History YMMV / TotalWarWarhammer

** The Wood Elves are better than the previous two, but suffer from a ScrappyMechanic that makes them disliked and hard to play as; Amber. Wood Elves need Amber to create some buildings and units, and since they are split between the Wood Elves and the Tree Spirits, you need Amber to recruit whichever units you aren't the faction of. Amber though can only be gained by taking cities, meaning you have a faction that wants to use the woods and forests to ambush enemies, having to go out and raid or take cities just to be able to do well. Its also possible to go into an Amber deficiency if you lose cities, resulting in them potentially outright being unable to catch-up if they lose a city. Their units are good but because the Amber system, their campaign power is far below other factions unless they act quickly.

** The Warriors of Chaos as a faction suffer from being out of date, with a Horde army mechanic with no way of stopping enemies from simply retaking land they lost. This is because Chaos Corruption is supposed to dissuade people from attempting to do so, but its very easy to load up on Lords and Heroes who can lower attrition costs, and can reduce Chaos Corruption, allowing them to quickly reclaim tainted land, and in a relatively short time return it to normal. Furthermore, as a Horde faction, Chaos suffers from having highly expensive units, but without a reliable way of gaining income. Their units are powerful, but when you start off with weak units, while being close to enemies who can quickly make strong armies, its very likely Chaos will die within a few turns. Even if they survive for a while, once the End Times come, ''everyone'' teams up to stop Chaos, and since Chaos likely has almost no allies or extra armies to field, they quickly get overwhelmed and defeated.

* BetterThanCanon: A ''large'' portion of the ''Warhammer Fantasy'' fandom prefer this game over its actual tabletop successor, ''Age of Sigmar''.
** Likewise for the ''Total War'' fandom, the game's popularity is enough to warrant interest in other strategy games based in fictional universes like [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Total War: Third Age]] or [[Series/GameOfThrones Total War: Westeros]], moving away from the traditional historical settings.
** Many people prefer to call the game Total Warhammer (which was declined for brand name reasons). [[https://i.redd.it/4i46y2sbmsl31.png Even Creative Assembly's community manager asked why wasn't the game called that in her job interview]].

** The Warriors of Chaos as a faction suffer from being out of date, with a Horde army mechanic with no way of stopping enemies from simply retaking land they lost. This is because Chaos Corruption is supposed to dissuade people from attempting to do so, but its very easy to load up on Lords and Heroes who can lower attrition costs, and can reduce Chaos Corruption, allowing them to quickly reclaim tainted land, and in a relatively short time return it to normal. Furthermore, as a Horde vacation, Chaos suffers from having highly expensive units, but without a reliable way of gaining income. Their units are powerful, but when you start off with weak units, while being close to enemies who can quickly make strong armies, its very likely Chaos will die within a few turns. Even if they survive for a while, once the End Times comes, ''everyone'' teams up to stop Chaos, and since Chaos likely has almost no allies or extra armies to field, they quickly get overwhelmed and defeated.

** Bretonnia is also considered one of the weaker multiplayer armies for much the same reason, except as an army with great cavalry and mediocre everything else. Opponents just take more anti-cavalry units than normal as a precaution, and Bretonnian armies trying to be unpredictable and bring less cavalry are stuck with the aforementioned mediocre units instead.

** The Warriors of Chaos as a faction suffer from being out of date, with a Horde army mechanic with no way of stopping enemies from simply retaking land they lost. This is because Chaos Corruption is supposed to disuade people from attempting to do so, but its very easy to load up on Lords and Heroes who can lower attrition costs, and can reduce Chaos Corruption, allowing them to quickly reclaim tained land, and in a relatively short time return it to normal. Furthermore, as a Horde facation, Chaos suffers from having highly expensive units, but without a reliable way of gaining income. Their units are powerful, but when you start off with weak units, while being close to enemies who can quickly make strong armies, its very likely Chaos will die within a few turns. Even if they survive for a while, once the End Times comes, ''everyone'' teams up to stop Chaos, and since Chaos likely has almost no allies or extra armies to field, they quickly get overwhelmed and defeated.

