2d4chan - User contributions [en]

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev

2022-09-20T12:12:50Z

2600:387:2:803:0:0:0:9F: /* Cavalry */

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Kislev]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why Play Kislev==
*[[Memes|Kislev.]]
*Because you like Humans, but don't want to debase yourself by playing as one of the feeble westerners (or southerners in this case)
*You think that premodern Eastern Europe is underused as an inspiration for fantasy stuff.
*You will likely be playing a more generalist playstyle that leans more into mobile skirmishing and Cavalry.
*You want an excuse to blast Sabaton while playing in fantasy.
*<s>[[Furry|FUCKING BEARS!!!!!]]</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|In the name of Tzarina Katarin Bokha, this man has been been sentenced to death for degeneracy, move along citizen.}}
===Pros===
*'''Cavalry''': Kislev always leaned more towards the cavalry side on tabletop and that continues to be the case in TW. With Winged Lancers, Gryphon Legion, Bear Riders and Horse Archers you should have a very wide selection of horsemen to choose from, without the same crippling infantry [[Bretonnian|Bretonnia]] has
*'''Flexible Infantry''': Many of your ranged units, such as the Ice Guard, have weapons that allow them to fight in melee, similar to Shades and Lothern Sea Guard. This means them getting stuck in melee won't be too much of an issue as they can actually defend themselves.
*'''High Leadership''': I guess when Chaos is squatting on your front door nothing really scares you anymore. With high natural leadership and a passive that makes you unbreakable when you're low it'll take a lot to get you to run.
*'''Range''': You have plenty of skirmish units that also function decently well in melee. Virtually all of your infantry can shoot and you have a lot of mobile ranged options on top of that.
*'''Built for Total War''': While they have more of a pedigree then Cathay does as far as canon goes, they have mostly been ignored in the table top game, which means CA has broad latitude in making units for there army in a way other factions didn't not. See Bretonnia's limited unit roster for example. As such they have potential to be more balanced then the other factions with no glaring unit type holes.

===Cons===
*'''Lower Unit Numbers for Melee Infantry''': Unlike the standard 120 unit models of most melee infantry units, your Armoured Kossars only come in units of 90 and your Tzar Guards come in at 80.
*'''Price Tags''': Because of the Hybrid nature of a lot of your units, they tend to lean more on the expensive side. Even for units where the hybrid function really isn't that great (Like, no one gets Armoured Kossars for the pistols). This can bite you when you need to pay extra for a unit that has a bonus function you don't need when you would probably be paying less for a more specialized unit.
*'''Minimal Mount Options''': You'd better like horses or bears, because that's all anyone gets to saddle up on. Unfortunately, unless added in at a later patch or by popular demand, even Katarin is restricted to either a horse or a bear to ride into battle rather than a war sled (aside from her ice-gliding technique).
*'''Absent Artillery''': Though you do have the Little Grom, which is more than some factions have, you have no other dedicated artillery units. Your rather robust cavalry and missile infantry can compensate somewhat but long range shootouts can and will turn against you if you can't close the distance.
*'''Poor Magic''': You only have two magic lores and to be honest neither of them are that great compared to other options. Could be worse, you at least [[Khorne|have magic]] but that won’t be of much help when High Elves and Tzeentch blows up your lines with their brains while your magic just tickles them.
*'''No Air Units''': This is not going to be a flying faction in any way. You have more than enough missiles to deal with enemy fliers but having to concede the sky means that your opponent has an easier time dictating the fight and choosing their targets compared to you.
*'''Harder Campaign''': Since you start right on the border of the Chaos Wastes, you're going to be dealing with a ton of Chaos armies marching your way. This can make the Kislev campaigns pretty tricky as you have so many Daemons and Norscans from the north to deal with. Not to mention the potentially pugnacious Vampire Counts to your south. This is, of course, not even counting the constant Chaos Rifts that utterly swamp the lands all around you. Is it fluffy? Oh absolutely! Will you get sick of the never ending Chaos stacks pounding on your door? Sweet Ursun yes. Your economy will be stretched quite thin as you're going to need several banner armies just to hold the motherland while Katarin/Kostaltyn venture into the Realms of Chaos. - now that you can build defense buildings to stop rifts opening things are a lot less stressful though.
*'''DLC''': Yeah, this will be safe to assume. The Kislev starting roster is rather light compared to some of the other factions from prior entries (partly because the other TW:W titles only had four starting factions as opposed to TW:W III's six, and all the unit variants actually serve their own purpose instead of just "oh, here's the exact same unit but with shields" which caused bloat and partly because Kislev has a lot of units doing two roles at once so no need for a spear AND an archer unit when Kossars do both), so it's safe to say CA/GW kept some of the list in the back pocket for a cash grab. Get ready to join the very large "We need to fork over extra dough to be relevant in multiplayer" club.
*'''Auto-Resolve''': some of your best units do terribly in auto-resolve. Ice guard, War bear riders, elemental bears, and light war sleds are some of your best units but they dont actually do very well in auto resolve at all, so you may have to manually fight more. ironically your weaker units like kossars and strelsi seem to auto-resolve better. Your garrisons usually seem to auto resolve fine though.

==Faction traits==
*'''By Our Blood''': A trait all Kislev units have. When a unit's health drops below 50%, they become Unbreakable for 30 seconds, once per battle, meaning they can hold out better when they take a lot of damage all at once. May be a more of a double-edged sword, since as mentioned before, you are not that good at soaking up damage and can lead to problems down the road, as one unit fleeing can cause your whole frontline to collapse once the buff runs out - it will just take a bit longer. That said, three daemon factions and Ogres are good at dealing a lot of damage via charges, magic, or both so it may also help a lot.

==Lords==
===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Tzarina Katarin]]''': The new Tzarina after daddy went MIA fighting Chaos. She's a mage lord character with access to the Lore of Ice and a bound spell from her sword. She is faster than other infantry lords thanks to her ability to ice-surf over the map. She has surprisingly good combat stats for a mage, though her lack of armor and AP means you shouldn't throw her against dedicated combat characters (her AP is actually fine once she is on a bear mount, still not a melee powerhouse of course). In lore, she had a horse and sled mount, but in game the sled mount was replaced with a bear due to [[Nurgle|Nurgle's centennial party]], so we can hope it may appear later. She has unique skills to boost melee defense of ice guard, reduce casting cost, and some good unique items, and a large reduction in spell cooldowns.
**Campaign-wise, she buffs Snow Leopards and provides an upkeep reduction for Ice Guards (to the point it's pretty easy to have them reach an upkeep even lower than basic Kossars'), and starts in Kislev.

*'''[[Kostaltyn]], Supreme Patriarch of The Great Orthodoxy''': This greased up Rasputin looking mother fucker is a new character likely created by CA and GW in order to help flesh out Kislev's roster. Supreme Patriarch of the Cult of Ursun and leader of the Great Orthodoxy, basically Kislev's Volkmar. His lore stresses he's ''very'' hard to kill, being stabbed twice but kept on fighting, and his abilities reflect that. He has the four Patriarch prayer abilities as well as regen and a couple of abilities that buff nearby troops even more, one of which only works when their health is low . He's not a fan of his Tzarina and in his SP campaign he tries to usurp her as the true leader of Kislev.
**In the campaign, he starts north of Erengrad. His army has drastically reduced recruitment costs, to the point that you can get some units for free. They're still expensive to maintain as a standing army, so you'll be disbanding and raising units pretty often

*'''[[Boris Ursus]]''': Unlocked by holding the major cities of Kislev for 10 straight turns and winning a quest battle. Your super-heavy melee lord, Boris rides his unique bear mount Urskin and wields a halberd. He has anti large, an AoE damage ability, and a host of buffs for himself and other nearby units, many of them activated as his health gets low. Boris is designed to get into the thick of things and hold the line forever, with By Our Blood making him especially difficult to get rid of. As fearsome as his combat stats can get he's still not going to be beating Skarbrand in a duel. Put him in a death star where he can support other units and his toughness and decent damage output will make the enemy think twice about trying to assassinate him.
**In the campaign, he provides buffs and upkeep reduction to War Bear Riders and Elemental Bears in his army, which will most likely be your core in the late-game. Map-wise, he starts out in the Dark Lands East of Kislev, surrounded by Ogres and Orcs, both of which are bad matchups for you until you tech-up. However it has tons of empty territory and no major rivals so you can pull a Cathay and build a giant land base relatively safely. At least, that is, until the Dawi Zharr arrive.

Unfortunately his campaign must have been tagged on at the last second because you lose access to the later half of kislev’s tech tree unless you capture all 3 of the major cities. And they also have a number of very helpful full unique buildings with buffs. Even having an alliance with the ice court or patriarch does not count. So unless you willing to leave the mountains and move start to kislev you actually get really screwed over. Hope to god they patch it.

===Lords===
*'''[[Boyar]]''': Your pure melee lord with a horse and bear mount. They will primarily act as a Budget Boris and provide a solid melee combat character to support your main army. He uses double axes and gets bonus vs infantry but doesn't have majority AP damage until you mount him on a war bear. A decent but slightly unexceptional melee lord.

*'''[[Ice Witch]]''': Magic Lord for Kislev, with the lores of Ice and Tempest. Has a bound AoE damage spell as well as a Snow Leopard summon. Can ride a horse or a bear. The Ice court training mechanic in campaign gives 3 potentially good but semi-random traits with each recruitment, these can be very strong, things like plus 8 melee attack to ice guard, or 15% less upkeep for infantry or cavalry. From a campaign standpoint these have more potential than regular boyars in terms of army buffs and cost efficiency, not to say boyars are necessarily bad.

===Heroes===
*'''Patriarch''': Kislevite warrior priest of the Great Orthodoxy. This chad rides a bear and can cast four miracles, one each for the gods Ursun, Dazh, Tor, and Salyak. These buffs affect nearby units and buff charge bonus/leadership, vigour, melee attack, and provide a heal respectively. These guys are your only source of healing so they're pretty valuable. While his mount means he's decent in melee he has low armor and like his Empire counterpart he's primarily a support character that will lose to dedicated duelists. The healing prayer option is kislevs only access to non item-based healing so you may wish to favor that. Kostalyn gives these 20% ward in his army. You can definitely doomstack them. It’s very strong.

*'''Frost Maiden ''': Hero version of the Ice Witch. Has the same magic and same mounts at a cheaper cost, so she is surprisingly decent in melee for a mage character but nothing spectacular.In campaign they are recruited with a special mechanic called The Ice Court where you train them over multiple turns and get to customize them with choices of traits. Some are pretty good, my personal favorite gives plus 8 melee attack to ice guard, and STACKS with multiple in an army.

==Units==

===Infantry===

* '''Armoured Kossars''': An armored infantry choice featuring with an axe and board variant and a great weapon variant. They trade out the bow for a pistol that allows them to fire off a shot before combat is joined, which can help them weaken an enemy before the main engagement begins. Will be your go-to front line for much of the mid game and especially in multiplayer where they're very cost effective.
*'''Tzar Guard''': The elite infantry line for Kislev, the bodyguards of the Tzar wearing thick snazzy fur cloaks. These guys are Kislev's only pure melee infantry. Have a sword and board and greatsword variant. If you use all the potential buffs you can stack onto ice guard I find these to become semi-obsolete in campaign, they only really have the advantage in armor and shielding compared to ice guard and that isn't usually relevant when fighting demons who bring tons of AP and few missiles.
**'''Dazh's [[Hearthguard|Hearth-Guard]]''' - Greatweapon Tzar Guard with Flaming Attacks, which helps fill that niche against Nurgle, or rather make nurgles time fighting you even more miserable than it was before. Also have some utility against Tzeentch owing to their Fire Resist. Unrelated to the Squat unit of the same name.

===Hybrid missile units===
*'''[[Kossars]]''': Bow and axe troops, early game troops which with their decent melee stats can fend for it self in melee to some degree unlike most other archers. Running light cavalry into these guys may cost you some more horsemen than you may have initially bargained for, especially if they're the Kossar with Spears variant which actively have anti-large. They are also your cheapest infantry unit meaning in the early game and probably multiplayer they will fill the role as your front line.
** Unfortunately it does have to be mentioned that due to kislev's extremely weak economy and many threats these tier 0 troops are going to be your entire army until tier 4-bears. literally one lord and 19 easily replaceable kossars as your armies. Usually you're not forced to play 'meta' in total war but kislev is near western roman empire levels of 'fuck this campaign'. - The defense buildings that prevent rifts opening, and changes to the AI anti-player bias have made this much less of an issue. You shouldn't need to field chaff armies constantly anymore.

*'''Streltsi''': Their weapon is a gun that is also an axe. A mid tier missile unit with armor piercing in melee and at range. Again, like a handgunner that can fend for it self a bit in melee. These guys are going to be most useful against heavily armoured factions (Dwarfs, Khorne, Warriors of Chaos) but against more lightly armored factions there really is no point (Skaven, Wood Elves, Beastmen.) Absolutely useless against Tzeentch as daemonic projectiles ignore their armor and barrier is not affected by their armor-piercing ammo. These are kind of a mixed bag in campaign, they cost as much as ice guard (after building discounts) which are usually a lot more useful vs demons. They do auto resolve well though. The lack of indirect fire and WH 3 issues with ranged unit targeting can make them frustrating to use, and a lot of the time their AP damage is wasted versus demons, they do a good job of killing soul grinders at least.
**These guys will mow down infantry like it's the End Times and make a better gunline than Armored Kossars; when melee is joined, the rear ranks will still fire their guns into melee, but this unit will fold against Monsters and Cavalry.

*'''[[Ice Guard]]''': These ladies are what happens when a Sister of Avelorn and a Lothern Sea Guard have a baby, only it came out human somehow. Wielding magical weapons that deal frostbite, each comes with a bow, and either a dual sword variant for fighting infantry or a glaive for cavalry and monsters. They are decent on the counter attack abd will take models down with them, but don't leave them in combat for too long, as they're relatively squishy by Kislevite standards. One of the random Ice witch traits can give you plus 8 melee attack, and stacks with multiple witches. The sword variant has better melee attack and anti infantry but poor AP. The glaive variant has better melee defense, anti-large, charge defense vs large, and most importantly armor piecing. Personally I only use the Glaive variant plus 2-3 frost witches with the boosting trait to make them into possibly the most versatile and powerful hybrid unit in the game. They will end up with sky high melee attack and defense, powerful ranged fire power and AP in melee.
**Their weapons deal magic damage and frostbite, and their missiles arc over your front line. Their best use is focus firing on monsters that would give your infantry a hard time, especially since slower speed = less charge. With magic damage and relatively low AP they are top notch daemon-hunters, countering the physical resistance and low armor daemons generally have. Improve their missiles with Tempest Magic and watch them delete Lords of Change. Use ice sheet, their inherent frostbite, and the tempest lore attribute to slow enemies to a crawl and get more shooting time. Try to only have them shoot lightly armored targets first, they have AP in melee to handle armored enemies (the glaives at least).

===Cavalry===

*'''Horse archers''': Fast skirmishing cavalry. Though fragile they have decent melee offense, so as long as you don't get hit they can charge on occasion. By Our Blood means that if you do have to charge them into melee they'll probably fight to the last man.

*'''Kossovite Dervishes''': Your quintessential light cavalry unit with high speed and Vanguard Deployment. A cheaper option than Winged Lancers of Gryphon Legionnaires but squishy as hell. Be careful with the situations you throw them into. They're ideal for running down enemy archers and war machines, but if they tangle with anything tougher the By Our Blood trait means you may lose all of them as they refuse to retreat.
**Don't ask me why they're called Dervishes when this is an Eastern European themed faction not an [[Araby|Islamic one]] (also noteworthy is that at least in some maps Araby have a region called "The Land of Dervishes"), true Russia proper does go that far South but not Kislev. This is especially silly when you realise with terms like ''Hussar'' and ''Uhlan'', GW/CA had no scarcity of other names to use.

*'''[[Winged Lancers]]''': The Winged Hussars have arrived and they are a mid tier cavalry unit. With anti-infantry, high charge bonus they are typical cycle charges. Charge in, get back, repeated. There big difference is that they are very fast and have fear representing how they caused a panic check on the table top during a flank charge.
**The Winged Lancers and Gryphon Legion are both dedicated anti-infantry, though changes in charge mechanics mean that if you charge a braced enemy head-on you will do nothing but get hurt in return for your stupidity. And don't charge other cavalry, just don't. That's what War Bears are for.

