Multiple Warhammer fantasy games are in the pipeline at Total War developer The Creative Assembly, Sega announced today. The publisher has scooped the rights to Games Workshop's classic magical elves-and-ratmen tabletop wargame and set up a new team at TCA to bring them to our computers, planning for the first game to hit after 2013.

"The incredibly rich and detailed Warhammer world is something we grew up with, and has left an indelible imprint on us as both designers and gamers," Creative Assembly studio director Tim Heaton said in the announcement. "We'll be doing the Warhammer universe justice in a way that has never been attempted before."

A large-scale, Total War-style Warhammer game with hordes of elves and dwarves and ratmen and lizardmen and vampires and wizards and honking great war machines could be very special.

Sega has only grabbed the classic Warhammer license, though. The Warhammer 40,000 license, with all its Space Marines and Tyranids, will remain with THQ, the publisher confirmed to Eurogamer. This is jolly good news, considering how delightful Relic's Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series has been. Relic also ventured into action with WH40K: Space Marine, and THQ has Darksiders developer Vigil working on WH40K: Dark Millenium, a single-player RPG scavenged from its once-planned MMO.