* TierInducedScrappy: In terms of PVP, many consider Gelt and Kemmler to be the worst possible choices for a legendary lord due to how they cost far more than they bring to a fight compared to a much cheaper regular wizard or master necromancer. And making matters worse for Gelt, it is very rare to see experienced players use his lore, The Lore of Metal, unless one plays as [[spoiler: The Everwatcher]]. A patch later made the Lore of Metal fully viable, and gave Gelt a powerful campaign bonus. While he isn't as widely used as the other Empire Lords, he's considered a vast improvement over Kemmler...
** Though powerful in single-player, Dwarfs are generally considered the least competitive PVP army. Their entire shtick is based on heavily armoured but undercosted infantry in a game where countering enemy army lists (and being unpredictable so the enemy can't easily counter your own list) is a premium asset, and this makes Dwarf rosters easily [[PoorPredictableRock predictable]]. Every faction has an armour-piercing anti-infantry unit that will go through Dwarfs like a knife through hot butter, and to make matters worse the only AntiCavalry unit available to Dwarfs are the GlassCannon Slayers, who are both outrun by cavalry and usually killed by them ''en masse'' if the cavalry charge first.

** On the other side of the Tier Scrappy spectrum, the Lizardmen and the Tomb Kings get a lot of flak for having insanely good tier 1-3 units that have no real counters and do really well against basically everybody, turning the single player campaign into a cakewalk even on harder difficulties and putting every other faction in multiplayer at a disadvantage. Lizardmen in particular as they have point-for-point the best infantry in the entire game, with amazing endurance and staying power plus healing options, ensuring that the enemy battle line always, ''always'' breaks first.

** Among the Magical Lores of the Warhammer world, the Lore of Beasts has been found to be badly underperforming in the metagame which has rendered any legendary lords who heavily rely on Beast Magic to be almost useless.

** In nearly every video where Sigvald the Magnificent is brought up, there will be plenty of people reminding him of his humiliating fate during ''The End Times''; [[spoiler: getting his head crushed into paste by Throgg and then having his bloody corpse pissed on by the troll out of spite.]]

* CreatorsPet: Some fans have accused Creative Assembly of favouring the Vampire Counts over the other factions. Not only was their roster more complete then the others at launch, but two of three of the [=FreeLC=] Legendary Lords have been Vampire Counts (Vlad and Isabella von Carstein), Vlad and Manfred are considered {{Game Breaker}}s in single player, and the Vampire Counts as a whole are considered top tier in multiplayer matches.
** Their strength in real-time battles is further highlighted by how they can win even though they have a ''horrible'' start in the strategic map, quite possibly the worst of any major faction in the series. They've got a very poor economy, but the real killer is that everybody permanently hates them and about half their border starts as and will always be occupied by literally unconquerable enemies. The Vampire Counts are bounded to the South and East by mountains, which they are never able to conquer thanks to the regional occupation system (maybe vampires are scared of heights?). They'll be under attack by Dwarves and possibly also Orcs for the entire game. Played using autobattle, the Counts will get wrecked... but a Counts campaign with Vlad as the leader is considered a pretty easy win!
*** In spite of what it looks like, the Vampire Counts actually have one of the best start positions in the game. They're really only vulnerable from the north and west, as the Dwarfs are usually going to be distracted by the Greenskin threat and even if they do attack, a few well placed garrison buildings can easily deal with their forces. This means that you can instead focus on expanding into a divided Empire that is often at war with itself without having to worry too much about your home province. Assisting matters is that you can build a gold mine in Castle Drakenhof, giving a massive boost to your economy.