*'''[[Gryphon Legion]]''': An elite group of Winged Lancers who act mostly as mercenaries but are sworn to show up when the Tzar/ina calls for there aid. They're not an RoR are but are instead ""the same unit but better" in the same vein as Reiksguard are to Empire Knights. With Fear and high speed they're very good at their jobs, but still pretty fragile compared to heavy cav from other armies.

*'''War Bear Riders''': The Sons of Ursun are here to kick and then eat some ass. Good stats, good armor, anti-large, and armor piercing they are anti-large cavalry experts. Just as fast as the Gryphon Legion, with only slightly less armor and charge. They are, however, unshielded. Another good doomstack option, especially if playing Boris with his -50% upkeep for them.
**'''Oath-Brothers of Tor''': These guys have magic attacks and a special activated ability that bombards the area around them with lightning, blinding any enemies in the radius. These guys are very flexible, with the magic attacks making them good against any daemon units and the lightning bombardment helps them escape from an infantry grind after a rearcharge. The blinded effect of the bombardment also serves to debuff any ranged units they get into, so they're also excellent for riding roughshod over the enemy back line. Just remember you get limited uses of the bombardment, so time it carefully.

===Chariot===
*'''Light War Sled''': Benefits greatly from the reworked Charge and War Wagon mechanics, the Light War Sled is a chariot first, gunpowder unit second. They are quite fast, and shoot both on the move or in combat, but as chariots, you shouldn't leave them in melee and you should pick your targets properly: ranged units, unbraced infantry, or thin, stretched out gunlines should be your targets of opportunity to make the most use of their collision attacks. These are faster than most heavy cav and as fast as a lot of light cav, you can put them in skirmish to wear down armored units before switching to melee. they are actually quite cheap and ice witch lords can get a trait for -30% upkeep on all war-sleds.
**Compared to the Heavier version, this one has less armor and charge, but is much faster. Everything else is the same, so you should probably pick this one instead: the speed helps it escape melee that makes the additional armor a moot point
*'''Heavy War Sled''': Better armor, pulled by Polar Bears, and have stronger "collision attacks" which are special animations that disrupt models more than regular charging.

===Monsters===
*'''Snow Leopard''': A single entity monster that is very fast and very good at killing large enemies. Has anti-large and frostbite but almost zero armor. Functions best as a support unit, designed to bog down enemy cavalry/monsters so that your slower and heavier troops can catch up and put on the hurt. Good at sniping enemy artillery, particularly monstrous artillery, and decent at fighting chariots. Do not expect it to fight anything like a stegadon or soul grinder though; these things are as fragile as an icicle.
**Your witches can summon Snow Leopards mid-battle and with skill upgrades improve their attack and strength stats. Basically single-entity Norscan Ice Wolves with anti-Large, Katarin can give them Stalk, but you also probably won't take them after you can get Ice Guard.

*'''Elemental Bear''': A massive, unbreakable bear made of ice, stone and the will of Kislev’s people. It is more is capable of throwing hands (paws?) with any greater demon. It has a breath attack to accent its melee power. These guys are slow and tough but very vulnerable to ranged fire. However their massive health pool means that if the enemy doesn't bring the tools to get rid of them they might lose from army losses before the Bear goes down.

===Artillery===
*'''Little Grom''': No, they didn't kidnap Grom and put him on a diet. It's a giant ass ice mortar pulled by polar bears. Does it get any more Russian than that? It's a single model artillery piece with good range and good damage, and it can take care of itself in melee as the bears pulling it get anti-infantry attacks. Appears to be channeling Grom's spirit however, as it has 'collision attacks' dealing additional attacks when colliding with enemies. Better get out of the way of the bear train coming for your ass

==Multiplayer Strategies==
You have two big themes in your roster, aggressive cav and hybrid infantry. Compared to Empire Cav Winged Lancers and Gryphon Legion are faster, harder on the charge, but less durable, meaning they are focused way more on hit and run and not as good in grind fights. Combine that with the fact that most of your infantry double as melee and ranged troops, and you are basically a far more aggressive Empire. However, it requires a lot of finesse to pull off, as your troops, while brave, are hardly durable and will fall apart fast. You ''can'' use Little Grom to play defense, but generally you seem to be better on the attack. Once the game comes out and we have multiplayer experience we will let you know how to gain victory for the Motherland!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': With their speed and vanguard, beastmen can and will get into melee whether you like it or not. The good news is that you heavily out range them and most of your units are combined arms, and their only missile units that aren't the Cygor or Centigors with axes is crap. Combined with the Lore of Ice and Tempest, you can slow them down heavily and help even the odds. The bad news is that because of many of them are so fast combined with a huge charge bonus and stalk, your frontline can quickly crumble if they aren’t careful with what they fight, bring Kossars with spears to be your front line, they’ll make a beastmen player think twice before charging his monsters into the frontline. Ice Guard and missile cav are your best bet to bring down a Cygor, and lastly have some Streltsi to turn any Ghorgons, Jabberslythes or Bestigors into ground beef should he bring any.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This is an interesting one, as you're both very cavalry focused but in different ways. Bretonnian cav is slower, tougher, and has greater variety. Your cav is faster, hits harder, is more fragile, and has less access to anti-large, aside from bears. Your front line will probably be armored Kossars with shields, who will roll right over Bretonnian infantry. Your back line will probably be Kossars with spears and maybe one or two Ice Guard with glaives to slow down Bretonnian cav with their frostbite ranged attacks. A lot is going to depend on who gets the better cavalry engagements. You really need to charge and not be charged to succeed on this front. A Snow Leopard might be helpful for slowing down enemy knights to set up charges for your Lancers. Consider bringing one unit of War Bear Riders so you have a strong anti-large sweeper to scare off flanking attacks on your archers. Both Lore of Ice and Lore of Tempest have their uses here, either to slow down the Bretonnian knights so they eat more ranged fire or to speed up your own cavalry for those decisive charges.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''': Ice Guard, Ice Guard, Ice Guard. The DoC roster is huge so it can be difficult to predict what they'll bring but aside from Khorne most of their units are low armor with physical resistance. Ice guard have low AP but their magical attacks will cut right through that physical resist. They also have magical damage in melee, and combined with their decent melee stats and the option to bring glaives they're well positioned to deal with summons and monsters pushing into the back line. Consider brining a Lore of Tempest caster to buff up their shooting even more. Skip the Tzar Guard, however, as they'll still get krumped by Bloodletters and aren't worth the extra gold. Bring a front line of armored Kossars--By Our Blood should keep them in the fight for long enough. War Bears and Sleds are always good options as well, but just be sure to keep those Ice Court ladies firing.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': The biggest weakness of the Druchii is their staying power. If you can outlast their Murderous Prowess you are very likely to win the battle. By Our Blood should help with that, but the Dark Elves will still outclass you with melee infantry and AP ranged units. The good news is their cavalry is pretty bad and your Horse Archers will outrange their Dark Riders. An emphasis on kiting, with Horse Archers and War Sleds, might help with waiting out Murderous Prowess. Beware of Scourgerunners, however.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': The Dwarfs are a very defensive army, whereas you are something of a hybrid army that can alternate between range-focused defense and cavalry-focused offense. In this matchup you want to pursue the latter. Dwarfen artillery will pound you into the permafrost so you need to get up in their faces ASAP. A Lore of Tempest witch with Swiftwing will help with that. Bring Gryphon Legion over Winged LAncers (they have slightly better AP), as well as War Sleds. Cycle charge the hell out of the Dawi. If you bring ranged infantry, bring Streltsi -- always pick AP where possible. Armoured Kossars are probably your best choice for melee infantry thanks to their shields and pistols, but with all the money you're sinking into the rest of your army you might have to cheap out on the front line a bit.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': You can't outgun them but you can outflank them. This battle is going to come down to who wins the cavalry battle. Your bears can hold their own against Demigryphs, your Horse Archers will out-range Pistoliers or Outriders, and your melee cav is faster than theirs. You need to rush the Empire, hitting them hard and fast. If you land the decisive charges this battle will go your way, but if you take the charges the relative fragility of your cavalry will be a problem. Bring a Lore of Tempest witch and make sure you give her Swiftwing, which will let you blitz across the battlefield.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Generally the big advantages you have over Cathay are mobility and flexibility. Don't bother engaging them in a shootout, you aren't going to win. Instead, take advantage of your cavalry and use them to get into that back line. Dervishes will get there the fastest but if you want something that'll punch through Jade Lancers the Gryphon Legion or Bear Riders should do the trick. In terms of infantry Cathay will probably go with a ton of halberds to deal with your cav so they probably won't break through your shielded units too fast and while your shielded Tzar Guard might have a rough fight against Dragon Guard they'll survive long enough for your horses and bears to mop up the backline and charge them in the rear. The other major problem is that you can't contest them in the air so your missiles might come under attack from Longma or the Dragon Twins. Streltsi can at the very least put a dent in them at range or in melee and Cathay's ranged troops will buckle way faster than yours, if you can compromise their Harmony. Your ranged units might get swarmed, but they'll at least hold long enough to let you win the infantry fight and rally back to help them.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': This might actually be a pretty good matchup for you. Greenskins rely a lot on their skirmishers, their monsters, and their Black Orcs. Your faster than normal shock cav, plus your own skirmishers and light cav, can help deal with all those wolf riders and spiders. Lancers will be a good choice due to causing Fear. Thanks to By Our Blood your troops will hold out far longer compared to the poor leadership of the Greenskins, meaning that while you might take a lot of damage in the melee you probably won't break before they do. Aside from Black Orcs, Greenskins tend to have low armor so you can probably get away with mostly archers here, plus maybe one or two Streltsi to focus down Grimgor's buddies. Greenskins also struggle against the large monsters of other armies, so a unit of War Bears or even an Elemental Bear (if you can afford it) will be helpful for breaking the back of the Waagh.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''': The strength of the High Elves lies in their archers and their big flying monsters, while their cavalry is only sort of OK. They will definitely outrange everything except Little Grom (which they can focus down with Bolt Throwers) so you probably want to focus on a more mobile army. War Bears and their anti-large bonus will be very useful for protecting against dragons and phoenixes. Bring Kossars with spears or Ice Guard with glaives for your ranged core, as they can also fend for themselves when the bears aren't nearby. Focus down the monsters with ranged units and slow them down with Frostbite effects while trying to get your speedy cavalry into their archers.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Khorne is slow, heavily armored, and you do not want him getting into melee at all. As a result it might be best to focus on a very mobile Kislevite army, with lots of Lancers and War Sleds. Back them up with a Witch who has the Lore of Ice to slow Khorne's forces down even more while your sleds shoot them to pieces. If the Khornates reach your front line then By Our Blood will help you hold for a while but this is not a fight you're going to win. You better have Little Grom and some Streltsi on hand to shoot through all that Chaos Armor before your infantry breaks, otherwise this is going to be a short match. At least once the front line does break your Streltsi still have AP in melee.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': This one is probably going to be rough. The Lizardmen are a walking wall of armoured scales that rules at grinding you down slowly while big dinosaurs stomp on your face. By Our Blood will be helpful but the Lizardmen will probably outlast it. Focusing down their dinos with Streltsi will be imperative. They're a fairly slow army so your cavalry will have an OK time cycle charging them, but the relative fragility of your cav may also mean they'll break before the lizards do. If nothing else a unit or two of Dervishes to run down Chameleon Skinks will be useful. Consider bringing Little Grom, as unless the Lizardmen bring the regular Stegadon they probably can't focus your bear-cannon down and it can hold its own against Terradons or Ripperdactyls.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': These guys will be a pain in your neck for most of the SP campaign, so you'll get a lot of experience fighting them. They work very similarly to the Beastmen so some of the same tactics apply. One difference is you will definitely outrange Norsca. Make the most of this, especially since your hybrid infantry will be more resistant to Norsca's preferred tactic of swamping your back lines with war hounds and wolves. Streltsi and Ice Guard are your friends here. Just watch out for their anti-large capabilities. If you bring War Bears or Elemental Bears to hold off their mammoths you will need to protect them, otherwise they will get chipped down fast.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Nurgle is slow and generally doesn't have a lot of armor, which is good news for you. All of your archers (mounted or otherwise) will deal decent damage to them while your cavalry will run circles around them. Bring a Lore of Ice witch and you can slow them down even more. This is a game of keep-away where you try to shoot and cycle charge the pestilent horde until they crack. Nurgle's best answers to this are his handful of ranged and fast troops. Plague Drones/Toads, Furies, Soul Grinders and probably Ku'gath will all be primary targets. Consider going elite for your front line, as Nurgle can't really punish unshielded units and your Great Weapon Armored Kossars or even Tzar Guard will be better at carving through Nurglings and Plaguebearers. Don't try to outlast Nurgle in melee, it won't work. Focus on damage.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Ogres generally have low armor and nearly their entire army is made of monsters and monstrous infantry. This means Kossars with spears are an excellent cost-effective choice. They'll deal most of their damage and will also be able to defend themselves if the Ogres push into melee. Bringing some War Bears to help focus down the bigger monsters the Ogres can field might be wise. Most ogre units are also relatively slow, so kiting builds of Horse Archers and War Sleds may be viable, and your fast cavalry will be able to run circles around these lumbering brutes.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': Play this like your Norscan neighbors would. Go for a cheap front line of Kossars and otherwise focus on lots of light cavalry to overrun the ratmen's flanks and take out their ranged units. Play your cards right and the worst you'll have to worry about are the Moulder monsters, who can easily be killed with regular old arrows. Just don't try to get into a ranged duel with the rats -- it will not end well.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Streltsi, Sleds and Bears are the name of the game here. You'll need the AP and anti-large to deal with all the Tomb King constructs. A relatively cheap front line of Kossars can handle their skeletons with support from War Sled charges. Your lack of fire damage will make it less easy to snipe the Tomb King characters but a Lore of Tempest caster will have a lot of AoE spells for wiping out skeletons so you can focus on the statues and enemy lords/heroes. Consider bringing Kostaltyn or a Patriarch if only for their fire damage.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Break out the Winged Lancers, it's time to go fast. The Vampire Coast struggles against cavalry so a mass cav build is the way to go. Try to close as fast as possible from multiple directions and shut down their shooting. They'll try to bog you down with zombie pirates and monsters but Sleds and Bears should be able to keep them contained while your lighter cav runs roughshod over the artillery and guns.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Definitely a match where you want to bring Little Grom, which will be able to hold its own against bats and wolves. You want to go in with a heavy defensive build, putting your money into your ranged units, which since you have so many hybrid missiles means you can probably hold your own against vampire chaff. By Our Blood will help you hold out against the Fear and Terror effects of the undead, which buys time for you to shoot. Consider bringing a Patriarch to heal and buff your front line so they last even longer.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': You want armor piercing and anti-large against these jokers. Roll out Little Grom and some Streltsi to shoot through all that hell-forged chaos plate. Bring War Bears to deal with Dragon Ogre Shaggoths. The WoC are slow so the Lore of Ice will help ensure you'll be able to shoot at them for as long as possible. This is one of the matchups where you'll want great weapons in your front line. Consider also bringing some Horse archers to deal with Marauder Horsemen harassment.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Because you lack fire damage this is one of the rare situations where the Wood Elves can bring lots of tree spirits without fear. Because of this it'll be a little hard to anticipate their builds. If they bring Durthu and a lot of monster you'll want a kite build. If they bring lots of archers you'll want a more melee cavalry build. Horse Archers and War Sleds will probably be good picks no matter what, as will Kostaltyn.

==Campaign Mechanics and Tactics==
It was a really hard campaign but it’s gotten a lot better with the ability to prevent rifts using defense buildings (which you should always do). If you need to enter a rift just use one in nearby enemy or friendly territory. Just for fully conquer or confederate the 3 major cities then expand out to the rest of kislev. You can expand into Norsca but that does invite attack by the 3 major demon factions, ironically it may be easier to invade the empire or mountains instead. But really you don’t need to paint the map. Campaign is easier if you take a nice 4-5 province chunk of land and play defense while doing the rifts.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

'''How They Play:''' Unlike Cathay, which is surrounded by barriers, both natural and artificial, Kislev is one big plain with enemies all around you. Norscans and Chaos Warriors to begin with, but soon enough the Legions of Chaos will be at your door faster than you can say "чорт, пошёл на хуй". Things will only escalate once the rifts start opening up, as minor factions have shit AI and will do jack shit about the corruption spreading in their lands, so don't count on your Empire allies surviving very long once the rifts start spewing out Daemon stacks and 30+ corruption.

