The single-player campaign will have you playing as the chaos or the empire at the beginning of the game. Those familiar with Warhammer history know that there are always wars raging back and forth between the factions. In the game, the chaos are once again pushing south, into a northern part of the empire. The campaign takes place in real time (albeit a very slow real time), which means that you'll be able to move forces on the map to respond to enemy moves. If you're on defense, you may try to intercept an invading army so that you meet it on an open battlefield, or you may let the army penetrate further and concentrate your forces at a castle, which provides defensive bonuses. When two armies meet, you'll battle it out on the battlefield. There isn't any resource gathering in the game, but you're rewarded resource points for achieving objectives, such as recapturing a farm or successfully defending a town. You can use these points to purchase new and more-powerful units.

The battlefields in the game will certainly be beautiful. You'll fight among pastoral lands filled with villages and fields and rock outcroppings that can serve as defensive barriers. In the one battle we saw, we watched as the empire's riflemen picked off waves of incoming skaven. The traditional line-of-sight rules will apply in battle, so you'll see only those enemy units that are in detection range of one of your units. This means that you can use the terrain to your advantage by hiding units behind ridges and hills. Of course, this also means that the enemy can do the same thing to you.