Today’s Total War Warhammer 3 patch includes the big red Khorne hound you ordered, as well as a new competitive multiplayer mode

I’ve never had a corn dog because they don’t really exist in the UK. I’m morbidly curious about them, although I can’t determine their texture just by looking at them, which worries me. A Khorne Dog, on the other hand, is a simpler proposition, texture-wise. You can tell just by looking at today’s new legendary hero for the strategy game Total War Warhammer 3 that he’s going to be pretty tough to chew, should you even get that far. Regardless, the price is definitely easy to swallow – it’s completely free as part of today’s 5.1.0 patch, which also brings significant changes to multiplayer.

The headlines of the patch – which comes ahead of a promised deep dive into the next DLC tomorrow – are mostly about multiplayer. First off, there’s the new competitive multiplayer Conquest mode. This is effectively land battles, but with a single capture point in the middle of the map. “By adding a capture point that serves as an alternative win condition, we’re incentivizing players to fight in the middle of the map,” the blog says, with the goal of preventing cheap strategies like corner camping.

Additionally, a number of new community and developer cards are being added to Domination mode, and the mode itself can now be played against AI, among a few other tweaks and changes. Lords can no longer be summoned and removed, for example. I have a bit of an interest in Domination mode, that is, I like watching games where Turin takes the roles, so I’m waiting for his opinion so I can pass it off as my own.

Other changes include the Daemons of Chaos being playable in quick fights, free-for-all battles being playable against the AI, and the usual nerfs, buffs, UI updates, and general rebalancing. Notable here is a change to collision attacks now dealing full weapon damage, making chariots more useful. Also, the Thunder Barge has been nerfed, thank goodness/that’s a grudge depending on your allegiance. Be sure to check back tomorrow, we should have more details on the DLC then. Ogres, Orcs, and Khorne are currently rumored to be getting new toys.

Creative Assembly itself has recently come under fire from a former developer who claimed on Medium that a culture of mismanagement was prevalent during his time there. However, as he says, it’s clear that the people in the trenches are still committed to making their games as good as they can be.