[Update]: It would appear that The Shadow and The Blade has brought with it some rather significant and potentially gamebreaking bugs. On the positive side, Creative Assembly has already announced that they are working on fixing them as quickly as possible!

After an entire week filled with teasers and previews, Total War: Warhammer 2's The Shadow & The Blade DLC has now finally arrived in full. It brings with it Malus Darkblade and Deathmaster Snikch as new and highly unique Legendary Lords, a variety of new units such as the Bloodwrack Medusa and Poisoned-Wind Mortar, as well as a couple of new and interesting heroes like the Eshin Sorcerer and the Dark Elf Master.

While the trailer for The Shadow & The Blade DLC doesn't focus on the units themselves, it will give you a pretty good idea of just what Malus Darkblade is about, as well as how awesome Deathmaster Snikch really is. Have a look:

Total War: Warhammer 2 also added a free update today, and even though the DLC is pretty darn fun, the new quality-of-life changes and technical improvements are the definite highlight. What I mean by this is that the Mortal Empires end-turn timers have been sped up by over 60% without sacrificing anything in terms of AI or faction diversity! The 60% was a rather rough estimate by Creative Assembly, however, as I've gone from having ~50 second turns to only ~10 seconds, which as you might imagine, feels spectacular!

The good news doesn't end there either as Bretonnia has received Repanse de Lyonesse (Warhammer's Jeanne d'Arc equivalent) as a unique Legendary Lord that starts in the Southlands. This position allows her to be far more proactive than the rest of the Bretonnian lords, so if you're sick and tired of simply camping and farming Ork rebellions, Repanse is well worth checking out.

Speaking of which, you can learn more about The Shadow & The Blade DLC, as well as the units it brings with it, over at Steam. Have fun, this really is a good patch to start a new campaign!