Total War: WARHAMMER II - The Warden & The Paunch (DLC)

The Warden and The Paunch is a DLC pack for Total War: WARHAMMER II that drops two Legendary Lords into the Mortal Empires and Vortex campaigns, each running on completely different mechanical rails. On one side you have Eltharion the Grim, leading Yvresse with a prison-management system that lets you capture and interrogate enemy lords rather than just killing them. On the other, Grom the Paunch commands the Broken Axe Tribe and runs a cooking mechanic where his chef Niblit concocts increasingly absurd recipes that grant army-wide buffs. These are not cosmetic additions. Both systems add genuine decision loops that change how you play turn to turn. Eltharion's campaign rewards a disciplined, numbers-oriented approach. His unique prison fills up with captured lords who can be interrogated for intelligence, ransomed, or broken entirely to remove them from the game permanently. His faction mechanics also tie into a "Vigilance" meter for Yvresse that demands you keep the border defended, punishing turtling and rewarding aggressive early expansion. His starting position is tight, the roster leans on elite infantry and ranged units, and his personal combat stats make him one of the most dangerous single-entity lords on the battlefield. If you like efficient, high-agency gameplay where every decision compounds, Eltharion is worth the DLC price on his own. Grom is the counterpoint. His campaign is louder, messier, and frankly funnier. The cooking system generates recipes from ingredients you loot during battles, and each dish buffs your army in stackable ways, some of which escalate into genuinely broken late-game power states. The Greenskin roster has always been about mass and momentum, and Grom amplifies that. He starts in a different region than the base-game Greenskin factions, reducing early conflict with existing Orc lords and giving him room to snowball. The AI handles Grom reasonably well on harder difficulties, though like most Total War AI it struggles to exploit the cooking system with any sophistication when you face him as an opponent. For newcomers to WARHAMMER II, this is not the entry point. Both campaigns assume familiarity with the confederation mechanics, the Vortex ritual system, and basic unit micro. That said, if you already have ten to twenty hours in the base game and want to understand why the community still talks about this DLC years after release, the answer is mechanical density. Both lords have more unique systems than some full faction rosters. The mod ecosystem on Steam Workshop has expanded both campaigns further, with overhauls that deepen the prison mechanics and expand the recipe pool, so long-term replayability is real. What does not work as well: the mid-campaign pacing on Eltharion can stall if you over-invest in the prison without pushing your main army forward. Grom's late game can become a passive buff machine where the cooking recipes are so powerful that battles lose tension. Neither is a dealbreaker, but both are worth knowing before you commit fifty turns into a run. The DLC also does not include new unit types for the broader High Elf or Greenskin factions, only lord-specific abilities and items, which some buyers find underwhelming relative to the price point. Overall, The Warden and The Paunch sits near the top of WARHAMMER II's DLC tier list for a reason. Two distinct, well-realized campaign identities, strong battlefield performance for both lords, and enough systemic depth to sustain multiple replays. If you are going to pick one DLC to extend your WARHAMMER II install, this one earns the slot. Diego, Scout Team