Creative Assembly might not be working on a Lord of the Rings-inspired Total War game, but strategy fans still received one final treat as 2025 came to a close with the release of the beta 1.0.0 update for popular Total War: Attila mod The Dawnless Days. Aside from introducing the long-awaited The War of the Ring campaign, it also brought us a batch of other goodies.
Formerly known as Total War: Rise of Mordor, before a DMCA takedown claim filed by Warner Bros. prompted a rebranding, The Dawnless Days is a total conversion mod for Total War: Attila that’s based on the Tolkien Legendarium. It is also one of the most notable modding efforts to bring the world of The Lord of the Rings into a game from Creative Assembly’s storied franchise.
The Dawnless Days Beta 1.0.0 Update Adds War of the Ring Campaign
Playable in both single-player and multiplayer, The Dawnless Days’ fresh War of the Ring campaign lets us take control of one of nine playable factions before setting off to conquer Middle-Earth.
Sprawling as it is, the map, which aims to be faithful to the setting of The Lord of the Rings is, “for now”, mising Eriador.
The Dawnless Days Beta 1.0.0 update also added selection battle order voiceover for Dwarf, Easterling, Elf, Gondor, Harad, Middlemen, Orc, Rohan, Uruk, and Wildmen units alongside a suite of balancing changes and more.
Here are the full The Dawnless Days Beta 1.0.0 patch notes as shared by the team behind the mod:
CAMPAIGN
- Added The War of the Ring campaign (single player and multiplayer), featuring 9 playable factions set on the Middle-Earth map (excluding Eriador for now).
AUDIO
- Removed vanilla battle order VOs
- Add selection battle order VO for the following types of units: Dwarf, Easterling, Elf, Gondor, Harad, Middlemen, Orc, Rohan, Uruk, Wildmen. This is the first interaction for making complete custom audio for units.
- Removed elephants sound for both mumakils and trolls
BATTLE MAPS
- Added Generic Orc Town A (all 3 size variations)
- Added small and medium size variations for Northmen Town B
- Returned medium size variation for Dunburg
- Fixes to Wildmen Town A
- Fixed walls on Edoras
- Fixes to Helm’s Deep
- Removed broken Moria maps
NEW CHARACTERS
- Aragorn
- Saruman
- Sauron
- Gloin
NEW CREATURES
- Mumakil Feral
- Mumakil (Mahud version)
- Mumakil (Harad version)
- Cave Trolls
- Mirkwood Spiders
NEW UNITS
- Added new unit for Anduin Vale
- Stoor Shirrifs
- Added new units to Easterlings (Rhurim)
- Wainrider Light Chariots
- Haerrim Infantry
- Haerrim Outriders
- Added new units for Mordor
- Mirkwood Reavers
- Added new unit for Dol Guldur
- Mirkwood Spiders
- Added new unit for Goblins
- Cave Trolls
- Added new unit for Harad (Lostladen Tribes)
- Mumakil Feral
- Mumakil (Mahud version)
- Mumakil (Harad version)
- Added supply wagons for all factions
BALANCING
- New faction playable in Custom Battle and Multiplayer: Gundabad (using many placeholder visuals)
- Changed roster for Dol Guldur
- Removed cap for all units in Custom Battle and Multiplayer
- Made all heroes available as normal units in Custom Battle and Multiplayer
- Created a new horse entry for Ar-Belzagar so he can stay heavy horse while Serpent guards become medium
- Increased timer for units to going from broken to rally
- Reduced morale immunity time for units just rallied
- Added Dexterous attribute to the Raider attribute class
- Reduced slightly Warg damage vs cavalry
- Reduced slightly accuracy for goblin javelins
- Adjusted HP for all ships (mostly reduction in HP for alignment to vanilla values)
- Adjusted stats on several naval units
- Adjusted abilities and attributes for naval units
- Shield changes:
- Tower shield +2 melee defense
- Light Tower shield +2 melee defense
- Large Kite shield +2 melee defense
- Goblin Small shield +1 melee defense
- Goblin Medium shield +1 melee defense
- Goblin large shield +1 melee defense
- Reduced warg pack charge bonus
- Reduced warg pack melee stats
- Reduced warg pack weapon bonus vs cavalry
- Raised melee attack for trolls
- Fixed Tomb Raiders missing 10hp
- Reduced rabble unit size to 250 men
- Reduced damage vs cavarly of rabble spear considerably
- Mirkwood trackers will use same bow as rabble
- Reduce reload time for towers and increased accuracy (to make siege defense stronger)
- Rebalanced almost all unique abilities
FIXES
- Fixed Gothmog melee defense (-10 melee defense)
- Fixed Haradrim Lancers having medium horse instead of light
- Fixed Variag Lancers having medium horse instead of heavy
- Fixed Harad Serpent Guards having heavy horse instead of medium
- Adjusted several rohan mounts for several units (price adjusted accordingly)
- Buffed Maeras horses to have rohirrim medium horse stats (but more health)
- Fixed Eored of the Gap weight from heavy to light
- Fixed missing 10HP bonus for dunland T4 units
- Fixed mounts for Anduin Vale (price adjusted accordingly)
- Fixed Eotheod Nobles missing 25HP bonus
- Fixed Beorning Warriors missing 10HP bonus
- Fixed Winfried not having his bodyguard unit specified in the name
- Fixed Gothmog not having his bodyguard unit specified in the name
- Fixed Isengard Dunlending units being not updated after dunland rework (now Isengard has the exact same unit dunland has)
- Fixed Dunland Raiders unit class (for both dunland and Isengard)
- Fixed wrong double sized shock infantry icon
- Added missing double-size warg missile category icon
- Fixed goblin warg pack spacing
- Fixed Variag Bowmen not being hybrid
- Fixed Lurtz range from 160 to 175
- Fixed race and voiceover of supply/artillery units for rohan
- Improvements to AI setup on Helm’s Deep
- Fixed Khamul cost
- Fixed HP on T4 wargs (+15hp)
- Fixed hiding scalar for several WR units
MISCELLANEOUS
- Renamed Sapper ability to display more information on how to use the bombs
- New loading screens
- Removed old unfitting loading screens
- Replaced old loading screen background with a new one
- Reduce the size of “Total War” text of TDD logo in-game, to make it look more compact and prettier
VISUALS
- Renamed Haradrim to Lostladen Tribes (we cannot do otherwise for campaign reasons)
- Removed Kite shield from Men of Lamedon visuals
- Fixed Feredrim accessory texture
- Fixed Anduin Vale helmet position
- Fixed Elvenking Riders having the wrong officer
- Fixed Snaga Javelin UC
- Increased mountain orc size
- Changed category icon for supply wagons
- Updated gondor fiefdom units UCs
- Fixed witch-king visuals
- Revised some T2 mahud visuals
- Fixed some orc skin visuals
- Revised colours for some Anduin Vale units
- Fixes and updates on some Anduin Vale visuals
- Revised some elven visuals
- Fixed animation for white hand stormers (from axe to sword)
- Revised Khahar visuals
BUILDING MODELS
- Added dwarven forge props
- Added Isengard Wheel of Doom
- Added Mordor Keep
- Added Isengard Warg Breeder
To play The Dawnless Days and see all that its 1.0.0 beta update has to offer, you need to own a copy of Total War: Attila, then download the total conversion mod from Nexus Mods. Alternatively, you can also download the mod’s dedicated launcher. More details about the installation process are available on The Dawnless Days Discord server.
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