screen.
• Fixed some floating vegetation and asset clipping in Lustriabowl. 
• Fixed texture issues across the Minotaur units.
• Corrected missing waterfall VFX.
• Fixed texture issues on Feral Bears.
• Removed a lava prefab as it was placed on a border resulting in visible creep discrepancies.
• Peasant Bowmen now hold their bows correctly.
• Huntsmen and Deathjacks now hold their bows correctly.
• Fixed an issue where Katarin wasn’t holding her staff correctly.
• Fixed the materials on the Dark Elf Kharibdyss unit.
• Fixed The River Troll Hags texture materials.
• Fixed missing emissive effects on High Elf Shadow Walkers.
• Fixed Repanse’s missing mount textures. 
• Added the correct swords to the Free Company Militia units.
• Skull heads and accessories now use their correct textures. 
• Beastslayers of Bastonne have been given their weapons back.
• Updated Faction Banners for Norsca.
• Removed floating rock assets from campaign prefab.
• Fixed an issue with Sisters of the Thorn where the rider would float above the mount during run and charge animations. 
• Fixed an issue where Phoenix guards would hold their weapon in an awkward pose during run animations. 
• Removed broken bridge prop from the Karak Raziak prefab as it would become visible in the shroud separately from the rest of the prefab.
• Certain Bretonnian Peasants have had their legs returned. 
• Fixed clipping issues during various idle animations.
• Greenskin Giants necklaces no longer stretch. 
• Witch Hunters no longer have a weird hole in the backs of their heads. Which we should imagine they’re very pleased about. We would be.
• Fixed various flicking textures on the Siege of Dervinguard.
• Malus Darkblade no longer applies some cheeky hair dye when the camera is zoomed out.
• Corrected Rakarth’s whip model. 
• Fixed texture issues on Harald Hammerstorm.
• Fixed incorrect Bretonnian Hippogryph textures. 
• Fixed weapon position issues on Tzar Guard.
• Thorek Ironbrow is no longer doing his best impression of a tent in the Chaos Dwarfs final battle.
• The Grade of Quai Yin units have been given their weapons back.
• Hellcannon’s teeth no longer clip through the furnace doors. Which has got to hurt?
• The Waystalker no longer holds both their sword and bow in the same hand on the campaign map. Though those were some mad skills.
• High Elf Princess face now renders the most detailed mesh at the closest view distance.
• Fixed an issue where units would suffer some post-death jitters. 
• Closed the gap around certain character’s waists.
• Great Stag eyes now glow properly. 
• Fixed various dismembering effects. 
• Fixed various models and shaders through re-exporting. 
• Fixed clipping issues with the Great Drill of Hashut.
• Fixed issue with terrain collision on Black Ark Landing.
• Fixed units jittering upon death. Which, let’s face it, is freaky.
• Fixed flickering on various chain textures.
• Fixed an issue with Imrik’s mount so that it displays the correct faction colour on the armour for the faction he is currently in.
• Queek Headtaker will now be dismembered properly.
• Fixed some skinning issue on the White Lions of Chrace.
• Fixed rendering issues on the Cloak of Shadows quest battle map.
• Grom the Paunch no longer fills the 3D porthole with his humungous face. 
• Fixed an issue with the Dryads dismembering and displaying a missing stump.
• Fixed some instances of the camera panning to the wrong location when a quest battle mission was issued during the campaign.
• Gave Lord Kroak his porthole back.

