Unexpected Character / Total War: Warhammer

The Total War Warhammer Trilogy has quite the fair share of unexpected additions, especially considering how much Adaptation Expansion occurs:

• Total War: Warhammer:
  • The Grim and the Grave expansion, which brought in Grand Theogonist Volkmar the Grim and Helman Ghorst as new Legendary Lords for the Empire and Vampire Counts, respectively. While Volkmar is a well established figure in the lore and tabletop game, Ghorst... isn't; prior to the expansion he existed merely to provide fluff for Corpse Carts (corpse filled wagons pulled by zombies that are used as war machines in vampire armies) and had no further presence, rules, or miniature in the game.
    • The inclusion of Ghorst does make more sense when one considers the Lord Pack he debuted in was based off the Sigmar's Blood campaign supplement, which pitted Volkmar against Mannfred von Carstein. Since Mannfred was already in the game at launch, Ghorst was the only secondary Vampire Counts character in that supplement who had a Lord-level counterpart and was promoted as such.
  • No one expected the Norscan tribes, a minor faction of palette swapped Chaos Warriors, to be made into a full faction of their own. Especially since they never had their own army in the tabletop, where they served as foot soldiers in the Chaos Warrior army. Even less expected were the Fimir, a race of cyclopean Lizard Folk which are often viewed as an (embarrassing) case of Games Workshop's Early-Installment Weirdness and remain some of the most obscure and forgotten elements of the lore.
  • Of all the Chaos characters, it's safe to say no one expected Kholek Suneater to show up, being essentially a sentient and evil kaiju so big he can look over city walls, and for the fact that he is usually overlooked by the other mortal lords of the Warriors of Chaos.
  • When Bretonnia received its roster update and was Promoted to Playable (for the campaign; it was already playable in custom battle with a limited roster at launch), there were two unexpected faces. The first was its third Legendary Lord, Alberic du Bordeleaux, who had only a few mentions in the lore and was never playable on the tabletop. His inclusion is even more surprising when other Bretonnian Dukes such as Bohemond the Beastslayer and Tancred II not only had more lore than him but were playable on the tabletop in the past. The second was the Green Knight, featured prominently in the promotional art. No one expected him since he was not able to lead armies on the tabletop, but his inclusion was as the trilogy's first Legendary Hero and would set the precedent for future Legendary Heroes.
  • The mini campaigns that came with Call of the Beastmen and Realm of the Wood Elves took the fandom by surprise due to having unlockable characters - Boris Todbringer for the Empire and the Red Duke for the Vampire Counts respectively - both of whom were not present in their respective factions' 8th Edition Army Books.
• Total War: Warhammer II:
  • Many expected the starting Skaven Legendary Lords to be Gray Seer Thanquol and Queek Headtaker, with Lord Skrolk and Clan Pestilens being saved up for a Lord Pack against Tehenhauin. When the Skaven trailer and roster reveal dropped, to the surprise of many Lord Skrolk and all of Clan Pestilens were playable at launch alongside Queek. Thanquol was absent for the entirety of the second game's life cycle.
  • Trench Craventail's announcement as a FLC Legendary Lord for Skaven caused plenty of confusion, being a canon though nonetheless completely forgotten about character from the Skaven's 7th edition armybook. His inclusion was even more contested because he took up a spot that could have been filled by a Legendary Lord from the other three Great Clans (Skryre, Eshin, and Moulder), though this was later fixed with each of the Skaven Lord packs which did exactly that. His inclusion would also set a precedent for several other named Heroes to receive the Ascended Extra treatment by being promoted to Legendary Lord status.
  • Arkhan The Black's inclusion as a Legendary Lord for the Tomb Kings was also surprising, given that he was more often associated with the Legions of Nagash and even Vampire Counts than the Tomb Kings and because he did not get a miniature until The End Times. However, he was a Lord-level character in their 8th Edition Army Book, so he would still count, and his in-game model wound up using his End Times design anyway (sans the Dread Abyssal).
  • Much like Norsca in the first game the Vampire Coast were a palette swapped minor faction, who almost no one expected would be made fully playable, having only appeared in the tabletop as a few flavor units that the Vampire Counts had the option of taking in an old White Dwarf supplement.
    • The Vampire Coast Legendary Lords were a surprising mix. While Luthor Harkon and Count Noctilus of Dreadfleet fame were expected inclusions, the third Legendary Lord turned out to be Aranessa Saltspite, who was a (mutant) human Pirate Girl who fought against Noctilus in Dreadfleet. Seeing her command an undead pirate fleet despite her prior rivalry took some by surprise (though her faction did come with a few human pirate units). And while some expected Vangheist, another character from Dreadfleet to also receive this treatment as the fourth Legendary Lord, he (or rather his ship, the Shadewraith) instead only appeared as one of the spells in the Vampire Coast's unique lore (the aptly named "Vangheist's Revenge"). They even went so far as to make a Canon Foreigner Legendary Lord, Cylostra Direfin, to fill up the fourth slot.
  • Despite being some of the most iconic characters in the franchise, few expected Gotrek & Felix to make it in due to them not being tied to any one faction, but they wound up being implemented in-game as a duo of Legendary Heroes who can temporarily be recruited by either the Empire, Bretonnia, or the Dwarfs.
  • Repanse de Lyonesse was added as an FLC Legendary Lord for Bretonnia to the second game, surprising many since she was a Post Humous Character in the tabletop that had lived about five hundred years before the events of the games.
