Funny / Total War: Warhammer II

"NEVER ENOUGH DOOMWHEELS!"

• In the Announcement Cinematic Trailer, two Witch Elves charge the High Elf line, only to be unexpectedly eaten by a Carnosaur.
• Much like the rest of the Warhammer fanbase, Creative Assembly's utter refusal to acknowledge the Skaven, despite mounting evidence they're coming.
• While the rest of the trailer is good Nightmare Fuel, the Skaven trailer takes ample time to highlight one of their most ridiculous and memetic units: the Doomwheel, a mechanized hamster wheel with lightning guns that ramps around like a steampunk motorcycle.
• During a Dark Elf campaign the "untimely" and not-at-all suspicious death of a rival may be mentioned when upgrading a dreadlord.
  • The Dark Elves in general tend to be good for a bit of Black Comedy. Take the description of the "Torture Post" building for instance:
  "Essentially, we tie you to this post, and then we torture you. It's....very literal."
• The Skaven Scribe reacting to the second game's cinematic announcement trailer. A couple funny points are the Scribe describing Teclis as "Benedict Cumberelf" and mockingly asking Malekith if his mother knows where he is.
  • "Ah, here he is! Floating-toad-thing!.(whispered) Wow, he's really let himself go..."
  • "Skaven confirmed!"
  • Also the minor things, like the Scribe bursting out laughing when a High Elf gets an arrow in the face, freaking out when the camera zooms up into the sky, and commenting that "I like that Skink!" at everyone's favorite lizard.
• The Skaven Scribe is back for the trailer to The Laboratory game mode, bringing his typical flair to the description.
  Scribe: How many Doomwheels? Not enough Doomwheels! NEVER ENOUGH DOOMWHEELS! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!
  • Also, when he turns gravity all the way down.
  Scribe: Oooh, floaty elf-things! See them fly!
• Many of the High Elf Princes and Nobles you can recruit have crippling negative traits, such as "Clumsy," "Nearsighted," and "Fay," often with hilarious flavor text. One trait suggests that the Prince is more suited for a day at the spa than leading a battle.
• DOOM! Engineers are unique heroes that can be recruited with the Scheme of DOOM!. They cannot perform any actions except for blowing themselves up to destroy city walls, sacrificing themselves so that your rats can pour in with much less resistance. They fit in perfectly with the insane but pragmatic society of the Skaven, and sending your DOOM! Engineers to their DOOM! is always entertaining.
• Zoom-in towards a city with low public order and you'll hear voices (presumably the people of the city) complaining about their conditions. Most are fairly straightforward, but the Dark Elves, for example, sound quite enthusiastic to inform you that "the riots are moments away!" and the Skaven take the cake by conspiratorially whispering "Time to eat-eat leaders!"
• Diplomatic dialogue has always been unusual and often forgets to take into account the lore of the characters involved (see Elector Counts calling Franz's own offers an insult to the Emperor), but the interactions between Teclis and Tyrion can easily take the cake when one says that while they agree, they will never be brothers. Example.
• The ambient chatter amongst your troops is not only back, but it has been extended to the campaign itself. Some highlights...
  • In battle, High Elf soldiers might remark upon their dark kin's armor being more dangerous than their weapons.
  • Retreating Skaven may shout "Run-flee! Surrender!", not that they get to try the latter.
  • Fleeing Skaven also occasionally shoutout "Shameful display!" as well
  • Illustrating the Skaven's... unique character equally well is the line "Not my fight-fight!" (shouted in a tone that somehow manages to sound equally panicked and blase)
  • Malekith may occasionally comment that he hates snow, which, considering where he lives is rather amusing. It also bears a certain resemblance to a piece of Memetic Mutation regarding sand, from a certain famous franchise....
    • Hellebron will also get in on this, complaining that she's cold and demanding someone bring her a cloak.
• Tyrion's quest for Sunfang becomes darkly hilarious when you realize that it basically boils down to a bunch of High Elven courtiers deciding to try Bullying the Dragon and accuse him of being a Slaaneshi cultist.
  • Doubly comical when you consider that for some reason they didn't make the vastly more sensible accusation that, being a direct descendant of Anearion, he worshiped Khaine.
• Many of the item descriptions are epic or ominous. Others are just absurd.
  The Dragonbane gem was found in the gullet of the legendary Drake Helorgondrax. The beast had choked on the stone in mid-flight and had crashed into a Halfling feasting hall at supper time.

