Content guide for The Twisted & The Twilight DLC

Hello Total War and Warhammer fans and welcome to my faction and unit guide for The Twisted & The Twilight, the DLC for Warhammer 2 which launched on the 3rd of December 2020. This is a side by side comparison and showcase of the new factions, units and gameplay mechanics this DLC brings to the game, along with the explanation of all the FREE content which came with it.

DLC content and campaign mode

Do note that with this paid DLC also comes free content in the form of a Legendary Lord for the Wood Elves, called Drycha and the Skaven Chieftain Hero Lord along with an update to the Wood Elves faction which includes Amber and technology rework, as well as two new game mechanics forests healing and travelling the Deeproots, which is a fancy way of saying you get to teleport entire armies from one forest to the next.

One other piece of content is the Glade Captain of the Wood Elves but this is a Total War Access Exclusive content that you need to claim through that specific website, link: https://dashboard.totalwar.com/

More about this FREE content in a later part of this guide.

If you would rather watch this guide than read you can do so here:

I am going to go into the details of Throt the Unclean, Master Mutator of Clan Molder and his demented and mutated hords of Skaven as well as the unique features Wood Elves are getting with the Elves twin Sisters Naestra and Arahan, known as the Sisters of Twilight. This DLC content is available in both the Eye of the Vortex and Mortal Empires Campaign, and can also be used in custom and battle modes.

The Wood Elves sisters are the first Lord unit to be made up of two characters. They used to be a single being, but were divided into siblings by The Weave. Naestra and Arahan are now two sides of the same coin. They work together in the service of queen Ariel, marshalling the woodland warriors at her command, and cannot be slain unless both fall in battle. They must prepare the forest glade for Ariel’s arrival and protect her as she performs the ritual.


Their unique mechanic is forging and upgrading of unique items by the Daith, the master smith of Vols Anvil for both of the sisters. These items are crafted through incidents and dilemmas which appear through the course of a Sisters of Twilight campaign.

On the other side of the spectrum we have Throt the Unclean who scenes the opportunity to defeat the Sisters and capture the Elves queen while she is vulnerable, so he can harness her essence and cure the eternal pangs of starvation caused by his Warpstone-infused metabolism.


His unique mechanic is his personal Flesh Laboratory. There you can grow new monsters or augment existing ones to create new horrific abominations. Augmenting a unit too much can make them unstable and lead them to slowly mutate, gaining negative traits while these augments can be stacked to create different combinations of effects. Units can even be “recycled” for raw materials, so even defective units still have a purpose. More on this later.


Before I go into more details about The new Wood Elves faction I want to talk about the updated features and gameplay mechanics. First of all amber will no longer be required for units or buildings and on top of that all technologies that previously cost Amber have had that cost removed and been reworked. Additionally, eight completely new technologies have been added which will be the only things for which the players will from now on use Amber which they will gain through regrowing and protecting the forests.


In the Mortal Empires campaign, the Wood Elves still need to heal Athel Loren and restore the Oak of Ages. However, to do so they now have to travel the world and heal special Forest regions spread around the map. Each healed Forest will provide unique bonuses to the player.

A Forest’s health can be built up over time through various actions, such by securing its borders and building certain buildings. Once sufficiently restored, the player will have the option to perform a special ritual to permanently heal that particular Forest.

Each one of these Forests also have unique Forest Encounters, a kind of mini story lines that provide narrative choices and let the player shape how they heal the Forest. As part of this system, new regions have been added to the campaign – four to Mortal Empires, and two to Vortex – giving the Wood Elves a presence on every corner of the map.


With these long distances to travel comes a need to find a quicker and safer path, and the forests themselves provide the answer. Now, when playing as the Wood Elves faction players can instantly transport their armies between Forest regions using the new Travel Deeproots ability. Understandably, such a powerful ability comes with a cooldown.


