Editing Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast (section)

==General Battle Strategies==
You are the [[Tau]] of Total War Warhammer. Sure you will fall apart extremely fast if the enemy can get into melee with you, but the hard part is going to be surviving long enough to get there in the first place. Coast have been the kings of the competitive meta ever since they came out... until their nerfs finally caught up with them and now they're considered decent but not unbeatable. There are plenty of people who pick up this faction for their old reputation only for it to turn out they can't actually protect a gunline to save their lives. However, a GOOD Coast player can be one of the most frustrating things to fight in the game, and here's how you become that:

*'''Beastmen''': Just shoot them. Jokes aside; the beastmen aren't a difficult matchup for you: you've got plenty of high-damage ranged attacks, both your depth guard and your deckhands can take polearms to counter their larger threats, and your monsters can easily stand up to theirs. Sure, they'll be running circles around you, but they can't outrun your bullets.

*'''Bretonnia''': Going against Bretonnians is a difficult one. Their Knights will run circles around you and there is little you can do about it. Prepare to get flanked a lot and your artillery being pretty much worthless. That being said: Their Peasants are no match for your melee troops, even Deckhands hold up okay-ish against them. While the Knights are their biggest advantage, their flying cavalry is no match against permanent gunfire and you got some decent flying options of your own against them. The few times Terrorgheists can shine in your roster is neutralizing big flying threats like Royal Hippogryph Knights and Louen Leoncoeur. Their Knights have also no real answer to your big monsters. Hold your ground, force your opponents into chokepoints and you'll out on top.
 
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarfs| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': You are going to have a bad time. You know how Queen Bess is pretty cool, right? Well these guys can bring three of them if they feel like or slap one on an unbreakable train engine. Your slow and plodding zombies are going to get obliterated. Depth Guard won't fare much better, as Chaos Dwarfs excel at killing elite infantry. Your best hope is to rush them, something you're not normally the best at but it is something you can do. Bats, dogs, Deck Droppers, Mournguls (both the Haunters and the regular kind), Syreens, anything that can Vanguard deploy or move relatively fast. If you're going to bring Deckhands or Depth Guard go for the polearms, they're the only things that will slow down the dual weapon Bull Centaurs and the K'daai. Your best artillery choice is probably the Necrofex as Chaos Dwarf artillery is very good at wiping out infantry but not as good at focusing down big monsters. Plus you'll outrange the Blunderbusses with a Necrofex, meaning they'll have to dedicate more elite resources to bring down your shipwreck mecha while your Mournguls creep up on their Magma Cannons. Do 'not' bring the Gallows Giant, Chaos Dwarfs laugh at fire damage.

*'''Grand Cathay''': This will be an extremely unpleasant matchup for you. Don't even try to beat them in an artillery contest, fire rain rockets + doom balloons outclass any artillery you can field and unlike dwarfs, Cathay can seriously mess up your gunline with air cavalry and magic. Your best bet is to play like off brand vampire counts and go heavy on melee. Your newly buffed depth guard will tear Cathay's frontline a new asshole and between fel bats, mournguls, and scurvy dogs, you have the tools to keep them from getting shot to hell on the way in. Bringing a wind of death caster is also a good idea, Cathay is extremely susceptible to magic since their playstyle encourages keeping units in inflexible formations for harmony buffs. Also, hide some deck gunners in some forests before the battle starts. You'll need them to pop balloons and shoot up the dragon siblings/terracotta sentinels if your opponent is dumb enough to bring them.

*'''Dark Elves''': Depends very strongly on what you're going up against. The big challenge here is to not play into the Dark Elves strengths and lock them into prolonged encounters where they are in no way equipped to hold out for long. Rely on your ranged options to whittle their terrifying melee line down and shut down their fast units wherever you can, be it with your monsters, Mournghuls or just Deckhands.

*'''Dwarfs''': This is without question your worst match up. Your bombers are going to do diddly dick to even the cheapest dwarf infantry, you have no chance at breaking the frontlines in an infantry grind even with Depth Guard, your monsters will die fast to slayers and guns and they do artillery boxes way better than you. What your cannons lack in quality compared to Dawi they make up for in numbers, so if you bring a crap ton of them you may be able to shoot out the artillery on the other side. After that, just shoot and hope you can shatter them before they reach the frontline. Use bats to mess up gyrocopters and just pray to stormfels you got enough artillery to take away their biggest advantage. Special mention to your ethereal units, especially Cylostria and her Ethereal Paladin pal; with only a few units that can deal any sort of magic damage, your ghosts can charge the enemy lines without fear.