  The way the description is worded, and knowing what Warhammer halflings are like, it's implied that the Dragon could have survived if said halflings hadn't served him up as an extra course.

• Treasure hunting can can yield some fairly amusing results, such as finding a batch of priceless relics in the wilds of Lustria... only to realize later they're worthless counterfeits. Or wasting a ton of ammunition trying to take down the undead guardians of an ancient tomb, which turn out to be ordinary corpses propped up to look like zombies. It's doubly amusing if it's the likes of Teclis or Morathi who are being taken in by such a cheap trick.
• The tradition of hiding jokes in the patch notes continues in the Mortal Empires patch:
  • Right bellow the line that says:"fixed an exploit where you could cast some spells repeatedly for free if giving a move order during spell wind up" it says "YUKANNADUZAT!"
  • "FIXED CA Cinematics Team’s obsession with slaying High Elves. May require further testing…"
  • It also says that the skavenslaves are 25% more tasty after the got more salt in their diets
• invokedOne random event in a Skaven campaign reveals that an enterprising scribe has produced a comical image of a naked, beardless, blushing dwarf and disseminated it by the thousandfold throughout the Under-Empire. This leads to an in-universe Memetic Mutation as the popularity of "Nudey No-Beard" skyrockets, and all of your armies gain a leadership bonus against dwarfs.
• The whole campaign was all part of the Skavens evil plan in summoning their god The Horned Rat. How? The twin tailed comet was actually a Skaven built rocket meant to be knock-off of the real comet which would trick the other races into pouring more magic into the Vortex. And it worked!
• Upon the Tomb King's launch, the CA staff had this to say;
  Ready, Settra... go!
• The Sheer irony of Nagash of all people getting fucked over because he never bothered to check if someone stayed dead
• While Settra remains egoistic as ever before, his conversations with other factions are often hilarious. Especially due to how self aware he can be:
  Settra: Think your arrogance can match mine, Elf? I am Settra!
• Settra receives a bonus◊ for defeating Surtha Ek in Mortal Empires. Surtha Ek recives a bonus for defeating Settra in Mortal Empires. Its name: True Chariot Master. This all is Ascended Meme which begun as Surtha's obscession with chariots due to Artificial Stupidity, which also was Artificial Brilliance as he efficiently wiped infantry armies with them. Also, there is Surthara Bel'Kec as leader of high elf faction Tiranok which is famous for their chariots. And she likes the chariots too.
• The aforementioned obscession itself is Ascended Glitch now, so you can face stacks like 4 goblin catapults and 15 units of boar cavalry, or huge herd of norsca mammoths who are Surtha's new favorite toy. Sometimes these builds are ridiculous, but sometimes they work really good beause of AI microcontrol skills or just Game-Breaker. An entire army of Lothern sea guard will work well, or you can try to defeat the 3 other player-controlled armies with nothing but Doomwheels. Hilarity ensues.
  • Lizardmen have a special ritual to summon an army full of various wild dinosaurs.
  • Speaking more about hilarious compositions, developers made some especially for the Rogue Armies. Such as an army of Rocket Batteries, Outriders with Grenade Lauchers and Steam Tanks named the "College of Pyrotechnics" or an army made up of only "lunatic" units such as Flagellants and Doom Divers named "Morrsliebs Howlers"
• When his army sets sail Settra says "Settra surfs."
• Among his truly-staggering list of titles◊ used in a mission description, one in particular stands out: Slayer of Redditras.
  • He's also listed as "The Begetter of the Begat," which is especially hilarious now that he's an undead skeleton. It's not an empty boast either, as he fathered so many children while alive that the vast majority of the other Tomb Kings and their undying courts are in some way descended from him.
• The flavor text of the Norscan Rage trait;
  These warriors have something of an anger management issue. Funnily enough, no one has yet found a way to safely broach the issue.
• There is something darkly amusing at the fact that Hellebron's campaign gives questlines to sieze and control the strongholds of both Morathi and Alarielle to offer as sacrifices to her lord Khaine... motivated entirely because Hellebron is jealous both are prettier than her. Even better, it's implied that the reason Hellebron has to go through the blood rituals at all is because Morathi wouldn't share her secret. Why not? Because young Hellebron was prettier than her.
• The Middle Sea Brigands, one of the foes one must defeat in order to win the Vampire Coast Vortex Campaign. Once, they were an undefeated crew led by an insane Imperial Admiral who claimed he was getting advice from his parrot on how to win every battle against the enemies of The Empire. One day, however, he decided out of the blue that they should all be pirates because the parrot told him so. And the crew went along with this without much resistance. Although, it becomes less funny with the implication that the parrot is a daemon of Tzeentch considering that the crew decided to pick up many Norscans and a Frost Wyrm with them afterwards.
• Some of the descriptions of the buildings available to The Vampire Coast are pretty funny in their own right:

