Total War: Warhammer 3 – Dogs of War found in game data

Players have found hints about an anticipated faction

The Shadows of Change DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3, which launched yesterday on PC, is not exactly thrilling the community – the content is perceived to be lackluster, especially in regard to the increased price Creative Assembly is selling the pack at. However, fans have found a data change in the game files to be excited about: Data for two characters, Biorgio the Besieger and Lucrezzia Belladonna, of the Dogs of War faction has been discovered.

The Dogs of War have been one of the most often requested factions for the trilogy and are one of the big untapped groups yet to be brought into the game. In the Warhammer setting, the Dogs of War are a large group of different mercenary bands loosely based on the Italian condottieri. In the tabletop game, they enabled players to expand their armies with specialized capabilities and they contain some of the wackiest units of the setting, making them a fan favorite.

At the moment, the Dogs of War are only playable through a mod in Total War: Warhammer 3 :: Creative Assembly / Nox

After the Shadows of Change launch, players discovered the following data entries:

• “wh3_dlc22_dog_inf_borgio_blood”
• “wh3_dlc22_dog_infantry_hero_lucrezzia_belladonna_blood”

What’s interesting about this is that The Changeling and the Cockatrice, two units from Shadows of Change, also have the “dlc22” prefix despite the new content pack going by “dlc24” in the data. There has been some reshuffling in this regard, with Champions of Chaos becoming “dlc20” and free Legendary Hero Ulrika Magdova also getting the “dlc22” prefix.

Was a Dogs of War DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3 scrapped that should have come out between the release of Immortal Empires (“dlc21”) and Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs (“dlc23”)? There was a very long content drought between these launches, which people already found weird at the time. Perhaps the additional workload required to fix Immortal Empires led to the Dogs of War being abandoned?

In any case, the roadmap for the next year of content is already set in stone and the Dogs of War are not part of that, so the chances of seeing them added in the near future are very low. Still, in terms of factions with army books in the tabletop game that aren’t yet represented in Total War: Warhammer 3, the Dogs of War are pretty much the last, making them a prime candidate for adoption and if this is not some troll attempt by one of the developers, then we now have an indication for some of the groundwork for their introduction being done.

For more Total War: Warhammer 3, check out our interview with game director Richard Aldridge at gamescom 2023.