Audio

• Optimised Dark Elf group vocalisations.
• Optimised Damned Knights group vocalisations.
• Optimised Great Stag Knights group vocalisations.
• Optimised Snotling Pump Wagons vocalisations and Group Responses, including fixing Pump Wagons occasionally doing their best High Elf impression when routing.
• Fixed the Storms of Magic UI wheel from playing audio when the game is paused. 
• Fixed a few Wood Elf Treeman Ancient diplomacy lines either playing the wrong vocalisation or not playing at all.
• Character campaign vocalisations will no longer play while a Story Panel is open.
• Fixed missing Dragon Guard vocalisations. 
• Reduced volume of Beastmen group vocalisations.
• Updated idle foley for Kislev. 
• Fixed Tomb Kings Dynasty technologies not playing their specific sounds.
• Fixed end turn sounds not always triggering in simultaneous multiplayer campaigns.
• Fixed General’s speeches not triggering for Lords with the Stalk trait until discovered by the enemy.
• Generic voiceover responses should now trigger correctly when declaring war between factions. 
• Fixed issues where units that contain entities with different audio types may only have audio data loaded for one of the types.
• Fixed some Kislev units incorrectly playing flame sword sounds.
• Fixed some missing vocalisations for Harald Hammerstorm in battles.
• Fixed missing pre-battle banner sounds. 
• Fixed many units playing incorrect group impacts and collisions sounds.
• Fixed the Chaos Dwarfs victory event movie missing some sounds.
• Reduced the volume of some Chaos Marauder and Warrior group vocalisations.
• Tweaked the volume of weather and rain effects to make them consistent across regions. 
• Port settlements no longer play two instances of their respective factions’ select sounds.
• Story panels now mute any sounds playing from characters or creatures on the Campaign Map while they are open.
• Ulrika now talks to Gotrek and Felix if she bumps into either of them on the campaign map.
• Fixed missing audio for Mirror of Madness. 
• Updated audio for cavalry horse movement through water.
• Improved the distribution of character types across Wood Elf faction leaders, meaning there will now be more variety in voices heard in diplomacy.
• Improved vocalisation ducking versus ambience to create a smoother release curve. And no, we have no idea what that means either. So we asked: “Improved audio transitions between vocalisations and ambient noises.” Better.
• Updated the overlapping VO in Oxyotl’s ‘Heart of the Dark’ quest battle.
• Fixed campaign pre-battle music track not triggering for multiplayer allies when they do not have an army in the battle.

UI

• Caravans and convoys will now show the value of cargo they are carrying above the army banner on the campaign map when controlled by the AI. This value will be given as loot if the army is defeated in battle.
• Updating buildings that incorrectly displayed tooltips in battle when hovered over.
• Added camp icons to Ogre camps that were missing them.
• Fixed Outpost Recruitable Units sometimes going out of bounds if a settlement provided too many units.
• Removed the Good Damage bullet point from the Crackleblaze ability. 
• Various Regiments of Renown recruitment cards now properly grey out when recruited. 
• Fixed the Ability list in a unit card from collapsing when hovering over another unit.
• Fixed missing UI panels when after successfully capturing a settlement. 
• Fixed the misalignment of UI elements in the multiplayer vote list component.
• Fixed the Multiplayer button in the main menu being slimmer than the other buttons, which made it harder to click.
• Fixed missing Lord names when exiting to the main screen from a multiplayer campaign battle.
• Updated the bullet point icon background colours. 

• Added a warning next to the UI Scale slider if the slider is set to more than the recommended size.

• Dark Elves Slaves tooltip breakdown now has expandable headers for the positive and negative factors which prevents it from going offscreen at higher UI scales.