"Corrupted Tavern: Your local pirate tavern: good food, the best rum and quite a lot of murder - fun for all the family!"

"Bullion Coffers: Lads, we're gonna need a bigger boat..."

"Captain's Cabin: At last! I've made it, Bernard - I've got me own room...Well, me own very box anyway."

• Madame-Captain Cylostra Direfin, the Ghost Pirate Opera Singer Witch. And zombie ship mechas.
  • On the topic of the Madame-Captain, we have the unique hero, the Damned Paladin, with whom she starts every game. Although he is seen as a tragic figure, the flavor text in the unit stats shows that the whole situation is an Ironic Hell to him.
    "Damned Paladin: This Paladin is cursed to 'live', forever damned, at Cylostra's side. He doesn't even like music..."
  • Direfin's goal of sinking Ulthuan is also rather hilarious when you realize WHY she's pursuing it. When she lived as a famous Bretonnian singer, she was invited to the court of the Phoenix King. While sailing to Ulthuan, her ship ran into a storm. The captain tried to steer clear, but Direfin threw him overboard and ordered the ship to sail right into the storm, convinced her singing would calm the seas. Needless to say, that didn't happen and she now seeks to destroy the High Elves, because it was entirely THEIR fault she died.
• The trailer for the Prophet and the Warlock wouldn't sound funny, but then you get to see it. It's basically just a big reference to Predator where the Skaven just open fire in one direction and hit nothing. Then the Lizardmen show up, having found the main bulk of the Skaven Guns.
• The Sword of Khaine is an Evil Weapon and Artifact of Doom which makes its wielder and their allies Ax-Crazy, and taking it from the altar is considered crossing the Godzilla Threshold in the setting. In the game it is an equippable item with Game-Breaker combat buffs to your lord, but horrible drawbacks to diplomacy and public order. And now guess what happens to the player who obtains it and holds onto the Sword for too long? Yes, they'll inevitably forget about diplomacy and just go about killing everyone.
  • What's even more funny is that the Sword of Khaine can end up in the possession of a Slann Mage which ends up making it completely useless as the user is completely incapable of melee combat.
  • It happens often enough that All-Loving Hero Alarielle, the supposed incarnation of Incorruptible Pure Pureness, grabs the Sword of Khaine and goes on a rampage that it's become something of a meme.
• The trailer for "The Hunter and the Beast" starts off with a battle wagon full of Imperial soldiers hauling ass away from a Dread Saurian chasing them. The entire time the Imperials are screaming their heads off, leading to one particularly funny instance where the wagon full of shrieking humans pass by a random Skink who looks up, confused.
• Where most factions have The Advisor, some sort of authority figure, messenger or intelligence gatherer as their Mission Control, Cylostra and the other Vampire Pirates decided to use an undead monkey instead.
  • As for Marcus Wulfhart? A halfling chef. Because someone has to cook all the monsters he slays.
  • And then there's Grom the Paunch, who has a Night Goblin lackey he once sat on and the severed head of his former court shaman directing his rampages.
• Tretch Craventail's debut was considered a complete surprise out of left field by many and led to humorous speculation that Tretch had killed a potential rival for the honor of getting into the game.
• The fact that Eltharion starts off with a unique to him Hero named Cavill, with a special passive called "White Wolf", is a good multi-layer joke by the developers.
  • Firstly, Eltharion has pretty much been called the High Elf Batman due to a similar brooding personality, and being a vigilante like force of good for Ulthuan. So giving him a hero named Cavill, aka Henry Cavill who also played Superman, makes a pretty good joke on its own.
