ORDERTIDE: The Ultimate Reversal
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
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The Empire Endures.
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0:00 The Tide's Coming
1:17 The End Times
2:48 Mortal Empires
6:36 Five Guys, Burgers and Fries
8:20 Like A Drowned Rat
9:40 Total Warhammer III and the Ordertide's Legacy
12:27 Q&A - Ігри
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Very curious that right as I'm making a video about a Tide, I get a sponsor from a Shark. Weirdly nautical for a video about a Total War game which has no naval battles.
But yes! This is the second video of the 'Observations' series I'm doing alongside my Retrospectives. They're very much a grab bag so expect anything!
The next video due on the channel will be the Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain Retrospective, which I'm very excited to cover. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy some reminiscing about the poetic justice of Total Warhammer II's Ordertide.
If you'd like to submit a question to the next Q&A, join the channel as a member, consider supporting me on Patreon! www.patreon.com/ThunderPsyker
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! If you're interested in hearing me talk about Total Warhammer in-depth, I've released a 2 hour discussion with my friend Ash on my second channel about our experiences playing the Vampire Counts. You can give it a listen here: ua-cam.com/video/EFzyuafH75A/v-deo.html
"You have four dark gods with ADHD and schizophrenia backing you. I have a military industrial complex, taxation, and the ability to talk to people. Get the fuck off my lawn."
Karl Franz, probably
The skaven, meanwhile, building a literal NUKE under Big Daddy Karl because the council forgot to keep Clan Skryer on a one meter leash.
@@tanall5959 While we all pretend to ignore Clan Moulder's latest rat-made horror, which we wilfully keep beyond our comprehension at all costs.
The fantasy empire shows the Imperium of Man that with just one easy trick they can go from the brink of destruction to clowning on Chaos: not being super racist and being capable of diplomacy.
Oh and lots of artillery, riflemen, cavalry and warrior priests/battle wizards to boot. A lot of people dont realize just how much of a powerhouse the empire actually is.
@@tanall5959 Yeah, but being Skaven, the nuke misfires, leaking a shit ton of radioactive material throughout skavenblight, killing loads of Skaven. Clan Skrye blames one of the other clans, and then they all start a massive civil war that keeps them busy for the n ext generation or two.
The Ordertide is more than just the will of the fans made manifest against GW’s …CREATIVE decisions regarding Chaos. It’s also a sort of testament to why good usually prevails in most stories. Because usually the forces of evil are usually unreliable backstabbing selfish individuals only interested in their own power which they easily accomplish in the short term. Whereas the forces of good think about the long term. They come to the defense of their allies, they put aside their defenses to work for a common good, and hold fast even in the most dire of circumstances because they’re thinking about what will come after the battle and after the war. Total War best sums this up with raze/loot and occupy options. Sure, you can raze/loot cities for quick cash. Or you can occupy them or even rebuild them. Invest time and money into them to make them into economic and military hubs. It won’t be immediate, but in time your decision to not destroy and instead build will be more valuable than if you just destroyed.
Good view you got there, mate 👍
Nothing more to add. You understand the essece of Good and Evil.
It’s like having a disciplined and well supplied army with everything to lose, makes it more effective than an horde living off the land whose power structure is entirely based on backstabbing and murder with no respect for engineering or any other sciences as a profession. Minus the occasional sorcerer. So yeah only reason chaos ever wins is because those “my own power” people run 90 % on chaos cheat codes. Especially during the end times.
In Tolkien, it is actually the opposite. Whereas the forces of evil are largely unified under one malicious evil leader, the forces of good are constantly divided among themselves and it is only through the great effect of Gandalf that leads to any sort of unified stand among the kingdoms of men. The forces of evil are very good at using lies, deception a mistrust to divided the forces of good against each other to prevent a unified front.
Sure, "good" could unify in face of the common threat, but its just as easy for "good" to become increasingly concerned about a security at home and be increasingly unwilling to commit to help allies less their strength be so weakened they can't defend themselves.
That is insightful right there@@lofidante1778
There is another thing to consider; the Ordertide also occurred on the tabletop; before GW unveiled the End Times novels and related stuff, they had Storm of Chaos and more specifically a big narrative tournament for Storm of Chaos where they said the players participating in the event will dictate whether Order of Chaos is canonically victorious at the end of Storm of Chaos, and will have an impact on the future narrative of Fantasy Battle.
The thing is, GW fully believed the Chaos players were going to win this tournament and had counted their chickens early - only to be blindsided by the Order Tide completely dominating this narrative focused tournament that GW themselves said will dictate the future of the setting's narrative. So, Order won, GW stepped up to the podium and went "Yeah, about that...."
And thus Chaos canonically came out victorious at the end of Storm of Chaos, which really p!ssed off the Fandom at the time, both because GW rigged the tournament and also because Storm of Chaos - far as I heard - suffered from similar narrative issues as the End Times, which Storm of Chaos was a prelude to.
I remember when that happened, and it was such a blatant slap in the face to the fans who basically gave it their all to save the setting. They misunderstood their own IP, fans and sales numbers (High Elves were the best selling army in fantasy, something they ignored); it is no small wonder age of sigmar suffered tremendously in its initial release and the consequences of mishandling fantasy is still felt by the company to this day.
Now have they learned their lesson? Probably not unfortunately.
@@bagofbones4257 Exactly. The problem isn't Age of Sigmar itself. It's GW's treatment of the fans and the lore leading up to it.