• Fixed the Harmony effect on the unit tooltip in battle being cut off in some languages.
• Fixed some faction descriptions overlapping in certain languages in the race selection popup.
• Fixed missing textures in the UI of the selection ascendant Wind of Magic popup.
• Fixed the colour picker colours resetting every time another colour was changed.
• Removed the “affects allies in range” text for Summon Abilities that do not require it.
• Fixed the AI Control checkbox in prebattle always showing unchecked, even when AI control was enabled, for example, when saving with AI Control enabled and reloading.
• Fixed cut off accents in various effect description in various languages.
• In multiplayer campaign battles, the army panel of players who choose to join the host will now scale with the units received from gifting instead of always being as wide as the host’s full army.
• Fixed a number of abilities that were marked as active abilities when they were actually passive abilities.
• Lore of the Deep is no longer incorrectly referred to us Lore of the Deeps in some places. (Cheers, Kennyannydenny from the forums!)
• Fixed various missing unit cards which weren’t showing on tooltips they would receive effects from, and vice versa. 
• Fixed the overlap of cost and unit cap for siege equipment on the pre-battle screen. 
• Fixed the attrition bar sometimes being bigger than the health bar.
• The Race Select UI will now close when pressing ESC instead of the key making you go back to main menu.
• In the Load and Save menus, the button ‘Display All Saves’ and the text associated with it will now not display if the player has less than 25 saves on their machine.
• Fixed the Temple of Quetzl and Temple of Itzl building icons being the wrong way round.
• All help text relating to Yin and Yang changes has now been updated to reflect new functionality.
• Daemon Cults and Under-cities income buildings will not show incorrect prediction bonuses from the region owner anymore.
• Fixed missing effects that contain DLC-locked heroes even if the effect also affects other non-DLC heroes.
• Updated a variety of images used on loading screen hints.
• Fixed the cut-off “he Haunted Forest” province name on the Parchment map in English.
• Added income preview in settlements with Cults, Pirate Coves and Under-Empires, which can be seen on the province info panel and on the settlement 3D bar.
• Fixed the Daemon Prince icon in the Character Details Panel.
• Frontend Lords now show a preview of all units in their army instead of showing only distinct ones.
• Fixed the Devotion resource icon on the top resource bar shifting higher than it should, which could result in it going offscreen.
• Fixed the War Coordination button being active during the end turn phase.
• Added the Yin icon to the Yin bullet point.
• Disc of Tzeentch’s porthole camera is now centred.
• Fixed the Spellweaver unit’s Elven Steed mount being labelled as a Barded Ithilmar Steed mount in custom battles.
• Chaos units’ porthole cameras will now be centred.
• Added an icon to the settlement captured panel to show if the settlement already contains a Daemon Cult, Skaven Under-City or Vampire Coast Pirate Cove, so that it’s more obvious as to why another of those cannot be established in that settlement.
• Fixed some Slaanesh event pictures using generic Daemons of Chaos when they had unique Slaanesh ones available.
• Fixed an issue where tooltips were displaying the generic WAAAGH! ability for Greenskin Legendary Lords on the Lord select screen, instead of their unique WAAAGH! ability. 
• Re-added character traits to the Technology tooltip. This will now show as an extra entry below the effects of the Technology, which can then be hovered over to inspect the effects of the trait. 
• Fixed the event pictures not animating on the Elector Counts dilemma panels.
• Fixed the Landmark building icon showing for certain Wood Elf ports when they weren’t actually Landmarks.
• Fixed various Landmark building previews either missing or showing incorrect titles, descriptions or effects.
• Changed the ‘Silver Road’ and ‘Dragon Isles’ provinces to have ‘The’ prefix in Realm of Chaos to match the Immortal Empires map.
• Fixed an issue with Queen Bess not being shown on certain character skills for Vampire Coast.
• Fixed further community raised issues with technology inconsistencies. 
• Updated the Bull Centaur Taur-ruk unit card. 
• Fixed the army ability ‘Blood and Fireborn’ being labelled as a Lord ability rather than an army ability.
• Added a visual range indicator to the Diabolical Puppetry ability in the Mirror of Madness Trial battle modes.
• Fixed Lore Icons in the recruitment panel sometimes showing misaligned.
• Fixed a missing Lore of Vampires button icon for the Vampire Coast. 
• Fixed the Shadowy Dealings completion animation showing a missing placeholder image.
• Fixed Zharr-Naggrund (which now always features a dash in its name) not displaying the Obsidian resource icon next to the settlement’s label in campaign.
• Fixed development points not displaying text saying they’re at the maximum capacity. 
• Fixed development point for Hordes, Black Arks, Ships and Kindreds not displaying in the building browser and also showing the province tooltip instead of their own custom tooltip.
• Fixed bleeding text in the UI for the Forbidden Workshop in Spanish.
• Updated various skill icons to the correct image.
• Fixed an issue where Lord ‘type’ buttons would remain on the Black Ark recruitment panel after opening the panel from the Recruit Lord panel.  
• Unassigned skill points will not show anymore if the character doesn’t have more skills to assign to. This includes not showing them in end turn notifications.
• Fixed some very long character types not fitting inside the Recruit Lord or Hero panels.
• Changed the tooltip for ‘Roused to Wrath’ to state that Malevolent Dryads (not Dryads) will be summoned.
• Fixed certain UI buttons remaining selected after their corresponding panel was closed.
• Dark Elf Legendary Lords will no longer display two pins on the front end map if they start the campaign with a Black Ark.
• Fixed Landmark building previews displaying text about not being able to construct the building.

