There's some big stompy dinosaurs coming to Total War: Warhammer 2 in its next bit of Legendary Lords DLC, but I'm more excited for the free updates coming alongside it on September 11th. In a development blog post yesterday, Creative Assembly broke down one of the free new features coming to the game, assuming you own both Total War: Warhammer games.

Forts are a new type of settlement that will exclusively appear in the Mortal Empires sandbox mode, adding a major new strategic wrinkle to the game. Instead of either fighting out on the plains or at the gates of cities, forts provide a huge defensive advantage at key choke-points on the world map, like narrow mountain passes.

In the dev-blog, we get to see the process of designing and decorating the fortress-town of Helmgart, located on the Imperial border to Bretonnia. If you're playing as the Empire, those layered walls are a huge advantage against any massed cavalry advance, and are just ripe to be covered with riflemen and artillery. For any attacker, it's a literal uphill struggle through walls of lead and will likely need a truly overwhelming force in order to break through.

Helmgart is just one of several Imperial fort maps that will be popping up around the Old World, although it sounds like most will be at the Empire's borders. The dev blog claims that each of these new battlefields takes three weeks of work to produce, and they want each to provide unique strategic challenges beyond the initial storming of the gates.

For those who are picking up the new Hunter & The Beast DLC, another recent developer blog detailed all the new features on the way there, including several new campaign mechanics, as neither Markus Wulfhart and Nakai (the two new Legendary Lords) are competing for the Eye Of The Vortex, and have their own unique victory conditions that directly oppose each other.

The Hunter & The Beast DLC arrives for Total War: Warhammer 2 on September 11th, priced at £6.99/$8.99/€8.99. You can find it here on Steam. The Old World updates (including forts) for Mortal Empires mode will be free for anyone who owns both Total War: Warhammer 2 and the original game.

When it comes to Total War, and especially Warhammer games, bigger is always better. It's good news, then, that The Hunter & The Beast DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2 is upping the ante on September 11th with the game's biggest and most absolute unit yet; the Dread Saurian, which you can see in the trailer below.

While not quite as tall as some of the bigger monsters in the game, the Dread Saurian easily fills up the most real estate of any creature, and should hopefully be capable of displacing a few enemy regiments by itself. If it isn't, what's even the point of having a giant dinosaur in your army? There's a bunch of other new units coming too, including Kroxigor Ancients, Razordon Hunting Packs, War Wagons and Huntsmen.

As per the title, The Hunter & The Beast also adds a pair of new Legendary Lords to play as or tussle with. Nakai The Wanderer is a chunky crocodile-like Saurus hero, awoken from a centuries-long nap and a little cranky that the jungle is full of pesky humans. On the Imperial side there's Huntsmarshal Markus Wulfhart, who's a bit of an expansionist git, kicking over and looting Lizardman temples, which seems like as good as reason as any to get on the floor and walk the dinosaur.

Of course, this is The Creative Assembly, so there's going to be a few new perks even for players who don't buy the new DLC. There's a free (but still anonymous) Legendary Lord on the way for all, plus a "highly anticipated update for the Old World", which should be good news for anyone playing the Mortal Empires mode.

The Hunter & The Beast DLC arrives for Total War: Warhammer 2 on September 11th, priced at £6.99/$8.99/€8.99. You can find it here on Steam.