History YMMV / TotalWarWarhammerII

** There is a marked divide between how people view factions that are weak on the campaign map. Either those factions are underperformers that need to be updated and brought into 'the modern age' - ItsHardSoItSucks - or new additions and updates have made many factions too powerful and they need to be nerfed down to the level of the 'weak' factions - ItsEasySoItSucks. These two groups will never agree on anything except that [[MasterOfNone the Beastmen]] desperately need help, which they eventually got. Not without a [[GameBreaker major stat misbalance]] or two, but they aren't the obnoxiously easy joke faction anymore.

** There is a marked divide between how people view factions that are weak on the campaign map. Either those factions are underperformers that need to be updated and brought into 'the modern age' - ItsHardSoItSucks - or new additions and updates have made many factions too powerful and they need to be nerfed down to the level of the 'weak' factions - ItsEasySoItSucks. These two groups will never agree on anything except that [[MasterOfNone the Beastmen]] desperately need help.

** The Lizardmen, after a year and a half of being a MemeticLoser due to the lack of content, started to have more and more content given to them than anyone else. For example; The Vampire Counts, the CreatorsPet of the first game have five Legendary Lords. The Lizardmen have SEVEN Legendary Lords as of the last DLC lord pack.

** The Beastmen faction as a whole has earned this reputation over time, being the butt of many jokes due to how notoriously neglected they have been and frequently taking a backseat to many other factions in terms of Old World updates.

* CrazyAwesome:

** The Skaven are the only faction to get even more DLC love than the High Elves, having three full-blown Lord packs (Prophet and the Warlock, Shadow and the Blade, Twisted and the Twilight) and a free Lord (Tretch), each of which adds a new major faction that has ''incredibly'' powerful faction mechanics (except Tretch). Ikit Claw's Forbidden Workshop is the gold standard by which all other mechanics are measured because of how insanely good it is, Deathmaster Snikch gets to ignore one of the Skaven's central drawbacks (Loyalty) while having powerful bonuses of his own in the form of Shady Dealings, and Throt the Unclean has access to the Flesh Vats, allowing for him to customize his units to a degree no other faction can. They also tend to get a lot more promotional cover than the other races, and usually in ways that make them look CrazyAwesome. Accusations of Skaven favoritism from Creative Assembly are also helped by each Skaven DLC faction being seen as much more powerful and[=/=]or better-developed than its counterpart.

** Crossed with CrazyAwesome, the Skaven. A horde of traitorous ratmen that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even the Greenskins think are scum]] who wield ''World War One era technology'' in a fantasy setting, use biological gas weapons, have legions of disgusting {{Flesh Golem}}s, are all ''insane'' and have [[spoiler: '''space technology''']]!

** [[CrazyAwesome Luthor Harkon]] and his band of merry Zombie Pirates have ''very'' quickly become a fan favourite.

** A lot of fantasy fans of ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' were getting very upset with the perceived lack of content, and focus on historical games in the franchise the last year or so... and then [[EnsembleDarkhorse the]] [[CrazyAwesome Vampire]] [[CreepyAwesome Coast]] was announced...

* MemeticBadass: The Lizardmen, after a year and a half of being a MemeticLoser due to the lack of content, started to have more and more content given to them than anyone else. For example; The Vampire Counts, the CreatorsPet of the first game have five Legendary Lords. The Lizardmen have SEVEN Legendary Lords as of the last DLC lord pack.

* MemeticBadass: The Lizardmen, after a year and a half of being a MemeticLoser due to the lack of content, started to have more and more content given to them than anyone else. For example; The Vampire Counts, the CreatorsPet of the first game have five Legendary Lords. The Lizardmen have SIX Legendary Lords.

** While many expected the skink Oxyotl to appear in the games, most thought he'd show up in the ''third'' one (as Oxyotl's lore has him wander the chaos wastes and mainly fighting Daemons). Very few people expected him to show up in ''this'' game, opposing Taurox.
** Thorek Ironbrow was rather surprising to see as the FLC lord released in accompaniment with the above DLC.

** ''The Silence and the Fury'' made the same for the long-time memetic loosers Beastmen. With all of their mechanics reworked, herdstones now actully serving as pseudo-settlements and ability to prevent ruin-dwelling unless the herdstone is destroyed and hire troops for free similar to Tomb Kings, Bestmen are now not only the best horder factions but, in the hands of the player, can be stronger than many settled races.

** The Lustriabowl/Lustria [[TheThunderdome Thunderdome]]: Lustria, particularly in the Vortex Campaign, is the part of the map most populated by Legendary Lords at a whooping ''ten''[[labelnote:Note]]Teclis, Lokhir Fellheart, Skrolk, Ikit Claw, Tehenhauin, Gor-Rok, Nakai, Khalida, Luthor Harkon and Markus Wulfhart[[/labelnote]] which tends to cause a particularly bloody early-game for all involved, leading to jokes in every new Lord Pack about yet another faction joining the Lustriabowl. These jokes often include all the Lords ganging up on Teclis.

