Warhammer Fantasy doesn’t get nearly as much love as Warhammer 40K, its sci-fi counterpart set “in the grim darkness of the far future.” But that doesn’t mean the fantasy-themed universe isn’t popular in its own right. On the contrary. There are currently more than 30 Warhammer Fantasy games to choose from and while many of them aren’t particularly good, some of these titles are definitely worth your time.
Almost every good Warhammer Fantasy game is set in the Old World, which is a bit ironic considering the series has been discontinued for years. However, this list will also include some titles taking place in alternate settings like Age of Sigmar and Blood Bowl just to keep things interesting. There are only a handful of titles taking place in those settings, so no point in making separate lists for them.
10/10 Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground
Age of Sigmar video game adaptations have been pretty disappointing so far. If you’re not a big fan of low-effort mobile games, Storm Ground is pretty much the only game in town right now for PC and consoles. This game is by no means amazing, mind you, but it does have enough redeeming qualities to secure it a spot on the list, albeit at the very bottom.
Storm Ground is a turn-based strategy game with roguelike elements. The game plays a lot like Heroes of Might & Magic during combat, but outside of it Storm Ground very much tries to do its own thing. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of interesting content here to keep players hooked for more than a few hours. The foundation is pretty good, but the game fails to reach its full potential due to a lack of post-launch support.
9/10 Warhammer: Mark of Chaos
For better or worse, Mark of Chaos is responsible for introducing a lot of players to the Warhammer Fantasy universe. Released back in 2006, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is a real-time tactics game that focuses on combat to the detriment of all else. The game can best be described as Total War but without any of the strategic elements. In other words, it’s all about the battles, with everything in between being just filler.
Mark of Chaos is more about mindless fun than actual tactics, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The combat doesn’t have a ton of depth, however, the armies are fairly large (for a game from that era) and there’s enough unit variety to keep things interesting. Plus, you also get to control overpowered hero units that can destroy entire regiments all by themselves. On the flip side, the gameplay outside of combat is virtually non-existent.
8/10 Mordheim: City of the Damned
Mordheim: City of the Damned is a pretty underrated game that deserves to be on every Warhammer fan’s radar. The game is notoriously punishing and even frustrating at times, but the high difficulty fits the theme of the game like a glove. Mordheim is a decimated city where only the strong can survive, both on the tabletop and in this video game adaptation.
Mordheim: City of the Damned will be right up your alley if you like XCOM-style games that rely heavily on RNG during combat. If you don’t, you probably won’t have a lot of fun with this one. Not just because of the RNG but also because Mordheim suffers from camera issues and features one of the worst UIs ever seen in gaming. Those problems are by no means game-breaking, but they will likely limit your enjoyment of Mordheim to some extent.
7/10 Total War: Warhammer
Total War and Warhammer Fantasy are truly a match made in heaven. The ambitious crossover gave birth to one of the best series of strategy games of all time, and it all started here. The original Total War: Warhammer hasn’t exactly aged like a fine wine, but the game continues to hold up pretty well even today. The number of factions is pretty impressive considering it was the first entry in the series and, for better or worse, there’s no need to worry about any complicated mechanics here.
The main problem with Total War: Warhammer is that it became obsolete almost immediately after the launch of its sequel. The catch was that you still needed the original to play Mortal Empires in Warhammer II. Similarly, you still need it now to play Immortal Empires in Warhammer III. Total War: Warhammer continues to be relevant to this day because of how Creative Assembly designed this trilogy. But as a standalone game, the original is just okay.
6/10 Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide
Until just a few years ago, first-person hack-and-slash games were exceedingly rare; and most of those that were available were exceedingly bad. But Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide changed all that. The game took the familiar Left 4 Dead formula and used it to create a melee-focused co-op game taking place in the Warhammer: End Times setting. The result was an unexpectedly fun game with tons of replay value.
Compared to its sequel, the original Vermintide feels a bit lackluster in terms of map design, AI, and enemy variety, to name just a few of its shortcomings. Make sure to bring some friends along if you want to play this game because the bots are terrible at working towards objectives, and they won’t help much in a fight either. But frankly, at this point it’s probably better to just play Vermintide 2 instead.