*** The preview and arrival of ''Total War: Warhammer'' led up to a infamous black mark in the history of the ''Total War Center'' community. Simply put, a deep schism occurred where the traditional elitists cried with false outrage against the casuals and Warhammer Fantasy fans for what they perceived to be a ruination of the purity of the ''Total War'' franchise. And the hatemongering got so severe, which was made worse by the moderators doing little to nothing to curb the harassment, that a large influx of forum members left for other sites like Reddit to get away from the toxic cesspool. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that some of the Creative Assembly staff members who used to visit the site NEVER came back due to the fallout. Because of this, ''Total War Center'' has been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be and is frowned upon as a complete joke and a precautionary example of what a Total War fan community shouldn't be. These traditional elitists are commonly known as "Gatekeepers" as they contemptuously regard any person who only played ''Total War: Warhammer'' as a wannabe who should be shut out of the fandom and the franchise.

*** The preview and arrival of ''Total War: Warhammer'' led up to a infamous black mark in the history of the ''Total War Center'' community. Simply put, a deep schism occurred where the traditional elitists cried with false outrage against the casuals and Warhammer Fantasy fans for what they perceived to be a ruination of the purity of the ''Total War'' franchise. And the hatemongering got so severe, which was made worse by the moderators doing little to nothing to curb the harassment, that a large influx of forum members left for other sites like Reddit to get away from the toxic cesspool. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that some of the Creative Assembly staff members who used to visit the site NEVER came back due to the fallout. Because of this, ''Total War Center'' has been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be and is frowned upon as a complete joke and a precautionary example of what a Total War fan community shouldn't be. These traditional elitists are commonly known as "Gatekeepers" as they contemptuously regard any person who only played ''Total War: Warhammer'' as a wannabe who should be shut out of the fan community and the franchise.

*** The preview and arrival of ''Total War: Warhammer'' led up to a infamous black mark in the history of the ''Total War Center'' community. Simply put, a deep schism occurred where the traditional elitists cried with false outrage against the casuals and Warhammer Fantasy fans for what they perceived to be a ruination of the purity of the ''Total War'' franchise. And the hatemongering got so severe, which was made worse by the moderators doing little to nothing to curb the harassment, that a large influx of forum members left for other sites like Reddit to get away from the toxic cesspool. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that some of the Creative Assembly staff members who used to visit the site NEVER came back due to the fallout. Because of this, ''Total War Center'' has been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be and is frowned upon as a complete joke and a precautionary example of what a Total War fan community shouldn't be.

** ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheHornedRat'' is a real-time strategy game that has an astoundingly similar feel to the ''Total War'' franchise BUT predates ''Total War: Warhammer'' by ''21 years''. EXCEPT that it also predates the very first ''Shogun: Total War'' by ''5 years''.

** [[Film/LordOfTheRings "THAT STILL ONLY COUNTS AS ONE!"]] is often quoted when talking about killing mammoths from Norsca.

** "Kislev." Because, well, that's literally the only voice line that is ever spoke by the Kislev faction in diplomacy, regardless of what the text for it says.

** Multi-player: Demigryph knights (incredibly powerful for their price and counter several high-tier units that cost almost twice as much, while lacking counters themselves) and Shem's Burning Gaze/Soul Leech, both of whom quickly kill the enemy general with three-four castings and cost very little mana for how much damage they do against single characters.

* GoodBadBugs: Kholek Suneater can sometimes appear ''much'' larger then his already huge size on the campaign map, making him look both hilarious, and intimidating.
* HilariousInHindsight: The game ''VideoGame/WarhammerMarkOfChaos'' was likened to a Total War game set in the Warhammer universe on its release, if a much more linear one. Cut to years later and an actual Total War game set in the Warhammer universe has been made.

* UnfortunateCharacterDesign: Hard to tell since the player has to really zoom in, but the players that do upon Empire artillery crews will think each and every one of them [[https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/847093461251378506/F1B396B6A3EC2FDD08C0FE25FAEB6816FE91BFF1/ has a right-leaning erection]]. It's definitely ''supposed'' to look like the codpieces that were the fashion in 15th century Europe that the Empire is heavily based on (especially the [[http://www.veritablehokum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Landsknechts2.jpg Landsknecht mercenaries]]), but the actual placement and facing of the crew's really makes theirs look more... natural.