*'''Empire''': The Empire is a tough match-up for you because they have several viable builds that can counter you hard. They've got great cavalry, great skirmishers, and pretty good artillery; three of the things you don't like to fight against. This isn't to say they're unbeatable, they're infantry lines are frail and don't have much leadership, so you can scare them off the battlefield with your monsters and magic. You'll probably want to be more aggressive with the Empire than with most enemies; learn to love your anti-infantry Depth Guard and hand-cannoneers. Special shout-out to the rotten promethean gunnery mobs when fighting the Empire; their toughness and versatility is really useful against such a hard to predict foe.

*'''Greenskins''': Greenskins have a surprisingly decent ranged game; especially with skirmishing wolf and spider cavalry that can run circles around everything you've got. Stock up on long range artillery and grab some bats and dogs to pin them down. Ironically, the scariest units in the greenskin roster aren't nearly as much of a problem for you as they are for others; you've got enough armour-piercing shooting and magic to cripple black orcs, rogue idols, and arachnarok spiders before they can reach your line. Just make sure you do shoot them, any of those units will turn your zombies into paste if they can get them in melee.

*'''High Elves''': This has the potential to be a hard one for you as even their basic archer units are going to out range any guns that you have. Against literally any High Elf archer unit, mortars are going to be your best friends. Their lack of need for line of sight and high damage to low armour means that even Sisters of Avelorn are going to have a rough time getting to a point where they can start getting value. You should also grab Noctilus as the Necrofex + magic can devastate any Asur who isn't ready for it. Scurvy Dogs are also very useful for picking off routing units or catching archers out of position. In the melee grind bombers will be able to get their frontline off the field pretty quickly if they can avoid being blasted to kingdom come, so make sure that you have plenty of chaff. A Rotting Leviathan can hold for ages since the High Elves lack inexpensive ranged AP, so one or even two of them can be more than what the pointy ears can handle. They do have plague of rust though, so kill that mage if you can.

*'''Kislev''':

*'''Khorne''': Stay the hell away. Like the WoC your guns will destroy them, but you better hope you have a front line able to hold long enough to blast anyone that gets close. In particular you should keep an eye on furies and Khorne's calvary before they take your ranged. On the other hand, given that Khorne has literally only two ranged units period and tends to blob up into big infantry mosh-pits; this might be an ideal match-up for the bloated corpse.

*'''Lizardmen''': You're one of the few factions to have monsters that can safely engage their big Dinosaurs and come out on top, just by the merit of being absurdly tanky alone. Lizardmen are very slow and have a lot of trouble getting to your lines without being shredded to pieces in the process. While Saurus will utterly demolish Deckhands, the LMs poor ranged Arsenal works in your favor. Deck Gunners and Carronades snipe the big monsters from a comfortable distance. Just be careful to not be outmanveured by Cold Ones.

*'''Norsca''': Norsca are a pretty easy match for you. Like the Beastmen, their speed and melee prowess is no match for your guns and polearms. Just be sure to bring a few cannons to deal with their mammoths and watch out for their chariots.

*'''Nurgle''': Can the undead even get sick? Well, it doesn't really matter cause the only affliction your zombies are gonna get is carpal tunnel from firing their guns so much. Even after their immortal empires update, this is nearing laughable territory for you. Sure their infantry will outgrind even Depth Guard, let alone deckhands, but unlike faster factions it takes 'time' for them to do so. Time that you can spend shooting them full of holes. Nurgle is slow as hell and has pretty limited sources of anti-large which plays right into your 2 biggest strengths. Now, they do have their new Chaos Chariots and Knights as of IE, so you'll need to tarpit them with zombie polearms (The Bloody Reavers RoR is also a great counter to their large stuff), but the rest of their army still moves like molasses and should only really catch you if you're lazy or get caught out of position. Luthor on his bat buddy is an absolute terror in this matchup with his pistol and magic resistance, but that's far from your only option, it all depends on how exactly you want to ruin your opponents day. Gallows Giant can be an awesome pick here for the flaming damage, and Queen Bess can decimate their plodding infantry. Deck droppers can easily zone out any of their 'fast' units and hell, you could even throw in a Bloated Corpse or two for even more blob-destroying potential. The one strategy I'd avoid is a crab rush. Nurgle is gonna be great at tarpitting your crabs with their infantry and then summarily devolving them with halberds. Finally, your lores of magic are also tailor made for taking them out, since they're too slow to move out of the way of a Wind of Death or Vangheists Revenge ''if'' you're careful with your timing and aim.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''':

