Total War: Warhammer III's newest DLC Champions of Chaos, is here, bringing four new legendary Lords and a total of forty-nine different units to the battlefield. Festus the Leechlord, Vilitch the Curseling, Azazel the Prince of Damnation, and Valkia the Bloody each lead new subfactions of the Warriors of Chaos onto the Realms of Chaos campaign map to win favor and glory. Each of the four Champions seek the city of Zanbaijin, an eternal battleground filled with thousands of trapped souls, to claim in the name of their gods and advance their ends in the Great Game.
In Total War: Warhammer III, the four Lords seek to build up their territory and raise armies of god-blessed units. They do this by forcing other factions to be vassals, receiving Gifts of Chaos from their gods, upgrading their experienced units into more powerful forms, and recieving unique benefits depending on which god they follow.
Unlike other Total War: Warhammer factions, each of the four lords have access to features that cannot be used by the others. They are favored by one of the four Chaos gods, giving them the units, specializations, abilities, and mechanics of those gods' daemonic factions in the base game. Valkia has access to Khorne's warrior daemons and his Bloodletting, Vilitch has Tzeentch's Changing of the Ways and daemonic tricksters, and so on. Each lord plays similar to their god-specific faction, but with shared similarities between them.
How to Play the Champions of Chaos in Total War: Warhammer 3
Each of the Champions of Chaos factions have specific strengths, and an effective campaign requires understanding these strengths and using them to your advantage. Azazel, as the champion of Slaanesh, is focused around speed and micromanagement, with Devastating Flanker and the Mark of Slaanesh allowing his troops to quickly flank and surround enemies, crashing into weak points again and again.
Festus brings Nurgles poisonous, grinding combat to the battlefield that he can quickly recover from after battle. Villitch has Tzeentch's devastating ranged attackers, with fragile melee units ed by replenishing barrier hit-points that can make them surprisingly durable if used right. Khorne's champion, Valkia, rewards bloodshed on the battlefield, with units that grow stronger after they have killed a certain number of enemy models, and thus should target weak, vulnerable enemies first. But all these differences are on top of the strong core of the Warriors of Chaos.
The greatest changes, however, are off the battlefield. In a typical Total War: Warhammer III campaign, armies need to stop to recruit newer, more powerful units as they become available, slowing down the overall speed of destruction. The Warband mechanic in Champions of Chaos allows for experienced units to be immediately promoted for only a small expenditure of favor. Chaos Marauders can become Chaos Warriors, and Chaos Warriors can become Chosen. This allows the player to keep up the pace, fighting enemy armies and razing cities as their armies grow alongside their lords. The culmination of this is the Path to Glory, where base Lords and Heroes can ascend as Daemon Princes of the gods, giving them more power on the battlefield and stronger abilities trees to level up with.
The Champions of Chaos DLC brings a wave of fury and destruction to Total War: Warhammer III not unlike the Daemons of Chaos faction. The merging of the Warriors of Chaos faction with the factions of Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh allows for flexible and robust gameplay that lets the player excel in one area without falling behind in the others.
