Hey everyone,

We’ve been continuing to listen to your feedback since the release of Update 6.0 and its subsequent hotfixes, and have been working on a number of adjustments for Skulltaker to address some of your concerns.

Our aim is to release these as part of our first hotfix in the new year, currently scheduled for late January, but we wanted to give you the chance to get an early look at some of these changes so have added a new opt-in Beta for Steam users, allowing you to try them out over the Holidays along with some other fixes and adjustments that have already made it in.

Once we’re back in the new year we’ll be cracking on with our work on this hotfix, getting some more fixes added in and completing our testing to ensure everything is working as intended.

For now, let’s take a look at what’s included in this Beta release.

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• Adjusted Blood Hosts and Disciple forces so they no longer benefit from the Daemonic Reforging chance.
  
• Adjusted the effects of the Cloak of Skulls so that they now only apply when Skulltaker himself defeats a Lord.
  
• When playing as Skulltaker, the Legendary Lord 2x bonus for Champion’s Essence will now only be applied once. After defeating a Champion in battle, the bonus will no longer stack.
  
• Blood Hosts now increase the cost of the ‘Blood for the Blood God’ occupation option while they are on the map. This means that the more active Blood Hosts there are, the more costly it becomes to create new Blood Hosts. This change addresses the over-reliance of Khorne factions on excessive Blood Host forces.
  
• Reduced the XP gain bonus from the Cloak of Skulls on the ‘Dubois the Prescient’ skull, from 25/50 to 20/40.
  
• Fixed an issue where Bloodspeakers lacked mounts when playing as Valkia.
  
• Fixed an issue where Heralds of Khorne and Bloodreapers on Blood Throne mounts were missing Siege Attacker.
  
• Fixed the 2D porthole for The Slaughtergard (Chosen of Khorne - Halberds) using the wrong image.
  
• Fixed a text inconsistency in the description of the Daemons Reforged effect for the Skulltakers faction.

• Resolved a rare crash that could occur during VFX rendering.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when loading saved Savage Orc Great Shaman lords.
  
• Fixed a potential crash when loading a battle in certain cases.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when loading the Black Orc Big Boss character.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when teleporting to the Great Drill of Hashut quest battle.

• Erd Mentality Rebalance:
  
  • Melee Defence: 40 > 20
    
  • Ward Save: 40 > 20
    
  • Number of Squig Herds in range for maximum value: 10 > 5
• Fixed an issue where Da Acid Burpa (Colossal Squig RoR) was not counting towards the unit requirements for the ‘Splode Da Big One Tactik’ in Da Plan.
  
• Ogre Camps now take only 3 turns to be redeployed, instead of 5.
  
• Removed Destroy ‘Kraka Drak’ from Throgg and Astragoth’s victory conditions and replaced it with Malakai’s faction
  
• Nasty Skulkers, Rogue Idol, River Trolls, and Snotling Pump Wagon (base unit) have been added to Gorbad - Omens of Destruction DLC for use in his Da Plan feature.

• The Hammer of Gork’s Blinded contact effect is no longer replaced by Dazed from the Orcs & Goblins’ Avalanche Smash technology.
  
• Eshin Maneater’s Weeping Blade effect is no longer replaced by Armour Sundering from the Ogres’ Betta Plunda technology.

• Fixed an issue where Snagla's ‘Beneath the Gloomy Canopy’ skill would lose its Stalk effect when upgraded.
  
• Removed the ‘Immune to Contact Effects’ from the Slaughtermaster's Poisonmaster skill, as they possess that attribute innately.
  
• Removed the Thundertusk and Stonehorn from the Hunter skill effects that provided Vanguard, Frenzy, and Stalk Hunter skills.
  
• Fixed the missing Idol of Gork Scrap upgrade for Savage Orc units.
  
• Fixed the Divinatory Authority skill incorrectly reducing cooldowns for Cold-Blooded instead of Focus Instincts.

• Fixed an issue where Markus Wulfhart’s Imperial Regiments of Greatswords had a different tier to regular Greatswords.

• Fixed a UI issue with the Ogre’s army ability ‘Meat Feast’, which incorrectly stated it affected multiple units when it only affects a single unit.

