mystral: I don't know.
I remember getting Shadow of the Horned Rat for free with a gaming magazine, and being unable to get into it because there was no manual, I didn't know anything about Warhammer at the time, and the game was pretty hard.
That was a long time ago, but I don't remember that game being all that similar to Rome: TW, which is the only Total War game I've played a lot.
And Dark Omen is described as a RPG, so I'm not sure how similar that one is either.
Anyway, I like fantasy strategy games, and Total War games, so I'm interested in this. I'm not sure how well they'll be able to reproduce the rules, though, since I don't think Warhammer Fantasy would work all that well with real-time battles.
TurnipSlayerr: I never played SOTHR but from what I understand Dark Omen, which I have played, is very similar to it.
There are some similarities with the Total War series in terms of the battles but outside of that they're completely different. There is just a set linear sequence of battles and you unlock new units as you progress, there's none of the grand strategy present in the Total war games, no building/training units, no managing your economy or diplomacy.
Battles are on a much smaller scale as well so overall they're very different games with very different focuses.
You do command teams with flags, moral affects teams during battle, you can use different formations, terrain plays a role in how successful your charges are and different units have different strengths and weaknesses. That's the very core of what Total War games are about - sure the part of the game outside of combat is different, but it would be very odd if Total War wasn't inspired by these games considering how similar they are even down to the flags above each battalion.