Imagine if they did the World of Darkness thing when they announced Age of Sigmar and said "Here's a new setting post-end of the world of the OG setting, but it's in parallel to the OG setting which didn't have it's world end and we are still supporting." something-something Tzeentch.
Instead it's now the Star Wars ST problem where they went "Oh look! It's the Old World!" and pretend nothing happened by having throwback Fantasy content, but we all know where the story ultimately leads to...
Huh... fun that happened well in 40k is rather interesting how they are handling the 2nd Eldar Empire rising i mean chaos is having the bad tine after getting...
*Phone ringing.*
*picks up*
"wrong timeline..."
Oh ye sorry. So fun fact this isn't the first this also happened. in 40k there also was a similar situation you know what actually should have happened instead of abadon throwing a fit and cracking the galaxy in 2? well he is stuck on cadia while sieged by the imperial fleet. While chaos has lost the space fights and the eldar have secured the webway and managed to even retake worlds inside the eye of terror. In other words the events when Guiliman shows up should be a resurgent Eldar civilization. and chaos getting rekked. Instead GW got into the podium again and said. "Yeah, about that as well..."
chaos is cursed in my opinion the favorite child of the company i dislike.
@@dx3217 games workshop just wants to have "grimdark" setting
And you can't have grimdark if evil isn't successful always
Literally. In 40k chaos is always successful. And chaos is so broken that no matter what you'll do, you're a heretic
You are a scientists who searches for knowledge? Tzeench has plans for you
You are a noble warrior that doesn't want to loose? Khorne likes you
You are a doctor who wants ultimate cure? Papa Nurgle welcomes you
You are an artist who wants to make the most beautiful painting in history? Slaanesh wants your ||R E D A C T E D||
So yeah. Chaos sucks
@@bagofbones4257 okay so games workshop always do the worst decisions in history and im AMAZED how they are still a thing, back in the 1990's blizzard came to them to make a game about warhammer, they refused and so blizzard went on to make warcraft.. and we all know the story from there. after that GW never decline an offer from a game developer again and that is why we now have so many small budget games comming out
"Your foe is well equipped, well trained, battle hardened. He believes his gods are on his side. Let him believe what he will, we have tanks on ours."
As well as artillery, humans riding monstrous cavalry, elves with magic laser-bows, fucking dragons and dinosaurs riding even bigger dinosaurs.
May the dark gods have mercy on their souls, for we most certainly do not.
For Sigmar and the Ordertide!
Alternative: We have a big toad that summon the sun and dinosaur on our side.
@@JABN97 and now a landship praise be sigmar
@@chozer1 praise be to grungni for the thunderbarge
The Ordertide is in many ways an embodiment of the outcomes of the global campaigns Gamesworkshop would do for Fantasy and why they stopped doing them. The best example being The Storm of Chaos campaign
Where Grimgor kicked Archaon in the balls and spat on him btw.
@@MrVlad12340 scholars to this day argue which came first: did Grimgor kick Archaon in the balls and then headbutt the broken man OR did he headbutt him and then kicked his stunned opponent in the balls? Some say that question in itself portrays the dichotomous nature of Gork and Mork...
Which basically killed Fantasy. GW hit the rewind button, hit "pause" and went to work on AoS because they felt "limited by the setting". I'm convinced someone read Moorcock but just skipped over anything that involved the Order half of the equation.
"We have power of dark Gods on our side! What do you have!" *Sees shit ton of cannons* Well shit...
Gunpowder is the great equalizer, after all. You are a viking juiced up by the devil(s) themselves? Good luck surviving long enough to reach the illiterate commoners with funny boomsticks!
Alexa? Play Battlestar Galactica's soundtrack, it's heavy artillery time!
There's a fanfic where Germany (the entire nation) got Isekai'd to WF world.
Spoiler Alert!!!
Long story short for the first arc, they managed to kill Archaon and his army without much fuss. Apparently Dark Gods protection does not cover being shot by 120mm APFSDS for him and being vaporised by Napalm bombardment for his army.
Fanfic name is "An ISOT in Grimdark"
the power.... OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
@@danang5industrialized society and its benefits
Ordertide. Basically power rangers like Kitten here said. Artillery, Knights, Arrows to blot out the sun, lots of Guns, and huge Dinosaurs. Yeah, the Ordertide pretty much is the ultimate powerhouse even united Chaos struggles to face.
Good triumphs over evil in the end, I guess. Our refusal to accept the End Times and creating our own ending by saving the Old World.
Chaos, especially the old Warriors of Chaos, never really gave me major Apocalyptic vibes like their 40k counterparts but, in Fantasy's setting, seemed perfectly positioned as a nebulous malicious force plotting shenanigans in the background.
Empire getting too comfortable? How about a civil war amongst the Wizards spurred on by Forbidden Tomes (the more skulls on the covers, the better the read!).
Bretonnia somehow remaining functional during a time of peace? Every noble with even an ounce of ambition would already have been sharpening their daggers and pre-poisoning their wine, and the peasantry would always be harbouring fanciful ideals like "pay" and "rights".
The Wood Elves were being teamkilled by a grief-mad tree-spirit while putting down endless Beastman raids, Ulthuan was a grandiose pseudo-Atlantean Westeros with its political intrigues and the various Dwarven Holds could barely tolerate each other over perceived failings, let alone the less-trustworthy civilizations beyond their isolated little networks.
