That's exactly what I did. Led him into a semi-ambush (Chaos can't do actual ambushes) and then hit him with all three armies at once.
I've progressed far enough to do three of Archaons 4 quest battles. I got my shit absolutely ruined on each of them and barely pulled out a win. I upgraded my tech level each time, so now I have chaos warriors and a manticore. If I win the last one I'll return from the Chaos Wastes with a bunch of Chosen.
It's been really fun for me playing in a different, attack heavy way. Chaos are bad at turtling, and I'm bad at attacking. I had to learn a lot of stuff to play well as them. Also I learned that skirmishers are super powerful, which I didn't even learn to this extent playing Wood Elves. The addition of Marauder Horsemasters really makes a big difference to Chaos.
I'm currently around 360 turns in VH very hard. There are only 2 dawi territories left, and they are the starting zone. GG you damn dwarves.
It was literal madness as I was finishing up chaos (turns 100-150). Empire was dead, Brettonia was dead (I think wood elves helped chaos a bit here). If the orcs were not dead at this point the Dawi were going to make short work of them. Mousillon had managed to live this long but 3 stacks of Chaos were finishing him off. The Red Duke had the gall to demand my entire 70k stockpile in order to confederate. With my rejection he called me mewling pond scum, you are no true son of Carstein. And then Kholek smashed his face in. Goodbye red duke.
I then turned my attention to Norsca, because for some reason this faction was rated number 2 and I was getting the entirety of his attention.
However, as I was trying to finish these buggers off, i start getting declarations of war from all the dwarf factions with the Princes. The little buggers were popping out the ground. There was something on the order of 10 Dawi doom stacks (4-6 Ironbreakers in each army >.<), 5 Beregar Dawi stacks, and 5 Princes. I was just shocked I was able to hold them all off, with the only lost settlements were the bottom 2 provinces that I had just settled.
Wood elves might be THE hardest faction for Vampires to defeat. For whatever reason the wood elf archers are able to just stay out of melee with cavalry; they just keep running. So unless you are micro controlling the cavalry you could easily loose them all. You can expect all your infantry to die miserably to the woodelf dancers and rangers, but if you field nothing but monsters you will have them get shot to pieces and THEN finished off by the rangers and dancers. The only way to win is through brute force numbers and attrition.
FYI: Vargheists and Terrorgheists are slower than all of their flying units (Giant Eagle, Eagle Riders, and Forest Dragon). Your only hope is if they commit these units to melee and then swarm them.
Also, there is nothing more satisfying than swarming one of 4 forest dragons with the undead dragon lord and a terrorghiest. Literally blew it up. He tried to run, but I had Vlad cast the vampire missles on the fleeing dragon and he just blew up with a puff of red mist. It was beautiful.
Chosen can just put out the most crazy kill-to-death ratio I've seen in a TW game.
Which feels right.
I am super hyped for Norsca. I loathe raiding-heavy economy factions though, because I feel like it never quite works out. Between the piss poor replenishment rates and essentially forced use of global recruitment it's hard to actually have any sort of momentum.
Chosen are not Flamedrakes and so that is not quite true. A single unit of Flamedrakes (12 units) have killed upwards of 600 enemies for me in a single fight before.
Chosen are great; but they're not force multipliers; they're the force you multiply
So my Wurrzag campaign was rolling along very well. I had reached the point where I felt I could not lose and had managed to confederate the Greenskins when they were weak (who had apparently confederated Skarsnik's group), so I had a massive force of Greenskins grinding through the Border Princes since Chaos and the Dawi were but memories.
Wurrzag, Grimgor, Ahzag, Skarsnik, some random Lord Ork Warboss, and their accompanying WAAAAAUGH armies plowed through them and Tilea and then I looked north. The Wood Elves stood strong and defiant.
Since my computer / life had been broken or hectic, I had gotten the DLC for them, but never played against them in campaign. Realizing my force is ridiculously big, I felt safe, and into Athel Loren the green wave went.
I won, but suffered severe damage to multiple stacks. Several WAAAAAUGH armies fell (easily replaced) and my main stacks took severe damage. Durthu is an expletive.
I think the main thing that it taught me is that I am still not good at controlling my armies in the actual battle or really understand what forces to send at what forces and that I just end up brute forcing everyone. My best battles, in terms of my own performance in generalship, have been small battles where a half-stack or something is attacking a city.
It was distressing.
