The trollslayer Gotrek Gurnisson and his poet-turned-mercenary ally Felix Jaeger are the heroes of a long-running series of Warhammer stories, and a much-demanded addition to the Total War: Warhammer games. Creative Assembly have announced that we'll be getting our wish, and the previously teased "old friends" free DLC for Total War: Warhammer 2 will include Gotrek as a recruitable Legendary Lord with Felix as a Hero-level character accompanying him.

Here's how it works according to the FAQ. If you're playing Dwarfs, Empire, or Bretonnia and you've got the DLC installed Gotrek and Felix will appear on the campaign map, from which you'll be able to recruit them. You can either add troops for them to command or march the duo around on their own. After "around 20 turns" they'll leave so Gotrek can pursue his doom, but return later and may even have leveled up while off having adventures. Though the FAQ also says, "Just be wary of any enemies they may have made while they’ve been away…"

Gotrek and Felix won't appear in multiplayer campaigns, but can be deployed in custom battles.

To get the DLC you can either buy a print copy of Games Workshop's White Dwarf magazine from September 20 to get a code, or wait until October 17 at which point they'll appear along with the other freebies available from the Total War Access section of the official site.

Oh, and just like in the recent audio drama Realmslayer, Gotrek's being voiced by Brian motherfucking Blessed. 

Creative Assembly is maintaining its tradition of releasing free DLC alongside the paid variety for the Total War: Warhammer games. Now the studio has announced that the forthcoming The Hunter & The Beast DLC will be accompanied by the free addition of a new Legendary Lord for the Lizardman faction. Gor-Rok, whose name is heavy metal AF even by Warhammer standards, is also known as the Great White Lizard—an albino saurus of unusual size who happens to be an unstoppable combat machine.

Gor-Rok will start with Lord Kroak by his side, the powerful Slann mage-priest who other lizardmen leaders have to work to summon during the campaign. He'll also have the Perfect Vigour, Physical Resistance, Terror and Regeneration traits, and presumably be armed with the same magic artifacts as his tabletop incarnation: The Mace of Ulumak and The Shield of Aeons. Although he might have to complete a quest chain first, you know how these things are.

The Hunter & The Beast comes out on September 11, and will coincide with an update to the Mortal Empires DLC that adds defensible forts. There's a nice excuse to start another Mortal Empires campaign I'll never find the time to finish.

Here's our list of the best Total War: Warhammer 2 mods.

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.