The Lizardmen were pretty much the only "Good" faction in the original game that retained general unity and a long-term vision, and so of course everyone from Skaven Warlords to Empire Officers were headed down to Lustria on the regular with their finest looting bags in hand, cos the dinosaur-people exclusively use gold tablets for writing and the one unifying factor in the setting is mutual love for shiny metal.
TL;DR Good may indeed triumph over Evil, but Evil usually lingers in the hearts of the weak or the wicked and all it takes is a spark to ignite a gunpowder-filled barrel.
Meanwhile, Chaos have monke riding on mammoth and doggo.
@MultiKommandant Funnything that Lizardmen have unity unlike any other Order factions, but they have a problem with their teammate coming on their own just to trying to stole their golden hard disk Just like Tomb Kings.
in my mind end times i just a different universe where chaos won
@@MultiKommandant i mean if you read the lore the world was completely overrun by millions of deamons when the stellar gate broke, and it took centuries of war and the full might of athel loren streching the entire world to stop them. they are unstoppable if left unchecked but the high elves made a final stand and created the vortex. and i know all of this from buying the books after playing warhammer total war 1 2 and 3 and getting really into it lol
The Ordertide is definitely not as much of a thing in TWWH3, since I swear almost every campaign I've played has, without player intervention, resulted in Ulthuan getting utterly dominated by Druuchi and Slaanesh, the Empire getting ravaged by Vampires and Nurgleand beaten all the way back to Reikland, rats and Slaanesh wiping out Kislev, and the Brettonnian races that aren't Couronne typically get stomped by a quadruple threat of Vampires, Greenskins, rats and Beastmen like 20 turns in. Usually the Dwarfs, Cathay and Lizardmen are the only ones who are able to survive and snowball on their own.
Same. I’ve been playing an empire campaign recently and without my intervention, Brettonia lost their homeland to Orks and retreated to their holdouts in Albion. The various Kislev was destroyed by Archon and the chaos dwarfs. Estalia and the border princes were devastated by skaven and ogres.
The only real ally I had left nearby were the dwarfs, who were too busy dealing with their own enemies.
The elves and lizard men were too far away to provide any meaningful assistance. Same for Cathay.
Luckily, through faith, steel and gunpowder (lots of it) I was able to defeat that one Necromancer, the vampire counts, the beastmen, that one nurgle champion, and eventually unite the empire and fortify it for further campaigns beyond the border. It’s not over, but damn if it’s now more of a struggle, and it is very easy for it to go bad for the empire early game.
Yeah this video feels like five years too late. Order tide was a cool thing of the past. There isn't even a chaos end game anymore.
@@Botar48"Five years too late" is ThunderPsyker's channel motto lol
I haven't played WH3 recently but last time I was playing the AI major factions generally just doesn't become that big until maybe much later (talking like 150+ turns). If I recall CA removed the ability for the major factions to confederate each other diplomatically. Greenskins can still confederate after beating the leaders though.
I think the amount and spread of chaos factions really impacted the order factions strength, especially early and mid game. Too many have enemies willing to expand drastically early on, so it’s common for a playable faction to lose most of it’s allies before it can build a strong position.
Player input really throws a wrench into the plot armour of Chaos wank. See the Storm of Chaos.
Ruin? Aye, there'll be ruin, alright... FROM MY AXE!
It was always interesting seeing how certain factions would wax and wayne with various major patches. I remember a time when the noble Dawi would be hard pressed to survive the unending hordes Grimgor commanded.
I remember when the Wood Elves used to basically be a Chaos faction in Warhammer 1.
I'm getting some hardcore Mandalore vibes from the style here. Credits are the icing on the cake.
Yeah we need more mandy-likes.
@@yapalskippy1807 about 30 so I get a video every day.
TWW 2 did huge amounts of legwork in getting me to finally play tabletop, now i own 2 armies in 40k and am waiting for skaven in the old world, and have 3 friends who play 40k too.
Skaven aren’t getting models for TOW.
its only beastmen, chaos warriors, the empire, tomb kings, bretonnia, the dwarfs, the wood elves and the orcs that will be in the old world unfortunately
I'm a classic Empire player, I built a mostly handgunner and cannon army back in the day. I became Napoleon, destroyer of tombkings.
@@Dragonage2ftwGW making massive mistakes as always
If I had to guess the reason skaven isn't getting TOW is because gw is cooking up a massive range refresh for Age of Sigmar.
As someone who loved the old fantasy world I really liked the Ordertide. It showed a much more brighter and hopeful timeline where the End Times was averted and my all time favorite franchise was saved. I think this Spongebob meme perfectly sums up how me and many other fantasy fans felt (time stamp at 5:29 if it don't start there) ua-cam.com/video/mi4yEHmAo7I/v-deo.htmlsi=hGpl1r6zO4E1vcBu&t=329
That meme is what inspired me to make a video about the Ordertide! I considered contacting the creator to use a bit of it, or make some kind of homage, but in the end I decided against it
@@ThunderPsyker partially inspired by this video I myself made this meme :P ua-cam.com/video/TsT0-CuVerM/v-deo.html
Not gonna lie that video went hard. Awesome work!@@warhammerguy
TWW3 made me fall in love with Kislev, a faction of basically background and stomping ground for Chaos only for the Empire to come in and save the day. But when I played TWW3 I felt Kislev unlike any other faction.