Since there are so many new units in this DLC, for both factions and Regiments of Renown, like Mutant Rat Ogre, Wolf Rats and Great Stag Knights I will write another section of this guide to talk about all of these to you in detail. One video for Wood Elves and another for Skaven.

But what, or better who I have to take time to mention are the Queen Ariel of Athel Loren herself and Ghoritch, a former general of Archaon the Everchosen and one of the nine Lords of Hell Pit.

Queen Ariel is a powerful spellcaster who is more than capable in melee combat too while Ghoritch is a melee specialist with a long list of bonuses from anti infantry and armor piercing to armored and terror causing. I will show off more of their destructive powers in those other videos.

Now it’s time we dig a bit deeper into the specifics of the Wood Elves faction and their Sisters of Twilight. In the vortex campaign you start of at the Ashen cost while in the Mortal Empires you start off your campaign with them in the Witchwood, deep in the Doom Glades, and are already in war with the Dark Elves from Bleak Holds and Ripper Horn Tribe of Beastmen. Oddly enough your highest positive relations are with Dark Elves from Clar Karond and Tomb Kings the Exiles of Nehek alongside Wood Elves factions of Talsyn, Torgovann and Wydrioth.


Your special units are Great eagles flying monster unit, Hawk Riders flying missile cavalry and Great Stag Knights monstrous shock cavalry. The effects which influence your entire factions are 10% additional ammunition, and those Hawk riders units in your armies gain the Volley of Kurnous ability, long range major damage, limited number of uses. The Sisters of Twilight have their own Lord effects, effective only on their own army, which are lower upkeep of 15% for missile units while flying units get a 10 point buff to their melee attack and a 15% increase in their charge bonus.

The Sisters Naestra and Arahan are very powerful archers with multishot ammunition, forest stalker ability, armor piercing missiles and move very fast while when mounted on their forest dragon they gain Poison attacks. The fact that these are two characters acting as one is further reinforced by their separate health pools but even if one is below 20% the other will lend it it’s spirit energy and restore some of its health through an always active ability called Conjoined Destiny. Another constantly active ability is Gwindalor’s Vantage, a triple buff for armor piercing and base missile damage along with extra reload skill as long as no enemies are closer than 70m to the sisters.

Faction overview

As for the offensive abilities you have two distinctly different long range attacks. The Talons of Dusk and Dawn. One is specifically designed to deal the most damage to large infantry units while the other is for bringing down large enemies. That one is called Talon of Dawn, and besides it’s massive armor piercing damage it also leaves the target with the sundered armor debuff. On the other hand, Talon of Dusk has little armor piercing potential but not only does it split into 10 separate projects it also delivers a debilitating poison to it’s target reducing its speed and offensive stats by about 20% for 10 seconds. Cherry on top: both of these can damage buildings.

Skaven Clan Moulder under it’s Master Mutator Throt the Unclean also has many special features and offers a unique challenge for the player. With this Lord your Mortal Empires campaign would start in the Hell pit while the Vortex campaign starts off in The Chill Road, not that far from the Wool Elves domain. To your north you have the Mung Norscan Tribe with whom you have mutually beneficial agreements and you are also in lords Malekith good graces and his dark elves Naggarond faction. You are however already in war with Ghrond Dark Elves and could easily go to war with either fellow Skaven of Clan Septik or Har Ganeth Dark Elves.


For special units you get the mutant rat ogre single monster unit, wolf rats war beasts and non mutant rat ogres as monstrous infantry. The faction specific bonuses are tied to its habitat, the frozen northern mountains. So not only do they prefer the freezing climate but are also immune to mountain attrition and get a 10% hit points bonus to all characters. To make their Flesh laboratory mechanic easier to use they only pay 50% of the construction cost for Breeding Stock, Pits of Packmasters, Force feeding Chambers and Laboratory buildings.

