Total War: Warhammer 3 hotfix makes a dwarf who longs for death slightly less likely to die

The word “iconic” is so overused it makes me wince when I see it, but in the world of Warhammer it can be fairly applied to two characters: Gotrek and Felix, who sum up the duality of the setting. Gotrek, a dwarf trollslayer with a mohawk who longs for a heroic death to erase a failure so shameful he never speaks of it, is Warhammer at its most heavy metal album cover. Felix, a poet sworn to record Gotrek’s saga but terrified he’ll be the one to die first, is Warhammer at its most Blackadder.

The two can be recruited in Total War: Warhammer 3 (Gotrek voiced by the perfectly cast Brian Blessed) if you win their quest battle, racing to the rescue to keep them alive when they’re about to be overwhelmed by the daemonic hordes of Slaanesh. This is fairly achievable if you’re fielding an army with some heavy cavalry who can charge into the middle of the battlefield in time to make a difference, but if you’re playing poor stunty dwarfs—who thematically speaking, are one of the armies most likely to recruit the duo—you’re kind of boned. Felix would probably break and flee, while Gotrek’s suicide wish would be granted before you had time to help them.

Thank goodness for hotfix 6.0.4 then, which addresses this and many other issues. Near the bottom of a list of minor tweaks and fixes is a note that made my day: “Improved Gotrek and Felix’s initial survivability in ‘The Adventures of Gotrek and Felix’ quest battle (to Gotrek’s dismay).”

Ogre players will also be pleased by a change that affects the DLC lord Golgfag Maneater in particular. The mercenary ogre had a playstyle built around sacking settlements rather than occupying them, then using that loot to hire mercs from ogre camps. Golgfag also has buffs that affect the unique units called regiments of renown, but since you can only recruit those in your own territory—and sacked settlements still belong to your enemies—it was a hassle to actually do so. Now, the area around ogre camps count as your territory for the purpose of recruiting regiments of renown, making them easier to add to your horde.

If you’ve ever experienced the bug where your AI-controlled reinforcements would bundle together in a clump when they arrived instead of actually helping you out, that’s been fixed as well, alongside a host of other changes you can read in the full patch notes.

Jody’s first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia’s first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He’s written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody’s first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he’s written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.