With other factions I snowball my way to victory and achieve ultimate victory in a very fanfiction kind of way, but with Kislev I earn it. Chaos comes in from multiple mountain passes and I have a weak economy so can’t throw my money at it and get 10 armies I can only have like two. I have to survive the wave, all cites become fortresses every unit must hold every step back feels like falling down the stairs but still I climb. If I fall the other kingdoms of the old world have an unprotected eastern front and they fall too. The weak southerners cannot fight one simple chaos faction while I deal with four! The Dwarfs refuse to leave the mountains to help me! And everyone else is too far away!
My units may not be the strongest, my magic may not be the best, my abilities may be outshined by others. But by Urson and the gods of Kislev this my land and I’ll make it a frozen hell for all demons and monsters before I fall!
Or you are Boris which is...
THE DOOM SLAYER
Until you get War Bear Riders, then you start rampaging across the Chaos Wastes in a tide of claws and teeth.
I kind of wish the Kislev economy was a little less punishing, like imagine if you at least produced Vodka at your economy buildings for trading potential. That would make it just a tad easier!
@@4dealliance598 You can produce Fur tho
"Archeon the Everchoosen, more like Archeon the Neverwinner"
- Karl Franz, Gigachad Emperor
He is a bigger joke than Abbadon the armless.
Back when the chaos end-time crisis was the only one I still remember how I humiliated Archaon and the rest of the crew once. I played Alith Anar. He can summon a one-use assassins who have 100% assasination success. So I just summoned 3 of them in early game and sent them to the chaos wastes to wait. The moment chaos crew showed up, I immiedietely shanked Archaon, Sigvald and Kholek, which in turn triggered the end of end times and makes the other armies disappear
One thing you missed in this is that there was a huge see-saw between Ordertide and Chaostide. Dwarfs, Helves, and the Empire all could be taken out early and nothing stopped the steamroll. Before initiating the AI basically ignoring Chaos attrition, Brettonia threw away armies constantly to Norsca.
It just came down to what the player was playing from my experiences. Whichever side you were on, you can bet on like half the 'allied' races being eliminated by turn 30, and their local opponents becoming a global domination powerhouse. Yes there were times that playing was just a steamroll because the AI got overtuned on your 'side'. There were times that Chaos actually did blanket the 'old world' and was only stopped by the Greentide, the Undeadtide, or the Delftide.
Who woulda thunk that balancing 10+ wildly different races with 3-6 unique campaigns in each was a nightmare?
Other then Skaven and Beastmen. Regardless of where they were at, they always got wiped out by their neighbors even if they were Chaos aligned, no one likes furries in fantasy. Beastmen became a threat with their rework, but not Skaven.
What got me into Warhammer Fantasy was a combo of Mordheim: City of the Damned, Vermintide 1, and Total Warhammer. The voice acting of the Skaven in Mordheim made me just fall in love with those little Warpstone dust heads, Vermintide made me appreciate just how borked 'Order' is in the setting, and Total Warhammer made me fall in love with the setting as a whole. Still a 40K fanboy at heart (Sisters of Battle are the best, don't at me), but I do love the world of Fantasy now.
TWW always ends in the good ending until a Player plays Khorne in TWW3
This is why I love ORDERTIDE so much when playing Total War Warhammer. In a world full of terrors and egos that can rip the world apart, and in our world where we tend to see more of the negatives then the positives, it’s encouraging and inspiring to know that in the end, the darkness must pass, and new day will come, and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. That we as people can rise above and do the right thing, like the Order factions in Warhammer, and they can still honor their inspiration in LotR by showing that Good will always triumph over Evil.
My recent Tomb King campaign in Warhammer 3 on legend difficulty turned out like this: Vampire End game Scenario started at round 120... 4 of the 6(?) Vampire factions got snuffed out the next turn by dwarfs and empire.
Great video, but i would really like to have you talk about the most pressing reason WHFB declined, namely that the game itself had become horrifically bloated and back then everyone was in agreement that some form of total reset had to occur. Tabletop wargames are already a tough sell if you look at the entry costs and WHFB took that to a whole different level with the sheer amount of models it required just for medium-sized games. Skaven and Night Goblin Regiments could contain up to 60 models, and the way 8th edition worked put a very strong incentive in place to actually go for such big units. Unlike in 40k, the huge centerpiece models many factions could field, like the Warsphinx, Screaming Bell or Mortis Engine were a necessity in many competetive lists and these models were really intimidating projects for newcomers, but you couldn't go on without them, because any player who owned one had such a massive power advantage that it was laughable. This isn't even limited to the relative new models - the old Imperial Steam Tank, a centerpiece model for the Empire, was originally released in 5th or 6th edition iirc and was a solid 3 kilo heavy brick of pewter that was notoriously difficult to put together, broke when you looked at it funny and was still prohibitively expensive for many players. Adding confusion as well were the crazy amounts of promotional or one-off models for specific characters that GW made over the years that had no rules and were based off highly obscure lore printed in White Dwarfs decades ago (Dogs of War, Luthor Harkon or the old Eltharion come to mind, ironically, the CA Luthor Harkon doesn't look anything like the model GW used to make to represent him) but were still made-to-order regardless and available for purchase over their catalogue, hotline (yes, GW had a mail order hotline and that was often the only way to get many models and bits boxes) and their website. I don't think many of these models have been squatted until Kevin Rountree took over as CEO.
