Fear the Grave...
The Warhammer Fantasy universe is filled with horror, and Creative Assembly certainly did the source material justice.
- The Dark Elves trailer, which perfectly emphasizes just how twisted and cruel the Druchii are. Malekith in particular makes an impression, effortlessly slaughtering his way through a group of helpless High Elves, before promising more slaughter to come in a voice that would make Chaos Warriors tremble with fear. The look on the face on the High Elf prince when he realizes his predicament says it all.
- Another thing that manages to stand out is the scene of the hanging High Elf soldiers. While seemingly a small detail it is perhaps the most blatant display of sheer cruelty yet seen in a faction trailer. Doing such a thing offers little tactical benefit but the Dark Elves still managed to invest time and effort into an act of pure sadism while in the middle of a raging battle where simply killing their foes would be far easier and more practical. It highlights their twisted, vengeful mindset with chilling effectiveness.
- It somehow gets worse in the actual game. In their settlements, you can sometimes come across fields of the burnt corpses of their victims, perpetually twisted in agony. The sheer depravity of the Dark Elves has never been represented in a visual medium this well. For an extra bit of horror these mass graves are eerily reminiscent of scenes from The Holocaust.
- The Skaven trailer showcases all of their twisted weaponry, their horrendous monsters, and totally Ax-Crazy mindset as two separate armies slaughter Lizardmen and Dark Elf forces, cackling madly all the way. This includes one of their most horrifying creations: the Hell Pit Abomination
, which takes down a Dark Elf dragon with no trouble at all.- The Hellpit Abomination is worth a whole entry all by itself. Chaos Spawn and Chaos Trolls and Undead monstrosities look like cuddly bunnies compared to this◊ nightmare. It's difficult to distinguish where heads, limbs, tentacles, claws, tails, and machinery begin and end. Just to hammer home how horrific the Skaven are, it's made very clear that they jammed an entire steam-powered engine into this thing at some point, and it's grown around it.
- The Hellpit Abomination is worth a whole entry all by itself. Chaos Spawn and Chaos Trolls and Undead monstrosities look like cuddly bunnies compared to this
- So, it's the final battle. You're defending your position on the Isle of the Dead against all three other factions in one last gigantic punch-up to take the Vortex for yourself. Seems normal, right? WRONG.◊ The Horned Rat itself is hanging in the sky over the battlefield, waiting to be brought into the world, and as the battle goes on it taunts you, expressing its excitement about all the souls it'll be eating, along with personalized taunts like saying how he'll devour all of Lustria if you're the Lizardmen.
- Speaking of which, you think it's bad to have the Vortex be ruined and let Chaos run rampant all over the world, ending reality as we know it? Well, imagine that, but with a giant god of evil trampling all over the place as well, and your puny chances of stopping this apocalyptic disaster just went to zero. Enjoy.
- It's even worse when the implications start to sink in. The Horned Rat isn't even the worst thing out there, only a minor god whom the major Ruinous Powers don't even deign to acknowledge half the time; such a horrific monstrosity to still considered a small-time player by Chaos standards. It's grim omen for what's coming in the third game when the "Big Four" finally show up...
- Victory for either of the evil races in the Vortex campaign spells utter disaster for the rest of the world:
- As mentioned previously, if the Skaven are victorious the Horned Rat itself will be set loose on the mortal world. The consequences of such a turn of events speak for themselves.
- If the Dark Elves are victorious Malekith will absorb the power of the Vortex, effectively making himself a god in the process and granting one of the most infamous tyrants in history the power to fulfill his ambitions. Which extends to the conquest and subjugation of not just Ulthuan, but the rest of the world as well. After living under Druchii rule for a while, the collective peoples of the Warhammer world might find themselves begging for the End Times.
- If Arkhan The Black manages to best the other Tomb Kings in Nehekara and take control over the Black Pyramid, then he doesn't even need The Vortex to cause destruction all over the world. All he needs to do is revive Nagash The Undying, the mightiest lich to have ever existed, to wipe out all life on the planet and turn everything into undead puppets, with Nagash being the only sentient being left.
- It doesn't even need to be Arkhan The Black who claims the Pyramid; The Tomb Kings may not be an explicitly evil faction, but they're still immensely ambitious and unapologetically tyrannical rulers who have just gotten their bony digits on the ''Warhammer'' equivalent of a nuclear arsenal.Narrator: The living shall quail... for the age of flesh is over! The Tomb Kings shall reign over all!
- It doesn't even need to be Arkhan The Black who claims the Pyramid; The Tomb Kings may not be an explicitly evil faction, but they're still immensely ambitious and unapologetically tyrannical rulers who have just gotten their bony digits on the ''Warhammer'' equivalent of a nuclear arsenal.