5/10 Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Age of Reckoning came out during a time when everybody was trying to develop the next “World of Warcraft killer”. Unfortunately for the game, it happened to launch exactly at the height of WoW’s popularity and couldn’t even compete with Blizzard’s juggernaut, let alone kill it. Still, the game had a pretty good run that lasted for about five years and was generally well-received by its small player base. Years after the game was officially shut down, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was resurrected by the community and is currently still playable.
The game hasn’t benefited from years of updates like other MMORPGs, so expect it to look and feel dated by today’s standards. That said, Age of Reckoning was always a decent game and deserves a second chance. The player base isn’t very large and the community-run servers can be a bit unstable, but if you’re looking to play a Warhammer MMORPG this is your only option right now.
4/10 Blood Bowl 2
Take football and make it even more violent than usual, add a healthy dose of humor, and set it in an alternative version of Warhammer Fantasy. Mix together all those ingredients and you get Blood Bowl 2, an over-the-top parody of fantasy football that effortlessly surpasses most serious sports games. The best part is that you don’t even have to like football, or sports games in general, to enjoy Blood Bowl 2.
The main thing that distinguishes Blood Bowl 2 from other Warhammer Fantasy games is the humor. Blood Bowl 2 features some of the funniest commentary in gaming and the AI’s incompetence on the field, whether intentional or not, never fails to make you chuckle. At the same time, this is a game that revolves around RNG, so you’ll probably end up laughing with one eye while crying with the other during most matches.
3/10 Vermintide 2
Vermintide 2 is a classic example of a sequel that’s bigger and better than its predecessor in pretty much every conceivable way. The maps are larger and more intricate, the objectives are more interesting, and there’s more enemy variety. In short, there’s more of everything. Plus, the game looks absolutely beautiful, in its own dark and depressing way. But that shouldn’t be too surprising given that it was developed by the makers of Warhammer 40K: Darktide, a title that’s already being used to benchmark the new generation of GPUs.
Vermintide 2 doesn’t suffer from most of the original’s shortcomings, but it doesn’t take any big risks or try to innovate either. There are still only five characters to choose from, the narrative is barely there, and a big chunk of the content is locked behind DLC and microtransactions. But even if Vermintide 2 didn’t have any of those issues, it still wouldn’t be able to compete with the last two games on this list.
2/10 Total War: Warhammer II
At launch, Total War: Warhammer II was arguably worse than the original. There were only four playable factions and the Vortex campaign was pretty underwhelming, to put it lightly. But then Mortal Empires came along and changed everything. Mortal Empires combined the two titles into one glorious grand strategy game with nearly endless replay value. And that was even before the truckload of DLC started pouring in.
Total War: Warhammer II is a near-perfect strategy game with thousands of hours worth of content. That level of value does come at a cost, though. You’ll need to own both Warhammer II and Warhammer I, as well as over two dozen DLC packs to get the full Mortal Empires experience. But while it’s tempting to criticize Creative Assembly for trying to nickel-and-dime players, the truth is that making a game like this and consistently pushing out new content for close to five years doesn’t come cheap. Granted, they should have offered some sort of bundle deal for new players by now.
1/10 Total War: Warhammer III
It’s no secret that Total War: Warhammer III was a complete train wreck at launch. The game clearly came out in an unfinished state and was absolutely riddled with technical issues. Worst yet, the Realm of Chaos campaign was (and still is) absolutely abysmal. Luckily, after many months of work CA finally released the highly-anticipated Immortal Empires combined map and everything was right in the world again. Well, sort of. Immortal Empires is still in Beta and far from being finished, but it’s already shaping up to be everything Warhammer fans could have ever wanted.
Immortal Empires is the culmination of over six years of work and counting. You’re looking at no less than 23 different factions, 86 legendary lords, and over 500 settlements. The map itself is already absolutely gargantuan even for a grand strategy game and there are still big chunks of it that need to be populated. As you can imagine, you may need to sell your soul to the Chaos Gods to be able to afford all three Total War: Warhammer games plus a plethora of DLC to gain access to the full Immortal Empires experience. On the bright side, there’s enough content here to keep you busy until the End Times. Or at least until CA launches the rumored Total War: Warhammer 40K.
