Total War: Warhammer's zombie dragon in its full glory

After a short period of silence the Total War: Warhammer team is back once more, this time around with a gameplay video showcasing all of the ways you can use magic to turn the battle in your favor.

As you might expect there are plenty of ways to blow up, electrocute, or otherwise send your opponents into the next dimension, but also numerous ways to cripple or empower units, and even spells that just chuck a whole bunch of zombies at the enemy's back-line. Here's the video:

The main thing showcased throughout the video was the destructive power of spell combinations, especially ones that focus around rooting the enemy into place and then dropping the proverbial, and literal magical hammer onto them. This isn't without its drawbacks, however, as flashy spell combinations will expend wast quantities of your magical power, power that you might have a use for later in the battle.

Each of the spell schools, or lores as they are called, has their own set of spells and abilities you can chose from, with the option to also "overcast" the spell which drastically increases its potency and duration, but with the downside being a 50% chance for the spellcaster to slam a portion of those magical energies straight into his or her own face. Its a desperate move for a desperate time, and one of those things that manages to perfectly encapsulates the Warhammer world and how it operates.

While those abilities are definitely amazing, my vote for the best spell shown so far definitely goes to the Vampire Counts and their ability to summon copious amounts of the undead at will, ensuring that even if the defenders are well entrenched they're not out of reach of the ravenous hordes. Its not an incredibly powerful spell on its own, but compared to the somewhat random vortexes its one that you can always rely on, and in my book that counts (heh) for a lot.

Total War: Warhammer will be releasing for Windows on May 24th, with Mac and Linux versions to arrive at a later date.