Master Mutator Throt the Unclean has his own list of powerful bonuses which include an upkeep reduction of 20% and 10 bonus armor for Wolf rats, Brood Horror, Hell pit abomination and Rat ogres and their mutated brothers. The worm in this rotten cheese: a passive regeneration ability for the Lord’s entire army.


Throt himself is quite mutated and besides regeneration has both armor piercing and anti large attack bonuses. The regeneration ability is constant but comes with a 25% weakness to fire damage. He is also a great runner when outmatched in battles as he gets a speed buff when leadership is low and it’s time to scurry away. But that doesn’t prevent him from instilling fear into units nearest to him with bonuses to leadership and melee defense through his continuous Master controller ability. With his knowledge of surgery his Remouldered ability lets him heal and buff himself or other monster units in a 100m range for over a thousand hit points, 8 leadership and 24 melee attack. Last but not least his Beast pack ability makes it possible to summon a unit of rat ogres but these don’t last long as they degrade over time right on the battlefield.

The Twisted & The Twilight is another DLC which brings wholly new and unique gameplay mechanics to Warhammer 2 with the addition of The Flesh Laboratory. This is a place where Throt can fashion hideous new abominations for the battlefields. Numerous augmentations can be stacked to make existing units perform in horrifying new ways, but as flesh can only bear so much torment, soon the subjects become unstable and decay sets in. This however doesn’t stop those abominations from having a use though, as they can be rendered down for valuable materials like more Growth Juice for the vats where these specimens are grown. Other sources of Growth Juice are battles where it’s harvested from the fallen and what little can be collected from nature. Mutagens on the other hand, or third hand if you are Throt, are used to apply augmentations to units to make them more effective in battle. You gain mutagens as a by-product of growing units in vats and can only store a 100 douses until you increase this limit through upgrading the Flesh lab. You can have over a 100 mutagens but you have to spend them in that turn so they don’t go to waste.


Sisters of Twilight unique skills are linked to their specific story line, weapons and units. The forest dragon mini quest is unlocked at level 12 and in the end will reward you with this unique mount. Most weapon skills will increase damage and reload speed of the sisters bow attacks, while the skills which buff units will mostly impact specific ones your faction is mostly likely to use like Glade Guard, Stag Knights or Dryad units. There are also bonuses tied to Daith and his item upgrading game mechanics.


Master Mutator Throt the Unclean unique skills are also designed to match the lore of the Lord and his faction. Considering his melee specialization many skills offer boosts to those related stats while his special abilities are unlocked one by one as he levels up along with his unique mount Brood Horror. Other skills are designed to upgrade the mutation and augmentation capabilities through additional Growth Juice generation with some skills relating to the upgrade of this favorite and unique units and their stats.

This is another DLC for probably the most successful and massive Total War game ever which brings another bucket full of content to a sea of Warhammer content which now has almost no end in sight. The duality of each of these content additions and free updates only amplifies the differences between races and sometimes even factions of those races to a point that players can get lost in the depths of this game.

Wood Elves - Sisters of Twilight

To watch the units in action see this video:

I am going to start with the new uniquely dual character and legendary lord of the Wood Elves The Sisters of Twilight. The fact that this lord is composed of two characters has created a unique situation where you have two health pools and the lord unit can not die in battle until both are completely drained. This is further reinforced by the passive ability called Conjoined Destiny which will replenish one character’s health from the other when it goes below 20%. But this can happen only if you can catch this unit as the sisters can use a great eagle or a forest dragon as their mount and fire powerful ranged attacks called Talons of Dusk and Dawn.

These abilities which specialize in either massive single armor penetrating attack or multishot poison attacks will be made even more powerful by another ability if the sisters are left unengaged. Gwindalors vantage adds even more armor and base damage to the sisters as well as reload speed for as long as no enemies are closer than 70m. Oh and did I forget to mention the Forest Stalker bonus? Because naturally The Elves of Athel Loren gain bonuses to melee defense and accuracy while fighting within a forest.