Also unlike Cathay, your units are ''expensive'' to maintain, even if they're relatively cheap to produce: a leveled-up Kostaltyn with a bunch of minor stacked ancillaries '''can actually raise units for free, or close enough to free'''. Instead, you'll find all your gold diverted to their upkeep and maintenance, a problem which will only get worse when you lose settlements to Chaos. Your Legendary Lords have quite substantial upkeep reduction for key units (Tzarina and Ice Guard, Boris and Bears), so building an army around them is crucial unless you want to pay 3000+ gold in wages everyturn.

'''Managing your Oblasts:''' Since only your faction leader can enter the rifts, it would be a good idea to devote your other armies to the defense, as well as cleaning up corruption. For every 2 provinces you own, you gain a unique character called an ''Ataman,'' functionally a Boyar who manages a province for you . They occasionally get events that will boost certain aspects of the province's economy, will lead your garrisons when attacked, and notably ''not'' cost upkeep (which trust me, is super important in Kislev).

It is notable as well that the three main Kislevite cities (Praag, Kislev, Erengrad) are all single-settlement provinces, while the adjacent Oblasts are all minor-settlements. By holding both, you get one Ataman, and while the cities are valuable enough to warrant a Garrisoned lord, the Oblasts have more to gain by having an Ataman buff them for you.

'''Devotion and Supporters:''' A campaign mechanic that simulates the power struggle between the Orthodoxy and the Royalty: the first one to gain 600 supporters wins and if you win, you confederate the other. Supporters are generated by building unique buildings in the major cities, or by building Orthodoxy churches. They can also be gained by invoking "the Motherland," which is like Rites that give you campaign bonuses, but also have challenges that you need to fulfill. For example, invoking Ursun deals attrition to enemies and slows them, but gives you +5 Supporters for every new settlement you occupy; Tor gives +2 supporters every time you enter a battle, and +10 melee attack. Kostaltyn will almost always have the edge in the beginning, but the Tzarina's safer realm means she'll eventually win out, so long as you dont lag behind in victories/tech.

Devotion is managed separately, and is gained by either sacrificing Chaos worshippers/Daemons post battle, or by religious buildings (you have two: Hallowed Woods, kinda like the Godswood in ASOIAF, that provides devotion and economy benefits, or Orthodox Churches, which also provide devotion and supporters, but cost Devotion as well.) Devotion is used for rites, certain tech, and buildings. You need to maintain above 100 devotion, too, because having too low Devotion spawns Chaos cults (completely independent of the Rifts/Public Order, which is annoying). The Rites are also pretty expensive, going from 60 to 80 and up to 200.

Unfortunately it does have to be mentioned that until tier 4 you only have one practical unit. the tier 0 kossar as it's low upkeep and easy replaceability is key for your weak economy and lack of decent units. Prepare to spam one unit even harder than the tomb kings. Is it boring as fuck-yes. is it the only practical way to hold off your enemies and unit kislev before you get swarmed by everyone-yes. —- light war sleds are only tier 3 and are extremely cost effective, tzar guard are tier 3, and armored kossars are good too. It’s really not as bad as it sounds.

</div></div>
<br>

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev

2022-09-20T12:08:36Z

2600:387:2:803:0:0:0:9F: /* Heroes */

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Kislev]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why Play Kislev==
*[[Memes|Kislev.]]
*Because you like Humans, but don't want to debase yourself by playing as one of the feeble westerners (or southerners in this case)
*You think that premodern Eastern Europe is underused as an inspiration for fantasy stuff.
*You will likely be playing a more generalist playstyle that leans more into mobile skirmishing and Cavalry.
*You want an excuse to blast Sabaton while playing in fantasy.
*<s>[[Furry|FUCKING BEARS!!!!!]]</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|In the name of Tzarina Katarin Bokha, this man has been been sentenced to death for degeneracy, move along citizen.}}
===Pros===
*'''Cavalry''': Kislev always leaned more towards the cavalry side on tabletop and that continues to be the case in TW. With Winged Lancers, Gryphon Legion, Bear Riders and Horse Archers you should have a very wide selection of horsemen to choose from, without the same crippling infantry [[Bretonnian|Bretonnia]] has
*'''Flexible Infantry''': Many of your ranged units, such as the Ice Guard, have weapons that allow them to fight in melee, similar to Shades and Lothern Sea Guard. This means them getting stuck in melee won't be too much of an issue as they can actually defend themselves.
*'''High Leadership''': I guess when Chaos is squatting on your front door nothing really scares you anymore. With high natural leadership and a passive that makes you unbreakable when you're low it'll take a lot to get you to run.
*'''Range''': You have plenty of skirmish units that also function decently well in melee. Virtually all of your infantry can shoot and you have a lot of mobile ranged options on top of that.
*'''Built for Total War''': While they have more of a pedigree then Cathay does as far as canon goes, they have mostly been ignored in the table top game, which means CA has broad latitude in making units for there army in a way other factions didn't not. See Bretonnia's limited unit roster for example. As such they have potential to be more balanced then the other factions with no glaring unit type holes.

===Cons===
*'''Lower Unit Numbers for Melee Infantry''': Unlike the standard 120 unit models of most melee infantry units, your Armoured Kossars only come in units of 90 and your Tzar Guards come in at 80.
*'''Price Tags''': Because of the Hybrid nature of a lot of your units, they tend to lean more on the expensive side. Even for units where the hybrid function really isn't that great (Like, no one gets Armoured Kossars for the pistols). This can bite you when you need to pay extra for a unit that has a bonus function you don't need when you would probably be paying less for a more specialized unit.
*'''Minimal Mount Options''': You'd better like horses or bears, because that's all anyone gets to saddle up on. Unfortunately, unless added in at a later patch or by popular demand, even Katarin is restricted to either a horse or a bear to ride into battle rather than a war sled (aside from her ice-gliding technique).
*'''Absent Artillery''': Though you do have the Little Grom, which is more than some factions have, you have no other dedicated artillery units. Your rather robust cavalry and missile infantry can compensate somewhat but long range shootouts can and will turn against you if you can't close the distance.
*'''Poor Magic''': You only have two magic lores and to be honest neither of them are that great compared to other options. Could be worse, you at least [[Khorne|have magic]] but that won’t be of much help when High Elves and Tzeentch blows up your lines with their brains while your magic just tickles them.
*'''No Air Units''': This is not going to be a flying faction in any way. You have more than enough missiles to deal with enemy fliers but having to concede the sky means that your opponent has an easier time dictating the fight and choosing their targets compared to you.
*'''Harder Campaign''': Since you start right on the border of the Chaos Wastes, you're going to be dealing with a ton of Chaos armies marching your way. This can make the Kislev campaigns pretty tricky as you have so many Daemons and Norscans from the north to deal with. Not to mention the potentially pugnacious Vampire Counts to your south. This is, of course, not even counting the constant Chaos Rifts that utterly swamp the lands all around you. Is it fluffy? Oh absolutely! Will you get sick of the never ending Chaos stacks pounding on your door? Sweet Ursun yes. Your economy will be stretched quite thin as you're going to need several banner armies just to hold the motherland while Katarin/Kostaltyn venture into the Realms of Chaos. - now that you can build defense buildings to stop rifts opening things are a lot less stressful though.
*'''DLC''': Yeah, this will be safe to assume. The Kislev starting roster is rather light compared to some of the other factions from prior entries (partly because the other TW:W titles only had four starting factions as opposed to TW:W III's six, and all the unit variants actually serve their own purpose instead of just "oh, here's the exact same unit but with shields" which caused bloat and partly because Kislev has a lot of units doing two roles at once so no need for a spear AND an archer unit when Kossars do both), so it's safe to say CA/GW kept some of the list in the back pocket for a cash grab. Get ready to join the very large "We need to fork over extra dough to be relevant in multiplayer" club.
*'''Auto-Resolve''': some of your best units do terribly in auto-resolve. Ice guard, War bear riders, elemental bears, and light war sleds are some of your best units but they dont actually do very well in auto resolve at all, so you may have to manually fight more. ironically your weaker units like kossars and strelsi seem to auto-resolve better. Your garrisons usually seem to auto resolve fine though.

==Faction traits==
*'''By Our Blood''': A trait all Kislev units have. When a unit's health drops below 50%, they become Unbreakable for 30 seconds, once per battle, meaning they can hold out better when they take a lot of damage all at once. May be a more of a double-edged sword, since as mentioned before, you are not that good at soaking up damage and can lead to problems down the road, as one unit fleeing can cause your whole frontline to collapse once the buff runs out - it will just take a bit longer. That said, three daemon factions and Ogres are good at dealing a lot of damage via charges, magic, or both so it may also help a lot.

==Lords==
===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Tzarina Katarin]]''': The new Tzarina after daddy went MIA fighting Chaos. She's a mage lord character with access to the Lore of Ice and a bound spell from her sword. She is faster than other infantry lords thanks to her ability to ice-surf over the map. She has surprisingly good combat stats for a mage, though her lack of armor and AP means you shouldn't throw her against dedicated combat characters (her AP is actually fine once she is on a bear mount, still not a melee powerhouse of course). In lore, she had a horse and sled mount, but in game the sled mount was replaced with a bear due to [[Nurgle|Nurgle's centennial party]], so we can hope it may appear later. She has unique skills to boost melee defense of ice guard, reduce casting cost, and some good unique items, and a large reduction in spell cooldowns.
**Campaign-wise, she buffs Snow Leopards and provides an upkeep reduction for Ice Guards (to the point it's pretty easy to have them reach an upkeep even lower than basic Kossars'), and starts in Kislev.

*'''[[Kostaltyn]], Supreme Patriarch of The Great Orthodoxy''': This greased up Rasputin looking mother fucker is a new character likely created by CA and GW in order to help flesh out Kislev's roster. Supreme Patriarch of the Cult of Ursun and leader of the Great Orthodoxy, basically Kislev's Volkmar. His lore stresses he's ''very'' hard to kill, being stabbed twice but kept on fighting, and his abilities reflect that. He has the four Patriarch prayer abilities as well as regen and a couple of abilities that buff nearby troops even more, one of which only works when their health is low . He's not a fan of his Tzarina and in his SP campaign he tries to usurp her as the true leader of Kislev.
**In the campaign, he starts north of Erengrad. His army has drastically reduced recruitment costs, to the point that you can get some units for free. They're still expensive to maintain as a standing army, so you'll be disbanding and raising units pretty often

*'''[[Boris Ursus]]''': Unlocked by holding the major cities of Kislev for 10 straight turns and winning a quest battle. Your super-heavy melee lord, Boris rides his unique bear mount Urskin and wields a halberd. He has anti large, an AoE damage ability, and a host of buffs for himself and other nearby units, many of them activated as his health gets low. Boris is designed to get into the thick of things and hold the line forever, with By Our Blood making him especially difficult to get rid of. As fearsome as his combat stats can get he's still not going to be beating Skarbrand in a duel. Put him in a death star where he can support other units and his toughness and decent damage output will make the enemy think twice about trying to assassinate him.
**In the campaign, he provides buffs and upkeep reduction to War Bear Riders and Elemental Bears in his army, which will most likely be your core in the late-game. Map-wise, he starts out in the Dark Lands East of Kislev, surrounded by Ogres and Orcs, both of which are bad matchups for you until you tech-up. However it has tons of empty territory and no major rivals so you can pull a Cathay and build a giant land base relatively safely. At least, that is, until the Dawi Zharr arrive.

Unfortunately his campaign must have been tagged on at the last second because you lose access to the later half of kislev’s tech tree unless you capture all 3 of the major cities. And they also have a number of very helpful full unique buildings with buffs. Even having an alliance with the ice court or patriarch does not count. So unless you willing to leave the mountains and move start to kislev you actually get really screwed over. Hope to god they patch it.

===Lords===
*'''[[Boyar]]''': Your pure melee lord with a horse and bear mount. They will primarily act as a Budget Boris and provide a solid melee combat character to support your main army. He uses double axes and gets bonus vs infantry but doesn't have majority AP damage until you mount him on a war bear. A decent but slightly unexceptional melee lord.

*'''[[Ice Witch]]''': Magic Lord for Kislev, with the lores of Ice and Tempest. Has a bound AoE damage spell as well as a Snow Leopard summon. Can ride a horse or a bear. The Ice court training mechanic in campaign gives 3 potentially good but semi-random traits with each recruitment, these can be very strong, things like plus 8 melee attack to ice guard, or 15% less upkeep for infantry or cavalry. From a campaign standpoint these have more potential than regular boyars in terms of army buffs and cost efficiency, not to say boyars are necessarily bad.

===Heroes===
*'''Patriarch''': Kislevite warrior priest of the Great Orthodoxy. This chad rides a bear and can cast four miracles, one each for the gods Ursun, Dazh, Tor, and Salyak. These buffs affect nearby units and buff charge bonus/leadership, vigour, melee attack, and provide a heal respectively. These guys are your only source of healing so they're pretty valuable. While his mount means he's decent in melee he has low armor and like his Empire counterpart he's primarily a support character that will lose to dedicated duelists. The healing prayer option is kislevs only access to non item-based healing so you may wish to favor that. Kostalyn gives these 20% ward in his army. You can definitely doomstack them. It’s very strong.

*'''Frost Maiden ''': Hero version of the Ice Witch. Has the same magic and same mounts at a cheaper cost, so she is surprisingly decent in melee for a mage character but nothing spectacular.In campaign they are recruited with a special mechanic called The Ice Court where you train them over multiple turns and get to customize them with choices of traits. Some are pretty good, my personal favorite gives plus 8 melee attack to ice guard, and STACKS with multiple in an army.

==Units==

===Infantry===

* '''Armoured Kossars''': An armored infantry choice featuring with an axe and board variant and a great weapon variant. They trade out the bow for a pistol that allows them to fire off a shot before combat is joined, which can help them weaken an enemy before the main engagement begins. Will be your go-to front line for much of the mid game and especially in multiplayer where they're very cost effective.
*'''Tzar Guard''': The elite infantry line for Kislev, the bodyguards of the Tzar wearing thick snazzy fur cloaks. These guys are Kislev's only pure melee infantry. Have a sword and board and greatsword variant. If you use all the potential buffs you can stack onto ice guard I find these to become semi-obsolete in campaign, they only really have the advantage in armor and shielding compared to ice guard and that isn't usually relevant when fighting demons who bring tons of AP and few missiles.
**'''Dazh's [[Hearthguard|Hearth-Guard]]''' - Greatweapon Tzar Guard with Flaming Attacks, which helps fill that niche against Nurgle, or rather make nurgles time fighting you even more miserable than it was before. Also have some utility against Tzeentch owing to their Fire Resist. Unrelated to the Squat unit of the same name.

===Hybrid missile units===
*'''[[Kossars]]''': Bow and axe troops, early game troops which with their decent melee stats can fend for it self in melee to some degree unlike most other archers. Running light cavalry into these guys may cost you some more horsemen than you may have initially bargained for, especially if they're the Kossar with Spears variant which actively have anti-large. They are also your cheapest infantry unit meaning in the early game and probably multiplayer they will fill the role as your front line.
** Unfortunately it does have to be mentioned that due to kislev's extremely weak economy and many threats these tier 0 troops are going to be your entire army until tier 4-bears. literally one lord and 19 easily replaceable kossars as your armies. Usually you're not forced to play 'meta' in total war but kislev is near western roman empire levels of 'fuck this campaign'. - The defense buildings that prevent rifts opening, and changes to the AI anti-player bias have made this much less of an issue. You shouldn't need to field chaff armies constantly anymore.

*'''Streltsi''': Their weapon is a gun that is also an axe. A mid tier missile unit with armor piercing in melee and at range. Again, like a handgunner that can fend for it self a bit in melee. These guys are going to be most useful against heavily armoured factions (Dwarfs, Khorne, Warriors of Chaos) but against more lightly armored factions there really is no point (Skaven, Wood Elves, Beastmen.) Absolutely useless against Tzeentch as daemonic projectiles ignore their armor and barrier is not affected by their armor-piercing ammo. These are kind of a mixed bag in campaign, they cost as much as ice guard (after building discounts) which are usually a lot more useful vs demons. They do auto resolve well though. The lack of indirect fire and WH 3 issues with ranged unit targeting can make them frustrating to use, and a lot of the time their AP damage is wasted versus demons, they do a good job of killing soul grinders at least.
**These guys will mow down infantry like it's the End Times and make a better gunline than Armored Kossars; when melee is joined, the rear ranks will still fire their guns into melee, but this unit will fold against Monsters and Cavalry.

