The next Total War Warhammer 3 DLC finally answers the call to upgrade the strategy game’s ironically least-loved Chaos God. That’s right; after plenty of attention for Khorne, Nurgle, and Tzeentch, it’s time to finally unleash new Slaanesh forces across the lands of the biggest Warhammer game on Steam. In a new dev chat, CA senior community manager Steve Coleman is joined by game designer William Håkestad, lead DLC designer Vasil Nikolov, and principal technical designer Radoslav Borisov to talk about what’s next after patch 6.1.
The next DLC for Total War Warhammer 3 will again be a triple pack of legendary lords, which will be accompanied by a fourth, free addition. The first of the newcomers is for a faction that the Warhammer game’s community has been calling for in their hordes – Dechala, the Denied One, a powerful Chaos champion of Slaanesh. Born a High Elf princess and mutated by the Chaos God of pleasure and decadence, Dechala now boasts six arms (and swords) and the lower body of a serpent.
“She’s going to be able to quickly get in and out of battle, leaving bodies and devastation behind her,” Nikolov states. She’s also able to flank on the battlefield efficiently, and will of course be joined by a set of new Slaanesh units. The Champion of Slaanesh is a four-armed, half-snake fighter that acts much like a slightly less powerful version of Dechala, while the Pleasure Seekers are demonic cavalry troops that ride into battle on giant, serpent-like Steeds of Slaanesh.
As the leader of one of the most fearsome Slaanesh warbands, the Tormentors, Dechala uses her strength to dominate and subjugate her foes, who must then help her to live the lavish, opulent life she desires. Whereas existing legendary lord N’Kari is a seducer that appeals to his targets, Dechala is more forceful and uses methods such as elixirs to enthrall her victims.
Expect to see Dechala and her new units in their full glory “quite soon,” Nikolov says, although notes that he’s keeping some of the most exciting additions close to his chest for now. You can also expect some free changes to Slaanesh and N’Kari, along with the promise of a third faction to be revealed in the future.
Following its recent campaign AI beta test, Borisov says the team is working on improving the ability of computer-controlled factions to recognize when they’re being threatened by foreign forces.
“We discovered a rather fundamental issue with the way AI looks at the world,” he explains, “the AI was finding itself in situations where it thought it was being assaulted by enemy forces when all that was happening was that foreign agents were making excursions into its territory.”
As a result, the mere presence of an agent would cause the AI to fall back into a defensive posture, consolidating forces and setting up garrisons, which dramatically impacted its progression in other areas. Borisov says players might notice a big difference in some campaigns, while others may feel fairly comparable to past iterations. Another round of beta testing is planned for the future, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
With TWW3 6.1 now out in the wild, what comes next? “We’ve been thinking a lot about what extra little gubbins we can add,” Håkestad remarks. For patch 6.2, he says the focus is on considering improvements to core game systems such as ancillaries, control, and corruption. He notes, however, that it’s too early to offer any definitive promises on what to expect. As for the upcoming DLC, we’ll bring you details on the remaining legendary lords as we get it.
For now, take a look through our pick of the existing Total War Warhammer 3 DLC, and see what other grand strategy games we recommend playing in 2025.
You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.