Total War: Warhammer 3 is the final part of Creative Assembly’s Warhammer trilogy, condensing all three games into its Immortal Empires sandbox campaign while also coming with its own story campaigns.
With a decade of constant improvements to the first two games, there was a lot of pressure on Warhammer 3 to truly be a culmination of the entire trilogy, rather than taking some steps forward and some steps back. Creative Assembly didn’t quite deliver on release, as many of the best improvements from the second game were missing, and it was clear that the game was unfinished and unpolished to some extent.
Thankfully, as with every Total War game, modders stepped in to fill the gap. The game is in a much better state now, but there’s never a shortage of mods to enhance the experience, whether it’s for your first playthrough or your new campaign with Slaanesh.
One Button Respec
One of the most important quality-of-life mods that should be mandatory for anyone playing the game is One Button Respec. This mod lets you reset the skills you’ve picked for a character. You should pick this mod up especially if you’re a beginner, because despite the handy tooltips when hovering over a skill, it’s not really clear what it does until you try it.
If you’re worried about the game not being balanced around this mechanic, the respec can only be applied once to each individual character, and there’s a 1,000 gold cost to doing it. If this is your first time playing Warhammer, definitely get this mod.
Better Camera
Another quality-of-life mod that should’ve been part of the base game, the Better Camera mod gives you more flexibility in using the in-game camera. You can zoom in and out much further with it to get a close-up look of your units fighting, which is really what this whole game is about anyway.
It also adds a few handy camera modes like an extra cinematic view and the ability to zoom in without proximity fading of units. If you’re a fan of photo modes in video games, this mod is pretty much essential to get the most out of the amazing visuals of the game.
Custom Matched Combat Animations
The next entry on the list pairs really well with the previous mod. Custom Matched Combat Animations is a quality-of-life animation mod that makes combat absolutely exhilarating.
Total War games have always had the concept of matched and asynchronous kills, where some deaths on the battlefield will have a whole mini duel leading up to an individual unit’s demise, while asynchronous kills often involve units just keeling over from a random sword swing a few feet away.
This mod adds lots of variety to the mini duels during combat, and even minor scuffles will look cinematic with it.
Reloading Animations
Animations really make Warhammer come to life, so the next entry is also an animation mod. It’s really surprising that Reloading Animations wasn’t in the base game, as historical Total War games with guns have always had this feature.
This mod is actually very simple, when units with guns shoot at someone, they are now shown reloading before taking their next shot. To be honest, it’s very jarring not to have proper feedback on when your units are reloading, so we don’t advise playing any faction with guns without this one. Just make sure to get the compatibility submod if you plan on pairing it with Custom Matched Combat Animations.
Building Progression Icons III
It was clear that in the initial idea for Warhammer 3, the UI was supposed to be very lore-friendly and full of different art for every little thing. Modders uncovered this near release, where they saw many unfinished features including different UI themes for each faction. The Building Progression Icons mod follows the original spirit of Warhammer 3, adding a different flavour to each building upgrade you make.
Most buildings in the game can be upgraded a few tiers over the course of your campaign, but the only indication of this was a number in the top right of the building icon. With this mod, each upgrade has a visible change on the icon, such as a city upgrade showing a reinforced wall compared to the previous tier.
Immortal Landmarks
Moving on to content mods, the Immortal Landmarks mod makes a huge difference for the campaign portion of the game without affecting balance too much. Landmarks in Warhammer 3 are buildings that can only be built in specific provinces, such as the Bokha Palace in Kislev.
These special buildings are few and far between in the base game, so Immortal Landmarks adds a bunch of new ones to make sure even the minor provinces get some love. If you like being immersed in the world and thinking a bit more on the campaign map than just conquering everything, this mod gives a unique hook to prioritising certain provinces over others.
Dead of the Orient
Another content mod, Dead of the Orient adds a few new funky units to the Warhammer factions of Cathay and the Vampire Counts. The victims of Cathay’s brutal politics in the past have risen from the dead, and surprisingly, they’ve joined Cathay itself in its quest to push back the forces of Chaos.