*'''[[Ice Guard]]''': These ladies are what happens when a Sister of Avelorn and a Lothern Sea Guard have a baby, only it came out human somehow. Wielding magical weapons that deal frostbite, each comes with a bow, and either a dual sword variant for fighting infantry or a glaive for cavalry and monsters. They are decent on the counter attack abd will take models down with them, but don't leave them in combat for too long, as they're relatively squishy by Kislevite standards. One of the random Ice witch traits can give you plus 8 melee attack, and stacks with multiple witches. The sword variant has better melee attack and anti infantry but poor AP. The glaive variant has better melee defense, anti-large, charge defense vs large, and most importantly armor piecing. Personally I only use the Glaive variant plus 2-3 frost witches with the boosting trait to make them into possibly the most versatile and powerful hybrid unit in the game. They will end up with sky high melee attack and defense, powerful ranged fire power and AP in melee.
**Their weapons deal magic damage and frostbite, and their missiles arc over your front line. Their best use is focus firing on monsters that would give your infantry a hard time, especially since slower speed = less charge. With magic damage and relatively low AP they are top notch daemon-hunters, countering the physical resistance and low armor daemons generally have. Improve their missiles with Tempest Magic and watch them delete Lords of Change. Use ice sheet, their inherent frostbite, and the tempest lore attribute to slow enemies to a crawl and get more shooting time. Try to only have them shoot lightly armored targets first, they have AP in melee to handle armored enemies (the glaives at least).

===Cavalry===

*'''Horse archers''': Fast skirmishing cavalry. Though fragile they have decent melee offense, so as long as you don't get hit they can charge on occasion. By Our Blood means that if you do have to charge them into melee they'll probably fight to the last man.

*'''Kossovite Dervishes''': Your quintessential light cavalry unit with high speed and Vanguard Deployment. A cheaper option than Winged Lancers of Gryphon Legionnaires but squishy as hell. Be careful with the situations you throw them into. They're ideal for running down enemy archers and war machines, but if they tangle with anything tougher the By Our Blood trait means you may lose all of them as they refuse to retreat.
**Don't ask me why they're called Dervishes when this is an Eastern European themed faction not an [[Araby|Islamic one]] (also noteworthy is that at least in some maps Araby have a region called "The Land of Dervishes"), true Russia proper does go that far South but not Kislev. This is especially silly when you realise with terms like ''Hussar'' and ''Uhlan'', GW/CA had no scarcity of other names to use.

*'''[[Winged Lancers]]''': The Winged Hussars have arrived and they are a mid tier cavalry unit. With anti-infantry, high charge bonus they are typical cycle charges. Charge in, get back, repeated. There big difference is that they are very fast and have fear representing how they caused a panic check on the table top during a flank charge.
**The Winged Lancers and Gryphon Legion are both dedicated anti-infantry, though changes in charge mechanics mean that if you charge a braced enemy head-on you will do nothing but get hurt in return for your stupidity. And don't charge other cavalry, just don't. That's what War Bears are for.

*'''[[Gryphon Legion]]''': An elite group of Winged Lancers who act mostly as mercenaries but are sworn to show up when the Tzar/ina calls for there aid. They're not an RoR are but are instead ""the same unit but better" in the same vein as Reiksguard are to Empire Knights. With Fear and high speed they're very good at their jobs, but still pretty fragile compared to heavy cav from other armies.

*'''War Bear Riders''': The Sons of Ursun are here to kick and then eat some ass. Good stats, good armor, anti-large, and armor piercing they are anti-large cavalry experts. Just as fast as the Gryphon Legion, with only slightly less armor and charge. They are, however, unshielded.
**'''Oath-Brothers of Tor''': These guys have magic attacks and a special activated ability that bombards the area around them with lightning, blinding any enemies in the radius. These guys are very flexible, with the magic attacks making them good against any daemon units and the lightning bombardment helps them escape from an infantry grind after a rearcharge. The blinded effect of the bombardment also serves to debuff any ranged units they get into, so they're also excellent for riding roughshod over the enemy back line. Just remember you get limited uses of the bombardment, so time it carefully.

===Chariot===
*'''Light War Sled''': Benefits greatly from the reworked Charge and War Wagon mechanics, the Light War Sled is a chariot first, gunpowder unit second. They are quite fast, and shoot both on the move or in combat, but as chariots, you shouldn't leave them in melee and you should pick your targets properly: ranged units, unbraced infantry, or thin, stretched out gunlines should be your targets of opportunity to make the most use of their collision attacks. These are faster than most heavy cav and as fast as a lot of light cav, you can put them in skirmish to wear down armored units before switching to melee. they are actually quite cheap and ice witch lords can get a trait for -30% upkeep on all war-sleds.
**Compared to the Heavier version, this one has less armor and charge, but is much faster. Everything else is the same, so you should probably pick this one instead: the speed helps it escape melee that makes the additional armor a moot point
*'''Heavy War Sled''': Better armor, pulled by Polar Bears, and have stronger "collision attacks" which are special animations that disrupt models more than regular charging.

===Monsters===
*'''Snow Leopard''': A single entity monster that is very fast and very good at killing large enemies. Has anti-large and frostbite but almost zero armor. Functions best as a support unit, designed to bog down enemy cavalry/monsters so that your slower and heavier troops can catch up and put on the hurt. Good at sniping enemy artillery, particularly monstrous artillery, and decent at fighting chariots. Do not expect it to fight anything like a stegadon or soul grinder though; these things are as fragile as an icicle.
**Your witches can summon Snow Leopards mid-battle and with skill upgrades improve their attack and strength stats. Basically single-entity Norscan Ice Wolves with anti-Large, Katarin can give them Stalk, but you also probably won't take them after you can get Ice Guard.

*'''Elemental Bear''': A massive, unbreakable bear made of ice, stone and the will of Kislev’s people. It is more is capable of throwing hands (paws?) with any greater demon. It has a breath attack to accent its melee power. These guys are slow and tough but very vulnerable to ranged fire. However their massive health pool means that if the enemy doesn't bring the tools to get rid of them they might lose from army losses before the Bear goes down.

===Artillery===
*'''Little Grom''': No, they didn't kidnap Grom and put him on a diet. It's a giant ass ice mortar pulled by polar bears. Does it get any more Russian than that? It's a single model artillery piece with good range and good damage, and it can take care of itself in melee as the bears pulling it get anti-infantry attacks. Appears to be channeling Grom's spirit however, as it has 'collision attacks' dealing additional attacks when colliding with enemies. Better get out of the way of the bear train coming for your ass

==Multiplayer Strategies==
You have two big themes in your roster, aggressive cav and hybrid infantry. Compared to Empire Cav Winged Lancers and Gryphon Legion are faster, harder on the charge, but less durable, meaning they are focused way more on hit and run and not as good in grind fights. Combine that with the fact that most of your infantry double as melee and ranged troops, and you are basically a far more aggressive Empire. However, it requires a lot of finesse to pull off, as your troops, while brave, are hardly durable and will fall apart fast. You ''can'' use Little Grom to play defense, but generally you seem to be better on the attack. Once the game comes out and we have multiplayer experience we will let you know how to gain victory for the Motherland!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': With their speed and vanguard, beastmen can and will get into melee whether you like it or not. The good news is that you heavily out range them and most of your units are combined arms, and their only missile units that aren't the Cygor or Centigors with axes is crap. Combined with the Lore of Ice and Tempest, you can slow them down heavily and help even the odds. The bad news is that because of many of them are so fast combined with a huge charge bonus and stalk, your frontline can quickly crumble if they aren’t careful with what they fight, bring Kossars with spears to be your front line, they’ll make a beastmen player think twice before charging his monsters into the frontline. Ice Guard and missile cav are your best bet to bring down a Cygor, and lastly have some Streltsi to turn any Ghorgons, Jabberslythes or Bestigors into ground beef should he bring any.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This is an interesting one, as you're both very cavalry focused but in different ways. Bretonnian cav is slower, tougher, and has greater variety. Your cav is faster, hits harder, is more fragile, and has less access to anti-large, aside from bears. Your front line will probably be armored Kossars with shields, who will roll right over Bretonnian infantry. Your back line will probably be Kossars with spears and maybe one or two Ice Guard with glaives to slow down Bretonnian cav with their frostbite ranged attacks. A lot is going to depend on who gets the better cavalry engagements. You really need to charge and not be charged to succeed on this front. A Snow Leopard might be helpful for slowing down enemy knights to set up charges for your Lancers. Consider bringing one unit of War Bear Riders so you have a strong anti-large sweeper to scare off flanking attacks on your archers. Both Lore of Ice and Lore of Tempest have their uses here, either to slow down the Bretonnian knights so they eat more ranged fire or to speed up your own cavalry for those decisive charges.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''': Ice Guard, Ice Guard, Ice Guard. The DoC roster is huge so it can be difficult to predict what they'll bring but aside from Khorne most of their units are low armor with physical resistance. Ice guard have low AP but their magical attacks will cut right through that physical resist. They also have magical damage in melee, and combined with their decent melee stats and the option to bring glaives they're well positioned to deal with summons and monsters pushing into the back line. Consider brining a Lore of Tempest caster to buff up their shooting even more. Skip the Tzar Guard, however, as they'll still get krumped by Bloodletters and aren't worth the extra gold. Bring a front line of armored Kossars--By Our Blood should keep them in the fight for long enough. War Bears and Sleds are always good options as well, but just be sure to keep those Ice Court ladies firing.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': The biggest weakness of the Druchii is their staying power. If you can outlast their Murderous Prowess you are very likely to win the battle. By Our Blood should help with that, but the Dark Elves will still outclass you with melee infantry and AP ranged units. The good news is their cavalry is pretty bad and your Horse Archers will outrange their Dark Riders. An emphasis on kiting, with Horse Archers and War Sleds, might help with waiting out Murderous Prowess. Beware of Scourgerunners, however.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': The Dwarfs are a very defensive army, whereas you are something of a hybrid army that can alternate between range-focused defense and cavalry-focused offense. In this matchup you want to pursue the latter. Dwarfen artillery will pound you into the permafrost so you need to get up in their faces ASAP. A Lore of Tempest witch with Swiftwing will help with that. Bring Gryphon Legion over Winged LAncers (they have slightly better AP), as well as War Sleds. Cycle charge the hell out of the Dawi. If you bring ranged infantry, bring Streltsi -- always pick AP where possible. Armoured Kossars are probably your best choice for melee infantry thanks to their shields and pistols, but with all the money you're sinking into the rest of your army you might have to cheap out on the front line a bit.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': You can't outgun them but you can outflank them. This battle is going to come down to who wins the cavalry battle. Your bears can hold their own against Demigryphs, your Horse Archers will out-range Pistoliers or Outriders, and your melee cav is faster than theirs. You need to rush the Empire, hitting them hard and fast. If you land the decisive charges this battle will go your way, but if you take the charges the relative fragility of your cavalry will be a problem. Bring a Lore of Tempest witch and make sure you give her Swiftwing, which will let you blitz across the battlefield.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Generally the big advantages you have over Cathay are mobility and flexibility. Don't bother engaging them in a shootout, you aren't going to win. Instead, take advantage of your cavalry and use them to get into that back line. Dervishes will get there the fastest but if you want something that'll punch through Jade Lancers the Gryphon Legion or Bear Riders should do the trick. In terms of infantry Cathay will probably go with a ton of halberds to deal with your cav so they probably won't break through your shielded units too fast and while your shielded Tzar Guard might have a rough fight against Dragon Guard they'll survive long enough for your horses and bears to mop up the backline and charge them in the rear. The other major problem is that you can't contest them in the air so your missiles might come under attack from Longma or the Dragon Twins. Streltsi can at the very least put a dent in them at range or in melee and Cathay's ranged troops will buckle way faster than yours, if you can compromise their Harmony. Your ranged units might get swarmed, but they'll at least hold long enough to let you win the infantry fight and rally back to help them.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': This might actually be a pretty good matchup for you. Greenskins rely a lot on their skirmishers, their monsters, and their Black Orcs. Your faster than normal shock cav, plus your own skirmishers and light cav, can help deal with all those wolf riders and spiders. Lancers will be a good choice due to causing Fear. Thanks to By Our Blood your troops will hold out far longer compared to the poor leadership of the Greenskins, meaning that while you might take a lot of damage in the melee you probably won't break before they do. Aside from Black Orcs, Greenskins tend to have low armor so you can probably get away with mostly archers here, plus maybe one or two Streltsi to focus down Grimgor's buddies. Greenskins also struggle against the large monsters of other armies, so a unit of War Bears or even an Elemental Bear (if you can afford it) will be helpful for breaking the back of the Waagh.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''': The strength of the High Elves lies in their archers and their big flying monsters, while their cavalry is only sort of OK. They will definitely outrange everything except Little Grom (which they can focus down with Bolt Throwers) so you probably want to focus on a more mobile army. War Bears and their anti-large bonus will be very useful for protecting against dragons and phoenixes. Bring Kossars with spears or Ice Guard with glaives for your ranged core, as they can also fend for themselves when the bears aren't nearby. Focus down the monsters with ranged units and slow them down with Frostbite effects while trying to get your speedy cavalry into their archers.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Khorne is slow, heavily armored, and you do not want him getting into melee at all. As a result it might be best to focus on a very mobile Kislevite army, with lots of Lancers and War Sleds. Back them up with a Witch who has the Lore of Ice to slow Khorne's forces down even more while your sleds shoot them to pieces. If the Khornates reach your front line then By Our Blood will help you hold for a while but this is not a fight you're going to win. You better have Little Grom and some Streltsi on hand to shoot through all that Chaos Armor before your infantry breaks, otherwise this is going to be a short match. At least once the front line does break your Streltsi still have AP in melee.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': This one is probably going to be rough. The Lizardmen are a walking wall of armoured scales that rules at grinding you down slowly while big dinosaurs stomp on your face. By Our Blood will be helpful but the Lizardmen will probably outlast it. Focusing down their dinos with Streltsi will be imperative. They're a fairly slow army so your cavalry will have an OK time cycle charging them, but the relative fragility of your cav may also mean they'll break before the lizards do. If nothing else a unit or two of Dervishes to run down Chameleon Skinks will be useful. Consider bringing Little Grom, as unless the Lizardmen bring the regular Stegadon they probably can't focus your bear-cannon down and it can hold its own against Terradons or Ripperdactyls.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': These guys will be a pain in your neck for most of the SP campaign, so you'll get a lot of experience fighting them. They work very similarly to the Beastmen so some of the same tactics apply. One difference is you will definitely outrange Norsca. Make the most of this, especially since your hybrid infantry will be more resistant to Norsca's preferred tactic of swamping your back lines with war hounds and wolves. Streltsi and Ice Guard are your friends here. Just watch out for their anti-large capabilities. If you bring War Bears or Elemental Bears to hold off their mammoths you will need to protect them, otherwise they will get chipped down fast.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Nurgle is slow and generally doesn't have a lot of armor, which is good news for you. All of your archers (mounted or otherwise) will deal decent damage to them while your cavalry will run circles around them. Bring a Lore of Ice witch and you can slow them down even more. This is a game of keep-away where you try to shoot and cycle charge the pestilent horde until they crack. Nurgle's best answers to this are his handful of ranged and fast troops. Plague Drones/Toads, Furies, Soul Grinders and probably Ku'gath will all be primary targets. Consider going elite for your front line, as Nurgle can't really punish unshielded units and your Great Weapon Armored Kossars or even Tzar Guard will be better at carving through Nurglings and Plaguebearers. Don't try to outlast Nurgle in melee, it won't work. Focus on damage.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Ogres generally have low armor and nearly their entire army is made of monsters and monstrous infantry. This means Kossars with spears are an excellent cost-effective choice. They'll deal most of their damage and will also be able to defend themselves if the Ogres push into melee. Bringing some War Bears to help focus down the bigger monsters the Ogres can field might be wise. Most ogre units are also relatively slow, so kiting builds of Horse Archers and War Sleds may be viable, and your fast cavalry will be able to run circles around these lumbering brutes.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': Play this like your Norscan neighbors would. Go for a cheap front line of Kossars and otherwise focus on lots of light cavalry to overrun the ratmen's flanks and take out their ranged units. Play your cards right and the worst you'll have to worry about are the Moulder monsters, who can easily be killed with regular old arrows. Just don't try to get into a ranged duel with the rats -- it will not end well.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Streltsi, Sleds and Bears are the name of the game here. You'll need the AP and anti-large to deal with all the Tomb King constructs. A relatively cheap front line of Kossars can handle their skeletons with support from War Sled charges. Your lack of fire damage will make it less easy to snipe the Tomb King characters but a Lore of Tempest caster will have a lot of AoE spells for wiping out skeletons so you can focus on the statues and enemy lords/heroes. Consider bringing Kostaltyn or a Patriarch if only for their fire damage.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Break out the Winged Lancers, it's time to go fast. The Vampire Coast struggles against cavalry so a mass cav build is the way to go. Try to close as fast as possible from multiple directions and shut down their shooting. They'll try to bog you down with zombie pirates and monsters but Sleds and Bears should be able to keep them contained while your lighter cav runs roughshod over the artillery and guns.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Definitely a match where you want to bring Little Grom, which will be able to hold its own against bats and wolves. You want to go in with a heavy defensive build, putting your money into your ranged units, which since you have so many hybrid missiles means you can probably hold your own against vampire chaff. By Our Blood will help you hold out against the Fear and Terror effects of the undead, which buys time for you to shoot. Consider bringing a Patriarch to heal and buff your front line so they last even longer.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': You want armor piercing and anti-large against these jokers. Roll out Little Grom and some Streltsi to shoot through all that hell-forged chaos plate. Bring War Bears to deal with Dragon Ogre Shaggoths. The WoC are slow so the Lore of Ice will help ensure you'll be able to shoot at them for as long as possible. This is one of the matchups where you'll want great weapons in your front line. Consider also bringing some Horse archers to deal with Marauder Horsemen harassment.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Because you lack fire damage this is one of the rare situations where the Wood Elves can bring lots of tree spirits without fear. Because of this it'll be a little hard to anticipate their builds. If they bring Durthu and a lot of monster you'll want a kite build. If they bring lots of archers you'll want a more melee cavalry build. Horse Archers and War Sleds will probably be good picks no matter what, as will Kostaltyn.