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Their saving grace is armor piercing. I've had eternal guard kill more chaos warriors than my Amazon women because of this. But they are sacrificial units for sure. The real power is quicksilver shards and upgraded glade guard
Yeah eternal guard are shitty. They're there to keep your enemy line pinned down long enough that you can hit them with your cav and your vanguard skirmishers from behind
Eternal Guard should be good though, like most things Elves they're really skilled fighters. They're undertuned slightly probably because their ranged is so strong and because video games generally need a clearer 'strengths & weaknesses' set up for different factions than a tabletop game might have.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Eternal Guard are NOT damage dealers they're fodder units. They aren't meant to stay in sustained combat without backup. Eternal Guard are best at tanking ranged fire (especially if you take them with shields) and charge defence, especially against large units. War Dancers or Dryads are going to be your main frontline damage dealers.
Since I finished my long Skarsnik campaign yesterday I now need a new total war project.
Should I:do a:
a. Isabella von Carstein campaign? I haven't played the Carsteins yet, and not since the deathmagic nerf (except you know, Manfred).
or
b. Mega Missile Dwarf campaign. Never less than 50% missile/artillery troops.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
eternal guards are practically invincible when I play against them
of course 90% of the game's roster is invincible for beastmen
Few Beastmen units have a melee defence over 25 and many of their units count as Large. Eternal Guard with their base attack of 26 and anti-large bonus trade quite well with most of them.
What does the roster look like for a no Elves army?
Dryads
Tree kin
Tree men
Dragon
Eagles
Is that it?
Well. Ancient Treemen and Blanchwraiths as well...but basically that's it.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Their big weakness is having no ranged aside from skirmishers and artillery. Their artillery is beef though. Try and circle around and take that out of the equation if you can.
Their elite infantry have great armour, so bring armour piercing. Try and isolate and take out their cavalry early, which will allow you to run roughshod on their lines. Focus down their horse archers with your ranged (mounted cavalry lose to even the worst ranged units extremely quickly). You cavalry should be working hard before the lines meet to ensure that anything they can use to interfere with your cavalry and ranged is neutralised, giving you control of the battlefield.
No cavalry in the game is as good as hippogryphs. Abuse them. Steam tanks are also beef. Your infantry blows compared to theirs, so don't rely on them holding the line.
I started a brettonia campaign the other day that I've been slowly working through. I've consolidated my region by pacifying marinberg and confederating with Artois in their moment of weakness. Now my only chance for fights is galavanting off to help my allied brets, which was working fine until one of them called on me to help with their elf problem. "No problem!" I though, I have plenty of cavalry and my spearmen can surely hold the line against the fragile elf units!
Not so. I was skirmished to death. Though my two units of trebs amassed a stunning 1200 body count between them. I'll probably build a bunch more of them and give them tree huggin hippies what fer.
Hand gunners, and do your best to keep them from getting flanked. These guys will blow up chaos warriors by the thousands. I would only bring cannon for a giant/troll heavy army. Demigryph units with haldbreds are pretty good for blocking the chaos hounds/knights. Their knights are pretty good against everything, although I'm pretty sure they are purely defined as anti-infantry.
Your basic swordsmen are the only unit early game that will have a spitting chance against the chaos line in terms of kills. Spearmen with shields are just going to be there for holding them off. You can replace them halbreds later, but I've had battles where these guys just fell apart. Greatswordsmen are not good on the defensive; use them to flank only. If you have them hold your center don't expect them to last long.
A battlepriest's defensive abilities will go a long way in helping your defensive line last a long time.
Light Wizards are good to take for the magic missile vs giants/trolls, and their net for capturing cavalry.
Empire has the most diverse unit roster; there is no "only one way" strategy with them.
Balthasar Gelt's one saving grace is that he gives his army 4% armor piercing; he is in great need of an ability boost.
I'm playing through the Empire campaign and I'm having a real tough time fighting Chaos
any advice on how to fight them effectively? what units should I be using against them?
Your best weapons are Demigryph knights with halberds. The only unit of theirs that can stand up to demigryphs are dragon ogres. The rest will fall.
Steamtanks are also good. They're very bouncy and their guns can soften up key enemies.
Thinning their lines with helblaster volley guns, a rocket battery and handgunners is also good.
You basically need artillery&missile troops, or marauder horsemen can do disproportionate damage against you (even a small missile contingent will do disproportionate damage against marauder horsemen though).
You need monster take-down units like demigryph halberds, witchhunters and spears (unless things have changed halbardiers have this weirdly slow combat animation that really drops their damage output). Shielded spearmen are really really great for being so cheapo. Monster hunters and line holders...and temporary chaos warrior speedbumps.