But good luck engaging the Sisters on their forest dragon mount in the first place because despite its size it’s almost as fast as the great eagle. The additional attack this lord gets when mounted on the forest dragon is based on poison which melts and instantly kills most small creatures.

Another immensely powerful unit besides the forest dragon are the Zoats. Monstrous Beasts from far away lands who are able to tap into the Winds of Magic and cast specific spells. Their huge lizard forms and their strong physics let them wield both magic and massive hammers. Their mass and weapons allows them to be an anti large unit as well as Armour-Piercing. As if that wasn’t enough their attacks impart a contact effect on the target called Dampen. This reduces the targets magical resistance for a short time but is refreshed with every hit, dou rare are the units which can survive those hits by a Zoat’s oversized hammer for long.

The spells they can cast are called Flesh to Stone and Earth Blood. The former adds a lot of armor for a short time to either the Zoats themselves or other units while the later has a small AOE in which it regenerates health points of the targeted units. Both have a 200 meter range.

Zoat’s Regiments of Renown version is called Enigmas of Ghyran. These are Elites with more powerful spells from the Lore of Life. Specifically Regrowth which not only heals the target unit but also replenishes it’s Vigor more commonly known as stamina.

And stamina is something this next unit has in spades. The Bladesingers Elite are sword-wielding Wardancers of Athel Loren and are primarily an Anti-Infantry unit with the innate Forest Stalker trait. This is due to their low armor, large swords and Dodge ability. Your best tactic with them is to strike head on into large formations of enemy infantry, even if they have high armor as these Wardancers are equipped with Armour-Piercing weapons. But if you attack a softer target then feel free to activate their Whirling Death ability and let them lose among the enemy with even more weapon damage at the cost of armor penetration. It is an on / off ability so it gives the Bladesingers Elite good versatility.

Probably the most iconic and unique legendary Hero of the Elves is Ariel, The Queen of Athel Loren and you will get to play with her in this DLC.


She is a powerful spellcaster who is more than a capable melee fighter. As a forest spirit she takes less damage from physical attacks while responding back with magical ones. She also spreads terror to nearby enemy units even routing those with low leadership, morale in other words. Her main abilities are Greater Arcane Conduit and Blessings of the Ancients both of which increase her power recharge rate, although you have to be in a forest for the Blessings of the Ancients to be active while Greater Arcane Conduit also gives Ariel higher power reserves. Her spells are mainly offensive and quite varied but I also need to mention the map wide effects she has on allies because of the lore attributes called Life bloom, a small regenerative effect, Ancients protection, a ward which adds physical resistance and Wrath of the Wood which adds missile damage and armor piercing.

Now it’s time we take a look at the Great Stag Knights, a monstrous shock cavalry unit without equal in this DLC. Their huge size and majestic antlers give them great stomping and piercing power but not only is the unit Armour-Piercing it also features the Vanguard Deployment trait which when coupled with Forest Stalking means you can pull of nasty ambushes from forests anywhere on the map with this unit. If you want you can also turn on their Frenzy ability and gain a bit of extra Weapon Damage, Melee Attack and Charge Bonus to make them even more lethal.

Their Regiments of Renown version is called Lost Sylvan Knights who not only glow like apparition but also act like them as they have significant resistance to physical attacks. Besides an actual dragon no other Elven unit can break through enemy lines like these Stag Knights can.

Another free addition to Wood Elves is the Legendary Lord Drycha for owners of the Realm of the Wood Elves in Mortal Empires. In the campaign, she leads the Wargrove of Woe faction. It is among the most powerful forest-spirits of Athel Loren. Her Starting units are Malevolent Dryads and Treeman.



This lord is a Forest Spirit and a Spellcaster which amounts to being able to sustain a lot of physical punishment while dishing out magical attacks and spells. Among these are Pit of Shades, a damaging vortex, Okkams mindrazor a major melee damage self buff, The withering and Enfeebling Foe two strong hexes, The Penumbra Pendulum and Melkorth’s Mystifaying Miasma direct damage.