==Campaign Mechanics and Tactics==
It was a really hard campaign but it’s gotten a lot better with the ability to prevent rifts using defense buildings (which you should always do). If you need to enter a rift just use one in nearby enemy or friendly territory. Just for fully conquer or confederate the 3 major cities then expand out to the rest of kislev. You can expand into Norsca but that does invite attack by the 3 major demon factions, ironically it may be easier to invade the empire or mountains instead. But really you don’t need to paint the map. Campaign is easier if you take a nice 4-5 province chunk of land and play defense while doing the rifts.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

'''How They Play:''' Unlike Cathay, which is surrounded by barriers, both natural and artificial, Kislev is one big plain with enemies all around you. Norscans and Chaos Warriors to begin with, but soon enough the Legions of Chaos will be at your door faster than you can say "чорт, пошёл на хуй". Things will only escalate once the rifts start opening up, as minor factions have shit AI and will do jack shit about the corruption spreading in their lands, so don't count on your Empire allies surviving very long once the rifts start spewing out Daemon stacks and 30+ corruption.

Also unlike Cathay, your units are ''expensive'' to maintain, even if they're relatively cheap to produce: a leveled-up Kostaltyn with a bunch of minor stacked ancillaries '''can actually raise units for free, or close enough to free'''. Instead, you'll find all your gold diverted to their upkeep and maintenance, a problem which will only get worse when you lose settlements to Chaos. Your Legendary Lords have quite substantial upkeep reduction for key units (Tzarina and Ice Guard, Boris and Bears), so building an army around them is crucial unless you want to pay 3000+ gold in wages everyturn.

'''Managing your Oblasts:''' Since only your faction leader can enter the rifts, it would be a good idea to devote your other armies to the defense, as well as cleaning up corruption. For every 2 provinces you own, you gain a unique character called an ''Ataman,'' functionally a Boyar who manages a province for you . They occasionally get events that will boost certain aspects of the province's economy, will lead your garrisons when attacked, and notably ''not'' cost upkeep (which trust me, is super important in Kislev).

It is notable as well that the three main Kislevite cities (Praag, Kislev, Erengrad) are all single-settlement provinces, while the adjacent Oblasts are all minor-settlements. By holding both, you get one Ataman, and while the cities are valuable enough to warrant a Garrisoned lord, the Oblasts have more to gain by having an Ataman buff them for you.

'''Devotion and Supporters:''' A campaign mechanic that simulates the power struggle between the Orthodoxy and the Royalty: the first one to gain 600 supporters wins and if you win, you confederate the other. Supporters are generated by building unique buildings in the major cities, or by building Orthodoxy churches. They can also be gained by invoking "the Motherland," which is like Rites that give you campaign bonuses, but also have challenges that you need to fulfill. For example, invoking Ursun deals attrition to enemies and slows them, but gives you +5 Supporters for every new settlement you occupy; Tor gives +2 supporters every time you enter a battle, and +10 melee attack. Kostaltyn will almost always have the edge in the beginning, but the Tzarina's safer realm means she'll eventually win out, so long as you dont lag behind in victories/tech.

Devotion is managed separately, and is gained by either sacrificing Chaos worshippers/Daemons post battle, or by religious buildings (you have two: Hallowed Woods, kinda like the Godswood in ASOIAF, that provides devotion and economy benefits, or Orthodox Churches, which also provide devotion and supporters, but cost Devotion as well.) Devotion is used for rites, certain tech, and buildings. You need to maintain above 100 devotion, too, because having too low Devotion spawns Chaos cults (completely independent of the Rifts/Public Order, which is annoying). The Rites are also pretty expensive, going from 60 to 80 and up to 200.

Unfortunately it does have to be mentioned that until tier 4 you only have one practical unit. the tier 0 kossar as it's low upkeep and easy replaceability is key for your weak economy and lack of decent units. Prepare to spam one unit even harder than the tomb kings. Is it boring as fuck-yes. is it the only practical way to hold off your enemies and unit kislev before you get swarmed by everyone-yes. —- light war sleds are only tier 3 and are extremely cost effective, tzar guard are tier 3, and armored kossars are good too. It’s really not as bad as it sounds.

</div></div>
<br>

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne

2022-09-17T17:22:11Z

2600:387:2:803:0:0:0:9F: /* War Beasts */

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Khorne]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why play Khorne?==
*Because sometimes you just want to not think too hard and rip the other guys apart limb from limb.
*You play aggressive, and don't want to play any of that "defense" bullshit
*[[Doom]] is your favorite game franchise and you always wanted to play from the Demon's point of view.
*You are fond of Mesoamerican cultivars that are not beans or squash.
*You want the best/second best warcry in the game
**''Ahem'': <span style='color:red;font-size:100%'> '''BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!'''

===Pros===
*'''Unmatched Melee''': With the high amounts of charge, damage, and armor in your faction, pretty much no one can beat you in a one to one melee fight. Your units beat pretty much anything in the same tier as them. The only way you could lose a melee fight is if you're peppered by missiles, magic or drained by a Mortis Engine.
*'''High Armour''': The mortal half of your roster has pretty high armour values, so non AP missiles and attacks won't really bother them. Your Daemons aren't so good in the armour department compared to the mortals but they do have plenty of resistances to make up for it.
*'''Monsters''': Bloodthirsters, Bloodcrushers, Skullcrushers, Spawn, Minotaurs and many more means you will have some of the scariest monster units in the entire game. Winning the monstermash shouldn't be an issue and allow your big bois to take over the battle for you.
*'''Magic Resiliency''': Magic is for wimpy nerds and daddy Khorne will make sure you won't die in the most embarrassing way possible. Enemy spells won't hurt you nearly as bad as other faction.
*'''Mobility''': Khorne actually has some wheels on him. You have two different units of warhounds, furies and cavalry to run around the map and out maneuver your opponents. Your infantry, especially Chaos Warriors, are pretty slow however, so keep that in mind.
*'''Strength through Kills''': The more you kill the stronger you get. As such, you are rewarded for being aggressive by getting more damage and shredding potential. Note that Khorne cares not if you're killing phoenix guard or skavenslaves, your units power up even faster if your opponent is dumb enough to throw a bunch of shitty chaff units at you
*'''Noob Friendly''': Khorne right clicks on things until they die. No backline you need to protect, no worrying about magic management or where to place spells, hell you barely need to worry about making sure your enemies are fighting the right targets. Due to your high armor and insane melee buffs, Khorne is actually pretty beginner friendly if you are just starting with game 3.
*'''Anti-Large''': You are the only demon faction with access to multiple (effective) anit-large units in all stages of the game, Halberd Chaos warriors, great weapon minotaur's, and finally Bloodthirsters keep you effective at anti-large at every stage of play.

===Cons===
*'''No Magic''': What, you want to blow shit up with your mind like a god damn pussy? If that's the case Khorne isn't for you. Even the Dwarfs have a substitute in the form of Runes that make up for it to an extent. You will not be able to contribute any magic to the field in the form of wizards, costing you some AOE burst.
*'''Less Effective Against Elites''': with your battle mechanic keying off ''number'' of kills it means that against elite factions that bring fewer soldiers you will be less effective. Not ''ineffective'' mind you, but it does mean you'll be at a disadvantage as less units benefit from your Hellblade ability.
*'''Limited Ranged''': Skullcannons and marauder horsemen are your only ranged option, meaning you don't really have any option to play defense. Granted if you wanted to play a defensive set up why the hell are you playing Khorne in the first place?
*'''Lack of Versatility''': Sneakiness and subtlety are for little bitches. You may be one of the most hardcore melee rush factions in the game, but that's really all you got going for you. This can make Khorne relatively easier to game plan for compared to a lot of other factions who have an easier time employing numerous tactics.
*'''Top Heavy''': More of a problem before the Champions of Chaos DLC when Khorne's cheapest infantry unit were freaking Chaos Warriors but Khorne is still missing cheap anti-large infantry and expendable chaff, both of which are necessary to spread the field.
*'''Friends? What are those?''': Well... what do you expect? Not only are you playing a game called Total '''WAR''', you're playing for the Chaos God of Blood. The only mortal "allies" you can make are with the Warriors of Chaos, Beastmen, Norsca and ''potentially'' Skaven and Ogres, if they're not feeling duplicitous. Even as far as Daemons go, Slaanesh isn't keen on working with your forces and even other Khornate factions tend to rub each other the wrong way. Everyone else you're automatically at war with.
*'''DLC''': Every core race has joined this club, and you are noticeably missing core units from the mortals side of things unless you open your wallet.
*'''Poor Economy''': What the hell were you expecting? It's the Blood God, not the Personal Finance God. The only money you'll be making is from post battle loot, sacking and raiding. Combine that with your expensive units and the fact that Blood Hosts cost upkeep and you'll be in the red most of the time.

==Faction traits==
*'''Hellblade''': Units gain 20% base and AP damage when they get 60 kills. Designed to reward you for being aggressive with your units with more damage. It'll be easier to get this off on squishy swarm factions (you'll get this fighting Skaven in no time) than smaller tank factions (good luck getting this fighting Dwarfs or especially Lizardmen and Wood Elves with all their single-entity beatsticks), although it might be reworked to relate to damage instead of raw kills, anything else would make fighting especially against Ogres a nightmare.

*'''Daemonic''': Undead with extra steps, really. Once your daemonic units lose enough leadership, they'll begin to lose health and fade back into the Warp in the same vein that undead units crumble away. The good news is that even if your daemons are doomed to evaporate, they'll at least stick in and fight to the last model.

*'''Blood for the Blood God''': As you kill off individual enemy models over the course of a battle a meter on the right hand of the screen slowly fills, unlocking three abilities at three different tiers. As you use these abilities the meter goes back down, but you can refill it by killing more enemy models. This, plus the Hellblade ability for your daemons, is going to make you a terror in the night for swarming factions like Skaven, Beastmen, or the undead, but is going to be a lot less useful against low-model count factions like the High Elves or Ogres.
**''Horn of Khorne'': The first ability is an area of effect buff that can be cast anywhere on the map, granting 24 melee attack to any of your units in the radius. Lasts for 31 seconds and has a cooldown of 90 seconds.
**''Relentless Rage'': The second ability is another area of effect buff, granting any of your units in the radius Unbreakable but also making them unkillable for the duration of the effect, similar to the Cohort of Sotek RoR's special ability. Lasts for 20 seconds and has a cooldown of 90 seconds.
**''Blade of Khorne'': The final ability is a massive explosion spell that can be cast anywhere on the map and deals magical and armor piercing damage. Has a cooldown of 120 seconds.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===

*'''[[Skarbrand]]''': SKARBRAND APPRECIATES NOT BEING DLC!!!! Our first Legendary Lord along with being a pure combat beast. He gets stronger with every kill that he gets, meaning unlike most single entities getting tied up by chaff might be beneficial in the long run. He has two special abilities called Wrathful Reaper and Rage Embodied. Wrathful Reaper gives Skarbrand hefty bonuses to his AP and weapon strength ad the cost of rampaging him. Rage Embodied allows him to cause Rampage in enemy units with less than half leadership in a very wide radius around him, but this is activated and not constant like with Witch Elves. [[Awesome|He can also spit fire now]]. Despite being stuck on the ground unlike other Bloodthirsters, Skarbrand has 80 speed so escaping him will be a challenge. This also applies to his campaign, as his faction bonuses provide bonus campaign movement after razing settlements and Skarbrand himself gets even more speed by winning battles in general, making him extra speedy post-siege.
** Skarbrand may well be the absolute strongest melee lord in the game. You can send him out one his own against an entire army and he'll win, see for yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1umE3zobwEU, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=skarbrand+one+man+doomstack+.

*'''[[Valkia the Bloody]] (DLC, Multiplayer only)''':

===Generic Lords===

*'''Exalted Bloodthirster''': One of two possible Bloodthirster units available in the army, this one being the Lord equivalent. As you'd expect, it's really fucking scary. The stat line on this thing is absolutely absurd, giving it flaming and magical attacks along with a plentiful amount of AP. It also has a bunch of gnarly special abilities including one called Deathblow that buffs its already spooky weapon strength by 50% (both AP and Non AP), and another that causes automatic miscast damage to any wizard casting spells nearby. The ability to fly also allows it to pick and choose its targets and stay on the move. Combine all of this with it being unbreakable due to it's Daemonic trait and the Exalted Bloodthirster is extremely hard to get rid of. Great in campaign, BUT you should really think twice before taking him in multiplayer where he costs 3150! gold. An exalted bloodthirster is good, but not when you can get two units of exalted bloodletters and one unit of chaos warriors for the same price. And if you're absolutely deadset on paying out the nose for a single entity murder machine, you can pay 200 more gold and get Skarbrand instead.

*'''Herald of Khorne''': A Bloodletter lord focused more on buffing and support rather than the pure killing power of a Bloodthister. He gives offensive buffs to your units, making him the closest thing to a caster lord you get. He can be mounted on both a Juggernaut and a Blood Throne, so while the Bloodthirster is more of a general melee beast the Heralds will be more of an anti infantry specialist. While no slouch in melee (especially with Hellblade) his big selling point are his buffs, one of which is a constant leadership/melee attack aura and the other is a big AoE boost to melee attack that lasts for 25 seconds. In campaign, upgrading a herald lord is the only way to get an exalted greater daemon lord so you're gonna use these guys a lot.

*'''Chaos Lord of Khorne (DLC)''': Serves a similar buffing + support role as a herald, except with better armor and overall survivability.

*'''Daemon Prince of Khorne (DLC)''': A flying monster lord who's unfortunately inferior to an exalted bloodthirster in almost every way despite costing almost the same price. CA really should have taken away his wings and buffed his stats so he could fit a niche as a non-legendary ground bound monster lord. His is much more worth it in campaign however.

