Between the silence of the ice, the screams of war rise
Sold for about ten euros, the expansion adds to the world of Total War: Warhammertwo new factions, namely the Norsca and Zannadinverno tribes, two powers that share virtually the same roster but which guarantee a good replayability mainstream countryside, different departure regions and much higher difficulty for the second. Unlike what is seen in Real of the Wood Elves and The Call of the Beastman – two expansions that are more expensive but also sold twice the price – this new DLC does not fit in a new campaign with a more focused focus on the two new ones powers, just as it happened for the previous Chaos Warrior faction packs, and for the packet calledThe King and the Warlord .
This does not mean that the Nordic tribes are a mere appendage, a trivial addition to giving the least importance to the icebergs of the north: Creative Assembly has in fact given the new factions a truly Vichingan soul and different from all the other factions, which is embodied in a totally unique game style. The mainstream campaign assumes quite different tones, the focus moves much further north, into a story of feuds and struggles for the predominance of the territories invaded by Chaos, while all the other southern regions are nothing but territories to be raided and to make it booty.
Before talking about why using Norsca or Zannadinverno to take and throw away everything that has been learned from other factions, first of all, two words should be spent on the restyling of the Creative Assembly on the northern regions, no longer inhabited by the Vaarg, Norsca and Skaeling , but now subdivided among the tribes of Inferno Spire, Goromandy or, again, of Vanaheimling.
The plurality of actors gives life to bloody struggles for power, where there will be only one power that can unify under his banner the restless warriors. The diplomacy between these factions is in fact as simple as it has been successful: concluding an alliance or tightening up a trade agreement is a very difficult undertaking and the only reason is that of arms. The conquest of enemy settlements is not the only way to expand, indeed, much more often the new regions are assimilated after an important open field victory, leading the defeated leader to declaring loyalty to the winner, clinging to it in a confederation .
Always moving
There is no break in the life of a devil, and under the guidance of Wulfrik the Errante and Throgg – the two new legendary heroes at the helm of Norsca and Zannadinverno – every moment is marked by war drums. The faction’s economy is almost entirely based on raids and looting: tribes can only occupy settlements dispersed between boundless ice in the north, or alter only a few of the cities on the continent, but the building chain does not provide enough sustenance for the armies.
The only way to survive is to push the hordes outside their own borders to live in a constant state of belligerence, while every barrier on the path of warriors is razed to the ground under the axes. Striking in this sense the difficulty of recruiting new troops outside the settlements, with waiting times around the five rounds, is a definite rise if one thinks how many frangents are spent far from their territories in the name of the war.
Under their thick skins, the devils, side by side with the monsters and beasts, do not suffer almost any malus caused by climate or corruption, and this is yet another incentive for action: to strike on their own cities, convinced that the revenue from them is sufficient, it is just a suicide , also because the outposts are completely devoid of walls and this makes the conquest ever flimsy and transient. With regard to sieges, Wulfrik the Errante also has a special ability that overturns the need to attack the bastion-defended regions with siege weapons.
This power is indispensable, given the absence of siege weapons for the Norsca armies, a factor that once again puts the predatory tribes as unbreakable forces in the open field, but less suited to forcing walls and towers. In addition to looting, the conquered settlements can also be grounded and sacrificed to the ancestral worship of gods.