It’s abilities also include Frenzy, smoke and mirrors, Roused to Wrath and Blessings of the Ancients so keeping to a forest as you fight with her is always a good idea. The three staged Fantastical Resolve lord ability adds multiple buffs the less health the Lord has to her and near by units. Lord Drycha exerts a negative -5 Public Order on local enemy provinces while it adds 10% to Weapon strength and 5 Melee attack for Dryad units in her army.

And on that note I have to mention the Wraiths of the Frozen Heart a Regiments of Renown unit of Dryads. These are Particularly effective for preventing cavalry from cycle charging, or stopping a missile unit from retreating. It has both Frostbite and Frenzy abilities, so one to slow the enemy down and the other to tear them to shreds.

It’s only fitting I finish off this list with the Spellweaver, the new Spellcaster Lord who can be recruited to wield the Lores of Life, Beasts, Shadow, Dark and High magic. These are essentially wizards with forest stalking trait. As for abilities they have the Arcane Conduit,
Blessings of the Ancients and Loec's Blessing. They can mount pretty much anything from a horse to a dragon.

Clan Molder- Throt the Unclean

To watch the units in action see this video:

I am going to start with the mutated and triple armed legendary lord of Skaven Clan Moulder Throt the Unclean. His most notable and obvious feature are the mentioned three arms and in each he wields a deadly weapon. A sword, a long shaft pincer and a whip. This makes him an incredibly versatile melee combat specialist.

This is why his armor piercing and anti large traits are great boons as he will be in the middle of the hardest fighting most of the time. Even if he pulls the short end of the tail in those fights his regeneration ability will allow him to quickly get back into those fights. And you want him right next to these units because of his Master controller ability which imparts bonuses to leadership and melee defense to nearby units.

If he needs to he can heal and buff himself or other monster units in a 100m range for over a thousand hit points, 8 leadership and 24 melee attack with his Remouldered ability. But if you get outmatched you can always run scurry away as he gets a speed buff when leadership is low, regenerate outside combat and use the Beast pack ability to summon a unit of rat ogres to your aid for a limited time.

His mount is the awesome but disgusting Brood Horror: A huge, fast-moving monster adept at punching through infantry lines. The Packmaster Hero can use this monster as a mount as well but more on him a bit later.

Now how about we explore the stats of that Brood Horror first. In essence it’s just a mutated Giant Rat but it’s the biggest and meanest example of its kind. Not only is it fast and armored it’s also terror causing, which is plain obvious just by looking at it, bah.

This unit features it’s own regeneration, poison attack and the ability to go into a frenzied state. The only weak point is it’s low leadership which can be exploited to chase it off the battlefield by lowering it’s morale rather than trying to destroy it in a head on fight.

Now, about that Packmaster.

This is a Skaven hero unit which has the support role with area of effect and targeted buffs, and can summon Wolf Rats to his side mid battle.

His main traits are anti large and the fact that charging enemy large units can’t stomp on him. His weapons let him do armor piercing and poison attacks while his abilities Shock Collar and

Roaming with the Pack allowе him to increase his own or other units stats while making them immune to psychological effects and to heal nearby friendly units.

We talked about the Packmaster so now let’s talk about some packs, packs of hungry, mangy and really fast Wolf Rats. These are highly mobile war beasts which come in poisonous and armour-piercing varieties.

They have the vanguard deployment trait which makes them ideal for moving quickly behind the enemy army and attacking their ranged units. Their fur doesn’t offer a lot of protection so if they become the target of those range units why wont last long. That is where their considerable speed comes in as they can get into biting range quite fast.


Now let’s check out the true heavyweight champion of this DLC. The Thing Thing is a Regiments of Renown variation of the Hell Pit Abomination.