==Heroes==

===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===

*'''Cultist of Khorne''': Murderhobo taken to it's most literal. With a shield and decent armor he's one of your tankier characters, but not quite as good on offense. His primary use, as with all of the Cultist characters, is the ability to summon a unit of Bloodletters once per match. He only comes with a Chaos Steed, allowing him to get across the field quickly. Can summon up to 3 bloodletters and one bloodthirster per fight with campaign skills. Can easily be khornes best doomstack if you want, the 3 bloodletters and one bloodthirster each on 18 of these is of course insane.

*'''Bloodreaper''': A combat/support character for going around murdering groups of infantry while also giving offensive buffs to your units. He can ride both a Juggernaut and a Blood Throne, making him a strong mobile threat. With Hellblade, AP, and anti infantry he's a scary melee character. Has an ability that gives 66% spell resistance to nearby allies, so useful against magic heavy armies like Tzeentch or the Vampire Counts but thats unlikely to be useful except in multiplayer. In campaign you'll probably prefer the one boosting weapon strength or melee attack.

*'''Exalted Hero of Khorne (DLC)''': Another support hero, only one who buffs melee attack, charge bonus, and weapon damage for everyone around him. Also a very good combat character in his own right. Can come on a chaos steed, chariot, or juggernaut.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Marauders of Khorne (DLC)''': Your only cheapish infantry with performance and cost similar to ork boyz.

*'''Marauders of Khorne (Dual Weapons) (DLC)''': An upgrade to vanilla marauders with more models, more weapon damage, and more armor piercing than freaking chaos warriors! Problem is, they have no shields, armor, or melee defense. Try to get them to fight something more valuable than they are before they get charged or shot to death by missiles. Their cost puts them in the ballpark of units like wardancers and daemonettes, so mulching chaff units will likely result in them dying before you get your money's worth out of them.

*'''Brutes of the Hound (Marauder Berserkers) (RoR) (DLC)''':

*'''Bloodletters''': Your mid tier Daemon unit, meaning that unlike Furies these guy might actually kill what they're fighting. They wield great swords with fire, magical, AP damage and anti-infantry, so they're really good at busting through armored infantry. As Daemons they're also unbreakable and contain nice defensive buffs, which is good because 30 armour isn't great. They're your cheapest source of AP in the infantry fight, which makes them highly desirable when fighting heavy armor. Against factions with high AP (Slaanesh), probably skip the chaos warriors for bloodletters as the bloodletters are slightly more killy and are unbreakable.

*'''Chaos Warriors of Khorne''': Compared to undivided Warriors of Chaos they have Frenzy and higher attack and charge in exchange for less melee defense. They are way more designed for going on the offensive, which is what you should expect from Khorne. They aren't exactly glass cannons either, as they also have very good armor to block missiles. They come in three variants; axe and shield for a holding force, halberd for anti large and dual axes for anti infantry. Their biggest drawback compared to daemonic infantry is that they will run away, so they may not be your best choice against factions with fear and terror aplenty like the undead. Exalted bloodletters will probably outcompete the dual axe or shield version unless you're in desperate need of shields. Halberd variant is your only anti-large infantry with charge defense so should remain a useful niche all game.

*'''Exalted Bloodletters''': Bloodletters plus. They're a very similar unit only just much better at the job but also much more expensive. These guys will let you carve through more elite options than your standard Bloodletters can. Best go-to late game troops.
**'''Hellforged Host''': Hey look, Daemons who actually know what armor is! These guys come in with 60 armor so unlike the normal Exalted Bloodletters they don't have to worry about getting torn apart if missiles look at them funny. They also get their Hellblade buff on 40 kills instead of 80, so unless you REALLY misuse them, you should get that buff no problem.

*'''Chosen of Khorne (DLC)''': your tankiest elite infantry but they lack AP, so more a defensive or anti-chaff unit compared to exalted bloodletters

===Cavalry===

*'''Skullcrusher''': Not to be confused with Bloodcrushers which is a Bloodletter riding a Juggernaut, because Khorne is not very creative at naming things. They will be your Monstrous Cav similar to Demigryphs, and oh can they lay the whooping. With AP, Frenzy and ''77 CHARGE'' these things will turn whatever they charge at into paste. They're decently slow by cavalry standards, but with 130 armor they won't care that much if most standard cav get their hands on them. Their biggest weakness is that unlike their Daemon counterparts they actually will run away, but if that's their biggest problem I don't think they have much to worry about.

*'''Bloodcrusher''': Very similar to the Skullcrusher, though instead of an angry man riding the Robo-Rhino, it's an angry Daemon riding the Robo-Rhino. The big difference between these guys and Skullcrushers is that they're Daemonic so they have physical resistance and will crumble instead of running away. They also have an Anti Infantry bonus, making them a bit more specialized than their mortal counterparts. The big trade off for these is a noticeable decrease in stats, making them less effective against other cavalry. Still a good unit, especially against heavy infantry factions.
**'''Heralds of Khorne's Fury''': RoR Bloodcrushers with a fancy new brass color scheme. Their Hellblade ability is upgraded ti trigger at only 40 kills so they'll get their buffs from that much faster. They also have an aura that reduces the fire resistance of nearby enemy units which is useful against enemies who have fire resistance but doesn't seem to be of much use otherwise. The tooltip makes it sound like it applies the "Flammable!" effect but in-game testings has so far shown no evidence of this.

*'''Chaos Knights of Khorne (DLC)''': While chaos knights are by no means bad units, Khorne benefited from their addition less than the other chaos gods did since bloodcrushers and skullcrushers are superior in most matchups. That said, Khorne chaos knights have fire attacks, so they can be useful against flammable factions like tomb kings and wood elves.

===Missile Cavalry===

*'''Marauder Horsemen of Khorne (DLC):''' Your ranged skirmisher with flaming, armor piercing throwing axes. Use them to pick away at high value armored targets like heavy cavalry. Can also do double duty as light cavalry thanks to melee bonus vs. infantry and frenzy.

===Chariots===

*'''Chaos Chariots of Khorne (DLC)''': More or less the same as the WoC version except with frenzy and spell resistance.

*'''Gorebeast Chariot of Khorne''': More or less the same as the WoC version, only coming with frenzy and even bigger bonuses to melee stats. Very solid unit for countering heavy infantry factions and will be very rewarding with good cycle charging.

*'''Blood Shrine of Khorne''': Your support oriented platform. It's the weakest of the motorcycle Khorne units in combat but will provide big leadership buffs to anything around it. Plus, it heals while it's in melee so the poorer melee stats aren't be the worst thing in the world for it as it'll be hard to bring down.

===War Beasts===

*'''Chaos Furies (Khorne)''': They're Chaos harpies, only they lean even more into the glass cannon playstyle. They have surprisingly high melee attack and weapon strength. Combine that with having vanguard and high speed, and they will feast upon any artillery or archers you can get on them. Unlike the furies of the other gods, these guys come with Frenzy. Their melee defense is pitiful and they have low model count, so keeping them alive may be some work. They also have 50% magic resistance. Good skirmisher harassers, but Flesh Hounds are better.

*'''Chaos Hounds''': Serve the same purpose they have in the WoC roster as skirmisher and artillery hunters and a cheap way to chase routing units off of the map. You'll want to swap them out for Flesh Hounds where possible, as the only advantage they bring is being more numerous and less expensive.

*'''Flesh Hounds''': They share the same speed as normal Warhounds (95) but have a much smaller model count per unit but are much stronger and tougher. They also have magic resistance of 50% like Furies do. They inhabit that space of smaller war hound units from Drycha and the Norscans, and act as light cavalry. Hit like absolute trucks. Very good in multiplayer for chewing up (literally) low armored units/heros. They do terribly in auto resolve though.

===Monsters===

*'''Spawn of Khorne''': Chaos Spawn for Khorne. Yeah that's pretty much it. They have significantly higher weapon strength so they will lawn mower light troops even faster than normal spawn do already. They trade this for some slightly reduced melee defense, as you'd expect from the all out offense Khorne style, but they also have Rampage which limits their reliability. Despite these drawbacks, they're one of Khorne's more reliable multiplayer units. An exalted bloodthirster is great, but not when he's more expensive than 3 units of chaos spawn. A must-pick in multiplayer but a never-pick in campaign

*'''Minotaurs of Khorne''': Or "Khornatuars" as stated in the blog reveal (Khornbulls sound better, don't at me). Compared to normal minotaurs these guys have way heavier armor and get stronger as they gain more kills, meaning they are designed more for sustained combat than the hit and run style of the Beastmen version. They come in a dual axe version for anti infantry and a great weapon version for anti large. The dual axe variant is kinda redundant with your exalted bloodletters and blood/skull crushers for infantry killing. The great weapon variant definitely will butcher large enemies but ask yourself if a halberd chaos warrior wouldn’t be tougher and more cost effective. Use with care, they are expensive and have small unit sizes. Great speed if you want mobile anti-large, But bloodthirsters do mobile anti-large even better. Good but hard to find a place for versus other units.

*'''Soul Grinder of Khorne''': Did anyone think we were getting this thing? It's a tanky single entity monster that comes with a precursor scattergun that does 800 damage with 120 range and can fire on the move. The Khorne soul grinder can chop up the Tzeentch + Nurgle variants in melee, but gets its ass handed to it by the Slaanesh version who traded the cannon away for anti-large choppy power.

*'''Bloodthirster''': The smaller, more accessible version of its Exalted cousin. It trades a lot of the scary combat stats in return for Anti-Large, making it more of a dedicated monster fighter. Aside from that, it functions as a cheaper version of the Exalted lord version, with whom it can make a good goon squad. Can take on pretty much any flying unit and win.

*'''The Bloodbrute Behemoth (Ghorgon) (RoR) (DLC)''': Costs more than a bloodthirster and can't fly like a bloodthirster, but killier than a bloodthirster in every way that matters. It also gets bonuses vs weaker enemies and like Skarbrand gets increased weapon strength as it kills things during battles. Pair him with Skarbrand for a terrifying, if expensive deathstar.

===Artillery===

*'''Skull Cannon''': CANNON ON WHEELS! Khorne's only reliable ranged unit (for now, anyway), and it's a mixed bag. It has good range and damage, and its mobility allows it to keep itself safe from enemy ranged and cavalry that try to take it out. However its accuracy isn't great, its ammo count is low, and as a single entity it can't put out a very good volume of fire. If something does get its hands on it, it's hard to kill with its high armor and ability to regenerate in melee, although it has only 18 melee defense, so if something does catch it it might take some hits. If it runs out of ammo, it also functions well as a chariot, where it can then gain ammo while in melee, which slightly offsets its low ammo count.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
Khorne is geared up to be ''the'' hyper offense faction. You have aggressive heavy infantry and a plentiful number of monsters, so you are going to absolutely dominate any melee grind that you find yourself in. Your biggest problem is going to be getting there in the first place. You have one ranged option (which aren't exactly Sisters of Avelorn or Waywatchers), and no disposable infantry chaff to soak up enemy fire. This means that if the enemy has sufficient fire they will be able to blast you to pieces before you even get to melee, and if half your army is already dead the battle may already be lost. You do have hounds and furies to deal with that, but most factions have ways to deal with them. The lack of magic means you also don't have any big burst abilities or big buff and debuffs outside of heralds and heroes. The lack of magic and missiles means this is one of the few factions were elite infantry might be a decent option to take against you (though that means they are trying to out melee you, which is usually never a smart idea). getting to the lines will be a bit of a chore but once you do, no one will be able to stop you. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You're both rush armies with limited range options. The big differences are that the Beastmen are faster than you are but have worse leadership and armor. If you can drag this out into a war of attrition you'll probably win, as the Beastmen rely so heavily on their charge bonuses. Negate that and they will quickly break before you. A clever Beastmen player will probably try to kite you with Throwing Axe Centigors and Ungor Raiders, while using his greater speed to cycle charge you and avoid prolonged engagements. To counter this bring some Flesh Hounds, who hit hard but are still fast. Also consider bringing Skarbrand, who can cause the low-leadership Beastmen troops to Rampage into bad matchups.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': Your faction abilities make your army stronger the more skulls you collect, and Bretonnia's peasants have an awful lot of skulls. You'll roll over their front line like it's not even there and get more powerful as you do it. Their knights might be a bit more problematic, as may their powerful heroes, but your knights are nothing to scoff at either. The biggest risk to you might be trebuchets and archers, as they can soften you up before you can get into melee and do your butchering. Be sure to bring some hounds or Furies to give them something else to worry about. Bretonnia also sometimes struggles against big single entity monsters so maybe bring a Bloodthirster or two.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': Between giant monsters and hardy infantry you and the WoC are well matched, but Hellcannons are probably going to beat your Skull Cannons. Send fliers or hounds after it if you can. Otherwise hope you can make it into melee where you might be able to rack up some kills for your army abilities, especially Relentless Rage.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': What's that? You don't like the idea of fighting a super AP heavy faction with a ton of mobility you can't keep up with? Well do I have bad news for you! Dark Elves tend to do well against slower armored races and sadly that includes you. If you want some edge elf skulls for Khorne, you should probably grab war hounds to chase down Dark Riders and Scourgerunners to keep them away from all your armor. You could choose to go for Bloodletters if you want a cheap (well, by Khorne standards) frontline, or Chaos Warriors with shields to try and soak up as much missile fire as possible. Once you do get into melee, the Druchii are fucked but they will still have a ton of AP fire to worry about, so that should be your priority. Avoid big monsters, they will get shot to hell.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Good news: the Dwarfs have no mobility and very limited crowd control! Bad news: they have high morale, high melee defense, great artillery and great range. Getting in melee will be a slog, and once you do get in melee it will be a slow affair. You have the armor-piercing and strength + attack to get through their lines, but they have the leadership and melee defence to still resist for a while. Take a couple of hounds and furies to try to disrupt their artillery/ranged while your main army gets into melee.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Similar to fighting dwarfs, except Cathay traded some ranged/melee proficiency away in exchange for magic disruption options and mobile units capable of intercepting your own fast movers. You'll want to go heavier on skirmishers than fighting vs. dwarfs and maybe bring a cultist or two to summon bloodletters behind the enemy line.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': This has a lot more going on than you'd think, while usually the greenskins rely on melee a lot going up against your anti-infantry bloodletters is suicidal for even big'uns however the greenskins do have a lot of cavalry options that can body you. anti-large boar boy big'uns can shut down your cavalry pretty fast and chariots and wolf riders can really hurt your frontline. Do your best to bring enough 'chaser' units like flesh hounds to bog down a greenskin player if he tries to skirmish you while maintaining a strong front line to mulch his infantry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''':

