Total War: Warhammer 3’s Chaos Dwarfs field a literal pain train

Skullcracker, meet Dreadquake Mortar

Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs will bring the titular Dawi-Zharr to Total War: Warhammer 3 on April 13, 2023, together with update 3.0. We’ve already taken a look at the Chaos Dwarf units, Chaos Dwarf campaign goal, and unique Chaos Dwarf campaign mechanics, so you’d think that would be all until the DLC pack’s release. However, Creative Assembly has now confirmed a detail about the Chaos Dwarfs that makes them even cooler – and is a great homage to the original tabletop game.

Total War: Warhammer 3 will allow you to build three different versions of an artillery unit called the Dreadquake Mortar – you can construct it as a standalone unit, but you can also build it as a train wagon version pulled by an Iron Daemon or a Skullcracker locomotive. How great is that?

So if it’s not enough to drive a locomotive mounted with cannons or various lethal melee devices into battle, you can further enhance the vehicle’s power by letting it tow a mortar so massive that it requires an Ogre to load its shells. While you won’t be able to couple and decouple guns and locomotives on the battlefield, you’ll have the choice of building those different versions of the Dreadquake Mortar on the campaign map.

You know things get serious when they have to bring out the Ogres to reload a gun / Creative Assembly

The judgment is still out on whether you’ll be able to pull other artillery pieces with Iron Daemons or Skullcrackers – the Astragoth gameplay video shown two weeks ago did contain a locomotive with several wagons, but that was during a Quest Battle and so does not necessarily represent regular gameplay options.

In the tabletop game, Chaos Dwarfs could have all of their artillery towed by locomotives, which was as fun as you can imagine. Well, for the Chaos Dwarfs player anyways.

Creative Assembly revealed some additional information about the Deathshrieker Rocket as well, which will be able to fire two kinds of missiles: airburst munitions that are powerful when hitting infantry and Demolition Rockets, which explode upon contact.

We should get more information on what update 3.0 contains in the coming week. Until then, check out the best Total War: Warhammer 3 mods on the Steam Workshop to bide your time until the Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs is open for business.