*'''Slaanesh''': You'd think this would be a horrible match up for you because Slaanesh is a fast faction that can easily flank and overwhelm ranged units, but there is actually one thing that saves this matchup for you. That's the fact that Slaanesh really can't do shit against ranged fliers. Good Deck Dropper play can really be a nightmare for the Prince of Excess's minions. Get the pistol option with maybe one or two handgun versions and bring something like Luthor or fell bats to stop Furies and you will have an untouchable gunline. As for your ground forces, just get as many bodies as you can in order to bog Slaanesh down. Don't bother with artillery, it will just get eaten by Seekers or Hellstriders. Focus down the key targets like Soul Grinders, Keepers of Secrets or Heralds and just try your best to stay safe. Cycle charge Luthor around to support your inevitably doomed ground forces and to pin down important targets with your bat guns. If you can keep the Deck Droppers safe, this may end up being a decent match up. Another thing that Slaanesh will also learn to hate is your Bloated Corpses because Slaanesh has no ranged units at all. Not a single one. And those big blobs of extremely fragile units' speed will only serve to get them closer to the bloated corpse faster.

*'''Skaven''': If there was ever a battle to bring the Queen Bess it's this one; skaven have massive blobs of weak infantry that will crumble in just a few shots. Beyond that you'll want to be aggressive against the skaven; you can't out shoot their weapons teams directly but your abundance of fear and terror effects will drive them away in short order. Mournguls are especially useful here, they can vanguard deploy to flank the skaven and have enough anti-infantry damage to chew through the chaff they usually use to protect those units. Just make sure to keep them hidden until they're ready to strike; they don't have the defenses to survive weapons team shooting.

*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings are an interesting fight because they have many of the same strengths and weaknesses that you do. You'll both want to avoid infantry battles and stock up on bigger units to do the real work. They'll be faster but you'll shoot harder. Bunkering up with some Rotting Prometheans to deal with their chariots is a pretty safe bet. Just don't send your necrofex collosi against their necrosphinxes; they'll be slaughtered in short order.

*'''Tzeentch''': You heavily out-range them, and can probably get some damage in before they close, but ironically they probably have the ranged advantage. You already struggle with missiles, and the sorcerers will be cackling maniacally while they thrust you into Satan's asshole because of the absurd amount of flaming damage they have. Plus, contesting the skies against them is probably not a good option, since their fliers have the speed and melee prowess to win any aerial engagements and swoop down on your unprotected ranged units. It's not all bad though. Harkon on his bat with that sweet sweet magic resist can be pretty damn useful here, and if you micro them well enough, your fell bats and scurvy dogs (and even Mournguls if you're feeling lucky) can tie down horrors well enough.

*'''Vampire Coast''': This mirror-match can be more interesting than you'd think; whilst you can just use your normal tactics, you can do some clever things against other pirates. The enemy is most likely going to be building a gun-bunker with powerful artillery support, but that isn't the only game plan you have. Bringing a bunch of mournguls and syreens can make for a decent flanking division that can ruin the enemies day. Don't include Rotting Prometheans or leviathans, they have way too much AP shooting for those to be effective (on that same note, you should bring a few deck-gunners in case the enemy tries to bring the big monsters).

*'''Vampire Counts''': You're going to want to play very defensibly against these guys; they'll eat you alive in melee. Fortunately, ranged combat is a foreign concept to the Vampire Counts and you'll have little trouble dealing with them from afar. Mortars and the Queen Bess can be especially useful here; the enemy chaff can't reposition fast enough to avoid your bombardments. Just keep some deckhands nearby to protect them from enemy flanking. Remember that the enemy has the Lore of Vampires as well, you'll want to spread your units out to mitigate the inevitable winds of death coming your way.

*'''Daemons of Chaos''':

*'''Warriors of Chaos''': Another faction your gunpowder units are going to eat alive, your first major concern is going to be shutting down any Hellcannons and Marauder Horsemen the WoC might be bringing to bear. If you do that, your artillery will wreak havoc among the Chaos lines. A majority of your army should avoid melee like the plague, but Rotting Prometheans and Syreens can get somewhat decent work done against Chaos Warrior forces while pinning them down. If you can keep it safe from being picked off, a Bloated Corpse or two can be a gimmicky, yet surprisingly effective and hilarious way to delete a particularly elite squad of infantry, like the Mirror Guard.

*'''Wood Elves''': Their lack of shielding and armor means your missile units will mow down the tree-huggers with sickening efficiency, when they're in range. Generally, your main challenge is going to be cornering their forces in order to get ''into'' range, because Wood Elves can loose arrows at your Deck Gunners and Gunnery Mobs long before you can return the favor. Fortunately, your mortars and artillery will heavily discourage them from staying still for very long and a few packs of Scurvy Dogs can easily chase down rogue Waywatchers trying to outflank your forces. The biggest thing you'll need to keep an eye on is their cavalry. Have some Polearm Deckhand Mobs ready to sponge potential charges; a couple Wild Rider/Great Stag Knight charges will decimate your forces, but if you can gun them down before they make contact against your important forces, you'll come out on top in the end.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}