*'''Khorne''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': This is a faction that is actually ''decently'' similar to you, only they trade a lot of the melee bullshit in exchange for actual skirmishers and magic. First of all, if he's dumb enough to bring Skink Cohorts, you got nothing to worry about. They'll die stupid fast and make your units stronger. It's Saurus and Dinos you got to watch out for because not only are they tough but they make getting your buffs harder due to lower model counts. A front line of Bloodletters can trade pretty cost effectively into Saurus, but they are vulnerable to Chameleon Skink fire. Grabbing a few Furies or Hounds to make sure the blowpipes are busy should let you tear up the Saurus with your daemons. To handle Dinos, grab a Bloodthirster or two and watch them go to town. They should be able to outbox most dinos the Lizards can throw at you, and if they can't your monsters can fly and their can't so just cycle charge until it dies. If he has a brain he's bringing a Slaan, so have some cav or mobile units ready to hunt him down. This is going to be a bloody fight either way, but hey that just make Khorne happier.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': A Nurgle favored match up. Who knew that getting into a melee infantry grind with Nurgle might be a bad idea? Nurgle has plentiful access to aoe debuffs and mortis engine effects, which mean, your killily infantry will actually won't be killing that well. Currently, the meta for Nurgle is to bring a top-heavy build focusing on single entities, usually a Exalted Great Unclean One, a beast of Nurgle, and two Nurgle Cultists. Generally, you are advised to try to snipe the Exalted Great Unclean One before it can spam heals and debuffs and drag your army down. A similar single entity heavy build such as an Exalted Bloodthirster (Either generic or Skarbrand, either is typically fine) along with another regular Bloodthirster to beat the Exalted Great Unclean One's face in quickly might be decent to try. That, and halberds.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': This might end up being one of your worst matchups. The Ogres have plenty of powerful ranged units that can shell you as you try to reach them. Once you do most of their units are monsters or monstrous infantry, so unless he's stupid and brings Gnoblars your Blood for the Blood God ability might as well not exist. You can't even counter their cannons with your few cheap fast units because the ogres will step on them without even noticing. Bring lots of anti-large and hope for the best.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The Skaven front line will evaporate the moment you touch it and all those rat skulls will juice your army up nice and good. That's the good news. The bad news is you're going to get blasted to hell and back as you approach them. Your best bet is probably to go as wide and cheap as you can. Hounds, Furies, the cheapest infantry you can get away with, anything that lets you keep the pressure up from all fronts. It's not like you actually need the really tough stuff to stomp clanrats.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': Your main rival in the warp, Khorne will be slightly less pissed if you show the Lord of Excess who the real boss of the warp is. Dual axe Khorne Chaos Warriors are great here, as they beat Daemonettes in a head on charge due to their high eapon strength and infantry bonus. Bloodletters and Exalted Bloodletters might be the better option, as while the AP is largely useless against Slaanesh, the fact they're unbreakable and have Anti Infantry means they should be able to handle the front line. Yes, they have low armor but it's not like the other guys have missiles to take advantage of that anyway. Also, Minotaurs might end up being great here. While slower than the Beastmen version they are still speedy enough to potentially check some of the horny guys on the other side. The lack of missiles means Slaanesh will have to deal with them in melee, and not only do you have both an anti infantry and anti large variant, they act as great mass for if a KOS or cavalry engage and try to pull out. With that in mind, a Bloodthirster will beat a KOS in extended melee, so keeping it tied up with heavy mass will help them stomp on the four armed goat things. Their cavalry will run circles around you, but it's not like you have much of a backline to dive anyway. If the fight devolves into a brawl, you'll win. The hard part is going to be pinning the masochistic freaks down long enough to get to that point.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Mostly the Tomb Kings are falling to their bony knees weeping tears of sand in joy that despite all appearances you can't use the Lore of Fire. And then they realized the Champions of Chaos DLC gave you skirmish cavalry with flaming throwing axes. Marauder horsemen of Khorne were made for this matchup. Put them somewhere safe until you've tied up their ranged, then ride in for the kill.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Let's see here, their armies are mostly chaff, which only helps you get buffs for your units and your army abilities. They also have a large reliance on magic in order to do a lot of their damage, which you are resistant to. Your Daemons are unbreakable, so you don't give a crap about their Fear and Terror, and their lack of missiles mean they can't really hurt you before melee is reached (though keep an eye out for flying spell casters). Oh, and your Daemons do fire damage which stiffles healing, their biggest advantage. Yeah, this match up is probably going to be very one sided for you. The biggest thing you will likely have to worry about are their air force and cavalry. Blood Knights may also be troublesome, though getting some halberds and support from Skull Crushers should deal with that. Bloodletters will have a field day here, as they will shred most Vampire infantry, get their Hellblade buff up pretty fast and don't have to worry too much about missiles. Skarbrand or an Exalted Bloodthirster + a normal Bloodthirster should deal with any monsers they bring to the table.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''':

==Campaign Strategies==

Do you really NEED a campaign guide for Khornate factions? Khorne is able to wipe out SEVERAL Armies and Settlements in just ONE TURN

Depending on how great you are and how much manual playing of battles you do your Blood Hosts pretty much will keep on razing settlements and making MOAR Blood Host Armies!

Bring a Khornate Cultist to summon dispoable Daemons as they and Skarbrand will do most of the fighting and killing in the main army

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne

2022-09-17T17:09:49Z

2600:387:2:803:0:0:0:9F: /* Generic Lords */

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Khorne]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why play Khorne?==
*Because sometimes you just want to not think too hard and rip the other guys apart limb from limb.
*You play aggressive, and don't want to play any of that "defense" bullshit
*[[Doom]] is your favorite game franchise and you always wanted to play from the Demon's point of view.
*You are fond of Mesoamerican cultivars that are not beans or squash.
*You want the best/second best warcry in the game
**''Ahem'': <span style='color:red;font-size:100%'> '''BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!'''

===Pros===
*'''Unmatched Melee''': With the high amounts of charge, damage, and armor in your faction, pretty much no one can beat you in a one to one melee fight. Your units beat pretty much anything in the same tier as them. The only way you could lose a melee fight is if you're peppered by missiles, magic or drained by a Mortis Engine.
*'''High Armour''': The mortal half of your roster has pretty high armour values, so non AP missiles and attacks won't really bother them. Your Daemons aren't so good in the armour department compared to the mortals but they do have plenty of resistances to make up for it.
*'''Monsters''': Bloodthirsters, Bloodcrushers, Skullcrushers, Spawn, Minotaurs and many more means you will have some of the scariest monster units in the entire game. Winning the monstermash shouldn't be an issue and allow your big bois to take over the battle for you.
*'''Magic Resiliency''': Magic is for wimpy nerds and daddy Khorne will make sure you won't die in the most embarrassing way possible. Enemy spells won't hurt you nearly as bad as other faction.
*'''Mobility''': Khorne actually has some wheels on him. You have two different units of warhounds, furies and cavalry to run around the map and out maneuver your opponents. Your infantry, especially Chaos Warriors, are pretty slow however, so keep that in mind.
*'''Strength through Kills''': The more you kill the stronger you get. As such, you are rewarded for being aggressive by getting more damage and shredding potential. Note that Khorne cares not if you're killing phoenix guard or skavenslaves, your units power up even faster if your opponent is dumb enough to throw a bunch of shitty chaff units at you
*'''Noob Friendly''': Khorne right clicks on things until they die. No backline you need to protect, no worrying about magic management or where to place spells, hell you barely need to worry about making sure your enemies are fighting the right targets. Due to your high armor and insane melee buffs, Khorne is actually pretty beginner friendly if you are just starting with game 3.
*'''Anti-Large''': You are the only demon faction with access to multiple (effective) anit-large units in all stages of the game, Halberd Chaos warriors, great weapon minotaur's, and finally Bloodthirsters keep you effective at anti-large at every stage of play.

===Cons===
*'''No Magic''': What, you want to blow shit up with your mind like a god damn pussy? If that's the case Khorne isn't for you. Even the Dwarfs have a substitute in the form of Runes that make up for it to an extent. You will not be able to contribute any magic to the field in the form of wizards, costing you some AOE burst.
*'''Less Effective Against Elites''': with your battle mechanic keying off ''number'' of kills it means that against elite factions that bring fewer soldiers you will be less effective. Not ''ineffective'' mind you, but it does mean you'll be at a disadvantage as less units benefit from your Hellblade ability.
*'''Limited Ranged''': Skullcannons and marauder horsemen are your only ranged option, meaning you don't really have any option to play defense. Granted if you wanted to play a defensive set up why the hell are you playing Khorne in the first place?
*'''Lack of Versatility''': Sneakiness and subtlety are for little bitches. You may be one of the most hardcore melee rush factions in the game, but that's really all you got going for you. This can make Khorne relatively easier to game plan for compared to a lot of other factions who have an easier time employing numerous tactics.
*'''Top Heavy''': More of a problem before the Champions of Chaos DLC when Khorne's cheapest infantry unit were freaking Chaos Warriors but Khorne is still missing cheap anti-large infantry and expendable chaff, both of which are necessary to spread the field.
*'''Friends? What are those?''': Well... what do you expect? Not only are you playing a game called Total '''WAR''', you're playing for the Chaos God of Blood. The only mortal "allies" you can make are with the Warriors of Chaos, Beastmen, Norsca and ''potentially'' Skaven and Ogres, if they're not feeling duplicitous. Even as far as Daemons go, Slaanesh isn't keen on working with your forces and even other Khornate factions tend to rub each other the wrong way. Everyone else you're automatically at war with.
*'''DLC''': Every core race has joined this club, and you are noticeably missing core units from the mortals side of things unless you open your wallet.
*'''Poor Economy''': What the hell were you expecting? It's the Blood God, not the Personal Finance God. The only money you'll be making is from post battle loot, sacking and raiding. Combine that with your expensive units and the fact that Blood Hosts cost upkeep and you'll be in the red most of the time.

==Faction traits==
*'''Hellblade''': Units gain 20% base and AP damage when they get 60 kills. Designed to reward you for being aggressive with your units with more damage. It'll be easier to get this off on squishy swarm factions (you'll get this fighting Skaven in no time) than smaller tank factions (good luck getting this fighting Dwarfs or especially Lizardmen and Wood Elves with all their single-entity beatsticks), although it might be reworked to relate to damage instead of raw kills, anything else would make fighting especially against Ogres a nightmare.

*'''Daemonic''': Undead with extra steps, really. Once your daemonic units lose enough leadership, they'll begin to lose health and fade back into the Warp in the same vein that undead units crumble away. The good news is that even if your daemons are doomed to evaporate, they'll at least stick in and fight to the last model.

*'''Blood for the Blood God''': As you kill off individual enemy models over the course of a battle a meter on the right hand of the screen slowly fills, unlocking three abilities at three different tiers. As you use these abilities the meter goes back down, but you can refill it by killing more enemy models. This, plus the Hellblade ability for your daemons, is going to make you a terror in the night for swarming factions like Skaven, Beastmen, or the undead, but is going to be a lot less useful against low-model count factions like the High Elves or Ogres.
**''Horn of Khorne'': The first ability is an area of effect buff that can be cast anywhere on the map, granting 24 melee attack to any of your units in the radius. Lasts for 31 seconds and has a cooldown of 90 seconds.
**''Relentless Rage'': The second ability is another area of effect buff, granting any of your units in the radius Unbreakable but also making them unkillable for the duration of the effect, similar to the Cohort of Sotek RoR's special ability. Lasts for 20 seconds and has a cooldown of 90 seconds.
**''Blade of Khorne'': The final ability is a massive explosion spell that can be cast anywhere on the map and deals magical and armor piercing damage. Has a cooldown of 120 seconds.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===

*'''[[Skarbrand]]''': SKARBRAND APPRECIATES NOT BEING DLC!!!! Our first Legendary Lord along with being a pure combat beast. He gets stronger with every kill that he gets, meaning unlike most single entities getting tied up by chaff might be beneficial in the long run. He has two special abilities called Wrathful Reaper and Rage Embodied. Wrathful Reaper gives Skarbrand hefty bonuses to his AP and weapon strength ad the cost of rampaging him. Rage Embodied allows him to cause Rampage in enemy units with less than half leadership in a very wide radius around him, but this is activated and not constant like with Witch Elves. [[Awesome|He can also spit fire now]]. Despite being stuck on the ground unlike other Bloodthirsters, Skarbrand has 80 speed so escaping him will be a challenge. This also applies to his campaign, as his faction bonuses provide bonus campaign movement after razing settlements and Skarbrand himself gets even more speed by winning battles in general, making him extra speedy post-siege.
** Skarbrand may well be the absolute strongest melee lord in the game. You can send him out one his own against an entire army and he'll win, see for yourself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1umE3zobwEU, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=skarbrand+one+man+doomstack+.

*'''[[Valkia the Bloody]] (DLC, Multiplayer only)''':

===Generic Lords===

*'''Exalted Bloodthirster''': One of two possible Bloodthirster units available in the army, this one being the Lord equivalent. As you'd expect, it's really fucking scary. The stat line on this thing is absolutely absurd, giving it flaming and magical attacks along with a plentiful amount of AP. It also has a bunch of gnarly special abilities including one called Deathblow that buffs its already spooky weapon strength by 50% (both AP and Non AP), and another that causes automatic miscast damage to any wizard casting spells nearby. The ability to fly also allows it to pick and choose its targets and stay on the move. Combine all of this with it being unbreakable due to it's Daemonic trait and the Exalted Bloodthirster is extremely hard to get rid of. Great in campaign, BUT you should really think twice before taking him in multiplayer where he costs 3150! gold. An exalted bloodthirster is good, but not when you can get two units of exalted bloodletters and one unit of chaos warriors for the same price. And if you're absolutely deadset on paying out the nose for a single entity murder machine, you can pay 200 more gold and get Skarbrand instead.

*'''Herald of Khorne''': A Bloodletter lord focused more on buffing and support rather than the pure killing power of a Bloodthister. He gives offensive buffs to your units, making him the closest thing to a caster lord you get. He can be mounted on both a Juggernaut and a Blood Throne, so while the Bloodthirster is more of a general melee beast the Heralds will be more of an anti infantry specialist. While no slouch in melee (especially with Hellblade) his big selling point are his buffs, one of which is a constant leadership/melee attack aura and the other is a big AoE boost to melee attack that lasts for 25 seconds. In campaign, upgrading a herald lord is the only way to get an exalted greater daemon lord so you're gonna use these guys a lot.

*'''Chaos Lord of Khorne (DLC)''': Serves a similar buffing + support role as a herald, except with better armor and overall survivability.

*'''Daemon Prince of Khorne (DLC)''': A flying monster lord who's unfortunately inferior to an exalted bloodthirster in almost every way despite costing almost the same price. CA really should have taken away his wings and buffed his stats so he could fit a niche as a non-legendary ground bound monster lord. His is much more worth it in campaign however.

==Heroes==

===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===

*'''Cultist of Khorne''': Murderhobo taken to it's most literal. With a shield and decent armor he's one of your tankier characters, but not quite as good on offense. His primary use, as with all of the Cultist characters, is the ability to summon a unit of Bloodletters once per match. He only comes with a Chaos Steed, allowing him to get across the field quickly. Can summon up to 3 bloodletters and one bloodthirster per fight with campaign skills. Can easily be khornes best doomstack if you want, the 3 bloodletters and one bloodthirster each on 18 of these is of course insane.

*'''Bloodreaper''': A combat/support character for going around murdering groups of infantry while also giving offensive buffs to your units. He can ride both a Juggernaut and a Blood Throne, making him a strong mobile threat. With Hellblade, AP, and anti infantry he's a scary melee character. Has an ability that gives 66% spell resistance to nearby allies, so useful against magic heavy armies like Tzeentch or the Vampire Counts but thats unlikely to be useful except in multiplayer. In campaign you'll probably prefer the one boosting weapon strength or melee attack.

*'''Exalted Hero of Khorne (DLC)''': Another support hero, only one who buffs melee attack, charge bonus, and weapon damage for everyone around him. Also a very good combat character in his own right. Can come on a chaos steed, chariot, or juggernaut.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Marauders of Khorne (DLC)''': Your only cheapish infantry with performance and cost similar to ork boyz.

*'''Marauders of Khorne (Dual Weapons) (DLC)''': An upgrade to vanilla marauders with more models, more weapon damage, and more armor piercing than freaking chaos warriors! Problem is, they have no shields, armor, or melee defense. Try to get them to fight something more valuable than they are before they get charged or shot to death by missiles. Their cost puts them in the ballpark of units like wardancers and daemonettes, so mulching chaff units will likely result in them dying before you get your money's worth out of them.

*'''Brutes of the Hound (Marauder Berserkers) (RoR) (DLC)''':

*'''Bloodletters''': Your mid tier Daemon unit, meaning that unlike Furies these guy might actually kill what they're fighting. They wield great swords with fire, magical, AP damage and anti-infantry, so they're really good at busting through armored infantry. As Daemons they're also unbreakable and contain nice defensive buffs, which is good because 30 armour isn't great. They're your cheapest source of AP in the infantry fight, which makes them highly desirable when fighting heavy armor. Against factions with high AP (Slaanesh), probably skip the chaos warriors for bloodletters as the bloodletters are slightly more killy and are unbreakable.

*'''Chaos Warriors of Khorne''': Compared to undivided Warriors of Chaos they have Frenzy and higher attack and charge in exchange for less melee defense. They are way more designed for going on the offensive, which is what you should expect from Khorne. They aren't exactly glass cannons either, as they also have very good armor to block missiles. They come in three variants; axe and shield for a holding force, halberd for anti large and dual axes for anti infantry. Their biggest drawback compared to daemonic infantry is that they will run away, so they may not be your best choice against factions with fear and terror aplenty like the undead. Exalted bloodletters will probably outcompete the dual axe or shield version unless you're in desperate need of shields. Halberd variant is your only anti-large infantry with charge defense so should remain a useful niche all game.

*'''Exalted Bloodletters''': Bloodletters plus. They're a very similar unit only just much better at the job but also much more expensive. These guys will let you carve through more elite options than your standard Bloodletters can. Best go-to late game troops.
**'''Hellforged Host''': Hey look, Daemons who actually know what armor is! These guys come in with 60 armor so unlike the normal Exalted Bloodletters they don't have to worry about getting torn apart if missiles look at them funny. They also get their Hellblade buff on 40 kills instead of 80, so unless you REALLY misuse them, you should get that buff no problem.

