Editing Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos (section)

====Archaon====
Archaon leads the Warhost of the Apocalypse, with the following effects:
# First, +1 maximum active gift of Chaos Undivided, coming to a total of 4 Gifts of Chaos Undivided when you max out the tech tree. You'll see less of this early game when you're starved for souls, but it gives you more flexibility mid to late-game.
# Second, for each vassal you have, you get +10 to diplomatic relations with Beastmen, Norscans, WoC and Daemons and +10% research rate. This is pretty huge, with optimal play you can get 8 - 10 vassals early on, and 20+ Chaos faction vassals later on, for a whopping 300+ % research rate and over 200 diplomatic relations. This is without considering human and elf vassals from patch 2.1.1.
# Finally, souls + 25 for each vassal you have, which basically gives you free upkeep for cheaper gifts early game, and helps you build up a soul bank for buying gifted units later on.

'''[Early Game Research Tech Tree and Gifts]'''<br>
Unless you're going for something specific, I highly recommend rushing at least one Gift of Nurgle through research. This should unlock at turn 20 - 30. Choose "Bloom of Decay", which will give +75 growth per region to ALL provinces after winning any battle (sieges, minor settlement battles and field battles all count). This is frankly insane given that you'll be doing nothing but fighting the entire campaign, and snowballs the more armies you have. With some luck, you can unlock T4 settlements by turn 40 - 50 and T5 settlements not long after.

Note that "Bloom of Decay" doesn't add growth gain for that turn; it adds growth directly into your growth point count (see https://imgur.com/a/is7BctC for a badly edited demonstration).

You're pretty much free to play around with whatever research and gift you want from there, but I do like finishing off Nurgle's tech tree to get a second gift for "Deadly Transmission" which enables replenishment in foreign territory. This is basically Skarbrand's faction mechanic i.e. replenishment in hostile / neutral territory, and lets you play hyper-aggresively for favour, souls, and growth from Bloom of Decay.


'''[Early Game Build Up]'''<br>
You start off in the Blood Marshes, northeast of Kislev, and at war with the Slaaneshi minor faction the Exquisite Pain. Spend turn 1 taking your Dark Fortress, recruiting marauders, and getting a new lord (no supply lines for Chaos). The next couple of turns should be spent taking out the Exquisite Pain before subjugating their last settlement. Once done, you can go in three directions: west, to take down Boris Ursun before he smashes the Khorne minor, east to take the Dark Fortress from the Nurgle minor, or south to take Norsca.

I've generally proceeded by taking out Boris Ursun and capturing the three Dark Fortresses to the west up until you encounter Daniel, and later Malus Darkblade. From there you are in a good position to either keep going west to Valkia and Sigvald, or pivoting down to Norsca. With three Dark Fortresses you've more or less stabilized your early economy, so feel free to experiment from here.

If you do go west, you can eliminate Daniel fairly easily, but your main challenge will be Malus especially since he's allied to Malekith. If RNG is in your favour, you can avoid getting into a war with Malekith by joining war through one of the Daemon minors lying around, and then turning around to subjugate the Daemon minor. Either way, 
subjugate the western Daemons and Norscans, and confederate Valkia and Sigvald. You should generally take out Crone Hellebron to safeguard that front, and leave one stack to defend against Malekith and Alith Anar, while getting your western vassals to send crapstacks at them to build a large buffer zone.

From there, world's your oyster. You can burn your way down to Morathi, and take the Dark Fortress at the Ancient City of Quintex before heading off to the meatgrinder on the donut. You can take the Dark Fortresses in Norsca and subjugate / confederate the factions there on the way to the Empire. You can hit up Kholek (assuming Grimgor hasn't destroyed him) and meet up with Vilitch outside Cathay far to the east. Or you can do two or more of the above with the good economy you should have by now, and keep burning the world.


'''[Lategame Shenanigans]'''<br>
''Gifted Unit farming''<br>
Lategame, you tend to build up a huge bank of souls from fighting the Ordertide. With this bank, you can micromanage your Gifts of Chaos to gain more gifted units than ordinarily allowed. For example, Shaggoths are the highest tier gifted unit for Chaos Undivided. Their gift, "Carnage Incarnate", costs 2,000 souls and has a per turn upkeep of 200, and gives one Shaggoth per four turns passively. However, the Shaggoth is dropped into your Gifted unit pool on the same turn you apply "Carnage Incarnate". This makes it possible to recruit one Shaggoth every two turns by manually swapping out the Shaggoth gift, and then swapping it back. This works for all gifted units, although Nurgle gifted units are given one turn later since all Nurgle gifts give Nurglings in addition to the desired unit.

Illustration:
Turn 80: Spend 2,000 souls apply Carnage Incarnate, and get Shaggoth #1 in the gifted unit pool. Your lord can recruit Shaggoth #1 at this stage if desired. No further changes can be made to my Undivided Gifts of Chaos this turn.
Turn 81: 200 souls are deducted for Carnage Incarnate upkeep. Swap out Carnage Incarnate with literally anything else (e.g. Hail of Hellfire for 1,500 souls if you want Hellcannons). No further changes can be made to my Undivided Gifts of Chaos this turn.
Turn 82: 150 souls are deducted for Hail of Hellfire upkeep. Swap out Hail of Hellfire with Carnage Incarnate for 2,000 souls. Shaggoth #2 is now ready for recruiting 2 turns ahead of time, at an extra cost of 2,000 souls + 1,500 souls for the Hellcannon.


''Perks from Daemon Princes of Tzeentch''<br>
You will also want to get Daemon Princes of Tzeentch, since at level 18 one of their special Lord perks "Deadly Erudition" gives Hero capacity +2 and Hero recruit rank +5 for Chaos Sorcerers. Sadly, the recruit rank part doesn't work as at patch 2.1.1, but if it gets fixed, it means that with two Daemon Princes of Tzeentch you can get sorcerers with instant arcane conduit and vortex spells with overcast and winds of magic discounts.


''Goon Squad Settlement Battle Cheese''<br>
One way to take settlement battles / sieges with few casualties is to keep your infantry and cavalry in reserve to avoid dealing the towers. Instead, send in your manticore goon squad (Lord, Sorcerer, Hero) and single entity monsters (Shaggoths, Bloodthirsters / Keepers of Secrets, Soul Grinders, Skullcannons) to bash down any gates and deal with the garrison. Infantry will tend to blob up around your goon squad, which allows you to delete them with vortex spells (especially Pit of Shades and Infernal Gateway).

To further reduce damage, you can slap on regeneration items on your Lords and Heroes, and dedicate your Exalted Hero to Nurgle. Nurgle Heroes get to choose the perk "Stench-Ridden" at rank 7, which gives them 3 uses of the ability "Locus of Fecundity" on the field. This provides replenishment of +0.8% health per second for 11s and -1% fatigue per second, which helps keep your goon squad alive and top off your single entities after beating down the garrison.

If you have enough winds of magic, this tactic can even take down fullstacks and T4-5 garrisons, although you will likely need to commit some of your infantry later on to deal the finishing blow.