** Both Mannfred and Heinrich's legendary quests send them across the world to begin their missions; Mannfred going to the Badlands while Heinrich heads to Estalia. Both require an extremely long march through typically unfriendly territory, taking attrition from the lack of Vampiric corruption. In either case, it's better to just pay the gold and instantly do the battles. Mannfred's quests are especially frustrating, requiring you to send a Banshee and later a Necromancer deep into the Badlands. Which is not only time-consuming but wastes valuable heroes who could be gaining experience doing useful stuff.

** Bretonnia is also considered one of the weaker multiplayer armies for much the same reason, except as an army with great cavalry and mediocre everything else. Opponents just take more anti-cavalry units then normal, and Bretonnian armies trying to avoid this are stuck with the aforementioned mediocre units instead.

** Though powerful in single-player, Dwarfs are generally considered the least competitive PVP army. Their entire shtick is based on heavily armoured but undercosted infantry in a game where countering enemy army lists (and being unpredictable so the enemy can't easily counter your own list) is a premium. Every faction has an armour-piercing anti-infantry unit that will go through Dwarfs like a knife through hot butter, and to make matters worse the only AntiCavalry unit available to Dwarfs are the GlassCannon Slayers, who are both outrun by cavalry and usually killed by them ''en masse'' if the cavalry charge first.
** Bretonnia is also considered one of the weaker multiplayer armies for much the same reason, except as an army with great cavalry and mediocre everything else.

** Empire Pistoliers are about as infamously poor as Slayers. While Marauder Horsemen are well-known DemonicSpiders, Pistoliers usually cause players to breath easy should they see the AI have them against them due to their poor range and damage-output for this range (not helped by said range making the Pistoliers' AI having trouble with actually shooting at all if they are being chased by infantry that are just even a little faster than the average while set to skirmish), making it simplistic for players to just shoot them to death with their ranged infantry.

** More like unexpected race, but before the announcement of the Norsca faction few people expected the Fimir, an obscure and oft forgotten aspect of Warhammer lore, to make an appearance. Norsca itself being a playable faction is also rather unexpected, as it didn't even have a full army list in the tabletop game.

** The Doom Diver Catapult is ludicrously powerful. It has an enormous range, and self guided missiles that do a lot of damage. Against the AI its pretty much impossible to avoid, and will cut a swathe through the heaviest units. Its not usual for it to get over a hundred kills in auto-resolves, and be much higher rank than other units in the same army.

* GatewaySeries: As mentioned below, the game sparked new interest in the Fantasy version of Warhammer, introducing plenty of people to the, sadly discontinued, franchise.

** When playing as the Greenskins or Dwarfs, the Top Knotz Savage Orcs. Less diverse than the other Greenskin factions, but their units are tougher than the mainline Orc equivalents and they use massive numbers of Arrer Boys. While mid-to-late game armies can step on them, they rapidly rebuild forces and their bases are deep in the badlands and difficult to stomp out. They got significantly nerfed in the first patch, so they aren't anywhere near as big of a problem; however, it also added a random event that makes them come back if you ever do manage to get rid of them.
** Related to the above is the random event of a Savage Orc tribe showing up. While they don't spawn immediately hostile, it's still an Orc warband spawning far from the Badlands in your territory, which can reinforce on its own, can suddenly decide to attack you while you're busy with other threats, and they are entirely composed of the aforementioned Savage units. There's no permanent way to stop them from spawning, and killing them as soon as the tribe shows up may just make them appear again a few turns later.
** The Norscan tribes can easily become this as well. Despite their armies consisting almost entirely of low tier marauder units, and are thus not particularly difficult to defeat, they seem to have an almost inexhaustible supply of troops and the fact that their homeland causes constant attrition to all non Chaos armies makes them extremely irritating to deal with. They have an uncanny knack of knowing which [[TheAllSeeingAI settlements don't have walls]], and are smart enough to sail around the continent to flank an enemy. Most of the factions can't establish a base in Norsca, as there's only some Human/Vampire towns across the sea, or a few Dwarfish holds on the far eastern side of their land. If the player doesn't devote enough forces to purge the north completely, the Norscans will keep resettling their destroyed settlements once the player's army has moved on.