  • Cavill having the White Wolf passive, a bonus against Large enemies pretty clearly references Geralt of Rivia, another character Henry Cavill has played. Yup, you basically have a Batman Lord, and a Superman/Geralt Hero by his side, all for the sake of a pretty good (and also awesome given Henry Cavill's love of the Total War series) joke.
• Most of the food that Grom devours during his conquest is hilariously awful, mixing Cordon Bleugh Chef and Grom's bizarre tastes in food (one of his possible suggestions for a garnish is toenails). The actual effects of the food are both devastating and another layer to the joke. Examples includes:
  • The Magnum Pizza: An entire undercooked hog placed upon a big pizza dough. Worst part of it all? The hog is covered in pineapple!
  • The Cheesy 'Shroom: A poisonous mushroom glazed with rotten molten cheese. Even Grom states that it has a smell similar to giants' feet. Not that he minds.
  • Grom's Surf n' Turf: An entire pufferfish stuffed with random bits of meat and sealife, including seashells. And no, he doesn't seem to care that he's munching down on one of the most poisonous fishes in the world.
  • The Fishy 'Shroom Burger: A rotten slab of fish meat slapped between two buns of rancid toxic mushrooms. It makes Grom's breath so vile that he can outright weaponize it as a lethal spell.
• For most people that don't know anything about High Saurian, the Lizardmen language, the war cry "Bok! Bok! Bok!" comes off as being unintentionally funny because it seems to them that a big, scary dinosaur-man is supposedly announcing its intent to kill someone by talking like a chicken.
• This 2018 Animation Reel made by David Vince, which shows how much effort was put into making the unit interactions fluid and life-like, starts off on a very humorous note with Malekith getting eaten by a Carnosaur.
• Some diplomacy lines are quite funny:
  • Malekith gets notably grumpy during diplomatic interactions with the Tomb Kings while having a negative relationship with them.
    Malekith: Threats are wasted on the undead. Just leave!
  • Coming from someone covered in furs from head to toe, this seems rather hypocritical:
    Markus Wulfhart: (to friendly Dark elves) Does your clothing not bother you in Lustria?
  • Snikch lampshades how tedious diplomacy with elves can be:
    Snikch: Speak-speak-speak! Druchii speak much. Snikch only listen-hear for so long...
  • Throt sometimes gets carried away due to his endless hunger:
    Throt: MEAT-FLESH! GET IN MY GUT-GUT! Hhhn. Hhhn. Sorry-sorry. Am so hungry...
  • Regular Skaven Warlords have a debatably effective threat toward the Tomb Kings.
    Warlord: Obey us or we-we piss on your pyramids!
• The "Hostility" mechanic that Markus Wulfhart's faction has offers an extremely amusing (and slightly frustrating) bit of Gameplay and Story Segregation in that it doesn't care who he is fighting or where. Destorying Vampire Coast or Skaven cities/armies? Lizardmen still dislikes you for it. Fighting Chaos worshippers? The hostility meter still rises. Fighting in the Mortal Empires map, moving all the way back to Reikland, fighting other humans? You guessed it, you'll still have a Lizardmen army popping up near you (and so in the middle of reikland) to destroy your cities.
• In a similar vein to Stop Poking Me!, the disapproval responses from some Legendary Lords on the campaign map can be very hilarious, especially considering who is speaking them and that most, if not all, of them are directed at the player. Most of these can be heard when diplomatic offers are refused, when clicked on as an enemy, or when ordered to do something impossible like moving onto a mountain tile. There is nothing quite like hearing Luthor Harkon questioning the player's sanity or Archaon just barely tolerating the player's choices.

