[Update]: The Shadow & The Blade DLC and its accompanying update have now arrived, and so far they have been quite amazing!

The Shadow & The Blade DLC will be coming to Total War: Warhammer 2 this December 12th with Malus Darkblade and Deathmaster Snikch in tow. However, as exciting as the DLC may be, it is the accompanying free update that will have the biggest impact on Total War: Warhammer 2 as a whole.

After spending months optimizing the code, Creative Assembly has managed to speed up end-turn times by well over sixty percent. Naturally, the amount of time you save each turn will greatly depend on the power of your CPU, but from all of the previews we've seen so far, the difference has been absolutely staggering! Best of all, this has been achieved without any shortcuts or sacrifices, so the whole campaign experience will remain pretty much exactly the same... just a lot faster.

Besides the technical improvements, this update will also add Repanse de Lyonesse as a free Legendary Lord for Bretonnia, as well as a whole bunch of quality of life improvements and balance changes. The map is getting greatly expanded, heroes will now level faster while embedded into armies, Black Arks will finally be able to attack coastal settlements and earn skill points, the AI Vampire Counts are getting strengthened while Bretonnia and the Empire are becoming weaker, and the list goes on for a while.

You can find the full patch notes over at the official website, and I'd highly recommend you browse through the first few categories as some of the improvements are downright amazing and might just dictate which faction you decide to choose in your next playthrough. Enjoy, and I'll leave you with the trailer for the accompanying The Shadow & The Blade DLC.