I’ve been waiting 20 years for this. All the way back in 2006 a supplement for the Warhammer TTRPG called Tome of Corruption quietly slipped in an illustration of a tiger-headed warrior preparing to attack an elephant in the jungle. The idea there were beastmen with the heads of tigers somewhere in the Warhammer World’s nation of Ind was hinted at in a few books, but that was the first illustration I’d seen of one, and the first suggestion they were a legit thing and not just one of the many exaggerated rumors about distant lands Warhammer books are stuffed with.
Two whole decades later, I’m playing an army of tiger warriors in Total War: Warhammer 3 and they rule. I’m as surprised as anyone that a whole new species got plonked into Warhammer this late in the day, though perhaps the most surprising thing is that they come in the form of a DLC that’s only five dollars.
While Bhashiva’s individual campaign mechanics aren’t unique—the insignias she can award to units resemble orc scrap upgrades, for instance—the combination of mechanics does end up feeling different. The currency to pay for those insignias is earned by completing missions for your neighbour, the Iron Dragon, and that relationship adds a distinct flavor.
So yeah, there are limits on both your units and armies, though I never found them too painful. Tiger warriors aren’t restricted in the same way as the regular Cathayan troops you’ve got access to, and I wanted as many tigers as I could get, mainly using Cathayan crossbow units and a grand cannon or two to plug gaps. Plus, I quickly amassed a fortune in iron favor. Even when you’re not working on those tasks Zhao Ming staples to the office notice board, fighting his enemies and taking their settlements pays a steady amount.
Bhashiva’s other big campaign mechanic is the Tiger Court, where you dedicate relics to three philosophical pillars in return for buffs to tiger warrior units. The Way of the Thousand Gods represents the religion of Ind, and includes defensive enhancements to physical resistance and melee defence. The Prophecy of the White Tiger is about dedication to Bhashiva’s lineage, white tigers who return when danger looms, and has a sweet ability that means tiger warrior reinforcements show up to any battles that aren’t sieges. The Teachings of Kamau venerate a legendary tiger warrior hero who sounds like their equivalent of Sigmar, and I prioritized that one for the sake of increasing my armor-piercing damage.
Relics pop up in pre-set settlements across the map, some of which can be earned by reaching them with trade caravans, which work just like the caravans the other Cathay factions use, though narratively you’re guarding them as mercenaries rather than acting as merchants yourselves.
The relics and Zhao Ming’s jobs provide more structure to Bhashiva’s campaign than I’m used to on the Immortal Empires map. (You can’t play her on the Realm of Chaos map, which is fine since I’m pretty sick of it anyway.) You start at war with some of the Ogre Kingdoms and have more to the south, while Grimgor’s orcs are immediately to the north and Chaos Dwarfs to the east.
Each has a relic or two in their settlements, but none of Zhao Ming’s first batch of quests gave me a reason to target the Chaos Dwarfs, while one quest promised a payout if I spent 10 turns whaling on the orcs. Also, the tiger warriors don’t have a lot of armor penetration until you dedicate some relics to the Teachings of Kamau, and I didn’t fancy taking on the tiny Chaos tinheads until I’d done something about that.
I ended up allying with the ogre tyrant Greasus Goldtooth, since he was already friendly with my boss Zhao Ming, who surprisingly kept offering me missions to defeat Goldtooth and take his settlements. While I slaughtered Grimgor’s orcs with pleasant ease and then took the fight to the Chaos Dwarfs, Zhao Ming was constantly needling me to fight ogres. Ignoring those tasks made completing the 10 of them I needed to finish a long campaign harder than expected—sometimes those goals ask you to take a settlement or defeat a foe on the other side of the map, or select a target that quickly gets taken by an ally, rendering them moot. I spent a bunch of turns pursuing other objectives while waiting for a task I could accomplish to show up.
The real sticking point turned out to be relics. While I earned a few with caravans, I also lost several caravans due to all the enemies I made along the trade routes. I’d carefully angle them away from the Chaos Dwarfs I was at war with only to have a horde of daemons or one of my other foes take them out. Conquest is the way to go, though I did encounter an annoying bug where one settlement with the green relic icon above it didn’t pay out when I finally took it over.
The campaign would have gone quicker if I’d known to prioritize relics right from the off, and maybe not stayed friends with the ogres, but it didn’t drag. Though I always autoresolve insignificant late-game battles, when I fought the ones that mattered I had a great time with my army of ferocious Tony the Tiger lookalikes. The base dual-axe tiger warriors are fast and hard-hitting enough that I didn’t feel the lack of cavalry, the iron claw warriors who fight with guandos are both a strong general upgrade and useful anti-large specialists, and the stalkers who throw discs as precursor weapons when they charge (like the Lizardmen skinks do with javelins) can serve as vanguard-deployment flankers.
On the battlefield the tiger warriors are enjoyably savage, though I learned the hard way not to throw Bhashiva at problems on her own and expect her to tank them all. Tigers together strong. Off the battlefield I’m less enthusiastic that Bhashiva’s entire personality is based around honor and dedication to Zhao Ming, when a more rough-edged relationship with the slightly mental dragon man—who you can’t declare war on or confederate—would be interesting. I don’t own a cat, but the idea of them as blandly loyal servants rather than hand-scratching little maniacs seems like missing a trick.
After waiting 20 years to have more than a picture in an RPG book to go on, I’m still stoked with what we got. Having cleared out the Chaos Dwarfs, I ended up in a protracted war with Clan Rictus, and sending my cats after the rats felt like a much more thematic match-up. Now that I think about it, the bird-headed Tzeentch is Bhashiva’s ancestral enemy too, so maybe there’s more cat to them than I thought.
The Bhashiva character pack will be available on May 21 during the Warhammer Skulls event. An update at the same time will add a free legendary hero called Taoyan the Merciless, who is recruitable by any Cathay army.
