Total War: Warhammer 3’s Lords of the End Times Ditches the Base-Game Requirement

Tane Wharekura15/08/2026Updated 25/08/20265 min read

Creative Assembly has confirmed that Total War: Warhammer III’s next expansion, Lords of the End Times, arrives on September 24, and it’s shipping with a structural change the ten-year-old franchise has never offered before: buying just one Legendary Lord pack: without owning any base Total War: Warhammer game, is enough to unlock the sprawling Immortal Empires campaign.

The studio detailed the expansion in a DLC overview published on its official Total War community blog, corroborated by Games Workshop’s own Warhammer Community site and the game’s Steam storefront. Creative Assembly describes it as “a collection of cataclysmic curiosities” and the biggest DLC the studio has released in the series’ 10-year history.

Four Legendary Lords Headline Total War: Warhammer 3’s Biggest Pack

Lords of the End Times brings four new Legendary Lords into the Immortal Empires sandbox: Nagash, the Supreme Lord of the Undead; Thanquol, the Grey Seer; Boris Todbringer, Elector Count of Middenland; and The Glottkin, champions of Nurgle. Nagash arrives as the headline act, and according to Creative Assembly’s overview, the Glottkin can command units from the Warriors of Chaos and Nurgle Daemon rosters, assembling punishing and highly resilient armies bolstered by new legendary heroes and battlefield units.

Each faction represented: the Undead Legions, the Empire, Warriors of Chaos and Skaven: gets its own Legendary Lord, alongside new units, heroes and campaign mechanics tied to their stories. It’s the kind of scale Creative Assembly says it has never packed into a single release for the series.

No Base Game Needed: Immortal Empires Access Comes With Any Single Lord

The headline mechanical change isn’t a new unit or spell, it’s how the DLC is sold. Warhammer Community confirmed that Boris Todbringer, Grey Seer Thanquol, the Glottkin, and Nagash join the roster of Legendary Lords on 24 September, and for the first time in series history, purchasing the Lords of the End Times DLC: either a singular character or the whole bundle, grants immediate access to the Immortal Empires game mode.

Total War: Warhammer III’s own Steam listing spells out the same point for the bundle specifically: purchasing the Lords of the End Times bundle grants access to the Immortal Empires campaign, and Total War: Warhammer III ownership is not required. Previously, every Legendary Lord DLC assumed players already owned the base game and, in many cases, its two predecessors to unlock the full Immortal Empires map, a barrier that has long been cited as one of the series’ biggest turn-offs for newcomers weighing up a decade of accumulated content.

Pricing: Individual Lords, a Bundle Discount, and What It Means Down Under

Creative Assembly’s blog confirms that, as with previous Lord packs, buyers can choose per-character purchases or the full set. As always, players can choose to purchase all four Legendary Lords as a bundle with a 15% discount, or opt to pick and choose each individually.

UK pricing reported by OC3D puts the numbers at £7.49 per Legendary Lord, with the complete four-lord set available with a 15% discount, bringing the bundle to £25.48. Australian and New Zealand Steam pricing hadn’t been separately listed at the time of writing, but regional buyers should expect the platform’s usual currency conversion to apply once pre-orders and the storefront listing go fully live locally. Given the new no-base-game entry point, that per-Lord price effectively becomes the full cost of entry for anyone in NZ or Australia wanting to try Immortal Empires for the first time, rather than the far steeper outlay of three separate base games plus years of prior DLC.

Free Update Adds Neferata and a Full Vampire Counts Rework

Alongside the paid content, Creative Assembly is shipping what it’s calling one of its biggest free updates yet, landing the same day as the DLC regardless of whether players buy anything. The centrepiece is the Vampire Queen, Neferata, as a Legendary Lord, alongside a full rework for the Vampire Counts and Archaon The Everchosen, all-new End Game Scenarios, and updated Victory Conditions for every legacy Legendary Lord.

Warhammer Community adds that the update reaches beyond the four new Lords’ own campaigns: Archaon the Everchosen also gets a major makeover to expand his campaign mechanics, while new Chaos Invasion, Vermintide, and Nagash Rises endgame challenges bring the madness of the End Times to players’ doorsteps even if they aren’t following any of the new Lords. Existing owners of Total War: Warhammer III effectively get a fresh wave of endgame content without spending anything extra.

Why Lowering the Barrier Matters for a Decade-Old Strategy Franchise

Total War: Warhammer’s Immortal Empires campaign is the result of merging content from three separate base games and dozens of DLC packs released since 2016, and its cumulative price tag has long been a sticking point among players weighing whether to jump in. By tying full campaign access to a single Legendary Lord purchase, Creative Assembly is effectively offering a low-cost side door into a decade of accumulated systems, rather than asking newcomers to buy their way through the franchise’s entire back catalogue.

It’s a notable shift for a genre where legacy strategy series routinely carry some of gaming’s steepest entry costs, and it sets a precedent other long-running strategy franchises juggling years of paid expansions may want to watch closely. Lords of the End Times launches September 24 on PC via Steam and the Windows Store.