A single click order now defaults to run instead of walk



Mounts can now fire missiles, spells and special abilities



Units can now fire missiles, spells and special abilities specifically when airborne or when on the ground



Chariot riders now fully support all types of spells and special abilities



A ton of new triggers for special abilities and spells added to allow features like Murderous Prowess, Attuned to Magic and Cold Blooded



New spawn-mechanic for units bursting out of the ground added



New spawn-mechanic for units bursting out of another unit added



Chokepoint battles added



Free-for-all multiplayer mode added



Quick battle unit caps added



Quest battle intro cinematics added



Army abilities added



Rampage trait added



Expendable trait added to Peasants, Goblins, Skavenslaves and the like, reducing the amount of chain routing they will cause



Unspottable trait added for units that can hide at very short distance from the enemy, for example by using a smoke bomb



Spell lists can now be custom-made, for example to combine spells of several lores into one list



Extra targeting options for the player and AI to improve casting for moving and static area of effects



Improved the shrapnel system to allow things like the doomrocket’s clusterbomb mechanic



Loads of new ability types and sub-types – governed by better balancing and more distinct behaviour



Damaging volumes, explosions and vortices can now be set to affect enemies or allies only



Units that fire multiple projectiles at once can now be set to either fire all of those shots at the same point or to select different targets for each



Projectiles can now be told to prefer targeting the centre of a unit



Projectiles can now damage siege towers and battering rams



Line of sight checks of projectiles improved so that they can reliably be lobbed over friendly units



Explosion damage now applies more uniformly to heavy and light infantry



Bombardments can now be set to face the direction of the attacker, which looks nicer on carpet-bombing Phoenixes for example



Bombardments can now be homing



Players can now select the direction of wind and breath spells



Passive abilities can now have a duration



Several Chariot fixes, for example Generals on chariots now properly count as Generals



Chariot mount damage no longer increases with more mounts, making it easier to balance them



Units now always get their charge bonus when hunting down routing units, making strong chargers ideal for that task



New system for super-chaotic formations added, allowing for highly disorganised groups of skirmishers and slaves



New siege map layouts added, now with more height differences and more varied wall shapes



Improvements to moving onto and off walls



Flying units now land more neatly and as a result get fewer attacks against monstrous targets, making cycle charging less efficient



Flying units now can’t take off immediately after landing, again making cycle charging less efficient



Large units no longer play hit reaction animations when hit by small arms fire



Units on the ground now can skirmish away from flying units



Units can now be knocked off cliffs and down chasms, falling and flailing, their life passing before their eyes as gravity pulls them ever closer towards certain death



Reduced the collision size of trees, making it easier to fire out of a forest, but also granting units inside the forest less protection from missiles



Harassment AI added



Stop and Shoot AI added



Bracing AI improved



Improved how AI switches between multiple shot types



Unit experience ranks reworked and new character skills added that specifically buff high rank units



New alert added that highlights rallying units



Small and Large unit size is now shown on the unit info panel



Melee and missile contact effects can now apply traits like Rampage



Battle maps are no longer procedurally stitched together, but each crafted by hand to improve their beauty and playability



Tweaks and fixes to fatigue; riders of warbeasts no longer cause fatigue when firing missiles



Hybrid missile and melee units can now use charge reflection even whilst firing



Jump attack chance added, allowing for more jumping attacks on heroes and acrobatic units



Added more quick battle data for better unit and faction balancing



Added more AI army templates, creating more variety in army compositions and allowing for armies with special roles, like harassment regiments



Added more control over AI spellcasting



More campaign unit modifiers added, allowing skills and techs to modify explosions, missile range, spell costs and more



Battle difficulty modifiers are now data-driven and mod-able



To give you an idea of how many battle improvements were made in WH2, here is a collection of changes large and small. The list is certainly going to miss things, but we have been working on a lot of builds, while a lot of impactful changes came knotted together, and bug-fixes and new features often went hand-in-hand. If you notice changes missing from that list, give us a shout and we will add them.Kind regards, Ato