** Kemmler is universally ridiculed for his ''atrocious'' stats and useless campaign bonuses, making him absolutely ''worthless'' to many players, in the campaign and multiplayer. His only saving grace is being able to summon Krell, but Krell gets more love from the fans than Kemmler does (and Krell wasn't added until months after release). The developers are aware of this and plan to update him to buff his campaign performance with new bonuses and a fresh skill tree.
** In nearly every video where Sigvald the Magnificent is brought up, there will be plenty of people reminding him of his humiliating fate during ''The End Times'': [[spoiler: Getting his head crushed into paste by Throgg and then having his bloody corpse pissed on.]]

** People have started to call the Chaos Hell Cannons the "Penis Cannons" due to their design (most notably, the two fleshy orbs between the cannon).

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: During the last years of the tabletop Grimgor was considered a CreatorsPet who kept getting built up at the expense of more interesting Orcs & Goblins characters and because he was the one to end ''Storm of Chaos'' by sucker punching Archaon at the last moment. Here he is still very powerful, but is just one member of the BigBadEnsemble, and his great melee prowess is balanced by being stuck footslogging in a game where mounts are very useful for Lords, earning him a far greater fandom than he used to have. His many [[LaughablyEvil hilarious]] and [[EvilIsHammy hammy]] quotes certainly help matters.

** The March stance is the most frustrating of these and is so widely-hated that there are multiple popular mods that flat-out remove it. Initially designed as a tool to allow armies to move through friendly territory quickly and reduce campaign downtime by giving a movement speed bonus but decreased vigour and locking out the ability to initiate battles, the AI quickly learned that March stance is instead the most powerful tool for an attacking army in enemy territory. The movement speed bonus means that they can outrun any hostile army, as an army has to use March stance to match their speed and thus can't engage them because armies in March stance can't initiate battles. But even then the AI can work around this because you can switch to March stance from Standard stance at any time - This lets the enemy move to an easy target in Standard stance, attack it, destroy it, then enter March stance and run away, gaining the full movement bonus while negating the entire drawback and also violating a fundamental rule of the game (being in a battle is supposed to use all of your Movement so you can't hit and run like this but changing to March stance adds movement after this check, letting the army move). Even if you do successfully attack the army they have the option to retreat once, moving them further away from the army that attacked them and often out of range of a re-engagement, so they just run away next turn. This cycle of hitting, running, and retreating all combines to mean that it can take multiple armies moving in concert upwards of a dozen turns, or multiple successful and expensive Block Army actions from an agent combined with a strong army in Ambush stance, in order to finally get rid of a single raiding army. The player can do this too, but it's more difficult and less beneficial to them than it is to TheAllSeeingAI.
** The Underway Passages, Beastpaths, and Worldroots are equally annoying. All of them allow armies to instantly teleport a short distance across the map, through terrain and barriers. This makes trying to hold off Dwarfs, Greenskins, Beastmen, and Wood Elves at choke points or natural barriers impossible. Unless an army is in range to intercept them during said move (which is a random chance) they can go wherever they want. Combine it with march stance and those factions will run circles around you.
** Attrition is a lesser Scrappy than stance-dancing but is still often grumbled about due to how prevalent it is. You can take attrition from a lot of sources - Barren wastelands, mountain passes, the North where the GoddamnedBats live, Athel Loren, or being in an opposing type of Corruption, with Greenskins also suffering attrition if their Fightiness gets low - and it can devour large portions of your army's health in just a few turns unless you use army-slowing stances to become immune to it, which combined with stance-dancing means you'll probably never fight anything. Towards the final battles with Chaos it's not unusual for half the map to cause Attrition damage. Interestingly this is also hated by more serious players because the AI doesn't know how to handle attrition very well and will stand in army-sapping territories for long periods of time, rendering formidable fights into jokes or paralyzing armies for long periods of time.
** AI-controlled Beastmen are Scrappy Mechanic: The Faction. Not only are they the main abusers of 'stance-dancing' as mentioned above, but they have access to the Beastpaths also mentioned above and have no cities to attack so you can't threaten their assets like they do yours. The cherry on top is the fact their default encampment stance is also an ambush stance meaning that you often can't see their armies unless they're moving. So in the event you ever manage to bring one to battle, they can simply run away and enter a stance that makes them invisible while they recruit new units and heal their casualties. In addition they spread Chaos corruption wherever they go, which can cause public order problems and eventually lead to rebellions and attrition if not kept in check. To top this off they're a faction you can never completely get rid of as they periodically respawn in random places even if completely destroyed.
* {{Squick}}: Greenskins leave behind ''shit'' in sacked towns. Giant, stinking mounds of shit that are crudely shaped into religious idols. [[ToiletHumor Pity the anonymous fellows that have to clean those out for you to put something useful in that building slot]]...

