We’ve seen some of you are upset about the Markus nerfs, so we thought we’d explain some of the reasoning behind it. While Markus is supposed to be powerful against monsters (after all, he’s the beast hunter!) he was also too powerful against single entity units, and more powerful than we intended – in both campaign AND multiplayer.

This meant that he could take out lords and heroes in a matter of seconds, which wasn’t what we wanted. The design goal for him was to create a monster slayer ranged character, but we accidentally also created a character sniper. We identified that this was primarily caused by his Amber Bow and Kill Shot/Executioner abilities being way too strong in terms of damage. Combining the two in quick succession would kill most characters.

In addition, his basic ranged attacks were considerably faster at taking out single entity units than many melee characters. The melee defence reduction was added because Markus was also surprisingly hard to hit in melee, allowing him to keep running away and getting high damage shots in at point blank range. In summary, he was dealing too much damage too quickly against high value targets and that capability needed to be toned down.

Statistically Markus is still one of the strongest ranged units in the game after these changes and these changes give us a better platform to continue balancing him in the future. Hopefully this helps you understand the recent changes, and of course balancing is something that continues to happen and isn’t a single static change and we are taking your feedback into account.

The 1.7.2 patch for Total War: WARHAMMER II is now live! This includes fixes for the Gotrek and Felix softlock, the save games loading issue and all the fixes included in the previous beta (including reverting the changes to ports).

To find out what else is included, click here: https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-warhammer-ii-patch/

The nights are drawing in, and what better way to get cosy than to snuggle up with a book? Maybe an ebook? Maybe even a Total War ebook? What an excellent suggestion!

Here you’ll find a list of all of the ebooks (and beyond) we’ve released to date - enjoy! https://www.totalwar.com/blog/fall-into-autumn-with-total-war-ebooks-and-beyond/

Announcing the return of the Everchosen tournament!

On 19-20 October, the next Everchosen tournament will be taking place – this time featuring Gotrek and Felix themselves. To find out who’ll be participating and more, just click here: https://www.totalwar.com/theeverchosen/

Follow www.twitch.tv/totalwarofficial to make sure you don’t miss our next WARHAMMER II multiplayer tournament.

We have just put a new beta live for WARHAMMER II. This addresses the below issues:

- Fixed a soft lock that could occur when Gotrek & Felix markers could appear without owning the Gotrek & Felix DLC.
- Fixed an issue where save games could not be loaded – this issue was more prevalent with multiplayer saves games than single player but did affect both.
- Fixed an issue where using The Rite of Awakening would not offer any Slanns.
- Raid region missions will no longer be issued which target horde factions.
- Wrecker’s Point can now be correctly occupied by Norsca.
- The Bright Wizard included in the garrison in The Red Moon Inn now correctly has access to his spells.
- Elector Counts with high fealty are now less likely to secede.
- Fixed an issue where choosing to stop a succession faction by force via the Empire dilemma did not result in being at war with that faction.
- Fixed an issue where declaring war on an Elector Count would sometimes not result in a penalty to Imperial Authority being applied.

Please note: for the multiplayer save games, there may still be a potential crash, but this will only occur if you first disable a mod and then try to load the save game in which the mod was previously used. If you haven’t removed a mod which was in the game at the point of saving, you should now be able to access the game.

In order to opt in:
1. Right-click on Total War: WARHAMMER II in your Steam library
2. Click Properties and click the Betas tab
3. In the drop-down menu, select the Version_1.7.2 option
4. Close the window and your build will automatically update

This year’s been a big year for us at Total War, and it’s not over yet! While we can’t share everything we’re doing straight away, we are working on being more open with you – maybe this is something that you’ve noticed already.

We know you’re eager for more information about the future of THREE KINGDOMS, WARHAMMER and any Sagas we have to tell – so we’d like to share a little more with you and hopefully answer some (although probably not all) of your questions. Click here to take a look: https://totalwar.com/blog/development-update-blog-02

A beta update for The Hunter & The Beast is now live.

The main update is that based on community feedback, we’ve reverted the change to ports to what they were prior to The Hunter & The Beast’s release. We’ll be looking at a wider economy pass later which will involve ports and all other methods of generating income.

Other fixes include:
• Fixed a UI softlock that could occur if one of the new events triggered on the same turn as a piece of advice.
• You no longer receive a negative toward trustworthiness when war is declared via one of the Elector Count events.
• Waystalker will no longer T-pose when using Arrow of Kurnous ability.
• Glade Lords on mounts will now correctly have a cooldown on Arrow of Kurnous.
• Various localisation fixes in multiple languages.

Instructions for opting into and downloading the update are as follows:
• In your Steam games library, right-click Total War: WARHAMMER II and select Properties.
• In the Properties window, select the BETAS tab.
• Select hunter_beta from the list.
• Total War: WARHAMMER II will automatically update to the hunter_beta.

Feeling #blessed this Friday? How about BRIAN BLESSED? Check out our behind the scenes video to find out how it went when the man himself came into our studio to record the VO for Gotrek!

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWAu7CQK6Wg

If you want to pre-order your September edition of White Dwarf, you can do so tomorrow on Saturday 14th of September at this link: www.games-workshop.com/gotrek

The Hunter and The Beast is now out, and Markus Wulfhart is doing battle with Nakai. But if you haven’t picked up a copy yet or you feel like some light entertainment, we’ve got you covered.

Want a review before you hand over your money? PartyElite’s here with his thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PatPgp5fOKo

Markus getting the better of you? Here’s a Markus Wulfhart strategy guide from Heir of Carthage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76EyOE_X2gc

And if you just want to kick back and enjoy some Nakai gameplay, here’s SurrealBeliefs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUTNHG6pZP8

If you’re too busy playing the game to watch any of this, please consider taking a moment out to leave us a Steam review. We’d appreciate hearing your thoughts: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1074320/

Happy hunting!

Note: We are also planning an opt-in beta for ports (and a couple of other minor features but nothing major) on Monday.

The Hunter & The Beast is out for Total War: WARHAMMER II. Choose between fearless, daring Markus Wulfhart or the living legend of Nakai the Wanderer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxJ736CZQg

The DLC brings with it a whole host of free updates, including the patch featuring Empire rework which will download automatically, and Gor-Rok the Great White Lizard – go here to download him: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1074321/Total_War_WARHAMMER_II__GorRok/

(PSA: Gotrek and Felix are NOT available to players in this update but will be available for everyone, for free, on Total War Access from 17th October)

Are you ready to hunt – or be hunted?