Much of the model range was extremely outdated (Skaven, Vampire Counts, Wood Elves Bretonnia) or basically non-existent on top of that (Vampirates, Dogs of War, Chaos Dwarfs if we even want to count them, and yes, all of them had army lists) by the time End Times rolled around. Hell, it was a major pain in the butt to even buy Bretonnians by the time End Times rolled around. The few attempts GW made to push new models for WHFB were all met with utter failure, with the Tomb Kings reboot being one of the biggest flops of the company up to that point (and allegedly the thing that made the higher ups push the button on the setting). The Skaven still haven't gotten updated weapon teams, and these models go back to 5th edition, in 1998! What's even sillier is that GW had MADE updated versions of these models for the Island of Blood starter set, but never bothered to include them anywhere. Not even in AoS have they got new models. I laugh about Xenos fans in 40k that moan about not getting new models in ages, like mate, your Dire Avengers made for 4th edition are still perfectly serviceable, 20 years later. Look at the Ratling Gun metal blister and tell me that this is acceptable without sinking into the ground out of embarassment.
To put this in perspective, by 2014, the Space Marine Tactical Squad kit outsold the entire WHFB range ALONE. And that's one kit from 40k, albeit from the most popular faction, but still. WHFB kits had the equal amount of shelf space dedicated to them in GWs own stores by company decree and yet the kits there just didn't sell. In my nearest store in Karlsruhe, there were still Skeleton Warrior kits for the Vampire counts on those shelves that hadn't been sold since the store opened in 2001! I haven't been there in a while but i wouldn't be surprised if they were STILL on display.
I include myself in the ranks of people who were greatly disappointed by End Times, but the framing that many grognards use that it happened out of spite or to bury the unloved stepchild of the company as quickly as possible to make way for AoS - whose first edition still lives on in infamy with how bad it was and was clearly a rushjob - simply isn't true. Given how the Old World is now coming back, with Bretonnians and Tomb Kings at the forefront, historically the most neglected factions in WHFB, i don't think this decision was made easily. There was and is still clearly much love for WHFB in the company. But as it stood, WHFB was hemorraghing money. They probably could have done a lot better, but something had to happen. I'm probably in the minority when i think that TWW wouldn't have saved WHFB from being squatted, because the game and models around just weren't attractive enough to many players. A lot of the WHFB fanbase in 2015 have played the game for decades up to that point, there was hardly any new blood in the game and it really showed. 40k's style played a role in that too, many models in 40k simply didn't age that badly as many other in the WHFB range did, like the Dire Avenger example i mentioned above. I actually have met a guy in my hobby store who played TWW and wanted to check out some of the old kits that the store still had laying about - boy, the disappointment on his face was immeasurable when he saw those age old Dark Elf kits and how weird they looked, especially when compared to the game.
I really like this as a more reasonable response to the whole thing; Like you said, there were far too many factions (as much as I love them), and the amount of stuff you needed to buy to play was insane. CA's recent DLCs are stupidly overpriced but if the folks talking about that had seen fantasy's barrier for entry, they would have a heart attack.
Scaling down to AoS was a reasonable maneuver but shifting so hard to that aesthetic and having the End Times go the way it did, was not it chief.
I also want to believe that the higher ups didn't make the move lightly because I imagine they loved Fantasy (less the suits, and more the guys beneath them), but I do agree that it wasn't something done out of spite, because, what the fuck? Who the hell works their entire life to become manager of something they hate?
@@ThunderPsyker I'm guessing your last rhetorical question is the answer to why Tom Kirby stuck around for so long (and almost sunk the company with him... remember when a Mattel takeover of GW was seriously on the table in 2012?).
Personally i think WHFB had the unintentional design flaw that the game and universe itself originally sprung out of GW desparately trying to recoup losses they incurred when WOTC took them off the list of companies that were allowed to make supplemental material for D&D. It's why Beastmen and Bretonnia existed in the first place and why it took so long for the setting to find its own distinct identity. These chickens came home to roost in a big way decades later in ways no one had anticipated. Ironically, and very fluffy indeed, WHFB existed for a long time despite the world it inhabited being doomed - 40k by comparison had the massive advantage that it worked off a clean slate, being a genuinely original setting where GW could dictate everything.
It surely also didn't help that even if we discount everything i have said before - the game rules of WHFB always were kind of a mess and notoriously difficult to learn, while also the writers and designers generally not being very good at phrasing their rules in a way that allowed for a clear interpretation (a proud GW tradition to this day!). It took GW a long to even put out Erratas and the like, that has only been a relatively recent phenomenon. And even then, much of this crucial information was again, contained only in White Dwarf, which only the absolute hardcore of the hardcore fans read (because it was extremely expensive at 8 bucks per issue) leaving the rest of the playerbase in the dark if they were even playing their game correctly.
I do hope that The Old World will find success and people that enjoy it, because i'd really like to get my Skaven to the table again. IKIT CLAW BEST-BEST ENGINEER, YES-YES, KILL ALL THE MAN-THINGS
@@ThunderPsyker It's also very nice of you to have read my (way too long for a youtube comment) tangent about the wider context of End Times.
One of my most prominent experience in TWW 1 was babying the Vampire counts just so i have something to fight, because Archaon and that bird didn't even make it to the Empire before getting their butts kicked.
Having the music used listed at the end is very cool.