- As that little extra bit of Nightmare Fuel, The Lizardmen Ending cut-scene states that the children of the Old Ones must "purge", followed by the sounds of elfs screaming in terror and pain, leaving very little to wonder about what exactly these "Protectors" are doing. Though it becomes rather less nightmarish when you realize the Lizardmen are destroying "unnatural" races like Dark Elves and Skaven-who are generally Always Chaotic Evil. Still scary for the world at large, as they plan to drag every race back to its country of origin according to their Great Plan and keep them there, whether they like it or not.
- The forced relocation is just the tip of the Iceberg. Lord Mazdamundi once crippled the entire Dwarfen empire in an arcane ritual that irreparably shattered the Karaz Ankor and began the Time of Woes. Why? Because the World's Edge mountain range had moved ten inches to the left since the world's creation, and he wanted to move it back. Not one Lizardman thought to questione this; they're just that detached from empathy and the world around them. And with the power of the vortex now at their beck and call, such calamities will become a regular occurrence.
- If any of the Vampire Pirate Lords manages to get complete their mission, then there is no need for them to worry about the Vortex, for they will be in control over what can basically be described as the Warhammer verision of a zombified Godzilla, giving them ultimate authority of anything even remotely close to the waters, including the Vortex itself!
- Completing a ritual as the Skaven nets a lovely message that informs you that the Horned Rat itself briefly materialized, indiscriminately scooped up thousands of screaming, helpless ratmen into its gigantic claws, and devoured them like fistfuls of popcorn before vanishing. Your warlords are horrified, but the Grey Seers still insist on continuing with the greater ritual, each sequence of which will cause this terrifying event to happen again and again...
- One random event describes how a cabal of sorcerers attempted to harness gastromancy for some end, only for the spell to miscast and instead summon the Great Maw, the gluttonous deity of the ogres. The offending sorcerers are said to have been quickly and messily devoured on the spot.
- In Lustria, the Skaven can construct "Corrupted Spawning Pools" in certain Lizardmen cities. These pools have been heavily polluted to the point of uselessness, but they still produce saurus and skinks that emerge from the primordial soup as misshapen, mewling wretches. The Skaven harvest these helpless mutants as a source of easy food.
- A preview for the next DLC Race. A Dark Elf decides to write a letter home about a somewhat boring quest that involves stealing magical artifacts from a tomb that once belonged to an ancient civilization. They don't expect to face any sort of difficulty due to being the only living thing for miles from their position, but if any fans knows anything about the symbols surrounding the letter, they know the elves are in for a VERY nasty surprise once they start opening the tomb.
- The trailer that comes afterwards is no less creepy in the beginning: the aforementioned Druchii enter the tomb they've come for and find what they were seeking, only to come under attack by Ushabti who butcher them effortlessly, with only one Shade managing to escape. And, just as he finds himself safe, a giant Tomb Scorpion pops out of the sand and impales him effortlessly, heralding the charge of hordes of skeletons.
- And undead charioteers, undead vultures... and an ENORMOUS mummy colossus with FRIKENLASERBEAMS IN ITS EYES!
- The trailer that comes afterwards is no less creepy in the beginning: the aforementioned Druchii enter the tomb they've come for and find what they were seeking, only to come under attack by Ushabti who butcher them effortlessly, with only one Shade managing to escape. And, just as he finds himself safe, a giant Tomb Scorpion pops out of the sand and impales him effortlessly, heralding the charge of hordes of skeletons.
- Most Skaven are diminutive, poorly equipped, cowardly, and weak. Not too scary on their own, right? Enter the Rat Ogre, a hulking, horrifically mutated creature created by Clan Moulder from unknown species. Not only is the Rat Ogre massive in size and strength, it still has the speed and twitchy reflexes of the common Skaven. While a normal Skaven can be felled easily, the Rat Ogre can shrug off countless attacks before falling, charging into the fray without thought. They can bound across terrain almost as fast as a horse, and wreak devastating carnage on any infantry in their path. You can't outrun them, and armor is no protection against savage blows from their variety of augmented weaponry. Some of their kill animations involve them smashing their unlucky victim into paste, or impaling them on a shard of warpstone before spinning them around like a drill-bit. Their lore indicates that the mutations involved in creating a Rat Ogre have left their brain capacity severely diminished, and that they can only feel hunger and rage.
- While the Tomb Kings trend more towards neutrality (especially when compared to the overtly villainous Dark Elves, Skaven, and Chaos), they can still be chillingly cruel to those who provoke them.