* ThatOneLevel: Both Mannfred and Heinrich's legendary quests send them across the world to begin their missions. With Mannfred going to the Badlands while Heinrich heads to Estalia. Both would require an extremely long march through unfriendly territory, taking attrition from the lack of Vampiric corruption. In either case it's better to just pay the gold and instantly do the battles.
** Mannfred's are especially frustrating. Requiring you to send a Banshee and later a Necromancer deep into the Badlands. Which is not only time consuming but wastes valuable heroes who could be gaining experience doing useful stuff.
** The final Bretonnia Errantry War mission if you choose to attempt the Chaos story-line. The battle location is deep in the Chaos wastes and unlike other quests you can't simply teleport to it. It means either spending multiple turns fighting through hostile factions, likely suffering high attrition rates along the way, or a long out sailing diversion. The final battle itself isn't too bad but is also a long war of attrition as you face off agaisnt four different armies in quick succession.
** Azhag the Slaughterer's very first personal quest, needed to unlock both his special talent trees, requires you to move a character to the border of the Chaos Wastes. Since the Greenskins start in the far southeast this effectively requires you to cross the entire world. The quest itself isn't easy either, pitting your one army against a Chaos warband and ''four'' (admittedly small) undead reinforcing armies.
** Batlhazar Gelt's final personal quest, a duel versus Gottfried Orr for the title of Supreme Patriarch. It takes place right in Altdorf, but more than makes up for it with sheer, ludicrous difficulty that has led otherwise straight-laced players to employ cheats and ask themselves what the hell the developers were smoking in equal measures. To wit: with one army, sans reinforcements, the player must face down two ''full'', 20 unit armies. And not spammy armies filled with trash units: oh, no. Anything from cannons and handgunners to multiple units of demigryph knights and high level heroes. Did we mention that one of the two armies starts within spitting distance of the player's deployment zone, hidden in the woods and set to ambush them the moment the battle starts?
** Trying to take Castle Templehof as the Vampire Counts. Not only is it level 2, it has access to a garrison building adding mid tier units like Grave Guard and Crypt Ghouls. Trying to deal with these in the opening turns can be nightmarish, as it makes Templehof incredibly difficult to wipe out while they can build up to counter-attack between attempts. Requiring the player to either fortify their lands and try to get mid-tier units of their own, or raise an entire second army just to get the forces nessecary to take out their StarterVillain.

* AnnoyingVideoGameHelper: Though not ''nearly'' as disliked as the other [[TheScrappy advisors]] in the series, the one here can be pretty grating, constantly repeating information you already know. Though he is saved scorn by most for having an interesting backstory (a former Imperial Light Sorcerer who crossed the DespairEventHorizon at the Empire's many enemies), story relevance (coming to each faction to give their leaders advice), [[spoiler: and, unlike all the others, ''betraying'' you to Chaos in a cinematic.]]
* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler: While very formidable, Sarthorael still goes down rather easily (especially when confronted by a powerful lord), and his army of EliteMooks is considerably tougher.]]