You need Demigryphs to be your hammer (they really shine against chaos. Even compared to other forms of empire cavalry).
Once the enemy horsemen have been dealt with you can use your handgunners to get behind the enemy and add their weight of fire to the melee.
Really avoid Free Company militia (Chaos have far better skirmisher units than you do).
Avoid pistoleers (chaos does that better than you do. Outriders can be decent if they don't have a lot of marauder horsemen. Most of the time a handgunner unit will do better).
Avoid flagellants (Chaos loves to carve up low-AP, low-armor meatshields).
Avoid Luminarks. Their big-moop takedown power doesn't quite justify itself. Chaos are not as big-moop dependent as orcs.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
based on how awesome the lore of shadows is, I think they've figured out how magic should work in TW now. I suspect that every school will get some kind of redo.
Posts
I've progressed far enough to do three of Archaons 4 quest battles. I got my shit absolutely ruined on each of them and barely pulled out a win. I upgraded my tech level each time, so now I have chaos warriors and a manticore. If I win the last one I'll return from the Chaos Wastes with a bunch of Chosen.
It's been really fun for me playing in a different, attack heavy way. Chaos are bad at turtling, and I'm bad at attacking. I had to learn a lot of stuff to play well as them. Also I learned that skirmishers are super powerful, which I didn't even learn to this extent playing Wood Elves. The addition of Marauder Horsemasters really makes a big difference to Chaos.
It was literal madness as I was finishing up chaos (turns 100-150). Empire was dead, Brettonia was dead (I think wood elves helped chaos a bit here). If the orcs were not dead at this point the Dawi were going to make short work of them. Mousillon had managed to live this long but 3 stacks of Chaos were finishing him off. The Red Duke had the gall to demand my entire 70k stockpile in order to confederate. With my rejection he called me mewling pond scum, you are no true son of Carstein. And then Kholek smashed his face in. Goodbye red duke.
I then turned my attention to Norsca, because for some reason this faction was rated number 2 and I was getting the entirety of his attention.
However, as I was trying to finish these buggers off, i start getting declarations of war from all the dwarf factions with the Princes. The little buggers were popping out the ground. There was something on the order of 10 Dawi doom stacks (4-6 Ironbreakers in each army >.<), 5 Beregar Dawi stacks, and 5 Princes. I was just shocked I was able to hold them all off, with the only lost settlements were the bottom 2 provinces that I had just settled.
Wood elves might be THE hardest faction for Vampires to defeat. For whatever reason the wood elf archers are able to just stay out of melee with cavalry; they just keep running. So unless you are micro controlling the cavalry you could easily loose them all. You can expect all your infantry to die miserably to the woodelf dancers and rangers, but if you field nothing but monsters you will have them get shot to pieces and THEN finished off by the rangers and dancers. The only way to win is through brute force numbers and attrition.
FYI: Vargheists and Terrorgheists are slower than all of their flying units (Giant Eagle, Eagle Riders, and Forest Dragon). Your only hope is if they commit these units to melee and then swarm them.
Also, there is nothing more satisfying than swarming one of 4 forest dragons with the undead dragon lord and a terrorghiest. Literally blew it up. He tried to run, but I had Vlad cast the vampire missles on the fleeing dragon and he just blew up with a puff of red mist. It was beautiful.
My rule is that you can have Chosen when you finish your quests. Sigvald will be the last.
Which feels right.
I am super hyped for Norsca. I loathe raiding-heavy economy factions though, because I feel like it never quite works out. Between the piss poor replenishment rates and essentially forced use of global recruitment it's hard to actually have any sort of momentum.
Chosen are great; but they're not force multipliers; they're the force you multiply
Flamedrakes
Tier 3 cavalry (I've scored upwards of 400 kills with one, granted its mostly running down retreating units)
Durthu
Chosen
Wurrzag, Grimgor, Ahzag, Skarsnik, some random Lord Ork Warboss, and their accompanying WAAAAAUGH armies plowed through them and Tilea and then I looked north. The Wood Elves stood strong and defiant.
Since my computer / life had been broken or hectic, I had gotten the DLC for them, but never played against them in campaign. Realizing my force is ridiculously big, I felt safe, and into Athel Loren the green wave went.
I won, but suffered severe damage to multiple stacks. Several WAAAAAUGH armies fell (easily replaced) and my main stacks took severe damage. Durthu is an expletive.
I think the main thing that it taught me is that I am still not good at controlling my armies in the actual battle or really understand what forces to send at what forces and that I just end up brute forcing everyone. My best battles, in terms of my own performance in generalship, have been small battles where a half-stack or something is attacking a city.
