Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy setting is a novel beast. It was as soon as a specific factor (darkish excessive fantasy), after which it was rebooted into Warhammer Age of Sigmar (onerous to clarify), and now it looks as if they’re bringing correct Warhammer Fantasy again (by way of Warhammer: The Old World). Kind of complicated, proper?

Well, it’s, and it isn’t. Warhammer video video games are an effective way to ease your self into the world of Warhammer Fantasy, as it’s various and fairly complicated. Luckily, most video games under act as keyholes into that higher world. (If you’re extra within the temper for grim sci-fi, we additionally ranked one of the best video video games set within the Warhammer 40,000 universe.)

7. Blood Bowl 2

Image: Cyanide Studios/Focus Home Interactive

Remember Blitz: The League? Well, Blood Bowl is the tabletop model of that, besides with orcs, elves, and trolls. It is an entertaining (and humorous) tabletop sport that has grow to be one of many staple entries within the Warhammer Fantasy milieu. If you aren’t conversant in the tabletop sport, coming to grips with the dice-based, turn-focused method to soccer would possibly by no means click on with you, and that’s OK. But given its multiplayer and a sturdy league mode, Blood Bowl 2 is an extremely enjoyable time for folk who possible have already got a smooth spot for the universe it’s based mostly in.

Blood Bowl 2 is out there on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

6. Warhammer: Chaosbane

Image: Eko Software/Bigben Interactive

The Warhammer Fantasy setting is ideal for a Diablo-like ARPG, and Eko Software and Bigben Interactive’s Warhammer: Chasobane capitalizes. Like, full cease. It’s a Diablo sport with a contemporary coat of Warhammer paint, with a grim environment and many squishy, gory fight that makes for a enjoyable, if a bit repetitive, gameplay loop. Warhammer: Chaosbane is fairly front-loaded, however these opening hours are unimaginable, because the loot is cool and Nurgle at all times has extra gross creatures to ship your method. That excessive diminishes a bit as the sport progresses, nevertheless it stays a persistently rewarding sport that basically will get the Gothic, decrepit great thing about Warhammer Fantasy proper.

Warhammer: Chaosbane is out there on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

5. Mordheim: City of the Damned

Image: Rogue Factor/Focus Home Interactive

Based on the tabletop sport that Games Workshop initially launched in 1999, Rogue Factor and Focus Home Interactive’s Mordheim: City of the Damned is a bizarre, extremely difficult tackle the XCOM method. Mercenary warbands of all races from all reaches of the Warhammer world have descended upon the town of Mordheim looking for the wyrdstone (a fantasy stone), and that results in some troublesome skirmishes all through the sport’s marketing campaign. It places the participant in a third-person perspective à la Valkyria Chronicles, with permadeath and everlasting accidents to make the lengthy sport much more troublesome. The environment is deliciously bleak and the obscure, unforgiving studying curve makes this sport, in my eyes, fairly particular.

Mordheim: City of the Damned is out there on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

4. Warhammer: Dark Omen

Image: Mindscape/Electronic Arts

Mindscape and Electronic Arts’ Warhammer: Dark Omen is a 1998 sequel to a different sport on this record (the one proper under this). Dark Omen is form of like Total War: Warhammer on a smaller, skirmish scale. Build out your mercenary firm’s roster, and benefit from the trappings of the grim however oddly charming Warhammer Fantasy setting. Its tackle Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle tabletop sport is deceptively easy, with clashes between melee, ranged, and artillery models in a wide range of terrains. As is the case within the tabletop model, nonetheless, that you must account for strains of sight from one goal to the subsequent.

Warhammer: Dark Omen is out there on Windows PC by way of GOG.

3. Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat

Image: Mindscape

Plenty of people want Warhammer: Dark Omen to its predecessor. I’m not a type of folks. I like this sport and its now-rudimentary visible method to real-time technique within the Warhammer milieu. Mindscape developed this 1995 technique sport in such a method that, what it lacks visually, it greater than makes up for in problem (generally unfairly) and Warhammer Fantasy texture. From the darkish however campy cutscenes to the over-the-top battle dialogue, Shadow of the Horned Rat is unmistakably Warhammer. New models supply new ways in Shadow of the Horned Rat’s missions, which occur alongside a comparatively linear path, however elective missions and sure story path choices make the sport really feel a bit extra unpredictable. Plus, you get to combat the rat-men, Skaven, and orcs — the good, weirdest foes in Warhammer Fantasy.

Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat is out there on Windows PC by way of GOG.

2. Warhammer: Vermintide 2

Image: Fatshark

I’m going to say it: Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is Left 4 Dead however higher. Fatshark’s Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is a 2018 first-person, co-op horde survival sport set within the End Times (a considerably sluggish apocalypse of kinds that ushered within the Age of Sigmar) period of the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Choose your class (I want the Witch Hunter) and begin slicing, taking pictures, stabbing, smashing, and immolating your method by means of the Chaos hordes. The gameplay, whereas easy, is extremely satisfying. From Skaven to Chaos Champions to Beastmen, the number of enemies is as shocking as the extent design — which is just deepened and improved with the great DLC campaigns. Also, the artwork route is arguably the closest a online game has ever gotten to totally showcasing the number of darkish magnificence that’s the Warhammer Fantasy setting.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is out there on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

1. Total War: Warhammer 2

Image: Creative Assembly/Sega

With Total War: Warhammer 2, Creative Assembly took the whole lot great in regards to the Warhammer Fantasy setting and the tabletop battle sport and did it justice tenfold. Total War: Warhammer 2 takes the whole lot nice from the primary sport, provides extra on prime of it, and refines most of it to close perfection: Sprawling maps, ever-chaotic battlefields, narrative intrigue at an enormous scale, each race you might need in a Warhammer Fantasy sport, and splendidly detailed graphics all come collectively to make this one of the best Warhammer Fantasy sport. Whatever you see on display screen, regardless of the battle, is splendidly paying homage to the tabletop sport — detailed, complicated environments affected by as many miniatures as attainable, duking it out in large-scale warfare. (Total War: Warhammer 3 can also be value noting on this record, particularly after its latest Immortal Empires enlargement, nevertheless it’s nonetheless ironing out its many wrinkles.)

Total War: Warhammer 2 is out there on Windows PC, Mac, and Linux.