I'm glad that goes appreciated! Sometimes I hear a song in a video that I want to listen to on its own, so I figured I should be the change I want to see!
Kittens opening a duel academy with the Emperor and Tzeentch (a nerd) being forced to enroll after their defeat at the hands of Kittens and Wind Up Kitten would be the ultimate ending to TTS.
Fun fact: more of the funny moving cat png will make it more entertaining.
Good vid. Keep at it.
I miss you Kitten.
ever since mandaloregaming recommended your channel in his Ultimate Apocalypse video I've had a great fondness for your style, you've easily become one of my favorite warhammer creators on the platform!
It takes quite a company to look at the longterm cult success and clear mainstream Total War success of the Warhammer series, and say 'actually keep your money, we're banning the things you want to buy unless you spend big on our new unrelated thing'
13:30 - That was a sad day for me too. I also miss chocolate Werther's.
Today i realised that Thunder's voice sound a lot like Soviet Womble's. A voice perfect for video essays.i enjoy this content a lot
Thunderpysker has a soothing voice.
Miss the Ordertide, funnily enough it doesn't even seem to be all the expanded chaos roster that killed full strength Ordertide in Immortal Empires, but Rather Belegar.
Belegar allies with Empire, but almost always declares war on Wood Elves who almost always ally with Brettonia, immediately setting all 4 of those order factions into a deadlock war against each other.
End times could have worked if GW gave a crap about the setting, and second not have a tournament/event where it was order vs chaos, order winning big time, then completely getting retconned for chaos to win because GW wanted Ultra Marines but not Ultra Marines.
Edit: Total War Warhammer was a big reason many people got into the setting, yet GW still decided there wasn't enough Space Marines.
Sadly the time of the Order tide has passed, but the daemons and new Warriors of Chaos in Total Warhammer III's campaigns makr the fight to save or doom the World something truly apocalyptic and epic.
I do love being the under dog as an evil faction though, I played recently a Khazrak campaign with the "The Old World" mod, a fan made campaign map that represents faithfully the size of the Old World region of the map (Empire, Bretonnia, Kislev, Norsca and a little bit of the south and east) And waging guerrilla warfare in the Drakwald while making imperial expeditions disappear and slowly amassing strenght was epic.
Sadly an update came out and corrupted the save file when things were just getting good, but I had so much fun I don't care.
I had subscribed ages ago due to happenstancing upon your 40k retrospectives and was so glad to see you pop up in my feed again. Too old and busy to enjoy playing these days but still have fond memories. So thankyou for taking the time to delve deep into the world that brought me countless hours of joy x
And I must say, as a destruction faction, it’s always more fun to go against a strong unified empire than a steaming pile of rubble that have already been sacked by three other destruction AI before you.
And as an order faction, it’s fun when you have allies worth allying with.
The order tide is mostly gone from WH3 and it’s a bit of a shame: I want to be the one painting the map and colonizing ruins left by some random chaos faction isn’t nearly as fun as destroying them yourself !
In TWW2 it tends to be a coinflip over who really spirals out of control. AI faction leaders tend to confederate fast, with Malekith, Tyrion, and Grimgor often being in the top 3 ranking. Early game losses tend to hamstring AI for the long game; for example, Vlad can definitely consume The Old World on his own, but a human player starting as Karl or Gelt who pushes east fast can shut him down for a good 10 or more turns. I really love 2 but as you said the Chaos factions really suck because they didn't receive any upgrades from the first game... Beastmen are legit a better Chaos faction than the actual Chaos LLs
Ordertide still somewhat persists in TWW3... BUT THAT WILL ALL CHANGE ONCE WE GET THE SUPREME BONE DADDY NAGASH AS A PLAYABLE LEGENDARY LORD. Please CA please just give me Nagash please I beg upon my knees.
I love so much that you post more, your dawn of war videos were a bright spot in a very dark time in my life, and now that life’s better it’s good to see content creators who I loved doing well
@9:55 Ah yes the terrifying frequent advice invasion, who could forget that one.
I've never really played the tabletop games and for the longest time my only window into Warhammers both Fantasy and 40K used to be the videogames - Total Warhammer and the Dawn of War series in particular.
A year ago then on a whim I started reading a couple of the two franchises' most beloved books and listening to a few audiobooks. Namely the Gotrek and Felix novels (Great until Giantslayer, after that a rapid descent in quality), Blackhearts (Fun, if a bit silly with its inexplicably hyper competent protagonist just acing this whole spying thing), Drachenfels and the Vampire Genevieve books (Fantastic, but totally incongruous with what the setting evolved into), the Eisenhorn trilogy (All-around great crime thrillers, Xenos especially), as well a couple Ciaphas Cain stories (Goofy action comedy fun with a _really_ cool storytelling format).
Having gone through all of that I then started reading the End Times novels and holy hell...
Even from the perspective of someone with absolutely no horse in the race those books and the direction they took the overall story and setting into are just such an incredibly insulting waste. I mean damn, even assuming they had no choice but to end the setting so as to reboot it - a notion I _heavily_ disagree with - the way they ended up handling it is the greatest mess I've ever seen.
Nothing in there makes any goddamn sense either on its own or especially when taking established prior lore into account and only seems to happen because the suits in charge - not even the authors, by the look of things! - wanted it to.