It has the ability to buff melee attack and weapon strength but pushes itself into a rampage in the process. It has all the major traits: Armor piercing, Regeneration and it causes Terror to enemy units, and really how could it not, I still can’t figure out what body part is what on this thing, this thing- thing. Come to think of it this is a really fighting name.

If that was the heavyweight champion than the Ghoritch the new legendary hero is the undisputed champion of both ugliness and brute force.

The lore tells us of a frenzied Northmen berserker who loved the thrill of battle and the tang of fresh blood upon his tongue. He served the Archaon of Chaos but after displeasing him in battle he was given over to the Master mutators of Clan Moulder for experimentation. His mind was transplanted into the body of a heavily modified Rat Ogre which explains his current physic.

He possesses almost every trait in the book… and then some. Armored, Armor piercing, Anti infantry, Causes Terror, has both regular and warp Frenzy abilities, and in battle you can activate Evisceration and Blood Shield.

Evisceration is a kind of vortex which he creates as he spins around him claws out making mince meat out of all unlucky units in his vicinity. Blood Shield on the other hand is defensive and adds magical resistances, since he is a huge target on the battlefield this is a great ability to have when magic missiles start to fly.

The next new unit is the Mutant Rat Ogre, a large single-entity monster adept at brawling because of his armor-piercing and anti infantry traits. It can also go into a frenzy to make it even more powerful. The huge claw does insane damage especially after the units characteristic lounge and slam dunk attack.

It’s Regiments of Renown version is called Morskittar's Hellion and beyond the stronger stats it’s capable of summoning a localized bombardment of warp lightning. These last for 2 seconds and do minor damage to all affected units. On top of that the the Zzzzap Contact Effect is also imparted onto enemy units and adds 10 seconds to enemy ability recharge.

Another Regiments of Renown unit are the Pit Fighters of Hell's Deep. These are Rat Ogres with the Berserk ability and can be used to effectively combat terror units. They also have the armor-piercing and frenzy traits. The Berserk ability adds progressively more Physical resistance and Melee attack as the fight goes on.

And that was the last of them.

FREE content additions

Besides Ariel there is another Hero you can now recruit for the Wood Elves but it is a Total War Access exclusive FREE DLC content. The Glade Captain.


This is a defensive anti-large melee hero which turns into a bow specialist with armor piercing when mounted. It’s passive ability is Dance of Loec which Buffs melee defence of nearby units. The Glade captain can also activate Deadly Onslaught to gain Charge Bonus and Armour-Piercing Damage perfect for charging straight into the thick of the frey. It’s unique feature is the Guided Projectile, meaning that arrows fired by this unit can hone in on its target so she never misses a shot.

Another free addition to Wood Elves is the Legendary Lord Drycha for owners of the Realm of the Wood Elves in Mortal Empires. In the campaign, she leads the Wargrove of Woe faction. It is among the most powerful forest-spirits of Athel Loren. Her Starting units are Malevolent Dryads and Treeman.


Along these units and lord the Skaven have also received a free new hero. The Skaven Chieftain is an accomplished warrior who has clawed his way to the top of the food chain. Heavily armored, equipped with an armor-piercing halberd and with a Bonebreaker mount option, the Chieftain is an adept counter to armored cavalry as well as other large creatures.


Left to his own devices he will go into a frenzy but you can help him out by activating the Skavenbrew ability which can be used on other units as well and add a buff of 40 melee attack 30% additional weapons damage while lowering armor by 30 points. Bonus is the immunity to psychological effects (meaning no fear or terror).

The Chieftain also performs a valuable support role, granting Physical Resistance to nearby friendly characters. If the army’s commander falls in battle, he steps into the breach and buffs army-wide Leadership.

However, when the chips are down, the innate Skaven quality of self-preservation overrides all other concerns. When his health falls below a certain threshold, his Physical Resistance buff stops affecting nearby friendly characters and instead applies to himself.

For my Guide on how to win battles in Total War Warhammer 2 click here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1936868986

[temperate06]

very useful,ty