We’ve released a small patch to address a few problems that have arisen in the wake of Update 4.0:

• Fixed a crash when the Scheme to sack the gates in Ulthuan was completed simultaneously alongside the abandonment of a settlement in Ulthuan.
• Fixed the unlocking of Trickster Rift technologies being exclusively stuck behind the Sylvanian Rift Scheme. 
• Fixed an issue where the quest to unlock the Blue Scribes would fail to generate if the player wasn’t at war.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the ongoing performance of Patch 4.0 and this Hotfix over the coming days. Please do reach out to us using the links found at the top of this blog to let us know how you’re getting on with it. 

We’ve released an additional small patch to address further problems that have arisen in the wake of Update 4.0.

The fixes are as follows:

• Fixed the Miao Ying and Zhao Ming’s quest items mistakenly being tied to the Shadows of Change DLC.
• Fixed Deff Gorge (Skarbrand’s starting settlement) not allowing certain buildings to be constructed in it.
• Updated AI fort logic in the Beastmen Herdstone minor settlement map to improve their functionality map-wide.
• Changed Kairos’ Blue Line skill “All Intents & Purposes” from a -100% cost for “Reveal Intentions” to a -33% cost for “Track Army” and “Reveal Shroud.”
• Fixed a catchment issue that was causing a Chaos Mountains battle to be misaligned.
• Breaking treaties with vassals to create new vassals will now break correctly and impact your reliability rating.
• Fixed an issue where ancillaries could not be unequipped with a left click.
• Fixed the Beastmen being able to increase unit caps of DLC-locked units without owning the respective DLCs.
• Fixed an issue where the Changing of The Ways feature would not allow you to force peace between the player faction and another faction.
• Malagor has been politely asked to return the Bray Scream and Devolve spells in favour of his original starting spells.
• Fixed multiple issues of units clipping under the terrain in the Battle at the Thundering Falls battle map

Please do keep talking to us about how the game is holding up post-patch, and your ongoing Update 4.0 experiences.

And there you have it!

“‘Ang on there, gov’nor,” you might be saying, especially if you’re a ravishing cockney lady or gent. “Why have we got the Patch Notes today if the patch itself ain’t out ’til tomorra?” To which our reply would likely be “well spotted!”, with a tip of the hat.

We’re aiming to bring you the Patch Notes a day ahead of the release of every update from now on, as it’s something that lots of you have asked for. And it makes sense, because it’s nice to know what’s coming before it’s depositing itself on your hard drive.

Update 4.1 is already cooking nicely and we’ll have plenty to show you when that rolls around in due course. In the meantime, prepare to jump into Update 4.0, play around with the new difficulty settings and AI behaviours, earn some achievements and cause a great deal of mischief in Shadows of Change.

From everyone on the Total War team, thank you for all your support – not only in the build-up to this release, but over the many years we’ve been on this journey together. We know it can be a rocky road sometimes, but it’s having you with us that makes it all worthwhile. 

As the throne we write this from starts to feel mighty rickety… decayed, perhaps… we’ll wrap things up and see you on the battlefield!

— The Total War Team

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