It feels forced, it feels nonsensical, it lacks any semblance of narrative structure or impact... Hell, that's not even taking into account that all of those books apparently were released in super rapid succession, meaning people didn't even have time to let the developments sink in?! I mean Christ, how could they possibly have mishandled this any harder? And with a setting that had existed for several decades at that point, too!
Just _insanely_ inept.
No wonder people originally ended up hating AoS when it was the result of that absolute mess.
I must agree to the order power trip. One thing I ususally see is Sylvan elves crusading against bretonnia and the Empire for no apparent reason.
Tbh if Halo Wars 3 comes around, I hope to see one of Banished commanders be human.
Never played 4-6, never cared about them, never pretended they even existed:P
i think a lot of the issue i had with the end times (as least without directly reading all of the books) is that a lot of the battles felt... same-y? chaos and/or skaven show up to a location with strength in numbers, breach after a big opening salvo (with maybe some subterfuge to force open the place), battle inside the place for a while, start to lose a bit, and then gain some upper hand (usually from divine intervention) and eventually win. there was rarely much strategy to the chaos related battles, and just felt like more of the same. there wasn't any clever deception, trickery, or maneuvers from them, they were just.. this endless horde that didn't seem to replenish casualties or anything, and that kinda felt disappointing. maybe there was a battle where a tzeentch general played 4d chess with somebody but i probably missed it
Didn't realize you were into TWW! Nice to see lol, it's a great series
Regarding the End Times, I don't blame the authors too much for this, as, at the same time, GW also had the War of the Beast storyline, and many of the authors were working double duty trying to deal with 2 separate settings around the same time.
This would also explain the, rather noticeable, lack of communication between the authors throughout both storyline, as they were all busy trying to deal with it.
But whereas 40k got a rather mediocre storyline (and endless custodes fanboy salt from that one scene), Fantasy just got blatantly shafted.
And it's clear GW wasn't providing a clear way to deal with the more powerful factions, such as Cathay, which is an empire that rivals, or even surpasses, the strength of the Empire of Man.
This very much makes me think of Storms of Chaos. At some point before the End Times Games Workshop set up a big apocalyptic battle between Archaon and the Empire. It was basically a set up for End Times before End Times. But instead of End Times which rammed a bunch of horseshit unto the players and killed fantasy, Storms of Chaos was quite a creative endeavor where they tallied every single recognized game win and tallied them up to see who won in this confrontation. They even set up a war path which would list all the land Archaon conquered on his way to the heart of the empire. But Order won the majority of games. So much so that the invasion was stopped dead in its tracks.
But Games Workshop has and had a hard on for Chaos and needed them to win. So they ended up chucking the entire plot into an alternative timeline so they could ignore it and do the end times. The thing is, I for one would have been very interested in a Warhammer where order 'won'. And it would have actually helped create some difference between it and 40K where Chaos' victory is guaranteed. Warhammer was meant to be far less grim and miserable than 40K, really only changing tone in 6th edition. Chaos could have been the whispering evil waiting at the borders of civilized lands and there's a million good stories you could write with that. But instead we got the end times and a retcon......
All that to replace the empire with medieval space marines.
To be fair, in the current balance state of Immortal Empires, all the major order factions get crushed by evil favtions, especially nurgle, if left untouched.
I kinda understood why the setting ended when I learnt that just the space marines outsold all of the warhammer fantasy stuff before end times happened.
Cat died because an EMP went off seconds before, disabling everyone's shields. If you think her death in reach was bs, I'm afraid I can't help bad reading comprehension.
Finally!!! Regular uploads!
I tried Warhammer 2 a few years ago because i was bored, it was cheap and looked cool. And it turned me into a massive fan of both Total War and Warhammer fantasy. I buy Gotrek and Felix audiobooks as soon they are released on Audible and play old Total War games now.
Many warhammer trailers: The Chaos and evil factions always put Order on the edge of death
Total War: Boom! Boom! Boom! GET THE FUCK OUT MY ROOM!
Great as always.
Oooh thunder is a big boy now ! ad and all ! That's quite cool to see ! Love your work my guy ! :D
Love your stuff Thunder, and ive got a book series I think youd love, cause it mostly fits both those criteria "The Bobiverse"
Always happy to see your vídeos 🥰
I had thought about doing a video about how the Imperial Guard got thrashed in 9th edition. This video kind of makes me want to push forward with that.
This video has my consent !!
So I have been working on a crazy crossover project that well over a year ago now did the end times (I held off on it just so I could get a good look at Cathay and Kislev). It took months to untangle the end times and I ended up rewriting pretty much the whole thing. While I could say the Ordertide won it was a Pyrrhic victory at best with continent scale destruction, multiple major players dead, and the alliance unable to hold together in the aftermath with the world still crumbling afterwards. Everyone had time to catch their breath and rebuild but that has not been (still writing it) a smooth process. This I feel is where the end times should have gone with AoS being less a new setting/hard reboot to being a soft relaunch, a big shake up to the status quo, and a time jump to introduce new factions and shake up old ones.
Would Love more of this 👍
So this is the "The Problem With Chaos" vid mandy was talking about.
I still have my classic empire army, even in the modelling days, I was a handgun spammer with a few spearmen to give me that real pike and shot army
Seeing you get into twh makes me beyond happy- also Oxy is best LL and I'll die on that hill.
In all of my playthrough Allerieal and Karl Franz usually become gods by turn 40 and start heading north.