** Most players were not impressed with some of the factions' unit rosters (most particularly the Empire's), believing they were lacking and that more units from the table top should be added. For instance, players complained about the Dwarfs lacking a Rune Priest, or the Empire lacking some of the Knightly Orders and light cavalry. However, an Instagram video showcasing a Bright Wizard confirms that the current unit rosters we have seen were not complete, and there will be more units to come (CA even confirmed that they will re-organize the unit roster eventually). Both the Runepriest, and a Knightly Order (Knights of the Blazing Sun) ended up being added, the former in the vanilla game, and the later as DLC.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EIkvHD7MU8 The announcement that]], due to the major backlash, the Warriors of Chaos will be free for anyone who buys the game within the first week after release (and not only for those who pre-ordered.) This has been met positively with fans, as it allows them to wait a day or two after the game's release for Let's Plays and reviews to show up to see if the game is really worth buying, then still be able to get one of the setting's core factions for free.
** The announcement that the game will have modding support, despite initial claims that ''Total War: Warhammer'' would have none (according to the announcement this is due to the licencing issues involved being cleared up). In particular, the devs are allowing for and aiding in a mod that will remove the controversial Regional Occupation system.
*** Adding to this is the release of the new map editing tool, ''Terry'', which has already given the fans to ability to create some [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf5f6mf8-xk spectacular maps on their own.]] This became a double cheer of happiness from the fandom when modders discovered a way to add custom battle maps to the campaign, which CA later upped with officially supporting the feature, leading to several large mods that completely overhauled the battle maps in the game.
** After the colossal headache it caused in the first game (see ScrappyMechanic below), the March stance was changed so that armies can no longer retreat when attacked and will be completely destroyed if they lose.

*** A later patch broke the Vampire faction in two for this exact reason. Mannfred is still the default, but you can play as Vlad and kick his ass if you so desire.
** Archaon as well, with half of the fandom thinking he's a complete badass, the other; a whiny edgelord, who is overshadowed by the other Chaos Lords and various non Chaos villains as well.
* BetterThanCanon: A ''large'' portion of the ''Warhammer Fantasy'' fandom prefer this game over its actual successor, ''Age of Sigmar''.

** Whilst a large amount of people are happy for a Total War set in the Warhammer Fantasy Universe, there are those who are upset that Creative Assembly is making a game that is not based in a historical setting (even though it's been stated that a separate team is indeed working on a historical-themed Total War). This died down fairly quickly, for the most part.
*** Though the flames have been re-ignited to an extent with the announcement trailer for the first expansion, as fans of the historical title are once again displeased that a new historical title has not yet been announced.
** The reveal of the Chaos faction being a pre-order DLC has made a lot of fans unhappy.
*** Similarly, the surprise reveal of [[BloodierAndGorier optional blood and gore]] as paid DLC rather than a free patch hasn't impressed some people. Some are happy to have the gore, while others are insulted that Creative Assembly would dare to put a price tag on such a simple feature while giving us free Blood Knights at the exact same time. This [[VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2 isn't the]] [[VideoGame/TotalWarRomeII first time]] this has happened, of course.