• Fixed an issue where Colossal Squigs were missing Siege Attacker.
  
• Added missing MP unit caps to the following: Colossal Squig, Da Acif Burpa, Snagla Deff Throwa, Piggyback Knights, Slaughterbrute, Eshin Maneater, Skullcannon, Hellforged Bellowers, and Arachnarok Flinger.
  
• Fixed an issue where Khorngors were still available for Warriors of Chaos when unit caps were active.
  
• Fixed the abilities ‘Bathed in Blood’ and ‘Blinding Radiance’ being incorrectly labelled as active abilities.

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If you would like to opt-in to this Beta branch and try these changes today, here's how you can do it:

1. Open your Steam client and go to your Library.
   
2. Right-click on Total War: WARHAMMER III and select 'Properties'.
   
   
3. Navigate to the 'Betas' tab.
   
   
4. In the drop-down menu, select the option ‘beta_hotfix_603 – BETA Hotfix 6.0.3'.
   
5. Steam will then download the necessary files and begin the patching process to install the Hotfix.

The download is relatively small, but Steam will need to patch around 25GB of game data in order to install the Hotfix. This can take some time depending on your hard drive speeds.

The full release of Hotfix 6.0.3 is currently aiming for this Friday, and when this happens your game will automatically switch to the main release.

Please note: If you update to 6.0.3 early, you will only be able to play multiplayer with other players who are also opted in to the 6.0.3 Beta until the update rolls out to all players. You can switch back to 6.0.2 at any time by selecting ‘None’ in the Betas dropdown menu.

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​Thanks to everyone who’s shared their feedback with us since the launch of Omens of Destruction and Update 6.0. This will be our last game update before we power down for a couple of weeks to rest, recuperate and eat our body weight in mince pies. We’ll be back in 2025, ready and raring to kick back into gear.

Happy Holidays!

—The Total War Team

Hey folks,

We’ve just rolled out Hotfix 6.0.2 for Total War: WARHAMMER III to all players, bringing with it a number of adjustments following on from last week's Update 6.0, including fixes to Ogre Camp and Vampire Counts stances, some improvements to one of Golgfag’s victory conditions and much more, as well as fixes for those known issues originally detailed in our message[community.creative-assembly.com] last week.

Note: If you previously opted in to the Beta version of this hotfix on Steam, your game will automatically switch to the full release version. You do not need to take any action. Players who were previously playing in the Beta will note that we have added two additional changes since we launched the Beta, which are marked in italics in the main post below. We want to thank everyone who downloaded this Beta and checked it out this week!

On top of the changes detailed in the release notes published earlier this week, we've also added Squig Herds and Black Orc Big Boss units to the core Orc & Goblins roster in all of our products which share this faction as a part of this Hotfix.

These units will be added free of charge to anyone who didn't already have them as part of that change, ensuring that you can use Gorbad's tactics 'Light 'Em Up!', 'Erd Mentality', and 'Lead da Charge!' for players running his Campaign.

Our design intent was always to allow for Gorbad to have lots of variety in the units at his disposal to make best use of his tactics. On being made aware of this oversight, we've taken action to put things right.

We will be reviewing the rest of the feature, and will be back again with further changes as part of us better testing our content for the future.

Please accept our apologies for only now spotting this issue!

With all that said, let's dive into the full list of what's included in this Hotfix.

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• Fixed a bug where, if the Ogre Camp ranks up, its stance reverts to Raiding stance.
  
• Fixed a bug where, if an Ogre Camp recruits units from within itself, it drops out of Encamp stance and switches to Raiding stance.
  
• Fixed an issue where Vampire Counts were missing the ambush stance.
  
• Added Lightning Strike to Skarsnik's 'Ready & Waitin'' skill.
  
• Slightly adjusted Golgfag's victory conditions – gifts to clients now count as occupied settlements (see the dev note in the Victory Conditions section below).

• Fixed a soft lock that occurred after Valkia retreated from the Spear of Slaupnir battle mission.

• Sneaky Rogues can now be used with any large monster, not just Rogue Idols
  
• Sneaky Rogues mission now requires 25 monsters to be recruited
  
• Added a camp limit check for Ogre camps.
  
