Total War: Warhammer 3 – Omens of Destruction: Khorne rework improves Daemon units

Look who’s back, back again

Creative Assembly / Sega

Creative Assembly has revealed details on the Daemons of Khorne rework included in Patch 6.0 for Total War: Warhammer 3, which will be released alongside the Omens of Destruction DLC in December 2024.

A key feature being added for all Daemon factions – so Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh will get its benefits as well – is called Daemonic Reforging and will grant all Daemon units a chance to be revived after battle, similar to how Undead units from the Vampire Counts can come back.

Factors like tech, skills, and the corruption level of the local province will influence the odds of units coming back to life after a battle. CA hopes that this will motivate players to build more of the Daemon units as opposed to mortal troop types – plus, it’s representative of the fact that killing Daemons outside of the Realms of Chaos is pretty much impossible.

The Skull Throne, one of Khorne’s key faction mechanics, is seeing updates as well. Players can collect skulls through battles and offer them up in exchange for rewards, unlocking more valuable benefits the more they make use of the feature. 

“Recognizing that the previous version of the Skull Throne lacked choices for players, we set out to enhance its usefulness and value. As a result, there are now 10 unique Skull Throne actions available, allowing players to unlock higher-tier actions by spending their skulls within the Skull Throne,” Creative Assembly explained.

The rewards from the Unholy Manifestations mechanic have been similarly improved.

The Slaughterbrute is one of the new DLC units. / Creative Assembly / Sega

Khorne’s economy, which is focused on razing settlements and gaining loot from battles, has been rebalanced to strengthen these income sources. With Blood Hosts no longer costing any upkeep and ways being provided to decrease the upkeep costs of regular armies, players will find it easier to go on bloodthirsty rampages without falling prey to bankruptcy.

Aside from no longer costing upkeep, Blood Hosts can now only be spawned by using skulls after razing a settlement, forcing players to invest more into their regular armies than before – goodbye, endless tide of Blood Hosts.

As part of the economy changes, Khorne’s building system has been adjusted: You’ll be able to specialize settlements into different types, which will influence what unit types can be recruited there.

Bloodletting is another mechanic that’s getting an overhaul, according to CA: “Bloodletting is currently essential to every aspect of Khorne's faction, which we felt was not very intuitive and posed significant risks, as a loss of momentum could disrupt your entire empire. In order to mitigate this, Bloodletting rewards are now specifically tied to the forces they are attached to, allowing for more targeted benefits. These effects focus on maintaining momentum by providing bonuses for casualty replenishment, upkeep, and recruitment. Additionally, we have adjusted the thresholds for Bloodletting to make it easier to build momentum with new forces.”

A tech tree overhaul and the addition of timed reoccupation immunity for settlements razed by Khornate forces round out the faction rework.

CA also clarified that some of the new units from Omens of Destruction will only be available for certain Chaos factions.

Skullreapers, Wrathmongers, and Skarr Bloodwrath will be available for Skarbrand, Skulltaker, Arbaal, Valkia, and the Daemon Prince, while the latter will miss out on Bloodspeakers. There are plans for Archaon to get access to all of these units, but that won’t be the case at launch.

Alongside faction reworks, fixes, and balance adjustments, Update 6.0 will bring free Legendary Lord Arbaal the Undefeated to Total War: Warhammer 3.