  Luthor Harkon: I thought I was the crazy one? / Who are you...

  Count Noctilus: Over YOUR dead body!

  Archaon the Everchosen: Your defiance is noted! / (exasperated) Stop this!

  Sigvald the Magnificent: And they called me rash... / Sense has fled with your bowels. / I deny this, as I deny you.

  Kholek Suneater: FOOL!

  Isabella von Carstein: Such arrogance! Tch-tch.

  Karl Franz: By Sigmar, NO! / This action does not have my consent!

  Volkmar the Grim: I am Volkmar, not some peasant!

  Wurrzag, Da Great Green Prophet: Wat's rong with youz? / You wat?

  Grimgor Ironhide: You're making me ANGRY!

  Skarsnik: You looney... / You call dat a plan?

  Grom the Paunch: Grom wouldn't fit. / Dat. Ain't. Appenin.

  Queek Headtaker: No I blame you-you! / Not my fault!

  Ikit Claw: Small brain...

  Deathmaster Snikch: Not-not now! Not-not ever!

  Gotrek: MADNESS!

  Belegar Ironhammer: I oughta smack ye!

  Prince Imrik: Futile, and insulting!

  Settra the Imperishable: I do not serve! / Fool!

  • Throgg, of all people, will throw in a few puns for good measure.
    Throgg: I do the trolling!
    Throgg: Put it on ice!
  • Even some generic Lords and Heroes have humorous responses.
    Runelord: You what? / I am a Runelord, not some smith! / You will answer for this insult!
    Vampire Fleet Captain: Are you swindling me?
    Vampire Fleet Admiral: No! I'm surrounded by fools!
    Celestial Wizard: (completely deadpan) Ignore my wisdom at your peril.
    Marauder Chieftain: Madness...NO! / You know nothing!
    Chaos Lord: Asinine mortal! / Tempt me not!
    Chaos Sorcerer Lord: Haha! I think not!
    Chaos Sorcerer: No! Not for you, imbecile!
    Wight King: Foolish mortal!
    Orc Shaman: Are you stupid? / No! That's forbidden! / STOP!
    Night Goblin Warboss: You can't make me do that boss. / Nah uh!
    Goblin Big Boss: I'd rather eat a squig.
    Master Assassin: Halt-halt! Strange joke...
    Warlock Master: Stupid-stupid! / Bad idea...
    Warlord: No! Blame you-you!
• This map, which is incredibly rare and only exists in Norsca, is hilariously bad for having the smallest landmass in the game and, consequently, having the power to ruin a player's campaign or at least cost them an entire army, autoresolve or not. The fact that it even exists has players wondering out loud if this map is a practical joke on them by the developers or if someone really didn't even try to do their job properly (It's actually caused by Bretonia conquering a Norscan settlement and building walls there, something only they can do in an area of the map they have no business being in). The game doesn't have map data for a Norscan settlement with fortified walls and creates a Minus World when forced to look it up.)

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