• Decreased the amount of Treasury and Meat gained from Golgfag's Contracts to align with the intended design.
  
• Fixed an issue where Arbaal could receive the defeat dilemma after losing a Lightning Strike battle as a reinforcing army (i.e., not actively participating in the battle).
  
• Increased the amount of Planz gained from battles as Gorbad (1 → 2).
  
• Fixed an issue where Arbaal could sometimes receive more than eight Challenges of Khorne simultaneously.
  
• Fixed an issue where advice about a Chaos God becoming ascendant in the Great Game would play for factions without Unholy Manifestations.
  
• Fixed an issue where Blood Host armies that were reinforcing would not have their attrition immunity timers updated after winning a battle.
  
• Fixed a bug where the 'Travel to Client' teleport for Golgfag was unavailable when any lord or settlement from the player faction was involved in a siege (either on attack or defence).

• Fixed a bug where the High Elves' Alith Anar's Stalking stance did not display the correct icon.
  
• Fixed a bug where Vampire Coast Lords were unable to enter Dig stance to uncover treasure.
  
• Fixed an issue where Vampire Counts were missing the ambush stance.
  
• Fixed a bug where, if the Ogre Camp ranks up, its stance reverts to Raiding stance.
  
• Fixed a bug where, if an Ogre Camp recruits units from within itself, it drops out of Encamp stance and switches to Raiding stance.
  
• Fixed an issue where loaned armies had no available stances.

• Fixed an issue where the Khorne technology 'Giant Slayer' was not applying to Khorngor units.
  
• Fixed the Khorne technology 'Rage Within' – it no longer incorrectly targets non-infantry units.

• Fixed several issues where abilities and attributes were not functioning for the following Golgfag banners: Bomb Lobber, Bone Muncha, Feral, and Slayer.
  
• Fixed an issue where Scyla Anfingrimm would not have his innate trait when playing as Daemons of Chaos.

• Added Lightning Strike to Skarsnik's 'Ready & Waitin'' skill.

• Fixed an issue where Slaughtermasters and Butchers were not receiving Skrag's recruit rank bonus when recruited from Camps.
  
• Reduced Mangler Squig recruitment time from 2 turns to 1.

• Slightly adjusted Golgfag's victory conditions – gifts to clients now count as occupied settlements.
  
  ​Dev Note: Golgfag relies on gifting settlements rather than occupying, sacking, or razing, so we now count gifted settlements towards that total.

• Fixed a bug where the Ogre Camps scripted tour text said 'sent' instead of 'send'.

• Fixed an issue where fighting in the new regions added to southern Cathay could result in a blank battle map.
  
• Fixed an issue preventing the Pit of Shades from targeting the ground correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug where certain units, including Oxyotl and Gyrobombers, could turn and fire multiple volleys at once.
  
• The Unstoppable Choppas ability now does +50% weapon strength up from 25%.

• Fixed a bug where Arbaal on Fleshound bent too far forward during a rider defend animation.
  
• Fixed an issue in Skulltaker's quest battle where the enemy Dwarf Runelord's model appeared corrupted.

• Fixed an issue with the artillery manual aiming mode using ALT + Right-click.

• Increased the Meat cap from post-battle captives from 62 to 250.
  
• Fixed an issue where, at times, the number of Mangler Squigs that survived a battle differed from the number of units alive in the post-battle.

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Thanks once again for your ongoing feedback. As always, if you run into any issues after updating to Hotfix 6.0.2, please let us know in our dedicated bug reporting sub-forum[community.totalwar.com].

See you on the battlefield!

— The Total War Team

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If you experience any issues after downloading the update, please take a moment to Verify the integrity of the game files first to ensure there were no issues when downloading. A step-by-step guide can be found in this article.

If the issues persist, please visit our support site[support.sega.com] for additional troubleshooting steps and assistance.

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Please note that user-generated mods may have compatibility issues with new game updates. If you are encountering performance or stability issues following a release, is recommended that you disable any mods you're running. If you continue to experience issues, please visit our support site[support.sega.com] for additional troubleshooting steps and assistance.