Settra the Imperishable, King of Kings, wakes up to find his house has been trashed. His once mighty kingdom is lost to the metaphorical sands of time, and the less metaphorical sands of the Nehekharan desert have all but buried any trace of his legacy. To top it off, all manner of enemies now inhabit the ancestral lands of the Tomb Kings.
Oh, and he's dead.
Quite understandably, the guy is a little miffed. With one city to his name and enemy troops numbering into the tens of thousands, it's going to take a lot of time to restore the glory of the Tomb Kings. Luckily for them, time is the one thing he has plenty of.
If you haven't played a Total War game, you're missing out. The franchise mixes commanding huge armies in real-time strategy with more traditional turn-based faction management, with the basic premise being to conquer and negotiate your way to victory. While most Total War games have historical settings, the Warhammer games go all-in on the fantasy elements available.
As if to prove this, I'm playing the Tomb Kings. A once great civilization based loosely on Ancient Egypt, their culture was fixated on achieving immortality through mummification, spooky magic, and ritualistic burials. In an ironic twist of fate, a powerful curse decimated the empire and returned long dead kings - with the armies buried with them - to unlife. The Tomb Kings now use a mix of skeletal infantry and constructs, deadly statues animated with sorcery, to return glory to their ancient kingdom and find a cure to their quite frankly rubbish immortality.
Enter Settra. The greatest of the Tomb Kings past and present, with an infamously gigantic ego to match. When you step into his sandy shoes, you have a small settlement and smaller army to your name. His position isn't great, either. The other city in your starting province is held by a vampire and his retinue, while to the north are a sizeable number of Greenskins. Further east is the landing point for a particularly zealous bunch of Brettonians, who've picked your charming neck of the woods to visit (see: violently crusade). While a nicer guy might welcome them with a housewarming card - maybe even a bottle of wine - a nicer guy Settra is not.
To start things off, I bulk up my army with some decidedly bony infantry - a mix of sword and spear wielding skeletons. They're pretty weak, but they cost nothing to recruit and will serve for early battles. With my new friends it's time to attack, and the first target is the nearby city of Zandri. Infested with vampires, this desert isn't big enough for two undead factions. While I have a numbers advantage, it's Settra's own combat prowess that decides the battle. Did it have anything to do with the Warsphinx pictured below? No. And even if it did, Settra's never going to admit that. I decide that the giant loping statue looks kind of like a dog, and that it's nothing more than Settra's cuddly little household pet. In my head, he calls it Lassie.
With the province secure and the vampires evicted, the next decision is to move against either the Brettonians or the Greenskins. While the knight-held lands to the east are closer and more valuable, the occupants are also much better equipped and altogether more dangerous. I bravely decide against attacking them right now, and march against the tribe of goblins to my north. The orcs might have stronger - and more - infantry than me, but they're poorly armoured and have low leadership. This means that after a few rounds with Lassie and Settra, Greenskin armies are likely to cut and run. I wipe out the nearest armies and sweep through the undefended region. The tribe makes a final stand in a walled city, and it takes two bloody skirmishes to finish them there. During the final battle I witness Settra impale a towering orc through the throat, lift the body above his head, and throw it aside. While it might've been a tad overkill, it went a long way in reinforcing his badass - and kinda scary - image.
When the last of the Greenskin tribe falls, I conveniently receive the first mission for Settra's main quest. Grave robbers from Norsca - quite literally the opposite end of the world - have taken his crown while he slept. Settra's totally fine with it, and handling it well.
...
Cut to the snowy forest thousands of miles away, where Settra has sailed countless legions of undead after building a fleet from scratch. To get his hat back.
The battle begins with a line of sight on a small band of Norscan warriors, grave-robbing lord in tow, at the opposite end of the battlefield. They're holed up at the back of a large forest, and don't appear to be moving. I move my troops through a wide clearing leading up to the treeline, but something doesn't feel right. The forest envelopes the clearing on either side, and advancing leaves my flanks exposed to the ominously quiet woods.
I don't get very far before the first trap is sprung. A large force of Chaos Warriors hits the left flank, while artillery starts firing from a cliff to the right. Unfortunately troops gain no bonus from my smug lack of surprise, and they mobilise quickly to try and survive the ambush. Settra and Lassie rush to defend the flank, while a unit of Ubashanti and flock of carrion birds are sent to deal with the artillery that's making short work of my army.
The bond between man and Khemrian Warsphinx is a tale as old as time, and eventually the duo turn the fighting in their favour. Meanwhile, the artillery crews have been butchered - but by the time the cannons fall silent, much of my army lies dead...again? After chasing the last remnants of the attack into the woods, I regroup and continue marching.
From the treeline straight ahead, there's another attack. Scores of Chaos Knights, some of the best cavalry in the game, charge into my weakened frontline and do some major damage. My army is ill-equipped to deal with cavalry, and entire units of infantry begin to crumble. I order my archers to target the largest massing of knights, and soon hundreds of arrows fill the air. The cavalry are too heavily armoured to go down instantly, but the constant peppering of fire begins to whittle them down. The fighting is fierce and I lose a huge chunk of my forces, but the cavalry eventually routs and my forces finally enter the treeline. Backed by the surviving troops and with Lassie at his side, Settra quickly finds the remaining band of Chaos and wastes no time in charging them.
Just when things are looking up, there's more movement to the left. Units of Chaos Trolls are bowling towards me, and a club-wielding giant lumbers behind them. For the first time in this campaign, there's a genuine fear of losing. None of my units are in fighting condition, and Settra himself is still busy battling the enemy lord to get his crown back.
The last of my infantry bunches up to desperately try and fight off the horde of armoured trolls bearing down on them, while Lassie runs headlong at the giant. Good girl. I send a whip-wielding Necrotect (a glorified builder) and a Tomb Prince after her to defend her while she takes on the giant, but the red crossed swords on my interface shows me that they're both quickly losing ground. Soldiers are disintegrating by the second, and there's less than a fifth of the original army left fighting.
As usual, it's good old Settra the Imperishable that saves the day. While the lord of Chaos is a difficult fight, he wavers and decides to flee. I'm not sure where he was planning on running - seeing as he's already been chased across the world by the same angry skeleton that's right behind him - but either way, he doesn't get far. Settra gets close enough behind him to thrust his halberd forwards, and quickly plants it through an exposed back.
With the enemy general dead, things turn quickly. Settra is able to pivot back to what's left of the frontline, and with his anti-large bonus he starts to make short work of the trolls. It's not long before the entirety of Chaos is running, and victory is secured.
With almost no army left, Settra stands almost alone. But not quite. First of all, he has his precious crown back. Secondly, Lassie - a (skeleton) man's best friend survived, as did the Necrotect and Tomb Prince. Thirdly, he has his fucking crown back. All in all, it's yet another win for Settra the Imperishable.
To the east looms the crusade, and it still needs to be dealt with. Eventually. But for now, Settra has his friends, his hat, and the beginnings of a kingdom. And maybe, just *maybe*, that's all you need.
Probably not, though.