** Once more, Rogue Armies. No, not the simple horde armies themselves; they're fairly manageable. No, what's at issue are the ''garrisons'' they get when they capture cities, consisting of large numbers of high-end units from ''multiple factions''; leading to the horrible sight of Chosen, Black Dragons, Varghulfs, Rat Ogres, and Dragon Ogres ''all in the same army''. While they usually just sack or raze, the armies will sometimes occupy instead, and it's not unheard of for them to use the nearly impenetrable defenses and large economy spike to become full-blown factions in of themselves.

** While many expected the skink Oxyotl to appear in the games, most thought he'd show up in the ''third'' game (as Oxyotl's lore has him wander the chaos wastes and mainly fighting Daemons). Very few people expected him to show up in ''this'' game, opposing Taurox.

** The Lustriabowl: Lustria, particularly in the Vortex Campaign, is the part of the map most populated by Legendary Lords at a whooping ''ten''[[labelnote:Note]]Teclis, Lokhir Fellheart, Skrolk, Ikit Claw, Tehenhauin, Gor-Rok, Nakai, Khalida, Luthor Harkon and Markus Wulfhart[[/labelnote]], leading to jokes in every new Lord Pack about yet another faction joining the Lustriabowl. These jokes often include all the Lords ganging up on Teclis.

** Once more, Rogue Armies. No, not the simple horde armies themselves; they're fairly manageable. No, what's at issue are the ''garrisons'' they get when they capture cities, consisting of large numbers of high-end units from ''multiple factions''; leading to the horrible sight of Chosen, Dark Dragons, Varghulfs, Rat Ogres, and Dragon Ogres ''all in the same army''. While they usually just sack or raze, the armies will sometimes occupy instead, and it's not unheard of for them to use the nearly impenetrable defenses and large economy spike to become full-blown factions in of themselves.

** The Skaven Plague that they can spread through the Pestilens Scheme. Save for killing the special agent before he can actually spread it (which is a LuckBasedMission due to not only needing to rely on the RandomNumberGod for the assassination to succeed, but that's even assuming you can get a Hero to the agent in time AND that you need to spot the agent in advance in the first place), there is no counter to what will reduce any city garrison and/or army unlucky enough to get it to uselessness in a few turn, and then you will need to wait for the troops to replenish. You cannot end it early, you cannot reduce the damage it does to your troops, and once infected you can only wait for the timer to end to be rid of it and pray that it does nto spread to too many of your cities.

** Hag Graef's faction mechanic centered around Malus Darkblade is quite disliked, as going on either side of the possession meter used to give heavy penalties as well as some nice bonuses, but the penalties were so crippling (no replenishment whatsoever for ''every single one of your armies'' if you went full possession, all your units suffer a heavy debuff to their melee attack if you go full control) that the best way to play Malus is generally acknowledged to be to play as another Dark Elf faction and confederate him. After a patch, the full control does not give penalties anymore, but just remaining at full control is an exceedingly difficult thing in itself (and unless you go full posession, Malus's unique battle ability of letting Tz'arkan taking over is unaviable).

* TaintedByThePreview: The Sisters of Twilight's "Gift from Lord Daith" mechanic, was horribly received after its showcase, due to looking extremely basic (using the exact same "choose one of two choices" dilemma that ''every single race in the game'' gets regularly as part of a normal game), effects being apparently underwhelming (getting a rare item or a purple one temporarily) and generally seeming like a worse Invocation of Vaul in every single way despite being supposed to be the Sisters' equivalent to Throt's Flesh Lab, which had a custom interface, many more effects, and player agency.

** Arkhan the Black is considered the worst of the Tomb Kings faction from a campaign angle. Arkhan is a decent MagicKnight with some good spells and the ability to recruit some Vampire Count units to bolster his army, but he also has a poor starting location with a powerful Bretonnia faction in front of him that can easily crush his weak army, and has several gaping holes in his territory that allow other factions to attack from. Not only that, but being the TokenEvilTeammate for the Tomb Kings means he naturally will be targeted by other factions, and most of the other Tomb Kings will never even bother to treat with you, and while you get bonuses to diplomacy with the Vampire Coast and Counts (on the Mortal Empires), good luck expecting their aid when your so far away. Plus, being unaffected by Vampire Corruption isn't really helpful when there are no Vampires nearby to spread it, and the few units from the Vampire Counts he gets are really weak once you get past the first few turns, with Hexwraiths being the only one of note later on, and his campaign goal of getting the Books of Nagash is very hard when all of the books are located in hard to fight to areas such as against Dwarfs. As a result, many see him as the worst faction for the Tomb Kings and hope that he gets buffed, or at least gets more unique units.

** From the perspective of the tabletop game, many of the units are this. Some units such as tomn king sphynxes and empire demigryphs were hated for not fitting in, and a several units like scourge-runner chariots were TierInducedScrappy. The former catagory of units are often iconic in the game, and the latter are often much more deadly than in the tabletop.

** From the perspective of the tabletop game, many of the units are this. Some units such as tomg king sphynxes and empire demigryphs were hated for not fitting in, and a several units like scourge-runner chariots were TierInducedScrappy, in the tabletop. The former catagory of units are often iconic in the game, and the latter are often much more deadly in the videogame than the tabletop.