From peasants who built the Grand Bastion to disrespected courtesans and the Dragon Emperor’s personal legion, all of the units bring something new to the table. If you’d like Cathay’s fight to feel a little more desperate, this is the mod for you.
Graetor’s Empire Knightly Orders
Graetor’s Empire Knightly Orders expands the Empire’s roster heavily by adding 23 Knightly Orders from Warhammer lore to the game. All the newly added units are balanced well and don’t make the game easier or harder even with their specific custom abilities.
Another neat feature taken from the lore is that specific units are only recruitable in the provinces where their Order is supposed to be present. If you like getting immersed in the lore, you could roleplay your faction aligning with some of the Knightly Orders and bringing glory to the Empire.
Marienburg
Marienburg: The Merchant Empire took almost two years to develop, with most development taking place before Warhammer 3 even came out. While Marienburg is a subfaction of the Empire, the creators of the mod decided to flesh it out into a completely new set of campaigns due to the amount of lore surrounding it. The amount of content in this is huge, with more than 20 new units, four new legendary lords and seven new legendary heroes.
The factions even have their own unique mechanics, with the Vampire Lord faction being able to build criminal networks in other cities, while the other two have a reskinned Cathay caravan mechanic. If you love playing the Empire but still want something fresh, make sure you play this.
Cataph’s Southern Realms
A content mod that’s been around since 2016, Cataph’s Southern Realms is filled to the brim with new content. While the Empire is based on the German realms and the Holy Roman Empire in the real world, in Warhammer lore there were always fictional analogues of Italy and Spain too, in the form of Tilea and Estalia.
Sadly, in the actual game itself, these regions are extremely generic, so the mod maker Cataph took it upon himself to flesh them out, and eventually decided to overhaul some other factions as well. The mod comes with a completely unique mechanic, eight new factions,10 new legendary lords with some having branching player stories, and a completely new tech tree.
You’ll enjoy this if you’re a fan of human factions but have had enough with the Empire and Kislev.
Legendary Lore
If you’re new to the Warhammer universe, Legendary Lore is a very useful overhaul mod that triggers various event prompts if you’ve done something in your campaign that happens to be connected to the lore.
Whenever you recruit a unit, bring a legendary lord to a province significant to them, or build up an ancient city – you’ll receive some great flavour text filling you in on the intricacies of Warhammer.
Victory Conditions Overhaul
Immortal Empires is one of the most enjoyable parts of Warhammer, but the campaign itself is freeform and ultimately your goal is just to conquer everything you can. The Victory Conditions Overhaul makes this a bit more interesting by reworking the campaign to focus on routes. Routes are mini campaigns that take around 60 turns, and involve unique objectives and rewards.
Each faction has three unique routes, and you can win the campaign by pursuing any of the routes. You can also reap the rewards of finishing one route by continuing your campaign and pursuing another route. This mod is great when paired with Legendary Lore, since both add a bit more narrative to your campaign experience.
Loreful Strategic Threat
One of the biggest problems with Warhammer 3’s campaign is that there is a strategic threat mechanic in the campaign. Unfortunately, there’s an inherent player bias, and eventually, every faction considers you a strategic threat purely because you grew a little bit more than your neighbours.
The Loreful Strategic Threat mod attempts to improve this mechanic by focusing on territorial disputes rather than overall faction power and does this in a lore-friendly way. This makes for more dynamic campaigns where conflicts don’t all revolve around the player.
Radious Total War
Team Radious has been making total overhaul mods for Total War since Shogun 2. The Radious Total War mod for Warhammer 3 is no exception, with an incredible focus on making the combat more fun and full of variety. If you think the game would be a bit better with a different feel, you can’t really go wrong with this one.
SFO Grimhammer III
SFO Grimhammer III, where SFO stands for Simply Fun Overhaul, is a total overhaul for Warhammer 3. Besides completely reworking many aspects of the game, it also has a bunch of other mods integrated into itself. If you’re bored of the vanilla Warhammer 3 experience, and also really like Warhammer and its atmosphere, SFO is by far the biggest overhaul mod that prioritises lore. Just keep in mind that most additional mods won’t work with this one.
Do you agree with our list? If you think we missed any mods, let us know in the comments.