*'''Chosen of Khorne (DLC)''': your tankiest elite infantry but they lack AP, so more a defensive or anti-chaff unit compared to exalted bloodletters

===Cavalry===

*'''Skullcrusher''': Not to be confused with Bloodcrushers which is a Bloodletter riding a Juggernaut, because Khorne is not very creative at naming things. They will be your Monstrous Cav similar to Demigryphs, and oh can they lay the whooping. With AP, Frenzy and ''77 CHARGE'' these things will turn whatever they charge at into paste. They're decently slow by cavalry standards, but with 130 armor they won't care that much if most standard cav get their hands on them. Their biggest weakness is that unlike their Daemon counterparts they actually will run away, but if that's their biggest problem I don't think they have much to worry about.

*'''Bloodcrusher''': Very similar to the Skullcrusher, though instead of an angry man riding the Robo-Rhino, it's an angry Daemon riding the Robo-Rhino. The big difference between these guys and Skullcrushers is that they're Daemonic so they have physical resistance and will crumble instead of running away. They also have an Anti Infantry bonus, making them a bit more specialized than their mortal counterparts. The big trade off for these is a noticeable decrease in stats, making them less effective against other cavalry. Still a good unit, especially against heavy infantry factions.
**'''Heralds of Khorne's Fury''': RoR Bloodcrushers with a fancy new brass color scheme. Their Hellblade ability is upgraded ti trigger at only 40 kills so they'll get their buffs from that much faster. They also have an aura that reduces the fire resistance of nearby enemy units which is useful against enemies who have fire resistance but doesn't seem to be of much use otherwise. The tooltip makes it sound like it applies the "Flammable!" effect but in-game testings has so far shown no evidence of this.

*'''Chaos Knights of Khorne (DLC)''': While chaos knights are by no means bad units, Khorne benefited from their addition less than the other chaos gods did since bloodcrushers and skullcrushers are superior in most matchups. That said, Khorne chaos knights have fire attacks, so they can be useful against flammable factions like tomb kings and wood elves.

===Missile Cavalry===

*'''Marauder Horsemen of Khorne (DLC):''' Your ranged skirmisher with flaming, armor piercing throwing axes. Use them to pick away at high value armored targets like heavy cavalry. Can also do double duty as light cavalry thanks to melee bonus vs. infantry and frenzy.

===Chariots===

*'''Chaos Chariots of Khorne (DLC)''': More or less the same as the WoC version except with frenzy and spell resistance.

*'''Gorebeast Chariot of Khorne''': More or less the same as the WoC version, only coming with frenzy and even bigger bonuses to melee stats. Very solid unit for countering heavy infantry factions and will be very rewarding with good cycle charging.

*'''Blood Shrine of Khorne''': Your support oriented platform. It's the weakest of the motorcycle Khorne units in combat but will provide big leadership buffs to anything around it. Plus, it heals while it's in melee so the poorer melee stats aren't be the worst thing in the world for it as it'll be hard to bring down.

===War Beasts===

*'''Chaos Furies (Khorne)''': They're Chaos harpies, only they lean even more into the glass cannon playstyle. They have surprisingly high melee attack and weapon strength. Combine that with having vanguard and high speed, and they will feast upon any artillery or archers you can get on them. Unlike the furies of the other gods, these guys come with Frenzy. Their melee defense is pitiful and they have low model count, so keeping them alive may be some work. They also have 50% magic resistance. Good skirmisher harassers, but Flesh Hounds are better.

*'''Chaos Hounds''': Serve the same purpose they have in the WoC roster as skirmisher and artillery hunters and a cheap way to chase routing units off of the map. You'll want to swap them out for Flesh Hounds where possible, as the only advantage they bring is being more numerous and less expensive.

*'''Flesh Hounds''': They share the same speed as normal Warhounds (95) but have a much smaller model count per unit but are much stronger and tougher. They also have magic resistance of 50% like Furies do. They inhabit that space of smaller war hound units from Drycha and the Norscans, and act as light cavalry. Hit like absolute trucks. Very good in multiplayer for chewing up (literally) low armored units/heros.

===Monsters===

*'''Spawn of Khorne''': Chaos Spawn for Khorne. Yeah that's pretty much it. They have significantly higher weapon strength so they will lawn mower light troops even faster than normal spawn do already. They trade this for some slightly reduced melee defense, as you'd expect from the all out offense Khorne style, but they also have Rampage which limits their reliability. Despite these drawbacks, they're one of Khorne's more reliable multiplayer units. An exalted bloodthirster is great, but not when he's more expensive than 3 units of chaos spawn. A must-pick in multiplayer but a never-pick in campaign

*'''Minotaurs of Khorne''': Or "Khornatuars" as stated in the blog reveal (Khornbulls sound better, don't at me). Compared to normal minotaurs these guys have way heavier armor and get stronger as they gain more kills, meaning they are designed more for sustained combat than the hit and run style of the Beastmen version. They come in a dual axe version for anti infantry and a great weapon version for anti large. The dual axe variant is kinda redundant with your exalted bloodletters and blood/skull crushers for infantry killing. The great weapon variant definitely will butcher large enemies but ask yourself if a halberd chaos warrior wouldn’t be tougher and more cost effective. Use with care, they are expensive and have small unit sizes. Great speed if you want mobile anti-large, But bloodthirsters do mobile anti-large even better. Good but hard to find a place for versus other units.

*'''Soul Grinder of Khorne''': Did anyone think we were getting this thing? It's a tanky single entity monster that comes with a precursor scattergun that does 800 damage with 120 range and can fire on the move. The Khorne soul grinder can chop up the Tzeentch + Nurgle variants in melee, but gets its ass handed to it by the Slaanesh version who traded the cannon away for anti-large choppy power.

*'''Bloodthirster''': The smaller, more accessible version of its Exalted cousin. It trades a lot of the scary combat stats in return for Anti-Large, making it more of a dedicated monster fighter. Aside from that, it functions as a cheaper version of the Exalted lord version, with whom it can make a good goon squad. Can take on pretty much any flying unit and win.

*'''The Bloodbrute Behemoth (Ghorgon) (RoR) (DLC)''': Costs more than a bloodthirster and can't fly like a bloodthirster, but killier than a bloodthirster in every way that matters. It also gets bonuses vs weaker enemies and like Skarbrand gets increased weapon strength as it kills things during battles. Pair him with Skarbrand for a terrifying, if expensive deathstar.

===Artillery===

*'''Skull Cannon''': CANNON ON WHEELS! Khorne's only reliable ranged unit (for now, anyway), and it's a mixed bag. It has good range and damage, and its mobility allows it to keep itself safe from enemy ranged and cavalry that try to take it out. However its accuracy isn't great, its ammo count is low, and as a single entity it can't put out a very good volume of fire. If something does get its hands on it, it's hard to kill with its high armor and ability to regenerate in melee, although it has only 18 melee defense, so if something does catch it it might take some hits. If it runs out of ammo, it also functions well as a chariot, where it can then gain ammo while in melee, which slightly offsets its low ammo count.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
Khorne is geared up to be ''the'' hyper offense faction. You have aggressive heavy infantry and a plentiful number of monsters, so you are going to absolutely dominate any melee grind that you find yourself in. Your biggest problem is going to be getting there in the first place. You have one ranged option (which aren't exactly Sisters of Avelorn or Waywatchers), and no disposable infantry chaff to soak up enemy fire. This means that if the enemy has sufficient fire they will be able to blast you to pieces before you even get to melee, and if half your army is already dead the battle may already be lost. You do have hounds and furies to deal with that, but most factions have ways to deal with them. The lack of magic means you also don't have any big burst abilities or big buff and debuffs outside of heralds and heroes. The lack of magic and missiles means this is one of the few factions were elite infantry might be a decent option to take against you (though that means they are trying to out melee you, which is usually never a smart idea). getting to the lines will be a bit of a chore but once you do, no one will be able to stop you. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You're both rush armies with limited range options. The big differences are that the Beastmen are faster than you are but have worse leadership and armor. If you can drag this out into a war of attrition you'll probably win, as the Beastmen rely so heavily on their charge bonuses. Negate that and they will quickly break before you. A clever Beastmen player will probably try to kite you with Throwing Axe Centigors and Ungor Raiders, while using his greater speed to cycle charge you and avoid prolonged engagements. To counter this bring some Flesh Hounds, who hit hard but are still fast. Also consider bringing Skarbrand, who can cause the low-leadership Beastmen troops to Rampage into bad matchups.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': Your faction abilities make your army stronger the more skulls you collect, and Bretonnia's peasants have an awful lot of skulls. You'll roll over their front line like it's not even there and get more powerful as you do it. Their knights might be a bit more problematic, as may their powerful heroes, but your knights are nothing to scoff at either. The biggest risk to you might be trebuchets and archers, as they can soften you up before you can get into melee and do your butchering. Be sure to bring some hounds or Furies to give them something else to worry about. Bretonnia also sometimes struggles against big single entity monsters so maybe bring a Bloodthirster or two.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': Between giant monsters and hardy infantry you and the WoC are well matched, but Hellcannons are probably going to beat your Skull Cannons. Send fliers or hounds after it if you can. Otherwise hope you can make it into melee where you might be able to rack up some kills for your army abilities, especially Relentless Rage.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': What's that? You don't like the idea of fighting a super AP heavy faction with a ton of mobility you can't keep up with? Well do I have bad news for you! Dark Elves tend to do well against slower armored races and sadly that includes you. If you want some edge elf skulls for Khorne, you should probably grab war hounds to chase down Dark Riders and Scourgerunners to keep them away from all your armor. You could choose to go for Bloodletters if you want a cheap (well, by Khorne standards) frontline, or Chaos Warriors with shields to try and soak up as much missile fire as possible. Once you do get into melee, the Druchii are fucked but they will still have a ton of AP fire to worry about, so that should be your priority. Avoid big monsters, they will get shot to hell.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Good news: the Dwarfs have no mobility and very limited crowd control! Bad news: they have high morale, high melee defense, great artillery and great range. Getting in melee will be a slog, and once you do get in melee it will be a slow affair. You have the armor-piercing and strength + attack to get through their lines, but they have the leadership and melee defence to still resist for a while. Take a couple of hounds and furies to try to disrupt their artillery/ranged while your main army gets into melee.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Similar to fighting dwarfs, except Cathay traded some ranged/melee proficiency away in exchange for magic disruption options and mobile units capable of intercepting your own fast movers. You'll want to go heavier on skirmishers than fighting vs. dwarfs and maybe bring a cultist or two to summon bloodletters behind the enemy line.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': This has a lot more going on than you'd think, while usually the greenskins rely on melee a lot going up against your anti-infantry bloodletters is suicidal for even big'uns however the greenskins do have a lot of cavalry options that can body you. anti-large boar boy big'uns can shut down your cavalry pretty fast and chariots and wolf riders can really hurt your frontline. Do your best to bring enough 'chaser' units like flesh hounds to bog down a greenskin player if he tries to skirmish you while maintaining a strong front line to mulch his infantry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''':

*'''Khorne''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': This is a faction that is actually ''decently'' similar to you, only they trade a lot of the melee bullshit in exchange for actual skirmishers and magic. First of all, if he's dumb enough to bring Skink Cohorts, you got nothing to worry about. They'll die stupid fast and make your units stronger. It's Saurus and Dinos you got to watch out for because not only are they tough but they make getting your buffs harder due to lower model counts. A front line of Bloodletters can trade pretty cost effectively into Saurus, but they are vulnerable to Chameleon Skink fire. Grabbing a few Furies or Hounds to make sure the blowpipes are busy should let you tear up the Saurus with your daemons. To handle Dinos, grab a Bloodthirster or two and watch them go to town. They should be able to outbox most dinos the Lizards can throw at you, and if they can't your monsters can fly and their can't so just cycle charge until it dies. If he has a brain he's bringing a Slaan, so have some cav or mobile units ready to hunt him down. This is going to be a bloody fight either way, but hey that just make Khorne happier.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': A Nurgle favored match up. Who knew that getting into a melee infantry grind with Nurgle might be a bad idea? Nurgle has plentiful access to aoe debuffs and mortis engine effects, which mean, your killily infantry will actually won't be killing that well. Currently, the meta for Nurgle is to bring a top-heavy build focusing on single entities, usually a Exalted Great Unclean One, a beast of Nurgle, and two Nurgle Cultists. Generally, you are advised to try to snipe the Exalted Great Unclean One before it can spam heals and debuffs and drag your army down. A similar single entity heavy build such as an Exalted Bloodthirster (Either generic or Skarbrand, either is typically fine) along with another regular Bloodthirster to beat the Exalted Great Unclean One's face in quickly might be decent to try. That, and halberds.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': This might end up being one of your worst matchups. The Ogres have plenty of powerful ranged units that can shell you as you try to reach them. Once you do most of their units are monsters or monstrous infantry, so unless he's stupid and brings Gnoblars your Blood for the Blood God ability might as well not exist. You can't even counter their cannons with your few cheap fast units because the ogres will step on them without even noticing. Bring lots of anti-large and hope for the best.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The Skaven front line will evaporate the moment you touch it and all those rat skulls will juice your army up nice and good. That's the good news. The bad news is you're going to get blasted to hell and back as you approach them. Your best bet is probably to go as wide and cheap as you can. Hounds, Furies, the cheapest infantry you can get away with, anything that lets you keep the pressure up from all fronts. It's not like you actually need the really tough stuff to stomp clanrats.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': Your main rival in the warp, Khorne will be slightly less pissed if you show the Lord of Excess who the real boss of the warp is. Dual axe Khorne Chaos Warriors are great here, as they beat Daemonettes in a head on charge due to their high eapon strength and infantry bonus. Bloodletters and Exalted Bloodletters might be the better option, as while the AP is largely useless against Slaanesh, the fact they're unbreakable and have Anti Infantry means they should be able to handle the front line. Yes, they have low armor but it's not like the other guys have missiles to take advantage of that anyway. Also, Minotaurs might end up being great here. While slower than the Beastmen version they are still speedy enough to potentially check some of the horny guys on the other side. The lack of missiles means Slaanesh will have to deal with them in melee, and not only do you have both an anti infantry and anti large variant, they act as great mass for if a KOS or cavalry engage and try to pull out. With that in mind, a Bloodthirster will beat a KOS in extended melee, so keeping it tied up with heavy mass will help them stomp on the four armed goat things. Their cavalry will run circles around you, but it's not like you have much of a backline to dive anyway. If the fight devolves into a brawl, you'll win. The hard part is going to be pinning the masochistic freaks down long enough to get to that point.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Mostly the Tomb Kings are falling to their bony knees weeping tears of sand in joy that despite all appearances you can't use the Lore of Fire. And then they realized the Champions of Chaos DLC gave you skirmish cavalry with flaming throwing axes. Marauder horsemen of Khorne were made for this matchup. Put them somewhere safe until you've tied up their ranged, then ride in for the kill.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Let's see here, their armies are mostly chaff, which only helps you get buffs for your units and your army abilities. They also have a large reliance on magic in order to do a lot of their damage, which you are resistant to. Your Daemons are unbreakable, so you don't give a crap about their Fear and Terror, and their lack of missiles mean they can't really hurt you before melee is reached (though keep an eye out for flying spell casters). Oh, and your Daemons do fire damage which stiffles healing, their biggest advantage. Yeah, this match up is probably going to be very one sided for you. The biggest thing you will likely have to worry about are their air force and cavalry. Blood Knights may also be troublesome, though getting some halberds and support from Skull Crushers should deal with that. Bloodletters will have a field day here, as they will shred most Vampire infantry, get their Hellblade buff up pretty fast and don't have to worry too much about missiles. Skarbrand or an Exalted Bloodthirster + a normal Bloodthirster should deal with any monsers they bring to the table.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''':

==Campaign Strategies==

Do you really NEED a campaign guide for Khornate factions? Khorne is able to wipe out SEVERAL Armies and Settlements in just ONE TURN

Depending on how great you are and how much manual playing of battles you do your Blood Hosts pretty much will keep on razing settlements and making MOAR Blood Host Armies!

Bring a Khornate Cultist to summon dispoable Daemons as they and Skarbrand will do most of the fighting and killing in the main army

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