** The news that the Dwarfs will be able to ally with the Vampire Counts was met with mixed reception. On the one hand, there are some who believe this goes against the lore too heavily. Others think that this opens up great gameplay opportunities. This was based off an off-hand mention in one of the demo videos. In the final game both factions have to destroy the other to win in the long campaign; the most they can do is a non-aggression pact. In fact, both factions have their diplomacy mechanically weighted such that any agreement between the two is likely to be superficial and short-lived. They are quite common in the early game, simply because both factions have more pressing enemies to deal with and aren't competing for the same regions.
** A large divide has sprang up, between fans of the multiplayer, and fans of the campaign, the former wanting the unit balance to be competitive, and fair, while the later group of people wants the lore, and fun factor to take precedence over gameplay balance.
* CatharsisFactor: On the tabletop end of this franchise, the decision to end [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} the Old World]] to [[ContinuityReboot replace it]] with the ''[[TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar Age of Sigmar]]'' was met with no [[BrokenBase small amount of disappointment from much of the base]]. Being able to play in the Old World again in this game is the next best thing to actually [[GoodOldWays playing the old game]] on the tabletop, and being able to push back the forces of Chaos and avert ''[[TabletopGame/WarhammerTheEndTimes the End Times]]'' is a huge bonus.
* ContinuityLockout: Many newcomers to the ''Warhammer'' series can be overwhelmed by the vast background of the setting, which amounts to ''thirty'' years of lore, and be confused about who the heck everyone is. Especially now that ''Warhammer Fantasy'' has been discontinued.
** This has led to more than a few people asking for units or mount options without realising that what they're asking for was introduced in and exclusive to Age of Sigmar. Such as the monstrous, chimera-like form Archaon's "horse" took on.

*** The Vampire Counts actually have one of the best start positions in the game. They're really only vulnerable from the north and west, as the dwarfs are usually going to be distracted by the greenskin threat and even if they do attack a few well placed garrison buildings can easily deal with their forces. This means that you can instead focus on expanding into a divided Empire that is often at war with itself without having to worry too much about your home province. Assisting matters is that you can build a gold mine in Castle Drakenhof, giving a massive boost to your economy.

** Helman Ghorst is very well liked by the fanbase for being a [[AscendedExtra flavor text]] character from the original tabletop that was brought up and turned into a full Legendary Lord with a unique model, as well as being actually useful in the campaign.

** Skarsnik, Warlord of Eight Peaks, and his pet Squig Gobbla are very popular, just like the tabletop, helped by their very unique goblin-only subfaction, and campaign.

** [[AscendedExtra Norsca]] is ''by far'' the most popular faction in the game. Similar to Ghorst and Alberic, but an [[UpToEleven entire]] officially approved homebrew faction, with unique mechanics (including the most requested feature of pledging ones allegiance to a specific Chaos God, which the Warriors lacked), a Norse theme in their marauders, very popular Legendary Lords, and filled to the brim with [[ContinuityNod obscure elements of the lore that Games Workshop forgot]], like the demonic [[CanisMajor Skinwolves]], repulsive [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil Fimir]], and corrupted [[WarElephants Chaos Mammoths]], the faction practically ''breathes'' EvilIsCool, and the fandom adores them for it. They're even more popular then their ''parent'' army, the [[BaseBreakingCharacter Warriors of Chaos]].

** Single-player: Auto-resolved battles are decided largely by pure numbers, ignoring other factors like army composition, and preferentially assigns damage to large creatures and heroes. This makes large stacks of otherwise cannon fodder units ludicrously powerful. Except for zombies, which count ''against'' the army using them for some reason. This was fixed in a later patch that made auto resolve alot fairer to the AI.

** Vlad Von Carstein grants his entire army Vanguard Deployment, letting you place units almost anywhere you want. In addition Vlad also possesses a skill which grants units free experience every turn, along with being an extremely powerful lord in his own right.

** Despite only being a PaletteSwap with some unique abilities and a modified skill tree, Boris Todbringer (and his faction, Middenland) is a highly requested character for getting proper Legendary Lord treatment for the reasons that he's already partially in the game and the potential of Ulrican elements. An example of his popularity is [[https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/205503/what-is-mortal-empires an official forum]] that was planned to discuss the Mortal Empires campaign map, and was accompanied by a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqSnK4rv7nU Youtube video]] explaining what it is, and among the Legendary Lords present when the video said how many there would be, Boris was among them, which community manager Matt Whelan clarified was only because he's available in multiplayer. This caused the forum to derail completely to the point where Boris was the only thing people talked about.