- One example is the Casket of Souls, where the spirits of those who have pissed off a Tomb King are bound. Any poor sod who winds up in there is stuck inside a tiny golden box for eternity, suffering constant torment in the claustrophobic darkness. And it gets even better from there! The Tomb Kings will sometimes weaponize the damn things, launching tormented souls onto the battlefield where the crazed and desperate spirits tear through anything in their path. Not that this does them any good; they're doomed to get sucked back in no matter how they fight it. But since misery loves company, at least their victims get to be dragged back into the man-made hell along with their attackers.
- When conquering a settlement, the Tomb Kings have the option to either sack, raze, or peacefully occupy the place. The third option appears to be the most merciful one by far... until you notice that occupying provides you with thirty or so Canopic Jars. Those familiar with Egyptian history will know that those Jars are meant to house preserved organs. You may also notice that you get an similar number of Jars from outright slaughtering the settlement. It causes one to wonder where they're getting all those fresh organs from...
- The intro cinematic is no less horrifying. It starts with an Estalian party of adventurers exploring a sand-shrouded tomb, as they go deeper into the mausoleum, they get greedier, and start looting the tomb. Cue there torches being extinguished, hushed tones of fear, and a disturbing silence. Which ends when you hear a horrifying shriek, and a skeletal abomination charging forward as gunfire echoes, alongside agonized human screams.
- You think it is bad enough to face a generic elf lord who happens to be holding The Sword Of Khaine for a long enough time? Imagine those times when a combat-primed Legendary Lord from the elvish races gets their crazy hands on it, such as Tyrion, Malekith or Durthu! Enjoy watching your late-game armies dying in a storm of rage and gore as you desperately try to stop this overpowered lunatic from wrecking the world.
- As an undead faction based upon the horrors of the deep, the Vampire Coast has its fair share of horrifying monsters:
- The Mournguls. They are essentially a form of Wendigo; the still-animated husks of people who turned to cannibalism (thus setting themselves on the road to becoming ghouls), but starved to death despite their desperation. Mournguls are enormous, lanky monsters and would be quite tall, if their lower halves hadn't fallen off, leaving their entrails to hang out gruesomely. Instead they crawl about on their arms, slavering through limp, distended maws lined with jagged teeth, driven by a ferocious hunger that - with their stomachs gone - is impossible to satiate.
- Animated Hulks are the corpses of ogres that have been infested by an aquatic Puppeteer Parasite, with mutant crab claws and squid heads bursting from the rotten, obese flesh. The ogres' heads are still present, but gruesomely shoved back and lolling uselessly. The parasites bursting from their chests are the real controlling entity.
- A Necrofex Colossus is a massive golem built from the hull of a wrecked ship, the parts fused together by tendrils of meat and bone to form a humanoid shape. At its center is a tightly-packed ball of writhing corpses - the ship's original crew, serving as the Colossi's magical core. Only the most powerful necromancers in history, such as Van Hel, are capable of creating one of these abominations, which should give an indication of just how powerful and resourceful the Vampire Coast's masters really are if they can field several at a time. In spite of their mish-mash construction, these Colossi are described to be intelligent and self-aware, and this can be seen during in-game fights; the Necrofex fixes its own weapon through Percussive Maintenance as an idle animation, and it properly braces and aims its cannons when firing.
- This is a further testament to how terrifyingly powerful Count Noctilus has become - Not only does he create dozens of these things but his faction bonuses imply that it's easy for him. Combine that with his creation of what is essentially a Black Ark out of his own castle - something even the Dark Elves can't do anymore - and you start to get the idea he, not Mannfred, might be the most powerful Von Carstein spellcaster. And he's just as much of a violent domination-seeking Jerkass as Mannfred too.
- The Vampire Coast DLC trailer opens with Luthor Harkon casually sharing tales of his exploits with a dead Empire soldier as he digs up Lustrian artifacts, cackling even as cannonballs sail right over his head.Luthor: (Grinning at the camera) Fortune favors the infamous.
- Rat Ogres are scary enough, being hulking mutants that can tear through ranks of infantry with relative ease, but being Dumb Muscle means they have little agency for themselves and are mostly herded from one battle to the next by their master. So of course, the Skaven had to go and make an intelligent one- Ghoritch, the Castellan of Hell Pit introduced in The Twisted and the Twilight. This is a Rat Ogre the size of a giant with Skryre-made cybernetics that make him look like a transplant from Warhammer 40K, piloted by a human intelligence whose only desire is to messily slaughter anything and everything in its pathnote . He's so powerful and scary that his creator, Throt the Unclean, regrets creating him and wants nothing more than to destroy him. When was the last time a Skaven regretted creating anything that caused widespread mayhem and destruction?!
- Even worse, Throt hates him because he's a threat to Throt's position. That's right, not only is this giant cybernetic rat ogre a terrifying killing machine that wants to murder everyone but he's smart enough to keep up with Skaven politics and Beat Them at Their Own Game.
