Total War: Warhammer 3 - Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs Review

In the eastern wastelands, the flames of industry burn perpetually. Total War: Warhammer 3: Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs entrusts you with the task of fueling these fires with blood and bone, as you lead the vengeful Dawi Zharr in their relentless pursuit of victims to fill their slave pits.

In The Realm of Chaos campaign, you undertake the pragmatic and entirely logical mission of constructing a colossal drill. With this powerful tool, you pierce through the fabric of reality to reach the domain of the god Hashut, with the ultimate goal of extracting his precious blood.

To ready the device, you must locate four dwarven relics and subsequently corrupt them. These relics are divided into two categories—major and minor—and can be employed to either strengthen the drill, advancing you towards your primary goal, or to grant unique boons to your legendary lord. The major relics are typically guarded by formidable rogue armies scattered across the map and offer more potent bonuses than minor relics, which are often secured by controlling specific settlements.

While not a new mechanic, having been introduced in previous DLCs, it does encourage you to venture beyond your starting territory. You have the flexibility to decide the pace at which you pursue these relics. Although other Chaos Dwarf factions appear to be searching for them as well, there is no indication of a competitive race between the factions.

However, even if you postpone your relic hunt, Chaos Dwarfs seldom enjoy a respite. The needs of the industrial economy frequently compel you to seek new territories to exploit for a continuous flow of slaves and wealth. In addition to Treasury – which serves as the foundation for most economies in Total War: Warhammer 3 – the Dawi Zharr must also manage a few unique resources. Labour, for example, represents the multitude of individuals whose primary function is to keep the industry operating efficiently.

It’s one of the main reasons you’ll constantly seek to expand – or at least pay your neighbors violent, unannounced visits – since you cannot produce it in buildings. Winning battles is your most reliable way of securing additional bodies to throw into the grinder.

Military convoys can also supply you with needed resources – including fresh workers – in exchange for others that may be more readily available. They behave in a similar fashion to Cathay’s caravans. You recruit a master and his retinue, then have to respond to events as they make their way towards a target city, deciding whether you want to spend cargo for new units, take shortcuts, or fight battles.

You can easily monitor and adjust the allocation of Labour across your controlled territories using a dedicated menu, which also displays the workload requirements you need to fulfill. Maintaining too many idle slaves in one place can invite unrest; however, you have access to three special actions that allow you to utilize expendable workers to strengthen your position while simultaneously quelling tensions.

You can also use Labour to construct buildings instantly. The cost increases with the number of turns you want to save, but sacrificing workers can get a defensive building ready just before an enemy incursion reaches your territory, or you can gain access to stronger units quicker. It’s not a tool you want to overlook.

The Chaos Dwarf economy depends on slaves laboring in its mines, where they extract Raw Materials from minor settlements converted into Outposts. A consistent supply is necessary not only for upgrading buildings in other minor settlements you transform into Factories, but also for maintaining Armaments production in those locations.

Armaments allow you to construct advanced military buildings – unlocking stronger unit types – but also improve your troops in the Hell-Forge. There, you can increase the number of units you can recruit. Reaching higher thresholds for each group unlocks upgrades you can then apply in the Manufactory section. Each upgrade drains a set amount of Armaments per turn, based on the number of affected units active in your army.

Depending on your playstyle and campaign progress, Armaments expenses can escalate, necessitating more Raw Materials to maintain production, which in turn requires additional Labour. Stacking these upgrades can offer significant advantages in battle, enhancing your basic infantry with frenzy for increased combat prowess or improved resilience. Your Bull Centaurs can become even more effective chargers or flankers, while the massive K’Dai Destroyer can more effortlessly withstand the missiles it inevitably draws.

Although it does branch out a bit, Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs continues to stick to Warhammer 3’s more streamlined approach to empire management. Yes, it does add additional layers to balance, but they themselves aren’t particularly deep.

You mainly need to decide how to distribute Outposts and Factories across newly conquered minor settlements and whether or not your newly-acquired province capital needs a Tower that grants access to higher-tier units. Afterwards, it all boils down to upgrading the same few types of buildings and maintaining a steady flow of Labour. For the majority of my two playthroughs as Drazoath and Astragoth, the industrial economy aspect faded into the background rather early.

This mechanic primarily resurfaces when pursuing a series of distinct upgrades in the Hell-Forge or confederating a larger Chaos Dwarf faction, rather than serving as a consistently engaging system. The Hell-Forge, on the other hand, is comparatively more intriguing, as it not only enables you to prioritize the types of units you want to increase and enhance first, but also provides a satisfying dopamine hit whenever a new upgrade becomes available.

The Tower of Zharr then reflects the competitive nature of the Chaos Dwarfs society. Split across several tiers, each one has multiple seats that are up for grabs for any of the race’s factions. You secure them using the passively-generated Conclave Influence resource. Grouped across three districts – Sorcery, Military, and Industry – seats grant a variety of bonuses that aid different aspects of your empire, complementing your regular tech tree.

They range from flat increases to Winds of Magic or resource production to randomly increasing your unit capacity and granting access to massive bombardment abilities in battle. If another faction grabs your desired seat, you can usurp it by spending a higher amount of Conclave Influence than usual. When all seats in a district are claimed, it unlocks an additional completion bonus, like automatically generating breaches in walls during sieges.

The final tier then allows you to outright confederate other Chaos Dwarf factions, so it’s always worth checking in when you have enough Influence to spend.

The Chaos Dwarfs bring a versatile roster to the battlefield. Early on, you’ll rely on a mixture of expendable slave units and cheaper hobgoblins, with only a few actual Dawi Zharr to bolster their ranks.

As the campaign progresses, you recruit more dwarves as well as flying monsters like the fire-spewing Bale Taurus or magic-dampening Lamassu. Bull Centaurs act as a substitute for cavalry, while various siege engines fulfill both the role of artillery and that of deadly (and very spiky) chariots.

The stand-outs during my playthrough were the Infernal Ironsworn, whose unique ability outright melted enemy infantry, alongside the imposing K’daai Destroyer, which towered above most other things on the battlefield.

The Chaos Dwarfs can very much hold the line but also dish out damage, allowing you to flank, charge, and even sneak behind foes. To my surprise, I even carried two veteran hobgoblin cutthroat units until fairly late in my campaign, crushing orks, goblins, undead, and ogres alike.

In terms of legendary lords, the race has two spellcasters that are decent in melee – Astragoth Ironhand benefitting from a mixed spellbook of the Lores of Fire and Hashut, while Drazoath the Ashen is dedicated only to the latter – alongside a straight-up fighter in the shape of Zhaitan the Black.

The Lore of Hashut is all about damaging and debuffing enemies. A neat synergistic touch that works well with the race’s fiery nature comes in the shape of several abilities that reduce enemy resistance to fire, which can turn even your less impressive units into swift death dealers.

It’s certainly a fun roster that provides a different flavor of dwarf goodness to Warhammer 3, even if it does lack many specialised anti-large solutions. Thankfully, that’s nothing a bunch of angry Dawi Zharr with blunderbusses and the odd Bull Centaur or two can’t fix.