  • The Twisted and the Twilight added Zoats to the Wood Elves. These reptile-centaurs have long been viewed as an instance of Games Workshop's Early-Installment Weirdness like the Fimir and no one expected them to make an appearance, let alone as part of the Wood Elf roster. However, given that the same year the DLC came out Zoats also made an appearance in both Blackstone Fortress and Blood Bowl, it might not have been that surprising in context. Another surprising character that was added in it is Ghoritch, the Castellan of Hell Pit, a minor Skaven character from a White Dwarf installment. The additional updates that came with this DLC also introduced Coeddil, a fairly major background character from Wood Elf lore who had never made a physical appearance beforehand.
  • Among the updates that came with The Silence and the Fury were Ogre Mercenaries, which surprised many because the Ogre Kingdoms were expected to come in the third game. Their inclusion was hyped up to be an Early-Bird Cameo with many taking their inclusion to mean the Ogre Kingdoms would be the preorder faction for the third game.
• Total War: Warhammer III:
  • Pretty much every faction in the game at launch might fit this trope as well as Ascended Extra. Before the official reveal, many predicted the launch factions would be the Daemons of Chaos, Ogre Kingdoms, Chaos Dwarfs, and (for some) Kislev. Come the announcement trailer, this guess would be completely upended.
  • Kislev had long been a secondary human nation in the lore even though it did have a few miniatures made for it on the tabletop. It has been promoted into being one of the launch factions of the final game. However, Kislev as portrayed in the game ties into the Warhammer: The Old World relaunch, which heavily features Kislev as one of the main factions.
    • Even though a sizable portion of the fandom had been predicting Kislev being Promoted to Playable, those fans commonly expected its starting Legendary Lords to be Tzar Boris Ursus and his daughter Tzarina Katarin. The announcement trailer for the third game made Katarin the focal Kislevite Legendary Lord while all but outright implying that Tzar Boris was dead after having made his fatal incursion into the Chaos Wastes (at the time the trilogy takes place, he had not made said incursion). Instead, the second Kislevite Legendary Lord was another Canon Foreigner, a Rasputin lookalike named Kostaltyn. Though Boris Ursus did ultimately make it in as a third lord who can be unlocked through a certain quest in the campaigns of Katarin and Kostaltyn.
  • Arguably the biggest example in the whole trilogy (and quite possibly for the entire Warhammer franchise as a whole) is Grand Cathay, whom almost no one expected to be Promoted to Playable at all, let alone as one of the starting factions of the third game. It was a Space-Filling Empire and a Hufflepuff House in the lore, having never been made playable until now. Many never expected Games Workshop to allow Creative Assembly the freedom to tackle this faction.
    • As with Kislev, the portion of the fanbase that did predict Grand Cathay to be Promoted to Playable expected its starting Legendary Lords to be the Dragon Emperor and the Monkey King. The Cathay trailer revealed the starting Legendary Lords to instead be a pair of Canon Foreigners, Miao Ying and Zhao Ming, who are two of the Dragon Emperor's progeny.
  • The Daemons of Chaos being split into monogod factions (Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh) combining both Mortals and Daemons was somewhat surprising, though it had been leaked in a datamine back in the first game and prior to the reveal the fandom was a Broken Base over whether or not they should be split or not (as in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, the Chaos factions are split into separate factions for each Chaos God, unlike in Fantasy where Chaos is split into the human Warriors of Chaos, the daemon Daemons of Chaos, and the beastmen Beasts of Chaos lines, rather than by god). Doing so brings up the amount of launch factions to six (not counting the Ogre Kingdoms as pre-order DLC). Also surprising was the fact there were to be nine Legendary Lords at launch (with many predicting the last to be Be'lakor the Dark Master). The previous two games each had four launch factions with two Legendary Lords each to a total of eight, so the expansion the third game got was surprising. Several of the units in the Daemon factions were also unexpected inclusions.
    • No one expected the Soul Grinder to be part of the Daemon factions, seeing as the unit is more closely associated with Warhammer 40,000 than Warhammer Fantasy and had never made any appearance outside of the tabletop.
    • The Khorne roster surprisingly has Khornebulls, which are aligned Beastmen. Aligned Beastmen did not make much of an appearance until after the discontinuation of Warhammer Fantasy and are more associated with Age of Sigmar (a section of the franchise that, at the moment, Creative Assembly have said they are not drawing elements from).
    • The Nurgle roster had Plague Toads and Pox Riders, which few expected to make it in at launch.
    • In another surprise, the Exalted Keeper of Secrets wound up using the model of Shalaxi Hellbane, the named Keeper of Secrets from Age of Sigmar and a character who few expected to make in due to the character debuting after the end of Warhammer Fantasy.
    • The final Legendary Lord was presumed by many to be Be'lakor. The reveal of their true identity blew everything on this page out of the water — they're an Original Generation Daemon Prince who is directly responsible for the third game's plot, and are fully customizable.
  • After being absent in the second game, the third game brought back unlockable characters. As it turns out, Boris and Be'lakor are playable, but like Dong Zhuo from Total War: Three Kingdoms, you need to win the campaign once under certain circumstances to play as them.
  • In the leadup to the release of Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs, CA stated that the 100th character would be one of the most iconic characters in the franchise, leading the fandom to believe either Nagash or Thanquol was going to be the accompanying FLC. The fandom was thus taken by surprise when the accompanying FLC character instead turned out to be Ulrika Magdova as a Legendary Hero available to both the Empire and Kislev.

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