It was distressing.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
If you mean balance wise, that's up to you. If not, I have a version I've been using lately on my Chaos run and it works just fine.
OP in campaign, perhaps. In MP I'm told they're pretty low tier.
Even in campaign, their infantry and cavalry aren't great. They have the best archers and skirmishers, but everything else is pretty mid tier.
Their cavalry is pretty good actually. They would only lose to the blood knights and anti cab brettonians.
I wish I could use sisters of the thorn, but I'm no good with skirmishes.
My next WE runthrough if I ever get to it will be Durthu with an army of only moops.
I'd like to do more ambush stuff based around the fact that tree guys in forest have the highest stealth rating in the game.
https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/197464/the-forked-tongue-total-war-warhammer-ii-e-book
Also there's a skill poster for Wulfrik now.
Should I:do a:
a. Isabella von Carstein campaign? I haven't played the Carsteins yet, and not since the deathmagic nerf (except you know, Manfred).
or
b. Mega Missile Dwarf campaign. Never less than 50% missile/artillery troops.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
of course 90% of the game's roster is invincible for beastmen
Few Beastmen units have a melee defence over 25 and many of their units count as Large. Eternal Guard with their base attack of 26 and anti-large bonus trade quite well with most of them.
Dryads
Tree kin
Tree men
Dragon
Eagles
Is that it?
Well. Ancient Treemen and Blanchwraiths as well...but basically that's it.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
any advice on how to fight them effectively? what units should I be using against them?
I see a mod that lets you, but I don't know if that would stop me from playing with people.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Their elite infantry have great armour, so bring armour piercing. Try and isolate and take out their cavalry early, which will allow you to run roughshod on their lines. Focus down their horse archers with your ranged (mounted cavalry lose to even the worst ranged units extremely quickly). You cavalry should be working hard before the lines meet to ensure that anything they can use to interfere with your cavalry and ranged is neutralised, giving you control of the battlefield.
No cavalry in the game is as good as hippogryphs. Abuse them. Steam tanks are also beef. Your infantry blows compared to theirs, so don't rely on them holding the line.
Not so. I was skirmished to death. Though my two units of trebs amassed a stunning 1200 body count between them. I'll probably build a bunch more of them and give them tree huggin hippies what fer.
Your basic swordsmen are the only unit early game that will have a spitting chance against the chaos line in terms of kills. Spearmen with shields are just going to be there for holding them off. You can replace them halbreds later, but I've had battles where these guys just fell apart. Greatswordsmen are not good on the defensive; use them to flank only. If you have them hold your center don't expect them to last long.
A battlepriest's defensive abilities will go a long way in helping your defensive line last a long time.
Light Wizards are good to take for the magic missile vs giants/trolls, and their net for capturing cavalry.
Empire has the most diverse unit roster; there is no "only one way" strategy with them.
Balthasar Gelt's one saving grace is that he gives his army 4% armor piercing; he is in great need of an ability boost.
He is. He sounds fantastic and is such a douche, though, I love him and want him to be good.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Your best weapons are Demigryph knights with halberds. The only unit of theirs that can stand up to demigryphs are dragon ogres. The rest will fall.
Steamtanks are also good. They're very bouncy and their guns can soften up key enemies.
Thinning their lines with helblaster volley guns, a rocket battery and handgunners is also good.
You basically need artillery&missile troops, or marauder horsemen can do disproportionate damage against you (even a small missile contingent will do disproportionate damage against marauder horsemen though).
You need monster take-down units like demigryph halberds, witchhunters and spears (unless things have changed halbardiers have this weirdly slow combat animation that really drops their damage output). Shielded spearmen are really really great for being so cheapo. Monster hunters and line holders...and temporary chaos warrior speedbumps.
You need Demigryphs to be your hammer (they really shine against chaos. Even compared to other forms of empire cavalry).
Once the enemy horsemen have been dealt with you can use your handgunners to get behind the enemy and add their weight of fire to the melee.
Really avoid Free Company militia (Chaos have far better skirmisher units than you do).
Avoid pistoleers (chaos does that better than you do. Outriders can be decent if they don't have a lot of marauder horsemen. Most of the time a handgunner unit will do better).
Avoid flagellants (Chaos loves to carve up low-AP, low-armor meatshields).
Avoid Luminarks. Their big-moop takedown power doesn't quite justify itself. Chaos are not as big-moop dependent as orcs.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Gelt might get a buff if it's the first one
handgunners and greatswords work well too. throw some fodder up in front then go to town