As an old Eldar player, I keep seeing the same comment under every Total War: Warhammer 40,000 clip: this is going to be the big Dawn of War 4 killer. It is not.
Not a Dawn of War killer
Total War is not a game about building bases. No workers scurrying around, nothing you construct live on the battlefield. If you want a stretch of a comparison, Total War is the in-depth combat and tactics half of the 40k universe, while Dawn of War is about building up a presence. You line up your troops, you rethink your plan every few seconds, you start sweating when the enemy breaks through, and then you flank them and somehow pull off a win anyway. Different flavour, not a competitor.
What the livestream actually showed
Creative Assembly ran their first livestream, billed as Ranged Combat, and honestly it looked sexy. My one gripe: they called it ranged combat, then picked Astra Militarum against Orks, and Orks do exactly one thing, they run at you. So the ranged showcase spent a good chunk of its time as a melee grinder. It went in a slightly different direction than planned. It is fine.
Under the hood there is a new engine, Warcore, built so the classic ranks and files formula survives contact with automatic weapons and orbital strikes. And it looked glorious. Bodies get hit and fly off. Airstrikes tear deep craters that then double as cover. Every unit has detailed animations, even if some still need work. Hey, it is an early development build. So what. Tanks strafe across the line, and the background gives the whole environment real depth. It feels enormous. Proper 40k atmosphere.
The part that made me humble
Here is where I got humble. I have not played a Total War game seriously since Medieval. Little Denmark taking over all of Europe, those were the days. Back then a unit was basically one big blob with one health bar that either faced the enemy or did not.
This one is a different animal. Every single model tracks line of sight. The game checks, per soldier, who is standing in front and whether your back rows can even see a target to shoot at. Flanking gives you a real hit bonus, and a morale system sits on top of all of it. Watching that resolve in real time, I could already hear my CPU screaming in fear.
Squishy guardsmen and rough edges
I felt a bit sorry for the guardsmen and how squishy they were against the Orks. Not a bug. The Astra Militarum is the Imperium's endless supply of expendable men.
And yes, you can tell it is an early build. The close up firing animations and the way the guardsmen move looked rough and stiff. But that is exactly the kind of thing they will be polishing in the last months before release. The lasguns not being red bugged me a little too. The lore does allow the colour to vary, sure, but pure white just feels slightly boring.
Too early to judge, but the bones are good
It is too early to call this a great game. This was early footage. But Total War has a decent record of shipping decent games, and from what I have seen, this could end up epic.
Four factions at launch: Space Marines, Astra Militarum, Orks, and my beloved Aeldari. Everyone else will probably join us later as DLC. There is no release date yet, not even a real window I would trust, and Creative Assembly is keeping the details behind closed doors. A closed beta is coming, and sign ups are already open on the official Total War site.
Between this, Dawn of War 4, and a few non Warhammer games, 2026 and 2027 are shaping up to be very good years for everyone who likes strategy and tactics games. We have been in a drought for a while. It is nice to have a queue again. I am hoping to get my hands on more of this at Gamescom. If I do, you will hear about it.
A question for the comments
Back in my day, in my local Games Workshop, you were not allowed to say you killed a unit. Ever. You defeated it. You removed it. If the word killed left your mouth, you were politely invited to leave the store. I always assumed that was a German thing. Very us. Rules about the rules.
So tell me. Was your Games Workshop like that too, or did I just grow up in the one run by the Commissariat?
From an old Eldar player.