LADS! Check out the fucking sponsor. Support the sponsors that support the legends
Bit of a tangent, but damn Fantasy has some great videogames between TWW and Vermintide. Makes me infuriated to think about how every time they have tried to make an Age of Sigmar game it just haven't worked out. Guess we have to wait for TWW AoS for that.
I liked this take. Thank you ^^
Still playing TWW2 nearly every day - I love the game to bit but I'm waiting for 3 to completely finish its DLC cycle and go on a _steep_ sale before I commit to it.
Completely agree that the Warriors of Chaos and Norscan campaigns... really suck. Super hard, easily the most frustrating of all the races which is just odd given the setting.
But I'm not so convinced about all elements of the Ordertide any more. Last plays of Mortal Empires I had, Grimgor succeeded a couple of early WAAAAAGHs, krumped and confederated every other Orc faction, then proceeded to munch the entire Wasteland and Worlds Edge, spiraling up past 60 settlements after about 100 turns.
The Dwarfentide of TWW1 times are long past.
The area south of the Border Princes is called the Badlands.
The Wasteland is the westernmost province of the Empire, controlled by Marienburg.
@@kubaGR8 Fair enough, Badlands is the place they completely dominate then, about 75% of the time in my experience
Well, it is an interesting concept of order powers essentially working towards their own downfall, through domination.
Which is why I always preffer to be on a short end when it comes to powers. The fun never ends if you never win.
It’s good to see elves get their due. I mean, they are the best racing fantasy for a reason
Good on you Thunder for getting sponsors, would be great if you could make this your full time employment, as your production is getting better and better. Keep up the great work.
The cat avatar with drawn-on expressions is 100% working.
14:28 Well now that has really peaked my curiosity! Hope you're enjoying our game :D
Favorite bit: I think the Red Tsar perfects the Order Tide ideal! When you work with the Red Tsar, you can go on a dovine Reconquista of the entire planet and, finally, truly, expel all semblance of the Chaos taint - the Noblebright ending to an otherwise Grimdark setting, the ending I think many people wanted.
The moral of the story is that if Dmitry Tzaryov could have stopped the End Times if he was real.
Chaos was supposed to be a challenge but all I really did was built enough tanks to embarrass general Patton and then steamroll from 1 side of the map to the other hoping that the ever chosen would be one of the things that gets flattened along the way.
Sometimes, I'll try to be a little bit clever with it by adopting arrowhead formations and having some Calvary for tactical utility, but before long, it came to selecting all tanks and clicking on which enemy was the fattest.
In fact, it's not much of a reason to build anything Else. Infantry don't move as fast, calvary don't hold their own after the charge, artillery can not defend themselves from melee and well... THEY ARE TANKS BRO.
I love them so much that I bought a steam tank model to be delivered at my house and assembled it with mom and I still have it. I'm still not the biggest fan of warhammer, but this I will always remember.
Storm of chaos was still a masterpiece of writing. Ordertide and Chaostide meet each other on kislev's north border and both armies go at it. Grinding each other down, no side gaining an upper hand.
Then the boyz arrive and steal victory with Grimgor kicking Archaon in the balls
Lovely stuff 👌🏻
I cannot like it twice for that Tyrion joke. Jeesh, an explosive one xD
I was unhappy with the end times until they brought back Gotrek in age of sigmar with a audio drama where he is voiced by BRIAN BLESSED
my boy Thunder got a sponsor, hell yeah
Interesting making a video about an absolute games problems with end game, but I still like it.
I never experienced ordertide, green tide on the other hand, that was always fun
Not only just a power fantasy that we see good defeat evil or we slap Manfred's ass. But also there was a ton of mods that give more flavors to the factions too. Like Tomb Kings Extended, Sigmar's Son, Lustria Rise and Jurassic mods.
Yipeeee new video !
Wait...
Kitten, is that you?
Immediately subscribing, and I really hope you have an amazing time here on youtube.
Thunder lives! :D
It's at the point of the campaign were I notice the empire, dwarfs and bretonia have become one massive super state that I just can't be asked to continue
Rewatching this months later, it's weird seeing a clip from WH3's Mortal Empire's trailer in a video dominated by WH2 recorded content. I swear this video was older but I guess it got edits at some point.
It's not a bug it's a feature. If CA wanted to actually make the game about civilization barely surviving the dark horde of barbarians they would have used the Atilla mechanics as a base. Instead twwh uses more traditional mechanics. I think they wanted to build a fantasy empire game, grimdark be damned.
Any chance of you covering Mark of Chaos in any capacity?
now that, would be boss
After thrones of Decay its much worse, the empires now holds reliably, while cathay and the dwarfs snowball
The order tide has also been drastically reduced in Mortal Empires. It's golden age really was the time before the Warden & The Paunch, before Greenskins got their rework. Nowadays, the three most powerful factions any Mortal Empires run will generally be Grimgor, Morathi and Malekith in that order.
there's a reason Norsca will always be my favorite faction in TW warhammer. to the north you have chaos who will betray you with the drop of a hat, to the south you have all of Order against you. you're heavily underequipped, terrible mechanics, bare bones units, and then thrown to the meat grinder. they're made to be expendable, but I always see atleast one of those madlads survive past turn 50
idk, its always vampires that ends up controling the empire unless you help karl for me. Only time karl wins is if you help him for me.
Proof that at least in Total Warhammer universe, Vashtorr exists and reigns supreme as the Chaos God of Military-Industrial Complex.